An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 Part 1

An Onlooker in France 1917-1919.

by William Orpen.

CHAPTER I

TO FRANCE (APRIL 1917)

The boat was crowded. Khaki, everywhere khaki; lifebelts, rain and storm, everything soaked. Destroyers, churning through the waves, played strange games all round us. Some old-time Tommies, taking everything for granted, smoked and laughed and told funny stories.

Others had the look of dumb animals in pain, going to what they knew only too well. The new hands for France asked many questions, pretended to laugh, pretended not to care, but for the most part were in terror of the unknown.

It was strange to watch this huddled heap of humanity, study their faces and realise that perhaps half of them would meet a b.l.o.o.d.y end before a new moon was over, and wonder how they could do it, why they did it--Patriotism? Yes, and perhaps it was the chance of getting home again when the war was over. Think of the life they would have! The old song:--

"We don't want to lose you, But we think you ought to go, For your King and your Country Both need you so.

"We shall-want you and miss you, (p. 012) But with all our might and main We shall cheer you, thank you, kiss you, When you come back again."

Did they think of that, and all the joys it seemed to promise them? I pray not.

What a change had come over the world for me since the day before! On that evening I had dined with friends who had laughed and talked small scandal about their friends. One, also, was rather upset because he had an appointment at 10.30 the next day--and there was I, a few hours later, being tossed about and soaked in company with men who knew they would run a big chance of never seeing England again, and were certainly going to suffer terrible hardships from cold, filth, discomfort and fatigue. There they stood, sat and lay--a ma.s.s of humanity which would be shortly bundled off the boat at Boulogne like so many animals, to wait in the rain, perhaps for hours, before being sent off again to whatever spot the unknown at G.H.Q. had allotted for them, to kill or to be killed; and there was I among them, going quietly to G.H.Q., everything arranged by the War Office, all in comfort. Yet my stomach was twitching about with nerves. What would I have been like had I been one of them?

At Boulogne we lunched at the "Mony" (my companion, Aikman, had been to France before during the war and knew a few things). It was an excellent lunch, and, as we were not to report at G.H.Q. till the next day, we walked about looking at lorries and trains, all going off to the unknown, filled with humanity in khaki weighed down with their packs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: II. _The Bapaume Road._]

The following morning at breakfast at the "Folkestone Hotel" we sat (p. 013) at the next table to a Major with red tabs. He did not speak to us, but after breakfast he said: "Is your name Orpen?" "Yes, sir," said I.

"Have you got your car ready?" "Yes, sir," said I. "Well, you had better drive back with me. Pack all your things in your car." "Yes, sir," said I. He explained to me that he had come to Boulogne to fetch General s.m.u.ts' luggage, otherwise he gave us no idea of who or what he was, and off we drove to the C.-in-C.'s house, where he went in with the General's luggage and left us in the car for about an hour. Then we went on to Hesdin, where he reported us to the Town Major, who said he had found billets for us. The Red Tab Major departed, as he said he was only just in time for his lunch, and told us to come to Rollencourt soon and report to the Colonel. The Town Major brought us round to our billet--the most filthy, disgusting house in all Hesdin, and the owner, an old woman, cursed us soundly, hating the idea of people being billeted with her. Anyway, there he left us and went off to his "Mess."

This was all very depressing, so we talked together and went on a voyage of discovery and found an hotel; then we went back to the billet and said "good-bye" to Madame and moved our stuff there. But the hotel wasn't a dream--at least we had no chance of dreaming--bugs, lice and all sorts of little things were active all night. I had been told by the War Office to go slow and not try to hustle people, so we decided we would not go and report to the Colonel till the next day after lunch.

Looking into the yard from my window in the afternoon, I saw two men I knew, one an artist from Chelsea, the other a Dublin man, who (p. 014) used to play lawn tennis. They were "Graves." My Dublin friend was "Adjutant, Graves," in fact he proudly told me that "Adjutant, Graves, B.E.F., France," would always find him. We dined with them that night at H.Q. Graves. They were very friendly, and said we could travel all over the back of the line by going from one "Graves" to another "Graves." All good chaps, I'm sure, and cheerful, but we did not do it.

The next day after lunch we drove to Rollencourt, and found the Major in his office (a hut on the lawn in front of the chateau). He left, and returned to say the Colonel could not see us then. Would we come back at 5 p.m.? So off we went and sat by the side of the road for two hours. Then again to the Major's at 5 p.m., when he informed us the Colonel had gone out. Would we come back at 7 p.m.? (No tea offered.) This we did and waited until 7.50, when the Major informed us that the Colonel would not see us that evening, but we were to report the next morning at 9 a.m. (No dinner offered.) We left thinking very hard--things did not seem so simple after all. We reported at 9 a.m.

and waited, and got a message at 11 a.m. that the Colonel would see us, and we were shown in to a wizened, sour-faced little man, his breast ablaze with strange colours. I explained to him that I did not like the billets at Hesdin, that Hesdin was too far away from anything near the front, and that I intended to go to Amiens at once. To my surprise he did not seem to object, and just as we were leaving, he said: "By the way, General Charteris wants you to go and see him this morning. You had better go at once." So that was it! If General Charteris had not sent that message I might not have been admitted to the presence of the Colonel for weeks. Off we went, full of hope, (p. 015) packed our bags and on to G.H.Q. proper, and got in to see the General at once--a bluff, jovial fellow who said: "You go anywhere you like, do anything you like, but don't ask me to get any Generals to sit to you; they're fed up with artists." I said: "That's the last thing I want." "Right," said he, "off you go." So we "offed" it to Amiens, arriving there about 7 p.m. on a cold, black, wet night. We went to see the Allied Press "Major," to find out some place to stop in, etc.

Again we were rather depressed. The meeting was very chilly, the importance of the Major was great--the full weight and responsibility of the war seemed on him. "The Importance of being Ernest" wasn't in it with him. As I learnt afterwards, when he came in late for a meal all the other officers and Allied Press correspondents stood up. Many a time I got a black look for not doing so. However, he advised the worst and most expensive hotel in the town, and off we went (no dinner offered), rather depressed and sad.

[Ill.u.s.tration: III. _Men resting. La Boisselle._]

CHAPTER II (p. 016)

THE SOMME (APRIL 1917)

Amiens was the one big town that could be reached easily from the Somme front for dinner, so every night it was crowded with officers and men who had come back in cars, motor-bikes, lorries or any old thing in or on which they could get a lift. After dinner they would stand near the station and hail anything pa.s.sing, till they found something that would drop them near their destination. As there was an endless stream of traffic going out over the Albert and Peronne Roads during that time (April 1917), it was easy.

Amiens is a dirty old town with its seven ca.n.a.ls. The cathedral, belfry and the theatre are, of course, wonderful, but there is little else except the dirt.

I remember later lunching with John Sargent in Amiens, after which I asked him if he would like to see the front of the theatre. He said he would. When we were looking at it he said: "Yes, I suppose it is one of the most perfect things in Europe. I've had a photograph of it hanging over my bed for the last thirty years."

But Amiens was a danger trap for the young officer from the line, also for the men. "Charlie's Bar" was always full of officers; mirth ran high, also the bills for drinks--and the drink the Tommies got in the little cafes was terrible stuff, and often doped.

Then, when darkness came on, strange women--the riff-raff from (p. 017) Paris, the expelled from Rouen, in fact the badly diseased from all parts of France--hovered about in the blackness with their electric torches, and led the unknowing away to blackened side-streets and up dim stairways--to what? Anyway, for an hour or so they were out of the rain and mud, but afterwards? Often did I go with Freddie Fane, the A.P.M., to these dens of filth to drag fine men away from disease.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IV. _A Tank. Pozieres._]

The wise ones dined well--if not too well--at the "G.o.dbert," with its Madeleine, or the "Cathedral," with its Marguerite, who was the queen of the British Army in Picardy, or, not so expensively, at the "Hotel de la Paix." Some months later the club started, a well-run place. I remember a Major who used to have his bath there once a week at 4 p.m.

It was prepared for him, with a large whisky-and-soda by its side.

What more comfort could one wish? Then there were dinners at the Allied Press, after which the Major would give a discourse amid heavy silence; then music. The favourite song at that time was:--

"Jackie Boy!

Master?

Singie well?

Very well.

Hey down, Ho down, Derry, Derry down, All among the leaves so green, O.

"With my Hey down, down, With my Ho down, down, Hey down, Ho down, Derry, Derry down, All among the leaves so green, O."

Later, perhaps, if the night was fine, the Major would retire to the (p. 018) garden and play the flute. This was a serious moment--a great hush was felt, n.o.body dared to move; but he really didn't play badly. And old Hale would tell stories which no one could understand, and de Maratray would play ping-pong with extraordinary agility. It would all have been great fun if people had not been killing each other so near. Why, during that time, the Boche did not bomb Amiens, I cannot understand, it was thick every week-end with the British Army. One could hardly jamb oneself through the crowd in the Place Gambetta or up the Rue des Trois Cailloux. It was a struggling ma.s.s of khaki, b.u.mping over the uneven cobblestones. What streets they were! I remember walking back from dinner one night with a Major, the agricultural expert of the Somme, and he said, "Don't you think the pavement is very hostile to-night?"

I shall never forget my first sight of the Somme battlefields. It was snowing fast, but the ground was not covered, and there was this endless waste of mud, holes and water. Nothing but mud, water, crosses and broken Tanks; miles and miles of it, horrible and terrible, but with a n.o.ble dignity of its own, and, running through it, the great artery, the Albert-Bapaume Road, with its endless stream of men, guns, food lorries, mules and cars, all pressing along with apparently unceasing energy towards the front. Past all the little crosses where their comrades had fallen, nothing daunted, they pressed on towards the h.e.l.l that awaited them on the far side of Bapaume. The mud, the cold, the noise, the misery, and perhaps death;--on they went, plodding through the mud, those wonderful men, perhaps singing one of their cheer-making songs, such as:--

"I want to go home. (p. 019) I want to go home.

I don't want to go to the trenches no more, Where the Whizz-bangs and Johnsons do rattle and roar.

Take me right over the sea, Where the Allemande can't bayonet me.

Oh, my!

I don't want to die, I want to go home."

[Ill.u.s.tration: V. _Warwickshires entering Peronne._]

How did they do it? "I want to go home."--Does anyone realise what those words must have meant to them then? I believe I do now--a little bit. Even I, from my back, looking-on position, sometimes felt the terrible fear, the longing to get away. What must they have felt?

"From battle, murder and sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us."

On up the hill past the mines to Pozieres. An Army railway was then running through Pozieres, and the station was marked by a big wooden sign painted black and white, like you see at any country station in England, with POZIeRES in large Roman letters, but that's all there was of Pozieres except a little red in the mud. I remember later, at the R.F.C. H.Q., Maurice Baring showed me a series of air-photographs of Pozieres as it was in 1914, with its peaceful little streets and rows of trees. What a contrast to the Pozieres as it was in 1917--MUD.

Further on, the b.u.t.te stood out on the right, a heap of chalky mud, not a blade of gra.s.s round it then--nothing but mud, with a white cross on the top. On the left, the Crown Prince's dug-out and Gibraltar--I suppose these have gone now--and Le Sars and Grevillers, at that time General Birdwood's H.Q., where the church had been knocked into a fine shape. I tried to draw it, but was much put off by air fighting. It seemed a favourite spot for this.

Bapaume must always have been a dismal place, like Albert, but (p. 020) Peronne must have been lovely, looking up from the water; and the main _Place_ must have been most imposing, but then it was very sad.

The Boche had only left it about three weeks, and it had not been "cleaned up." But the real terribleness of the Somme was not in the towns or on the roads. One felt it as one wandered over the old battlefields of La Boisselle, Courcelette, Thiepval, Grandcourt, Miraumont, Beaumont-Hamel, Bazentin-le-Grand and Bazentin-le-Pet.i.t--the whole country practically untouched since the great day when the Boche was pushed back and it was left in peace once more.

A hand lying on the duckboards; a Boche and a Highlander locked in a deadly embrace at the edge of Highwood; the "Cough-drop" with the stench coming from its watery bottom; the sh.e.l.l-holes with the shapes of bodies faintly showing through the putrid water--all these things made one think terribly of what human beings had been through, and were going through a bit further on, and would be going through for perhaps years more--who knew how many?

I remember an officer saying to me, "Paint the Somme? I could do it from memory--just a flat horizon-line and mud-holes and water, with the stumps of a few battered trees," but one could not paint the smell.

Early one morning in Amiens I got a message from Colonel John Buchan asking me to breakfast at the "Hotel du Rhin." While we were having breakfast, there was a great noise outside--an English voice was cursing someone else hard and telling him to get on and not make an a.s.s of himself. Then a Flying Pilot was pushed in by an Observer. The Pilot's hand and arm were temporarily bound up, but blood was (p. 021) dropping through. The Observer had his face badly scratched and one of his legs was not quite right. They sat at a table, and the waiter brought them eggs and coffee, which they took with relish, but the Pilot was constantly drooping towards his left, and the drooping always continued, till he went crack on the floor. Then the Observer would curse him soundly and put him back in his chair, where he would eat again till the next fall. When they had finished, the waiter put a cigarette in each of their mouths and lit them. After a few minutes four men walked in with two stretchers, put the two breakfasters on the stretchers, and walked out with them--not a word was spoken.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VI. _No Man's Land._]