How glad we were to gaze on the earth, smiling through fields of waving corn and laughing with peaceful homes, with the church-spires still pointing heavenward, after so many months of associating with the scars of blackened fields and the running sores festering on earth's bosom, once so fair, where churches had swooned and in lost hope laid their finger in the dust.
But all journeys end in time, and one night instead of eating we loaded ourselves like the donkeys in Egypt and tramped off to the village of our sojourning. The billeting officer and guide were several days ahead of us and they met us at the train and told us it was only three miles to the village, but after we had tramped five we lost all faith in their knowledge of distance. It was "tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," for three miles more, and when we had given up all hope of eating or resting again we saw, at the bottom of a hill, silhouetted against the violet sky the spire of a church, but we did not breathe our hopes lest it might vanish like a dream. Soon we came to a house, and instinctively the column halted, but it was "On, on, ye brave!" yet a little longer, then suddenly a company was snatched up by the darkness. Lucky dogs! They had found some corner in which to curl up and sleep, which was all we longed for, as we were now too tired to even care about eating. Chunk after chunk was broken off the column and almost all were swallowed by stables and barns, or houses that were not much superior, when there loomed ahead some iron gates, and like the promise of a legacy came the news that this was the headquarters billet; and never did the sight of four walls offer to weary man such a fortune of rest and shelter.
In the morning we discovered we were in the village of Ailly-sous-Ailly, the sleepiest place on earth. It nestled at the bottom of a cup and was hidden by trees; no passer in the skies would glimpse roof or street. No vehicle entered it from outside and the war was only hearsay. I think the hum of its labor can only be heard by the bees, and its drowsy evening prayers are barely audible to the angels. Its atmosphere crept over our spirits like ether and we did little else but sleep for the week that we were there. Parades would be ordered, but after a short time of drilling in the only field of the village, we would realize the sacrilege of our exertion, and the parade would be dismissed. Thereafter the only preparation for the day ahead that was persisted in consisted of lectures, when the droning voice of the officer would frequently be accompanied by snores from his men. My duties were to give instruction in scouting, but I seemed to be sounding a motor-horn in slumberland when I counselled my boys to "always keep their eyes skinned" as the genie of the village was weighting their eyelids with lead. I spoke in the language of different worlds when I said: "A scout's body should never be seen to move" (and the village hummed its applause), "but his eyes should be never still--" (and there was almost a hiss that came through the trees).
For the first day or two we did not see the inhabitants of the village at all. Much puzzled at this we questioned the maire, and he told us that they were very much afraid because we were Australians--that there had been much alarm when they heard we were coming. Perhaps they thought we were black, and into their dulled ears had crept a whisper of the fierceness in battle of these giants called "Anzac." It was not long, however, before curiosity drew them from their hiding-places and our laughing good nature won their confidence. It was not surprising that our lavish spending of money should have roused their cupidity, for never had they seen so much wealth before, and never had we seen such poverty. Any of our privates was able to buy out the stock of a whole store, which was not worth more than a pound or two. One of them, to satisfy his hunger, on the first night walked into one of these stores, but when he saw the stock his face was a picture of blank disappointment. "I want something to eat," he said, "and I think I'll take all you've got. It may make a fruit salad or something." There were only one or two that could converse with us in anything but a language of signs, but the old maire spoke English of the kind that Queen Elizabeth used, and he acted as interpreter for the whole village.
When they understood that we were willing to pay for any damage done, the bills came in in sheaves. Some boys, in ignorance, cut up for firewood an old cedar log that was an heirloom. You would have thought it was made of gold from the value put upon it by its owner. Fifteen francs was asked for a bundle of straw that some boys made a bed of, and some of our Australian horses did not know any better than to eat the thatch off one old lady's bedroom, which not only cost us the price of the thatch when it was new but also damages for fright. There was a gap in the hedge that I had noticed when we entered the town, but it cost us ten francs all the same. These people were not unpatriotic, but to them it looked like the chance of a lifetime to acquire wealth, and I have no doubt we pensioned several of them for life.
The war was to them like a catastrophe in another world, and Australians did not travel farther to fight than in their imagination did the sons of this village when they went to the trenches less than a hundred miles away. I discovered one day how deep the knife of war had cut when I spoke to a grandmother and daughter working a large farm, as with dumb, uncomprehending pain in their eyes they showed me the picture of son-in-law and husband who would never return. Rights of peoples and the things for which nations strive had no meaning to these two, but from out the dark had come a hand and dragged from them the fulness of life, leaving only its empty shell.
Our headquarters billet was in the vacated house of the village squire.
He was a major in the French army, and had taken with him the young men of the village committed to his charge. His wife had gone to nurse in a hospital and they had put their children in a convent. He then left the key in his door, saying that his house and its contents were at the service of the officers of any British regiment that should come that way. This house was a baronial castle, but in its furnishing knew as little of modern conveniences as Hampden Court of William IV. We did not smile, however, at the antimacassars, wax flowers, and samplers, nor the scattered toys of the nursery, for we were guests of a kindly host who, though absent himself, had intrusted to our care his household gods and was a comrade in arms.
Houses, especially old houses, absorbed the personality of the dwellers therein, and I fancy that our host is not unknown to me. Were I to meet him I would recognize him at once, for his spirit dwelt with us in his home, and my prayer is that when he returns he will not find that temple tainted by the spirit of any alien who occupied it in his absence.
The village church slumbered in the centre of the village, and was its sluggish heart. No discord or schism of sect or creed ever disturbed its atmosphere. Unquestioned was its hold on the faith of men, women, and children. Not more quietly did the dead rest beneath the stones of the churchyard than did the worshippers who knelt before the carved wooden images of the saints, trusting in their protection and receiving from their placid immobility a benediction of peace. The cure from a neighboring town only visited the village once a quarter, and the old lady who kept the key was very reluctant to let us in; but when the maire knew of our desire, he brought us the key that we might view it at our leisure. Its pews were thick with dust, the images were chipped and broken, some saints were minus nose or arm, the vestments in the open cupboard were moth-eaten and tawdry, dried flowers lay on tombs of the village great; but its atmosphere was one of peace, and it was not difficult to realize that many had carried therein their burden of grief and unrest and left it behind them, soothed on the bosom of Mother Church, like a fretting child.
But it is not the business of soldiers to sleep, and suddenly came the awakening with the sound of the hundreds of motor-buses that were to carry us into the noise and devastation of hell! We marched up to the rim of the village, and amid the smell of gasolene, the tooting of the horns, and the roar of the engines we boarded these, thirty to a bus, and rumbled on toward the greatest noise and flame and fire that has ever torn the atmosphere asunder, outdoing any earthquake, thunderstorm, or tornado that nature has ever visited upon humanity.
On this journey we saw more of the tremendous organization needed to equip and feed an army than we had been able to visualize before. For thirty miles we were a part of a stream of motor vehicles flowing in one direction passing a never-ending stream going the other way.
Through the city of Amiens we went without stopping. With longing eyes we gazed from the buses which hours of bumping and rolling on poor roads had made to us torture-chambers. How gladly would we have strolled through its streets gazing on the pretty girls and gaping at the novelty of its quaint buildings and the unusual ware in its shop-windows.
[Illustration: My Own Comrades Waiting For Buses.]
Later on I was a week in the hospital here with a sprained ankle, and I had a chance to explore this lovely city of Picardy. Its cathedral was a never-ending source of interest, and not a day passed during my stay that I did not hobble on crutches through its dim aisles and worship the beauty of its statues. There is one statue called "The Weeping Angel" which is world-famous, and I have gazed at it for hours, feeling its beauty steal over me like a psalm. There was always music stealing gently through the air, but like a blow in the face were the walls of sandbags protecting the carving on the choir-stalls and the thousands of statues on the huge doors. The grotesque hideousness of the gargoyles gave a touch of humor that was not incongruous to religion, but these sand-bags were such an eye-sore against the beauty of the carved poems that suggested what an intrusion into God's fair world is the horror of war.
Several times while I was in Amiens the German aeroplanes came over and bombed the city. Opposite the hospital a three-story house collapsed like a pack of cards, burying seventeen people in its ruins. I saw a French airman bring down one boche by a clever feat. He evidently could not aim upward to his satisfaction, so he turned upside down, and while flying thus, brought down his opponent.
Through Amiens the buses carried us within a few miles of Albert, which was within range of the German artillery. It is in Albert that the remarkable "hanging Virgin" is to be seen. The cathedral and tower have been almost practically destroyed, but still on top of the tower remains uninjured the figure of the Virgin and Child. A shell has struck its base, and over the town at right angles to the tower leans the Virgin imploringly holding the babe outstretched as though she were supplicating its protection. The French people say that the statue will fall when the war ends, but some materialistic British engineers, fearing the danger to life in its fall, have shored and braced it up.
This is similar to the miracles of the crucifixes that are found standing unharmed amid scenes of desolation. I have seen several of them without a bullet mark upon them when every building in the vicinity has been laid in ruins. I know two cases in which there is not one stone remaining of the church, yet the crucifix that was inside stands in untouched security. There are always those who see in these things a supernatural agency as some saw "angels at Mons," and as for me I do not seek to explain them, knowing that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
I am reluctant to leave this chapter with its peaceful memories, for it is the antechamber of hell. There is little here that hints of the brimstone and fire just through the door. But our path lies that way and we must pass on.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SOMME
The battle of the Somme lasted eight months, and never since the days of chaos and darkness has a portion of the earth been under the sway of such forces of destruction. Not even the Flood itself so completely destroyed the habitations of man. Flourishing towns were powdered into brick-dust, thousands of acres of forest were reduced to a few blackened stumps, and every foot of ground was blasted and churned and battered again, while every yard was sown thick with bullets more malignant than the seeds planted by Jason. To-day nature is busy trying to hide the evidence of the hate of man, and long grass and poppies cover the blackened soil and grow in the shell-holes, until only in the memory of the men who strove nakedly in its desolation and death will the knowledge of that area as it was for those eight long months remain. If he visits it again the poppies and the grass will fade, and it will appear to him once more as the ploughed land of demons, and grinning at him in every yard will be the skulls of the countless unburied that there lie. The other birds will shun it, for there are no trees, but the lark will still sing on, as this brave-hearted bird continues to do even when the guns are booming.
Australian blood has sanctified much of that soil, and Australian bravery has monopolized some of its names. As surely as Gallipoli will Pozieres and Thiepval and Bapaume be associated with the name and achievement of Australians in the minds of readers of the history of the great war. These are places that will ever be names of honor and glory in the thought of the Australian people as will be Flers to New Zealand and Delville Wood to South Africa.
At Pozieres the First and Second Divisions demonstrated that the abandon and tenacity against odds that secured a footing on the Gallipoli Peninsula was still the special prerogative of the care-free lads from these South Sea nations. Our own artillery was unable effectively to silence the fire of the German batteries, and wave after wave melted like snow in the sun, yet the unconquerable spirit drove the remainder on until the positions were taken and held. There were wounded men who dragged themselves, not back to their own lines for attention, but forward toward the enemy so that they might be able to strike at least one blow ere they died. There were others that had their wounds dressed and then returned to the fighting. No one left the line that day who could help it, or his name would have been remembered as an outstanding exception among the many who, wounded again and again, and faint from loss of blood, still fought on. This engagement carved a line in my own heart, for therein died three comrades who enlisted with me, and our souls were grappled together by many common dangers shared and mutual sacrifices cheerfully made.
There is no life in the world that tries out friendship like a soldier's in active service, and when it has endured that, it is stronger than the love of twin for twin, like the love of David and Jonathan, of Damon and Pythias, a love that passeth knowledge.
The Germans had one ally on the Somme that wrought us more havoc than all his armament. How we cursed that mud! We cursed it sleeping, we cursed it waking, we cursed it riding, we cursed it walking. We ate it and cursed; we drank it and cursed; we swallowed it and spat it; we snuffed it and wept it; it filled our nails and our ears; it caked and lined our clothing; we wallowed in it, we waded through it, we swam in it, and splashed it about--it stuck our helmets to our hair, it plastered our wounds, and there were men drowned in it. Oh, mud, thou daughter of the devil, thou offspring of evil, back to your infernal regions, and invade the lowest circle of the inferno that you may make a fit abiding-place for the slacker and pacifist! I take back all I said about the sand of Egypt. It was a mere irritant compared with this mud. I am sorry for the times I have been out of temper with the mud back in Australia, when it clung to my boots in tons, when I have been bogged in a sulky in the "black soil" country. Australia, you have no mud, just a little surface stickiness that I will never growl at again as long as I live:
"It isn't the foe that we fear; It isn't the bullets that whine; It isn't the business career Of a shell, or the bust of a mine; It isn't the snipers who seek To nip our young hopes in the bud; No, it isn't the guns, And it isn't the Huns-- It's the MUD, MUD, MUD." [1]
Official reports of the later battles in 1918 tell us that the shell-fire on the Somme was a mere popgun show to these battles, but it is difficult for the imagination to grasp this fact, as it did not seem then that the air had any room for more shells. In fact, I have seen shells meet in the air, both exploding together. It seemed to us at times as if there was not a foot of air that did not have a shell in it. In one battle there were four thousand guns firing over a five hundred yards front, the heavies being seventeen and a half miles behind the lines, and the field-guns massed wheel to wheel a hundred and fifty to the five hundred yards, and row after row like infantry drawn up for review. Shells not merely whistled and screamed overhead, they leaped from the ground beneath one's feet with a flame that burned, a roar that deafened, and a displacement of air that swept one away. At artillery practice in peace times there is great excitement if one lone man happens to be in front of the gun, but on the Somme we walked about among them, over them, and round them, and we were never warned even when they fired but a couple of yards away. One day a red-hot shell from a gun about fifty yards away landed at my feet, but, fortunately, did not explode. For four months our artillery expended an average of half a million shells a day. The increase in artillery last year may be judged from the fact that in the last six months of 1917 one million tons of shells were used by the British on the western front. By day the drum-fire of the guns beat on one's ears like a devil's tattoo until one felt that in another week reason would be unseated. But at night was added the horror of flame that drove away the darkness with a ruddy glare. It seemed as if thousands of Bessemer furnaces were refining metal for the paving of hell. Into this caldron of man's making that outdid the fury of the elements young lads from farms and shops walked uprightly. Like ants impotent in their strife they swarmed, and to a watcher from another world they must have appeared like insects in the crater of Vesuvius in eruption. Yet the mind of man, so much greater than his body, had organized and planned this monstrous scene, and from his method it deviated not a hair's breadth.
[Illustration: Ammunition Going Through a Somme City.]
We were encouraged and supported by the knowledge that the German was having a far worse time than we were, that the hell of flame and fire and smoke was for our protection and his annihilation. His shells came over blindly in most cases, and though we were so thick that they could not but get some of us, yet we knew that our shells were being directed by thousands of aeroplanes on top of the earth beneath which he huddled, with the sweat of fear pouring from him. There were many indications of the terror our shell-fire wrought and days when the prisoners could be counted in thousands, on one occasion sixteen men bringing back as many as four hundred. These men were imbeciles, crazed by the sound of the shells, and obsessed by one idea, the necessity of getting away. When we took their trenches we found that in most cases they were completely obliterated, and in some cases the entrances to the deep dugouts were blown in, smothering the men sheltering in them.
The wastage of man-power on the Somme was not a little due to the nervous strain. I think everybody's nerves were more or less on edge, and now and again a hurricane of fire would sweep the trenches because some man's nerve got past breaking-point. He would see an imaginary enemy bearing down upon his sentry-post and fire wildly, giving alarm to the whole line. A German sentry would reply to him, more of our men would fire back, more Germans join in, star-shells make the night as bright as day; then Fritz would "get the wind up" thoroughly and call for artillery support--our guns would blaze into reply and there would be many casualties just because one man lost his nerve and "saw things."
Nerves are queer things, for frequently the man of a nervous, highly strung temperament is the coolest in action. Some men, too, get shell-shock a hundred yards from a bursting shell, while others are knocked down and buried and never even tremble. Men have the power of speech taken from them for months and as suddenly have it restored. I know of one case in which a boy did not speak a word for twelve months, and when viewing the play "Under Fire" in Sydney suddenly found his speech return at the sound of a shot. Another man had just been pronounced by the medical officer as cured when the back-fire of a motor-car heard in the streets of Melbourne brought back all the symptoms of shell-shock again. Once a man has had shell-shock he is never of any use under shell-fire again, although he might be quite brave under any other fire and suffer no ill effects in civil life.
Where there is so much shell-fire the observation of the German sentries is very poor and surprise raids are easily carried out. Fritz is very reluctant to put his head up and periscopes are always being smashed.
There was only one place in the Somme where drinking-water could be obtained, and this was in the ruins of the town of Piers. The Germans had been driven out of this place too quickly to give them time to poison the water, but they made it very difficult for us to get at it by shelling continually. They had the exact range, and it was only in the hour before dawn that one could get near the wells without meeting with certain death. It was amusing to see the scamper of the water-carriers out of the ruins as the first shell announced that the relief of Fritz's batteries had been completed and the "hate" had recommenced. They were severely handicapped running with a fifty-six pound can of water, but it was a point of honor not to leave this behind. Of course, there was plenty of other water filling every hole around, but this was not only thick with mud but had the germs of gas-gangrene, and one knows not how many other diseases besides.
When the line had advanced a few miles "going in" was as tiring a day's journey as though one had walked twenty miles. I will never forget having to chase after my brigade to Becordel-Becourt. I left Albert just at dark and had to trust to my instinct for direction in finding the place, for no one could tell me the way, and the old road on the map was non-existent. It was only about three miles, but seemed like thirty as I wound in and out of the traffic that jammed the new road, defying the passage of even a dog. When I arrived at the place where the town of Becordel had once been I found there were about five hundred thousand troops camped about the area, and in the dark to find the whereabout of my own unit of five thousand was about as hopeless a task as I have ever attempted. I inquired of more than a score, but no one had seen anything of the Australians. I wandered about for hours and was hungry and thirsty and half dead when I stumbled on a Y. M. C.
A. hut. They could not guide me in the right way, but they gave me a cup of hot tea, and no nectar of the gods could be as welcome. The Y.
M. C. A. is welcome to all the boosting I can give, for they were my salvation that night, and at other times were a comfort and resting-place. When I found our camp at two o'clock in the morning I found the men in a worse plight than I was, for their transport had not arrived, and none had had anything to eat or drink.
In this huge camp which was within range of the German guns there were tens of thousands of camp-fires blazing in the open in utter contempt of Fritz and his works. We took the road again that same morning for our position in reserve at Montauban. I said we took the road--well, we were on it sometimes, whenever we could shove the horses toward the centre to enable us to squeeze past--otherwise we had to plough along above our knees in the soft mud. Even on the road the slush was up to our ankles, but it was metalled underneath. We discovered our transport in the jam of the traffic--they had taken twenty-four hours to go the four miles but our tongues blistered with the names we called them, and we threatened them with eternal damnation if they were not at the next camp with a hot meal when we arrived.
Where Montauban had once been we went into camp. We had no tents, but made ourselves comfortable in shell-holes, with a bitter-cold rain falling, by stretching tarpaulins over them. The engineers were putting up Nissen huts at the rate of twenty a day, but as soon as the last bolt was screwed home, forty shelterless men crowded each one to capacity. It was some days before our turn came and we waited lying half-covered with mud and slush. When we did get a hut allotted to us it was as if we had been transferred to a palace. These huts look like half of a round galvanized-iron tank, and were floored and lined. They were carried in numbered sections and could be put together in a few minutes. They were very comfortable. You could stand up in the centre, and there was plenty of room to sleep along the sides. I believe the inventor, Mr. Nissen, is an American and here's my hand to him as an ally who maybe saved me from rheumatism, and I am sure thousands of boys from the other side of the world bless his name continually.
The whole brigade was practically bogged when we came to move forward.
The weight of our equipment sank us into the soft mud and the only way we got onto the road again was by hanging to the stirrups of the horses as they ploughed a way through. We also passed ropes back for the men to grasp and harnessed them to mules, and thus dragged them to firm ground. The road did not carry us far, and we soon had to struggle across the open toward the support trenches. This was not as bad as round the camp, not being churned up by the tramping about of men and horses. We could not use the communication-trenches as they were rivers of liquid mud, but had to wait till dark and go over the top in relieving the front line. On this occasion we took over from the Grenadier Guards, which numbers among its officers many of the English nobility. We "bushies" and "outbackers" from the Land of the Kangaroo stepped down into the mud-holes just vacated by an earl, several lords, and as noble and proud a regiment as ever won glory on a battle-field.
The Prince of Wales was a staff-captain in the army of the Somme doing his bit in the mud and misery like the rest of us. There is no "sacred privilege that doth hedge about a king" in the British Empire, and King George is respected among us for his manliness, and we cheered him sincerely when he twice visited us in the trenches, for we do not believe to-day in the divine right of kings, neither do we believe in the divine right of majorities.
In another chapter that tells of my wounding I have pictured our days and weeks as lived in these trenches, so I will bring this chapter to a close by summarizing some of the things that the great push on the Somme accomplished.
(1) It relieved the pressure on Verdun.
(2) It accounted for several hundred thousand German casualties.
(3) It demonstrated our ability to break through.
(4) It led to the perfecting of barrage-fire where-by casualties were reduced in our infantry to an astonishing degree.
(5) It gave confidence to our troops by enabling them to get to hand-grips with the German, and discover that he was individually no fighter.
(6) It weakened the morale of the German army enormously, and convinced the German soldier that his cause was lost.
(7) It gave to us possession of the high ground.
(8) It definitely established our supremacy of the air, and was the turning-point of the whole war.