Combed Out Part 20

Thinking to take a short cut across country we ascended the hill-slope, jumping and clambering across sh.e.l.l-holes and striding through long gra.s.s and weeds. Now and again we would chance upon some narrow winding track that soon lost itself again amid the tangled growth.

Low clouds burdened the sky and a fine rain began to fall. The top of the hill was hidden in grey mist.

We pa.s.sed a heap of broken concrete blocks from which the twisted ends of iron rods projected. A little further on a concrete shelter stood intact except for deep vertical fissures. I peered into the narrow entrance that sloped steeply down. I slipped in the soft mud, but by stretching out my arms and clasping the outer wall I just saved myself from falling flat on to a rotting corpse that lay half-immersed in greenish-black water. I drew slowly back, feeling sick with horror.

As we climbed the hill-side the devastation increased. The trees and bushes were torn, splintered and uprooted. Only a few grey trunks remained standing like scarred, bare poles. We approached the summit and crossed sh.e.l.l-hole next to sh.e.l.l-hole, for not a square yard of ground had remained untouched. Some of the holes were wide and deeply funnel-shaped, others were shallow, and others were hardly distinguishable, the earth having been churned and tossed up time after time. On the very top of the hill, there was nothing left of the trees that had densely clothed it a few months before, except fragments of wood and stringy lengths of root. Even the gra.s.s and weeds had been destroyed and blasted by the bursting of innumerable sh.e.l.ls.

We walked along the crest between upright bundles of splinters that projected from the ground in two parallel rows--all that remained of an avenue of pines and larches.

We descended the further slope by a narrow gulley. Here the sh.e.l.l-holes were less frequent. A miry path led through an abandoned camp--a chaos of riddled and shattered boards and contorted iron sheeting. Dead Frenchmen were lying everywhere. From a drab heap of mud and clothing a human arm projected. The terminal finger-joints had dropped off. The blackened skin was drawn tightly over the back of the hand which seemed to clutch frantically at some invisible object.

A little further on two soldiers were sc.r.a.ping the soil with sticks.

"Gorblimy--'e ain't 'alf rotten--puh--don't 'e stink! I 'ope 'e's got summat in 'is pockets arter we've bin takin' all this trouble."

"Yer never find much on these 'ere Froggies, the rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. They don't 'ardly get no dibs [money, pay]. Canadians and Aussies--them's the blokes yer want ter look for. Fritz ain't so bad neither. I got a b.l.o.o.d.y fine watch orf a Fritz last year down on the Somme--sold it to an orficer for thirty bleed'n' francs!"

"Put yer stick under 'im an' 'eave 'im out!"

One of the men pushed his stick obliquely into the ground and levered up the putrefying corpse. The other turned the pockets inside out. A few soiled and mouldy bits of paper came to light, but nothing of any value.

"Just our b.a.s.t.a.r.d bleed'n' luck! Let's see if we can't find a Fritz or a Tommy!"

Robbing the dead was always a recognized thing at the front, but our Corporal, who was rather an unsoldierly individual, did not seem to think it quite the proper thing, and shouted:

"What d'you want to rob the dead for? Why don't you leave them alone?"

"What's it got ter do wi' you?" answered one of the treasure-seekers.

"Why don't yer mind yer own bleed'n' business? What's the use o' lettin'

good stuff go west? A dead un can't do nothin' wi' watches an' rings an'

five-franc notes! Gorblimy, 'ave a bit o' sense! It's allus your cla.s.s o' blokes what makes a bleed'n' fuss!"

Having thus vindicated their rights, the two men turned away in order to continue their search for the legitimate spoils of war.

We walked on and the gulley widened out into a level crater-field. The hill loomed dimly behind us, and, looking ahead through the rain and mist, we could see the reddish blur of a ruined village.

Near a small sh.e.l.l-hole were the remains of a German who had been blown to bits. The clothes, limbs and trunk were in one confused heap. The head lay some distance off; it was quite undamaged. The skin was black and drawn tightly over the skull. The hair was matted, but the short, blonde moustache had been neatly trimmed. The lips were shrivelled, exposing two perfect rows of white teeth, giving the dead face a horrible expression of ferocity. The eyelids were closed and taut, the cracks near the nose revealed the dark, empty eye-cavities underneath.

A little further on lay another head. The face had been smashed and no features were recognizable except the lobe of one ear, behind which there was a deep triangular hole. Two or three yards away there was a booted leg and beyond that a severed hand lying beside a heap of rotting flesh, bone and sodden clothing, all covered with thick brown ma.s.ses made up of the innumerable empty cases of maggot chrysalids.

We struck a main road. It was dotted with sh.e.l.l-holes that had recently been filled in with bricks and pieces of stone. To the left of the road were many scarred tree-trunks. Some were still erect, others were aslant, while others lay p.r.o.ne, having been broken off short or torn up by the roots. They were all dead and ashen grey. Behind them was a broad ring of stagnant water covered with duckweed. On the island within the ring was a huge heap of loose bricks--a few months ago this had been a picturesque chateau with gabled roofs, surrounded by gardens and a wooded park. Amongst the sh.e.l.l-holes and scattered branches and twisted lengths of white railing, a few michaelmas daisies, chrysanthemums, dahlias, and other garden flowers were in bloom.

Further on, to the right of the road, stood the ruins of the church. A few thick pieces of wall were still standing and a part of the steeple pointed upwards like a jagged finger. Heaped up inside were brick-fragments and tiles, together with splintered beams and rafters, riddled sheets of lead and zinc, broken chairs, twisted bra.s.s candlesticks, bits of stained gla.s.s, and here and there chunks of coloured plaster, the remains of apostolic or saintly images. One of the confessionals was still visible, although all the woodwork was shattered. Of the altar nothing could be seen. Behind a crumbling fragment of brick wall was a band of machine-gun ammunition and a heap of empty cartridge cases.

The big bronze bell lay outside the church in two pieces. The cemetery had been churned by sh.e.l.l-fire. The tombstones were chipped and broken.

One big block of granite had been overturned by a bursting sh.e.l.l and the inscription was so scarred as to be illegible. The stone Christ had been hit in many places. His left hand was gone, so that He hung aslant by the other. Both His legs had been blown off at the knees and His nose and mouth had been carried away by some flying sh.e.l.l-fragment or shrapnel-ball. All the graves had been thrown into confusion by the violence of innumerable explosions. Bits of bone--femurs, ribs, lower jaws--lay scattered about. The hip of a soldier who had been buried in his clothes projected from the soil with the brown ma.s.s of maggot chrysalids still clinging to it. Two bent knees of a greenish-grey colour, that had only begun to decay, emerged from a patch of trodden mud.

Beyond the church, by the roadside, were the dwelling-houses. Some of them were a tangle of rafters mixed up with heaps of brick and miscellaneous rubbish--stoves, pots and pans, chair-legs, pictures, bedding, boxes, and all kinds of household articles. Others had been dispersed around. Others seemed to have been tipped up bodily, so that all their contents had been spilt into the street, and then to have been dropped back again with such an impact that they had collapsed on their own foundations. The sweet, sickly smell of bodies that had not been decaying long, and the rank, pungent smell of those that were approaching total dissolution emanated from under heaps of wreckage and from hidden cellars.

The devastation increased with every mile and the sh.e.l.l-holes came closer and closer together. Dead horses, shattered guns, wagons, and limbers lay overturned in the ditches. At one spot on the roadside the legs and b.u.t.tocks of a man, all brown and shrivelled, slanted upwards from a deep, wide rut, many heavy wheels having pa.s.sed across the small of his back.

Gradually houses, trees and bushes disappeared entirely. We reached the site of a village that before the war had sheltered several thousands of people. Nothing remained except small bits of brick mingling with the bare soil, piled up and scooped and churned and tossed by sh.e.l.l-fire.

Here, too, there were many dead. A little way off the road lay an Englishman who could not have fallen more than a few days before. His hands were clenched, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed and staring.

Near him was a tall German. He lay at full length with arms outstretched and legs crossed. His left hand, immersed in a pool, was white and puffy. His right hand was half closed and only slightly wrinkled. His side had been ripped open and fragments of entrail projected from the rent. The water beneath and around him was stained with blood. His pockets were turned inside out and papers and postcards lay scattered around in the usual manner. His cloak had been thrown across his face.

Other bodies had lain unburied for several months; others for several years, and of these only the mud-stained bones were left.

We reached the highest point in the series of so-called ridges. The desolate country spread out before us--miles and miles of low undulations ploughed by sh.e.l.l-fire and bared of everything except an occasional concrete shelter or the splintered stump of a dead tree.

We marched in silence through this dismal land of ruin and desolation.

At length, in the distance, we saw a solitary fragment of a brick wall standing in a wide hollow, a sign that we were nearing a habitable region once again.

We pa.s.sed by riddled German sign-boards--Vormarschstra.s.se, Hohenzollernstra.s.se, Kaiserstra.s.se, Mackensenstra.s.se, Admiral Scheerstra.s.se. We came to a litter of wreckage that had once been a village and then we left the main road and entered a little wood, or rather an a.s.sembly of scarred tree-trunks leaning at all angles. It was crossed by a zig-zag trench and all the refuse of battle lay scattered about.

An Australian soldier lay on a low mound. His head had dropped off and rolled backwards down the slope. The lower jaw had parted from the skull. His hands had been devoured by rats and two little heaps of clean bones were all that remained of them. The body was fully clothed and the legs encased in boots and puttees. One thigh-bone projected through a rent in the trousers and the rats had gnawed white grooves along it. A mouldy pocket-book lay by his side and several postcards and a soiled photograph of a woman and a child.

An attempt had been made to bury some of the dead, and several lay beneath heaps of loose earth with their boots projecting. But the rats had reached them all, and black, circular tunnels led down into the fetid depths of the rotting bodies. The stench that filled the air was so intolerable that we hastened to get out of this dreadful place.

Soon we perceived a church steeple far away. It brought some relief to the feeling of oppression and despair which had begun to burden us. We struck the road once again.

We pa.s.sed houses of which the scarred walls were still standing, but with their bare, splintered rafters, empty windows, and riddled doors they looked more gloomy and forlorn than complete ruins. There were more concrete shelters and then some rusty iron cranes and the site of a "Munitionslager" from which every sh.e.l.l had been removed. We approached a small town. Many of the houses were intact except for scattered tiles and broken windows. The stately church was full of huge holes. All the streets were deserted.

Beyond the town, on either side of the road, was a series of dumps, collecting stations, R.E. parks, workshops, and woodyards--Mastenlager, Pi-Park, Gruppenwegebaustofflager, Pferdesammelstelle, and others. Then a German military cemetery, beautifully kept and planted all over with shrubs and flowers. We had never seen a military cemetery like it before.

A bend of the road, as it topped a gentle slope, revealed an expanse of smooth green fields dotted with groups of trees. It did our eyes good to see trees that were alive and unharmed. Their foliage was autumn-tinted--until now we had hardly realized that autumn was with us.

A placid river flowed through the meadows. On the far sh.o.r.e was a town, beyond it a hill crowned by a fine chateau.

As we walked on, the scattered houses drew closer and closer together until they formed continuous rows. A civilian pa.s.sed by, pus.h.i.+ng a wheelbarrow that clattered over the cobbles. Then there followed a woman with a bundle on her back.

There was something peculiar about the houses. They were not damaged in the same way as the others we had seen. They were all roofless and floorless, but the walls were unharmed except for occasional holes and scars. Then we suddenly realized that the Germans had stripped the entire street of all woodwork--of floor-boards, of beams and rafters, of doors and window-frames, leaving only the bare, empty sh.e.l.ls of brick.

We turned a corner and entered another street in which the houses had not been rifled. Several were occupied by civilians.

Before us, in an open field, lay our camp. Scribbled in chalk on a piece of board nailed across a broken window were the words:

"Der Friede wird stundlich erwartet." [Peace is expected every hour.]

X

THE ARMISTICE

Ever since we had received news of the German peace offers and President Wilson's replies, rumours had multiplied enormously--the Kaiser had been a.s.sa.s.sinated, the German Fleet had surrendered, German troops were deserting in ma.s.ses, German submarines were floating on the surface and flying white flags, a German Republic had been proclaimed with Liebknecht as President.