Letters to Helen Part 2

Isn't it funny. The Boches don't apparently know of this dug-out, or of the cable trenches, or they would, of course, smash it to pieces. And, for some reason that I haven't yet grasped, they never reply to our guns immediately. They wait for perhaps ten minutes, and _then_ they don't always reply to the same spot we spoke from. As, for example, this wood.

Our guns were all in and round about the wood. The Boches apparently strafed back at an unoffending village on the west side of the hill.

So, with our guns still behaving like things delirious, we eventually reached the horses. Jezebel was quietly gorging herself with long luscious gra.s.s beside the hedge. She told me she hadn't noticed anything unusual. Poor Swallow was standing quite still, with his nostrils wide open, breathing hard and trembling all over. A good many horses were trembling, but the majority agreed with Jezebel: "It's only some silly nonsense on the part of those Human Beings again. Don't listen."

Then we saddled up and rode back to a place well behind, where we could exercise the beasties. They had been given no exercise for three days.

And so home again to this farm. The horses are all in a field surrounded by trees, and couldn't be seen from above at all. I have seen lots of other horse-lines of other units, though, much closer to the front than this is--quite open to view. The fact is, I think, that Hun aircraft very seldom indeed gets across into our preserves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LE MONT DES CATS Near YPRES In the early days of the war spies used to signal from the monastery on the top of this hill. The country round about is quite flat and water-logged.]

_July 6._

[Sidenote: THE ROADS NEAR DRANONTRE]

Overnight it appears in orders that the roads from ---- to ---- via ---- are to be reported on with reference to their suitability for heavy transport, guns, cavalry, infantry, etc.

So after an early breakfast Hunt comes round, with Swallow for me and Jezebel for himself, haversack rations for us both, and feeds for the horses. I feel very much on the qui-vive, as I haven't seen that particular part before.

A grey warm day. Some miles to go due south before we get near our destination. As we approach it we find, as usual, roads and railways being made, and fatigue-parties repainting tents with blotches and stripes. Then come notices, "No traffic along this road," or, "This road liable to be sh.e.l.led," with signboards at every corner, "To ----" or some other place in the trenches. Sometimes the notices say "Something-or-other Avenue" or "Burlington Arcade," etc.--nicknames, but recognized officially. And all the time we are pa.s.sing endless lorries and Red Cross waggons and troops and dug-out camps. As we get closer the signs of sh.e.l.ling get worse, and children are seen no longer. Old men, though, occasionally observed working in a field quite unperturbed.

Rarely a French soldier or an interpreter with his sphinx badges. All this quite lost on Hunt, who has "quite got used to abroad, thank you, sir." He is eating chocolate or something, half a horse-length (the correct distance) behind me.

Now on our left is a famous ridge, with a ruined village on the top.

Not, you understand, a ridge in the Swiss sense, but rather in the Norfolk sense. I should like to go and see it, but it's too open to the Boche's eye, and I don't want to dismount yet. So we curve round right-handed a bit. Aha! "To ----." Nous voila! Follow down this muddy track under cover of the ridge, and we arrive at ----. A wood just beyond the little town. Oh, mournful wood! "Bois epais, redouble ton ombre." But they say the anemones and the primroses were as merry and sweet as ever this spring. Bravo little wood!

The village is, of course, evacuated by all inhabitants. The houses all in ruins. By now all the remaining windows have been boarded up and the blown-out doors barred against prying eyes. Here we are at an old estaminet called "Aux Coeurs joyeux." There's hardly anything but the sign left. At the cross-roads in the centre of the town is the church, so dismal. No roof, pillars broken and lying about the floor amongst debris of broken images, chairs, and muddy rubble.

[Sidenote: PLOEGSTEERT]

As I am coming out I turn over the hand of an image, and underneath it what the deuce is this? Why, a fragment of an old picture, torn and decaying away. What shall I do? Leave it to rot? Give it to ... Yes, exactly ... to whom? And would anyone thank me for it? Just a head of St. John, very battered and faded. It's a fragment about a foot square, and through all the mud one can see something like this: A head of St.

John in the corner; rays of light (two very thin small rays) s.h.i.+ning on him, and a look of great suffering on his face. The background a sort of dull ochre. Evidently once a large composition. There are two books, one with EVAN, and the other with, I think, BIBLIA SACRA, written on it. It is quite worthless except from a sentimental point of view.

The exposure and the heat of the explosions have sadly cracked and peeled the paint, but it seems vaguely symbolical. Near here I picked up some minute bits of green gla.s.s.

However, there was a notice: "It is dangerous to loiter here." So I tore myself away, and we remounted. The Boche can't see into the town because of the remaining buildings, but the whole place is utterly empty--not a dog even.

Soon the road to the next village _is_ exposed to the Boche's view.

Therefore canvas screens about 20 feet high have been erected, so that, if necessary, troops, and even lorries, can hurry by. It is most curious. "But for that thin bit of canvas, my good Swallow, you would get something into your tummy you wouldn't like," I remarked. At that moment the sun came out. We were keeping to the side of the road where it is soft going. Suddenly Swallow leaped like a stag into the middle of the road all over the _pave_. Panic terror. He had seen the shadow of a starling flit across his path!

Jezebel was t.i.ttuping along behind, thinking only of her next feed. I cannot get her to take any interest in these thrilling spots. Sometimes a soldier or two would emerge from a cellar, the entrance to which would be piled up with sand-bags. And once or twice bang! bang! goes a gun quite close by.

Well, so we go through the next deserted and wrecked village, again out of sight of the Boche, because of the ruins and a few trees. Then into a very famous town indeed, and across a river three times by three different bridges--not the old bridges, which are broken down, but sapper-built bridges. Here is a party going into the trenches just on the far side of the town. They look distinctly cheery, and are all of the same ripe brown. Thence right-handed again and gradually back to civilization, or, rather, to life first and civilization some way behind. Eventually people strolling about and shops. I bought a pair of those jolly French-tartan stockings for little Bun. With a grey dress they will look most charming, I think.

[Sidenote: ARMENTIERES]

Again ma.s.ses of soldiers with their field-kitchens in muddy fields from which all traces of gra.s.s have been stamped long ago. And the everlasting mule. There are mules everywhere out here.

Such attractive cottages, white with green shutters, and sometimes little Dutch gardens. Many windmills, several pigeons always fluttering round each. A lorry in a ditch. A roadside canteen, with perhaps an A.S.C. camp near by. Fields and fields of corn and every other crop under the sun. I long to sketch, but feel slightly nervous of so doing so far from camp. I don't want to be arrested as a spy. We are practically out of the danger area by now, but you never know. Some boring A.P.M. might pounce on the sketch and create a botheration.

Meantime I have been laboriously making pretty maps to present to Sir John, coloured maps showing where such and such a rise of ground could be held, or where such and such a road offers difficulties to transport, etc. But it's not easy to do, and we don't get back to camp till five minutes before stables, having covered about thirty miles. Besides, we had to stop and feed ourselves and the horses.

Then stables. Sergeant Hodge reprimanded for not having reported a bad kick. Southcombe slacking a bit. Must keep an eagle eye on that young man. At the end a whistle (no trumpets allowed). The horses all neigh and toss their heads and paw. Nosebags are put on, and after touring round to see that all is correct we slope off to tea, which Hale and Co.

have got all ready. Luxurious menage as of yore. But good when you're hungry, there's no doubt. We are moving again--probably to-morrow.

_July 10._

We have moved. The sixth time altogether. Not far though. A close view of the sweet-william hill. It must be sketched.

I am sitting on some sacks of corn, wondering why Fritz doesn't lob over a crump or two, just to wake us up. Jezebel is gorging herself close by.

Swallow eats a bit, and then suddenly looks up and sniffs nervously. I suppose he has heard a beetle trotting by, or seen a twig fall off a tree.

The horses are all picketed out in a field, and we are in bivvies. Hale has made me a bed out of some poles and wire netting, as he says it is a clay subsoil and I mustn't lie on the gra.s.s. I suppose he knows.

_July 12._

[Sidenote: THE HORSES]

I'm writing this in a queer dilapidated mud cottage, inhabited by an ancient ex-soldier aged eighty-three. He is very difficult to understand. His language is quite foreign to me. But he owns the quaintest little doll-like image of the Virgin in a gla.s.s case, and several Bristol b.a.l.l.s! I nearly fell flat when I saw them. His grandfather, I think he says, was in England once. The cottage is quite close to our present camp, and we go in for meals when it's very wet.

The bed Hale made me is growing into a house. He has discovered various old sacks, bits of tarred felt, and planks, and the place is becoming a most attractive little abode.

Then you must imagine an old wild-cherry tree, and lots of young oaks and elders, etc., all round. Jezebel and Swallow live close by. Jezebel has acquired a new trick. You know she doesn't like having her tummy groomed. Well, now (especially, of course, when it's very muddy) she waits till Hunt has finished dressing her, and then, as soon as his back is turned, she lies down and rolls. Hunt is in despair. He used to be really fond of her. But now I believe he'd kill her if he could, sometimes. All his labour entirely and ridiculously in vain. I'm convinced that she does it on purpose, because she always chooses just the moment when he has achieved a beautiful polish on her, and either has to go off to breakfast or else to get the saddle or something. It's as good as a play.

We are learning the "tactical" merits of all the roads and woods and hills (such as they are) all along our sector of front, and as much as we can, with field-gla.s.ses, of the other side. An offensive. What fun.

But exactly where are we going to offend? Rumours everywhere. If, we say, that village or that ridge has to be taken from this or that unexpected position, how shall we do it? Suppose we get Fritz on the hop, as they have near Peronne. Where are the most covered approaches to the slopes of that hill? Shall we carry the thing off as splendidly as those squadrons did before Peronne, or shall we bungle the show? You'll see.

We get so few papers here, and only two days old at that, but no one seems much the worse for it.

[Sidenote: NEUVE EGLISE]

Only one solitary man with lice so far. The man has been sent away, and is, I hear, to be given sulphur baths and scrubbed with a scrubbing brush.

Oh, I was going to say just now--_re_ reconnoitring--that we were doing all the ground about a village where there is a church even more smashed than the St. John place. It is on a hill, and all the village is Sahara.

The church remains with the remnants of four outside walls and the tower. Fritz does not destroy the tower, as it is a good spot for him to range on to. And outside the tower, right up at the top, is the bronze minute-hand of the old clock. The rest of the clock-face has been blown into the middle of the church, and lies there nearly complete amidst a crumbled heap of pillars and mortar and chair-legs and pulpit fragments.

One notice on a house amused me so, and the troop too. It says, "Do not _touch_ this house." The reason being rather obvious. For if you did touch the house, it would certainly fall on to your head. The next sh.e.l.l will bring it down, even if it's a couple of hundred yards away, merely by the vibration. We find sh.e.l.l holes so useful for watering the horses.

They seem to retain water in a most curious way.

_July 19._

On the move again. A four days' trek. Not more than twenty miles a day, in order to keep the horses "in the pink." They are certainly very fit now, and a gentle twenty miles a day just keeps them nicely exercised.

But twenty miles _at a walk_ is not overexciting. Still, it is interesting to be covering the ground. We already know quite a lot of the back of the front. Last night we arrived in a cool lull after showers. From quiet and uneventful stretches of hedgeless corn-fields, intersected by long straight roads, lined sometimes with poplars, but more often with lopped wych-elms or willows, we descended rather suddenly into a little wooded valley where a village sits by the trouty stream. After watering the horses at the stream, we filed by squadrons into various fields and picketed down for the night. Some of us in a small but clean estaminet, others in barns.

A very peaceful trek, quite different from the dazzling swoop that was threatened.

_July 20._