Norman Ten Hundred Part 10

These stringent regulations never materialise in actual practice, but it conveys a hint of the tinge of "Hindenburgism" with which the Army is tainted--excepting Dominion forces, wherein the negligible gulf between officers and men is easily bridged.

There will always, however, be a sneaking regard in the hearts of the few Normans who rested there; for Houvin. It was there that men could sleep far from the haunting spectre of antic.i.p.ated death or devastation: there, too, life could be enjoyed to the full in the happy knowledge that no sh.e.l.ls would pitch near by, no machine-gun turn its whining trail of bullets across your path. And it was at first difficult to realise that danger to limb was past, that movement to and fro was free from the hovering shrapnel that had so long dogged their steps and penetrated the mind with its presence until accepted as an everyday visitation such as the sun.

Parcels and mail arrived with a glad regularity. There is no more pregnant a "reviver" of downheartedness than letters from the old people, nor is anything more liable to inspire the "pip" than the absence of such personal touches with familiar scenes. Papers can never replace the badly penned and still more badly worded missives despatched from some humble cottage. Those two pages of scrawled information go far nearer to the receiver's heart than twenty columns of polished well written print. The letter is almost a living link with all that in which he has the strongest interest ... he is far more delighted at the news of Tilly's overthrow of Jim for Jack than a mere possible fall of the British Cabinet which might be pending.

"Besides," Stumpy pointed out with unconscious irony, "you opens a paper an' you knows there ain't nothin' in it, while the ole woman might 'ave put ten bob in yer letter."

Tommy has never sufficient a supply of cash. Everywhere a few miles behind the Line a canteen or Y.M.C.A. had been pushed forward and in these places the five francs a lad receives about once a fortnight does not go very far or last long. Nor does its purchasing value cover more than a meagre supply of such commodities as cake, chocolate, tobacco and beer. With regard to the latter, stress must be laid on the fact that Tommy is far less often in a state of drunkenness than the average civilian and that he is far more p.r.o.ne to derive humour out of it than to drink it.

X

DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1918

FLERS--LE PARCQ--VERCHOCQ

Snow had fallen and sprinkled the countryside with a semi-transparent white mantle. Roads due to freezing o' nights were hard and slippery, making the going for men labouring beneath the burden of full pack irksome and heavy. The Normans had no eyes for the countryside (there is no beauty in the finest masterpieces of Nature if physical conditions are not in harmony) but had the surface before them fixedly under focus in the interest of the neck's safety.

Eighteen or so kilos (approximately 11-1/4 miles) over the long straight levels common to France and which, although of course the shortest route between two points is viewed by the marching columns as far longer than it actually is because of the distant visibility. And Tommy would prefer a more winding journey even if the distance covered is greater.

The night's rest at Flers in the midst of heavy falls of snow put the wind up the men at the knowledge of a longer march on the morrow, but the alarm was false and a trek of four kilos materialised--hard going the whole way--to Le Parcq, a town situated on the top of a hill, the discovery of a short cut causing the break from schedule. The "cut" was made up a steep incline that proved a severe obstacle to the wildly struggling horses of transport waggons on the vile surface. Several lorries with the all-essential stores, blankets, etc., found the "gla.s.s"

road utterly impa.s.sable.

This unfortunate set-back reacted on the men, who, because of the blanket shortage were doomed to but ONE per man throughout the winter night of fierce cold, against which the shivering, suffering lads had as protection billets without roofs and in some instances with mere relics of sides. The pain was acute, sleep difficult. Some unable to withstand the torture paced up and down the whole night through, banging arms heavily across bodies to stimulate some semblance of warmth.

At the first indications of dawn they were started on what proved to be one of the longest marches in their experience. The weather was harsher than on any of the preceding days and the frozen snow surface of the roads presented in itself a factor that materially magnified the heavy labouring beneath full pack, arduous to a degree under the easiest of conditions. Before mid-day the constant vigilance and care necessary if a hard fall was to be avoided began to tell on the nerves, irritability forced its grip, and they glared savagely at one another at every sideslip--inevitable in a long trek over such roads.

After twenty or so kilos had been reeled off physical exhaustion invaded man after man, growling ceased, heads bent forward and the eyes watched unseeing the heels of the man ahead. Mechanical rigidity of monotonous, torturous march again held sway, the old dryness of tongue and aching of burning feet grew more and more acute at each heavy step forward.

An hour pa.s.sed in painful silence, and another, but ever onward along the long trail of miles--left, right, left. At each step you muttered it softly--left right--or counted them one by one until the mind rambled on confused in tens of thousands. A stage had been attained when one felt nothing, knew nothing, but just the unending chorus of padding feet guided by the mere instinct of a mind in a condition of peculiar coma.

The ten minute halts were taken at each hour with no comment. Men threw themselves p.r.o.ne on the road, closed eyes, stood up unthinking at the order and fell again into the harsh rigidity of movement.

Just before dusk the "machine" halted at Verchocq, after a march of thirty-three kilos. They were tired, worn, hungry....

No lorries or cookers turned up that night!

Followed that abrupt revival of spirits that cannot but remain a pyschological mystery. No cookers--no grub. They threw aside without an effort complete exhaustion, the outcome of an entire day's strenuous bodily exertion, sallied forth with remarkable sangfroid and certainty in Verchocq, there conversing with the inhabitants, made themselves thoroughly at home and gratefully partook of the hot fare hospitably provided them--the fierce inroads upon food that only the utterly famished can readily appreciate, and which indelibly impressed upon the intellect of their hosts a certainty that British troops could never have their appet.i.te satiated.

They returned to billets in varying moods and conditions, one or two ignoring a straight walk and zig-zagging an uncertain course across the roads. Stumpy, who had received a generous welcome from a misguided patriot, sat down with smug complacency, holding one hand lovingly over an abdomen over-filled with good fare.

"Weren't 'alf orl right," he said "lawd, wot with five eggs an' 'am an'

bread; but there weren't any beer, only," with a shudder, "a 'ome-made lemonade."

"Yus," Duquemin agreed, "dam good-hic-sort these French people. Fine lil' daughter wi' blue-hic-eyes. 'Eld my 'and, and she hic-said was brave-hic soldier. Ver' proud ... 'allo wot-hic-doing'."

A lad was kneeling in his corner, hands clasped in prayer. (He did so night after night unmolested.) The crowd watched curiously--but had anyone dare to scoff they, as Mahieu said, "would a' knocked the b---- scoffer's 'ead orf."

Strange ingrained instinctive a.s.sertion of fair play predominant in the att.i.tude of those wild, uncouth mortals. Few of them had thought of outward expression of G.o.d--a fierce resentment world galvanise into life at the slightest sneer upon the unprotected back of those who HAD the pluck. From his couch in a solitary blanket the agnostic grunted.

"Fetish," he observed quietly, "the warrior appealing to his oracle of Delphi like a savage to his moon. Pa.s.sing G.o.ds of a pa.s.sing generation...."

"Yesh," Duquemin agreed sagely. "Pa.s.sin' gen'ral rashon--no rashon-hic-pore-Guernseys. Oonly wot people gi'...."

The friendship originated during the Normans' first night at Vorchocq with the French grew as the days progressed, accentuated by the Norman knowledge of the people's mother-tongue.

They made the utmost of their time, lived life to the very full, inspired by the knowledge that the draft of four hundred Staffords and two hundred or so Guernseymen (the ten per cent. who had not partic.i.p.ated at Cambrai) who were to become absorbed into the Ten Hundred were auguries of an approaching further acquaintance with the Front Line.

Christmas Day provided an ample fare in addition to the ordinary rations, small parties engaging rooms in estaminets and farms, purchasing the very limit of eatables obtainable with what financial lengths were at their disposal, obtained bottles of port and gave vent to an unbounded vein of hilarious humour and uproarious chorus in celebration of a Christmas that many knew would be their last.

In a quiet room four of the ascetic rankers (Clarke, Martel, Lomar and White) pa.s.sed an evening that will long remain a pleasant memory, tempered with pain for the one who soon afterwards paid the Supreme Sacrifice.

Everywhere uproar was rampant. Light, laughter, and good cheer maintained undisputed sway upon all. Rose-cheeked daughters of France were toasted again and again, taken into muscular arms and kissed times without number.

The old marching rallies of the Ten Hundred were roared out from every tiny house ablaze with light, echoed out into the inscrutable pall of black and wafted far away into the shadows.

And they toasted the "Old Battalion," the warriors who were lying in the damp Masnieres soil; the Future; and G.o.d's own Isle--their little motherland. It hurt, how it hurt! How the tiny green island rose mistily before the eyes in all its sun-bathed romance and mystery! How the sweet aroma of its gold, furze-crowned cliffs, the laughter of blue waters, the lowing of cattle, came flooding with glad memories on the mind ...

and YOU may not ever again scent that furze or glimpse those waters!

They laughed memory back into its dim past. WHAT of the future? Live only for the present!

Bunny was happy. Reclining gracefully in the gutter he sang a jumbled lullaby of melodies.

"There's maggots in the cheese, You can 'ear the beggars sneeze--"

He struggled manfully to his feet, fell into a helpless fit of laughter and collapsed again into the roadway with a heavy grunt. An N.C.O. found him there a few minutes later.

"'Ere," he demanded, "wot are you doin' there?"

"Doin'," Bunny chuckled helplessly: "wot think I'm doin ... plantin'

daisies or diggin' for gold?"

"Look 'ere, me lad, if you're lookin' for trouble--!"

"Lookin' for trouble?--not lookin' for anything. Just 'avin' a rest by the wayside an' gazin' at stars."

"Well, get up or I'll 'old you up, an' you'll SEE 'em then."

"Or-righ'. Want, want, lil' drop toddy?"

"Got much? Pa.s.s it over."

"Ain't got none. Only asked if you WANT a-a drop...." He moved away and from far down the street his dirge carried faintly: