And We Go On (39 page)

The officer did not say anything. He watched us for a time and then seemed to forget the incident. Before night we heard rumours of a C.M.R. party being captured in bed as we had been, and also of a Trench Mortar limber driving into the German lines with a corporal and his gun on board.

We were in a village again at nightfall and Sambro and I were ordered to take position in a field as an outpost. It was drizzling again, and cold, and we were sure no Germans were near, so decided to take another chance – to the rear this time. We waited until nearly ten o'clock and then went back to a cottage somewhat apart from the others. A queer old crone was there. She was a shrivelled old woman with a huge blue birthmark on her left cheek that gave her a peculiarly witch-like appearance, and her half-wit son lolled on a chair in one corner.

The old woman gave us bowls of coffee that cheered us immensely and made us very sleepy. We told her we wanted to sleep there the rest of the night and she nodded assent and pointed to “beds,” rolls of straw that
were against the wall. They were simply rolled out flat and used as mattresses by the poor. We rolled out one each and lay down, leaving our rifles and equipment by the door. In a few moments we were sound asleep as the room was warm.

I was wakened by an old hag clearing her throat and was very much awake as I glanced around. Other refugees had come in after we were asleep and had rolled out beds like ours. Seven old women were sleeping along the room and the eighth was on the other side of Sambro. She had scanty gray hair and the features of a vulture. A single dirty blanket constituted her bed and she was sitting up and scratching industriously, her claws making a noise similar to the use of sandpaper. Her principle garment was a soldier's shirt.

Fortunately I had lain down at the end of the room so as to be as far as possible from the stove. I got my boots on and then lay back, after nudging Sambro. He opened his eyes – and was facing the crone. There was a long moment of heavy silence and then I received a poke in the ribs.

“Bill,” said Sambro huskily. “Let's drag out of here.”

We did, strolling up and down a wet field path until it was light. Then we went back to the house and found our party broken up, all the old women had flown. We got more hot coffee and then the old blue-cheeked witch asked us to look in her cellar. We went down with her to humour her. It had been fitted with four good beds and furniture, but on the floor was the body of a German officer, with the head chopped from the shoulders.

It was a sickening sight and we hurried out. “I did it,” cackled the old woman, “I and my son, with a big axe. He was drunk, the foul bull.”

We passed through Valenciennes soon after it was ridded of the enemy and everywhere were hailed with joy. The new men thought they were having a wonderful time, that the war was a great adventure. On we went to Quivrechem, and there I heard a soldier tell that he had seen a German major killed in the street by infuriated women. He had been captured by the Fourth Division and was being escorted through the village where he had been a Commandant. It seemed that he had ruled harshly, being an arrogant, bull-headed type who elbowed old women from his path and kicked dogs and children. When he was seen a howl went up from the watching villagers and they closed in on him and his escort, screaming their hate. The soldiers, not knowing just what was wrong, slipped into the crowd. Instantly the German was seized. He went down in a melee of
clubs, trying to strike, to fight, shouting in an agonized voice for his late enemies to rescue him, but they, understanding the situation, did not interfere, and the formless pulp that was dragged from the Square was hideous to see.

Thelien, and then we dragged wearily into Jemappes. It was Saturday night and we were footsore and very hungry. Sambro and Jones and I were together. All the afternoon we had heard shelling and it seemed as if we were nearing the fighting again. Rumours had come that an armistice would be signed, that the war was nearly over, and had caused rough comment; bitter, cynical speeches from the older men, eager speculation by the newly-joined. Jones was not impressed at all. “I've heard all that dope before,” he said. “It's just another false hope. You can hear the guns, can't you? Does that say war's over? No, Heinie has gone back and will go further yet, to save his transport system, and then he'll dig in, likely has trenches all ready now, and we'll be there for the winter.”

“If we're that near Germany,” I said, “our airmen ought to reach Berlin with their bombs.”

“They won't do it,” said Sambro. “We never do things until we've lost all we can stand. We let him use gas first and never come back at him until he had his gas masks ready. Then he had to bomb women and children and get to London itself before the old brass hats would send our planes over at him. Now they're letting him starve his prisoners to death, boot them to death, anything, while they fatten ours and tend them like babies.”

“Sure,” said Tommy from the file behind. “It's the poor ‘other ranks' that gets it in the neck over in Germany. The officers he takes prisoners are looked after all right, so it doesn't matter what they do to the other poor beggars.”

Tommy was beginning to get on my nerves, or perhaps the war had tightened them and made me mind him more. And now as we went into Jemappes I hated the thought that we were going into the fighting again. If only I could go back to England and see that kind-faced old man who envied me “my day.” He could have it and welcome; I loathed “my day.” I'd have to get a change, a rest, somewhere, for I was weakening, and so was Tommy. Twice in Raismes Forest I had been close to Germans, young lads, frightened-looking fellows, and could easily have shot them, and instead just let them know I was there. And then I had caught Tommy doing the
same thing, hot-headed, fire-eating old Tommy, watching a Hun waddle from sight and only firing a shot in the trees above him to give him speed. He had turned, then, and seen that I knew, and he had reddened and went on without explanation. I didn't know what he longed for, but I wanted to be back in the dusk listening to the crooning of that little waterfall, to hear the murmur of children's voices, with the knowledge that after a time I would go to sleep on clean linen in the clean, big-timbered bedroom in the “Black Boar.” It would all be healing, wonderful, only I wouldn't want to see the people going into the little church to pray for “victory.” It seemed sacrilege to me.

No rations had “come up” when we fell out in the street and scattered to find places in which to rest overnight, and so Sambro and Tommy and Jones and I wandered around until we found an old couple in a kitchen who could let us have some hot coffee and fried potatoes and bread. We sat there and ate like wolves and the old Belgian kept chattering in his tongue, trying to tell us what some Hun shells had done in his town. Sambro mentioned the “war over” rumours and Jones cut him off sharply. “We'd heard all that guff when Heinie pulled back off the Somme,” he said. “The war isn't over and I won't believe it's over till we're on our way back home.” It was only then that I understood Jones. His words were only to camouflage the fierce hope that had gripped him. He had been thirty-five months in France, and half that time up at the front. “I feel sometimes,” he had told me, “as if I didn't know anything else but war, as if I had been born here. It's hard for me to remember anything at home.”

I thought of his words as we sat at the Belgian table. Home seemed a thing remote, something we had once known. It was to me but a hazy picture, vague, indistinct, something like childhood, passed out of our reckoning; I could not grasp the fact that it still existed. Mills came in. He had seen our lighted windows and he brought his brother with him. The brother had been in France since '14 with a veterinary bunch, and had transferred to us. We shared our good luck with them, and they brought fresh rumours. A runner from brigade had told them that the war was almost over, that he had heard his officer say so.

Jones almost grew violent; he ordered them to stop such nonsense, and cursed all runners and their rumours. We finished our meal in an awkward silence and went outside. One of our headquarter's corporals came along the street. “Boy,” he said, “have you heard the news?”

We looked at him sullenly. “The battalion's going to stay here to-morrow and rest up, and on Monday morning the armistice is going to be signed – and everything's finished.”

He spoke so enthusiastically, so sincerely, that we were forced to believe him. The Mills brothers shook hands. Tommy and Sambro did the same. I looked at Jones, but he had turned on his heels and was walking away. We followed him and found a house where we could stay. We made our beds in an empty room, and slept on the floor.

Church bells roused me in the morning and I dressed hurriedly; all the others had gone out. It was a beautiful Sabbath. The sun had flooded a yard at the rear of our billet and there I discovered Jones seated on the door step with two little girls on his knees, trying to talk Flemish to them. Tommy and Sambro were lounged comfortably against a wall, smoking. Mills and his brother were out at the front of the house. “There's your breakfast on that window sill,” said Tommy, pointing. “You think now that the war's over you can lie in in the mornings like a gentleman.”

He was grinning, sour Tommy was grinning again. “Boy,” he continued, “I'm thinking of buying this place and settling here. Then when the tourists come I'll tell them that this is just where I was when it finished and I'm waiting till they start up again.” He sobered then. “I'll bet,” he added, “that there will be another war inside of twenty years. There was the Civil War and the Spanish War, and the Japs and Russians, and the Boer War, and now this mess. There'll always be wars just as long as the sheep are ready to jump around when the big fellows give the word. You'd better go on shares with me, Jones, and stay here. We won't have to come overseas when she starts again. They'll have their submarines a lot better then and there'll be twice the chance of getting sunk.”

“I wouldn't want to stay here,” said Jones. “I'll go up in the Salient, in one of those wrecks up there, with sandbag walls and corrugated iron roof, rats running free, a manure heap in the front yard, a gas alarm by the door, and all I'll read will be the speeches of the Brass Hats in the
Daily Mail
, telling how they won the war.”

“You darned old pessimist,” said Sambro. “You make me …”

“Bird!” It was the harsh voice of the sergeant who was temporarily in charge of our platoon, and there was something in his tone that made me get to my feet. “Get your section ready at once – battle order. Leave all your other stuff in your billets. We'll get it after.”

Mills had come in the yard. The cigarette in his fingers dropped to the flagged walk and showered sparks. His face was set and white. “What's up?” I heard myself ask the question, and had not known I wanted to speak.

“Mons.” The sergeant's voice was a snarl “Get your men ready.”

“But – wait, sergeant.” Mills had thrust off his daze. “We're not going into a scrap, are we? The war's over to-morrow, I got it straight. There'll be no fighting now, will there? What are we to do?”

“You're going to do just what you're told to do,” came the rough answer. The sergeant's face was pale and set. The harshness in his voice was unusual. “You don't know anything about the war being over. That's all from the horse lines. Go on, get ready.”

Jones put the little girls off his knee, then coaxed one for a kiss, and she gave it to him shyly. “That's my luck,” he smiled. “See you later, mademoiselle.” The little girl laughed at him.

When the platoon formed up every man was irritable. They swore over trivial matters, they hitched and changed position, they looked at their watches. One or two were cursing, with frightful emphasis, the ones responsible for the new orders.

I said nothing but looked away on the left where I could see a few long-range crumps leaving black smoke trails. The war was going on the same; we had been fools to think anything different. We fell in and marched down the road and after a distance entered a field.

The Hun began to shell with shrapnel and gas. No one was hurt as nothing came very near and we crossed a deep ditch by using a stretcher as a bridge. An hour later we were in a brewery. A shell, or the soldiers, had started one vat leaking and there were many jests as some of the lad's sampled the beverage. But the shells that came near sounded very alarming within the building and several H.E.'s came very near the entrance. Jones filled his mess-tin with the beer and raised to his lips. “Here's to the day when we go home,” he said as he drank.

Mills swore at him. The lad was tense and white and his brother kept close to him. We left the place and went on, the platoons separating, and finally the advance was by sections. We were near a road embankment advancing toward houses when we saw our officer and the sergeant with a few men of their section scramble over the road to the other side where more shelter could be obtained. We hurried forward to where they had crossed intending to do the same. Jones and the two Mills brothers were
with me, and “Old Bill” and Johnson, who had returned to the battalion. Tommy and Sambro and Kennedy were over on our right, working in under cover of rough ground.

Just as we rose to go up the embankment a German machine gun opened fire, sweeping the road with a perfect hail of bullets making it impossible to cross, and at the same time shells began to fall in the stretch of open ground between us and the nearest houses. They were quite near and bits of earth fell about us and shrapnel whined and sang. A small outbuilding was just a few yards from us and we hurried to it but found the door fastened. A plank lay there and Jones and I picked it up and rammed the entrance. An old barrel on its side was by the door, and there was nothing else of importance in the shed. Jones sat on the barrel as I said we would wait for a lull in the firing of either machine gun or battery. The Mills brothers were at the rear of the building. Johnson was outside, just in front of me. “Old Bill” stood at my shoulder and I was framed in the doorway, looking back over the way we had come.