Letters to Helen Part 7

Yesterday, being rather misty, I thought as follows:

"It is too foggy to see what Fritz is doing. No attack is intended or expected. The Colonel is at corps H.Q. Swallow and Jezebel and Tank are safe in ---- valley. Roger is still here as Adjutant. Why not an afternoon off?"

So picture a holiday-maker armed with a revolver, two gas helmets, tear goggles, some sandwiches, and a large empty haversack. Now where to go?

What about ---- trench and all round ---- village, even, perhaps, a lightning five minutes in the village itself? We have just taken the village, but it's rather an unhealthy spot at present.

---- trench is a new trench that poor Fritz dug just before he was driven out of it. I had seen lots of dead Fritzes there the day before.

Also there were reports of curious things flung out into the mud in and round the village.

[Sidenote: TROPHIES]

So I set forth. And at ---- met another fellow I knew, and the affair became neither more nor less than a search for souvenirs. Here is a list:

1. A few b.u.t.tons with double-tailed lions.

2. Four shoulder-straps with the figure 6 in red. This indicated a division which has been opposite us for some time and is quite exhausted, I think.

3. One haversack and one respirator haversack.

4. One rosary.

5. Five different sorts of bayonets from different regiments. These I thought we might hang up.

6. Four ta.s.sels. They are worn by Fritz rather in the same sort of way as lanyards are worn. Quite pretty, though rather soiled and worn.

7. A bit of a wing of a crushed aeroplane that is lying on the brown, feverish earth like a dead sea-gull.

8. A bra.s.s spring very beautifully made, that I am going to have made into a bracelet for you. Also from the aeroplane.

9. A cardboard box for signal flares. _Signal Patronen_ they are labelled. I threw the flares away, as they might go pop _en route_.

10. A jolly bit of gilded carving from a house in ----

11. Now then for No. 11! A bit of embroidery. I think it is a vestment of sorts. It's white, and there's heavy gold embroidery at the sides. It is a cloak of some description, but the top part, where there should be a collar or something, is gone. Then 11A is a piece of black and silver embroidery. It was all very muddy and riddled with shrapnel or bits of crump, so I just cut off the only sound bit. Both these things are exceedingly beautiful. They are probably vestments, because they were quite near what must have been the church. I am sure it must have been the church, although I hadn't a map--first, because I saw the village in the distance some time ago, while the church was still standing, and therefore I know the church's situation; and, secondly, because I saw remains of large pillars, and a few bits of what was once a font amongst the debris.

There now. Isn't that a good haul! It's not easy to get anything worth sending home, because everything is so utterly smashed up.

_October 2._

Jezebel and Swallow and Tank have all been clipped trace high. I am getting rather attached to Tank. She is so modest and unselfish--a contrast to Jezebel. She never expects little treats, and seems quite surprised when I give her anything. Swallow and Jezebel always neigh when they see my electric torch coming towards them after dinner (while we are back in these safe places). But Tank is very shy of the light, and thinks it will bite her.

Swallow is getting much better, and really seems to understand that the sh.e.l.ls and guns and things probably won't hurt him. We have been most extraordinarily lucky. The troop that got through nearly to ---- the other day, hadn't a single casualty, although d.i.c.k's own mare was shot under him and a great many other horses were wounded. The squadron of ---- were very badly scuppered, I fear. But, anyhow, we all feel that Lloyd George is right. We are just beginning to win.

_October 5._

It is a glorious day. Such clouds. Swallow kicked up his heels and played about like a kitten when Hunt took him to water this morning.

It's extraordinary how used the horses are getting to trenches and wire, etc. At first they were rather afraid to jump these sudden deep ditches, but now they pop across like rabbits.

_October 17._

[Sidenote: ARCHIE]

Yesterday some Hun aeroplanes got across and came right above this camp, a comfortable way behind the front line. Heavily strafed by our Archies.

The blue sky was dotted all over with the pretty little white clouds of shrapnel.

Sergeant Pritchard and I were standing close to Flannagan (one of the men's horses), and the men were at stables. We were all looking up and longing to see a Hun aeroplane hit, when suddenly "s-s-s-swish, plop!"

just behind me. It was one of the Archie shrapnel cases. It buried itself deep in the ground 3 yards from where we were standing. We dug it up, and I'll bring it home for you. If it isn't too tediously heavy.

Of course, Archie shrapnel cases all come down, and you see hundreds of them lying about; but I've never had one so close before. They sometimes fall broadside on, and sometimes end on, in which case they bury themselves fairly deep. All the Hun aeroplanes got away, alas!

_October 26._

Once more I'm going up to the strange dead village of ----. In many ways I shall be sorry to go back to comfort and billets, because the material for pictures here is very wonderful. You shall see several small things (the powers that be call it waste of time!), and it's infuriating to think that more can't be done.

I tell you, if you were here, and if I could paint a bit every day, I should be quite happy. The "subjects" are endless, and in particular I long to do great big stretches of this bleak brown land. Well, it can't be helped, so it's no good thinking about it.

_October 29._

We are moving to a "back area" to-morrow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WOUNDED TANK This Tank got hit as it was walking over a house in FLERS. They covered it up with tarpaulins to prevent the Hun aeroplanes from obtaining too much information about it. The black stuff is shrapnel.

The pink clouds are sent up by crumps as they explode amongst the remains of the brick houses.]

_November 1._

It's a superb day, and we are back at ----, one of our old billets, right away from the beastliness. And although leave won't be for another week or two, still, it will come soon. And Swallow is in tremendous spirits.

Here is a drawing done surrept.i.tiously of a tank in full view of Fritz.

You see those little stumps of trees? Well, I'll tell you what those are called when we meet, and also what village is just on their left. You may say it was stupid to sit in full view of Fritz, but it was the day after an advance, and there's hardly ever anything doing then in the way of sniping. The guns, of course, are all p.o.o.ping off, but they weren't sh.e.l.ling just there, so it was quite safe. This drawing gives you some idea of the desolation, but none of the unevenness of the ground. You can't walk in a bee-line for three yards without getting into a hole. The last time I was in those parts, by the way, I came on a rather jolly cottage winegla.s.s that had been thrown out into some soft mud, and was not even cracked.

_November 6._

[Sidenote: COCQUEREL]

An extraordinary change. Let me now give you an idea.

We are in a pretty little country village miles and miles away, and (although one of Fritz's aeroplanes flew over the church as bold as bra.s.s just before we got in) the quiet and peace of the place is very refreshing. And, droll to relate, I'm writing this in bed, with a touch of flu--such a bed, too, all soft and billowy. In ordinary life it would be condemned as a "feather" bed, but now it is a bed for princes.

And the room. A rather dark old-fashioned paper, an old clock ticking, an old shining chest of drawers with a marble top, and clothes hanging on pegs. Hale has arranged the pistol, and ammunition, and maps, and gas helmets, and steel helmet, and spare kit, with great elaboration, all over the room. At the present moment he is "sweeping out" with the appropriate hissing noises. The dust will, I hope, subside during the course of the day.