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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbdf439 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63006 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63006) diff --git a/old/63006-0.txt b/old/63006-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 45d7668..0000000 --- a/old/63006-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7857 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of By-ways on Service, by Hector Dinning - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: By-ways on Service - Notes from an Australian Journal - -Author: Hector Dinning - -Release Date: August 22, 2020 [EBook #63006] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY-WAYS ON SERVICE *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - -BY-WAYS ON SERVICE - - - - - BY-WAYS ON SERVICE - - - NOTES FROM - AN AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL - - - BY - HECTOR DINNING - - - LONDON - CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, LTD. - 1918 - - - - -Printed in Great Britain - - - - - To - - AUSTRALIA - - - - -NOTE BY THE AUTHOR - - -These sketches were not originally written for publication in the form -of a book; and there has been little opportunity of revising them with -that object. The idea of collection and publication came late, after -they (most of them) had appeared in the daily press or in some other -journal; and it came rather by suggestion from friends than on the -writer's initiative. - -The collection is rough and inconsecutive. It does not attempt to give -a complete picture of what was to be seen by an Australian at any stage -after embarkation from Australia. It is a series of impressions gained -from an outlook necessarily limited. I wrote about the things that -impressed me most, chiefly for the reason that they impressed me; there -was also the motive of conveying to a small circle of friends some -notion of what I saw. - -In the light of the offensive fighting of 1917 in Western Europe, -a great deal of this book will appear feeble, and even flippant. -Descriptions of Egyptian cities and of the Canal-Zone will seem a -kind of impertinence, in a book from the War-area, after tales of the -fighting in Picardy. But they are published with the belief that after -Peace has broken out some soldiers may find an interest in awakening -the memory of their first-love in the world outside Australia. For most -of them Egypt was that; and though in the desert they often declared -themselves "fed-up" with Egypt, it was a transient and liverish -judgment, and their relationship with this first-love was never stodgy. -For the East of the sort they stumbled across in Cairo and on the -Canal, Australians discovered in themselves a liveliness of interest -that was almost an affinity. - -But no apology for reminiscences of Anzac is called for, let the -fighting at Pozieres be never so fierce. It is certain that Gallipoli -is overshadowed by the fierce intensity and ceaselessness of the -struggle in France. But it is only the intensity of the Turkish -fighting that is overshadowed. No intensity of the struggle on the -Somme will ever eclipse the intense pathos of that ill-starred -adventure on the ridges of Anzac. - -These sketches were written hurriedly and in the midst of a good deal -of distraction. There has been no time to attend to considerations -of style or arrangement of the matter within the limits of single -articles. Often I was stuck for leisure, and sometimes for paper. -Most of the Anzac sketches were written in the dug-out at nights in -circumstances that would have contented transitorily the most Bohemian -scribbler. Those from Egypt were mostly scrawled in a desert camp. In -either case there was the Censor to reckon with. That is seized as -another excuse for inconsecutiveness. - -My acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Cassell and Company for their -permission to include in this volume the sketch of Anzac which appeared -in the _Anzac-Book_. - - HECTOR DINNING. - - Somme, - _December, 1917_. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - BOOK I.--WAITING - - SECTION A.--ON THE WAY - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. TRANSPORT 1 - - II. UP THE CANAL 13 - - III. ABBASSIEH 24 - - - SECTION B.--CAIRO - - I. ON LEAVE IN CAIRO 33 - - II. THE MOOSKI 42 - - - BOOK II.--GALLIPOLI - - I. THE JOURNEY 55 - - II. GLIMPSES OF ANZAC.--I. 67 - - III. GLIMPSES OF ANZAC.--II. 82 - - IV. SIGNALS 92 - - V. THE DESPATCH-RIDERS 96 - - VI. THE BLIZZARD 98 - - VII. EVACUATION 103 - - - BOOK III.--BACK TO EGYPT - - I. LEMNOS 111 - - II. MAHSAMAH 118 - - III. CANAL-ZONE 127 - - IV. ALEXANDRIA THE THIRD TIME 138 - - V. THE LAST OF EGYPT 152 - - - BOOK IV.--FRANCE - - - SECTION A.--A BASE - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. ENTRÉE 163 - - II. BILLETED 169 - - III. THE SEINE AT ROUEN 175 - - IV. ROUEN _REVUE_ 180 - - V. LA BOUILLE 184 - - - SECTION B.--PICARDY AND THE SOMME - - I. BEHIND THE LINES.--I. 188 - - II. BEHIND THE LINES.--II. 196 - - III. C.C.S. 200 - - IV. THE FOUGHTEN-FIELD 213 - - V. AN ADVANCED RAILHEAD 219 - - VI. ARRAS AFTER THE PUSH 232 - - - SECTION C.--FRENCH PROVINCIAL LIFE - - I. A MORNING IN PICARDY 242 - - II. THÉRÈSE 251 - - III. LEAVES FROM A VILLAGE DIARY 260 - - IV. THE CAFÉ DU PROGRÈS 270 - - V. L'HÔTEL DES BONS ENFANTS 275 - - VI. PROVINCIAL SHOPS 278 - - - - -BOOK I - -WAITING - - - - -BY-WAYS ON SERVICE - - - - -SECTION A.--ON THE WAY - - - - -CHAPTER I - -TRANSPORT - - -There is something high-sounding in the name Australian Imperial -Expeditionary Force. The expedition with which our troop-ship -cast loose justified, so far, our part in that name. The false -alarms relating to the date of embarkation, raised whilst we were -still in camp, had bred in us a kind of scepticism as to all such -pronouncements. When it was told that we would go aboard on Tuesday, -most of us emitted a sarcastic "te-hee!" And it was not until on Monday -morning our black kit-bags were piled meaningly on the parade ground -for transport that we began to rein-in our humour and visualise the -method of voyaging and believe there must have been some fragment of -truth in what we called the Tuesday fable. We believed it all when -the unit marched in column of route on Tuesday to the ship, and the -quartermaster brought up the odds and ends on a lorry in the rear. But -even so, we were prepared to lie a few hours, at least (and some said -a few days), before casting-off. Some of us had even devised visits to -and from the homes of our friends, in our mongrel-civilian fashion, to -sit once more--or twice--and say good-bye. Quite the majority of us saw -ourselves swaggering about the port, slaking thirst, and being pointed -at as "the Boys." By two o'clock the last baggage came over the side, -and we sat a moment to breathe. Some didn't wait to breathe. As soon as -they got well off the pier, the gangways were raised. By 2.20 we were -in motion. The hope of embarkation, deferred so long, was realised with -a suddenness that almost forbade the saying good-bye. Many a friend, -expecting the hand-clasp, watched the transport steam relentlessly -away; many a man, bracing himself to the final show of a light heart, -saw the gangway rudely raised as he innocently rested after the labour -of embarkation; and all his show of bravery ended in an unwonted -glistening of the eye and a silent turning away from those who would -have turned homewards from the shore, but could not. Many smothered -what they felt in the wild hilarity of jingoistic dialogue with the -shore and with civilian craft flitting about the transport. Two belated -members of the column tore along the pier towards the ship in motion, -embarked in a launch, and were received; and three months of irksome -sitting in a preparatory camp were well-nigh gone for nothing. Two -others, who had "gone up the street for an hour" to make merry finally -with their friends, were left lamenting. - -It was a Leviathan we found ourselves upon; the largest boat--as they -say--that ever has come to us. And certainly she carries more men than -one ever expected to find afloat (in these waters) on one vessel--a -kind of city full. So huge is she that you wonder, in the half-logical -excitement of the first few hours, whether she will pitch on the open -sea. "Sweet delusion!" smiles the quizzical reader; "you'll soon see." -Well, we haven't seen. She has pitched hardly enough to upset the -gentlest sucking-dove. That, however, is, perhaps, not all by virtue of -our tonnage; so smooth a sea, and so consistently smooth, the tenderest -liver could hardly hope for. There have, perhaps, a dozen men been -ill; and what are they among so many? With a smooth start, such as we -are blest with, notoriously weak sailors may even hope to get through -without a spasm. At least there are those aboard amazed at their own -heartiness. - -Is there any call to relate the daily routine on a troop-ship? Everyone -at home, you say, knows it; it's all there is in most letters from the -fleet. But all kind and patient readers of these notes may not have -friends in the fleet. - -Well, then, _réveille_ blows providentially later than on shore--six -o'clock; providentially and paradoxically, for who wants "a little more -folding of the hands to sleep" at sea? Who, on land, does not, save the -few fanatical or deranged? As many as can find ground-room there, sleep -on deck, and have been peeping at the Day's-Eye for half an hour before -the strident note crashes along the decks. He is _blasé_ and weary -indeed who can lie insensible to the dawn here. There is one glory of -the hills at sunrise; the sea hath another glory. On land you see the -dawn in part, here the whole stately procession lies to your eye, and -you see all the detail of the lengthening march defined by the gently -heaving sea. He who sees it not has got well to the Devil! But whether -you are of the Devil or not, you obey the summons to get up, and cut -short your contemplation of the pageant. There is no before breakfast -duty, except for a casual swabbing-fatigue. The men mess at seven on -their troop-decks; the sergeants and officers at 8.30. Thereby hang two -digressions. - -The troop-decks have been installed in the holds, or located where old -passenger cabins have been knocked out. Much refitting of a liner, -indeed, had been necessary to make of her a troop-ship. The troops -have been quartered thus: the sergeants mess and sleep in the old -dining-saloon; the officers' mess is the old music-room; both the -smoke-room and gymnasium have been transferred into hospitals. The -sergeants and the men sleep in hammocks slung above their mess-tables. -The officers sleep in such cabins as are left standing. - -The other digression ought to show why the sergeants and officers -(apart from the distinctions which the superiority of those creatures -demands) mess an-hour-and-a-half later than the men. Each unit must -appoint, as ashore, an orderly-officer and orderly-sergeant for the -day, and part of their duty is to supervise the issue and distribution -of rations. Each sergeant is given, beside, the supervision of the -quarters of a section of the unit, and this includes overlooking the -complete setting-in-order after messing. Each unit in rotation supplies -a ship's orderly-officer and ship's troop-deck sergeant, whose duties -are general and at the dictation of the ship's commandant. - -After breakfast we massage ourselves internally and open up our chests -with an hour's exercise, much as ashore; but we must drill in small -sections, for want of space. Most parades, apart from this last, which -is universal, are for lectures; in which the officers endeavour to -put the theoretical side--appropriately enough, for the practice must -precede the theory in any matter whatsoever, but especially in the -game of war. We were men before we became philosophers; we digested -our food before we thought of physiological research; and we can put a -bullet through a vulnerable part before we know much about the chemical -combustion preceding the discharge. Lectures are, naturally, more or -less directly on the topic of mechanical-transport, in some aspect of -it, but some are on topics of generally military importance. - -Curious is the variety in the method of receiving lecture; the rank and -file do not readily adjust themselves to the academic outlook. "Another -b----y lecture, Bill!" "That's all right; 'e'll take a tumble----" -(_The Censor did not pass the rest of this conversation._) But these -are extreme comments, and rather a form of playfulness than serious -utterances. Of the rest, some sit it through in a bovine complacency, -some take the risks of dozing, some crack furtive jokes; most listen -attentively enough. There are many intelligent, well-trained men who -prick up their ears here and there and carry on a muffled discussion, -in a sort of unauthorised _semina_. There is, on an average, one hour's -lecture in the day. - -Perhaps half the day is the men's own--clear. It is spent largely in -lounging and smoking, partly in sleeping, a little in reading. There -are well-worn magazines--such as Mr. Ruskin would disapprove--and -little else, except sixpenny editions of the limelight authors. But in -reading and such effeminate arts what good soldier will languish long? - -There are sports, of a sort--very sporadic and very confined. They -commonly take the form of passing-the-ball and leap-frog. - -The Censor has an _ipse dixit_ way, and is his own court of appeal. -These notes could otherwise be made a little less inconsecutive. - -We steamed out of ---- a little after dawn in column of half sections, -artistically out of step and with the alignment nautically groggy. Our -ship took the head of one column; the flagship led the other. That -procession is a sight unique, which you are defied to parallel in the -annals of passenger shipping. The files come heaving along, like a -school of marine monsters disporting themselves.... - - (_Censor at work again._) - -In preparation for the European winter in store for us, about which -so much has been written and spoken at home, and by which so much Red -Cross knitting and tea-drinking have been inspired--as a preparation -for this, the weather is becoming intolerably hot. As we approach the -line the best traditions of that vicinity are being maintained. We wake -in the morning with that sense of lassitude you read of as the regular -matutinal sensation of the Anglo-Indian in Calcutta. At six o'clock the -sun beats down--or beats along--with as much effect as he achieves high -in the heavens in the early Australian summer. No sluggard sleeping on -deck but would rather get up and under cover than remain stewing in -the oblique, biting rays. At the breakfast-mess, situated in as cool -and strategic a position as the brazen sergeants could get chosen, you -perspire as though violently exercising. In a few isolated cases this -is justified; but as the day wears on you perspire without provocation -of any sort. The men on their improvised troop-decks are in hell--and -use a language and attitude appropriate in the circumstances. Not -unnaturally, you see the most grotesque attires designed to make life -tolerable. To the devil with uniformity! Men must first live. The -general effect is motley. Leggings and breeches and regimental boots -are not to be seen--except on the unhappy sentry. A following wind -blows upon us, and just keeps our pace; there is not a breath; the sea -is unruffled; the men lie limp off parade (for parade persists); one -begins to recall an ancient mariner and the tricks the sultry main -played upon him. And discussions arise, as animated as the heat will -allow, as to whether you'd rather fight in the burning Sahara or the -frozen trenches of Northern Europe. - -A change in the manner of life on a troop-ship has been effected -almost as complete as _Oliver Twist_ shows to have taken place in -the administration of public charity, or as Charles Reade shows in -the conduct of His Majesty's prisons. Trooping in the 'seventies and -'eighties resembled pretty closely transport on an old slaver--in -respect of rations, ventilation, dirt, and space for exercise. By -comparison this is luxurious. Perhaps the most notable difference -is that there is no beer. The traditional regimental issue of one -pint _per_ man _per diem_ (and three pints for sergeants) has been -abolished. It is chiefly in a kind of Hogarth theory that this is -deplorable; most of the romance of beer-drinking is confined to the art -of such delineators as Hogarth and Thackeray. But amongst a section -of the men the regret is genuine. Especially hard was a beerless -Christmas for many who had been accustomed to charge themselves up with -goodwill towards men at that season. - -There is a dry canteen, the most violent beverage, obtainable at which -is Schweppes's Dry, and hot coffee. Besides, it drives an incessant -trade in tobacco, groceries, clothing, and chocolate. We are a people -whose god is their belly. During canteen hours an endless queue moves -up the promenade-deck to either window of the store, and men purchase, -at the most prodigal rate, creature comforts they would despise on -land. With many of them it is part of the day's routine. - -The leisure and associations of Christmas Day here brought home to the -bosoms of most men, more clearly than anything had done previously, -what they had departed from. There was hilarity spontaneous; there was -some forced to exaggeration, probably with the motive of smothering -all the feelings raised by the associations of the festival. You may -see, in your "mind's eye, Horatio," the troop-decks festooned above the -mess-tables, and all beneath softened with coloured sheaths about the -electric bulbs. There is strange and wonderful masquerading amongst the -diners, and much song. A good deal of the singing is facetiously woven -about the defective theme of "No Beer." - -But beside, the old home-songs were given, and here and there a -Christmas hymn. It was a strangely mingled scene, but not all -tomfooling--not by a great deal. - -The Chaplain-Colonel celebrated Holy Communion in the officers' mess at -7 and 8 a.m., and afterwards at Divine-Service on deck addressed the -men. Chiefly he was concerned with an attempted reconciliation of the -War with the teaching of Christianity. The rest of the day went _ad -lib._ - -The night is the unsullied property of the men--in a manner of -speaking; but in a manner only. The same could not be said of the -officers, as a body. The officers, it is true, fare sumptuously every -night, and dress elaborately to dine. The ill-starred private, his -simple meal long since consumed, perambulates, and looks on at this -good feasting from the promenade deck. "Gawd! I'd like them blokes' -job. Givin' b----y orders all day, an' feedin' like that--dressin' up, -too! 'Struth! Nothin' better t' do!" Now, that is the everlasting cry -of the rank-and-file against those in authority. It's in the business -house, where the artificer glares after the managing director--"'Olds -all the brass, an' never done a day's work in 'is loife!" It's not so -common in military as in civil experience. But as the artisan overlooks -the brooding of the managing director in the night watches, whilst he -sleeps dreamless, filled with bread, so the private tends to forget -that when the Major's dinner is over and his cigar well through, he may -work like the deuce until midnight, and be up at _réveille_ with the -most private of them. The officers are a picturesque group of diners, -and they promenade impressively for an hour thereafter; but they have -their night cares, which persist long after the rank and file is well -hammocked and snoring. - -But before any snoring is engaged in there is a couple of hours of -yarning and repartee and horse-play and mirth of all orders. The band -plays; the name of the band is legion aboard, and often several members -of the legion are in action simultaneously, blaring out their brazen -hearts in some imperial noise about (say) Britannia and the waves and -the way she rules them; and if you're one of the dozen ill, you cast up -a prayer that she will see fit, in her own time, to rule them rather -more straight. - -Hardly a night but there is a concert, from which the downright -song--as such--is rigidly excluded, and nothing but burlesque will be -listened to. - -As the sun sets, you may lie and wait the lift of the long southern -swell of the Indian Ocean. The sunsets are already coloured with the -rich ultra-tropical warmth that caught the imagination of so many who -looked on that "Sunset at Agra." "Yet but a little while," you say -fondly, "and we shall glide south of that fabled Indian land of spice"; -and you shudder at the vileness of contending man. There is danger in -the distracting fascination of a voyage of discovery, embraced by this -transporting to the land of war. For the old soldier--of whom the fleet -carries more than a few--it is hardly possible to realise the utter -glow of the imagination in the tyro, seeing for the first time those -spaces of the earth he has visualised for twenty years. You, therefore, -like a good soldier, put on the breast-plate of common sense, and -look up on the fore-masthead at the tiny mouth of fire, delicately -gaping and closing, uttering the Morse lingo (St. Elmo's fire, caught -and harnessed to human uses, by some collective Prospero) and make an -attempt to construe in your clumsy, 'prentice way. - -Almost you will always fall asleep at this, and lie there a couple of -hours. And when you wake you go on lying there; and it is of little -consequence whether you lie there all night, or not, in the delicate -tropic air. And often you do so, and dream of all things but war. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -UP THE CANAL - - -We put into the outer harbour at Aden for some hours to wait for the -main fleet, from which we had been parted mysteriously off Colombo. -They came in the early morning, handed us a heavy home-mail, and by -sundown we were all in motion, steaming up into the heat of the Red -Sea. If this is the Red Sea in midwinter, the Lord deliver us from -its summer! The heat is beguiled by heavy betting as to the port -of disembarkation. But as we get up towards Suez the hand of the -war-lords begins to show itself in cryptic paragraphs of troop-ship -orders--and the like. Marseilles is our desired haven, and next to that -Southampton. But-- - - It sounds like stories from the land of spirits - If any man get that which he desires, - Or any merit that which he obtains. - -Before lunch on the --th the African coast loomed up on the port-bow. -About mid-day we were steaming over the traditionally located -Israelitish crossing. Curious! the entirely unquestioning attitude of -the most blasphemous trooper afloat towards the literal authenticity of -Old Testament history. The Higher Criticism has, at any rate, no part -with the devil-may-care soldier full of strange oaths. Apparently to a -man the troops speak in quite an accepted fashion of the miraculous -Israelitish triumph over the Egyptian army: the inference from which -is, perhaps, that blasphemy is rather an habitual mannerism in such men -than anything deliberate. But after a month's living in their midst it -requires no such occasion as this discussion of Mosaic geography to -tell you that. - -After lunch the Arabian coast also was to be seen. The contrast between -the coasts is memorable. It was a warm, grey day, and Arabia showed -more delicate than we had yet seen it. The immense mountains were -almost beyond sight. All the foreground was opalescent sand shot with -tiny cones and ridges of rock, themselves streaked with colour as -though sprinkled with the same sand. The effect of opalescence must be -purely atmospheric--but it is very beautiful. - -But the African coast is rugged to the water's edge. The mountains -tower out of the sea; and the grey day, which drew out the iridescence -of Arabia, only blackened deeper the gigantic mountains of Africa. The -one is delicate pearl and amber, the other is ebony. Well justified -by sight and feeling were the judgments of books upon the perfumes -and delicate-bred steeds and philosophy of Arabia as over against the -grimness of "Darkest Africa." - -All gazing was distracted by a death on board at sunset. The body -was buried under the moon at eight o'clock. Every soldier stands to -attention; the engines are stopped; in the sudden silence the solemn -service is read; the body is slid from the plank; the massed buglers -sound the Last Post.... The engines begin again to throb and grind, and -the routine, broken rudely but momentarily, resumes. - -Next morning we wakened in the harbour of Suez. We lay here a day. -There appeared to have been some guerilla sniping from the banks of the -Canal. The troop-ship bridges were barricaded with sandbags, and all -ranks warned against exposing themselves unnecessarily. A shot in the -back out of the desert would be a more or less ignominious beginning, -and, as an ending, unutterable! - -At ten in the morning we started into the Canal. Much valuable Egyptian -shore was missed by our being obliged to cross to starboard and salute -a French cruiser lying in the mouth. But before we had well passed -her the Arabian bank became thick with Ghurkas. War--or the rumour -of war--was brought home to our bosoms by their deep and elaborate -entrenchments, barbed-wire entanglements, and outworks. The Ghurkas -justify, seen in the flesh, all that has been said of their physique: -short, deep-chested fellows, with a grin that suggests war is their -sport indeed. - -On the Egyptian side the Suez suburbs stretched away in a thin strip -of fertile country bearing crops and palm-groves and following the -rail to Cairo--easily visible, running neck-and-neck with a half-dozen -telegraph-lines. Later on, the line draws still nearer to the Canal, -making a halt at each of the Canal stations. The stations, with their -neat courtyards and neat French offices, and the neat and handsome -red-roofed villa, break the monotony of sand-ridge. And the monotony of -ejaculation from the deck is broken by a robust French voice shouting a -greeting through the megaphone from the station pontoon. - -The Egyptian bank is still more strongly fortified; for in addition -to the entrenchments and entanglements of the other shore, the -place bristles with masked-batteries. The troops here were chiefly -Australian, with a sprinkling of Ghurka and of Sikh cavalry. Here -and there an Indian trooper would indicate by pantomime that firing -and bayoneting were in progress in the interior. But how much was -histrionic fervour and how much the truth remains to be known. - -The Canal is embanked with limestone as far as the Bitter Lakes, and -at intervals thereafter. The Egyptian shore from the Lakes almost to -Ismailia is planted with a graceful grove of fir. The controllers -of the Canal evidently intend it shall be more than a commercial -channel--in some sense, a place to be seen. This is essentially French. - -It was evident that trouble from the Turk was expected. The strongest -fortifications yet seen had been erected on the Arabian bank: much -artillery, thousands of men, searchlight, and frequent outpost. Our own -stern-chasers were unmasked and charged, ready in the event of game -showing. Almost every hour the troops were called to attention to pass -a British or French gunboat. All the warships had their guns run out -and their sandbags piled. - -We steamed steadily to Port Said, at a pace which, if made habitual by -shipping here, would prove bad for the Canal shore and channel. - -The towns of this route increase in size as we progress. Port Said -spreads herself out to prodigal limits.... On a nearer approach you -may see the wharves of the Arabian side lined with coal-tramps, backed -in like so many vans and disgorging into barges. There is the flash -of a grin, the white of an eye. The Port-side is the more interesting. -The finest buildings of the city would seem to be standing along the -water's edge. The business advertisements of the most cosmopolitan -city in the world are emphatically English; the signs for Kodak, and -Lipton's, and King George the Fourth Whisky, and the rest of them, look -familiarly out. - -The touch of war is to be seen at any interval along the Canal; here -it is laid on with a trowel. Ghurkas are encamped in the suburb; -reclining at the foot of the Admiralty steps is a submarine rusted -and disfigured; ten minutes after, you pass the seaplane station; and -before the ship is at rest a hydroplane has buzzed over our masthead -and taken the water for a half-mile at the stern. Before dark three -monoplanes and a biplane have swept in out of the southern distance and -gone to roost after their scouting flight. - -We were anchored within fifty yards of the heart of the city. One knew -not whether to be galled by the proximity of our prison-house to the -blandishments of such a city or grateful for a proximity which let us -see so much of it from deck. Seen through a glass, Arab, Frenchmen, -Italian, British, Yankee, Jap, and Jew justified the cosmopolitan -reputation of a city mid-set on the trade-route between the East and -West. The Canal here is gay as a Venetian highway and busy with flying -official cutters and pleasure craft and native boats. These last -swarmed to the side and drove a trade that was fierce; for the night -was coming, when no man could work at that. This was the degenerate -East indeed--not a cigar to be had, nothing to smoke but cheap and -foul Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes, fit food for eunuchs and such -effeminate rascals--for their vendors (for example) dressed in a most -ambiguous skirt: you never know whether, beneath skirt and turban, you -have a man or a woman! - -The money-getters over the side included, here, a boat-load of -serenaders and one of jugglers. The first rung the changes on their -orchestra and their throats until we were as tired as they; and in -consequence their gorgeous parasol, gaping for coin in the hands of the -boy, gathered in some missiles whose purchasing power was not high. The -jugglers were more deserving. - -The same unhallowed load of black bargees as at Aden came alongside to -coal and make night hideous. But they worked harder--time was short -and the boss used a rope's-end, and actually "laid out" more than one -who dared to stop for scraps thrown. They eked out their industry with -an alleged chant, echoed in derision by the troops all over the ship. -About midnight firing--or its equivalent--began to the south. At the -sound of guns the Mohammedan bargees forgot their labours and the -rope's-end--as did the boss, together with his authority--cast aside -their baskets, and incontinently fell on their faces in the coal-dust -and called in terror upon Allah. - -Soon after dawn we stood out for Alexandria, and were there early the -following morning. The sun rising behind the city cast into flat black -Pompey's Pillar and the Port. It was hard to see, in the first blush, -in this city--when the sun had risen above it--a centre of action of -Pompey and of Alexander and of Cæsar. There is a curious blending of -age and of what is intensely modern; and so it is more easy to conceive -Sir Charles Beresford bombarding from the _Condor_, with Admiral -Seymour pounding from behind; or Napoleon storming the citadel. From -our anchorage it was with ease we saw the scene of bombardment and the -converging-point from which the Egyptians fled helter-skelter to the -hinterland. - - * * * * * - -Anchored in the harbour, we supposed by habit we should have to be -content with externals and with conjecture as to what was to be seen in -the midst of the city. But we loitered some days to disembark infantry, -and leave was granted freely. One would have easily given a month's pay -for a day ashore--apart from the month's pay he could spend there--had -that been necessary. - -Your first business after leaving the gangway is to stave-off the -horde of beggars and gharry-drivers (an Australian cab-rank is put -to shame here) and choose one of the latter's vehicles approximately -respectable. It takes ten minutes' brisk driving to get you well out of -the labyrinth of wharves, docks, and dhows. You emerge by one of seven -dock-gates, vigilated by native police, into the Arab quarter, by which -alone approach to the city proper is possible. Cook's tourists drive -hurriedly through this region, and protect their eyes and noses with -the daily newspaper. The wise man knows that if he is to see Alexandria -he will dismiss the gharry and walk--and walk slowly--through the -native-quarter. In fact, he will care not a damn whether he ever gets -to imposing French and English residential quarters or not.... - -So, in your wonder at the utter strangeness of everything you overpay -the driver some five piastres and begin to thread your way over the -cobbles. All building is of stone, with a facing of cement, which once -was bright-coloured, but has faded into faint blues and browns and -greys; and if you look up and along the street of crumbling, flat-faced -upper storeys broken by tiny balconies, you feel intensely the gentle -irregularity and the mass of mellow colour. The one and the other is -never seen in Australia, with our new shining-painted angularities of -hardwood and bright nails and eaves and gables and sharp-sloping roofs. -A gentle irregularity, in a street where boards thrust out and planks -give way and vulgarly project themselves, where neither roofs nor -fronts are flat, is unknown in our country. - -What Mr. Wells calls "the inundating flood of babies" ebbs and flows -in the streets. The Arab women, bare-legged, slovenly of gait, broad -of person, with swaying, unstable bust, move up and down or sit in the -doorways, or lounge and haggle over a purchase. Every hovel in the -bazaars, with its low door and dark recesses, sells or makes something, -and the Arab quarter is a succession of bazaars. The artificers squat -at their work in brass or clay or fabric or gold; the greybeards sit -at the doors with hubble-bubble and dream through the day in a state -of coma. Fruits and dates, sweets and pastry, and Eastern culinary -products that defy nomenclature by the Australian, are piled in an -Eastern profusion. Sweets and pastry abound in excess and are curiously -cheap. Toffee is sold from stands at every street-corner, and the -quantity you might carry off for sixpence would be embarrassing. Pastry -is made here of a flavour and lightness unexcelled by any English -housewife. Sit at an open restaurant, call for a light lunch, and you -will have a plate heaped with the most delicious meat and spice pastry -and sugared fruits, for something less than the price of a street-stall -pie in Australia, and with a glass of sherbet thrown in. The fineness -of the fabrics sold (amongst bales of Manchester rubbish) will draw -the better class of Egyptian woman into the bazaars of this east-end; -they are beautiful in rich black silk from head to toe, with a delicate -white yashmak; they have a regularity of feature and a complexion and -a beauty of eye and of gait to make you look again. Nothing is lost to -them by the setting through which they glide: the ragged bargainers, -the sluttishness of the women, the unmitigated dirt of earth and asses -and children and tethered goats, and water-carriers with their greasy -swine-skins filled and shining. They offer an analogy to the stately -mosque and minaret which lifts its graceful head above the squalid -erections of the poor. And as futilely might the stranger pry into -those features with his free curiosity as attempt an entrance to the -Mosque unattended. - -Progress is slow towards the Square. Not the interest of the scene -alone invites you to linger: the whole atmosphere is one of lounge. -Everyone moves at a lounging pace; those not in motion lounge; there -are periodical cafés where the men lounge in the fumes of smoke and -native spirits by the half-day together. No one hurries. Business seems -rather a hobby and an incident than the earnest, insistent thing it is -in England. The advantage surely lies with the Arab; he finds time to -live and contemplate and get to know something of himself. God help the -American! Better, perhaps, to spend the evening of your life with your -chin on your knees and your hubble-bubble adjacent, looking out on the -life before you, and within upon your own, than boast yourself still -keen in the steel trade; that your features are "mobile and alert," -though your head is grey, whereas your contemporaries are "failing." ... - -At the end of a half-day you'll know your proximity to the -Centre by the uprising of "respectable" cafés and imposing -cigarette-manufactories and of hotels. And you come into the Square -overlooked by the noble statue of the noble Mahomet Aly--every ounce a -soldier. - -Wide and well-built streets lead away into the regions of high-class -trade and residence. You had best take a gharry here. There are two -extreme classes amongst tourists--the thoroughgoing Cook's sight-seer -who works exclusively by the vehicle and the book, and the tourist who -steadily refuses to "do" the stock places. Each is at fault if he is -inflexible: the former in the Arab quarter, the latter when he emerges -from it. For in a city such as Alexandria the visitor who declines to -see the spots relict of the ancient history of this world is clearly -an obdurate fool with a strange topsy-turvey-dom of values. Let him -take a gharry and a book in his hand when the time is ripe; let him be -free with his piastres when Pompey's Pillar stands over the catacombs -of the city. The Forts of Cæsar and of Napoleon watch over the sea. He -may stand upon the ground where was the library of Alexandria and where -Euclid reasoned over his geometrical figures in the sand. Here Hypatia -suffered martyrdom and Cleopatra held her court and died in her palace. -On the northern horn of the harbour stood the great Beacon of Pharos, -one of the Seven Wonders. - -So you get your vehicle and a chattering guide.... - -On the way back to ship the Park and the Nouzha Gardens are a delicious -sight after the aridity of the desert.... The gharry is dismissed on -re-entering the Arab quarter; it would be a sad waste of opportunity to -drive.... - -We climbed the gangway bearing much fruit and dirt, and very much -late for dinner. And after mess the boat-deck and the pipes and our -purchases in tobacco and our ventures in cigars--and the day all over -again. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -ABBASSIEH - - -We left the ship's side in a barge that might have carried twice our -number without crowding. Every man of us had chafed at the confinement -of the voyage, but not one did not now regret the dissociation from our -unit, with all the chances it carried of never rejoining, and even, -possibly, of never getting to Europe at all. Private friendships do -not fall within the consideration of motives in the issue of military -orders. Men were calling a farewell from the deck with whom we would -have given much to go through the campaign. There was nothing for it -but to cultivate the philosophy of the grin and simulate an elation at -being free, at last, from the prison-house, and chaff the others about -the bitter English winter they were sailing into, and claim we had the -best of it. But in our hearts we coveted their chances of moving into -Europe first. No part in the Egyptian army of occupation, with the -off-chance of a fitful brawl with the Turk, compensated for that. - -Baggage required but brief handling. We had little more than our rifles -and equipment and kit-bags. By sunset we were entrained, and flying -between the back-yards of Alexandria. A five hours' run was before us. -There was nothing to be seen except each other, and we had had enough -of that in the last five weeks. We cast about for something to eat -(the ship's cooks' fatigue had bagged a sack of cold fowl before making -their exit from the bowels of the transport), and composed ourselves to -sleep. The cessation of motion at Cairo, at 2 a.m., awakened us. Half -an hour afterwards we were at Abbassieh, tumbling out into the cold -and "falling-in." A guide was waiting. The baggage was piled on the -platform under a guard until the morning. A pair of blankets per man -was issued, and we marched through a mile of barracks to the camp. The -fuddled brains of those still half asleep had conceived a picture of -tents and the soft, warm sand and the immediate resumption of slumber. -This was ill-founded. We poked about for a place in which to sleep. -Ultimately we stumbled upon a line of blockhouses erected for messing, -wherein we crept, posted a couple of sentries, and disposed ourselves -about the tables. It was very cold; had we been less tired, we should -have been about before seven the next morning. - -Abbassieh, except for its mosque, is nothing but a barrack-settlement. -Barracks almost encircle the camp. Indeed, it would appear that the -Regular Cairene troops are mostly quartered in this suburb. The eastern -and northern barracks are for the Egyptian Regulars; the Territorials -occupy those on the west. We see much of either. The Egyptians are -impressive--very lithe and strongly built, but not tall. Alertness is -the badge of all their tribe. The first impression they give is that -everything in their training is done "at the double." As you turn in -your bed at 5.30, you hear their _réveille_ trumpeted forth from the -whole barrack settlement; and that is significant. To a man, they bear -about the mouth those lines seen upon the face of the thoroughgoing -athlete. They love to fraternise with the Australians. The Turks they -hate with a perfect hatred; more than one has lost a brother "down the -Canal." If this is the type of man Kitchener had with his British, the -consistent victories of his Egyptian campaign are quite in the order of -nature. They show an individual strength, efficiency, and alertfulness -which probably is to be seen nowhere else--except, perhaps, among the -Ghurkas--in all the British forces now under arms. The best Australian -or Territorial unit will have its weeds and its blear-eyed and its -round-shouldered and its slouchers. Here you look for them in vain. - -The Camp is busy enough at any time of the day, and the Army Service -Corps which supplies it is almost as busy as any unit on active -service. The difference is that it is not feverishly busy, and that -it has a convenient and resourceful base from which to work--the city -of Cairo, as well and variously stocked as the most fastidious army -could wish. And an army which is merely sitting in occupation is in -danger of growing fastidious--with shops of Parisian splendour and -Turkish baths and cafés of the standard of the _Francatelli_ within -two miles, and opportunity of generous leave. In the first half of -the day the camp supply depôt is animated with men of more than one -race and beasts of many breeds. Long trains of camels and donkeys -move in from the irrigation with their loads of green fodder and -vegetables, and the high and narrow Arab carts, decorated fore and -aft in quasi-hieroglyphic, bring in the chaff and grain. General -service waggons, manned by Australians, are there too. The unloading -and distribution is done chiefly by hired Arabs working under the -superintendence of our men. The din is terrific; no Arab can work -without much talk and shout. If he has no companion to be voluble -with, he talks with and at his beast. But here is a crowd of a -hundred of them, and it is with difficulty the superintendents make -themselves audible, much less intelligible. All the heavy fatigue -work is done by natives attached--splitting wood, digging drains and -soakage-pits, erection of out-houses, removal of refuse of all sorts. -Native labour is extremely cheap, and beside its official employment -the men use it for such purposes as private washing; a native takes -your week's soiled clothes and returns them next day, snow white, for -a couple of piastres. During certain hours the camp swarms with Arab -vendors of newspapers, fruit, sweets, cakes, post-cards, Arab-English -phrase-books, rifle-covers (invaluable, almost indispensable, here to -the right preservation of arms), clothing, tobacco and cigarettes. They -easily become a bane if encouraged in any degree. Native police patrol -the place day and night for the sole purpose of keeping them in check. -This is no easy matter. They are slippery as eels, cunning as foxes, -and impudent as they make 'em. They fight incessantly; bloody coxcombs -are to be seen daily, and the men rarely hesitate to fan an embryonic -fight into a serious combat as a relief from the lassitude of the -mid-day; for the noon is as hot as the night is cold. To incite is the -soldier's delight: "Go it, Snowball!"--"Well hit, Pompey!"--"Get after -him!" ... until a couple of native police break in and carry off the -combatants by the lug. Even then, they often break away and resume, or -clear off into the desert. And a policeman in thick blue serge, with -leggings and bayonet, is no match in a chase for a bare-footed Arab in -his cotton skirt. - -The Arab is intelligent, and in many cases has picked up decent English -and speaks with fluency. Between the early parade and breakfast we -often engage them in talk, partly for amusement, partly to improve our -mongrel Arabic. They are good subjects for interrogation, with a nice -sense of humour--indulged often at your expense--and a knack of getting -behind the mind of the questioner. They excel, too, in the furnishing -of examples in illustration of answers to questions about custom and -usage in Egypt. The best conversationalists, by far, are the native -police sergeants, who are chosen a good deal for their intelligence -and mental alertfulness. Get a police sergeant into your tent after -tea, and you have a fruitful evening before you. He readily discusses -Mohammedanism, and Egyptian history and peoples, and local geography -and customs, and is as pleased to discuss as you to start him. The -intelligent Arab in British employ is a revelation in intellectual -freshness and open-mindedness. He never speaks in formula, and is -clearly astonished at the want of intellectual curiosity in many of his -interlocutors. - -The men sleep in bell-tents--some in the sand; others, more flush of -piastres, on a species of matting supplied by the native weavers. Sand -may be warm and comfortable enough in itself, but it breeds vermin -prolifically, specialising in fleas. And at midnight you will see an -unhappy infested fellow squatting, roused from sleep because of their -importunity, conducting a search by candle-light, engaged in much the -same business as his Simian ancestors; the difference is that whereas -they were too strong-minded to be disturbed in their sleep by any such -trifle, his search is mostly nocturnal--though not exclusively so; -and, moreover, in place of their merely impatient gibbering, he speaks -with eloquence and consecutiveness, often in quite sustained periods, -logically constructed and glowing with purple patches.... The Medical -Officer has got a paragraph inserted in camp routine orders about a -bathing parade on Fridays, compelling a complete ablution. But what -avails cold water, once a week? Most men, however, have been known to -bathe more often. - -The military Medical Officer in this country is as considerable a -personage as the medicine-man amongst the American Indians. In a land -where the rainfall is not worth mentioning, and the sun is hot, and the -natural drainage poor, and sanitation little considered by the natives, -he is a man whose word in camp is law. He speaks almost daily, through -camp orders or through pamphlets of his own compiling, imperative words -of warning, and in the daily camp inspection the Commandant is his -mere satellite. "Avoid," says he (in effect) in his fifth philippic -against dirt, "the incontinent consumption of fruit unpeeled and -raw or unwashed vegetables. Therefrom proceed dysentery, enteritis, -Mediterranean fever, parasitic diseases, and all manner of Egyptian -scourges. Would you fly the plagues of Egypt, abhor the Arab hawker -and the native beer-shop." Certain quarters are hygienically declared -"out of bounds." They include "all liquor-shops and cafés, except -those specified hereafter ..."; the village of Abbassieh; the village -adjoining the Tombs of the Caliphs (the most squalid in Cairo). It is -for other reasons than hygienic that the gardens of the Sultan's palace -at Koubbeh and the Egyptian State-railways are placed out of bounds too. - -Men scarcely need go to Cairo for the satisfaction of their most -fastidious wants. The regimental institute receives camp-rent from -grocer, haberdasher, keeper of restaurants, vendor of rifle-covers, -barber, boot-repairer, tailor, and proprietor of the wet-canteen. - -We get precious and intermittent mails from Australia. Their delivery -is somewhat irregular. That is no fault of our friends. What may be the -fault of our friends is an ultimate scarcity of letters. One has read -of the ecstasies of satisfied longing with which the exile in Labrador -reads his half-yearly home mail. If friends in Australia knew fully the -elation their gentle missives inspire here, they would write with what -might become for them a monotonous regularity. The man who gets a fair -budget on mail-day hankers after no leave that night. - -Sabbath morning in the Egyptian desert breaks calm; there is no -before-breakfast parade. The sergeants set the example of lying a -little after waking, as at home. Through the tent door, as you lie, -you can see the sun rise over the undulating field of sand. The long -stone Arab prison, standing away towards the sun in sombre isolation, -is sharply defined against the ruddy east. The sand billows redden, -easily taking the glow of the dawn; and the hills of rock in the south, -which look down over Cairo, catch the level rays until their rich brown -burns. A fresh breeze from the heart of the desert, pure as the morning -wind of the ocean, rustles the fly and invites you out, until you can -lie no longer. Throwing on your great-coat, you saunter with a towel, -professedly making for the shower-baths, but careless of the time you -take to get there, so gentle is the morning and so mysteriously rich -the glory of Heliopolis, glittering like the morning star, and so -spacious the rosy heaven reflecting the sun-laved sand. - -You dawdle over dressing in a way that is civilian. By the time these -unregimental preliminaries to breakfast are over, the mess is calling; -and thereafter is basking in the sun beneath the wall of the mess-hut -with the pipes gently steaming, reading over the morning war-news. -The news is cried about the camp on Sunday more clamorously than on -any other day: Friday is the Mohammedan Sabbath. Sunday brings forth -special editions of the dailies, and all the weeklies beside. The -soldier is the slave of habit, and the Sunday morning is instinctively -unsullied. Even horse-play is more or less disused. The men are content -to bask and smoke. - -At 9.15 the "Fall-in" sounds for parade for Divine service. Columns -from all quarters converge quietly on a point where the Chaplain's -desk and tiny organ rest in the sand. By 9.30 the units have massed -in a square surrounding them and are standing silently at ease. The -Chaplain-Colonel whirrs up in his car. He salutes the Commandant and -announces the Psalm. Thousands of throats burst into harmonious praise, -and the voice of the little organ, its leading chord once given, is -lost in the lusty concert. The lesson is read; the solemn prayers for -men on the Field of Battle are offered: no less solemn is the petition -for Homes left behind; the full-throated responses are offered. The -Commandant resumes momentary authority. He commands them to sit down; -they are in number about five thousand. The Chaplain bares his head, -steps upon his dais, and reclining upon the sands of Egypt the men -listen to the Gospel, much as the Israelites may have heard the Word of -God from the bearded patriarch--even upon these very sands. - -At no stage in the worship of the God of Battles is the authority of -military rank suppressed. The parade which is assembled to worship -Him that maketh wars to cease is never permitted to be unmindful of -a Major. One despises proverbial philosophy in general, but herein -the reader may see, if he will, a kind of comment on the truism that -Heaven helps those that help themselves. Colonels and Majors are part -of the means whereby we hope to win. The persistence of military rank -throughout Divine worship is the implicit registering of a pledge to do -our part. There is nothing in us of the unthinking optimist who says it -will all come out well and that we cannot choose but win.... - -As the Chaplain offers prayer a regiment of Egyptian Lancers gallops -past with polished accoutrements and glittering lance-heads for a -field-day in the desert. Bowed heads are raised, and suppressed -comments of admiration go round, and the parson says _Amen_ alone. - - - - -SECTION B.--CAIRO - - - - -CHAPTER I - -ON LEAVE IN CAIRO - - -It is not so long ago as to render it untrue now that Dean Stanley -said, looking down from the Citadel: "Cairo is not the ghost of the -dead Egyptian Empire, nor anything like it." - -The interval elapsed since that reflection was uttered has, indeed, -only deepened its truth. Cairo is becoming more modern every season. -The "booming" of Cairo as a winter resort for Europeans was begun at -the opening of the Canal by the Khedive Ismail. His ambition was the -transforming of Cairo into a kind of Paris of Africa. The effort has -not died with him. It has persisted with the official-set and their -visitors. The result now is that in half an hour's ride you may pass -from those monuments of antiquity, the Sphinx and the Pyramid of -Cheops, in a modern tram-car, along a route which is neither ancient -nor modern, into a city which blends in a most amazing fashion Europe -of to-day with Egypt of a very long time past. There are wheels within -wheels: at the foot of the Great Pyramid are crowded shanties and -taverns such as you might enter in a poorer Melbourne Street or on a -new-found gold-field; and the intensity of the contradiction in Cairo -itself baffles description. - -Cairo has been so accurately portrayed in every aspect with the pen -that it seems presumptuous to attempt to reproduce even impressions, -much less relate facts. One prefers, of course, if he does attempt to -do either, to give impressions rather than facts. Any guide-book will -give you facts. And the reader who demands a sort of Foster-Frazer -tabulation of facts is analogous to those unhappy readers of romance -who rank incident above characterisation. - -What one feels he must say, chiefly, is that it is the living rather -than the dead in Cairo that attract most strongly. You go to the Museum -or stand beside the sarcophagus of the King's Chamber in the Great -Pyramid once, and again; not because it is conventionally fitting, but -because that conventional appropriateness rests upon a broad and deep -psychology: these places have their hold upon you. But incomparably -stronger is that which draws you times without number to the bazaars. -"Fool!" says Teufelsdröckh. "Why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy -antiquarian fervour, to gaze on the stone Pyramids of Geeza, or the -clay ones of Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and -inert, looking over the desert, foolishly enough, for the last three -thousand years...." - -A half-day in the bazaars I would not exchange for a whole wilderness -of Sphinxes. You may go twice and thrice before the Sphinx, but there -comes a time when there is no place for you but the ebb and flow of the -human tide in the narrow streets; when you spend all your leave there, -and are content to commend the venerable dead and their mausolea to the -Keeper of Personality for ever. - -I dare not enter on the multiplicity of the charm of the bazaars: more -accurately, I cannot. The dazzling incongruity of vendors and of wares -under the over-meeting structures multiplies multiplicity. They move -and cry up and down classified bazaars. A vociferous Arab hawks a cow -for sale through the boot-bazaar; the delicious Arabian perfumes of -the picturesque scent bazaar are fouled by a crier of insanitary food; -Jews, French, Italians, Tunisians, Greeks, and Spaniards jostle each -other through the alleys of the tent bazaar, braziers' bazaar, bazaar -of the weavers, book bazaar--bazaar of any commodity or industry you -care to name; and the proprietors and artificers squat on their tiny -floors, maybe four feet square. In the busy forenoon, looking up the -Mooski, it is as though the wizard had been there: almost you look -for the djin to materialise. Rich colour is splashed over the stalls -and the throng; there is music in the jingle of wares and the hum of -voices; and the sober and graceful mosque, its rich colour gently -mellowed by centuries of exposure, lifts a minaret above the animation. -If this is the complexity of the broad view, what contrasts are thrust -at you from the detail of men and things, as you saunter through! - -Here in the Mooski is the micro-Cairo--Cairo bodied forth in little, -except for the intruding official set and the unrestrained quarter of -the brothels. But less truthfully might you set out to picture the real -Cairo with the former than without the latter. Any account which passes -without note the incessant trade--in the high-noon as under the garish -night-lights--driven by the women of Cairo will altogether misrepresent -the city. It is with a hideous propriety that she should stand -partly on the site of Old Babylon. She is a city which, in perhaps -her most representative quarter, lives in and for lasciviousness. The -details of that trade in its thoroughgoing haunts are no more to be -described than looked upon. There is no shame; sexual transactions are -conducted as openly and on as regular and well-established a footing -of bargaining and market values as the sale of food and drink. Meat -and drink, indeed, they must furnish to much of the population, and -its alimentary properties are to be seen at every corner and in every -gutter in hideousness of feature and disease unutterable. Not Paris, -nor Constantinople, approaches in shamelessness the conduct of venereal -industry in Cairo. All the pollution of the East would seem to drain -into their foul pool. That which is nameless is not viewless. I speak -that I do know and testify that I have seen. The phrase, the act, every -imagination of the heart of man (and of woman), is impregnated with the -filth of hell. - -The official set you will see disporting itself on the piazza at -Shepheard's or the Continental every afternoon. The official set -is also the fashionable set, and it or its sojourning friends--or -both--make up the monied set. I had no opportunity of going to a -race-meeting at Gezireh; but it should come near to holding its own in -"tone" with the great race-day at Caulfield. - -Shepheard's is an habitual rendezvous of British officers at any time. -The officers of the permanent army at Cairo assemble there, and the -general orders are posted in the entrance-hall as regularly as at -the Kasr-el-Nil Barracks. It is at Shepheard's that officers most do -congregate. According to a sort of tacit agreement--extended later -into an inescapable routine order--none lower in rank than a Subaltern -enters there. - -Otherwise, everywhere is the soldier; there is nothing he does not -see. Everything is so utterly new that a day in Cairo is a continual -voyage of discovery; and if he does no more than perambulate without -an objective, it is doubtful if he has not the best of it. Fools and -blind there are who look on everything from a gharry, fast-trotting. -God help them! How can such a visitor hope to know the full charm -of manner and voice and attire of the vendor of sherbet or sweet -Nile-water if he move behind a pair of fast-trotting greys? How may -he hope to know the inner beauties of a thoroughgoing bargaining-bout -between two Arabs, when he catches only a fragment of dialogue and -gesture in whisking past? What does he know of the beggars at the city -gate in the old wall?--except how to evade them. Little he sees of the -delicate tracery of the mosque; no time to wander over ancient Arab -houses with their deserted harems, floor and walls in choice mosaic, -rich stained windows, with all the symbolism of the manner of living -disposed about the apartment. It is denied to him to poke about the -native bakeries, to converse with salesmen, to look in on the Schools -chanting _Al Koran_, to watch the manual weavers, tent-makers, and -artificers of garments and ornaments. One cannot too much insist that -it is a sad waste of opportunity to go otherwise than slowly and afoot, -and innocent of "programmes," "schemes," _agenda_--even of set routes. - -The alleged romance of Cairo is alleged only. Cairo is intensely -matter-of-fact. In Carlyle's study of Mahomet you read: "This night -the watchman on the streets of Cairo, when he cries 'Who goes?' will -hear from the passenger, along with his answer, 'There is no God but -_God_.'--'_Allah akbar, Islam_,' sounds through the souls, and whole -daily existence, of these dusky millions." - -This is romance read into Cairo by Carlyle. The watchman gets far -other rejoinders to his cry this night--answers the more hideous for -Carlyle's other-worldly supposition. Romance is gone out of Cairo, -except in a distorted mental construction of the city. Cairo is not -romantic; it is picturesque, and picturesque beyond description. - -Alfresco cafés are ubiquitous. Their frequency and pleasantness suggest -that the heat of Australia would justify their establishment there in -very large numbers. Chairs and tables extend on to the footpaths. The -people of all nations lounge there in their fez caps, drinking much, -talking more, gambling most of all. Young men from the University -abound; much resemble, in their speech and manner, the young men of -any other University. They deal in witty criticism of the passengers, -but show a readiness in repartee with them of which only an Arab -undergraduate is capable. - -The gambling of the cafés is merely symbolic of the spirit of gambling -which pervades the city. It is incipient in the Arab salesman's love -of bargaining for its own sake. The commercial dealings of Egypt, -wholesale and retail alike, are said to want fixity in a marked degree. -Downright British merchants go so far as to call it by harder names -than the "spirit of gambling." The guides are willing to bet you -anything on the smallest provocation. Lottery tickets are hawked about -the streets like sweetmeats; there are stalls which sell nothing but -lottery tickets, and thrive upon the sale. - -You will see much, sitting in these cafés at your ease. Absinthe and -coffee are the drinks. Coffee prevails, served black in tiny china -cups, with a glass of cold water. It is a delicious beverage: the -coffee fiend is not uncommon. Cigarettes are the habitual smoke in the -streets. At the cafés you call for a hubble-bubble. They stand by the -score in long racks. The more genteel (and hygienic) customers carry -their own mouth-pieces, but it is not reckoned a sporting practice. - -You cannot sit five minutes before the vendors beset you with edibles, -curios, prawns, oranges, sheep's trotters, cakes, and post-cards. The -boys who would polish your boots are the most noisome. The military -camps in the dusty desert have created an industry amongst them. A -dozen will follow you a mile through the streets. If you stop, your leg -is pulled in all directions, and nothing but the half-playful exercise -of your cane upon the sea of ragged backs saves you from falling in. - -The streets swarm with guides, who apparently believe either that you -are inevitably bound for the Pyramids or incapable of walking through -the bazaars unpiloted. And a guide would spoil any bazaar, though at -the Pyramids he may be useful. If you suggest you are your own guide, -the dog suggests an assistant. They are subtle and hard to be rid of, -and frequently abusive when you are frank. The hawkers and solicitors -of the streets of Cairo have acquired English oaths, parrot-wise. The -smallest boy has got this parasitic obscenity with a facility that -beats any Australian newsboy in a canter. - -There is a frequent electric tramway service in Cairo. It is very -convenient and very dirty, and moderately slow, and most informally -conducted. The spirit of bargaining has infected even the collector -of fares. Journeying is informal in other ways; only in theory is -it forbidden (in French, Arabic, Greek, and English) to ride on the -footboard. You ride where you can. Many soldiers you will see squatting -on the roofs. And if the regulations about riding on footboards were -enforced the hawkers of meats and drinks and curios would not plague -you with their constant solicitation. The boot-boys carry on their -trade furtively between the seats: often they ride a mile, working -hard at a half-dozen boots. The conductor objects only to the extent -of a facetious cuff, which he is the last to expect to take effect. -Both motorman and conductor raise the voice in song: an incongruous -practice to the earnest-working Briton. But the Cairene Arab who takes -life seriously is far to seek. There is nothing here of the struggling -earnestness of spirit of the old Bedouin Arabs to whom Mahomet -preached. The Cairene is a carnal creature, flippant and voluptuous, -with more than a touch of the Parisian. You'll find him asleep at -his shop-door at ten in the morning, and gambling earlier still. -Well-defined articulation is unknown amongst the Arabs here, except in -anger and in fight. They do not open their teeth either to speak or to -sing. The sense of effort is everywhere wanting--in their slouching -gait, their intonation; their very writing drags and trails itself -along. But what are you due to expect in a country where the heat -blisters most of the year; where change of temperature and of physical -outlook are foreign--a country of perennially wrinkled skins, where -a rousing thunder-storm is unknown, and where the physical outlook -varies only between the limits of sand and rock? The call for comment -would arise if physical inertia were other than the rule. And of the -Anglo-Egyptian, what may you expect?... - -One has not seen Cairo unless he has wandered both by day and by night. -So, he knows at least two different worlds. To analyse the contrast -would take long. It is hard to know which part of a day charms you the -most. The afternoon is not as the morning; the night is far removed -from either. Go deeper, and you may get more subtle divisions of -twelve hours' wandering than these; with accuracy of discrimination -you may even raise seven Dantean circles in your day's progress. The -safe course, then, is to "make a day of it." Tramp it, after an early -breakfast, over the desert to the car, and plod back past the guard -after midnight. You'll turn in exhausted, but the richer in your -experience (at the expense of a few piastres) by far more than any gold -can buy. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE MOOSKI - - -The camp at Tel-el-Kebir is a good camp, as camp sites go. None the -less exhilarating for that is the prospect of leave in Cairo. After -retiring, you spend most of the night before you go in planning the -most judicious economy of the few hours you will have in the great -city. And so you wake up short of sleep--for the train leaves soon -after sunrise--and curse yourself for an incontinent fool, no better -than some mercurial youngster who cannot sleep for thinking of the -party on the next day. - -But the journey revives you. How deliciously it revives you!--and how -generously! as you skim across that green delta, sleeping under the -dew, with the mist-wreaths winding about the quiet palm-fronds. The -sweet-water canal runs silently beside you all the way between its -clover-grown tow-paths, without a ripple. The buffalo stand motionless -in the lush berseem. The Egyptian State railways are the smoothest in -the world. Two hours' swift gliding through these early-morning haunts -of quietness retrieves your loss of sleep, and would reinforce you for -a day in any city. - -As you approach Cairo you find the delta has wakened. The mists have -departed, disclosing the acres of colour in the blossom of the crops. -The road beside the Canal is peopled. The fellaheen and his family -are moving along to work on donkey and buffalo and camel. The women in -their black robes and yashmaks are moving to the dipping-places in the -Canal, pitcher on head, walking with a grace and erectness that does -you good to look on. Some are already drawing, knee-deep in the cool -water; or emerging, and showing to the world, below the freely raised -robe, that of whose outline they have no call to be ashamed. Some of -the labourers are already at work, hoeing in squads under an overseer -or guiding the primitive Vergilian plough behind its yoke of oxen. -The blindfold yak has started his weary, interminable round at the -water-wheel. The camels are looping along with their burdens of fruit -and berseem, and the tiny donkeys amble under their disproportionate -loads, sweeping the ground; they are hardly to be seen; in the distance -they show merely a jogging hillock of green. By nine o'clock, as you -race through the outskirts of Cairo, you see an occasional waiting man -asleep full-stretch on the sod; the hour is early for sleeping. On the -suburban roads are moving towards the centre venerable sheikhs, squat -on the haunches of their well-groomed donkeys; merchants lying back -in their elaborate gharries; gabbling peasants driving their little -company of beasts; English and French officials, carefully dressed, -smoking the morning cigarette. - -Shortly the Pyramids emerge on the eastern sky-line, and over the -thickening house-tops rises the splendid relief of the Makattam Hills, -with the stately citadel perched on the fringe, looking down on the -City under its soaring minarets. - -You had formed plans for the economy of the day; they are all -dissipated when you step from the train and realise yourself within -a mile of the bazaars. Their call is irresistible. The Pyramids, the -mosques, the museum--all can wait, to be visited if there is time for -it. You enter a gharry and alight at the mouth of the Mooski. It is -palpably a mouth to that seething network, as plainly defined (as you -gaze up Mooski Street from the Square) as the entrance to an industrial -exhibition. - -There is a crowd of men in the early stages of Mooski Street, whose -business, day and night, is to conduct. They lurk privily for the -innocent, like the wicked men in the Book of Psalms. The guides have -come so much into disrepute that they mostly hasten to tell you they -are not guides. "What are you, then?"--"I am student, sair"; or "I am -agent, sair"; or "I am your friend; I do not wish for money." You'll -meet such self-abnegation nowhere on earth as in the Mooski. Those -who do own to being guides will never name a price. "How much do you -want?"--"I leave that to you, sair. If you are pleased, you give me -what you think." ... This is all very subtle: the man who is agent -will get his commission and tender for baksheesh for having put you -in the way of purchase (whereas he is in league with the rogue who -fleeces you in the sale). The student shows no sort of ideal scholastic -contempt for lucre; it's of degrees of gullibility that he's chiefly -a student--and an astute one, gathering where he has not strawed. The -man who is your friend and wouldn't think of money turns out a mere -liar, downright--who does care, greatly. These are the subtlest ways -of approaching you and broaching the subject of a tour. The rascal may -simply fall into step and ask the time of day and proceed to talk -of the weather--merely glad of your company--and abruptly close the -half-mile walk with a demand for cash, like any guide requisitioned. In -short, it's to be doubted whether in any city men live on their wits -more artfully and unscrupulously than in the Cairene bazaars. - -As a practice, it's wise to decline all offers to accompany--as a -practice; but first time through it's wise to accept. No one can hope -to unravel the tangle of the Mooski geography unaided or by chance. -The labyrinth of overshadowed alleys is as confusing as the network of -saps near the firing-line. Take a guide at your first going. If he does -no more than show "the bright points" in an experience of the bazaars, -he has earned his exorbitant fee. After that, refuse him, which you -will never do without harsh discourtesy. A mere "No, thank you," is as -nothing. "Yallah minhenna"--or its equivalent--uttered in your most -quarrelsome manner, is the least of which he will begin to take notice. - -The best beginning is through the narrow doorway off Mooski Street -into the spice bazaar. Of so unpretentious a doorway you never would -suspect the purpose without a guide, and that's the first argument -for tolerating him. Can such a needle's-eye lead to anything worth -entering? You arrive in an area where the air is voluptuous with the -scent of all the spices of the East--something more delicious than even -the scent bazaar, and less enervating. All the purchasers are women, -moving round behind their yashmaks. They boil and beat the spices to -grow fat, and to be fat is a national feminine aspiration. The boys -are pounding the wares in large stone mortars, crushing out the -sweetness, which pervades like an incense. - -Appropriately enough, it is but a step into the scent bazaar proper, -and many of the purchasers there are (inappropriately) men. That the -men should wear and hanker after perfumes to this degree is one phase -of Egyptian degeneracy. The vendors squat in their narrow cubicles -lined with shelf upon shelf of gaily-coloured phials. They invite you -to sit down. Coffee is called for, and whilst that is preparing you -must taste the sweets of their wares on your tunic-sleeve. Bottle by -bottle comes down; he shakes them and rubs the stopper across your -forearm: attar of roses, jasmine, violet, orange-blossom, banana, and -the rest of them, until you are fairly stupid with the medley of sweet -fumes. You saunter off rubbing your sleeve upon your breeches, and -wondering what your comrades in arms will say if they catch you wearing -the odours of the lord of the harem. You have a tiny flask of attar of -roses upon you to send home to its appropriate wearer. - -You move on to the tarbush bazaar; Tunis bazaar, where the fine -Tunisian scarves of the guides are sold; slipper bazaar, showing piles -of the red canoe-shoe of the Soudanese hotel-waiter, and of the yellow -heelless slipper of the lounging Egyptian; blue bazaar, where the women -buy their dress-stuffs--their gaudy prints and silks, all the rough -material for their garments. No Australian flapper can hold a candle -to them in their excited keenness of selection; and there is the added -excitement of bargaining. The feminine vanities of adornment are deep -and confirmed in Cairo. To see the Cairene aristocrats purchasing -dress-material, go to Stein's or Roberts's, Hughes's or Philips's or -Senouadi's, or to any of the other big houses, in the middle afternoon. -It's there, and not at any vulgar promenading (for they all drive), -that you see the fine women of Cairo. Mostly French they are, and -beautiful indeed, dressed as aptly and with as much artistry as in -Alexandria; and that is saying the last word. There you will see a -galaxy of beauty--not in any facetious or popular sense, but actually. -It's a privilege to stand an hour in any such house and watch the -procession: a privilege that does you good. The Frenchwomen of Cairo -perform very naturally and capably the duty of matching their beauty. -They have an unerring æsthetic sense, and evidently realise well enough -that to dress well and harmoniously is a form of art almost as pure as -the painting of pictures. - -But we were in the Mooski, where the art is not so purely practised. -The Egyptian women do not dress beautifully nor harmoniously. They -dress with extreme ugliness; their colours outrage the sense at -every turn. Only the extreme beauty of their features and clarity of -complexion save them from repulsiveness. The glaring fabrics of the -blue bazaar express well the Egyptian feminine taste in colour. - -The book bazaar leads up towards the Mosque al Azhar. The books are -all hand-made. Here is the paradise of the librarian who wails for -the elimination of machine-made rubbish of the modern Press. At any -such work the Egyptian mechanic excels in patience and thoroughness. -Making books by hand is, in fact, an ideal form of labour for him, as -is hand-weaving, which still prevails, and the designing and chiselling -of the silver and brass work. _Al Koran_ is here in all stages of -production; and with propriety there is a lecture-hall in the midst -of the book bazaar, which is, so to speak, "within" the Al Azhar -University close by. A lecture is being delivered. The speaker squats -on a tall stool and delivers himself with vigour to the audience seated -on the mat-strewn floor. Well dressed and well featured they are, -jotting notes rather more industriously than in most Colonial halls of -learning, or listening with an intensity that is almost pained. - -The Moslem University in the Mosque al Azhar has a fine old front -designed with a grace and finished in a mellowness of colour that any -Oxonian College might respect. You show a proper respect--whether you -will or no--by donning the capacious slippers over your boots, as in -visiting any other mosque, and enter the outer court, filled with the -junior students. The hum and clatter rises to a mild roar. All are -seated in circular groups, usually about a loud and gesticulating -teacher; and where there is no teacher the students are swaying gently -in a rhythmic accompaniment to the drone with which _Al Koran_ is being -got by heart. There is no concerted recitation or repetition: every -man for himself. That, perhaps, helps to visualise the swaying mass of -students and to conceive the babel of sound. There is no roof above -that tarbushed throng. This is the preparatory school. The University -proper, beyond the partition, containing the adult students, alone -is roofed. Here they are all conning in the winter sunshine. Little -attention is given to visitors; most students are droning with closed -eyes, presumably to avert distraction. Few are aware of your presence. -That consciousness is betrayed chiefly by a furtively whispered -"Baksheesh!"--the national watchword of Egypt--uttered with a strange -incongruity in a temple of learning--a temple literally. - -Beyond, in the adult schools, you will hear no mention of baksheesh, -except from the high-priest of the Temple, the sheikh of the -University, who demands it with dignity, as due in the nature of a -temple-offering, but appropriated (you know) by himself and for his -own purposes. Any knowledge of a British University renders this place -interesting indeed by sheer virtue of comparison. The Koran is the -only textbook--of literature, of history, of ethics, and philosophy in -general: a wonderful book, indeed, and a reverend. What English book -will submit successfully to such a test?... - -Here is the same droning by heart and the same rhythmic, absorbed -accompaniment, but in a less degree. The lecturer is more frequent -and more animated in gesture and more loud and dogmatic in utterance. -Declamation of the most vigorous kind is the method with him, and rapt -attention with the undergraduates. The lecturers are invariably past -middle age, and with flowing beards, and as venerable in feature as -the Jerusalem doctors. The groups of students are small--as a rule, -four or five. Yet the teachers speak as loud as to an audience of two -hundred. The method here is that of the University _semina_: that is to -say, small, and seemingly select, groups of students; frequent, almost -incessant, interrogation by the student; and discussion that is very -free and well sustained. The class-rooms, defined by low partitions, go -by race, each with its national lecturers. - -Within the building are the tombs of former sheikhs, enclosed and -looked upon with reverence. These approximate to tablets to pious -founders. The sheikh will tell you that, as he puts it, the Sultan -pays for the education of all students: he is their patron. That is -to say, in plain English, the University is State-controlled and -State-supported. Moreover, the students sleep there. You may see their -bedding piled on rafters. It is laid in the floor of the lecture-room -at night. - -When you have delivered over baksheesh to the sheikh and to the -conductor and to the attendants who remove your slippers at exit, you -move down to the brass and silver bazaar. Here is some of the most -characteristic work you'll see in Egypt. Every vessel, every bowl -and tray and pot, is Egyptian in shape or chiselled design, or both. -As soon as you enter you are offered tea, and the bargaining begins, -although _Prix Fixé_ is the ubiquitous sign. It is in the fixed-price -shops that the best bargains are struck, which is at one with the -prevailing Egyptian disregard for truth. The best brass bazaars have -their own workshops attached. Labour is obviously cheap--cheap in any -case, but especially cheap when you consider that at least half the -workers in brass and silver are the merest boys. Whatever may be the -Egyptian judgment in colour, the Egyptian instinct for form is sound; -for these boys of eight and ten execute elaborate and responsible work -in design. They are entrusted with "big jobs," and they do them well. -There is almost no sketching-out of the design for chisel work; the -youngster takes his tool and eats-out the design without preliminaries. -And much of it makes exacting demands upon the sense of symmetry. This -is one of the most striking evidences of the popular artistic sense. -The national handwriting is full of grace; the national music is of -highly developed rhythm; and the national feeling for form and symmetry -is unimpeachable. - -You need more self-control in these enchanting places than the -confirmed drinker in the neighbourhood of a _pub_. Unless you restrain -yourself with an iron self-discipline, you'll exhaust all your -_feloose_. The event rarely shows you to emerge with more than your -railway-fare back to camp. But under your arm are treasures that are -priceless--except in the eyes of the salesman. You trek to the post -office and send off to Australia wares that are a joy for ever. And -there you find on the same errand officers and privates and Sisters. -There is a satisfied air about them, as of a good deed done and money -well spent, as who should say: "I may squander time, and sometimes I -squander money and energy in this Land; but in this box is that which -will endure when peace has descended, and purses are tattered, and -Egypt is a memory at the Antipodes." - - - - -BOOK II - -GALLIPOLI - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE JOURNEY - - -We were given twelve hours to collect bag and baggage and clear out -from Abbassieh. It was a night of alarms and excursions. In the midst -of it all came a home-mail. That was one of many occasions on which -one in His Majesty's service is forced to postpone the luxury of -perusal. Sometimes a mail will come in and be distributed just before -the "Fall-in" is blown. This means carrying about the budget unopened -and burning a hole in the pocket for a half-day--and more. In this -case the mail was read in the train next morning. We were out of camp -at sunrise, with the waggons ahead. By eight o'clock we had taken -leave of this fair-foul, repulsive yet fascinating city, and were -sweeping across the waving rice-fields of the delta towards the city of -Alexandria. - -We arrived about mid-day. The urgency of the summons had justified -the inference that we should embark directly. Not so. We entered what -was technically known as a rest camp at Gabbari. Rest camps had been -established at various points about the city to accommodate temporarily -the British and French expeditions then arriving daily _en route_ to -the Dardanelles. The time was not yet ripe for a landing. Here was the -opportunity to stretch the legs--of both men and horses, and of the -mules from Spain. - -At no stage even of the classical occupation of Egypt--or -thereafter--could the inner harbour of Alexandria have given more -vividly the impression of the imminence of war. It was crammed with -transports, ranged in long lines, with here and there a battle-cruiser -between. As many as could come alongside the Quay at one time were -busily disembarking troops (mostly French), which streamed down the -gangways in their picturesque uniforms and moved off in column through -the city to the camps on the outskirts. The moral effect of such -processions upon the Egyptians could hardly be over-estimated. Long -queues of Arab scows ranged along the railway wharf, taking ammunition -and moving off to the troopships. Day and night the harbour was dotted -with launches tearing from transport to transport bearing officers of -the General Staff. As for the city--the streets, the restaurants, the -theatres and music-halls, fairly teemed with soldiers; and civilian -traffic constantly gave way before the gharries of officers--and of men. - -Many French were in our camp. There was something admirable in them, -hard to define. There was a sober, almost pathetic, restraint amongst -them--beside the Australians, which was as much as to suggest that what -they had seen and known through their proximity to the War in Europe -had had its effect. It could hardly be temperamental in the vivacious -French. They were not maudlin; and on rare occasions, infected by the -effervescing spirits of the Australians, would come into the mess-hut -at night and dance or chant the _Marseillaise_ in unison with the -melody of a French accordion. But in general they seemed too much -impressed with the nature and the possibilities of their mission for -jollification. They showed a simple and honest affection amongst -themselves. The Australians may--and do--have it, but it is concealed -under their knack of mutual banter and of argument. The French love -each other and do not shame to show it. Riding in the car a man would -fling his arm about his friend; in the streets they would link arms to -stroll. Very pathetic and very sincere and affectionate are the French -fighters. - -The evenings off duty were precious and well earned and well spent. -Little can be seen of the city at night, except its people. The best -way of seeing them as they are is to take two boon companions from the -camp, ride to town, and instal yourselves in an Egyptian café for the -night, containing none but Egyptians, except yourselves; invite three -neighbours to join you in coffee and a hubble-bubble. They'll talk -English and are glad of your company. At the cost of a few piastres (a -pipe costs one, and lasts two hours, and a cup of coffee a half) you -have their conversation and the finest of smokes and cup after cup of -the best Mocha. This is no mean entertainment. - -This kind of thing developed into a nocturnal habit, until the Italian -opera-season opened at the Alhambra. We sat with the gods for five -piastres ("a bob"). The gods were worth that in themselves to sit -amongst. The gallery is always interesting, even in Australia; but -where the gods are French, Russian, Italian, English, Jewish, Greek, -and Egyptian, the intervals become almost as interesting as the acts, -and there is little temptation to saunter out between them.... - -But all theatres and all cafés were for us cut short abruptly by the -order to embark. - -The refugee camp at Alexandria made its contribution. One had been -galled daily by the sight of strong men trapesing to and from the city -or lounging in the quarters provided by a benevolent Government. This -resentment was in a sense illogical: they had their wives and their -babies, and were no more due to fight than many strong Britishers -bound to remain at home. But the notion of refugee-men constantly got -dissociated from that of their dependents. It was chiefly the thought -of virile idleness under Government almsgiving that troubled you. -Eventually it troubled them too; for they enlisted almost in a body and -went to Cairo for training. The Government undertook to look after the -women. - -We found them fellow-passengers on our trooper. They were mostly young, -all from Jaffa, in Palestine. Seemingly they marry young and are -fathers at twenty. They brought three hundred mules with them, and were -called the Zion Mule Transport Company. It is a curious name. They were -there to carry water and food to the firing-line. - -Their wives and mothers incontinently came to the wharf to see them -leave. Poor fellows! Poor women! They wailed as the women of Israel -wail in Scripture, as only Israelitish women _can_ wail. The Egyptian -police kept them back with a simulated harshness, and supported them -from falling. Many were physically helpless. Their men broke into a -melancholy chant as we moved off, and sustained it, as the ship passed -out over the laughing water, until we reached the outer-harbour. They -got frolicsome soon, and forgot their women's weeping. We stood -steadily out into the rich blue Mediterranean. The Zionites fell to -the care of their beasts. By the time the level western rays burned on -the blue we had the geography of the ship, and had ceased speculation -as to the geography of our destination--except in its detail. We knew -we should run up through the Sporades: it was enough for us that we -were about to enter the Eastern theatre of war. That was an absorbing -prospect. To enter the field of this War at any point was a prospect -to set you aglow. But the East had become the cynosure of all eyes. No -one thought much about the sporadic duelling in the frozen West. The -world's interest in the game was centred about the Black Sea entrance. -It was the Sick Man of Europe in his stronghold that should be watched: -is he to persist in his noisome existence, or is the community of -Europe to be cleansed of him for ever? - -But before reaching the zone in which an attempt was being made to -decide that we were to thread a course through the magical Archipelago. -All the next day we looked out on the beauty of the water, unbroken -to the horizon. The men of Zion did their work and we took charge of -their fatigues. They cleaned the ship, fed and watered their mules, -and resumed their military training on the boat-deck. The initiative -of the Australian soldier is amazing. Abstractly it is so; but put -him beside a mob from Jaffa (or, better, put him over them) and he is -a masterful fellow. The Jews leap to his command. Our fellows found -a zest in providing that not one unit in the mass should by strategy -succeed in loafing. Diamond cut diamond in every corner of the holds -and the alley-ways. The language of the Australian soldier in repose -is vigorous; put him in charge of fatigue and his lips are touched as -with a live-coal--but from elsewhere than off the altar. He is commonly -charged with poverty in his range of oaths. Never believe it. The boss -and his fatigue were mutually unintelligible--verbally, that is. But -actually, there was no shadow of misunderstanding. Oaths aptly ripped -out are universally intelligible, and oaths here were supplemented with -gesture. There was no injustice done. The Australian is no bully. - -The Jerusalem brigade, though young men, were adults, but adults -strangely childish in their play and conversation. It was with the -eagerness of a child rather than with the earnestness of a man that -they attacked their drill. They knew nothing of military discipline, -even less of military drill. Their sergeant-major made one son of -Israel a prisoner for insubordination. He blubbered like a child. Great -tears coursed down as he was led oft to the "clink." The door closed -after him protesting and entreating. This is at one with the abandoned -wailing of their women. - -Drill must be difficult for them. The instruction was administered -in English; The men, who speak nothing but an admixture of Russian, -Hebrew, German, and Arabic, understood not a word of command or -explanation. They learned by association purely. They made feverish -and exaggerated efforts, and really did well. But of the stability and -deliberative coolness of a learning-man they had not a trace. This -childish method of attack never will make fighters. But they are not to -fight. They are to draw food and water. As a matter of form they are -issued with rifles--Mausers taken from the Turks on the Canal. - -At evening of the second day out we got abreast of Rhodes, with -Karpathos on the port-bow. Rhodes stood afar off: would we had -come nearer! The long darkening streak of Karpathos was our real -introduction to the Archipelago. All night we ploughed through the maze -of islands. "Not bad for the old man," said the second-mate next day; -"he's never been here before, and kept going through a muddy night." -The night had been starless. And when morning broke we lay off Chios, -with a horrible tempest brewing in the north. - -A storm was gathering up in the black bosom of Chios. Here were no -smiling wine-clad slopes, no fair Horatian landscape. All that seemed -somehow past. A battle-cruiser lay half a mile ahead. She had been -expecting us, together with two other transports and a hospital-ship in -our wake. A black and snaky destroyer bore down from far ahead, belched -past us, turned in her own length abreast of the transports, flashed -a Morse message to the cruiser across the darkening water, and we -gathered round her. She called up each in turn by semaphore: "Destroyer -will escort you westward"; and left us. - -The journey began again. There was not a breath of wind; no beam -of sunlight. The water was sullen. The islands were black masses, -ill-defined and forbidding. This introduction to the theatre of war was -apt. We were bearing up into the heart of the Sporades in an atmosphere -surcharged and menacing. No storm came. It was the worse for that. Gone -were the golden "isles that crown the Ægean deep" beloved of Byron. -Long strata of smoke from the ships of war lay low over the water, -transecting their shapes. - -After lunch the sun shone out. In the middle afternoon we came west -of Skyros, and left our transports there. They were French: Skyros -is the French base. At the end of the lovely island we turned east -and set our course for Lemnos. It was ten before the lights of Lemnos -twinkled through the blackness. At 10.30 we dropped anchor in the -outer harbour of Mudros Bay. The light on the northern horn turned and -flashed--turned and flashed upon us. Inside the boom a cruiser played -her searchlight, sweeping the zone of entrance. A French submarine -stole under our bows and cried "All's well," and we turned in to sleep. - -We were up before the dawn to verify the conjectures as to land and -water hazarded in the darkness and the cruiser's pencil of light. -At sunrise we moved in through the boom. Here were the signs of war -indeed: a hundred and fifty transports lying at their moorings; a dozen -cruisers before; the tents of the Allies clothing the green slopes. - - * * * * * - -Lemnos is beautiful. The harbour is long and winds amongst the -uplands. We were anchored beside an islet, flecked with the colour of -wild-flowers blooming as prodigally as the Greeks said they did when -they sailed these seas. The slopes about the shore were clothed with -crops and vines. Behind were grey hills of granite. - -In Mudros we lay a week, waiting, waiting. Let the spot be lovely as -you will, waiting is not good with the sound of the guns coming down on -the wind day and night. Our fifth morning on Lemnos was the Sabbath. -We woke to the soft boom of naval guns. Lemnos is a goodish sail from -the straits. The "boom, boom," was a low, soft growl, felt rather than -heard. The day before, at sundown, the first trooper of the fleet had -gone out, with band playing, to the cheering of the cruisers. The -Army and Navy have always in this campaign, shown themselves happily -complementary. A seaplane escorted them out aloft, two cruisers below. -Great was the rejoicing at the beginning of the exodus. - -Next morning we left the mules of Zion and transferred to a store-ship. -She lay two days. We solaced ourselves with bathing in the clear bay -from the ship's side, and basking nude, with our pipes, afterwards in -the pleasant heat of the spring sun; with visits to the shore, where we -wandered into the Greek Church, in size and magnificence of decoration -out of all consonance with its neighbouring villages, and where the -wine of Lemnos might be drunk for a penny a glass; with bargaining at -the boats that drew alongside from the shore, as at Aden, filled with -nuts, figs, dates, Egyptian delight--all the old stock, except Greeks, -who manned them here. The dwellers on Lemnos are all Greeks.... Would -we never move? - -On the seventh day at noon the naval cutter ran alongside. In half an -hour we were moving through the boom. As soon as we had cleared the -south-east corner of the island, Imbros stood out to port, and Tenedos, -our destination, lay dead ahead, under the mountains of Turkey in -Asia. A fresh breeze blew out of the Dardanelles, thunder-laden with -the roar of the guns, and every heave of our bow brought it down more -clear. Before sundown we were abreast of Tenedos and had sighted the -aeroplane station and had seen five of the great amphibious planes come -to earth. As we swung round to a view of the straits' mouth, every -eye was strained for the visible signs of what we had been hearing so -long. The straits lay murky under the smoke of three days' firing. The -first flash was sighted--with what a quickening of the pulse! In three -minutes we had the lay of the discharges and the bursts. An attempt was -made to muster a fall-in aft for the first issue of tobacco ration. Not -a man moved! The attempt was postponed until we should have seen enough -of these epoch-making flashes. "We can get tobacco at home--without -paying for it; you don't see cruisers spitting shrapnel every day at -Port Philip!" At length two ranks got formed-up--one for cigarettes -(appropriately, the rear), the front rank for those who smoked pipes. -Oh, degenerates!--the rear was half as long again! Two ounces of -medium-Capstan per man--in tins; four packets of cigarettes: that was -our momentous first issue. - -The bombardment went on, ten miles off. No one wanted tea. At 7.30 the -Major half-ordered a concert aft. Everyone went. It was really a good -concert, almost free of martial songs. But here and there you'd find a -man sneak off to the bows to watch the line of spurting flame in the -north; and many an auditor, looking absently at the singer, knew as -little of the theme as of the havoc those shells were working in the -night. - -We lay three days at Tenedos: so near and yet so far from the forts of -the Dardanelles. We could see two in ruins on the toe of Gallipoli, and -one tottering down the heights of the Asiatic shore at the entrance to -the straits. But the straits ran at a right-angle with the shore under -which we lay. We could see the bombarding fleet lying off the mouth. We -could see them fire, but no result. What more tantalising? - -We lay alongside Headquarters ship, loaded with the Directing Staff. -H.Q. moved up and down, at safe distances, between us and the -firing-line. We were one of an enormously large waiting fleet of -transports and storeships. The impression of war was vivid: here was -this waiting fleet, and tearing up and down the coast were destroyers -and cruisers without number, and aloft, the whirring seaplanes. - -Our moving-in orders came at three on an afternoon. This was the -heart-shaking move; for we were to sail up, beyond the mouth, to an -anchorage off the Anzac position. We were to see in detail everything -that we had, for the last three days, seen as an indistinct whole. -We were to pass immediately behind the firing-line, to test the -speculations we had been making day and night upon what was in -progress, upon the geography of the fighting zone, upon the operations -within the mouth. Every yard was a step farther in our voyage of -discovery. - -The demolitions became plain. The ports on the water's edge had toppled -over "in a confused welter of ruin." Such wall as still stood gaped -with ghastly vents. These had been the first to come under fire, and -the cruisers had done their work with a thoroughness that agreed well -with the traditional deliberation of the British Navy. And thorough -work was in progress. - -Far up the straits' entrance lay the black lines of gunboats. We moved -up the coast past an ill-starred village: the guns were at her from -the open sea. By sundown we had passed from this scene of action to -another, at ---- Beach, where the Australians had landed. The heights -above ---- Beach were the scene of an engagement far more fierce than -any we had seen below. The Turks were strongly posted in the shrubs of -the Crest. Our batteries were hardly advanced beyond the beach, and -were getting it hot. Night was coming on. A biting wind was blowing off -the land, bringing down a bitter rain from the hills of the interior. -It was almost too cold to stand in our bows and watch: what for those -poor devils juggling shell at the batteries and falling under the rain -of fire? After dark there was an hour's lull. At nine o'clock began a -two hours' engagement hot enough to make any fighter on shore oblivious -of the temperature. Towards midnight the firing ceased and the rain and -the wind abated. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -GLIMPSES OF ANZAC - -I - - -It's the monotony that kills; not hard work, nor hard fare. We have -now been disembarked on the Peninsula rather longer than three months. -But there has been little change in our way of living. Every day there -is the same work on the same beach, shelled by the same guns, manned -by the same Turks--presumably the same; for we never seem to knock-out -those furtive and deadly batteries that enfilade the Cove Beach and -maim or kill--or both--almost daily. Every morning we look out on the -same stretch of the lovely Ægean, with the same two islands standing -over in the west. - -Yet neither the islands nor the sea are the same any two successive -days. The temper of the Ægean, at this time, changes more suddenly and -frequently than ever does the Pacific. That delicious Mediterranean -colour, of which we used to read sceptically, and which we half -disbelieved in J.M. Turner's pictures, changes in the quality of its -hue almost hourly. And every morning the islands of the west take on -fresh colour and are trailed by fresh shapes of mist. The atmosphere -deludes, in the matter of distance, as though pranking for the love of -deception. To-day Imbros stands right over-against you; you see the -detail of the fleet in the harbour, and the striated heights of rocky -Samothrace reveal the small ravines; to-morrow in the early-morning -light--but more often towards evening--Imbros lies mysteriously afar -off like an isle of the blest, a delicate vapour-shape reposing on the -placid sea. - -Nor is there monotony in either weather or temperature. This is the -late October. Late October synchronises with late autumn. Yet it is a -halting and irregular advance the late autumn is making. Changes in -temperature are as incalculable as at Melbourne, in certain seasons. -Fierce, biting, raw days alternate with the comfortableness of the mild -late-summer. To-day to bathe is as much as your life is worth (shrapnel -disregarded); to-morrow, in the gentle air, you may splash and gloat an -hour, and desire more. And you prolong the joy by washing many garments. - -The Ægean autumn has yet shown little bitterness. Here on Anzac we -have suffered the tail-end of one or two autumn storms, and have had -two fierce and downright gales blow up. The wind came in the night -with a suddenness that found most unprepared. There was little rain; -insufficient to allay the maelstroms of choking dust that whirled over -our ploughed and powdered ridges. In half an hour many of us were -homeless, crouching about with our bundled bed-clothes, trespassing -tyrannically upon the confined space of the more stout dug-outs of -our friends: a sore tax upon true friendship. Men lay on their backs -and held down their roofs by mere weight of body, until overpowered. -Spectral figures in the driving atmosphere collided and wrangled and -swore and blasphemed. The sea roared over the shingle with a violence -that made even revilings inaudible. It was a night for Lear to be out. -Men had, for weeks, in spare time, been formally preparing dug-outs -against the approach of winter, but they were unprepared for weather of -such violence. And if this is a taste of the quality of winter storms, -the warning comes timely. - -For the morning showed a sorry beach. Barges had been torn adrift from -moorings and trawlers, and hurled ashore. Some were empty; some were -filled with supplies; all were battered; some disabled; some utterly -broken. One was filled with rum. Never before, on active service, had -such a chance of unlimited spirits offered. Many jars had been spirited -away when the time of unlading came. There were riotous faces and -super-merriment on the beach that morning; and by mid-day the "clink" -was overflowing. Far more serious was the state of the landing-piers. -There were--there had been--three. One stood intact; the landward -half of the second was clean gone; of the third there was no trace, -except in a few splintered spars ashore. A collective grin overlooked -the beach that morning at the time of rising. The General grinned -too--a sort of dogged grin. The remedying began forthwith; so did the -bursting of shrapnel over the workmen. This stroke of Allah upon the -Unfaithful was not to go unsupplemented. But it was as with the unhappy -Armada: the winds of heaven wrought more havoc than the enemy guns. By -nightfall the abridged pier was re-united to the shore--and this in -spite of a sea that made it impossible for barges to come alongside. -For two days the after-wind of the gale kept bread and meat and mails -tossing on the face of the waters off Anzac; and we fed on bully-beef -and biscuit, and eyed wistfully the mail-trawler pitching there with -her precious burden. - -The arrival of mails eclipses considerations of life and death--of -fighting and the landing of rations. The mail-barge coming in somehow -looms larger than a barge of supplies. Mails have been arriving -weekly for six months, yet no one is callous to them. Sometimes -they come twice in a week; for a fresh mail is despatched from the -base post-office in instalments which may spread over three or four -landings. The Army Corps Post Office never rests. Most mails are -landed between sunset and dawn--generally after midnight. Post-office -officials must be there to supervise and check. It's little sleep -they get on "mail nights." Incoming mails do not constitute all their -cares. Mails outgoing from the firing-line are heavy. And there are the -pathetic "returns" to be dealt with, the letters of men who will never -read them--letters written before the heavy news had got home. It is -a huge bulk of correspondence marked _Killed_ and re-addressed to the -place of origin of the fallen. Their comrades keep their newspapers. -Usually the parcels of comforts directed to them bring melancholy cheer -to their still fighting comrades in arms. What else is to be done with -them? - -Of incoming mails letters stand inevitably first. They put a man at -home for a couple of hours. But so does his local newspaper. Perusing -that, he is back at the old matutinal habit of picking at the news -over his eggs-and-coffee, racing against the suburban business-train. -Intimate associations hang about the reading of the local -sheet--domestic and parochial associations almost as powerful as are -brought to him by letters. Relatives at home, did they know this fully, -would despatch newspapers with a stricter regularity. - -And what shall be said of parcels from home? The boarding-school -home-hamper is at last superseded. No son away at grammar-school ever -pursued his voyage of discovery through tarts, cakes and preserves, -sweets, pies and fruit, with the intensity of gloating expectation -in which a man on Gallipoli discloses the contents of his "parcel": -"'Struth! a noo pipe, Bill!--an' some er the ole terbaccer. Blimey! -cigars, too! 'Ave one, before the crowd smells 'em. D----d if there -ain't choclut! look 'ere! An' 'ere's some er the dinkum coc'nut ice the -tart uster make. Hullo! more socks! Never mind: winter's comin'.--'Ere! -'ow er yer orf fer socks, cobber? Take these--bonzer 'and-knitted. -Sling them issue-things inter the sea.... I'm b----d!--soap fer the -voy'ge 'ome.... 'Angkerch'fs!--orl right when the ---- blizzerds -come, an' a chap's snifflin' fer a ----in' week on end.... Writin' -paper!--well, that's the straight ---- tip! The ----s er bin puttin' it -in me letters lately, too. Well, I'll write ter night, on the stren'th -of it.... Gawd! 'ere's a shavin'-stick!--'andy, that; I wuz clean run -out--usin' carbolic soap, ---- it!... Aw, that's a dinkum ---- parcel, -that is!" - -"Bonzer tarts" (and others) may infer that a parcel is as a gift from -the gods, and carries more than "its intrinsic worth." Such treasures -as the 'and-knitted socks and coc'nut ice bring home rather more near -than it ever comes to the man who has no part in the parcel mail. - -Mails deserve all the organised care the War-Office can bestow; they -make for efficiency. - -There is no morning delivery of the daily newspaper at Anzac. But we -get the news. At the foot of Headquarters gully is the notice-board. -The wireless messages are posted daily. At any hour men are elbowing -a way into the perusing circle. There is news of the operations along -our own Front and copious messages from the Eiffel Tower of the Russian -and Western Fronts. The Melbourne Cup finish was cabled through -immediately. The sports foregathered and collected or "shelled out"; -there were few men indeed who did not handle their purses round the -board that evening. No war news, for months, had been so momentous as -this. The associations called up by the news from the Australian Mecca -at Flemington, whither the whole continent makes annual pilgrimage, -were strong, and homely as well as national. All the detail of the -little annual domestic sweeps at the breakfast-table came back with -a pathetic nearness. Men were recalled for a while from the land of -blood to the office, the bank, the warehouse, the country pub., the -shearing-shed, where the Cup bets were wont to be made. Squatters' sons -were back at the homestead making the sweeps. The myriad-sided sporting -spirit is perhaps stronger than any other Australian national trait. -The Defence-Department knew it when they made provision for a cabled -despatch of the running. - -Three weeks ago began the flight of birds before the Russian winter. -They came over thick, in wedge formation, swallowing up, in their -hoarse cries, the crack of rifles over the ridges, from which, -otherwise, only the roar of a half-gale delivers us, day or night. -Over Anzac--which seemed to mark a definite stage in the journey--they -showed a curious indecision as to direction. Possibly they were -interested in the bird's-eye view of the disposal of forces. They -wheeled and re-formed into grotesque figures; men would stop in their -work and try to decipher the pattern. "That's a W."--"Yes; and what's -that?"--"Oh, that?" (after a crafty pause)--"that's one er them Turkish -figgers--'member them in Cairo?" - -The flight of birds south is surely the most reliable of all forecasts -as to what we may expect in temperatures. Yet the official account, -published for the information of troops, of the traditional weather -between October and March shows we need expect nothing unreasonably -severe before the middle of January; but that then will come heavy -snow-storms and thoroughgoing blizzards. Furthermore, men are advised -to instruct their sisters to send Cardigans, sweets in plenty, and much -tobacco. _Amen_ to this; we shall instruct them faithfully. - -Meanwhile the systematic fortification of dug-outs against damp and -cold goes on. - -We foresee, unhappily, the winter robbing us of the boon of daily -bathing. This is a serious matter. The morning splash has come to be -indispensable. Daily at 6.30 you have been used to see the bald pate of -General Birdwood bobbing beyond the sunken barge in shore, and a host -of nudes lining the beach. The host is diminishing to a few isolated -fellows who either are fanatics or are come down from the trenches and -must clear up a vermin- and dust-infested skin at all costs. Naturally -we prefer to bathe at mid-day, rather than at 6.30, when the sun has -not got above the precipitous ridges of Sari Bair. But the early -morning dip is almost the only safe one. The beach is still enfiladed -by Turkish artillery from the right flank. But times are better; -formerly both flanks commanded us. The gun on the right continues to -harass. He is familiarly known as Beachy Bill. That on the left went by -a name intended for the ears of soldiers only. Beachy Bill is, in fact, -merely the collective name for a whole battery, capable of throwing -over five shell simultaneously. Not infrequently Beachy Bill catches a -mid-morning bathing squad. There is ducking and splashing shorewards, -and scurrying over the beach to cover by men clad only in the garments -Nature gave them. Shrapnel bursting above the water in which you are -disporting yourself raises chiefly the question: Will it ever stop? -By this you, of course, mean: Will the pellets ever cease to whip the -water? The interval between the murderous lightning-burst aloft and -the last pellet-swish seems, to the potential victim, everlasting. The -suspense always is trying. - -The times and the seasons of Beachy Bill are inscrutable. Earlier on, -the six o'clock bather was not safe. Now he is almost prepared to bet -upon his chances. Possibly an enemy gun is by this time aware that -there goes on now less than heretofore of that stealthy night discharge -of lighters which used to persist beyond the dawn--until the job was -finished. - -Wonderful is the march of organisation. It appreciably improves daily, -under your eyes--organisation in mule transport to the flanks, in the -landing of supplies, in the local distribution of rations; the last -phase perhaps most obvious, because it comes home close to the business -and bosoms of the troops. Where, a month ago, we languished on tinned -beef and biscuit, we now rejoice daily in fresh meat, bread, milk, and -(less frequently) fresh vegetables. It all becomes better than one -dared to expect: a beef-steak and toast for breakfast, soup for dinner, -boiled mutton for tea. This is all incredibly good. Yet the sickness -diminishes little. Colic, enteric, dysentery, jaundice, are still -painfully prevalent, and our sick are far-flung and thick over Lemnos, -Egypt, Malta, and England. So long as flies and the unburied persist, -we cannot well be delivered. But the wastage in sick men deported is -near to being alarming. - -A regimental canteen on Imbros does much to compensate. Unit -representatives proceed thence weekly by trawler for stores. One feels -almost in the land of the living when, within fifteen miles, lie tinned -fruit, butter, coffee, cocoa, tinned sausages, sauces, chutneys, pipes, -"Craven" mixture and chocolate. Such a _répertoire_, combined with a -monthly visit from the Paymaster, removes one far from the commissariat -hardships of the Crimea. - -The visualising of unstinted civilian meals is a prevalent pastime -here. Men sit at the mouths of their dug-outs and relate the _minutiæ_ -of the first dinner at home. Some men excel in this. They do it with -a carnal power of graphic description which makes one fairly pine. -I have heard a Colonel-Chaplain talk for two hours of nothing but -grub, and at the end convincingly exempt himself from the charge of -carnal-mindedness. Truly we are a people whose god is their belly. One -never realised, until this period of enforced deprivation, the whole -meaning of the classical fable of the Belly and the Members. - -Yet in the last analysis (all this talk is largely so much artistry) -one is amazingly free from the hankering after creature-comforts. -There is a sort of rough philosophy abroad to scorn delights and live -laborious days. Those delights embraced by the use of good tobacco -and deliverance from vermin at nights are the most desired; both -hard to procure. There is somehow a great gulf fixed between the -civilian quality of any tobacco and the make-up of the same brand for -the Army. (The Arcadia mixture is unvarying, but cannot always be -had.) This ought not to be. Once in six months a friend in Australia -despatches a parcel of cigars. Therein lies the entrance to a fleeting -paradise--fleeting indeed when one's comrades have sniffed or ferreted -out the key. After all, the pipe, with reasonably good tobacco, gives -the _entrée_ to the paradise farthest removed from that of the fool. -One harks back to the words of Lytton: "He who does not smoke tobacco -either has never known any great sorrow or has rejected the sweetest -consolation under heaven." - -Of the plague of nocturnal vermin little needs be said explicitly. -The locomotion of the day almost dissipates the evil. It makes night -hideous. One needs but think of the ravages open to one boarding-house -imp amongst the sheets, to form some crude notion of what havoc may be -wrought at night by a vermin whose name is legion. Keating's powder is -_not_ "sold by all chemists and storekeepers" on the Peninsula. One -would give a week's pay for an effective dose of insectibane. - -The tendency is to retire late, and thus abridge the period of -persecution. There is the balm of weariness, too, against which no -louse is altogether proof. One's friends "drop in" for a yarn and a -smoke after tea, and the dreaded hour of turning in is postponed by -reminiscent chit-chat and the late preparation of supper. One renews -here a surprising bulk of old acquaintance, and the changes are nightly -rung upon its personnel. All this makes against the plagues of vermin; -and against the monotony that kills, too. Old college chums are dug -out, and one talks back and lives a couple of hours in the glory of -days that have passed and in the brighter glory of a potential re-entry -to the old life. Believe it not that there is no deliverance possible -from the hardness of active service, even in its midst. The retrospect, -and the prospect, and the ever-present faculty of visualisation, are -ministering angels sent to minister. - -Rude interruptions come in upon such attempts at self-deliverance. -Enemy aircraft make nocturnal bomb-dropping raids and rudely dissipate -prospect and retrospect. One harbours a sneaking regard for the -pluckily low elevation at which these night flights are made. Happily, -they have yet made few casualties.... On a ridge above us stands a -factory for the manufacture of bombs and hand grenades. Every night -mules are laden there for the trenches. One evening a restive mule, -ramping about, thrust his heel through a case of bombs adjacent. They -responded with a roar that shook the hill-side. Three other cases -were set going. At once the slopes and gullies were peopled by thinly -clad figures from the dug-outs rushing to and fro in astonishment. The -immediate inference was of enemy missiles: no one suspected our own -bomb factory. The most curious conjectures were abroad. One fellow -bawled that the Turks had broken our line and were bombing us from the -ridge above; another shouted that Zeppelins had crept over; one man -cried that the cruiser, at that moment working under her searchlight -on enemy positions, had "messed up" the angle of elevation and was -pouring high-explosive into us. Shouting and lanterns and the call for -stretcher-bearers about the bomb factory soon disclosed the truth. -The festive mule, with three companions, had been literally blown to -pieces; next morning chunks of mule were lying about our depôt. The -worst was that our own men were killed and shattered. This was ghastly. -Is it not enough to be laid low by enemy shell? - -Yet the work of enemy shell on this beach is peculiarly horrible. -Men are struck down suddenly and unmercifully where there is no heat -of battle. A man dies more easily in the charge; here he is wounded -mortally unloading a barge, mending a pier, drawing water for his -unit, directing a mule-convoy. He may even lose a limb or his life off -duty--merely returning from a bathe or washing a shirt on the shingle. - -One of our men was struck by shrapnel pellet retiring to his dug-out -to read his just-delivered mail. He was off duty--was, in fact, far up -the ridge above the beach. The wound gaped in his back. There was no -stanching it. Every thump of the aorta pumped out his life. Practically -he was a dead man when struck; he lived but a few minutes, with his -pipe, still steaming, clenched in his teeth. They laid him aside in -the hospital. That night we stood about the grave in which he lay -beneath his ground-sheet. Over that wind-swept headland the moon shone -fitfully through driving cloud. A monitor bombarded offshore. Under -her friendly-screaming shell and the singing bullets of the Turk the -worn, big-hearted Padré intoned the beautiful Catholic intercession for -the soul of the dead, in his cracked voice. At the burial of Sir John -Moore was heard the distant and random gun. Here the shell do sometimes -burst in the midst of the burial-party. Bearers are laid low. There is -indecent running for cover. The grave is hastily filled in by a couple -of shovelmen; the hideous desecration is over; and fresh graves are to -be dug immediately for stricken members of the party. To die violently -and be laid in this shell-swept area is to die lonely indeed. The day -is far off (but it will come) when splendid mausolea will be raised -over these heroic dead. And one foresees the time when steamers will -bear up the Ægean pilgrims come to do honour at the resting-places of -friends and kindred, and to move over the charred battle-grounds of -Turkey. - -There is more than shrapnel to be contended with on the beach, though -shrapnel takes far the heaviest toll. Taube flights over the position -are frequent by day, and bombs are dropped. The intermittent sobbing -shriek of a descending bomb is unmistakable and heart-shaking. You know -the direction of shrapnel; you know in which direction the hellish -shower will spread; there is time for lightning calculation and action. -But a bomb gives little indication of its degree of proximity, and with -it there is no "direction" of burst; a circle of death hurtles forth -from the missile. No calculation is possible as to a way of escape. - -Taube bombs and machine-gun bullets are not the only missiles from -above of which it behoves Anzac denizens to beware. Men are struck by -pellets and shell-case from the shrapnel discharged at our 'planes from -Turkish anti-aircraft guns. Our aircraft is fired at very consistently. -There is a temptation to stand gaping there, face to the sky, watching -their fortunes. Such temptation comes from below, and should not be -yielded to--unless our 'planes are vertically overhead or on our -west. If they are circling over the Turkish position, take cover; for -"what goes up must come down," according to the formula accompanying -a schoolboy trick; and shrapnel discharged at 'planes on your eastern -elevation may as well come down on your altruistically-inquisitive head -as bury in the earth beside you. - -To all such onslaughts from aloft and around most men show an -indifference that is fairly consistent. The impression is left with -you that there is quite a large number of them who have "come to terms -with themselves" on the subject of an eventuality of whatever nature, -and this is abundantly clear when you see them after their tragedy -has eventuated. There is little visible panic in the victims in any -dressing station, little evidence of astonishment, little restlessness. -Men lie there quiet under the thrusts and turns of the sword of pain, -steadfast in the attitude of no-compromise with suffering. To this -exceptions will be found; all men have not reckoned up squarely and -accurately beforehand the cost of all emergencies that are possible. -But most of them have. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -GLIMPSES OF ANZAC - -II - - -A whole legion of Gallipoli maps has been published in the Press. They -show the landing-places. All Australians know the Anzac positions where -their sons and brothers scrambled from the boats, splashed to the fatal -sand, and fell forthwith or fixed the steel and charged to conquer or -fall above. This spot, where Australians showed the world what manner -of man is nurtured beneath the Southern Cross, is fair to look on. We -saw it first from the sea, in the full burst of the spring. Literature, -ancient and Byronic, glows with the beauties of the Ægean spring. It's -all true. Anzac is reckoned a true type of that loveliness. The charge -was made up a steep ridged hill opening upon an irregular tableland. -Either flank of that hill is gently undulating low country. The thin -belt of light sand fronts all. The deep wild-flower colour flung in -broad splashes upon the low country of the flanks is foiled by the -delicious blue that bathes the sand-strip. When the ancients gave us a -picture of all this we questioned it, as perhaps painted inaccurately -in the elation of literary composition. That is not a right inference. -One attempts to describe it as it appears in 1915; but there is the -danger of being disbelieved, because the prodigal flinging of spring -colour over the shores of Gallipoli utterly surpasses in richness the -colour of Australia. England doubtless shows something far more like it -in spring. The colour ashore is a glowing red--acres of poppy waving -there upon the green plains. Neither do we know the Ægean blue in -Australian waters, somehow. The reader, harassed by the war news from -this smiling land, may conceive the incongruity of this fair landscape -splashed with colour of another sort--the red dust of a moving troop, -the hideous discolour of bursting lyddite, and the grey smudge of -shrapnel. A grand range of chalk hills runs south behind the pasture of -the right flank. The low shore plain of the left flank is backed by a -group of green pinnacles moving north towards the glittering salt-lake. -The coast, northerly, sweeps out to the southern horn of Saros Bay--a -rough, sheer-rising headland, southern sentinel of the great Saros -Cliffs. - -Moving inshore to the foot of the Anzac plateau, one gets a delusive -impression of Anzac smoothness. Anzac in detail is rough: small -gulches, ravines--Arabian _wadys_--which at once hindered and assisted -the aggressors at landing. Leaving behind the beach, with its feverish -busyness, the climb up to the trenches begins forthwith. You follow a -well-engineered road levelled in the bed of the ravine. In the sides -the dug-outs are as thick as dwellings in a Cairene alley--which is -saying much. Beaten side-tracks branch off like rivulets which join a -mountain torrent. The only haven for mules and horses is the shelter of -the banks, which have been half dug out at intervals into an extensive -sort of stable. It is the height of the afternoon. There is no wind -stirring under the hill. The men off duty are sleeping heavily--have -flung themselves down, worn-out, and lie in the thick dust of their -shelters, where the flies swarm and the heat reeks. But all are not -sleeping. Periodically a regimental office is dug in; the typewriters -are noisy: they make a strange dissonance with the hum of bullets -above, which does not cease. The post-office lies in a bend of the -path. This is dug deep, with sandbag bulwarks. There's no sleeping -here. A khaki staff sorts and stamps, in this curious subterranean -chamber, amidst a disorder of mail-bags and the fumes of sealing-wax. -One hopes, in passing, the shrapnel will spare this sanctuary.... Half -a mile up, the road peters out into a rough and dusty track under the -hill-crest. It is heavy climbing. One realises fully for the first -time what a scaling was here at the first charge. It has been hard -work up a beaten road: what for those hampered infantrymen, with their -steel-laden rifles and their equipment, and the Turks raining death -from their entrenchments aloft? It was seventeen minutes' work for -them; we have been panting and scrambling for forty, and are not up -yet. Five minutes more brings us to the sentry guarding the entrance -to the communication-trench. He sets us on our stooping way. You dare -not walk erect. Here the bullets are not "spent," though "spent" -bullets can do damage enough. The labour of trench-making must have -been enormous. Here is a picked trench five feet deep, and half as wide -again as your body, cut out of a soft rock--hundreds of yards of it, -half-miles of it. Fifteen minutes looping along brings us to an exit -opening on a battery, where two guns are speaking from their pits. In -a dug-out beside the pit lies the presiding genius with his ear to a -telephone. His lingo is almost unintelligible, except to the initiated. -From the observers on our flanks he is transmitting the corrections and -directions to his gunners. One man is juggling shell from the rear of -the pit; one is laying the gun; the rest are understrappers. The roar -of discharge, heard from behind, is not excessive. What comes uppermost -is the prolonged whizz and scream of the shell. Artillery work must -be far the most interesting. The infantryman, a good deal, aims "in a -direction," and hopes for the best. The man at the gun watches each -shot, the error is gauged, and he acts accordingly at the next. His is -a sort of triumphal progress upon his mark.... Re-entering the trench, -we crept to our second line. There were a few scattered marksmen. There -is a kind of comfort, even in trenches. The sleeping-places hollowed -out under the lee of the wall, a foot from the floor, will keep one -more or less dry in rain. There are carnal symbols of creature comfort -scattered up and down--blankets, newspapers, tobacco-tins, egg-shells, -orange-peel, and the wrappings of Mexican chocolate. But it's harsh -enough. From the crackle of musketry and the song of the bullet and the -intimate scream of the shell there's little respite. - -The labyrinth of trenches becomes very intricate as you approach the -front line: saps, communication trenches, tunnels, and galleries, make -a maze that requires some initiation to negotiate successfully. In the -rear lines the men off duty are resting, as well as may be, plagued -as they are with flies, heat and dust. In general they are too far -exhausted to care much, so long as they can get their tobacco and a -place to lie. They try to lie comfortable in the squalor; try to cook -a trifle at their pathetic little hole-in-the-wall fires. The most -impressive thing near the first line (there are things more impressive -when you get there) is the elaborateness and permanency of the trenches -and dug-outs and overhead cover. One might think the beggars are -here for a year: which God forbid! The impression of keenness and -alertness here is in striking contrast with the easy-going aspect of -the "reservists." The men work at frequent intervals, in pairs, one -observing with the periscope, the other missing no chances with the -rifle. We looked long and earnestly through a periscope. Two things -arrest you. The first is the ghastly spectacle of our dead lying beyond -the parapet. They have been there since the last charge; that is three -weeks ago, and they are black and swollen. They lie in so exposed -a place that they dare not be approached. The stink is revolting; -putrefying human flesh emits an odour without a parallel. An hour's -inhalation was almost overpowering. One asks how our men have breathed -it for three and five months. The flies swarm in hosts. - -The second thing that arrests you is the amazing proximity of the -enemy trenches. You put down the periscope and look furtively through -a loophole to verify. The average distance is about fifteen yards. Our -conductor smiled at the expression of amazement. "Come along here; -they're a bit closer." He took us to a point at which the neutral -ground was no more than five yards in width; rifle and bayonet extended -from either trench could have met across it. We well believed our -men could hear the Turks snore. This is an uncanny proximity. One -result is that the bomb is the chief weapon of offence. To shy a bomb -effectively over five yards is as good a deed as drink. Bomb wounds are -much to be dreaded. The missile does not pierce, it shatters, and there -is no choosing where you will have your wound. We laid well to heart -the admonition to be momentarily on the look out for bombs. - -We worked slowly back along a tortuous route. These are old Turkish -trenches. They had been so constructed as to fight in the direction of -the sea. When our men took them they had immediately to turn round and -build a parapet on the side more remote. They were choked with Turkish -dead. To bury them in the open was unthinkable; they had to be thrown -into pits excavated in the trench wall, or flung aloft, and buried -beneath the new inland parapet. The consequence is that as you make -your way along the trench floor you occasionally come into contact with -a protruding boot encasing the foot of a Turk. We had more than one -such unsavoury encounter. The odour arising from our own dead is not -all with which our infantry have to contend. War isn't fun. A good deal -of drivel is spoken and written about the ennobling effects of warfare -in the field. - -The men who have had four months of this are, in great part, -pasty-faced ghosts, with nerves on raw edge. What may one expect? -Inadequate rest, and that rudely and habitually broken; almost an -entire want of exercise--except in the charge; food that is necessarily -scanty and ill-nourishing; a perpetual and overpowering stink of -the most revolting kind; black swarms of flies that make quiescence -impossible--even if enemy shelling and enemy bomb-slinging did not; -a nervous strain of suspense or known peril (or both) that never is -lifted. Australians have done their part with unequalled magnificence. -But they are not gods. Flesh and blood and spirit cannot go on at -this indefinitely. God help the Australian infantryman with less than -a frame of steel wire, muscles of whipcord, and a heart of fire. The -cases are rare, but men have been driven demented in our firing-line, -and men who in civil-life were modest, gentle, tender-hearted, and -self-effacing, have become bloody-minded, lusting to kill. War is _not_ -fun; neither is it ennobling. - -It was fighting of another sort when Greeks and Persians traversed this -ground. For the Narrows was, more than possibly, the crossing-place -of the Hellespont for either host. Anzac or Gaba Tepe would be, -almost inevitably, right in the track. Australian trenches perhaps -cut across the classic line of march. Who is to say that the site of -Xerxes' Headquarters-camp is not at this moment serried with Australian -dug-outs? Where he stood to embark, the wireless operator may now be -squatting in his sandpit receiving from our cruisers. Certainly every -mile over which we are fighting is charged with classical associations. - -The new geographical nomenclature stands contrasted with the classical, -as do methods of transport and fighting. What does the dust of Persian -Generals know of Quinn's Post, Walker's Ridge, or Pope's Hill? Even the -Turkish names are despised. We are "naming" our own map as we go on. -Pope's Hill is a feature in the landscape considerable enough to have -justified a Turkish name before we came here. The map of Gallipoli, -as well as that of Western Europe, is in a state of flux. Should -Gallipoli be garrisoned, Australian terms, not to be found in the -dictionary, will stick; scrubs, creeks, and gullies, dignified with the -names of heroes who commanded there, will abound. - -It is by way of Shrapnel Gully we regain the beach. The Australian -hospital stands on the right extremity--by no means out of danger. A -sparse line of stretchers is moving down almost continuously. This -is a hospital for mere hasty dressing to enable wounded to go aboard -the pinnace to the Hospital ship standing out. Collins Street doctors -who have left behind surgeries "replete with every convenience" find -themselves in others that are mere hastily run up _marquées_. Half the -attendants hop or limp. They have been peppered. The dentist's outfit -is elaborate, and plagued men may have teeth "stopped" or extracted. -There is a mechanical department, too, where artificial teeth are -repaired--teeth that have been wrecked on the Army biscuit, which is -not just angels'-food. Dentists' kit is almost complete; lacks little, -in fact, but an electric current. - -The beach is animated. There are A.S.C. depôts almost innumerable, -wireless stations, ordnance stores, medical supply stores, and -what-not. This is not the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious -war, but the hard facts and hard graft and dirt, sweat and peril, of -righteous war. It is by these mundane means the clash of ideals is -proceeding, and by which a decision will come.... - -Only when the masked enemy batteries of the flanks are firing (which -is many times in the day) is the beach cleared and quiet. At one stage -a couple of Lieutenants-Colonel limited the adminitory patrolling -to themselves during fire. They walked up and down unconcernedly -with an heroic and nonchalant self-possession, swearing hard at the -men who showed themselves. The hidden battery cannot be located. The -cruisers are doing their best with searching fire; their bluejackets -are climbing the masts to observe; the balloon is aloft; the seaplanes -are vigilant; our own outposts never relax. There is no clue. It is -concealed with devilish ingenuity. Every day it is costing us dearly. - -All's fair in war. Their sniping is awfully successful. They have -picked off our officers at a deadly rate. Lance-corporals have become -Lieutenants in a single night. Transport of supplies to the flanks -is done by mule-carts manned by Sikhs. The route is sniped at close -intervals, by night as well as by day, and by machine-gun as well as -by the rifle; beside, it is swept by shrapnel. Only under the most -urgent necessity are supplies taken to the flanks by day. Then the loss -in men and mules is heavier than we can bear. The Turkish sniper is -almost unequalled--certainly unexcelled--as an unerring shot. At night -the rattle of the mule-carts directs the fire. At certain more exposed -intervals of the route the carts move at the gallop, the drivers lying -full-stretch in the bottom of the carts and flogging on to safety. -Is not this worse than trench-fighting? The Sikhs are doing a deadly -dangerous work unflinchingly well. - -It was reported unofficially that two Turkish women were captured -sniping. Rumours are persistent enough as to the presence of women in -and behind the Turkish lines. Our outposts claim to have seen them, -and victorious attacking parties that have captured Turkish camps -have been said to declare they have found hanging there garments of -the most significant lace-frilled sort. The unbelieving diagnose these -as the highly-embellished pyjamas of Turkish officers. The whole thing -is probably to be disbelieved. The Turk is too seriously busy to be -distracted by the blandishments of his women. Harems doubtless are left -well at home, to be revelled in when the British have ultimately been -driven into the sea. - -The men bathe, but often pay too dearly for the bath. The bathing beach -is a place notorious for good-humoured but successful "lifting." In the -early stages there was mixed bathing of Colonels and lance-corporals, -Majors and full privates. The Colonel leaves his boots on the sand; -a private is sneaking off--"Hey! those ---- boots are mine!" ... All -ranks go about ashore dressed alike, with the rank shown symbolically; -distinguishing marks of rank become distinguishing marks for -sharp-shooters too: you must know a Captain by his bearing rather than -his clothes. Curious dialogues arise. The officers are in a garb which -differs in many ways from their dress of the promenade at Shepheard's -Hotel. - -There is little damping of spirits. Most men are happy. Pettiness -is snubbed. All are bound by the common danger into the spirit of -amity. There is growling day and night--the legitimate growling of the -overwrought man, which means nothing. Little outbursts of the liver -there are, but of a different quality from those civilian ventings of -the spleen. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -SIGNALS - - -The step is a far one from the signal-office of the first month in -Anzac to that of December. The first crude centre of intelligence was -like a Euclidean point--without magnitude, with position only. It was -a mere location from which signals could be despatched, without any -of the show of a compartment, and without apparatus. And the wireless -station was a hastily scratched hole in the sand, where the operator -supported himself on an elbow and received. - -Now in December this is all changed. The Army Corps Signal Office -is a building, of sandbags and timber and galvanised iron, standing -four-square, solid as a blockhouse, protected alike from wind and the -entrance of rain and (by its branch-thatched roof) from the hawk-glance -of the aircraft observer. - -Within there is an incongruous sense of civilisation. The staff is -clean, neatly dressed, shaven--in a word, civilianised. The spirit -of order presides. Except that the denizens wear a uniform, and that -the walls are of sandbag, you might be in a metropolitan telegraphic -office. They sit there tap-tap-tapping in their absorbed fashion. The -shrapnel screams overhead and bursts to their north. They are too -intent to hear it, mostly. All that has disturbed them, in the last -month, is the cry of "_Taube!_" (colloquial _Torb!_). Anti-aircraft -bring them trooping out to squint up at the swift, black, forbidding -craft humming raucously across the position. They laugh at shrapnel, -under the lee of the protecting ridge: no ridge makes immune from that -whirring dove of peace up there! - -As you stumble up the Gully at night the illumination of the -signal-office gives a touch of the arclight and of city brilliance to -the place. The operators, sitting there, as you peer in from the outer -darkness, are a part of another world. Those not transmitting or under -call sit reading sixpenny editions and smoking cigarettes. They are -tapping out no orders from Headquarters. Neither in the words before -them nor in the placid _tap_ of the instruments is there any hint of -war. They're in London. But that sudden roar as of a locomotive is of -no London street traffic; London streets do not roar in a _crescendo_. -This is as of a rushing, mighty wind, rising to the scream of a -tornado. Comes the blast of explosion which unsettles them in their -seats. The walls of their house quake about them, and the shower of -earth and _débris_ descends; the foul stink drives through the dust, -and the well-ordered city room is hurried back, in the twinkling of -an eye, into the midst of war in the troublous land of Turkey. A -six-inch howitzer shell has exploded in the bank over against them--so -close that the unuttered thought flies to the possibility of a nearer -ultimate burst. The howitzer, searcher out of the protected sites in -ravines, under looming hill-crests, is a searcher of hearts too--a -disturber of the placid sense of security. - -The _débris_ is cleared and the fumes pass, and order returns. The -operator goes back to his dot-and-dash monotone, and his neighbour -resumes his novel and lights another cigarette. The quiet undertone of -conversation revives. - -Money is the sinews of war: where, in the anthropomorphic figure, will -you place these men of the Army Corps Signal Office? Analytical reader, -you may place them at your leisure--if you can. They make vocal (or -scriptural) the will of Headquarters. A general order they tap out to -the utmost post on the flanks. The flanks flash into them the hourly -report of progress. The watch in the trenches is realised, through -them, by Headquarters. If the Turk is quiescent, it is the telegraphist -here who knows it; if a move is made in the enemy lines--a Turkish -mule convoy sighted from the outpost, an enemy bombardment set up--it -is flashed through incontinently. These men, who see so little of -war--apart from searching howitzer--may, if they choose, visualise the -whole outlook along our line. They are to Army Headquarters what the -sergeant is to the Captain of infantry: the one may scribble or bawl -orders until weary; if the other is not there to distribute and enforce -the given word, all will perhaps be in vain. - -And Army Corps Signal Office is the link between the Peninsula and -General Headquarters stationed in that island lying on the west. -Divisions flash in their reports from the flanks to Army Corps; all is -transmitted by cable to Imbros. And this is the medium through which -G.H.Q. orders materialise. Helles reports here also, by cable, for -transmission by cable. Here is the hub of all intelligence relating -to the Turkish campaign. For the network of cables centres here: -cable from Alexandria to Lemnos, Lemnos to Tenedos, Lemnos to Anzac, -Helles to Anzac, Anzac to G.H.Q. on Imbros. Thus there is direct -communication between G.H.Q. and the intermediate base in Egypt; cabled -dialogues are practicable regarding reinforcements of troops and -supplies of equipment and of food. The storeships that dodge submarines -from Alexandria lie at Lemnos waiting to disgorge; Anzac requirements -are cabled down to them, and they off-load accordingly into the small -transports that the Turks shell daily off Anzac. News of mail is -flashed up from Alexandria and from Mudros, and the mail despatch from -the Peninsula cabled down. No progress in operations is possible apart -from this wizard's hut where the signallers sit and tap and smoke and -read. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE DESPATCH-RIDERS - - -But though Army Corps Headquarters is in touch with the flanks by both -telephone and telegraph, that is not enough. Either or both may fail. -But apart from that, there are some communications which no officer -will trust to a wire. And until that is premised one wonders vaguely -what is the use for despatch-riders. Almost it would seem that in -these days, when so much of the romance of war has departed, telephone -and telegraph would do all; indeed, the despatch-rider and his steed -would seem among the first of the old usages to vanish before the -march of science in the field. But here they are, these lithe, brown -fellows with their furrowed bushmen's features--lined, not with years -(they average twenty-five) nor with care (they're of a flinging, happy -frame), but with the sparse, clear lines of the athlete about the -mouth, and about the eyes of the man who has peered into long distances -over the interminable plains of Western Queensland. They're horsemen -down to the tendons of their heels. You may see them tending their -horses at sundown, any day, in mule gully, slinging their saddles -across the bar outside their dug-out; and, after, boiling the billy. -They're modest, too, like many another good horseman, and will relate -the experience of their rides from Suvla only if you press for it. -But there is no need for a relation; you may see them ride and sniped -most days of the week, if you'll be at the pains to climb the ridge -overlooking the level country of the left flank. Before the saps were -made their work was no game at horsemanship. But there are intervals -where the sap avails them nothing; and here they gallop at the stretch; -you may trace their route by the cloud of dust in the wake; and you -see them slow suddenly as they get into protected territory. The -sniping (they will tell you) is, curiously enough, worst at night; the -Turk creeps forth into advanced sniping-positions, and even brings up -his machine-gun within striking distance, and directs his aim by the -horse's clatter. Despatch-riding, day or night, is known as "the dinkum -thing." - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE BLIZZARD - - -One knows little of the times and the seasons at which the early -Gallipoli winter plays its pranks. It is fairly gymnastic in its turns -of temperature. Still, we never expected a snow-blizzard in November. -For thus spoke the official weather-god (through the _Peninsula Press_) -regarding that fair month: "November generally comes in fine, with -a lovely first ten-days or so. It, however, becomes rather sharp at -night, and there may be expected a cold snap in the second or third -week of the month. This lasts a few days, after which the weather -gets fine and warm until the end of the month. November is, in fact, -considered by many to be the most glorious month of the year." ... - -Thus had it been a month to mark with a white stone. Instead, it marked -itself with white stones that were many. The halting autumn was full of -vagaries, but there was a persistent bitterness creeping in the wake of -the fitful November gales: - - And all around me ev'ry bush and tree - Says autumn's here, and winter soon will be-- - That snows his soft white silence over all. - -We had foreseen the snow-drift no nearer than that. - -But on the Sabbath morning of the 28th of November we woke to find a -Peninsula of snow, with snow-men bearing snow-rifles walking over the -snow-ridges. This was the introduction of most of us to a fall. The -nearest we had yet come to the meeting was at the "movies" which had -shown Cossacks ploughing through their native drifts for the Front. -Here was our first touch with reality in utter cold. - -The Australian has a reputation for adaptability of which not even -cold can rob him. He moved about like any Esquimau. This was true, -literally; for the first time he donned his rabbit-skin jacket and -his Balaclava cap and peaked field-service. The resemblance to an -Esquimau in his bear-skin coat and hood was remarkable. His curiosity -worked complementarily to his adaptability. This was like seeing a new -country for the first time. The snow made a new world, and no excess -of cold was to keep him from examining and wandering. He sloshed about -the gullies scrutinising the flakes as they lodged on his clothes; he -climbed the ridges to see something more of the general effect. The -Englishman regarded him from the stronghold of his snowy tradition with -superior commiseration, as who should say: "This'll make the beggar -hop!" The ill-starred Egyptians, never previously out of Lower-Egypt, -literally and piteously wailed with the cold. The Australians mostly -grinned and sky-larked. - -By eight o'clock he was pasting all passers-by from his store of -ammunition; and after breakfast was conducting a sort of trench-warfare -in the gullies, bombing out the glowing enemy with a new brand of -hand-grenade, pure-white. - -The wind blew a gale, driving the snow like thick smoke over the turbid -Ægean. Like rain it was not: far too thick and cloudy. The towering -ridges on our east happily saved us the extreme bitterness of the -blast. But it whistled down our sheltered ravines in a gusty fashion. - -The trenches had another tale to unfold. For them was no grateful ridge -shelter. The freezing gale cut like a frosty knife across the parapet, -and drove a jet of ice through the loophole, and whistled ruthlessly -down any trench it could enfilade. The "Stand-to" at 5.30 that morning -was an experience of Arctic rigour. - -No sun relieved the grey, relentless day. The men slopped on through -the slush. Never had they conceived anything so cold underfoot. But -next morning the ground was frozen hard. Every footprint was filled -with ice. Where yesterday we had bogged, we progressed to-day like -windmills, with arms spread to keep a balance on the glassy and steep -inclining surface. Buckets and pans were frozen over. The bristles of -shaving-brushes were congealed into a frozen extension of the handle. -It was a valiant man who, having pounded them out into a sort of -individuality, ventured to use a razor: the blade seared like a knife -of fire. - -The sun shone bravely, but could not touch the stubborn ice of the -ground. That night was, to denizens of tropical Australia, incredibly -frosty. There was no breath of air. The cold bit through six -thicknesses of blanket and lay like an encasement of ice about your -limbs beneath the covers. Few in Turkey slept two hours that night, and -those by no means consecutively. - -Next morning the slush oozed out to the sun, and the whole position -was as an Australian cow-yard in the winter rains. And that's how the -glorious month of November made its _adieux_ to Gallipoli. - -Yet it's an ill blizzard that blows nobody good. Recent storms had -played Old Harry with the landing of supplies at Anzac. In especial, -the water-barge had been cast high and dry on Imbros. Warfare is not -easy in a country where every pint of water consumed must be landed -under fire. Though summer was past, men must drink; salt bacon, salt -"bully," dry biscuit, are thirst-provoking; and beside that "insensible -perspiration" of which De Quincey was wont to make so much, there is -activity on the Anzac Beach, if not in the trenches: a normal activity -intermittently stimulated by the murderous shriek of shell from the -flanks. - -The reserve-supply of water had been already tapped. For a week we had -been on a quarter-ration. This eked out at about half a mug of tea -per man _per diem_. You ate salt beef for the evening meal without -tea; went to bed thirsty, dreaming of the rivers of water, woke to a -breakfast of salt bacon unmitigated by tea; and entered on a burning -day--though it was winter--a day relieved only by the half-pint at -lunch, at which you crunched biscuit and jam. - -Men were foregoing their precious nightly issue of rum because it -wrought a pleasant fire in the veins, and they had already had enough -of fire in the veins. Not only were you drought-stricken, but frozen -too, and that to a degree from which heating food would have saved you -in part. But there was no water for cooking the heating oatmeal waiting -to be issued, nor for the heating rice, which could not be boiled in -sea-water. - -Though the blizzard came in the midst of this drought it changed all -that. Rum-jars, buckets, biscuit-tins, water-cans--yea, the very -jam-tins--were filled with snow and there was the precious potential -water. Parched and frozen throats were slaked, beards shaven, porridge -boiled, bacon and beef defied to do their worst. Removed from the fire, -it had a dusty smack. But it was water! - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -EVACUATION - - -There will be a leavening of Egyptian in the Australian vernacular -after peace has broken out. It will persist, and perhaps have a weighty -etymological influence--at any rate on the colloquial vocabulary. -"Baksheesh" will be a universal term, not confined to sketches of -Oriental travel. "Baksheesh" is merely one of the many grafted Arabic -terms, but it will be predominant. "Sae'eda" will be the street -greeting (varied by the Sikh "Salaam, sahib"). "Feloose kiteer," -"mafish," "min fadlak," "taali hina," "etla," and the rest of them, -will be household words. Other phrases, not remarkable for delicacy, -will prevail in pot-houses and stable talk. Forcible ejection from a -company and polite leave-taking will both be covered by an "imshee"; -there will be "classy" "imshees" and "imshees" that are undignified. - -Such an evacuation as was effected at Anzac was distinctly "classy." -When first the notion of evacuation was mooted there was misgiving. -We were with our back (so to speak) to the sea, hemmed in in a narrow -sector of coast, with no ground whatever to fall back upon. There -was no one who did not expect disaster in evacuating a position such -as that; the only debate was as to degree. What would it cost us in -lives and money? And there was a greater fear unspoken--the hideous -reflection that an evacuation would make almost vain the heavy losses -of eight months' fighting. Everyone hoped against a giving-up. But -soon there was no mistaking the signs of the times--the easing off in -the landing of supplies, the preliminary and experimental three days' -restraint from fire all along the line, the added restriction upon -correspondence--in especial the order to refrain from any reference to -the movements of troops either present or prophetic, and either known -or surmised; the detailing of inordinately large fatigues to set in -order once more the last line of defence. - -The most obtuse soon saw his worst fears realised. Notice to quit was, -in general, short. On Sunday afternoon, the 12th, the O.C. came panting -up the gully. "Fall in the unit at once." They were given an hour and a -half's notice to have all ready for transport to the pier. Notice was -in many cases far shorter, resolving itself into minutes. But an hour -and a half is brief enough. Then there was bustle and feverish stuffing -of kit-bags. The dug-out which had been as a home for four months was -dismantled and left in dishevelment in a half-hour. It's hard to leave -a dug-out--your shelter from shrapnel and the snowy blast and the -bitter Turkish frost. It's here that you have smoked the consolatory -pipe for so many months--consumed the baksheesh steak and marmalade, -read the home letters and the local sheet of home from Australia, -played nocturnal poker, yarned with a fellow-townsman, and spread the -frugal late supper. It has been home in a sense other than that you ate -and slept there; it was home indirectly--by virtue of home mails, home -talk, home memories, visualisations nurtured under its shelter in the -night watches. Home because it was in Turkey, and that way duty lay. - -Now, in a few desecratory minutes, it was rudely stripped, bunks -overturned, the larder ratted, the favourite prints brushed from the -hessian in the bustle. The vultures from neighbouring dug-outs flocked -round for the spoil; the men who yet had no notice to evacuate came -for baksheesh. With a swelling heart you disgorged your little stock -of luxuries, that you would have taken but had no room for. It breaks -your heart to give over to the hands of strangers your meagre library -amassed during a quarter's residence, your little table, your baksheesh -butter and strawberry jam, potatoes and oatmeal, surplus luxuries in -clothing, the vital parts of your bunk, the odds and ends of private -cooking utensils that have endeared themselves by long and frequent -service at the rising of the sun and at the going down of the same, and -late at night. Though the life of a soldier is checkered, without any -abiding city, shot with hurried moves by flood and field, yet we had -had so many months in Anzac, in the one spot, that we had broken with -tradition and had made a sort of home in a sort of settled community. -And this was the rude end of all. - -We took a hurried snack as the mule-carts were loaded. The cooks made -merry (cooks, somehow, always contrive to have a convivial spirit at -hand), calling on all and sundry to drink a farewell with them while -they scraped and packed their half-cold dixies. Nevertheless--for -reasons explicit and subconscious--it was a melancholy toast. We -followed the transport to Walker's Pier--taking the sap, though, -without exception. This thought was uppermost; "What if Beachy Bill -should get us now?" To a man we took all the cover there was. No one, -at such close prospect of deliverance for ever from that shell-swept -beach, neglected precautions. - -Round at Walker's the beach was thickly peopled with units awaiting -embarkation. The bustle and shouting were almost stupefying. The unit -"pack up" had been this in a small degree. That was bad enough. Here -our own little preparation was both magnified and intensified. It -was growing dusk. A whole brigade was waiting with all its Cæsarian -_impedimenta_. Impromptu piers had been run out, and were lighted -by smoking flares. Pinnaces and barges moved noisily between them. -Military landing-officers and naval transport-officers, and middies and -skippers of trawlers, bawled orders and queries and responses. On the -beach the men lay about on their baggage. Non-commissioned officers -marshalled and moved them off. Mule transports threaded a way amongst -the litter of men and kit-bags. Officers who knew their time was not -yet stood in groups chatting and joking. The men, always free from -responsibility, played cards and formed schools of two-up, dipped into -their haversacks, and munched and raised to their lips vessels which -were not always mess-tins, and did not always contain cold tea only--or -even cold tea at all. - -We waited. The hour of embarkation was postponed from six to nine. At -nine most of the excitement had subsided, and the men lay quiet--except -where they revived themselves with a dark issue-liquid. There was -melancholy abroad--more than that of weariness in physical exertion. -As the hour of embarkation drew on (it was now postponed to ten) its -significance came home to their bosoms. The rifles cracked on the -ridges, the howitzers spoke, the din of bombs came down the ravine. -There were those fellows in the trenches being left to see the last -of it, and to get off if they could. Not the most resolute optimist -could look towards the bloodless evacuation which the event has shown -to an astonished world. Every flash of the guns in the half-moonlight, -every rifle fusillade, called up the vision of a last party attempting -to leave, and perhaps failing fatally to its last number. "If I could -get drunk," said a man wearing his equipment, "I would--blue-blind -paralytic. I never felt so like it in my life." - -We lay about another hour and a half. Then the order came suddenly to -go aboard--so suddenly that the half of the equipment had to be left. -The first load was got down; a return was being made for another. -"Can't wait," roared the N.T.O.; "leave your stuff or get left. The -barge is leaving now. Cast off, for'ard. Go ahead, cox'n." This was not -bluff. There was a scramble for the barge. There up in the sap lay the -cooks' gear, and half the private kit, to be despoiled (so we said) -by some barbarous Turk. "Put that match out. No talking." We puffed -out otherwise in silence, into the Ægean darkness. Liberty to talk, to -smoke, would have been a boon. There was talking in whispers--worse -than nothing. Cigarettes were quenched--and the spirits of that -unhappy, close-packed, silent load of silent men. The spent bullets -sang overhead in a kind of derision, getting lower and more intimate as -we moved on. Soon they were spitting about us and tapping the barge, -coming unreasonably near to tapping skulls and chests. - -But we got to the side of the darkened transport untouched, after long -wandering and hailing of many ships in the darkness. There was complete -exhaustion at the end. The men dropped down against their kits and -slept fitfully (it was bitterly cold) till the dawn. This was the last -look on Gallipoli; it had been a penultimate sight we had of it in the -dusk of the previous Sabbath evening, though we knew it not. For a -time we could only see the great grey mass flecked with an occasional -spurt of flame, where the guns were still belching. Then the glorious -sun slowly uprose, and threw up the detail. There were the old and -well-remembered and well-trodden heights of Anzac, and lower down we -came abreast of all the positions we had known, afar off, and now saw -more clearly than ever before. We looked along the deadly Olive Grove. -There lay the Beachy Bill battery, which every day had rained screaming -hell over the Anzac Beach, and was even now speaking sullenly in the -early morning glow. - -Achi Baba rose up to the south in a sort of soft splendour; how -different from the reality! That rosy tipped mountain, could we have -seen its detail, would show looming bastions, high forbidding ridges, -and galleries of guns, and rugged ravines that had well-nigh flowed -with the blood of our storming parties. Now it stood there, sloping -gently down towards Helles, behind the high, quiet headlands and -the bays of the coast. Soon we were abreast of Helles, then of the -multitude of shipping in the Straits mouth, and so on down behind -Imbros and under Tenedos, and away over the freshening sea to Lemnos, -a pale cloud, bigger than a man's hand on the starboard bow. And by -mid-day we lay in the quiet waters of Mudros Bay, looking over the -canvas-clad slopes. - - - - -BOOK III - -BACK TO EGYPT - - - - -CHAPTER I - -LEMNOS - - -After many delays we landed, and after many wanderings arrived at a -camping-ground, and went supperless and tentless to bed--too tired to -remark, rolled in our blankets, either drenching dew or stony ground, -but not so weary as to be unconscious of the absence of shell. Our -Last Post for many months had been sounded by bursting shell (for -many a man it had been Last Post indeed); the massed buglers of the -battalions seemed now a voice from the land of spirits. There were men -(they are to be believed) literally wakened by the stillness in the -night, restless through the sudden deprivation of the midnight shriek -from the flank and of our own roar of discharge from above. For the -nocturnal crack and whistle of bullets, here was the distraction of -utter quietness. For a week it was disconcerting. - -The _réveille_ which wakened you at dawn was hard to place in the -first few moments of semi-consciousness. "Am I dreaming? Back in -camp at Melbourne?" The flood of consciousness sweeps off that sweet -delusion--however sweet this island of rest may be.... A woman's voice -draws you blinking to the tent door--"_Vashung! Vashung!_" It has a -Teutonic gerundial flavour. But it's only the Greek ladies soliciting -in the mist the soiled garments of soldiers. They move about the camp -until the sun is well transmuted from that dull-glowing ball into the -mist-dispelling Day's-Eye, stripping the whole landscape down into -stony detail and making those volcanic peaks in the north to glow. -Before breakfast is well on the women have amassed their huge bundles, -and the 'cute Greek boys, in pantaloons and soldiers' cast-off tunics, -have sold you a day's store of oranges and chocolate. - -The days are easy. We know we shall move to Egypt (or "elsewhere") -incontinently, and will take the leisure the war-gods provide us while -we may. Only the fatigues necessary to camp cleanliness and to eating -mar the day. Most of it is spent lounging, reading, smoking, yarning -reminiscently of Anzac, and scrambling. Write letters we may not at -this stage. The general order prohibiting letters dealing with the -evacuation and with movements of troops either known or surmised has -never been revoked; and has been reinforced by a prohibition against -correspondence of any sort--except upon field-service cards--those -"printed abominations" for which correspondents at home "thank you very -much indeed for sending me." - -"What'll we do to-day? Go to the village or to Therma or to the -stationary hospital?--to the Greek church or the monastery?--or on a -voyage of discovery nowhere in particular?--or just have a loaf?--or go -and see if there's any mail in?" - -The Australian general hospitals claimed a high average of visits from -those men who made friends there. They lay across the water. The Greek -ferry-men transported passengers in their gaily coloured craft for as -much as they could get. A fare was "laid down," but the Greek is as -inveterate a bargainer as your Egyptian, and the Australian's hobby is -to elude a fleecing. So that the burden of the conversation on the way -over lay mostly upon fares, conducted in as good Grammar-School Greek -as could be resurrected: which was not very good. But the cardinal -numerals were all that was really necessary: gesture and other physical -complementaries did the rest. - -The stationary hospital is a township, downright, with canvas blocks -and a main street and side-roads. Hospital _marquees_ of the larger -sort always convey a sense of permanency. But when pitched in such -numbers and with a view to such a lengthy sojourn as these Lemnian -hospitals anticipated, they gave an impression of stability not -ordinarily associated with even a base. The huts of the Sisters' -quarters, dental huts, canteen shacks, X-ray huts, and so forth, -deepened the impression. And the furnishings took nothing from it: the -matting, the iron beds, the chairs and lounges, the lockers, tables, -medicine-chests. The blue suits of convalescents were in sympathy, too, -though they smacked rather of the permanence of the penitentiary. And -the traffic in the motor-lorries sometimes added the _quasi_-roar of -street traffic. - -The Sisters entertained friends at tea in their recreation-tent--a -luxurious red and yellow snuggery, one of the largest _marquees_, -furnished in a way quite adequate to the tone of a vice-regal -garden-party. Distinctions in rank were deleted. Privates, and officers -of the General Staff, hobnobbed as though in mufti. The recreation-tent -was a great leveller; there a sergeant presumed with impunity to argue -the point with a Colonel from Headquarters. It was the most democratic -assembly active-service had yet produced. The common bond may have -been the dainty afternoon-tea--the fine china; the tiny sandwiches, -furnishing half an active-service mouthful; the fine linen of the -table-cover; the gentle tones of the hostess's voice: all these were -as unaccustomed to the Brigadier-General as to the Private on the -Peninsula. There was here the sweet half-delusion of a tea-party at -home, which broke down, for a couple of hours, barriers of rank. You -can conceive the exquisite contrast of the whole thing (you who rail -at afternoon-tea conventions--deliciously absent here, though!) with -the enforced boorish ruggedness of Anzac. And there was the walk after -along the ridge of the Peninsula on which the hospital lay, commanding -the fine harbour both ways: on the south bulwarked by precipitous hills -rising sheer as from a Scottish lake, and to the north checked by the -gentle slopes of that rich-hued country, volcanic to the core, from -which the afternoon sun drew out the warm, unnatural colour; and the -purple of the peaks lay beyond by the seaboard. "Is there a war on?" -The question recurred again and again, audibly, and was answered, not -by the company, but by the blue-clothed figures hobbling painfully upon -the broad road or lying helplessly in the warm December sun. - -One of the finest churches stands on the border of Portianus, the -village that was nearest to our Sarpi camp. It is richly decorated -with a profusion of Apostles, Saints, and scenes from Biblical history -on walls and roof. The altar stands beyond a screen as wide as the -building, fairly overcrowded with symbolic paintings. The sanctuary -was filled daily with soldiers, who placed baksheesh in the plate as -they emerged past the old priest, smiling a Benediction at the door. -Those who could make anything of it crowded round the fine black-letter -vellum Greek Bible at the reading-desk--a treasure indeed. The rest -made an attempt at transliteration of the titles daubed beneath the -pictures of the Saints. (Most men on Lemnos acquired at least a -nodding-acquaintance with the Greek alphabet.) The old priest had -little English, but he was very willing to make a shot at exegesis upon -the Biblical pictures. There was an enormously large group of them at -the door of exit. He liked best to explicate, in his broken English, -a painting of the Last Judgment--God, a stout and irascible-looking -old gentleman sitting aloft upon the bench, with the Head-Saints about -him, suspending above a mortal the scales of Justice; on the right -the gaping mouth of hell, belching flame, and Satan uprising from the -heat; on the left the golden gate of heaven, with St. Peter graciously -admitting one of the approved, and a condemned wretch cowering -towards Hell.... The realism of it appealed to the priest's powers of -exposition. The others he passed over with a mere cursory indication -of the subject. He was a genial old man--genial even when he took us -out to the sepulchral yard behind the church and showed the vaults of -departed parishioners, with the bones deposited upon the slabs. - -Christmas came upon us in Lemnos. There was leisure to be unreservedly -merry, and that was much. The Billies came a couple of days before. No -one who does not remember well the unloading of Christmas stockings -can have a notion of the merriment that was abroad. Santa Claus is -not dead. Had the evacuation been timed a little later he would have -visited the trenches. As it was, he came out of the mythological past -as another Greek god to Lemnos. And the Greeks, in the whole gamut of -their worship, never evolved a deity more beneficent. Psychologists -may debate the point whether Santa Claus, had he visited Australians -in the trenches, would have brought a keener zest of enjoyment with -his gifts than in the quiet of Lemnos. But the luxury of appreciation -of all things Christmas was upon the Australians at rest on this -beautiful island, and what is certain is that had the blessed donors -seen the distribution and the opening-up they could have had no more -precious reward. The Peninsula would have offered a sharper contrast of -enjoyment, but less leisure to enjoy. On the whole, it was probably a -good thing that we got our Billies during a respite. - -The letters enclosed mostly assumed the men in the trenches on -Christmas Day. Other assumptions were made, notably that in the -cartoon, on the Billies, of a conquering kangaroo and the inscription: -"This bit o' the world belongs to us." That hurt. - -Soldiers are children the world over--that is to say the best and the -worst of them. In the throes of Turkish toil and peril they had read in -the mailed newspapers of the initiation of the Billy-can scheme. Enemy -submarines were uncommonly active at the time. Hypothetical philippics -used to be launched at night against the submarine that might yet sink -the transport conveying the Christmas mail. Men threatened to desert to -the Navy for purposes of revenge in any such event. - -Nothing was lost through the mundane fact that the Billies were a -regimental issue--like bacon and jam and cheese. We forgot that. For a -half-day (they came in the afternoon) the camp went mad. We masqueraded -in fools' caps, swapped delicacies--and swapped (above all) letters. -Whatever may have become of the age of chivalry since Edmund Burke -mourned it in Europe, the age of sheer kindness-of-heart is vouchsafed -to us for ever since reading the letters in our Billies. Those letters -stand worthily beside the finest utterances with the indelible pencil -from the trenches; for, after all, true heroism resides as much in -those who wait and work in quietness at home for their men as in those -at war. Some day an anthology of those letters should be made and -published to correct selfishness and churlishness on the earth. For -that there is no kind of space here. But it may be well to say, in all -moderation, that no such fillip had before been given to the men in the -war zone as came with those missives which lay beneath the treasures in -the Billies. This was not Christmas at home; but it brought us near to -it, and proved again unanswerably (if proof were needed) that intrinsic -values in the gifts of this life are very little at all. - -The revelry of Christmas had hardly subsided when embarkation orders -came again. In the mist of a December morning we struck camp and moved -out from the stone pier to the waiting transports--wondering, most of -us, when embarkation in the service would cease to recur, and how long -it would be before embarkation would come for that long voyage across -the Pacific to a Christmas under the Southern Cross. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -MAHSAMAH - - -"The ----th and ----th Divisions will move from ---- to ---- in flights -of ---- thousands daily. Two hundred and fifty camels will be allotted -to each flight for baggage-transport. Mahsamah will be the end of the -first stage.... You will proceed to Mahsamah, taking with you ---- -thousand rations, establish a depôt, and issue rations to the flights -for twenty-four hours." - -So ran the order. Confound the flights! Why can't they train it? -Mahsamah's out of the world. These camps in desert places are ghastly. -We shall be enforced hermits. Entraining, they could get the whole -thing over in four days; this way it'll take fourteen. The weather's -getting midsummer. The battalions have just had a fresh boot-issue. -They'll be sore-footed and sick and sun-stricken. What's the game with -Headquarters--to harden the men or impress the natives? - -What's that to you? You've got to go, whatever garbled motives -Headquarters may have. So get your supplies aboard, and your men, and -leave in the morning. - -So we found ourselves sweeping over the desert at 9 a.m., with tents -and camp equipment in the guard's van and half a dozen trucks laden -with supplies trailing behind. The sweet-water canal tore beside us, -and patches of irrigated land emerged at intervals into the field of -vision, and the low sand-dunes standing away towards Ismailia grew -higher; and before the canal fir-groves could become more than a blur -in the east we halted and got down, and had our trucks detached, and -the train moved off canal-wards, and we set about looking for a site on -which to build. - -And there was no time to waste. The first flight had left Tel-el-Kebir -that morning, and any moment their advance-guard might loom up on the -heat-hazed horizon and come in soliciting grub. - -A permanent camp of Royal Engineers close at hand lent a fatigue. By -three o'clock the virgin depôt was well established. - -At four, through a cloud of dust, the advance-party (mostly Staff -Officers on horseback) rode in very hot and very thirsty. Brigade -Majors boast a thirst at any time and in any weather. Aggravated now, -it had first to be assuaged. The Battalion of Pioneers who followed us -by train had mapped out the plan of camp on paper, and now proceeded -to conduct battalions; for they followed close in the heels of their -staffs, dusty and sweating under their packs, and dragging a weary -way through the yielding sand. Lucky Majors rode, and surveyed their -perspiring men from the cool and luxurious height of a horse. The -battalions plumped down in the sand and the sun where they stood. -The camel-trains followed, plonking along with their flat-spreading -feet and aspiring noses and loads of ration, blankets, tents, tables, -and general camp _impedimenta_. Their Indian "dravees" led them by -the nose. They gurgled with the heat, and foundered on very slight -provocation indeed. - -By five the whole flight is established in bivouac lines. For a couple -of hours there is feverish bustle at the supply depôt. Half the issuing -is carried out by lamp-light. The battalions settle down to sleep with -the sun, and there is little energy left for horse-play, though there -is a good deal of singing, and even concerts improvised. - -But the whole camp is quiet by nine; the men are sleeping in the sand -under the moon; there are no lights except in the two tents erected for -Staff Officers. - -You're wakened at four the next morning by the camp astir, to be off at -sunrise. But they have their ration, and you don't get up, but thank -Heaven you're a part of no flight. - -A part of nothing--for the moment. That's the beauty of this mission. -You're subject to nobody. You've brought your own supplies, built -your own depôt, and can dictate to Staff Captains and Colonels and to -all the tin-hats who may approach you for ration. A supply officer is -deeply respected, _ex-officio_. Though he be a mere Subaltern, it is -known he holds the distribution of fleshly favours. The officer drawing -ration who is incivil is in danger of being the worse for it; only the -respectful get baksheesh. - -The Fortress Company of Anglesey Engineers camped permanently, who had -lent an emergency fatigue, turned out to be a boon and a blessing. -It took less time than usual to penetrate the admirable English -reticence surrounding their companionable qualities. The penetration -began with a neighbourly invitation to their regimental sports, held -conjointly with those of a detachment of Hyderabad Lancers camped at -Mahsamah for patrol purposes. They united in a half-day's competition -in foot-racing, football, jumping, tug-o'-war, cycle-racing, and the -rest of the athletics common to Indians and Britishers. Beside, the -Hyderabads gave exhibitions in horseback-wrestling, tent-pegging, -cleaving the lime at the gallop, and allied exercises, in which -Englishmen do not compete. The Captain of the Lancers was a young -Indian aristocrat who spoke English faultlessly, and was a regular and -interesting member of the Anglesey mess. - -The English gentlemen who drew him and the Supply Officer were in no -way roughened by a six months' campaign at Suvla Bay. Gordon was an -Irishman from Trinity College, Dublin, who had preceded his course -in engineering by reclining in Arts three years and browsing richly -and refraining resolutely from cram--an engineer balanced ideally -between the world of mere mathematical horse-sense and a gentle -other-worldliness, and rich in a fitful and whimsical Irish humour -that was good to live with; a man devoted to duty (when any was put -in his way, which was seldom), otherwise exercising himself genially -upon self-appointed surveys, geological rambling, artful shooting, -photography, and banter. No tongue in the mess was a match for his; -he emerged from argument with ease and credit always, and left his -opponents floundering. A fearless, tender-hearted, courteous Irish -gentleman, modest to the point of self-effacement and able to the point -of genius. His mother was a friend of Edward Dowden and his circle, -and Gordon had in store a rich fund of anecdote relating to academical -Dublin. - -The Medical Officer--"Doc," familiarly--was a Scotchman with a -burr and a subtle uncaledonian quality of humour, and a sparkling -intellectuality quite out of harmony with the traditional Scotch -lumbering cerebration. Doc was lovable; and a butt through his -popularity, though not a butt who took it lying down. But he was never -a match for Gordon, though he usually routed the Captain--also a -Scotchman--whose hobby was the facetious discussion of ways and means -to getting a competent M.O. attached. The Doc's duties were purely -nominal, the care of any who might fall victims amongst the Angleseys -to toothache, boils, vermin, colds, gashes--any ills, in short, to -which men in a desert camp might be liable. For the rest, he shot -with the mess, dawdled with "films," perused his Scotch newspapers, -improvised schemes in sanitation, dabbled in canal parasites and -mosquito larvæ, and forged jokes. - -Seymour was a highly-intelligent animal (taking seven-and-five-eighths -in hats), who argued with a kind of implacable ferocity, and when he -sat down to bridge would never stop before two or three. But all his -argument was for mental exercise and not from conviction, and his -fiercest encounters were wont to end in a thrust of bathos at which the -mess roared. He was a fine intellectual and physical animal, as keen in -riding and shooting and bathing as in dialectic. - -The Captain was a diminutive, ceremonious Scotchman, commanding -deference out of doors, bullied to death in the mess by his Subalterns. -The contrast between out- and indoors was striking. The last letter of -the law in discipline and ceremony was observed outside the mess, but -at table no Australian officers' mess was ever more informal. Barriers -of rank were thrown down, and none but surnames tolerated by the least -even unto the greatest. - -That mess was as luxuriously appointed as a civilian home. Easy-chairs, -writing-tables, messing-tables and their appointments, punctilious -servants, matted floors, made one forget for a few hours daily that a -war was in progress. For the man who makes himself at home on service -you are commended to the English officer. And in a permanent camp such -as this he excelled himself. Eating was delicate, glass and silver -shone and prevailed. Hours for meals were late and irregular: breakfast -at 8.30; lunch light, and at any time; dinner at any hour between 8 and -9.30, and long-drawn-out, so that you generally rose from table between -10 and 11, and sat back for pow-wow after. - -It was a rare day there was not game in the mess. Adjoining the -sweet-water canal was a lagoon, reed-fringed and with reed-islands -where you could row a mile and believe yourself in Australia; no sand -to be seen. Three times a week we shot. There were duck and snipe and -teal. The Sheikh of the village furnished half a dozen shot-guns and as -many boats and boatmen, and came himself, carrying a gun (and proud he -was of his shooting--and justly so). - -One man one skiff was the order. We would set out at 4.30, after tea, -and return at 8. The danger was to forget the duck in the still beauty -of the evening. As you watched the reddening west over the reeds, the -birds coming across the ruddy ground would recall you to business. -Shooting was easy, so we got a lot. The place was untrammelled. Except -for an occasional General who came up for a day's sport (the Staff -had got to know the Mahsamah Lagoon), there was little shooting done, -and the water had not yet become a scare-area. The Sheikh did a little -on his own account. The underlings he provided knew their work, and -would ejaculate and advise in Arabic: _Talihena! Bakaskeen kebir!_ -(snipe--big one!)--in a hoarse, excited whisper, as the birds rose -on the breeze. _Aywah_, you mutter, making ready. They would strip -and go into the reeds waist-deep for birds fallen there. _Quaiys -kiteer!_ (fine), greeted a hit; and if you missed, a consolatory -_Malish!_ (never mind), _Bukrah_ (perhaps to-morrow), uttered with a -gentle ironical intonation. Rowing back there was always baksheesh in -cigarettes or cartridges--or both; and some, with their skins wet and -muddied from wading, deserved it. Some did not. - -The natives fished the lagoon systematically with nets, at night. You -encountered them as you pursued duck. They regularly exported crates -of fish to Cairo and Zagazig. When the nets were spread they would -"beat-up" the fish with tomtoms in the boats. You might hear their -solitary cries and their rhythmic tattoo on the water all night. - -They fished with lines, too--to order. If you gave them an order at the -camp for a dozen they would have them back in half an hour, wriggling -on a string. They were proud of their craft, and would throw you a -triumphant glance, as who should say, "Let's see you do that!" - -The Arab village lay on the banks of the canal. Comely villagers they -were, with well-featured women and men with a continent, contented air, -living by fishing or growing of crops. The camera they funked, and -that distinguished them from the raucous, dissolute denizens of Cairo, -who delight to ape attitudes for the photographer. They showed all the -best qualities of the fellaheen. There was no obsequiousness in the -men, as in the capital. There is no crowd more cowardly and villainous -than the Cairene mob. But the men at Mahsamah, when the sojourning -Australians attempted to commandeer their canal-ferry, pushed them -incontinently into the stream. This was conduct unprecedented in the -Egyptian. A town-and-gown fight ensued. Skulls were cracked, and the -Australians had by no means the better of it. There was a dash of -the old fighting Bedouin blood in these fellows. There was to be no -bullying here; and there was none. - -Only the station-master had forfeited his independence of spirit. He -alone of the whole village was in habitual contact with "the public." -It had wrought in him a fawning plausibility the more contemptible by -its contrast with the sturdiness of the surrounding natives. He lied -by habit; the fictitious way was more natural with him than the way -of truth. In official dealings he lied first, and afterwards modified -it into truth. Regardless of consistency, he said invariably what -he thought would please. Railway time-tables with him varied with -the estimated temper of the inquirer. This seems incredible, but it -is true. He was the only village inhabitant who ever invited you to -take coffee; and he (the potentially dignified station-master) alone, -in all the village, was ever known to solicit baksheesh--an oily, -yellow, perennially-smiling, small-bodied, altogether small-souled -railway-official, in him seemed incarnated the slavish spirit of -officialdom in all Egypt. - -Bathing in the Canal was forbidden along its whole length. There lurked -a parasite that played Old Harry with livers. It ravaged the natives in -rare cases, though, having drunk and washed in the canal from infancy, -a sort of immunity was claimed for them. But there were victims to the -parasite to be seen amongst them--no pretty sight. - -A favourite walk at sundown was the canal-bank. The reed-shot lagoon on -the east, traversed by sporadic, crying duck; the gentle wind, blowing -warm off the Libyan Desert, drifting the silent dhow; a solitary -fellaheen on his ambling beast; an Arab doing his devotions in the -tiny praying-crib on the water's brink; the west darkening behind the -palm-tufts over the illimitable sand. There was a peace here little -known in our other halting-places in the Delta. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -CANAL ZONE - - -At Serapoeum, sprawled upon the Canal-banks just above the Bitter -Lakes, you are sufficiently far from Cairo to be delivered from the -hankering after the city such as gnaws you intermittently at such -a place as Tel el Kebir. From the old battle-ground you may run up -in a couple of hours; from the Canal the length of the journey is -trebled, and encroaches seriously upon your _feloose_, and that is -a consideration which ought not to--which will not--be despised on -service. And beside the fact that the rail journey is trebled from -the desert camp, there are some miles of dismal sand-plodding between -you and the railway-station, and the desert has inspired you with the -Sahara lassitude and an unfevered frame. You feel, in this waste of -brown sand, the incipiency of the mood of the contemplative Arab, to -whom the whirl of the metropolis is anathæma; but only its incipiency, -because there is still in your blood the subconscious resentment of -eight months' enforced inactivity on Anzac. Compulsory monotony, -whatever its form, raises a temperamental hostility: whether the -monotony of geographical confinement, limited vision, shell-scream, -innutritious food, inescapable dirt and vermin, or that of wide and -sand-billowed outlook, delicate messing, tranquil sleeping, luxurious -Canal-bathing, heat, and flies. Cairo is Cairo. The Peninsula, as -comfortable as this, would have been far less intolerable. But so long -as it is something less than the trackless Ægean that divides from the -glamour of Egyptian cities, you clamour for leave. - -This is unintelligible--this _blasé_, surfeited mind of the Australian -soldier, in Cairo. "Never want to see it again! I'm fed up with Cairo!" -is a judgment strangely prevalent in the army of occupation. How -any land and people so utterly strange to the Australian can become -indifferent to him is incomprehensible. Every Cairene alley is a haunt -of stinks and filth--but a haunt of wonder, too. Cairene habits that -are annoying and repulsive are at the same time intensely interesting. -To get behind the mind of this people and hazard an estimate and a -comparison of its attitude towards life is an occupation endlessly -amusing. - -But you may clamour for leave here with little effect. Divisional -orders have minimised it to men going to Cairo on duty. Duty-leave is -a time-honoured slogan that has been accustomed to cover a multitude -of one's own ends. But the added stringency of leave regulations which -preface a projected move of the division scrutinise very closely all -that is connoted by the term "Duty-leave," and lop away a good many of -its excrescences. So that, on the whole, you end by settling down in -the great sand and feigning a lively response to the call of the desert. - -You do respond. You must. Anyone would; but not ardently. - -We are on the Sinai side of the Blue Trough which colours richly -between its shores of light sand. We also are colouring richly. It's -far too hot for representative uniform clothing. Yet the clothing is -uniform--uniform in respect of a discardment of tunic and cap and a -ubiquity of shirt. The broad-brimmed hat and the gauze shirt and the -half-bared thigh for us; and the daily bathe. - -The soldier is very busy indeed--too busy to live--who cannot get time -to trudge over to the blue water, doff, and disport himself in that -cool, tideless limpidity, which recreates (we are gross, material -creatures) his world. The banks swarm with brown, deep-chested nudes; -the water is strewn thickly with smooth-haired, colliding Australians, -elated by the bodily change almost beyond belief. Desert livers, desert -lassitude, and desert shortness of temper, cannot persist in this -medium. And the rest of the day is transmuted by it. The Canal adds to -efficiency. - -Ships of all nations pass daily, and ships of all classes at Lloyd's. -Those are reckoned A1 which bear women-passengers. Raucous warning to -those men who are back to nature on the bank is given as the mail-boat -creeps up. Everyone who is wearing his birthday garment plunges and -swims out. The ship is surrounded by a sea of heads, and greeted with -all the grafted Arabic phrases that Australians have acquired--no, -not all; but with all those suited to polite society. The facetious -cry for baksheesh rises with a native Arabic insistence (but is -responded to with a freedom not customarily extended to natives): -"_Sai-eeda!--Baksheesh!--Gib it!--Gib it baksheesh for the baby!--Gib -it!--One cigarette!--Gib it tabac!--Gib it half-piastre!--Enta -quies!--Quies kiteer!--Kattar kairak!_" as the shower descends: tins -of cigarettes and chocolate, and keepsakes that are not edible. - -There is as much excitement on deck as in the water. There is monotony -of sea-travel as well as of desert life; the same encounter interrupts -both. And apart from that, one can believe that these peoples are -genuinely glad to see each other. The soldiers have looked in the face -of no woman for far too long, and the admiration of the women for the -fellows is not necessarily feigned. They throw over greetings with the -other baksheesh luxuries, and these are returned in kind. The girls are -sports in the Australian sense, offering suggestions to come aboard, -and go tripping with rather more freedom than they would probably -use were there any possibility of an acceptance of the invitation. -Inevitably there is one woman (never a girl) in fifty who spoils it all -by a touch of Jingoism--calling them brave and noble fellows to their -faces, and screaming "Are we downhearted?" in a way Stalky would have -disapproved. This is volubly resented in responses to that oratorical -question which have no direct reference to the state of their spirits. - -The boat moves on, fluttering with handkerchiefs, to the transport -staging, always crowded with men, who are not nude. The shower of -baksheesh is flung over again. Women are not notoriously good shots. -For the packages that fall short the men leap in, clothes and all, -and scramble, and reckon themselves well repaid. One afternoon the -largest package for which clothes were wetted proved to be a bundle of -_War-Cries_ and allied journals, dropped either by some humourist or -by one sincerely exercised for the spiritual welfare of the troops. -The latter was the inevitable assumption. The donor was greeted by the -dripping warriors with a chorus of acknowledgments that could leave no -doubt as to their spiritual needs. Soldiers have a religion, but they -are not accustomed to make it explicit. - -The passing ships lighten the dulness. They bring a whiff of the great -British civilian world that is otherwise so unrelentingly far removed, -and which Cairo (when one does get there) brings very little nearer. - -The Canal is crossed at Serapoeum by pontoon ferry, row-boat, and -pontoon-bridge. Take your choice. But that is not always possible. -Sometimes the bridge is swung open for hours on end to allow liners, -tugs, dhows, and launches to pass. It was built for vehicular and -animal traffic--for the transport of supplies, in fact, from Egypt to -the troops in Sinai. When open it therefore bears a constant stream of -G.S. waggons loaded with army stores. It's one stage of the journey -of beef from the plains of Queensland to the cook's "dixies" in the -Sinaian desert trenches. Supplies are disembarked at Suez and Port -Said, entrained to Egyptian Serapoeum, transported by waggon across -this bridge to the desert railway terminus on the opposite bank; they -are trucked out to railhead beyond the sandy horizon, and thence Canal -trains bear them to the desert outposts for final distribution. And -that is the chequered career of the Argentine ox, who never dared -hope for himself any such distinction as that of contributing to the -efficiency of His Majesty's Forces in the Peninsula of Sinai. - -The miniature desert railway is no despicable contrivance, puffing -there and back-firing from its nuggety petrol engine. It can make -fifteen miles an hour with fifteen trucks of supplies lumbering behind. -Sometimes it leaves the somewhat flimsy track; sometimes it runs down -an unaccustomed Arab in a desert dust-storm; and sometimes it "sticks" -quite as annoyingly as any petrol-driven vehicle can do. Whatever the -nature of the obstacle--mangled Arab or jibbing engine--there is lusty -swearing; for the business of the desert railway is of more urgency -than that of most links in the lines of communication. For instance, -it--and it alone--can furnish with anything approaching expedition the -daily water-supply of the advanced trenches in the April Arabian sand. - -It was during the first day of the _khamseen_ that the engine-wheels -became clogged with the remains of a man whom the whirling dust -prevented from seeing or hearing anything of engines. The violence of -the annual April _khamseen_ is incredible by those who haven't suffered -it. The initial days of the _khamseen_ period the Egyptians celebrate -in the festival of _Shem el Nessim_. They go out into the fields of the -Delta (of the Delta, mark you) with music and with dancing. There's no -disputing about taste--if, that is, the _khamseen_ is blowing "up to -time." Nothing more distressing you'll meet amongst desert scourges. -It's the _khamseen_ which kills camels in mid-desert by suffocation. -That is a fair test of the driving and dust-raising powers of the storm. - -It begins with a zephyr for which the uninitiated thanks Allah in -the first half-hour. By the end of an hour he is calling upon Allah -for deliverance. At the end of a day he speculates upon his chances -of seeing the morning. At the end of the second day he calls upon -Allah to take away his life. The _khamseen_ this year lasted two days -without intermission. It began at dark without further warning than -that of a leaden sky and a compression of the atmosphere. But these -are indications that are, in Egypt, so often indicative of nothing, -that they lose significance altogether. On the 20th of April they -proved to have been highly charged with meaning. In forty minutes the -gale had reached its height. And there it stayed. Men expected relief -momentarily; but it never came that night--nor the next day--nor the -night following. "Such violence cannot last," said the Australian. In -twenty-four hours he was not sure it might not last for ever. Few tents -stood the strain longer than an hour. Men grumbled and turned in with -a half-sense of security from the tempest without. They hardly looked -for their house to come tumbling about their ears before midnight. -But few escaped that; the others spent the night under fallen canvas. -Sinaian desert sand cannot be expected to bear an indefinite strain -upon tent-guys. Those tents which stood at sunrise (if sunrise it -could be called) were kept up only by the frequent periodicity of the -mallet's application in the thick night. As soon as one tent-peg left -earth, the beginning of the end was come unless the inmate crouched out -and replaced it and strengthened the others. He came back with ears and -nose and eyes clogged and face stung painfully. At the third attempt to -keep his home up he said: "I'll go no more! Damn it! Let it come!"--and -it came. - -The morning showed no sun--showed nothing farther than six yards away. -Men showed a face above demolished canvas and drew back hastily, stung -and half-choked by the driving grit. In those tents still standing -the furniture could not be judged by appearances. Thick dust covered -everything as with a garment. Regimental office tents that had fallen -before the gale had lost documents that could not be replaced or easily -recreated. Food in the mess was inedible; no one ate except to satisfy -the more urgent demands of hunger. The outdoor work had to proceed. You -couldn't see more than in a North Sea fog. Collisions were inescapable. -You couldn't smoke; you couldn't speak, without swallowing the gale. -Men got disgusted with continuing to live. On the third morning the -desert smiled at you as though nothing had happened. The quiet and -the purity of the air were like release from pain. Men set to work at -cleaning their hair and alleviating a desert throat. - -Anzac Day came upon us at Serapoeum--the first anniversary of the -day of that landing which has seized and fired the imagination of -the Empire. No doubt there are other empires than the British which -marvelled at the impetuousness of that maiden proving of Australian -temperament; for it was temperament that carried us up. The world had -no sound ground for being surprised at success on the 25th of April, -except in so far as the world was ignorant of Australian temperament. -Yet surprise contended with adoration in the newspaper headings -which announced our success in planting a foot on Turkish ridges. -But inaccuracy in a use of terms is a quality not inseparable from -journalistic headlines in times of public excitement. The fact is that, -notwithstanding the world's expectation of the fatal elaborateness of -the Turkish preparation to receive us, there was no call for surprise -at the event in people that knew Australian conditions of life and -resultant Australian character. And, granting that as known, the fact -that we were fleshing virgin swords was no legitimate further ground -for surprise, though it was commonly published as such. It should -have been anything but that. People knowing Australians would be due -to recognise that, in all the circumstances, they would fight better, -under the eyes of the world, in a probationary struggle calculated to -establish their reputation than would experienced soldiers who knew -more than they of what the task exacted and of its possibilities. -Ignorance of warfare other than theoretical was in no sense a handicap -to men of Australian temperament: to such men it was material aid. In -a word, Australians could not help themselves at the Landing. Were -it otherwise, our troops would not have overstepped requirements to -the extent of unorganised and spasmodic pursuit of the routed enemy. -Success at the Landing was the inevitable result of temperament rather -than the contrived result of qualities deliberately summoned up on the -occasion.... - -The supreme charm of the desert resides in her nights. Long purple -shadows spread over the sand-tracts before evening. This gives to the -sand-sea an appearance of gentle undulation which is virtual only, but -none the less grateful for the delusion. The distances are shortened; a -crushing blow is dealt by the peace-loving evening to the desert curse -of monotony. The Suez hills transform to rich purple masses, splendid -in the depth of their colour. The Bitter Lakes sleep in the south. The -Canal settles down to gleam stealthily between its amorphous banks. -The fir-groves on the shore thicken; the dancing daylight interstices -in their meagre ranks are filled by the on-coming darkness until you -feel there are acres of thick plantation; they moan quietly in the -dusk in relief from the pitilessness of these burning days. The little -rivers of water scooped about their roots are filled, and the delicious -absorption begins. - -Down-stream the coolies are chanting together in response to an -improvised wail unerringly consistent with the rhythm of their chorus. -You will hear nothing more pathetic than this song removed by distance. -The solo comes down the water in the cadences of desolation. It may be -the irregularity of the cadence that gives the sense of lamentation; -it may be because the enunciation is never full-chested--nor even -full-throated. It is as though extorted by a depth of desolation of -spirit that cannot stoop beneath the dignity of rhythmic utterance. -Near or far, the coolie choruses bear the same import of pathos; and, -indeed, there is little happiness amongst the Egyptians: nothing -buoyant (their climate forbids it); nothing approaching French vivacity -of spirit. There is a profound solemnity in the heart of the Egyptian. -It sometimes finds exaggerated vent in an unnatural but curtailed burst -of merriment, which quickly repasses into the temperamental sombreness. -The folk-songs and chants of a people are a safe index to temperament: -nothing more consistently pathetic than this will you hear without -travelling far. - -The chant ceases as the bow searchlight of a vessel turns out of -the Lakes into the Canal channel, and illuminates it like a walled -street. There are ships that pass in the night, and they light their -own way with a brilliancy that takes no risk of collision. The tiny -wind-ridges in the banks are in relief; for a mile ahead the minutest -floating object is discovered. The coolies hail her as she passes. The -night-gangs at work on the barges that bear supplies from Suez and -Port Said interrogate hilariously, out of harmony with the still glory -of the night, but consonantly enough with the brilliant illumination. -There is not much dialogue. Most of the hailing is from the shore -alone.... She moves on. The banks close blackly about her stern. The -lanterns swing again about the barges. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -ALEXANDRIA THE THIRD TIME - - -It's like returning to visit an old friend--rushing towards the sea -of masts behind the sea of white towers glittering beside the sea -of Mediterranean blue. At the first glimpse of that multitudinous -shipping you lose interest in the sea of green delta through which -you are rushing; the mud-walled village-islands rising from it lose -charm in anticipation of the big city you know so well. You remember -it with a sort of yearning for its nobility. For noble it is. There -is no nobility in Cairo, except seen from the fringe of the Mokattam -Hills as you stand on the Bey's Leap at the Citadel looking down on the -busy expanse under its wealth of minarets. Cairo is more interesting, -because more truly Oriental; it has the charm of utter strangeness. -Alexandria is better built, more stately, less evil-smelling; it's the -charm of a well-ordered European city that holds you; and there is -always the loveliness of that Mediterranean outlook from the clean, -generously-broad esplanade. The sea about Cairo is true desert-sand, -unending, which is not lovely, except at the dawn and sundown, when the -colour leaps up about the far horizon. - -For three hours, since leaving Cairo, you have been scouring the -green plain in a train of the Egyptian State railways, which bears -comparison well with most other rolling-stock that a limited knowledge -of the travelling world has given you. The Delta is unnaturally rich -and almost unnaturally green. Many centuries of Old Nile depositing -of fat mud have seemed to concentrate within that Nile Valley all -the richness that is in the soil of Egypt. Nor is it a green that is -ultra-rich by contrast with a desert background, for as far as you see -either way there is no sand; you're in the heart of the crops. There's -a monotony of level cultivation which tires you in the end, however -rich; a monotony broken only by a monotonous succession of out-cropping -palm-groves, sleeping canal, white creeping sail, mud-walled village, -and dilapidated mosque. You tire of the regularity of recurrence. -There is a hankering after the quiet stir and variety of the city of -Alexandria quite as strong upon you as Johnson's fervent passion for -the atmosphere of London. - -There is a simple crudity in the man who persists in being an -Englishman to the backbone in the land of Egypt. The Australian enters -much more aptly into the spirit of the country--worms his way into -the intricacies of the bazaars and markets, and talks much with the -Alexandrian denizens, if only in pantomime. He "does as they do" far -more consistently than the restrained Tommy--even to the extent of -consuming their curious dishes, riding on their beasts and in their -vehicles, tasting their drinks and smoking their pipes. The Englishman -tends to call always for English beer and for roast beef, and sticks -tenaciously to his briar. - -Alexandria has changed, too, at the quays. The transports are no longer -lading noisily, nor, when they are lading, taking in ammunition. -Mostly they are lying out quietly in the harbour, waiting. In March of -last year the harbour was alive with barges bearing fodder and supplies -and ammunition, and with motor-launches rushing to and fro carrying -officers of the General Staff. Now an occasional Arab dhow drifts -lazily, bearing nothing in particular, and the quay-sides are noisy -only with a sort of civilian bustle. - -And the ubiquitous nursing-sister was not ubiquitous last year; she -was rarely to be seen in the streets; then she was like the motor-car -twenty years ago: you turned round and looked until her gharry was -swallowed in the traffic. Now she is, in twos and threes, in the cafés, -the Oriental shops, the car, the post office, the mosque; on the -esplanade, on the outlying pleasure-roads of Ramleh, the golf-links, -the race-course; the Rue Cherif Pacha teems with her, shopping or -merely doing the afternoon promenade. She is sprinkled among the -tea-parties at Groppi's; her striking red and grey adds colour to the -Square of Mahomet Ali, the Rue Ramleh, and the Rue Rosette. - -Do not infer, gentle reader, that there is nothing to be done in -hospital. There is; but less. Gallipoli wounds either are healed or -sent to Australia to heal in the fine St. Kilda air. It's mostly sick -in hospital now, and sick requiring merely routine attention. And, -beside, there are more hospitals than a year ago. Since the Turkish -fight began they have been increasing; and now it's over, the Lemnian -hospitals of the advanced base have sailed back, and, in cases where -they are not yet re-established, their Sisters are running about the -capital unchained, revelling in a well-earned respite, with the Ægean -roses blowing in their cheeks. - -Of hospitals there is no end, in the airy suburbs. The splendid -houses of rich Beys fly the Red Cross at unexpected stages of the -ride to Ramleh. An amazing number of private houses are in use thus. -The convalescents wander over the lawns and through the shrubberies -and perch on the balconies. There is evidence of the havoc played by -Turkish weapons and Turkish sickness on all hands. The impression is of -Alexandria's having been hard put to it to find hospital accommodation. - -In these respects Alexandria has changed, but not in itself. It has the -same well-bred appearance as a city. There is the same absorption of -its regular population in business or in pleasure. The Bourse, the hub -of the city, is as animated as ever with bearded, gesticulating French, -Italian and Greek financiers taking their coffee on its verandah -looking down the Square. The Rue Cherif Pacha is as close-packed as -before with the carriages of rich French dowagers and pretty French -aristocrats. They have their coachmen in livery, and they know how to -dress irresistibly. There are not many finer human sights in this world -than is made by a young French mother, gowned and toileted with an art -that conceals art, reclining in the barouche with her daughters in the -Alexandrian winter afternoon sunshine. The Melbourne "Block" brags of -its reputation for beauty, but here is a fine essence of beauty such -as Paris at her best would own, which Paris, one suspects, actually -does flaunt in the summer. The best beauty of Paris, Milan, and Athens, -winters here. So does much of England. At present it is chiefly the -wives of officers; and they are no mean stock. - -That Place Mahomet Ali is endlessly interesting and endlessly -picturesque. The gamut of the city's life is run-over here any -afternoon. It's a stately Square: stately in the buildings that -surround it--Stein's and the majestic Bourse and St. Mark's and the -best hotels. There are the rows of well-kept gharries and well-groomed -horses--kept as well as most private carriages. The two well-planted -islands stand green and quiet in the midst of the gentle roar and -moving colour, and the fine equestrian statue of Mahomet Ali looks with -dignity down upon it all. It's perhaps the most cosmopolitan crowd -in the world that moves about the Square. The typically Arab quarter -is segregated--lies in a labyrinth of bazaars in a well-defined area -off the Square. Cairo is flooded with the life and business of the -Arab in every quarter. Cairo, too, is compassed about with so much of -Ancient Egyptian relics as to distract you from the occupation of first -importance: looking upon the living. They are of more import than the -dead. In Alexandria the ancient monuments are few, but those few are -well preserved and mostly confined within the walls of the Classical -Museum. You may watch the life of Alexandria undistracted by any -subconscious urging to be out stooping and panting through the Great -Pyramid for the fifth time (that nothing be lost), or wandering among -the silent Tombs of the Caliphs. - -A right good sight in Alexandria is the broad, mansion-skirted -promenade of the Rue Rosette on a Sunday morning. The French "quality" -of the city seems to reside there, and the best of it all is to watch -the dainty little French girls going to Mass in the pleasant sunshine. -They promenade that street in groups for two or three hours until -all are retired into the residences for the mid-day meal. There is a -delicacy of beauty in these little girls that affects one strangely -after eight months from the haunt of woman and child. - -The Rue Rosette in the morning, or the Quai Promenade Abbas II., -fronting the lovely Crescent of Port Est: this is the place to laze -away a morning, hanging over the broad stone wall on the water's edge, -or lounging in the open cafés behind the smooth road. There is that -generous expanse of glittering sea heaving gently between the horns -of the bay. The Fort Kait Bey lies brown on the western lip and Fort -Sel Sileh on the east, half embracing the blue. A rich mellow colour -they have, and a richer blue it is for that. And the white piles of -Alexandria thrust up all about the bay's brink, fringing the clear -basin with a sort of stately splendour. It's fine, too, the comfortable -laziness of the red-tarbushed fishermen on the wall, smoking and -fooling away the morning in the soft landbreeze blowing sweet off the -city. The only movement is with the Arab boys racing along the parapet -or the quiet motion of the fishing-smacks lying off. An old Russian -aristocrat is taking the air in a gharry; the nursemaids are out with -the babes; the well-dressed unemployed Egyptians (they throng the city) -are sipping their morning coffee in the glass-walled cafés. Alexandria -often gives the impression--except in the Square--that there are no -livings to be made. There is a luxurious spirit of idleness abroad in -the place, which appears on the balconies of the houses, in the cafés, -in the carriages of the suburbs. The idle rich--who are largely not -the vulgar rich--are here, whole battalions of them. There is nothing -like the studied idleness of Edinburgh Town or of Naples--nor of Cairo. -There are plutocrats who know how to dress and how to take their ease -without boredom, and to pursue pleasure without apparent _ennui_. All -these things (you feel) have they observed from their youth up; they -practise none of them crudely. They are well schooled in a placid and -luxurious enjoyment of life. - -The Alexandrian night begins about 9.30. It is for that hour the opera -overture is timed; then cafés and music-halls begin to be thronged. -At one in the morning it is at its height. The opera may conclude at -two; and after that is the supper, and after that the drive. Far the -best way to see it all is to sit up in the diggings of your friend -overlooking the brilliant Rue Ramleh from twelve on toward the dawn. -There are sacred pipes and Alexandrian fruits, and other things; they -include the conversation of the man who has lived in Alexandria a year -and looked about him not casually, and who realises the import of all -he sees in the pulsing street below. - -This is the fine side of Alexandrian night life. There is the sordid -aspect, not good--_i.e._, pleasant--to look on nor to relate. -Alexandria cannot compare with Cairo in lasciviousness. Perhaps no -place on earth can, nor any under earth. For crude carnality you -are to be commended to the Wazzia of Cairo; there the flesh-pots of -Egypt are seething and steaming. Apart from the temperately-conducted -biological friendships of the leisured French and Russians and -Italians, the carnal traffic of Alexandria is limited very closely. -It does not clog the alleys, as in Cairo, on every hand. Indeed, it -is rather the pot-house and the tavern, where the sole business of -the waitresses is to bring traffic in beer, that is the scourge of -Alexandria. Their blandishments mostly are content with coquettish -inducements to "fill 'em up again"; to achieve that they will perch -on the knees of the soldiers and stroke their visages in a fashion -not just maidenly, but effective in the eyes of the beer-boss. These -taverns are at close intervals in all the poorer streets. There is -always a piano, at least, and an employed performer; sometimes there -is an embryonic orchestra--harp and fiddle--whose _répertoire_ is -Tipperary and another--or perhaps two others. There is a continuous -fierce roaring, which subsides only when a Tommy rises to sing. The -pianist ramps out an improvised accompaniment. No pianist has ever been -known to decline to make an attempt. Everybody joins in the chorus. -By the time the chorus of the fifth stanza is under way, there is a -rare drunken hullabaloo, and spilt beer and broken glasses. Ogling -girls and flushed, embracing Tommies, yells for more beer, and drunken -miscalculations of the score and feebly thundering band--all are -checked with a parade-ground suddenness when the red-caps appear with -their roars of _Nine o'clock!_ And the pot-house, so to speak, closes -with a slam. - -The picquets are irresistibly strong and numerous. They parade in -squads in half-sections, each under an officer. The Provost-Marshal, -with a scrape o' the pen, has placed out of bounds most of the -danger-zones which a year ago were open territory to the soldier. - -The Arab quarters are at their best at midnight. They have their -music-halls, blatant and raucous and evil-smelling. The star performers -are usually confined to one bloated, painted woman who screams an -Arab rhythm at intervals under the influence of hasheesh, to the -accompaniment of an orchestra of pipes and drums whose performers -are elated by the same familiar spirit. Arab music is strident to a -degree that sears the nerves. No drunkenness in the audience ever -drowns _that_. It soars like a siren above the frantic mirth of the -drinkers. Applause breaks forth at unprovoked intervals. The lady is -never perturbed. She is reinforced occasionally by the brazen-throated -orchestra, which is chorus too. The din is unimaginable when they are -working in concert. The Arab sense of rhythm is unerring. Their rhythms -are irregular and without consecutiveness in their habits, to the -European ear that is not closely attentive; drawn out, as it were, into -irregular strands--totally unsystematised, it seems--with the intervals -at cross-purposes. They despise the Western mathematical rhythmical -"groups" and the regular Western recurrence of stresses and intervals. -English rhythm is as much unlike it as the characters of a London -morning sheet differ from the gracefully irregular type of the native -Egyptian press; the difference is as striking as between the tortuous -Eastern mind and the British downrightness; as between an English tweed -suit and the Arab flowing robe. Yet in this rhythmical maze no member -of the orchestral chorus ever loses his way. There is perfect agreement -in the disclosing of the scheme, which, after half an hour's turbulent -listening, begins to show its shape through the rhythmical murk. And -you know before you leave that though English music may make a sweeter -sound than this, the Arab mastery of rhythm is mastery indeed. And that -knowledge is, of course, deepened if you'll stop any day and listen to -a group of Arab workmen chanting at their job. - -So long as you withstand the glad-eye of the serpent of Old Nile (who -descends now and then from the boards and collects baksheesh piastres) -and keep to coffee, you will find these Egyptian music-halls absorbing -enough. There are never women in the audience. The Egyptian woman--at -any rate in the lower and middle classes--is never a "theatre-goer," -as far as can be judged. She earns most of the living. All the -_feloose_ would seem to go into her lord's mighty hand, which does the -spending--mostly on himself. Night after night he comes there in his -red tarbush and sees the evening out with liquor and vociferous talk. -Somewhere in the small-hours a gharry comes for the lady, and the hall -noisily gets emptied. And as you climb up to your room in the hotel -opposite, you can hear the dispersing throng in argument and criticism -far along the emptying street. Standing at your balcony door, it merges -imperceptibly into the subdued murmur of the city, broken by a belated -wailing, street-cry. - -In the morning you wake at some hour later than _réveille_, and gloat -for a time that is indefinite over the luxury of a spring-mattress -and of a day's time-table that is of your own framing--that shall -be when you summon up energy sufficient to begin upon it. The city -wakens almost as late as you. By the time you have bathed and dressed -at exaggerated ease and meandered round to the Italian restaurant -it is ten o'clock. Exotic Italian dishes are good for all their -strangeness.... Across the peopling Square you get a car to Pompey's -Pillar, towering above the Arab cemetery. The green mound bearing that -granite column is an oasis in the desert of squalor about it. From the -crest of the hillock you see Lake Mareotis spread out like a cloud in -the morning mist--those shores now waste that grew the wine beloved of -Horace. - -The old municipal guide totters up the slope and offers you below, -through the Catacombs. You have seen the other Catacombs, beside the -Lake, which alone are really worth seeing. He shows you the Roman -mortuary-chapel in sandstone at the entrance to the galleries, lights -up his candle-lamp, and you traipse after him through the labyrinth. -The niches in the wall are robbed of their mummies; all epitaphs are -long since gone--assuming there ever were any; there is hardly anything -to be seen that is even symbolic. The old fellow mutters continually in -a lingo quite unintelligible, except in short and isolated fragments. -The linguistic accomplishments of many of the official attendants on -the ancient monuments of Egypt are deplorably shallow. You notice it -far more at places that are of far more historical importance than -the Catacombs. The tombs of the Sacred Bulls at Sakkhara afford the -most striking instance. A relic so bound up with the ancient religion -as is the Serapoeum ought to be in charge of an attendant who not -only can speak English fluently, but is beside alive to the import of -his subject. The old dotard at the Serapoeum has no further English -(obviously) than: _Sacra' Bool! Sacra' Bool!_ and _Bakshish_ and _T'ank -you, Sair!_ - -The Catacombs _par excellence_, lie along the Rue Bab-el-Melouk south -of Pompey's Pillar; but since we've been there before rather more often -than once, they must be passed over. - -And so must a great deal else. - -The Greek and Roman Museum hard by the Rue Rosette is hard to find, -retiring into a side-street with a true classical unobtrusiveness. It -is less famed than the Egyptian Museum at Cairo, but more interesting. -Most people have at least a nodding acquaintance with the history of -the classical occupation of Egypt--and here are the relics of it; -whereas Egyptian history is not popularly read, even in a cursory -fashion. In any case, for the inveterate Egyptologist there is a small -mummified Egyptian section. The Cleopatra relics are well preserved, -and especially a magnificent bust of the Siren. Mural and portal -decoration of Roman and Greek houses are there in fine fragments, and -there is a legion of vases and other ornaments from the living-rooms. -Probably the most significant specimens, historically, are the coins; -of them there is an enormously large collection. And the priceless -papyri lie near at hand. Of sepulchral emblems there are a great many, -but none beautiful except the laurel-crowned cinerary urns. - -The museum is small but highly charged with meaning. There is a -courtyard attached for the preparation (and restoration) of specimens, -and it has some Roman monuments and gateways too huge for the interior. - -The faithful Soudanese are the janitors and the conductors. Here, -again, they are ignorant and English-less, and you sigh for a -well-informed, well-paid, and intelligible informant. Only within -the last fifteen months has a catalogue been compiled; and that is -in French--though in that there is hardly any legitimate ground for -complaint. - -Most Australians at home will have heard of the Nouzha Gardens lying -along the Canal Mahmoudieh: the gardens in whose café their men have -sat listening to the band and drinking afternoon beer and watching the -youngsters romp--and even joining in the sport; and finding a welcome, -too. But few Australians will know of the Jardin Antoniadis, beyond -Nouzha, and only half as large; but finer, which is a bold saying. It's -the garden of a rich Greek Bey who has attained almost the splendour of -the Hanging Gardens. He employs sixty men. In theory, you cannot enter -without a pass--to be obtained, Heaven knows where; perhaps "at the -warehouse." But five piastres in the palm of the trusty _sa'eda_ at the -gate passes you through, and you wander amazed for a couple of hours -amongst those flowers and lawns, fountains and nymphs, ghouls and fauns -and satyrs and dryads, and centre about the master's palace buried in -the heart of the garden. It is gardening on a scale of magnificence -and ingenuity--so it is said. Any public map of Alexandria will show -the Jardin Antoniadis in bold letters. The afternoon we paid a visit -we were puzzled to know the motive which could have obliged a dozen -stalwart gardeners to stand at intervals of a dozen yards beating tins -and howling at the sky. When questioned, they pointed alternately at -the heavens and the freshly planted lawn, and we thought they must be -calling primevally upon the water-gods for rain. But on consideration -the unromantic conclusion prevailed: merely scaring birds or locusts -from the springing grass. - -The fine drive is from Nouzha round the shore of Lake Mareotis and -back to the Square by way of Ramleh--the Toorak of Alexandria. You -are defied to conceive a suburb better bred. To drive through it in a -gharry is to put yourself in the dress-circle. - -If you are back in time--that is, by 6.30--you may perhaps go to the -weekly organ-recital at St. Mark's. Nothing will bring Home before -you more vividly than the tones of a pipe-organ. But you must close -your eyes, for almost everything else in the church tears you back to -war. There's more khaki than tweed in the pews, and most of the women -present are Sisters from the hospitals. And the organist is a private -who plays at an Edinburgh church when peace is on, and the soloist (and -well he can sing) is an A.M.C. Sergeant. The "Gyppo" hired servant is -even here--as he is everywhere--creeping up and down the aisle in his -incongruous colours: none the less incongruous for his brushing against -the Cambridge graduate's gown of the Assistant-Chaplain, distributing -programmes. Music of Handel and Bach sends you aching back to your -hotel. That night you do not want to go into the Arab quarter. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE LAST OF EGYPT - - -The map shows Port Said dumped at the end of a lean streak of sand -flanking the Canal. For half the distance from Ismailia the train -sweeps along this tract. There is the Canal on your right, rich-blue -between its walled banks and foiled by the brown heat-hazed world -east; and on your left are the interminable shallows exuding the stink -of rank salt, and traversed drearily by fishing-craft. Port Said at -the approach much resembles Alexandria: the same brown, toppling -irregularity, and the multitude of masts protruding. - -The Canal at its city mouth is fretted with rectangular berthing-basins -crammed with craft, very busy and noisy. A network of railways threads -the quays. The green-domed Canal company's offices tower above the -smoke and din, redeeming them; they make a noble pile. All the shipping -is on the west bank; the east is bare, but for some sombre stone houses -and a Red Cross hospital in the sand, and a self-contained Armenian -refugee camp south of the city-level. The Canal mouth is stuffed with -cruisers and commercial ships anchored between the two stalwart stone -sea-walls. They protrude two miles into the Mediterranean, keeping the -channel. That on the west is crowned by the de Lesseps monument. - -The lean sand-neck that you traversed by rail from Ismailia takes a -right-angled turn at the head of the de Lesseps mole and runs seven -miles west into the Mediterranean. It begins with a fine residential -quarter standing behind the firm beach and the horde of bathing-boxes; -west still, and safely segregated from the decency of the city, is the -seething Arab quarter, of enormous dimensions and smelling to heaven; -and beyond Arab Town the promontory bears the city's burial-ground, -lying desolate in the sand-neck; and then peters out dismally in the -shallows. - -A new-comer takes in the straightforward geographical scheme of the -place at a glance. It's a small city, lying, as it does, midway on the -sea-road linking the East and West worlds. Its atmosphere is intensive -rather than extensive. It is highly charged with busyness. The little -area of the city is thickly peopled with every nationality (excepting -German and Austrian), promenading or sitting at the open cafés. The -shipping is congested to a degree that is apparently unwieldy. And the -period of war has taken nothing from the atmosphere of bustle. This is -the main supply base for the whole of the Canal defences and for a good -deal of Upper Egypt too. An enormous levy is made daily on railroad and -on Canal barges for transport of Army supplies. The supply depôt has -commandeered half the Quay space and receives and disgorges day and -night without intermission. - -For that reason (as well as because shipping is thick in the Canal -mouth) the place is good game for hostile aircraft. The morning after -our arrival Fritz came over before breakfast and dropped six bombs -and left two Arabs stretched on the quay. Anti-aircraft guns let fly, -and innumerable rifles. The din of bombs and guns and musketry took -one back for a vivid twenty minutes to Anzac--for the first time -since leaving that place of unhappy memory. No damage was done--to -the raiders. But the two coolies lay there, and the rest (seven -hundred strong) fled like one man to Arab Town, and neither threats -nor inducements would bring them back. For forty-eight hours the work -of the depôt would have ceased had not the Armenian refugees been -requisitioned--a whole battalion of them. They were glad to come, and -they worked well. It was better for them than being massacred by Turks: -and they got paid for it. - -The second raid happened a week later, at three in the morning, under -a pale moon. Four 'planes came with sixteen missiles. This was more -serious. Our guns could shoot only vaguely, in a direction; and ten to -one the direction was at fault. Four bombs dropped in the main street. -The terror by night seized the civilians. There was a screaming panic. -The populace poured into the streets in their night garments and rushed -about incontinently. So a few who would perhaps otherwise have escaped -met their end. A night raid over Anzac when the guns were speaking -without intermission was hardly to be noticed. But this onslaught upon -civilian quietness in the night watches was heart-shaking. The deadly -whirring of the engine in the upper darkness; the hoarse, intermittent -sobbing of the missile in descent--none could say how near or far; the -roar of explosion checking the suspense momentarily, but only until -the next increasing sob touches the ear; the din of our own wild and -random fire and the crackle of the sentries' rifles; the raucousness of -the sirens, the piercing screams of the women, and the cries of little -children in the extremity of terror; the misdirected warnings and the -disorganised directions of the men--these all combined to make an -impression of horror of a kind unknown on Anzac. - -The visitation lasted half an hour. That half-hour seemed to endure a -whole night. Four were killed outright, five died soon of their wounds, -seven were wounded who would recover. - -Shooting a man from a trench is one thing; this potential and actual -murder of women and little children is altogether another. One wishes -it could be made to cease. It calls for reprisal, or revenge, or -whatever it should be called; but not in kind. - -That was a Sunday morning. The Anglican parson at matins later tried -lamely to reassure a sparse congregation by preaching futilely from the -text: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night." The latter -end of his discourse was drowned in the pitiful _Zaghareet_ raised by -the Egyptian women next door: they had lost a man in the night. Their -shrill, ear-splitting wail submerged the sermon. There was an end of -reassurance--even supposing it had ever begun. - -The raid had come close on the heels of the Casino dance. The Casino -is the best hotel in Port Said, which is to say a good deal. Every -Saturday night the Casino "gives" a dance to the quality of the -Port. There you will see the best. It's always worth going to. Quite -half the European population of the town is composed of the British -Government officials and their wives and daughters, English visitors -from the mail-boat _en route_, the French Canal Company's officials and -their families, and the wives of British naval and military officers -stationed here. There is probably as pure a quality of European beauty, -well-breeding, and accomplishment as you'll meet outside Britain and -France. The women and the naval officers know how to dance. So much -cannot be said of the Army's representatives. They consist chiefly in -stout Colonels and somewhat young and frisky Subalterns. But apart -from that, they may not carry with them the ballroom gear that a naval -officer can stow in his quasi-permanent home. A valise or a kit-bag -is another thing from a sea-chest, nor is a moving tent a snug and -cupboarded cabin. Especially the French flappers, with their delicate -transparent beauty, dance with an exquisite grace, and the French -dowager-chaperons sit at an end of the room far less sedately than -British duennas. The English Subalterns who can speak French find the -flappers rising easily to the level of their spirits in the intervals -on the dimly-lit piazza; and they probably are not ungrateful that the -fear of a nocturnal bombardment from the sea has extorted from the -authorities an order obliging the proprietor to subdue his sea-front -lights. - -They're great nights. There's no such stuff in anybody's thoughts as -Taubes. Yet on that Sunday morning many a girl and many a dowager could -hardly have put head to pillow before the first bomb crashed. A little -earlier timing on the part of Fritz, and the sound of revelry by night -would have been far more rudely hushed than was that of Brussels long -ago by the distant gun on the eve of Waterloo. The period of this war -is surcharged with dramatic situations more intense than were held by -Belgium's capital then. But there is no Byron to limn them. - -The Casino denizens you will find in the surf before the hotel any -morning after eleven. The girl who was so charming last night is no -less charming now, as she moves across the sand. She wears almost as -much this morning. All that this means (whatever it may seem to imply) -is that her bathing-dress is ultra-elaborate. There is a great deal of -it; and it includes stockings; and is so fine in texture and harmonious -in colour that you wonder she has the heart to wet it. But there--she's -in. You wait till she comes out, and marvel that she hardly has -suffered a sea-change. - -The surf between eleven and one any day; the Eastern Exchange open-café -from eleven to five on Sunday; and the de Lesseps Mole from three to -six on a Sunday afternoon: it is there and then you will see Port -Said representatively taking the air--or the waters. The Eastern is -the heart of the City; to sit sipping there during a pleasant Sabbath -afternoon is the equivalent of doing the "Block" in Melbourne. The de -Lesseps Pier will reveal the utterly cosmopolitan character of the -populace: all classes promenade it. And the great bronze engineer -towers over them and points his scroll down the mouth of his handiwork; -and embossed boldly on the pedestal is his own boast: _Aperire -terram centibus_. The gigantic de Lesseps is a landmark of the whole -sea-front. He faces, and points the way to, every East-bound ship that -enters his Canal. There is a sort of pride in his bearing. - -The streets are tree-lined and over-arched, and the tables are set out -beneath the boughs; and there is singing and dancing in the open air -at every café. There is a finely fashioned and adorned Greek church. -Nothing expresses the cosmopolitan nature of the floating populace -better than the extraordinary notice on the inner wall of the Roman -Catholic Cathedral: _Proibito di sputare in terram_. - -There are two cabarets--Maxime's and the Kursaal--where wine and -fornication is the business, driven unblushingly, as one has come to -expect in any part of Egypt. As these things go in the land, Port Said -is amazingly clean. It was not ever so. A deliberate campaign was -lately organised to purge. The segregation of the Arab quarter did much -to effect that. Five years ago the Port was the carnal sink of Egypt. -Now Cairo is. - -We were hurried back to Serapoeum for the move. This had been pending -any time the last two months: the Turkish feints beyond railhead -had delayed it. But it had come now. We were in the desert a bare -thirty-six hours. We entrained in the scorching afternoon. The -_khamseen_ was whispering potentially, but not menacingly. We moved -out in the cool of the afternoon. Nefisha was passed, with its hordes -of bints and wales hawking chocolate, fruits, and fizzy drinks--and -hawking successfully ... on through Ismailia cooling off under her -fir-groves beside the delicious lake ... up through Mahsamah, where -the flights to the Canal had made their first footsore halt ... on and -on, taking our last look on the soft evening desert, and keeping the -placid sweet-water Canal. We felt we were seeing it all for the last -time. And we hoped we were, though now it looked inviting enough. But -it was not the desert normal, and well we knew it; we had seen too -often this seductive evening gentleness turn to relentless blistering -heat in the morning.... On through Kassassin, always--since reading the -Tel-el-Kebir epitaphs--the scene of that "midnight charge" ... up to -Tel-el-Kebir itself, its miles of tents darkening beside the hanging -dhow-sails ... through Zagazig in the late dusk, with its close-packed -houses and its semi-nudes in the upper stories ... and so on into the -night, with snatches of sleep, until we were wakened at 2 a.m. by the -sudden stop and the bustle at the Alexandrian quays.... The three -hours' embarking of men and baggage, and so to bunk, and white sheets -and yielding mattress and the feeling of a _room_ about one--and to -sleep. - -There were a few hours' leave next day, when we took a last -affectionate perambulation about the well-loved, well-bred city. And as -we breakfasted next morning we were moving out of the inner harbour. -By ten we could look back at the brown towers, and see the place as -a whole from the low strip of Mex, away to the eastern sand-dunes at -Ramleh. Alexandria had been good to us, and it was hard to leave her, -whatever the exaltation of anticipating the new field. Egypt as a -whole, despite its stinks, its filth, its crude lasciviousness, its -desert sand and flies, heat and fiery, dusty blasts, had charmed and -amazed and compensated in a thousand ways. It was our introduction to -foreign-ness, and, as such, had made an arresting impression that -could never be deleted. France may cause us less discomfort, and may -hold a glamour and a brilliance of which Egypt knows nothing; but the -impression left by France can hardly be more vivid than that of Egypt, -our first-love in the world at large. - - - - -BOOK IV - -FRANCE - - - - -SECTION A.--A BASE - - - - -CHAPTER I - -ENTRÉE - - -You can conceive the sense of exaltation with which one would enter the -South of France in June, after five months in Egypt. You can conceive -better than describe it. So can the writer. In a moment it comes -back from this distance, with a reality that elates; but it defies -description. The universal sand of Egypt: the timbered heights and the -flowered valleys of the Riviera; the stinks of the Egyptian cities: the -June fragrance breathing down from the hills of Marseilles; the filth -and deformity of the Cairene denizens: the fair women of France and the -lovely grace of the little children; the searing heat of the desert: -the tempered sunniness of this blossoming land. If you can make these -things explicit to yourself, you may know something of the high sense -of emancipation with which we left the ship. For we had been looking -on Marseilles and sniffing the air from the harbour for two days. And -in the last hundred miles of the journey by sea we had skirted the -Riviera coast, gazing absorbedly on verdure and perching _château_, and -nestling, red-topped village and silver sand-strip. Then the cliffs of -the harbour mouth--that hide the city--uprose, and we threaded a way -beneath them and about the titanic rocks towering in the bay; and a -sudden turn to starboard threw all Marseilles into the field of vision -in five minutes--red tiles along the water's edge in great congested -blotches; thin red patches straggling back in the green up the hills; -and in the near, high-reared horizon, grey scarred cliffs overlooking -all; and on the main harbour headland Notre Dame de la Garde, dazzling -gold in the setting sun, gazing benignly over the city. - -We looked and pondered till darkness came on, and in the morning were -on deck early to see it all by the eastern sun. But they wouldn't let -us land. So we spent two days explicating the detail with glasses. - -We moved in suddenly and entrained at once. By the goodness of Heaven -we were detailed to proceed by a slow passenger-train, as distinct from -a fast troop-train. A troop-train rushes express, and is crowded; ours -stopped at every station, and gave room to sleep. At the big towns we -stayed as long as four and six hours. For all this we were commiserated -by the French: "_Ah! trois jours dans la voiture!_" But we could have -wished it would last three weeks. - -Think, patient reader! Three days across France from Marseilles to -Rouen in the gentle French midsummer; and time to look about you at -every village. - -Four impressions will always remain: the desecration by war of this -beautiful land; the inescapable evidence that the last fit man in -France is in the field; the ravages upon these quiet civilian homes -by death in the front line; the incontinently affectionate welcome of -Australians by the French girls. - -It was, above all, pitiful to know that somewhere to the east Teuton -shell was ravaging country such as this. You found yourself saying: -Is it such a valley as that in which the trenches are dug? Are German -shell (and French shell, too) changing the whole topography of a -province such as this?--smudging the sleeping landscape and tearing up -the smiling crop. Is it in such a grove that the sacrilege of the guns -is perpetrating itself? "Gad!" you would hear, "this country's worth -fighting for!" - -In Egypt it's another thing. It is less unnatural that the godless sand -of the desert should be stained and erupted; but this is different. And -the old consolation comes--that has always consecrated the sacrifices -of Gallipoli--that the ideals in question are more precious than any -land, however fair. - -In the fields of the provinces it's women and bent old men who are -working--and boys. They wave pathetically as the train rushes on. And -in the towns there is not an eligible man to be seen--except in uniform. - -Seven in ten women are in mourning at any stage of the journey. One -attempted at first to be consoled by the notion that the French -temperament would put on mourning for a second and third cousin. But -conversation with Frenchmen soon corrected that. Six in ten of these -women wear weeds for a son or a brother or father or lover fallen in -the two years that are past. - -It was a welcome and a half that the girls gave. Apart from all -fighting, the deep-lined, barbed-wire Australian visage attracts in a -land where the men are smooth-faced. And the notion of men fighting -for France from the other end of the earth made no favour too much. -Troop-trains had been passing at regular intervals for a month, and -they were on the lookout for khaki. They swarmed to the stations with -favours of fruit and flowers and embraces. They waved as the train came -in; they chatted sweetly and unintelligibly at the platform; and they -waved long and friendly as we moved away. The little children came with -lilies and roses (little French girls are the loveliest things God ever -made), and held up their faces to be kissed. And their big sisters not -only did not blench at embraces, but invited them; and would get up and -ride five miles _pour compagnie_. - -We stayed three hours at Avignon--at night. An Englishman we -encountered on the station was so glad to see men of his own tongue -that he took us about the streets and the cafés to show us the city -proper, and missed his train without a pang. This was about midnight, -and Avignon was just fairly awake. Trade in the cafés was at its -zenith. Amongst other things we saw (for the first time) how tactful, -shrewd, and charming a waitress a French provincial girl may be. - -Lyons we reached at 2.30 a.m., and had time for a four hours' walk. -The inevitable route was over the Rhône, mist-laden, and up the -villa-crowned hill in the midst of the city; and, when the sun had -overspread the wakening valley, down into the strawberry markets, and -away to the station, threading a way amongst the strawberry waggons, -bearing in the fruit in voluptuous piles. - -Macon, the next long stop, we remember for the provender we put aboard -there. This is mere carnality, but the capons and fruits and pies and -pastry of Macon were unforgettable. - -This lasted us to Dijon. Dijon we shall always remember as the city -where the girls were hungriest for souvenirs. Souvenirs had been -demanded (and sometimes given) at any stage of the journey. But at -Dijon the houris were infected with a souvenir madness; and since they -were the prettiest girls we had yet seen, we departed stripped and -deploring we had not brought from Australia each a bushel of badges. -For there were bound to be more girls, quite as irresistible. - -Then there was Laroche, where more rations had to be got. This was a -hungry business--and even a thirsty. - -And between Laroche and the great city an unhappy thing occurred. We -were due to change at Villeneuve, a Parisian suburb. But at Villeneuve -(2 a.m.) no one seemed to be awake; and at 3 we were in Paris, -forlorn and regretful (though in a thoroughly half-hearted fashion) -of the oversight which had disorganised our movement-order. There was -therefore nothing to be done but hastily swallow _café au lait_ in -a matutinally busy eating-house, and hail a taxi in the Place de la -Bastille: this after learning that the Rouen train would not leave -before 7.30. "_Vue Générale de Paris--trois heures_," was the order, -in crude English-French. And the chauffeur put down the dividing glass -window behind him, and in his taxi-jargon showed us everything--Hôtel -de Ville, Notre-Dame, the Pantheon, l'Académie de France, Palais du -Sénat, the Invalides, the Champs-Elysées, the Eiffel Tower, Place de -la Concorde, l'Église de la Madeleine, round about the Louvre and the -Luxembourg, and the rest of them. - -This was vulgar Americanism; but nothing else was to be done. And so -we got back to the Gare Lyon, and in the half-hour to spare descended -and gaped unsophisticated at the Parisian tube railways disgorging -their freight of men and women (mostly women) who had found their work. - -Then the train began its crawl up to Versailles and its loveliness, -nestling in the thick wooded heights, and by many blessed stops and -shuntings we came by Juvisy and Achères to Rouen, late in the drizzling -night, took a cup of steaming coffee at the Croix Rouge Cantine pour -Permissionaires, and marched out to camp; and didn't care much where it -might be, so long as we had where to lay our head. - -Three days in Rouen left one with the knowledge that it is dangerous -to transport suddenly a body of Australians, after eighteen months' -residence on Anzac and in Egypt, to a land where the wine is cheap and -every girl is pretty. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -BILLETED - - -The natural course was to advertise. The _Journal de Rouen_ received -us tolerantly, even compassionately. No one of us could speak French, -but one pretty member of the office staff (more accurately, one member -of the pretty office staff) could speak a kind of English. The first -demand was for a _petite annonce_ in French. And when the lady saw this -was out of the question for us, she offered a translation of an English -paragraph. - -It brought a shoal of responses in French. A kind of horse-sense -had led us to get them addressed "to this office," where the fair -translator could be requisitioned. They were seductive replies--in -the inevitable language of proprietresses. Some offered rooms and -meals; some rooms and breakfast; some rooms and no more; others -specified a _femme de chambre_ of the first quality (and these were -looked at twice). None offered a bath. This is the most extraordinary -country. It drives you to the conclusion, anyhow, that a bathroom is -necessary neither to health nor good looks, and thereby runs counter -to a long-established English prejudice. A bathroom is by no means a -necessary part of the furniture of a good hotel. Those that have been -driven by the English occupation into adding one, brag about it in -their advertisements and charge "a franc a time." Those that steadily -decline to add it are losing custom. - -The conclusion of the matter was we yielded to none of their -blandishments, but went to an hotel, and that for good reasons. They -resolve themselves into a question of feeding--_i.e._, of meal-hours. -You go into lodgings in a flat, and of necessity there are more or less -definitely limited periods for meals. This is killing, even when not -regarded in the light of irregular working hours. To be tied to 8 for -breakfast, 1 for lunch, and 6 for dinner, is to be in gaol. The chief -beauty of an hotel is that you may have breakfast from 6.30 to 10, -lunch from 12 to 2.30, and dinner from 6 to 9.30. This leaves you, to -some extent, at freedom with the leisure an exacting Headquarters does -sometimes throw to you. - -Breakfast is altogether French. You'll get no more than _café au lait_ -and roll--not even _confiture_, without paying through the nose for -this violation of French usage. If you order eggs or _omelette_ (or -both) you not only wait long for it, but are looked on with disfavour -even in a first-class establishment. But the coffee is so rich and -mellow and the roll so crisp and the butter so creamy that you can make -a large meal of them. You usually eat and drink far more than it's good -form to consume. He's a barbarian who asks for anything better. - -This you take in the early morning almost alone in the winter-garden -looking on the courtyard. The matutinal _femme de chambre_ is frequent -and busy about the place. The call for hot water and for grub in the -rooms is insistent. If you want to be called early and to shave, you -write up on the blackboard in the bureau the formula: 31 (_no. de -chambre_)--5-1/2--_e.c._ (_eau chaude_)--_entrez_; that is, let the -damsel enter without knocking. And enter she does with the steaming -jug; and, with a charming frankness, wakens you by the shoulder, and, -if not abnormally busy (and she's seldom too busy for that), sits on -the edge of the bed with her shining morning face, telling you sweetly -the quality of the weather, and that it's time you were out, until -satisfied you are on the way to uprising, as distinct from turning -over again. And morning greetings of the most refreshing sort have -been known to be exchanged thus over the edge of the bed. One of the -satisfactions of such an exchange (though not necessarily the chief) -would be that you know the sweet creature associates nothing sordid -with the greeting--even though this is a bedroom and you're in your -'jamas. An English maid in the circumstances would probably begin with -a hostile shriek, and end by relating to the manager how a base and -licentious soldier had made violent overtures to her; and you would -suffer ejection with ignomy. - -And so the French (and especially the French women) score in morality -at every turn. - -You see nothing of the hotel all morning. But on returning for lunch -your _chambre_ is "done" with a taste and thoroughness that delight, -and drive you to register a vow you'll never more be guilty of -untidiness. British officers in France have a reputation for hoggishly -littering their rooms that requires a lot of redeeming. But the French -maid is not dismayed. She returns to the attack daily, with a pride in -her art which no piggery can dissipate. - -Luncheon has the light touch that's the prime charm of French cooking. -There's endless variety without heaviness or monotony: a whiff of _hors -d'œuvre_, a taste of fish, a couple of "made" dishes (made well), a -scrap of delicious cold-meat, salads, fruits (who shall do justice to -the fruits of Normandy in June?--her strawberries, peaches, plums, -grapes, melons, and cherries), _crême_, cheeses, biscuits, _cidre_ and -coffee. Then you hear a barbarous Captain beside you blaspheming: "The -first thing I'll do when I get leave is to go to the Savoy and have a -decent English feed. I can't stick this French grub!" This is the sort -of man that ought to be suppressed by the State and debarred from going -abroad. It's with justice that the French taunt us with our English -"heaviness"--heaviness in eating, in drinking, thinking, and doing. One -of the privileges of being in France is that of eating what the French -alone know how to prepare. - -All the same, one does not immediately get used to horse. _Cheval_, in -some form or other, is served out every dinner. There's not nearly so -much beef as horse consumed. The French like it better. The sign of -a golden horse's head surmounts the doorway of most butcher's shops; -many a shop displays the severed head, as the English do those of sheep -and pigs. The Parisian taxi-cabs are ousting the horse-cabs fast. -Proprietors are selling off their beasts. The newspapers, announcing -the result of the sales, will tell you most of the horses went to -butchers, as a matter of course. - -In the medley of French on the menu-card (which you don't scan very -closely) you miss _cheval_ until it's pointed out to you: it's -disguised. You then discover you've been eating horse for weeks, -unwittingly, and enjoying it. It's too late to turn back, even if you -didn't like the beast. So you continue to eat and relish the faithful -defunct friend to man. - -Dinner begins about nine. That's the meal for which people who don't -live at the hotel "drop in"--people from the suburbs and the country: -wounded and base-Colonels, with their wives and daughters; music-hall -artistes, business-men. The place hums and echoes with high-spirited -chatter. Much wine gets drunk--as much by the women as by the men. At -the end of an hour the place is fairly agog. The proprietor himself, -dressed in his best--as though persisting in the time-honoured practice -of a tavern-host--carves an enormous joint (a kind of half a pony) -in the centre of the room, under the apex of the dome. This is very -interesting. Only one thing is awry: the women eat greedily. The -prettiest of them (and whether they take wine or not) masticate with a -primitive eagerness and _abandon_ that is disgusting. - -The late-sitters remain until eleven over their wine and cigarettes, -and then adjourn to the courtyard and sit and call for coffee and -liqueurs. If they move before midnight, it's unusual. The courtyard -resounds until the small-hours have crept on. And in those hours the -maids on duty are busy enough answering the call of the chamber-bells -with drinks. You will see them hurrying up and down the lighted -staircases and in and out the rooms of the brilliantly lit front, -muttering (one imagines) the complaint of the frogs: "It may be sport -to you, but it's death to us!" But they never let you think so: at two -in the morning they will smile and rap out repartee with a good-humour -that it's hard to believe feigned. And who's to say that it is? These -people are unfeignedly light-hearted. They satirise us for our moods -and our livers; and tell us (not without justice) we don't know how to -live. By comparison, we're not happy unless we're miserable.... - -You will catch the youngsters in the courtyard only by dining at six. -You can play with them an hour in the twilight after, and that's a joy -not to be lost, recur as often as it may. You can talk their language, -even if you can't talk French. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE SEINE AT ROUEN - - -I don't know what the Seine at Rouen is like in times of peace-trade. -They say war has quadrupled its congestion. I well believe it. The -pool is crammed below the Grand Pont--there's nothing above but barge -traffic--with ships disgorging at a frenzied rate at the uneven cobbled -quays. - -One can imagine the port lazing along before the War in the informal -and leisurely way that is French. The French enjoy living. They are -industrious enough for that. But they don't take their work hardly -nor continuously. They take it in chunks. It gets done. But there is -no sort of inflexible determination in their method. The Egyptians, -too, have not continuity, but with them the work does _not_ get done. -Both peoples work sporadically. But the Egyptian takes his chunk of -work because he has to; the Frenchman because he likes it. That is the -difference. The Egyptian is not industrious. The French like work, and -therefore take it in tastes, never hogging it. They like to get the -flavour of work. The Englishman who eats it down misses all that, and -is commiserated by the French for the desecrating greed with which he -attacks his task. - -So you can envisage the quay in peace-time: the unsystematic and -picturesque dumping of merchandise in the open quays, and the hum of -leisured talk; the additions to the acres of wine-barrels under the -elms beyond, and the subtractions from them; and the rich fruitiness -of the _bon arome_ soaking out of those casks. You get it now if you -walk amongst them: walk through the shadowed wine-store on a hot day, -and the odour hanging beneath the trees is a refreshment in itself. -But in these days the lading and the discharge of the wine-ships is -done feverishly and raucously, and too hurriedly for any attempt at -arranging them on shore. The wine-ship lies there with the stuff piled -monstrously on every yard of her deck, and it's being slung off as fast -as may be. It's the only drink of the French soldier; there's as much -urgency for its transit as for the off-loading of English supplies. -Huge tanks stand as waggons on the adjoining railway and they wait to -be filled, and so the _vin ordinaire_ goes up in bulk that exceeds the -content of many score of barrels. - -The same urgency hurries off supplies from the ships. The Admiralty -is shouting continuously for the completion of discharge. No ship, at -this time, lies there at her ease. She fairly groans and creeks in -travail of discharge. It proceeds as vigorously at night, under the -flares, as by day. Hordes of labour battalions are handling it into -the store-hangars, or into the waiting supply-trams, or into lorries. -The parti-coloured French are trundling the wine-barrels hither and -thither for store or for despatch. The rattle of cranes, the panting -of lorries, the scream and rumble of trains, the shouting of orders, -are deafening and incessant. Supply-ships, timber-ships, coal-ships, -wine-ships, ammunition-ships, petrol-ships, are strung down-stream in -a deafening queue. The base is a distractingly busy place. - -Over against all that is the quiet domesticity of the barges. War -doesn't hurry them, nor sap at the foundations of their family life. -They'll sleep along the river, happen what may. General Joffre's -professed aspiration _après la guerre_ is to retire to a Seine barge, -and finish there. He could choose nothing in sharper contrast with the -turmoil of war. The reaction from Generalship could not well be borne -in more complementary circumstances. The comfortable somnolence of a -Seine barge is invincible. They are not yet requisitioned for the base -purposes of war. They are a thing apart, and therefore have no call for -busyness. - -They are enormously long, and have a grace of outline unexampled in the -world of barges. A Thames barge is stumpy and crude beside them. There -is scope in their length for grace of line. Look down on them from the -heights of Bonsecours, packed orderly amongst the Seine islands. Look -at them in queue dreaming along in the wake of some fussy tug; either -way you'll get their nobility of contour. - -Each is a microcosm. They are self-contained as to family, burden, -poultry, pony, cat and dog, rabbit-pen, and garden. The mother and -daughter and the small boys all take a hand in pushing on the business -of _le père_. In fact, it is they who do the thing: he lounges and -smokes and directs the policy. In the waist of the ship is the stable, -with a pony that usually is white, and perhaps a cow, and the pens of -hens, and the basketed rabbit-hutch. The boys pursue the dog round -the potted plants when there's no work. In the same circumstances -the mother and daughters sun themselves on the hatches. Children -are born there to a lifelong sojourn in the craft. There they get -their schooling, and there, until adolescence, they acquire their -knowledge of the world. There probably is scope for a science of -barge-psychology. Can one in reason expect a world war to intrude far -into the life of a Seine barge? Hardly that. - -They hold as much as a small ship; the journey to Paris is far and -slow. They are cut off from the world almost as effectually as a -marooned Swiss Family Robinson. - -Hospital ships berth below the bridge, and are filled from the motor -ambulances with an awful celerity. You may always know when an -ambulance train is at the Rive Gauche Gare by the long procession of -Red Cross motors streaming from the station over the Grand Pont to -the hospital berth, and by the wide-eyed crowd making a slow-swaying -cordon round the military police to watch the procession of stretchers -ascending the gangways. The Red Cross ship may get her complement in -two or three hours. Then she turns business-like and heads down-stream -for _le Havre_. And then!--_Blighty_, for comfort and fitting -alimentation, and _home_ for the tortured. - -The Seine is a tragic stream at Rouen. Corpses are fished up daily. -Parisian suicides float down and are intercepted, and dogs and other -beasts seem to get drowned in plenty. This is hard on so fair and happy -a city. Why can't Paris look after her own weary-of-breath? - -The Ile la Croix stands at the heart of the city. The Pont Corneille -rests across it. The island is a town in itself, with theatres, -churches, factories, baths, and thick residential quarters, and groves, -and well-defined streets. Here is another little world in itself, -consistent with the barges that lie about it. - -All over the island--and, still more ubiquitously, all over the -quay-sides--are girls and women hawking fruit and cakes and chocolate. -The girls are pretty. They better custom by fooling English Tommies to -the top of their bent by that French-Arcadian intersexual frankness -of discourse and gesture of which English girls know so little, -and which Tommy adores so ardently and furtively. This gives the -right to put up the price. Tommy, in this land of vines, and in the -season--finds himself paying her two francs a pound for grapes. "_Très -cher aujourd'hui, Monsieur!_"--"_Mais oui, m'selle--voulez-vous -m'embrasser?_"--."_Nothin' doin', ole shap!_" ... These girls are -quick-brained, as alertful in mind as you could expect by their -well-moulded features and their lithe, straight bodies. There is no -insistence, in France, upon the ugly vulgarism of rotundity in women -and girls. The girls of France spell, in their bodies, anything but -sombreness in spirit or clumsiness in brain. They have never been out -of Rouen, but they fling repartee in Arabic at Australians as though -they had lived in Cairo. Their only source of such an accomplishment is -the Australian soldier himself, and the persistence of Arabic with him. -And he does not go out of his way to teach anyone. He learns French -with halting slowness, even when some Rouennaise is making efforts -to teach him. But these girls take up his English and his incidental -Arabic in their swift and light mental stride. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -ROUEN _REVUE_ - - -Except when Lena Ashwell comes with her English concert-party, evening -entertainments--that is, public entertainments--in Rouen are limited -by some cinemas and two theatres that stage _revue_. The cinemas are -like all other cinemas, except that the humour is broader and sexual -intrigue is shown in a more fleshly and passionate form. The audience -differs from an English, not in that flirtation is more fierce, but -in the running fire of comment directed at the film, and from the way -in which crises in the plot are hailed. Everyone smokes who has the -habit. The women who do not, masticate noisily at sweets. The girls -in the front row of stalls playfully pull the hair of the orchestra, -specialising in the 'cello: his deep, detached notes amuse them. This -is their way of showing he attracts their attention. The conductor is -the pianist too. In his dual capacity he displays astounding resource -and agility. The combination of these functions is diverting, even in -an Englishman. The films present a preponderance of carnal domestic -problems. - -_Revue_ is another story. An Englishman has no right to attend French -_revue_ without being prepared to discount it at a rate governed by -the difference between the national temperaments. Where English -_revue_ suggests and insinuates, French explicates the detail. French -insinuates too, on occasion, but with the motive of subtlety as -distinct from that of English furtiveness: the difference between -cleverness and morbidity. All this applies to _amours_, chiefly -between the already-married. French _revue_ goes further, and deals -disgustingly in physiological detail which the English stage declines -to handle even by implication. And the ladies on the stage are -obviously amused by the cruder passages to an unprofessional degree. -They giggle outright. The work on the stage, in fact, is curiously -informal. Dialogue _sotto voce_ in the corners is not make-believe--nor -rehearsed. They carry on a genuine conversation, much of which is -criticism of their colleagues at work, much personal comment on the -advanced rows of the audience. A French company is never afraid to let -you know that, after all, it's only acting you're looking at. English -downrightness would maintain the delusion at all costs. - -A lot of improvisation goes on--some by choice, some of necessity. -French versatility flashes out brilliantly here and there with -something that's not in the book; and when a fellow's memory fails -he improvises with convincing readiness. There's no such thing as a -breakdown, though _revue_ here runs for so long a season that actors -might easily be forgiven for growing too stale to improvise. But that -they avert by the habit of improvisation from choice. - -When, therefore, there comes a "turn" which purports to be classical -poses, the effect is blasphemous rather than ludicrous. The spectacle -of thick-painted whores clutching clumsily at the spirit of Greek -motion and Greek suspension-of-motion, with their lewd simperings and -vulgar disproportion of bust, is repellent. At the critical moment -someone giggles in the wings and the goddess baulks. The orchestra -swells to cover the gaping _hiatus_ which no improvisation can bridge. -The Salome-dance and the _ballet_ are quite other things. They perform -them here to perfection. Their temperament provides the _abandon_ -without which such turns fall stodgy. But classical poses? No!--hardly -that! - -A French audience in war-time clamours for a military turn or two; -and gets them. There's a scene from the trenches presented with a -convincing sort of realism--from the death of a comrade to the exchange -of fornicatory ribaldries and the pursuit of vermin. Asphyxiation is -effected, not by the enemy, but by the corporal's removing his boots. -The humour is broad and killing. Shrieking applause drowns half the -repartee. Judged by the accompanying gesture, some obviously good -things are missed. The delivery of the mail under the parapet, and its -perusal, leave little doubt as to the proper function of _la bonne -marraine_--the fair unknown correspondent acquired by advertisement. - -Then there is a turn military which discloses the nature of the -friendly encounters between the _Poilu_ and the girls of the village -through which he is passing. - -There is some really good singing. And there is always a song in -English, delivered with a naïve crudity of pronunciation, to which the -English soldiers respond at the chorus with allied fervour. "The Only -Girl," "Who were you with Last Night?" "Here we are Again," are the -favourites. - -The ushers are girls. They know how to keep in order the crowd of lewd -French youths in spirited attire who affect the pit, who, without -restraint, would make the place unbearable. Mostly the ushers do it -with their tongues; where these weapons fail they cuff them, and cuff -them hard--no mere show of violence. The French termagant is a fearsome -creature. She's here, and she's conducting on the tram-cars. There she -is a match for any man. No lout is free to dispute her authority. She -always emerges from a battle of words master of the situation. _Master_ -is the word. The conductors are the only girls (though mostly women) in -Rouen who are not pretty as a class. Individuals are, but the class is -unsexed, growing moustaches which are often more than incipient. The -only womanly thing about them is their black dress and perky, red-edged -cap. They give the impression that they would do well in the trenches. -The theatre ushers--who are "chuckers-out" too--are less masculine -and less plain-featured. The management chooses them with half an eye -to feature, with a regard chiefly to physical strength. The tramways -manager lays no store by looks. Why should he? Good looks don't draw -custom on the cars. But he does ensure that they shall be able to take -care of themselves, and "boss" the vehicle. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -LA BOUILLE - - -The steamer leaves the Quai de Paris every afternoon at two. Most -days it is crowded. The War does not hinder women and the ineligible -and _les blessés_ from taking their pleasure down the lovely Seine. -Why should it? People should in war-time look to the efficiency of -civilians as well as of soldiers. It is as profitable, to this end, -that the Seine pleasure-boats should run as that the London theatres -should keep open under the darkened anti-Zeppelin sky. - -It's women who crowd the boat, with their sons and their younger -brothers. There's also a leavening of handsome women who go down -for purposes not considered virtuous by the British. There are many -soldiers--_en permission_, with powers of enjoyment equal to those of -the Tommy who shouts to the liftmaid in the Tube: "Hurry up, miss! I've -only got ten days!" These fellows from the trenches, with their women -hanging upon them, are prepared to compress much into their leave. -There are a few wanting limbs, who are not on leave. - -The boat races down the pool of Rouen through the gauntlet of colliers, -timber-ships, supply-ships, multitudinous barges, and swinging cranes. -Once past the island, the commercial river-side is done with, and -the journey proceeds through some of the most exquisitely beautiful -hill-country in Normandy. Rouennaise merchants have grown fat on the -trade of decades of peace, and have built their _maisons_ on the grand -scale on the slopes of the Dieppedale and Roumare Forêts. The forests -clothing this Seine Valley are famed through all Europe for growth and -colour. The _maisons_ lie buried in their depths, thrusting up their -towers and high gables. The slim Seine Islands are thick with groves, -and mansions stand in the midst of them too. And for many miles down -the right bank under the chalk ridge the houses stand trim in their -orchards on the river's brink. Their little summer-houses overlook the -road, seated and cushioned; and the old people sit there looking on the -river, watching the youngsters play and the old men and the soldiers -fishing from the wall. - -These banks are castled, too, like the Rhine. The potentates of -Normandy chose the heights of this river basin from all the rest of -Normandy, for reasons that are obvious. Apart from the elevation of -these hills, the beauty of the sites is something to aspire to live -in the midst of. Many of these old seats are crumbling. Some are so -strongly built they will last for ever. All were built by men with some -force of personality. Famous amongst them is the fine old castle of -Robert le Diable, the rough parent of William the Conqueror. It's the -oldest, and half decayed, but its strong points are still reared up -there on the hill-brow. - -You move on under these noble hills, broken rarely by a timbered -valley. There is nothing sombre aboard. Whatever the French can or -cannot do, they can talk--gratefully and incessantly. The Norman -tongue, however unintelligible, is incredibly pleasing in the mouths -of its women. It is as free from harshness as the landscape. And the -prattle of the children is music which a river orchestra would defile. - -The beautiful La Bouille is the objective of most passengers. -_Untrammelled_ is the word for this little town. The women are fresh; -the men are simple; the houses straggle quaintly and cleanly along the -front; and the white walls and the gables climb in an unsophisticated -fashion up the wooded hills beside the white, winding road. There is a -_Place_ set out by the landing-stage, lined with cafés under the trees. -The river-men in their wide _pantalons_ and loose corduroy blouses sip -wine with their women; their children romp in the centre of the square. -You will be nobly entertained if you do no more than sit there and call -for refreshment to the red-cheeked waitress. But you will probably -not be content without wandering up the hill-road after an hour at -the tables. And if you do not grow envious of the youths who sit on -the bank with company by that road-side, you are more than human. In -Normandy love-making there is nothing embarrassed, but an unforced give -and take that is not traditionally reputed to lie along the path of -true love. Whether this is true love or not (and it probably isn't), it -looks quite as delicious, and it sufficeth them. One wonders whether, -after all, they are due to demand much more. The girl looks at you -frankly from the midst of it, as who should say: "And why do not you, -in this land of sweet sunlight, fulfil, too, the law of your existence?" - -From almost every house, as you ascend, some houri smiles a -half-welcome at you and would not be greatly confused or displeased if -you took it for a whole, and, entering, made yourself at home. - -At the hilltop you'll come on the old _Maison brûlée_, with a café in -the recess, and much merry company. If you stay there as long as you -want to, you'll miss the last boat to Rouen. So you quit drinking-in -the Seine beauty revelling below you up and down the river basin, and -saunter back to the steamer. All the town is there to see her leave. -Everyone smiles and "waves" and says _Come again_ in no uncertain -pantomime. And all the journey back in the soft evening you say you -will. - - - - -SECTION B.--PICARDY AND THE SOMME - - - - -CHAPTER I - -BEHIND THE LINES--I - - -The road between ---- and ---- is a fearful and wonderful place in -the swift-closing winter evening. The early winter rains are drifting -gustily across it. The last of the autumn leaves are whirling away. The -far western valley is a gulf of mist; the rain-squalls wash about its -slopes. - -The road beneath you, between its low flanks, is a channel of mobile -black slush, too far churned for striation. Ever since the rains began, -two weeks ago, there has been a traffic on it that is continuous--a -traffic that has had to be directed and disentangled at innumerable -stages along its length. So the road surface (it washes over a solid -foundation) is a squirting slime. - -The motor-lorry is the vehicle _par excellence_. The wonder is how -it is supplied and maintained at this rate. In most villages is a -tyre-press where its wheels are re-rubbered as often as need be--and -begad! that's often enough to keep a large and noble army of mechanics -hard-worked. Any day you can see the old tyre being prised off and the -new, smooth, full, blue one pushed on. The old is like nothing so much -as a rim of Gruyère cheese, with the perforations clean through to the -rim, everywhere. The question that always occurs is: Did the lorry run -to the last on a tyre like that? The answer is: Yes--had to. - -The motor-lorry it is, then, that monopolises the road. There is a -stream of them passing either way which is not quite constant, but is -nearly so. Lorries are almost as thick as the trees that line every -road in France. - -Between these honking, rumbling streams, and in the gaps of them, other -traffic goes as it can--that is, Colonel's cars, motor-cycles (there -are almost as many cycles as lorries; but they can pant an intermittent -course through any maze), motor-ambulances, tractors. There are French -Colonels, English Colonels, mere Majors, and even Generals, threading -impatiently through the maze. It is obviously aggravating to them, this -snail's pace. A Colonel likes to tear along, because he is a Colonel. -One is speaking now of a main road between railheads. Put them on a -side-road, where there is nothing in sight but a few ambulances, a -lorry or two, and some cows and women, and they move at a pace that -inspires an adequate respect in all who have to stand aside for their -necks' sake. - -But in this horde of beastly lorries what can a Colonel do, more than -glare and gnaw a rain-dewed moustache? There are supply lorries, -ammunition lorries, Flying Corps lorries, road-repairing lorries, -lorries bearing working-parties, freights of German prisoners, lorries -returning empty. Beside, there are always a few 'buses moving troops, -and sometimes, participating in the general _mêlée_, is a troop of -cavalry or a half-mile of artillery limbers or a divisional train of -horse transport--or all three--making an adequate contribution to the -creaking, rattling, lumbering, panting, honking, shouting, cursing, -squelching, bobbing, swaying, dodging throng. A military highroad -in France behind the line, any time in the day or night, baffles -description--especially if it's raining. - -Conceive (if you can) what this becomes at ten o'clock at night in an -advanced section of the road where lights would be suicidal. But I -doubt if you can--no, not unless you've been in the whirl of it. - -Far the pleasanter journey you'll have by boarding your motor-lorry on -a fine summer morning. The country smiles all about you. _Smile_ is the -only word. You catch the infection of green bank, green plain flecked -with brown and gold stubble and streaked with groves of elm and beech, -poplar and plane: you get infected and rejoice. If you climb the crest -of one of the slopes less gentle than most slopes here, you may look -down on it all--on the double line of trees setting-off here and there -across the plains, up the slopes, down the valleys, marking the roads, -of which trees are the invariable index; at the winding stream, banked -with hop and willow, flowing through a belt of richer greenness: that's -how you know a stream from a height--not by the water, of which you see -nothing for the groves that border it, but by the irregularity of these -plantations (the roads are planted with a deliberate symmetry) and the -deepening in the colour of the lush grasses of the basin. - -You'll look down, too, on the villages dropped irregularly along its -course. There's the low roof, the gable, the amorphous mass of greys -and yellows topped by the pyramidal church spire rising grey slate to -its summit. The number of villages you may see in thirty square miles -of the Somme district is amazing. The whole Somme Valley is a mazed -network of roads and streams, with groves and harvest-fields in the -crowding interstices, the whole teeming with grey villages. This is the -character of the country; and very lovely it is. - -From your hilltop you'll see, perhaps, a bombing-school at play in -the valley--the line of murderous, irregular bursts in their white, -vapourish smoke, all forced into the extremity of unnaturalness by the -deep colour of the wood behind. - -In June the depth of the colour in this French country gave the sky -itself a depth of colour not known in Australia. The cumulus resting on -the sky-line would be arresting in its contrast with wood and pasture, -and the blue of the gaps above it heightened too. Sometimes the days -were clouded in the vault, but with a clear horizon; then you would get -a kind of rich opalescence, the sunlight shut out above deflected and -concentrated in the glowing horizon, its streaks of colour intensified -fourfold by the depth of green in the landscape. Some such middle -afternoons I never shall forget. - -Upon the less frequented roads civilian traffic is frequent. It's -mostly country-women in carts with pigs or oxen behind or with produce -(or merchandise) for a village market. The village markets for a whole -district are conducted by a sort of mobile column of vendors. They -move (under a pass issued from the _gendarmerie_) from village to -village in a species of caravan. Every village has a set market-day; -the vendors move in agreement with it. They sell under booths on -the pavements--sell fabrics, fruit, vegetables, fish, drapery, and -clothing; and at some corner agreed upon they have the cattle market, -with all the beasts tethered by a rope from horns to knee. - -Approaching a village which is "holding" its market, you'll meet these -beasts being driven in gangs, united in sixes and sevens by a rope -connecting their horns. They are almost all conducted by women and -boys. The boys are incredibly cruel to them, not only _en route_, but -at the market-place. - -It's not the women and girls conducting the market cattle who abuse -them. They (and those in the market wagons) give you a smile and "_Bon -jour, m'sieur_." There is a charm about this French usage of looking -you in the eye and giving you a frank smile and a cheerful _Good-day_ -without ever having met you before. - -You cannot go far without traversing some part of a military -highroad--such is the frequency and the height of mobility. Especially -is this so about those railheads adjacent to the line. Troops of -cavalry, infantry, and artillery and horsed transport crowd French -routes, even to the exclusion of the motor-lorry. For miles you may -see nothing but a sea of yellow, bobbing, wash-basin trench-helmets. -Unlovely they are, but useful. In such parts, too, the motor-'buses -for rushing up reinforcements prevail. They come in long, swaying -processions, filled with grinning warriors, who exchange repartee -between themselves and the freight of other 'buses, and spend a lot of -time in gnawing biscuit and jam. They gesticulate with these morsels. - -The 'buses are just such as you see in the Strand, except for colour, -which here is, of course, a dingy khaki. Above and within, when they -are stuffed, they have an enormously useful carrying capacity. - -At some stages of a route (and at very frequent stages) you pass a -lorry-park, in the vicinity of which you are ordered to reduce the -pace. There are whole battalions of lorries laagered and parked--miles -of them--lining the main roads, lining the side-roads, lined in the -fields; hordes of them radiating from the H.Q. at the main road. They -are splashed and streaked and pied with colour, like Jacob's ewes, -to baffle aircraft. They resemble, indeed, the streaked cruisers off -Anzac. Some columns have other decorations. You'll pass, for instance, -a Dickens convoy: the lorries are named from the novels--Sarah Gamp -preceding Mr. Pickwick, with Little Nell panting in the rear; Bill -Sykes, Scrooge, and the rest of them--with (in rare cases) crude -attempts at illustration by portraiture. - -The fleets of lorries give a sense of efficiency and mobility--even of -dignity--as they stand ranked there. - -Casualty clearing stations are very frequent indeed in these advanced -posts. With a curious appearance of contradictoriness, their marquees -are streaked and splashed against aircraft, but here and there bear an -enormous Red Cross glaring an appeal at the heavens. The language of -all this is: "We're hospital, and you know it from these outward and -visible signs. But if you're going to be frightful, we'll make it as -hard as we can for you to hit." ... Over the road is the burial-ground, -significantly full. - -Mostly these hospitals are on a railway-line. Some are not. From the -latter the stream of motor-ambulances is continuous at certain seasons. -There are Sisters in these advanced stations; they are little more -than dressing stations, and more than seldom they are shelled. It's -no joke for women; they do not blench. There have been "honours and -rewards" made them for continuing to dress cases when suffering wounds -themselves. - -And who shall describe the strafings suffered by some of the -advanced railheads? Shelling of clearing stations may be more or -less accidental, but railheads are good game and are shelled very -deliberately and very thoroughly. I visited one afternoon a railhead -supply depôt that had been shelled from five to nine that morning. The -havoc was good ground for self-congratulation by the enemy batteries -that caused it. Nine-inch shell for four hours, if well observed by -those who deliver it, can do great things. There were shell-holes all -over the station yard--lines ripped up, trucks blown to splinters, -supply stacks scattered to the fields, petrol dump smouldering, -station-house battered. This is horribly disorganising. Only one thing -is worse, of that kind: the strafing of a railway junction by bombs. -This is obstructive, and isolating almost beyond retrieve. - -The villages about such stations suffer seriously. They bear the marks -about the house walls. Villages adjacent to batteries--apart from -railheads--get it even worse. Generally they lie behind a wood which -conceals our heavy artillery. - -At any junction along a military road you are impressed by the -usefulness of the military police. They stand there directing the -traffic by pantomime, just as in London. Their word is law from which -there is no appeal. If a driver grows argumentative it is always -the worse for him. District A.P.M.'s will allow no dispute of the -directions of their minions. You must wait for their instructions -and obey them very exactly. If they tell you to wait you dare not -budge; if you do, there's your number glaring on your bonnet, and -your goose is cooked. The military police are all-powerful on the -road, and proportionately autocratic. A sergeant will step into a -stretch of clear rural road and address the driver: "What limit is on -your speed?"--"Six miles."--"My instructions to you are to go much -slower."--"Why" (irritably), "what am I going now?"--"Never mind that" -(with a conclusive gesture); "I've timed you from the last post, and -you're too fast. I'm not making a case of it, but you go slower. Hear?" -And this monument of British administrative exactitude walks off, after -saluting perfunctorily (he gives you no loophole), and throws you -permission to go on and behave. - -You proceed, with the guns belching over the ridge, the observation -balloons overhanging the slope silently spotting and sending down -cool and deadly mathematical messages. The 'planes drone above; the -multitudinous machinery of war creaks and rumbles down the road; the -landscape lies around you incongruously quiet and lovely. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -BEHIND THE LINES--II - - -The lines of communication one can expect to be trailed with interest. -There the strings are being pulled--though that is a pitiable figure. -It is more than a rehearsal for the soul-shaking drama enacting on -the Front; but it is as full of interest as orchestral rehearsal is -more interesting than the performance _coram publico_. Rehearsal in -orchestra shows the final performance in the making: here you see the -Somme Battle in the making. A French town that is within seven miles -of the guns, and is also the Headquarters of the ----th Army, unites -the ordered busyness of the base with the fevered activity of the -second line. It slumbers not nor sleeps. The stream and the screech and -roar of trains is intense and incessant. There is no more appreciable -interval between troop-trains, supply-trains, ammunition-trains, -rumbling through than there is between the decipherable belchings -of the guns over the north-east ridge. The buzz of 'planes is as -unintermittent as either. The Army Headquarters in the Hôtel de -Ville is as strident a centre by night as by day. "The sea is in the -broad, the narrow, streets, ebbing and flowing." These words recur by -suggestion with a peculiar insistence. It is the flood military; and -to this peaceful pastoral town it is as foreign and as ubiquitous as -an encroaching sea. The Hôtel de Ville is the centre of a wide area -of civil buildings commandeered for its purposes by Headquarters. -This sometime produce-store is now "Reports Office"; that hotel is -"Signals"; a private _maison_ adjoining is for "Despatch-Riders." -All civilian and pedestrian traffic stands aside for the horde of -despatch-riders and their motor-cycles. The cars of the Staff whirl -through the crowded streets with a licence which takes account of -nothing but their objective. Mounted officers are trooping day and -night. - -More significant than all this is the unending stream of -motor-ambulances. They transport from the dressing stations behind the -line to the colony of casualty clearing-stations here; they transfer -from them to the ambulance-trains; and what these cannot take they pant -away with gently to the nearest base. You may stand on the upreared -Citadelle ramparts any night and watch these long processions of pain -throbbing quietly down the sloping road from ---- into the town. And -simultaneously you will see another column climbing the road to ---- at -the other side. The head lights make a long concurrent brilliance, like -the ray of a searchlight. - -An advanced C.C.S. behind the line sees a constant ebb and flow. -Jaded Sisters will hear with a sense of relief the order to evacuate, -glimpsing a respite, however brief. But before the evacuation is -completed a causal connection is evident between the order and an -attack at dawn on the --st instant, and all its ghastly fruits. And -whilst the last of the old maimed are being put gently aboard, the -new-comers, stained with mud and blood, are being laid in the still -warm beds. There is no time for orderliness here. Life for the Sisters -is one fevered and sporadic attempt at alleviation--more than an -attempt: the relief is accomplished, but at a cost to the workers which -leaves its index on feature and figure. - -All this is in piteous contrast with the healing peacefulness of the -country-side. If you climb the low ridge behind the town any evening -you can see the flap-flap of the gun-flashes like a disorganised -Aurora. And if you stay till midnight you'll see it intensify into a -glowing wall. So gentle is the landscape immediately about you that -you can conceive what it would be without that murderous wall of fire -and that portentous heart-shaking thunder. This is war, relentless and -insatiable. - -The days open dewy and crisp with the first touch of winter's severity, -before his tooth is keen. The first breath of a French September -morning is elating. The harvest is just reaped and cocked, and stands -in its brown and yellow stubble. The head of a slope will give you -the landscape gently undulating under its succession of woods and -streams and gathered harvest, with frequent villages scattered down the -valleys and straggling up the slopes. Over all this you look away to -the captive balloons depending over the line spotting for the belching -guns; and the song of the little birds that the distant guns cannot -quench is swallowed in the buzz of the aircraft engines of a flight -of scouters setting off on patrol; to-morrow it will be the whirr of -a squadron of battle-'planes tearing through the upper distance on a -raid. And any morning the air above you is flecked with the puffs of -missiles sent hurtling after a Fokker out of its proper territory. As -the peaceful evening settles down you will see a whole school of our -craft coming home to roost at ----: eighteen to twenty, like a flock -of rooks settling at the end of the day. The _Angelus_ ringing in the -belfry of the village _Église_ is drowned in the hum. - -The little wayside Calvaries are daily smothered in the dust of -motor-lorries. Peaceful French domesticity makes an attempt to live -its life in the welter of trains and 'planes, tractors and lorries, -cars and cycles, horse and foot. It will get it lived _après la -guerre_--not before. The children of the villages do not play much; -they gaze open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the incessant train of troops -and strident vehicles. Unless the War finishes soon, they will have -forgotten how to play. The village estaminet is no longer the haunt of -the light-hearted, light-speaking, wine-sipping French _paysan_; it -is overcrowded with noisy, sweaty Tommies who have no abiding city, -demanding drink. The air of it reeks. The girls are too busy for -repartee; they have time only for feverish serving. - -Passenger trains are rarely to be seen--traffic _militaire_ by day and -by night. Rural domestic journeys on the _chemin de fer_ are over and -gone. It is supplies or troops or guns; a frantic railway staff and a -frenzied _chef de gare_ who has forgotten what smooth and intermittent -traffic on his line is like. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -C.C.S. - - -The ----th C.C.S. claims to be the hospital farthest advanced on the -Somme. The claim is justified. Its grounds are lit at night by the -gun-flashes. The discharge of our own heavies rattles the bottles in -its dispensary and makes its canvas tremble. Sleep is sometimes driven -from the eyes of its patients, not by pain, but by the thunder of -bombardment. Convoys from the dressing stations have but a short run. -The wounded arrive with the trench-mud wet upon them. Clearing them up -is quick, if filthy, work, and in clearing them up is engaged a small -battalion of orderlies. - -The whole hospital is under canvas, except the operating-theatre, which -is a hut, hermetically sealed, as it were, and heated to a working -temperature--and, incidentally, an even temperature--by some ingenious -device. Surgery cannot get done with numbed hands. Yes--and the -officers' ward is a hut, to deepen the great gulf fixed between Tommy -and his officer, even when they both are in mortal pain. The difference -in the degrees of comfort between a marquee and a hut, in the Somme -winter, is incredible. Unhappily, too, in these winter months there is -a horrible shortage of coal and paraffin. This tells again in favour -of the hut. The officers' hut is as warm as your civilian sitting-room, -and wellnigh as comfortably furnished. No ingenuity could make it -possible to say this of a marquee. - -But it is only the wounded officers who are comfortable. The Medical -Officers freeze and soak in bell-tents. You'll see the batmen drying -their blankets nightly at the mess-fire before their "bosses" go to -rest. No artificial heating is possible in these tents, because there -is no fuel available for those who are well. M.O.'s retire after an -all-night bout in the theatre to their clammy beds, and sleep from -exhaustion; and for no other reason. They wake, and shiver into dewy -clothes. They shiver through their meals in the biting mess-tent, -and they plod through the sea of slush that surrounds the wards -incessantly, now that the winter has set in. For the ground is never -dry. When it's not raining (which is seldom) it's snowing--and snowing -good and hard, as a rule, in fat flakes as big as carnations. - -But they're a cheerful mess, with work enough to save them from -dwelling overmuch on the discomforts of the Somme winter. There -are twenty of them. The Colonel is a Regular, with long years of -Indian service behind him, whose favourite table topics are big-game -and economic problems--particularly those hypothetical economic -difficulties which are likely to confront us after this war. His -customary opponent is Padré Thomas, the Roman Catholic Chaplain, who -took a double-first at Oxford and was one time an Eton master. He -receives weekly from a favourite nephew, reading for matriculation, -Latin prose exercises, the merits of which he discusses with those -members of the mess whose classical scholarship war has not quite -obliterated. - -There is Wallace, the X-ray expert, whose chief topic is the shortage -of paraffin, lacking which his apparatus cannot carry-on. He's a -Scotchman who once graduated in Arts. He is chief consulting specialist -with the Chaplain on the merits of his nephew's prose composition. - -The Anglican padré is a raw-boned Scot (six-feet four) who has lived -mostly in Russia and Germany. He talks a great deal of vodka and the -hoggishness of German manners. "What a treat it would be," he says, -"to march into Berlin with the pipes playing, go through to meet the -Russians on the other side, and have a foregathering! That night I -should cast away _all_ my ecclesiastical badges!" - -He preaches to the camp of German prisoners close by with a grace that -is not altogether good. He cannot abide Germans. One envisages him as -delivering them fire-and-brimstone discourses and calling them weekly -to repentance. - -The quietest members of the mess are the surgical specialists, P---- -and R----. They are also the hardest worked and the most irregular at -meals. It is rarely that they are taking their soup before the others -have finished. This is perhaps a good thing, in the light of their -frank physiological discussion at table of cases just disposed of in -the theatre. On taking-in day they frequently do not come to table at -all. I doubt whether they eat; if they do, it is a snack between cases -in the _abattoir_. The hospital takes in and evacuates on alternate -days. Theatre cases must be done at once, for it may be necessary -to evacuate them to the base on the following day; it is, in fact, -necessary, unless they are unable to bear transportation, and many are -too critical for that--head cases, spinal cases, and the like. Cases -that suffer greatly are visited with the merciful hypodermic before -they start on their jolting journey in the ambulance-train. Not that -A.T.'s are rough: they're amazingly smooth. But however smooth, they -are agonising to the man whose nerves are lacerated and exposed, or -into whose tissue the scalpel has cut deep. - -The A.T. draws into an improvised siding adjacent to the wards. There -is no question of mechanical transport to the train. It is the practice -to establish C.C.S.'s beside a railway, where evacuation during a push -can be facile and expeditious. - -P---- and R----, the men of few words, but of great and bloody deeds, -have operated in some degree or other on wellnigh every case that -boards the ambulance-train. - -Added to the shortages in fuel which hit the wounded so hard is -that other present hardship: the congestion on railways. As soon -as an A.T. is wired as having left the Army garage at ----, such -preparations must be made as will ensure that the wounded will be -ready to board her immediately on her arrival. They must be waiting -in the evacuation tents by the siding before the minimum time of her -arrival. But notwithstanding regulations which provide that A.T.'s -shall take precedence over all other railway-traffic whatsoever, that -requisitioned is frequently four or five hours late--such is the -present state of the roads. That means four hours of frozen agony in -the evacuation tents. Fuel cannot be spared for warming them, when it -is more than the wards can do to get warmed. A shivering padré moves -round amongst them administering comfort which makes no pretence at -being spiritual, except in a punning sense. That's one thing very few -padrés in the war-zone have been obtuse enough not to learn: that -attempts at spiritual consolation may sometimes be inopportune. Every -padré knows the full war-value of creature-comforts--even for his -spiritual ends. So he moves about the evacuation tent ministering to -the body rather than to the soul. - -The surgical specialists have long since ceased to have connection with -this stage of their patients' movements basewards. They are in the -theatre making ready more for the journey down. - -The mess harbours the O.C. of a mobile laboratory. He moves between -the hospitals within the Army testing serums. He wears the peering -aspect of a man accustomed to microscopic examination. All his table -conversation is of an inquiring nature--better, an investigatory -nature--into matters that are quite impersonal. During a whole meal -he will talk of nothing but the Northern Territory of Australia or -the structure of the Great Barrier Reef on the Queensland coast. If -he's talking of the Reef he deals in a series of questions and in -an examination of your answers thereto, until he has built up for -himself--with the aid of diagrams contrived with table implements and -slabs of bread--an accurate notion of the surface structure. He's -as much interested in modern history as in science. One evening he -edified the mess, by arrangement, with an hour's discourse on the -causes leading up to the American Civil War. For this he prepared -with academic care. It was curious to see how he could, for an hour, -sustain the interest of the mess in so remote and comparatively -insignificant a struggle, when that mess was stationed in the -heart of the Somme at the height of the push.... His laboratory -walls were decorated with pictures by no means scientific, and yet -physiological. They are extracted from _La Vie Parisienne_, a French -weekly illustrated journal of extraordinary frankness. But in this -man there is nothing lewd. But he has an unusual appreciation of -French cleverness; and that is a faculty alarmingly wanting in the -normal English officer. French drawings, which the English call lewd -are by no means lewd: merely intensely clever. They convey no notion -of lewdness to the French mind. But the English, except in the case -of isolated representatives of that race, will never understand the -French--in other matters than that of art. So great is the gulf of -miscomprehension fixed between the French and English that it becomes -a daily deepening mystery how they could ever have found themselves -Allies. Still more mysterious is it that they should continue so.... - -These are the men who impress you most in the mess. There's Wallace, -the Scotchman who never says more than he's obliged, but has the tender -heart with his patients. He always trembles when giving the anæsthetic -in critical cases. He calls himself weak-kneed for it, and reviles -himself unmercifully for a womanish fellow (he's intensely masculine); -but he can't help it. - -There's Thompson, another Scotchman (the mess is fairly infested with -Scots) who is dental surgeon. His gift is disconcerting repartee, with -which he occasionally routs the C.O. - -These are the officers. But what of the Sisters? There are eight -of them. When you have said they are entirely unselfish, you have -included most attributes. That includes an irrepressible spirit that -no continuity of labour can break. It includes gentleness which -familiarity with pain in others does not quench. And it includes a -contempt of personal comfort that must sometimes amaze even themselves -if they ever find time to grow either introspective or retrospective. -They sleep in tents; they lack fuel; they shiver by the hour in damp -beds unless exhaustion drives them to sleep; and they rise in the murky -morning to don sodden garments. They work hard and without intermission -for twelve to sixteen hours--and indefinitely when a "stunt" has -brought the convoys from the line. But none of these things beats them -down. - -The theatre Sisters deserve immortalisation. All the qualities of -patience and gentleness, endurance and cheerfulness, seem intensified -in them. They have not the smallest objection to your watching them -work in the theatre; nor have the surgeons. Rather, they encourage you, -and get you to help in a minor way when the place is busy. - -It is rarely on receiving-day that four "tables" are not in use -simultaneously. This makes it inevitable that the victims, as they are -brought in and laid out for the anæsthetic, see within six feet sights -not calculated to fortify them. Some smile in hardy fashion; some smile -in a fashion that is not hardy. The abject terror of those wretches out -of whom pain has long since beaten all the fortitude is horrible to -see. What must be the state of that man, made helpless by unassuaged -suffering, who sees the scalpel at work upon a fellow beside him--the -gaping incision; the merciless pruning of the shattered limb; the -hideous bloodiness of the steaming stump at amputation--and hears the -stertorous breathing of the subject and his agonised subconscious -moaning, which has all the infection of terror that actual suffering -would convey? - -Yes; this is inevitable. There can be no privacy. Despatch is -everything. Nowhere is rapidity so urgent as in the theatre of a C.C.S. -It means lives. The hideous gas-gangrene forms and suppurates in a -single hour. This is the worst enemy of the field hospital surgeon. -Half an hour's postponement of operation--even less--may mean death. -And in other cases, if the preliminary operation is not performed in -time for the case to move by A.T. for finishing at the base, it may -cost a life equally. The surgeon has not time to fortify his victim by -explanation or exhortation. He is lifted from stretcher to table; the -anæsthetist takes his seat at the head, sprinkles the mask and applies -it; the surgeon moves up (he has already seen the case in ward); the -stertorous breathing begins; the Sister attends and places ready to -his hands what the surgeon requires in swabs and implements; and with -the impressive directness of long and varied experience the incision -is made and the table is in a moment stained. But let there be no -confounding of rapidity with haste, despatch with carelessness. As -much time as is necessary, so much will be given; but not more. Most -striking feature of all is the curiously impersonal and scientific -thoroughness of the surgeon here; this, and the providential faculty -of humour in both surgeons and Sisters in the throes of it all, -without which the tragedy of the place would be overwhelming. The -case is treated with the impersonality (and the persistence) due -to a scientific problem, and as such is wrestled with. Three hours -will be given, if necessary; and sometimes they are. It is a grim -and continuous fight with death, without intermission. But, like any -successful warrior, the surgeon jokes in the midst of it. A smile--even -a gentle guffaw--comes with a strange effect in this place of blood, -but it "saves the situation." This, with the marked impersonality of -the surgeon, can be nothing but reassuring to the potential victim, -waiting his turn on the adjacent table. - -One does not realise until he sees it what hard physical labour an -amputation involves, with scalpel and saw; nor how bloodless it can be; -nor how revolting is the warm stink of steaming human flesh suddenly -exposed; nor how interest swamps repulsion as you watch a skull -trephined; nor how utterly strange, for the first time, is the sight -of a man lying there with his intestines drawn forth reposing upon his -navel. - -A man can suffer many wounds and still live--one man with multiple -bomb and shell wounds; not a limb untouched; an arm and a leg gone; a -skull trephined; fragments extracted from thigh and chest and shoulder; -the other hand shattered; to say nothing of wounds and bruises and -putrefying sores innumerable. Human endurance and survival can become -incredible. - -There are sessions in the theatre at which an orderly is kept almost -busy passing between the M.O.'s, registering, for purposes of record, -the nature of the operation. - -"What shall I enter, sir?" - -"Appendicitis, acute--abdomen closed," says P----. - -"If you had not added _abdomen closed_," says R----, "would one be at -liberty to infer it had been left open?" - -"Get your head read!" says P----.... The orderly passes on. - -"What's this, sir?" - -"Damn you! Can't you see I'm busy?" K---- is boring, with all the -strength of his massive shoulders, into the skull of his case. -Trephining is, literally, hard work; but not that alone. L---- is -cutting, cutting, cutting, at the buttock of the wretch, paring the -hideous gas gangrene as one would pare the rottenness from an apple. -A third surgeon is probing for bomb splinters in rear of the thigh; -and getting them. The man is splintered all over. For one horrible -moment you conceive him as suddenly and treacherously deprived of -unconsciousness, with ---- boring here to the brain membrane, ---- -slicing generously at his buttock, and ---- probing relentlessly to the -bone in the gaping incision. - -"Well, it certainly looks as though we are doing what we like," says -----. "It _is_ rather bloody; yet the C.O. says the most revolting -operation to watch is that of the removal of a finger-nail." - -"If we go much further, he'll drop his subconscious ire upon us," says -----. - -"Yes, I suppose his subconsciousness is protesting in blasphemous -silence: '_Pourquoi_'?" - -"Stitches, Sister," says ----, at the head. The blood-clot has flowed; -and in a twinkling the triangular exposure of skull is covered by the -stitched scalp. - -"He'll be easier," says ----. - -And then begins the tabulation of his multiple wounds. They cover half -a page. It's a miracle of symbolism which can suggest all that man has -suffered (and has yet to suffer) in the handwriting of half a page.... - -"Clear, thank God!" says ----, as Multiple Wounds is borne out -insensible half an hour later. "It's eleven, and I've been here since -the middle of the morning; and I could almost sleep. Good-night, -Sister! I'm off." - -So they go to the freezing dampness of their camp stretchers. The -orderlies set about "cleaning up." - -But at one they're all called. The railhead, three kilometres off, has -been shelled. A convoy has brought forty casualties. Half of them must -pass through the theatre without delay. So the nerve-jangling work -recommences, and goes on past the murky dawn, beyond the breakfast -hour. It is snowing hard. They are hard-pressed to keep the theatre -warm enough for delicate surgery. To equalise the temperature has -become impossible. But things are as they are, and cannot be bettered; -and there will come an end to this spurt, though how long will be the -respite, who can say? It would be longer if the surgeons were not so -dangerously understaffed. There's ---- on a long-deferred and necessary -leave; there are ---- and ---- who have fallen ill: one through the -overstrain of incessant surgery; the other a victim to his sopping, -inclement tent. The watchword is _Carry on_. There may be assistance -by importation to the staff; on the other hand, there may not. There -will be, if possible; but the pressure is severe all over the Somme -Hospitals during the offensive, and the bases are drained. - -The hospital railhead was shelled one afternoon. One may have the -charity to surmise the Hun was shooting at the aerodrome; which stands -seven hundred yards from the hospital; for the shell fell about the -aerodrome rather than in the C.C.S. However that may be, shell did -burst in the hospital, either by accident or design. - -The order was to evacuate immediately. The Colonel ordered the Sisters -to enter a car and be transported beyond range. They declined. The -Colonel, a bachelor, not skilled in negotiation with the long-haired -sex, commanded the matron to command them. Matron ordered them to their -tents to prepare to flit. She went to them in ten minutes' time. "Are -you ready?"--"No, Matron; there's a small mutiny brewing here. If the -patients are to go, we're going with them."--"I'm not going; I was just -in the middle of my dressings; I'm going to finish the others."--"They -shan't go without us, Matron!" ... So with a splendid indignation -they disobeyed. The Matron is accustomed to obedience, but she didn't -get it. She went to the Colonel and explained. "Well, damn 'em! the -witches! Let 'em have their way!" The Matron broke into a run. "Take -your flasks and your hypodermics; you can go!" - -So they superintended all the removings, attending here and there with -the merciful preliminary syringe; and, when the preliminaries to the -journey were over, jumped up with the car-drivers, and the evacuation -began into a field on the ---- road. Those that could walk, walked; and -some that couldn't well walk had to do so.... - -They laid them out in rows, by wards. Some were dying. Some died on -the way. Some died in the grass, cut by the bitter wind as they lay -there gazing into the unkindly heaven. The rain came in frozen gusts. -Those still hovering on the border-line were blown and soaked into -death. The groaning of the wounded was hideous. Shattered limbs are -hard to bear in the complete comfort of a civilian hospital. What -is a wounded man to do but die, exposed to the pelting rain of the -Somme winter? Brandy and hot tea and cigarettes brought a transient -consolation: most men were insensible to aid from such fragmentary -comfort. It began to be plain that the risk from shell-fire was not -more dangerous than this from exposure; a return was ordered. Sisters, -doctors, patients, concurred with equal fervour. And so they were taken -back. - -The shelling had ceased. - -Next morning came the ambulance-train. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE FOUGHTEN FIELD - - -I visited the fields of Beaumont-Hamel and Miraumont and Bapaume soon -after they had been abandoned, in the pleasant sunshine of an April -Sabbath afternoon. It was the abomination of desolation I saw--and -felt. Of Beaumont-Hamel there was not a stone left standing, it was -not until I had been told that a village once stood there that I began -to distinguish the powdered rubble from its surroundings. There was -difficulty in doing that, for not only were the buildings demolished, -but their bricks crunched and crumbled. - -As we approached the old line from ----, the degrees of demolition -in the villages showed clearly how near they had stood to the field -of fire, and how systematic had been the German bombardment. The -remoter villages showed merely sporadic gaps in the walls--which might -have been the result of accident rather than of purpose--or a church -spire tottering. Nearer villages showed large areas containing not -more than the skeletons of houses. The villages which had been in -occupation--such as Beaumont-Hamel itself--had not one stone left upon -another. The twisted wire straggled through them; the battered trenches -wormed about. - -We left the car at Miraumont and walked up the old road overlooking -the village and Grandcourt Wood. They call it a road for the sake -of topography. But did you ever see ring-barked trees standing in -a morass?--that is it, with this difference: that these trees are -branchless. You can conceive nothing more gaunt and desolate than that -colony of splintered trunks standing down in the grassless valley of -pools. The pools are shell-holes, so frequent that they have the aspect -of a morass striated by thin ridges of black mud. The ridges are the -lips of shell-holes. - -Miraumont stands down the slope above the wood. It is less completely -ruined than Beaumont-Hamel, but by that the more pathetic to look on. -You can see what it has been: you cannot judge what Beaumont-Hamel may -have been. - -As far as you can see in any direction there is no blade of grass, -though the spring has begun, and all the earth untouched by war is -greening. Between ---- and ---- the loveliness of the early spring is -upon the land; the primrose and the violet are starring the grass in -the woods, and all the terraced slopes of the valleys are fair with -the young crop. Here you see nothing but brown clay pocked by shell, -the graceless grey zigzag of the ruined trench, the litter of deserted -arms and equipment and smashed shelter, battered frames of village -dwellings, and the limbless deformity of the splintered woods. - -We walked up the ruined road beyond Miraumont. Both sides were thick -with dug-outs. The road had been a kind of shelter between its low -banks. I thought what the traffic on this road must have been when -it was ours and the Germans were entrenched beyond it; how it would -be shelled because it was low and naturally congested with British -traffic; how the dug-outs would be peopled continuously by passers-by -flinging themselves in for a momentary respite when the bursts were -accurate.... The dug-outs were deep and littered with cast-off -great-coats, tunics, scarves, boots; with jam-tins, beef-tins, rusted -bayonets, clips of unused cartridge, battered rifles. It had been -a road for the supply of ammunition to the front line. Its corners -were choked with bombs, shell-case, and small-arm ammunition. In its -excavations were dumps of barbed wire unused. You could infer all the -busyness and congestion, the problem and the cursing of harassed and -supercrowded transport in this road. - -We reached the crest of the hill and struck to the left across the old -field. This brought us upon a plateau. There had been more intense -fighting here than on the slopes. There had been rain incessantly, -too. The shell-holes were filled, and they were so frequent that the -landscape resembled nothing so much as a coral reef at low tide. It was -with the risk of slipping in that one made a way along the field at -all. To have fallen in and taken a mouthful of that green liquid would -have meant death. Those pools that were not green were red. Either -colour implied only the degree of putrefaction of the corpses that lay -beneath; but not always beneath. Here protruded a head, there a knee -or a shoulder or a buttock; sometimes a gaunt hand alone outstretched -from the stinking pool. The pools stunk; the ground stunk; the whole -landscape smelt to heaven. My friend had brought, in his wisdom, some -black Burmah cheroots. They were as strong as could be got, but they -could not overwhelm the revolting stink of human putrefaction that -rose all round. One asks what will it be when the spring is advanced -and the pools are dry. One asks, too, when and how this land will be -re-farmed. It is sown with live bomb and "dud" shell. One foresees the -ploughing peasant having the soul blown out of him one spring morning. -It will be long before the sword becomes the ploughshare. In the making -of the _via sacra_, too, will there be many casualties. - -Fighting on this plateau must have been hellishly intense and deadly. -The only conceivable cover was the trench and dug-out: no natural mound -nor sheltering bank. The dug-outs were correspondingly deep, burrowing -down into the bowels of the earth. Like pimples on the broad face of -the plateau were machine-gun and artillery emplacements. These had -plainly been built extraordinarily strong, but not strong enough to -stand the direct fire to which they had been exposed inevitably. How -any structure--or any excavation, indeed--withstands the intensity of -modern artillery fire is inconceivable. - -The tangles of wire that traversed this high ground were gapped and -contorted. A rifle was wrapped about in the murderous mesh; it had -been grasped by a human hand; beyond was the man to whom it may have -belonged, caught in the same gentle embrace. The steel helmet beneath -the network, the rag of tunic flapping in the breeze from the jags, -were all-expressive. You needed not to be told explicitly of what they -were the symbols. - -Near the edge of the plateau was the crater of an exploded mine. It had -been sapped from beneath the brow of the rise. Now it was a pond. The -hideous deep green hue of the water betrayed the full meaning of that -formula: "We exploded a mine and occupied the lip of the crater." Some -of them were still occupying it: others were lying in the foul mouth of -it. - -To look on the whole of it--mottled acres, pimples of emplacements, -streak of trench, wall of wire--was to know something of the -hellishness of life here when this area was the field of battle. - -We stumbled off the tableland into ground which had been German. -Immediately beneath the crest they had had their howitzer emplacements. -There were battered guns of theirs still there. We nosed down into -their dug-outs, built well, and to a depth that was safe. They had -been artillery dug-outs; the telephone-wires still crept down the -wooden wall beyond the entrance. Below we found hideous dead, some -shattered, as though bombed by an invader; heaps of beer-bottles, too, -and many German novels. You could visualise these fellows having nights -of revelry down there, drinking themselves oblivious to the roar of -the guns above. It was possibly in the height of mirth that we broke -through and bombed them where they reeled below in festivity. One does -not know. This may be maligning them. Possibly they were a temperate -lot, filled with zeal for the Fatherland. These bottles may have been -the moderate collection of months. They may have been bombed beneath -because they had decided to die hard. The facile assumption is far too -common that the German is a drunken brute whose hobby is debauchery. - -The area about the gun emplacements was littered with scores of tons of -ammunition, which will probably never be salved. Littered with bombs it -is too, and with trench helmets, and the leather and brass and iron of -equipment. We got many souvenirs here, creeping about like ghouls among -the dead and the heaps of material. - -We returned to the main road past the groups of irregular graves, past -the French labour-parties at work upon fresh roads and upon salvage, -back to the skeleton of Miraumont. Then the car swept down behind -Beaumont-Hamel, through the woods to Albert, which we skirted by the -putty factory. The Virgin with her Child looked down, hideously maimed, -from the cathedral spire. We came home through the ridges and the -avenues of Acheux, down the valley of the Authie. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -AN ADVANCED RAILHEAD - - -At an advanced railhead one has to contend with other difficulties than -that of the congestion of railway traffic, which is inevitable near the -line. There are the French, who control all the traction. This includes -the shunting: you must not forget the shunting. It's the shunting -that kills. Your pack (_pack_ is the technical term for supply-train) -may arrive at railhead at 5 p.m.; but it may not be in position for -clearance by divisions until midnight. This plays the devil with -divisional transport. You advise them by telephone that their pack will -arrive at railhead at 5: let them get their transport down. Transport -arrives at 4.30, to be "on the safe side"; but it waits impatiently six -and eight and ten hours to clear. Very hard on horses, this; almost -as hard on lorry-drivers, if the division is clearing by mechanical -transport. There is language used by drivers waiting thus for hours in -the snow or the bitter wind. The language of a horse-transport driver -is a very expressive thing; it has a directness that is admirable. - -At ---- the transport--and especially the horse transport--got tired -of this system, if system it could be called. They got to the stage -at which they posted an orderly at railhead to watch the shunting of -packs with his own eyes. That orderly was not to move off until he -not only saw the train arrive, but saw it in position too. Not until -he returned to Headquarters with this doubtfully welcome news were the -horses taken from their lines. - -It's urgently necessary that packs should be "placed" early, for more -reasons than one. But one is that the men in the line are depending -on a prompt delivery of rations by the divisional transport. If, -therefore, the pack arrives twenty-four hours late (as frequently -it does), it is manifestly undesirable that the French should delay -its clearance ten hours more. Another reason is that if you have -four packs arriving in the day--as many railheads have--your _cour -de gare_ will not accommodate them all for clearance simultaneously; -usually it will not accommodate more than two at once. For yours -are not the only trains whose clearance is urgent: there are -ammunition-trains, stone-trains for road-making, trains of guns and -horses for disembarkation, trains stuffed with ordnance stores and -canteen stores, trains of timber for the R.E.'s. The clearance of any -is needed urgently at any railhead. The term "railhead," by the way, is -interpreted somewhat foggily by the popular mind. There used to be a -notion abroad that it connoted a railway terminus. That is, of course, -not so. It does connote a point in the line convenient for clearance -by divisions. There may be five railheads in eighty miles of line, and -the last of them not a terminus. A railhead, therefore, because it is a -point convenient, is inevitably busy. - -If tardiness in despatch from the base or railroad congestion _en -route_ should congest your railhead suddenly, it may be necessary to -indent for fatigue from the corps whose railhead yours is. Usually -it is a night fatigue that must be requisitioned. Conceive the -attitude of the fatigue that marches to railhead at 9 p.m. through -the snow-slush, for eight hours' work. Conceive, also, the ingenuity -with which, during operations, they secrete themselves in the nooks -and crannies of supply-stacks, out of the bitter blast, until the rum -issue is made. Half the energy of the N.C.O.'s is dissipated in keeping -their disgusted mob up to strength. Conceive, too, the appropriation -of "grub" that goes on in the bowels of these supply-stacks, and the -cases of jam and veal-loaf dropped and burst by accident in transit. -All-night fatigues that are borrowed are the very deuce. - -The winter-night clearance at railhead goes on in the face of much -difficulty and hardship. The congestion of transport in the yard is -almost impossibly unwieldy: it moves in six-inch mud and in pitch -darkness, except for the flares of the issuers, and except when there -is neither rain nor snow, which is seldom. The cold is bitter and -penetrating, so is the wind. Horses plunge in the darkness; drivers, -loaders, and issuers curse; and to the laymen, who cannot be expected -to see the system which does lie beneath this apparent chaos, it is -miraculous that the clearance gets done at all. - -The mistakes occur which are inevitable in the circumstances. The -divisions clear by brigades. One brigade sometimes gets off with the -rum or the fresh vegetable of another. Sometimes this is accidental, -sometimes not. In any case it is a matter for internal adjustment by -the division itself. - -The adjustment of packs is a matter of extreme difficulty at the -railhead of a corps whose troops are mobile. Any corps railhead in the -Arras sector in March, 1917, furnished a good example of that. We were -to push at Arras. This meant that reinforcements whose arrival it was -difficult, if not impossible, to forecast, were constantly coming in -and raising the strength of the divisions drawing. It takes three days -for orders on the base increasing the packs to take effect at railhead. -An increase of five thousand in ration strength may be effected at half -a day's notice only. They must be fed. The pack is inadequate to this -extent. The division must be sent to another railhead to complete, or -to a field supply depôt, or to a reserve supply depôt. It may take them -a day to collect their full ration. You immediately wire the base for -an increase in pack. By the time the wire has taken effect at railhead, -the reinforcements (in these mobile days of an advance) may have moved -on beyond Arras; you have all your increase as surplus on your hands. -They must be dumped, and the increase in pack cancelled. It's not -impossible that, the day after you have cancelled it, you will have -need of it for fresh unadvised arrivals. - -The thaw restrictions in traffic hit very hard the clearance at -railheads. For seven days during the thaw, such was the parlous -softness of the roads, it was out of the question to permit general -traffic in lorries. All the clearance must be done by horse transport, -which, by comparison with M.T., is damnably slow. It delayed the -clearance of trains by half-days. Divisions which had to trek by G.S. -waggon to other railheads to complete were hard put to it to get their -men in the line fed. - -Units which had no horse transport available had been instructed -beforehand to draw thaw and reserve rations to tide them over the -period. They stuck to their quarters, and ate tinned beef and biscuit. - -But special dispensations had to be granted for traffic by lorries. -When a coal-train arrived at railhead it was unthinkable to clear -it by H.T. General Service waggons would take a week to clear four -hundred tons of coal. Dispensations had to be granted for other urgent -reasons. The cumulative effect was that of lorry traffic to a dangerous -extent--dangerous because the frost bites so deep that when the thaw -is at its height ruts are two feet deep. It bites down at the soft -foundation beneath the cobble-stones of the village streets; and on -the country roads the subsoil has no such protection as cobbles from -the oppression of loaded lorries. But it was curious to see, in the -villages, the cobbles rising _en masse_ like jelly either flank of -the lorry, or rising like a wave in the wake of the lumbering thing. -Lorries got ditched in the country roads beyond immediate deliverance -by other lorries. Nothing less than a steam tractor could move them. A -convoy of tractors was set aside in each road-area for no other purpose -than to obey calls to the rescue of ditched lorries. Certain roads -were so badly cut that they had to be closed to traffic of any kind: -motor-cycle with side-car that ventured on was bogged. The personnel -of the road-control was increased twenty-fold to check speeds and to -indicate prohibited roads. The worst tracts of the roads in use were so -bad as to be paved with double rows of railway sleepers until the frost -had worked out. Some roads will never recover; they will have to be -closed until remade. - -This advanced railhead was so near the line as to be full of interest -on the eve of the April push. It was here you could see the immediate -preparations and the immediate results of the preparatory activity. -The local casualty clearing stations gave good evidence; you could -tell, by watching their convoys, and talking with the wounded, and -observing in the operating-theatre, what was going on. Such significant -events as the growth of fresh C.C.S.'s and the kind of reserves they -were putting-in, were eloquent. Talk with the legion of Flying-Corps -observers who were about railhead was enlightening; so was the nature -of the reserves they were laying up. The bulk and description of the -supply-reserves dumped at railhead for pushing up by lorry-convoy to -Arras told their tale also. Every night a convoy of lorries would -load and move up under cover of the darkness. There was no mistaking -the meaning of such commodities in their freight as chewing-gum and -solidified alcohol. Do not suppose, reader, that chewing-gum is for -mere distraction in the trenches. Neither is solidified alcohol for -consumption by the addicted, but for fuel for Tommies' cookers when -coal and wood are impossible of transport. Commodities such as these -make one visualise a sudden and overwhelming advance. ---- tons of -baled straw were dumped at railhead. This was not for forage, but -to strew the floors of empty returning supply-trains for wounded. -Each C.C.S. in the area had to be prepared to improvise one such -ambulance-train per day when the push was at its height. The handling -of these things makes one abnormally busy; if he gets four-hours' sleep -in twenty-four he is doing famously. But one is never so jaded as not -to be interested in these portentous signs. - -Once I went up to Arras on a night lorry. The convoy crept up into -the lip of the salient. The guns flashed close on either flank; the -star-shells lit the road from either side. The reserve dump was in -an old factory in the Rue ----. An enormous dump it was. The Supply -Officer lived next it on a ground-floor. His men burrowed in an -adjacent cellar. He had laid on the floor of the attic above him eight -layers of oats. A direct hit would have asphyxiated him with oats. -His dump was unhappily placed. There were two batteries adjacent. -Whenever there was a raid and the batteries let fly, they were -immediately searched for. In the search his dump was found, on more -than one occasion. There were ugly and recent shell-holes about it. The -off-loading convoy was hit many nights at one point or another. He took -me to the bottom of the road after dark. The scream of shell was so -incessant that it rose to a melancholy intermittent moan. - -Next day he took me about the town. Civilians were moving furtively. -They were not used to emerge before night. In any case such shops and -_estaminets_ as remained were prohibited from opening before 7.30 in -the evening. Wonderful!--how the civilians hang on. They have their -property; also, they have the money they can always make from the herds -of troops who make a fleeting sojourn in the place. Apart from the -proprietors of cafés and _estaminets_, they are mostly caretakers who -stay on: caretakers and rich old men with much property who prefer the -chance of being hit to leaving what their industry has amassed over -thirty years of labour.... - -The German fatigue on the railway was useful, if slow. It was supplied -from the prisoners of war camp near the station. When the thaw was in -progress we lost them, so heavy were the demands upon the camp for -road labour. The O.C. the camp sometimes visited to see what manner -of work they did. He threw light on their domestic behaviour in camp: -"The greediest ----s on earth!" he would say. "If one of them leaves -table for two minutes, his friends have pinched and swallowed his -grub. They steal each other's food daily--and they're fed well enough. -They're a sanctimonious crew, too; most of their post-cards from home -are scriptural, laden with texts and pictorial demonstration of the way -the Lord is with them. The camp is half-filled with religious fanatics; -they sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs when they're free. But -there's not much of the New Testament notion of the brotherhood of man -amongst 'em; they do each other down most damnably!..." - -When the Arras advance was imminent their camp was moved farther back -from the line, and we lost them. The Deputy-Assistant-Director of -Labour sent a fatigue of 125 of the halt and the maimed--the P.B.'s; -altogether inadequate. - -A Permanent-base man may be incapable of lumping. And even if he is not -incapable, he is usually in a position to say he is--none daring to -make him afraid. P.B. fatigues are highly undesirable. - -"Pinching" supplies was by no means unheard of amongst them. -(Amongst whom at all is it unheard-of? Australians themselves are -the arch-appropriators of Army supplies.) But P.B. men do not pinch -with that faculty of vulpine cunning which is clear of detection. -One morning, after an all-night clearance, the A.P.M. found one of -the P.B.'s sneaking back to billet in the cold grey dawn with three -tins of pork and beans, two loaves of bread, six candles, imperfectly -concealed. He promptly put him in the clink. There was a court-martial. -The unhappy fellow got three months. Pinching in the Army should be -done judiciously. It is not a moral crime. Getting caught is. At any -rate, that is an intellectual, if not a moral crime. - -I messed with a C.C.S. Most messes of medical officers are interesting -and varied. The Colonel was a Regular--an accessible and companionable -Regular. An Irishman he was, kind of heart and quick of temper; and so -able that it was never dangerous for him to allow his Captains to argue -with him on questions of administration, because he could always rout -them: he was always right. A less able man would have taken risks in -permitting argument on the subject of his administration. - -He was the fiercest smoker and the ablest bridge-player I have ever -known. He used to complain bitterly of the standard of bridge played -by the mess in general. He put out his pipe chiefly to eat--to eat -rather than to sleep. He was a hearty, but not a voluptuous, eater. -His appetite was the consequence of genuine cerebration and of hard -walking. He walked, unless hindered by the most inevitable obstacles, -five miles a day--hard, with his two dogs and the Major. He was very -deaf, and very fond of his dogs. They slept in his room, usually (one -or other) on his bed. He slept little. He read and smoked in bed -regularly until about two; was wakened at six; took a pipe (or two) -with his tea before getting up; and sometimes--though rarely--resumed -his reading in bed until eight, or spent a happy hour in earnest -conversation with the dogs before rising. - -His officers liked him; the Sisters loved him. To them he was -indulgent. The day before the push began a Sister approached him in his -office. She said that although it was her afternoon off, the Matron -had advised her against tramping, lest a convoy of wounded should -come in suddenly. He said: "My dear, you go."--"And how long may I be -away?"--"Well, you don't go on duty until eight in the morning; as long -as you're back by then, it's good enough. But mind--don't come reeling -in at 8.30 with your hair down your back! That's all I ask." She left, -adoring. - -The Major was a mid-Victorian gentleman, with the gentlest manners -and language, except when it came to talk of Germans. He got an acute -attack of _Wanderlust_ soon after I came--felt the call of Arras--and -got command of a field ambulance up in the thick of it. The last I -heard of him was that he was hurrying about the city under a steel -helmet, succouring with his own hand those stricken down in the streets. - -A French interpreter was attached to the hospital. He was a man of -forty-five, with the heart of a boy of fifteen. He would sit at the -gramaphone by the hour, playing his favourite music and staring into -vacancy. His favourites were: a minuet of Haydn, Beethoven's Minuet -in G, selections from the 1812 Overture, the Overture to _Mignon_, -and the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. Everyone "pulled his leg"; -everyone liked him--he was so gentle of heart, but so baffling in -repartee. They called him the _Pawkie Duke_, a name that came to him -through his comments when the facetious song of that title in the "St. -Andrew's Song-Book" was being sung. He lived in a hut in hospital. Part -of his duty consisted in mediation between the civilian sick and the -English M.O.'s; for by international agreement they were due to treat -any civilian sick who needed it. I first met Pawkie waiting in the -anteroom of the operating-theatre with a distracted mother whose child -was within under operation for appendicitis. She was a lovely girl of -ten. The mother was weeping anxiously. Pawkie was almost in sympathetic -tears himself. He made excursions of high frequency into the theatre -to report progress to the mother. I went in. He came after, fumbling -nervously with his hands and regarding the surgeons with a gaze of -appeal. He would whisper to the Colonel, who reassured him. He tore -out, colliding with the orderlies who were bearing in another "case." -Seizing madame by the hands, he cried: "_Bien, madame! Elle va bien! -La pauvre petite fille fait de bon progrès. Les chirurgiens-major sont -très adroits. Le Capitaine est le chirurgien-spécialiste. Le Colonel -assiste aussi. Ça ne fait rien, madame!_" And he left madame with the -conviction that nothing could go wrong. - -But it was pathetic to see that beautiful child, her fair face -smothered under the mask. At the end, when the wound was stitched, the -surgeon took her up as gently as though she were his own offspring and -carried her to her mother, and so on to the ward. There she stayed two -weeks, tended by him with the affection of an elder brother. - -On the eve of the push, during the preparatory and retaliatory -bombardment, the theatre was a ghastly chamber. An abbatoir it was, -five hours after the arrival of the convoys, when the preparation of -the cases for operation had been completed. Five "tables" were in -continuous use. On "taking-in" night the surgeons invariably worked -through to daylight. This is very exhausting, so exhausting that they -never worked continuously. At about two o'clock they adjourned to -the mess for a rest and a meal--a solid meal of bacon and eggs and -coffee. For the push there came reinforcements--_teams_, as they were -called. They amounted to eight fresh surgeons, ten Sisters, and fifty -additional orderlies. - -The Colonel called his M.O.'s together in the anteroom the Sabbath -before the attack, and gave them plain words of warning and advice. -In a push they were not to be too elaborate; it would lead to -injustice. Better twelve "abdominals" done roughly but safely than -four exquisitely finished operations. In the former case all twelve -would be rendered safe as far as the base; in the latter, the remaining -eight would probably die on their hands.... The examining officers in -the reception-room must come to a complete agreement with the surgeons -as to what manner of "case" it was imperative to operate upon before -evacuation to the base. There must be waste of neither surgical time -nor surgical energy in operating upon "cases" that would carry to the -base without it--and so on.... - -Anything one might say of Nursing-Sisters in France must seem -inadequate. The wounded Tommy who has fallen into their hands is making -their qualities known. They work harder than any M.O., and M.O.'s -are hard-worked. Indeed, I defy a man to bear indefinitely the kind -of work they do indefinitely--its nervous strain and its long hours. -The M.O.'s do their examinations and their dressings and pass on; -they are the merest visitors. The Sisters stay on and fight for the -man without cessation, and then see him die. Five and six deaths in -the ward in a night is horribly hard on the Sister in charge of it. -No one but a Sister could do the work she does, in a ward or in the -operating-theatre. It is nonsense to speak of abolishing women from the -medical service; it would be inadequate without them. But their work -will leave its mark upon them for ever. They have not a man's faculty -of detachment. - -Because they are so absorbed by their work---as well as for other -feminine reasons--they see the ethics of the struggle less clearly than -a man. - -Sisters on service are more prone to depression out of working hours -than are men; which is not amazing. They are more the subjects of -their moods, which is but temperamental too. But in the reaction of -elation after depression they are more gay than any man--even in his -most festive mood after evening mess. They smoke a good deal (and they -deserve it), but not as heavily as their civilian sisters in general, -though in isolated cases they smoke more heavily than any civilian -woman. But no one blames the fair fiends, however false this form of -consolation may be. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -ARRAS AFTER THE PUSH - - -The traffic on the cobbled road to Arras raises a dust--although it is -cobbled. The spring green of the elms that line it is overcast with the -pallor of a man under the anæsthetic. The fresh breeze raises a dust -that sometimes stops a motor cyclist; sometimes it is the multiplicity -of traffic that stops him. His face and hair are as dust-pallid as the -trees. - -The push is over. The traffic in and out is as heavy as it could be. -There is no intermission in it. It files past the road control in a -procession in which there are no intervals. - -The ingoing traffic is not all military. Incongruously among the -lorries lumber civilian carts stuffed with all the chattels of -returning refugees. One knows not whether it is more pathetic to see -these forlorn French families returning to the desolation of their -homes or flying from it. They will lumber down the flagged streets -lined with houses, rent and torn and overthrown, that were once the -homes of their friends and the shops of their dealers. Here at one -time they promenaded in the quiet Sabbath afternoon sunshine. Now the -pavement is torn with shell-holes and the street is ditched with them -and defaced with half-wrecked barriers. The Grand Place, where once -they congregated for chat in the summer twilight, or sunned themselves -in the winter, is choked with supplies and sweating troops. The troops -are billeted in the half-wrecked houses of every street. The refugees -will drive through to the place of their old homes and see the spring -greening the trenches which zigzag through their old gardens, and -clothing the splintered trees in their old orchards. This is worse -than fleeing from the wrath of shell to come. But they love their town -so intensely that they rattle through the city gate with an aspect of -melancholy satisfaction. - -The push has left its mark all over Arras. There was desolation before -it. But such was its punishment when it was the centre from which we -pushed, that destruction has spread into every street. Intensity is the -quality of the destruction. And it is still going on. Shell are still -screaming in. - -The splendid cathedral is an amorphous heap of stone; there are -infrequent pillars and girders that have escaped, and stand gaunt among -the ruins. The Hôtel de Ville retains but a few arches of its beautiful -carved front. Splendid _maisons_ are in ruins. In the streets there -are the stone barricades and entaglements of barbed wire. The _gare_, -as busy as the Amiens _gare_ before the war, and as fine, is rent and -crumbling. The network of lines under its glass roof is grass-grown. -The fine _Place_ before it, where you can envisage the peace traffic -in taxi's and pedestrians, is torn by shell, or by fatigues which have -uprooted the stone for street barricades. - -Most people who see for the first time the desolation of such -buildings as the cathedral cry out angrily upon German vandalism, -with the implication that it is because they were fine and stately -that the cathedral and the Hôtel de Ville were battered. This is not -only unjust, but nonsensical. The German has other things to think -of than the deliberate destruction of beautiful buildings because -they are beautiful. What he has to consider is their height and their -potential usefulness as observation-posts. And this is what he does -consider, as we would and do consider such features too. Had we been -bombarding Arras, it is the tall and beautiful cathedral that we would -have shattered first. You may as logically rail against the Germans -for smashing down these potential observation-posts as object to the -prosecution of the War on Sunday.... - -The old warning notices persist, and have been put up more plain and -frequent: _Assembly-Point_, indicating the cellars of refuge; warnings -against touching unexploded shell; and so forth. - -The Town Major, the Railhead Ordnance Officer, the Railway Transport -Officer, the Railhead Supply Officer, the Railhead Salvage Officer--all -are intensely busy, and all well sandbagged. The Salvage officer -is beset by his friends for souvenirs. The R.O.O. is beset by the -quartermasters of battered battalions for fresh equipment. The R.S.O. -is hunted by the hungry. The R.T.O. is at his wits' end to entrain and -detrain men and guns--especially men. The town teems with troops. - -The returning refugees trouble none of these officials. They go to the -French Mission for directions as to resettling. - -As soon as you emerge on the eastern side of Arras you see the line -from the rising ground. The captive balloons mark it well; they are -so frequent--huge hovering inflations with the tiny observer's basket -dangling, and the streaming pennon half-way down the cable to avert -collision with the patrolling aircraft. For they must be patrolled -well. The Hun has lately the trick of pouncing on them from aloft, -shooting the tracer bullet as he dives. The tracer will put the thing -in flames in the twinkling of an eye. The observer does not wait if -he sees a Hun coming for him. He leaps for it. His parachute harness -is always about his shoulders, and his parachute tucked beneath the -balloon. But even with the Hun making for him, this leap into space is -a fearsome thing. He falls sheer for some seconds before the parachute -is wrenched from its place. Then there is that second of horrible -uncertainty as to whether she will open. And if there is a hitch, his -dive to earth becomes a flash and his breathless body thuds into pulp -below. So ended the man who "made" the song "Gilbert the Filbert." So -end others, failed by their parachute.... Sometimes combustion is so -rapid that the parachute is burnt with the balloon; then he leaps from -the death by fire to death of another sort. Nor does a well-released -parachute always let you down lightly. If the wind is strong and -contrary, you may drift five miles and land 'midst Huns. If the wind is -strong and favourable, your pendulic swing beneath the parachute may -land you roughly with wounds and bruises. You may be smashed against -chimneys, torn by trees, dragged through canals, and haled bleeding up -the bank. But if the Lord is with you, you will swing slowly down in -the still air and be landed tenderly in a field of clover. - -Sometimes balloons get set afire by lightning. If then the parachute is -saved, the observer is fortunate indeed. Lightning gives rather less -warning to leap than does the flying Hun. - -All the country from Arras to the line bears the scars of recent -fighting. A great deal of it bears the marks of German occupation; you -see this in German _Verboten_ signs and in German canteen notices. - -The dwellings of the eastern suburbs lie in ruined heaps of brick; -there may be the ground-plan indicated by the low, rugged remnant of -wall. A jagged house-end may still lean there forlornly, with the -branches of the springing trees thrusting through its cracks and the -spring vines trailing through its shell-rents. With the spring upon it, -the whole landscape is more pathetic than in the bareness of winter. -This ruination sorted better with leafless boughs and frozen ground. -The sweet lush grass smiling in the interstices of ruin is hard to -look on. The slender poplar aspiring with tapering grace above the -red and grey wreckage is the more beautiful thereby, but the wreckage -is more hideously pathetic. It would break your heart to see the -pear-tree blossoming blithely in the rubble-strewn area that was once -its orchard. The refugee who returns will know (or perhaps he will not) -that in place of this _débris_ of crunched brick, splintered beam, -twisted iron, convulsed barbed wire, strewn about the trenches and -shell-holes of his property, was once the ordered quietness of orchard -and garden--his ranks of pear and apple, trim paths, shrubberies, the -gay splashes of flower-colour and carpeted softness of lawn. This -will wring his heart more than the loss of furniture. Though much of -his furniture was heirloom, this little orchard and garden were the -fruit of his own twenty years of loving nurture. This little area he -idealised as his farmed estate, his stately _parc_. Here on Sabbath -evenings he walked down the shrubbed paths with his wife and children, -after returning from the weekly promenade of the streets of Arras. His -children romped on the lawn since they could crawl. Now not only is it -gone, but its associations too--torn by shell, defiled by trenches, -desecrated by the cruel contortions of rusting wire. The zigzagged clay -parapet winds about his well-beloved plots; the ruins of a machine-gun -emplacement lie about the remnant of his summer-house; beef-tins, -jam-tins, and undischarged hand-grenades, are strewn beneath his -splintered shade-trees. The old sweet orchard air is defiled by the -sickening, indefinable stink of a deserted trench; the broken sandbags -lie greening about the turf. - -This is all ruin of a sort more or less inevitable. Follow the road -winding down the valley beyond the suburb, and you will see the foul, -deliberate ruin of whole avenues of trees that once lined the route. -You know how these stately elm and beech met overhead for leagues -along the pleasant roads of France; there they lie now naked in the -turf by the road-side, untimely cut down by the steam-saw of the -Hun. He traversed the whole length of this road with that admirable -German thoroughness of his and felled them all across it to bar our -progress. The shattering of Arras Cathedral was necessary; this is mere -expediency, and near to wantonness. Forty years of stately growth lie -there gaunt and sapless. Soon you will see the tender tufts of green -spring from the smooth-cut stump. They have been beautifully cut: -German machinery is unimpeachably efficient. McAndrew's song of steam -is the noble celebration of the triumph of human mechanical genius; -these bleeding stumps are the monument that will testify for half a -century to the blasphemous misapplication of German mechanical skill. -The steam-saw must have worked beautifully. You can conceive the German -N.C.O. in charge of it standing by emitting approval as the stately -beech crashed across the road from the fine, smooth cut--"_Schön!... -Schön!_" ... - -This will hurt the French more than other peoples think; they are so -proud of their forestry; they plant with such considerate foresight -into the pleasure that posterity will have in their trees--with such -prevision as to the arrangement of plantations and as to the _tout -ensemble_ of the avenue and the _forêt_ when the trees shall be mature. -A tree is nothing until you have personified it: the French personify -the trees of their private plantations; they are like members of the -_famille_. And such is the State care of forestry that you almost -believe it has personified the State plantations in a collective -sort of way, regarding them almost as a branch of society or of the -nation. The national care of trees is with them a thing analogous to -the administration of orphanages. The German will have reckonings to -make after the War for maimed and murdered trees and for annihilated -orchards, as well as for fallen and deformed Frenchmen.... - -After the trenches of Anzac, you are overwhelmed in France with the -pathos of the contiguity of trench with dwelling. It is less unnatural -that the unpeopled wilderness of Anzac should be torn by shell and -scarred by trench-line. In France there is a piteous incongruity in -the intimacy of warfare with domesticity. The village that has been -the stronghold is shattered beyond all reviving; and inevitably the -villages of the fighting area have been used as a fleeting shelter -from the fierceness of the tempest of shell. _L'Église_ is a roofless -ruin. _L'Hôtel de Ville_ and _la Marie_ are amorphous masses of jagged -and crumpled wall. The trenches traverse the street and the garden and -the _cour de maison_. The tiny rivulet on the outskirts of the village -has been hailed as a sort of ready-made trench and hastily squared and -fire-stepped. The farm is pocked with shell-holes; the farmhouse is -notoriously open to the heavens and gaping about the estate through its -rent walls. On Anzac only the chalk ridges were scored and the stunted, -uncertain growth uprooted; there were not even trees to maim. Here the -cellars are natural dug-outs in the trench-wall; the _maison_ is the -billet for the reserve battalion; the communication trench ploughs -rudely through the quiet cobbled street. The desecrating contrast cries -from the ground at every turn. The village that used to sleep in the -sun with its pleasant crops about it now sleeps in ashes and ruination -for ever. The battle-lines of Turkey will be effaced and overgrown by -the seasons, but that which was a village in France will never more -know the voices of little children again in its streets, because it has -no streets, and because new villages will be built rather than this -hideousness overturned and effaced and built-upon afresh. - -If you walk east an hour from Arras you'll get near enough to Tilloy to -see the shelling of our line. Again Anzac is superseded. Anzac never -saw shell of this size (except from the monitors that bombarded from -the sea); nor did Anzac know bombardment of this intensity, except in -isolated spurts. Here the normal bombardment is intense. This is mere -routine; but it's as fierce as preceded any attack on Gallipoli. What -chance has the individual when modern artillery is at work? Yet the -chance of death cannot be greater than say, one in four; otherwise -there would be no men left. The rank of balloons is spotting; the -'planes are patrolling them; other 'planes are circling over our -batteries--spotting; others are going in squadron over the line--"on -some stunt," as Tommy puts it. Our own guns are speaking all about, so -loud that the noise of crowding transport is altogether drowned: by -them, and by the crack of the German bursts and by the shell-scream. -The transport on this road is not mechanical; we are too near the line -for that. - -A German 'plane is being "archied" to the north, and there is a barrage -of "archies" being put up behind it to give our 'planes time to rise to -attack it. Two of them are climbing up to it now over our heads. They -climb very steep. They are very fast 'planes. They are on the level -of the Hun very quickly: they are above it. The barrage has ceased, -because the Hun is trying to risk running through rather than waiting -to fight two Nieuports. But one has intercepted him and is coming for -him in the direction of the line. The other is diving on him from -above. There is the spasmodic rattle of Lewis guns. The Hun is firing -thick on the man rushing him. He has done it, too; for suddenly our man -swerves and banks in a way that is plainly involuntary, and then begins -to fall, banking irregularly. Suddenly the flames begin to spurt from -her body. As suddenly she seems to regain control and dives steep for -earth, flames streaming from the wings and in a comet-tail behind. She -tears down at a horrible angle. Then you know in a moment that this is -not steering, but a nose-dive to death, and that it is controlled by no -pilot. We can hear the roar of flame. She is nearer to us, making for -us. She crashes horribly a hundred yards away and roars and crackles. -The delicate wings and body are gone long before we reach her; there is -only a quiet smouldering amongst the cracked and twisted frame, and the -sickening smell of burnt flesh and of oil-fumes. - -The Hun has escaped--at least, we fear he will escape. He and our other -man are small specks in the blue above the German line. They cannot -"archie" them together. Our man turns, and grows. Then he gets it--the -deadly white puffs on every hand of him. But he comes through, and -proceeds to patrol. - - - - -SECTION C.--FRENCH PROVINCIAL LIFE - - - - -CHAPTER I - -A MORNING IN PICARDY - - -The beginning of spring in Northern France is elating above the month -of May in the Rhône Valley--not because spring in Southern France is -not more beautiful, but because it is less welcome. It is by comparison -that the loveliness of the Picardy spring takes hold upon you: by -comparison with the bitterness of the Picardy winter. You may walk -about Marseilles or Lyon in January without a great-coat; in Arras this -would be the death of you. The frozen mud, the sleet, the snow, the -freezing wind, the lowering sky, and the gaunt woods of Pas de Calais, -are ever with you, from September to April. But by the beginning of May -the leaves are sprouting and the greening of the earth is begun. There -is rain--much of it. But there are sunny days without the bitterness -of wind. There is singing of birds in the early morning. The children -no longer creep along the frozen street to school; they race, and fill -the street with their laughter. The 'planes whose hum fills the air -look less forbidding than they seemed a month ago. In February, in the -darkening heaven, they showed a relentless aspect; they seem to fly -now as though at sport. The old _citadelle_ has lost its grimness; the -ramparts are greening; the shade of blackness taken on by its grey -slate-roofs when the trees were leafless is gone now; the moat that was -a pool of mud is flowering. - -The Authie flows below it, full-tided. The margin now is not snow. It -has been snow for long, and half the stream was murky snow-slush. Now -it is clear. The ducks from the château that looks up at the Citadelle -are sporting in it again. - -Saint-Pol Road, Amiens Road, Arras Road, are beginning to stand grey -again. In the winter there was nothing but their bare trees to mark -them; they were the colour of the fields. Now both trees and fields -foil them, setting out over the slopes. - -It is a joy to walk down the Authie on a spring morning. The Citadelle -towers above you on the left. You are conscious of its graceful -immensity long after you have passed it. The little French cottages -straggle down-stream from the Citadelle base. They are white and grey, -red and white--French in construction from their tiny dormer windows -to the neat little gardens with their bricked-up margins flushed by -the stream. Long tree-lined boulevardes start away from the road which -skirts the river; you can see for many kilometres along their length. -The wine-barrels are piled beneath the plane-trees. The children play -about them. You will come upon a château standing stately in its low -ground fronting the river. And beyond the château, which marks the -border of the town, you are in the richness of the river fields and -the river slopes. Here are the elm-groves, and the clumps of soaring -poplar, and the long lines of stubby willow clipped yearly by the hand -of industry; they sprout long and delicate from the head. _Groseille_ -and hop tangle about the bank. Far off on the ridges the white road -traverses under its elms, picking a way among the hedged terraces. You -see no denizens here other than the old men and the girls who are at -work in the fields. From them you will have a cheery "_Bonjour_" and -some shrewd remarks on the weather: "_Ah, oui!--toujours le travail, -m'sieur--toujours! Mais ça ne fait rien: nous sommes contents--oui._" -And so they are. - -Then you come to Gezaincourt. That fine old château in its _parc_. The -_parc_ is of many acres, and there are deer in the woods of it, and a -lake where the wild-fowl are. - -To return we left the river and struck up into the ridge. We came to -Bretel, midway between Gezaincourt and the Citadelle. We entered a -private _maison_ standing back in its garden; it was, none the less, -marked _café_. Madame received us unprofessionally, inviting into -the kitchen to drink. There she was preparing the dinner. _Je ne -sais pas pourquoi_--but the French are deliciously friendly with the -Australians. They take us into their homes with a readiness that is -elating. They will not do it with the English. But, after all, they -are frank, and we approach them frankly. We are given to domesticity, -and they are intensely domestic. Indeed, the Australian temperament is -far nearer to the French than is the English. The Australian tendency -to the spirit of democracy finds sympathy in the provinces of this -splendid Republic. The national spirit of democracy has its counterpart -(may even have its roots) in the local trend towards communism which, -in France, makes you welcome to enter the _maison_, chatting easily -about its domestic affairs, and, in Australia, makes you welcome in -the house of the country stranger, where you drink and eat without -embarrassment at the hospitable table for the first and last time. The -Australian is guiltless of the habitual industry of the French--of -their intense interest in the detail of their lives and work; but he -has their unconventionality and their lightness of heart and their -hospitality. He understands their communistic way of life in the -provinces. And when a French girl on a country road looks him directly -in the eye for the first time, and with the smile of friendly frankness -gives him a "_Bonjour, m'sieur_," he is no more embarrassed than she. -He meets and returns the greeting with an understanding of which an -Englishman knows nothing. The French and the Australians are allies by -nature. There is nothing amazing in their immediate understanding of -each other. How, on the other hand, the English and the French continue -to do anything in conjunction is a source of continual wonder. Between -their temperaments there is a great gulf fixed. - -So Madame takes us direct to the kitchen, where she is basting. She -makes exhaustive inquiries into the Australian methods of cooking. We -explain that the foods are largely the same--but in the mode, _quelle -différence_! She thinks the Australian practice of the hearty breakfast -an extraordinary beginning to the day. The drinking of tea she cannot -away with: wine and _cidre_ are the only fluids to be taken with -food--or without it. She prefers beef to horse; it is in Normandy they -eat so much horse. We express approval of the French universal usage -of butter in cooking: they fry their eggs in butter, roast their meat -with it, fry potatoes in it. She asks what is our substitute for it. -Lard and dripping. "_O, la la! Quel goût!_" And so it is; Australians -know little of the blessings of butter in cookery. She asks if we are -fond of salads. "Up to a point, yes; but not as you are." "_En France, -toujours la salade, m'sieur! Regardez le jardin._" She takes us to the -window and indicates the vegetable-garden with a proud forefinger: -"_Voulez-vous vous promener?_"--"_Oui, madame, avec plaisir._" - -"_Madeleine!_" She calls her daughter. Madeleine is a comely girl who -has been at work in the next room. She shakes hands as though she had -known us as boys, and fills up the glasses again before we go out, and -takes one herself with the grace of a lady. For high-bred ease and -graciousness of manner, in fact, you are to go to the _demoiselles_ -of the provinces. "_A votre santé, m'sieur._" She raises her glass -and smiles--as well as enunciates--the toast. "_A votre santé, -mademoiselle!_" "_A la paix, madame!_" "_Bonne santé!_"--"_Oui, à la -paix, messieurs!--nécessaire, la paix!_" ... - -Madeleine leads the way into the garden. It is clear at once to what -degree the French are addicted to salads: canals of water-cress, fields -of lettuce and radish and celery. Most of the plants in that garden -are potentially plants for a salad. But there are some fine beds of -asparagus, and of these _le père_ is proud. He is obviously pleased -to meet anyone who is interested by his handiwork. It's politic even -to feign an exaggerated interest in every plot; you are rewarded by -the old man's enthusiastic pride: "_Ah, messieurs, le printemps s'est -éveillé! Bon pour le jardin!_" We finish by the rivers of water where -the cress grows. "_Regardez la source_," says Madeleine. She points -to it oozing from the hill-side. They have diverted it and irrigated a -dozen canals each thirty yards long and two wide. There is more cress -there than the whole village could make into salads, you say. But three -housewives come with their bags, buying, and each takes such a generous -load of the _cresson_ that you know the old man has not misjudged his -cultivation. - -"_Voulez-vous une botte de cresson, messieurs?_"--"_Oui, s'il vous -plait, m'sieur: merci bien!_" The old fellow places his little bridge -across the canal, cuts a bundle, and binds it from the sheaf of dried -grass at his waist. "_Voilà, messieurs!_" - -The purchasers stop far longer than is necessary to talk about the War -and the price of sugar and the scarcity of _charbon_. Conversation is -the provincial hobby, as it is the national hobby. Yet I have never -seen the French mutually bored by conversation--never. Nor are there, -in French conversation, those stodgy gaps which are to be expected in -the conversation of the English, and, still more, of the Australians. -French conversation flows on; _ebbs and flows_ expresses better not -only the knack of apt rejoinder which gives it perfect naturalness, but -also the rhythmic rise and fall of it which makes it pleasant to hear, -even when you don't understand a word. That, and its perfect harmony of -gesture, make it a living thing, with all the interest of a thing that -lives. - -We (unnecessarily, again) wander about the garden with Madeleine. She -gives the history of each plot. What interests us is to her a matter -of course: the extraordinary neatness of the garden, the uniformity -of plot, the assiduous exclusion of weeds, the careful demarcation of -paths, the neatness of the all-surrounding hedge. The French genius for -detail and for industry shows itself nowhere so clearly as in a garden. -They are gardeners born. - -On returning to the house, madame insists that we stay to dinner. We -accept without hesitation. _Le père_ comes in and brings the dogs. -Soon we know their history from puppyhood. _Finu_ is morose and -jealous; she has a litter of pups that make her unfriendly. _Koko_ is -a happy chap--always a friend to soldiers, as the old man puts it. -He is a _souvenir_ left by a Captain of artillery. All this is, in -itself, rather uninteresting, but in the way in which it is put it is -absorbing. That, in fact, is the secret of the charm of most French -conversation. In the mouth of an Englishman--such is its trifling -detail--it would be deadly-boring. The French aptness and vividness of -description dresses into beauty the most uninteresting detail. - -It soon appears that the whole family are refugees from Arras; have -lived here two years. I told them I had recently visited Arras. This -flooded me with questions. I wish I had known the detailed geography of -Arras better. The narrative of a recent Arras bombardment moved them to -tears. They love their town: they love more than their home. This is -the spirit of the Republic. The Frenchman's affection for his town is -as strong as the Scotchman's for his native heath. - -They had brought from Arras all their worldly goods. They took us -to the sitting-room and to the bedroom. Much of the furniture was -heirlooms. Each piece had its age and history. The carved oak wardrobe -was extremely fine; it had belonged to madame's great-grandmother. -Chairs, table-covers, pictures--all were treasured. Here was more -evidence to expose the fallacy that French family life is decaying. -Gentle reader, never believe it. Family history is as sacred in the -provinces as natural affection is strong: which is to say much. - -But the typical French family heirloom is antique plate. This takes the -form of china and porcelain embellished with biological and botanical -design. Some of it is very crude and ugly, but dear to the possessor. -Every French _salle à manger_ has a wall-full; they are in the place of -pictures. - -The dinner was elaborate and delicious. No French _famille_ is so poor -that it does not dine well: soup, fish with _salade_, veal with _pommes -de terre frites_, fried macaroni with onions, prunes with custard, -coffee and cigars. This--except for the cigars, perhaps--was presumably -a normal meal. And between each course Madeleine descended the _cave_ -and brought forth a fresh bottle of _cidre_. And Madeleine's glass was -filled by her parent, with a charming absence of discrimination, as -often as ours--or as her mother's. The colour mounted in her cheeks; -but she did not talk drivel. To generous draughts of wine and _cidre_ -had she been accustomed from her youth up. And the youngest French -child will always get as much as Madeleine to drink at table. So the -French are not drunkards. - -After lunch came two visitors to talk. They were sisters, friends of -Madeleine. For two years and a half they had been prisoners in a French -town held by the Germans, near Albert, and had been liberated only -a month before by the German evacuation. They told pitiful tales of -German ill-usage, though not of a physiological nature. But constantly -the Boches demanded food and never paid, so that they themselves went -hungry daily. Also, they worked for Germans under compulsion, and never -were paid; and worked very hard. The German soldiers they described -as not unkind, though discourteous, but the officers were invariably -brutal. _Maintenant vous êtes chez nous_ was the German officers' -formula, with its implied threat of violation; which was never -executed, however. - -We rose to go, and made to pay. This was smiled at indulgently. "_Au -revoir, messieurs! Bonne chance!_" cried _le père_. "_Quand vous -voudrez_," said Madame. "_Quand vous voudrez_," echoed Madeleine. So we -went--like Christian--on our way rejoicing. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THÉRÈSE - - -I was sitting on a log at the crest of the splendidly high La Bouille -ridge gloating over the Seine Valley. Here, from the grounds of _La -Maison Brûlée_ (now raucous with revellers in the late afternoon) you -have a generous sweep of the basin and of its flanking forest slopes. -A Frenchman and his wife sauntered past with their daughter and took -a seat beyond. The daughter was beautiful, with an air of breeding -that sorted well with the distinguished bearing of the old man and the -well-sustained good looks of her mother. They sat for half an hour, and -as they re-passed on the return mademoiselle said: "How do you like the -view?" in excellent English. This was justification enough for inviting -them to share my log. We talked a long time, mademoiselle and I; the -old people hadn't a word of English. She had had a two years' sojourn -in Birmingham about the age of sixteen, and had acquired good English -ineradicably. She had got caught into Joseph Chamberlain's circle; he -used to call her Sunny Jim. The name sat well upon her: the facetious -aptness of it was striking. She was of the "fire and dew" that make up -the admirable French feminine lightness of spirit-vivacity, frankness, -sunniness, whimsicality, good looks, and litheness of body. - -The end of it all was that I was to come down to Sahurs (over the -river) the next Sunday and see their home and get taught some French in -an incidental fashion. There was no manner of doubt of every need of -that. - -And there was no manner of hesitancy in accepting such an invitation. -She flashed a smile behind as they left, and I resumed the log, wishing -to-morrow were Sunday, as distinct from Monday. This was a damnable -interval of waiting. As I was repeating this indictment over and over, -watching them disappear into the forest, she waved. I lapsed into a -profane silence, and brooded on the flight of time, and reviewed in -turn all the false allegations of its swiftness I could call to mind. - -It was obviously wise to leave the margin of this darkling wood and -get down to the boat. It would never do to miss it, and be driven to -crossing to Sahurs to tell them so. No! that wouldn't do: better catch -the thing and be done with it. So I did; and had a journey of easy -contemplation up to Rouen. - -Next Sunday I got a "bike": it can be made to leave earlier than the -boat. And the river-bank is more interesting than the middle-stream. - -From Rouen to Sahurs the right bank of the Seine is bulwarked by a -traversing limestone ridge, clothed with forest. But the river-side -is escarped and precipitous, thrusting out its whiteness beneath the -forest crest and, as a foil, casting up the châteaux and splendid -_maisons_ on the river level, with their embracing gardens and orchards. - -This rich accumulation of colour--deep forest, gleaming cliff-side, red -roof, grey mellow wall, and blooming garden and orchard, and white -river road--is unforgettable, and perhaps unexcelled. Nothing finer -you'll see in the whole Rhône Valley; and that is a bold saying. - -The especial charm of a cycle is that you can stop and look. You can -gaze as long as you like (as long as is consistent with the fact -that Sunny Jim is at the other end of the journey) at this quaint -half-timbered, gable-crowded _maison_ standing in its graceful -poplar-grove; at the sweet provincial youngsters playing on the road. -You can lay up your machine and enter the rambling Normandy café -squatting on the river-bank, with its groups of blue-clad soldiers _en -permission_ making the most of things with the bloused and pantalooned -civilians and with their cider (_cidre_ is the national drink of -Normandy, as wine is of most other provinces) and you are greeted, in -such a house, with the delicious open French friendliness which is so -entrancing (by contrast) to most Englishmen. After their own national -reticence, this is pleasant beyond description. Of some it is the -undoing. The soldiers greet you, and you are adamantine if you don't -sit at their table rather than alone. The girl who serves welcomes you -like a brother. Quite sorry you are, at rising, you never came here -before.... You push on with your wheel. On the slopes of the other bank -they are getting in the harvest on the edge of the wood--some old men -and many women and a handful of soldiers on leave who have forgotten -the trenches. - -There are soldiers with their families fishing on the bank beside you -at intervals. You stop to talk to these. You can't resist sitting with -them for a spell and kissing the little girls who nestle up. The -basket that contains other things than bait and the catch is opened; -you're a villain if you don't sip from that yellow bottle and take some -bread and a handful of cherries.... - -Halfway to Sahurs, opposite the timbered island, you pass the German -prisoners' camp, patrolled, beneath the barbed wire topping the wall, -by those quaint, informal French sentries. They're in red-and-blue -cap, red-and-blue tunic, red-and-blue breeches. They lounge and chat -and dawdle, with their rifles slung across their backs, and their -prodigiously long bayonets poking into the upper air. They appear -casual enough, but they detest the generic German sufficiently to leave -you confident that, however casual they may seem, he will not escape. - -Farther down, you'll meet a gang of Boches road-making--fine, brawny, -light-haired, blue-eyed, cheerful beggars they are. Obviously they -don't aspire above their present lot so long as wars endure. - -Four kilometres above Sahurs is the Napoleonic column marking the spot -where the ashes of Bonaparte were landed between their transfer from -the boat which brought them up the river to that which bore them to -Paris. As I approached this column from above, Sunny Jim, on her wheel, -approached it from Sahurs. Her friend Yvonne was with her (wonderful, -in this land, is the celerity with which the barriers surrounding -Christian names are thrown down!), and the dog. - -The ride on to Sahurs is on a road that deflects from the river. It is -over-arched with elms continuously. Thérèse (that's her name) calls it -_la Cathédrale_: and the roof of branches aloft is like the groined -roof of a cathedral. - -M. Duthois and madame come out to meet you. It's a welcome and a half -they give--none of your English polite formulas and set courtesy. A -warm, human, thoroughgoing sincerity sweeps you into the hall, and -there you stand in a hubbub of greeting and interrogation (of which -less than half is intelligible: but no matter!) for ten minutes, -everyone too busy talking to move on, until Thérèse suggests we go -round the garden and the orchard. - -Everyone goes. - -Thérèse gives us the French for every flower and shrub to be seen, -and the old man makes valiant, clumsy attempts at English, and you -make shamelessly clumsy attempts at French. One evidence of the -thoroughgoing courtesy of the French is that they will never laugh -at your attempts at their language. We smile at them: somehow their -English is amusing. Possibly the reason they do not smile at us -attempting French is that there is nothing at all amusing in our -flounderings--more likely to irritate than amuse. The old man is -accommodating in his choice of topics that will interest you and be -intelligible--accommodating to the point of embarrassment. He talks -quite fifteen minutes about the shape and coloration of your pipe, -certain that this will interest the selfish brute. Madame doesn't say a -word--carries on a sort of conversation with smiles and other pantomime. - -Somehow, in the garden (I don't know how) Yvonne got named _Mme. la -Comtesse_ by M. Duthois. This for the time being embarrassed her into -complete and blushing silence because we all took it up. All manner -of difficulties were referred to the superior wisdom of _la Comtesse_. -It was she who must decide as to the markings of the aeroplane humming -up in the blue; the month when the red currants would be ripened; the -relationship of the two crows croaking in the next field; the term of -the War's duration. - -But an authority on this last subject now emerged from the wicket-gate -which opened from the neighbouring house. Madame ---- had taken Thérèse -to Alsace after her return from Birmingham, and had taught her to speak -German there. Madame had lived in Alsace three years before, and spoke -German very well indeed. She related in German her dream-message of -the night before, that fixed the duration of the War unquestionably at -three months more. This subconscious conviction was so conclusive for -her that she would take bets all round. Thérèse staked all her ready -cash. No doubt she will collect about Christmas-tide. - -We all went on to tea spread in the orchard, and spread with an -unerring French sense of fitness: such a meal, that is, as would be -spread in the orchard but not in the house--French rolls and dairy -butter, and _confiture de groseille_ made from the red currants of the -last season, fruit and cream, Normandy cake, cherries, wafers, and -_cidre_ sparkling like champagne, bearing no relationship whatever to -the flat, insipid green-and-yellow fluid of the Rouennaise hotels. - -There was no dulness at table. French conversation flows easily and -unintermittently. There were tussles to decide whether Thérèse should -or should not help herself first. The English custom of "ladies first" -is looked on as rather stupid, with its implied inferiority of women: -"But you will not beat me! _Mais oui!_ but you are very obstinate!" And -she would not be beaten; for she said she didn't like Normandy cake -(though she adored it), and helped herself generously when it had been -round, and proclaimed her victory over English convention with a little -ripple of triumph. _Après vous_ became a mirth-provoking password. - -All the pets came round the table--the fowls (to whom I was introduced -singly; they all have their names); _Mistigri_ the cat, _Henri_ -the goose, the pigeons, the pug, the terrier. All these you are -expected to make remarks to, on introduction, as to regular members -of the family--which they are, in effect: "_Bon jour, Henri! Comment -allez-vous? Parlez-vous anglais? Voulez-vous vous asseoir?_" When these -introductions are over, M. Duthois brings forth his tiny bottle of -1875--the cognac he delights in. - -Thérèse proposes a walk. Shall it be down by the river or through the -village? "_Both_," you say. So we go by the river and return by the -hamlet. - -Setting out, Thérèse pledges me to the French tongue alone, all the -way. If I don't undertake to speak no English, I cannot go walking, -but must sit with her in the summer-house behind the orchard and learn -French with a grammar. I at once decline so to undertake. She varies -the alternative: she will not reply if I speak in English. Well, no -matter: that's no hardship. She forgets the embargo when she squelches -a frog in the grass. English is resumed at once. She is led on to a -dissertation in English upon frogs as a table-dish. This leads to -talk of other French table abnormalities--horse as preferred to ox, -the boast of French superiority in salads and coffee, the outlandish -French practice of serving your _pommes de terre_ after meat; and such -carnal topics. - -Pappa wanders ahead at an unreasonable pace with _Mme. la Comtesse_. -Thérèse and I set about gathering daisies and poppies, with which the -green is starred. The dogs come out from the neighbouring farmhouse; -and Thérèse, who fears dogs horribly, has to be adequately protected. - -We come up with pappa on the river-bank. We all set off dawdling -single-file along the brush-hemmed river-path.... The Normandy twilight -has settled down; but it will last till ten. La Bouille lies on the -other shore under the cliffs that gleam through their foliage. The -river gleams beneath them. There is a long track of light leading to -the ridge at the bend where the tottering battlements of the castle -of Robert le Diable stand against the sky-line. A hospital ship, now -faintly luminous, lies under the shadow of the la Bouille ridge. The -village lights have begun to twinkle on the other shore. The soft cries -of playing children creep over the water. The cry of the ferryman ready -to leave is thrown back from the cliffs with startling clearness. The -groves that fringe the cliff are cut out branch by branch against the -ruddy sky. - -We don't want to talk much after coming on the river: neither do we.... - -It has darkened palpably when we turn to enter the village, an -hour after. The hedged lanes are dark under the poplar-groves. The -latticed windows of the cottages are brilliant patchwork of light. The -glow-worms are in the road-side grass and in the hedges. We pluck them -to put them in our hats. Thérèse weaves all manner of wistful fancies -about them. We pass under the Henry VIII. _église_ to the house, and -enter quietly. - -Thérèse sits at the piano without stupid invitation, and sings some -of the lovely French folk-songs, and (by a special dispensation) some -German, that are almost as haunting. The old man watches his daughter -with a sort of fearful adoration, as though this creature, whose spirit -gleams through the fair flesh of her, were too fine a thing for him to -be father of. - -Between the songs we talk. There is cake and wine--that and the -common-sensed sallies of _Mme. la Comtesse_ to restrain the romance and -the sensuousness of the warm June Normandy night. - -I left at midnight. We said an _au revoir_ under the porch; and far -down the road came floating after the dawdling wheel a faint "_Au -'voir ... à Dimanche_"--full of a sweet and friendly re-invitation to -all this. I registered an acceptance with gratitude for the blessings -of Heaven, and wandered on along the white night road for Rouen. Why -hasten through such a night? Rouen would have been pardoned for being -_twice_ ten miles distant. The silent river, the gleaming road, the -faintly rustling trees, and the warm night filled with the scents of -the Forêt de Roumare, forbade fatigue and all reckoning of hours.... -And that was the blessed conclusion of most Sabbath evenings for three -months. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -LEAVES FROM A VILLAGE DIARY - - -_Sunday, --th._--This morning a Taube came over our village, dropping -bombs. They all fell in the neighbouring wood. Our aircraft defences -made a fervent response, but ineffectual. - -At 6.30 this evening I counted eighteen of our 'planes flying home. -They have a facetious trick of shutting off their engines high and far -from home and floating down on resistance. It's curious watching a -'plane suddenly dissociated from the raucous buzz of its engine. - -To-night the whole eastern sky is illuminated as though by summer -lightning in which there are no intervals--an unintermittent flap-flap. -The din is tremendous and heart-shaking. This is war--"and no error." -Anzac was hard. The country was rough and untenable--a hell, in our -strip, of lice, stinks, flies, mal-nutrition and sudden death. Food -was repulsive, and even so you did not get as much as you desired. You -got clean in the Ægean at peril of your life. Here, on the other hand, -is fighting-space gentle and smiling--a world of pastures, orchards, -streams, groves, and white winding roads, with room to sanitate and -restrain plagues. There is an over-generous ration of food that tempts -you to surfeit; Expeditionary Force canteens, as well stocked as a -London grocer's, as far up as the riskiest railhead; snug farmhouse -billets, with un-infested straw; hot baths behind the lines; cinemas -for resting battalions. But Anzac never knew the relentlessness of this -offensive fighting. There we faced an enemy with whom fighting was a -hobby, taken sportingly, if earnestly. Here we wrestle at sweaty and -relentless grips with a foe to whom the spirit of sport is strange -and repulsive, and who never had a sense of humour; who fights hating -blindly and intensely. Most days you could not jab a pin between the -gun-belches. You feel the whole world is being shaken, and, if this -goes on for long, will crumble in a welter of blood and hate. It cannot -last at this rate: that's the assurance that rises day by day and hour -by hour within you. But the assurance is melancholy: how much of either -side is going to survive the intensity of it? What will be the state, -when all is over, of the hardly-victorious? - -_Monday, --th._--To-day, in nine hours, three divisions were rushed -through this town for the ---- sector. They came in motor-'buses. At -twelve miles an hour they tore through the astonished streets, which -got themselves cleared quickly enough. The military police tried to -restrain the pace. They were French 'buses driven by Frenchmen who had -got a fever of excited speed in their blood. They cleared the military -police off the route with impatient gestures, as one waves aside an -impertinence.... This is mobility. - -Feverish processions of this kind are altogether apart from battalions -marching, cavalry clattering, engineers lumbering. A fifteen-inch gun, -distributed over five steam tractors, goes through at midnight with -flares and clamour. One trusts that such engines offer compensation -for their unwieldiness, for that is incredible: five gigantic tractors -_with_ trailers, to move one of them at this strident snail's pace. The -nine-point-two's are accommodated each on one tractor. The field-guns, -tossed on to waggons, hurry through, toys by comparison. - -_Tuesday, --th._--I was on the ---- Road this morning in the gusty -drizzle. A column of artillery was moving towards ----. It was -miserable weather for horsed-transport. All the men had wry-necks, with -the list against the wind. The flanks of the officers' horses were -overspread by the voluminous waterproof cape. At ---- there was a horse -column encamped. Nothing could appear more miserable than the dejected -horse lines in the sea of mud--manes and draggle-tails blown about in -the murk. - -A party of ineligible Frenchmen were road-patching near ----. The -main roads have them at work always. They fill the holes and minute -valleys that military traffic makes continuously. Lorry-holes are -insidious things. They magnify at an astonishing rate if left for -two days. They must be treated at once. The gangs move up and down -the roads with mobile loads of earth and gravel, treating all the -depressions and maintaining a surface tolerable for Colonels' cars. -(You can judge the freight of a car by its speed; the pace of Majors -is slightly less fierce than that of Colonels. Brigadiers make it -killing.) The road-menders get in where they can between the flights. -It's a disjointed business, and a mucky one, this weather. A Colonel's -car-wheels spurt into the green fields. The gangers get mottled with -the thin brown fluid. They are a pathetically decrepit folk--men too -old or infirm for the trenches and boys who are too young. But this -work, in this weather, carries a test almost as severe as that of -trench-warfare. - -The road-signs--admonitory, hortatory, prohibitive--are raised at very -frequent intervals. Military routes behind the lines are in a state of -continual flux--to such a degree that road-maps are not only useless, -but misleading, to drivers of vehicles. Their best course is to ignore -the map, watch the road-directions as they are approached, and use -their horse-sense. Signs are quite explicit: "Closed to lorries and -ambulances"; "Closed to traffic in this direction" (arrowhead). The -distance and direction of every village, however small, is put up with -a clearness that excludes the possibility of error. The location of -every ammunition-dump, supply-dump, railhead, camping-ground, billeting -area, watering-place, intelligence Headquarters, motor-tyre press (an -institution much in demand), is indicated very exactly. Most other -signs are designed to regulate speed: "Maximum speed through village ----- for lorries and ambulances, ---- for light tractors, ---- for -cars"; "Danger: cross-roads"; "Lorry-park; slow down"; "Go slow past -aerodrome to avoid injuring engines through dust." (Can you conceive -British administration in the Army giving the reason, thus, for an -order?) - -Some French signs persist: _Attention aux trains._ - -Some signs are not official: "Level crossing ahead: keep your -blood-shot eyes open." - -The village streets show signs that have no reference to speed. Most -estaminets publish "English Stout"; "Good beer 3d., best beer 4d."; -"Officers' horses, 10"; "Cellar, 50"--_i.e._, we have a cellar that -will billet fifty men. The villages are very quiet and old-time--grey -and yellow walls abutting directly on the roads (footpaths are -unknown); thatch or slate roofs; low windows from which, sitting, your -feet would touch road; tortuous streets; plentiful girl and women -denizens; a wayside Calvary on the outskirts; a church spire rising -somewhere from the roofs; a preponderance of taverns, estaminets, -cafés, and sweet-shops in the chief street. - -_Wednesday, --th._--I got some notion this morning of life on the -ambulance trains. They move between railhead and the bases with the ebb -and flow of the offensive tide. After their load is discharged to a -base they garage at a siding erected in this station for the purpose, -and await orders. They may rest three days or three hours. Sisters -and M.O.'s have lived on the same train--some of them--for twelve or -fifteen months, but are too busy to be mutually bored. At the garage -you will see them dismounted from the train taking their lunch among -the hay-ricks in the harvested field beside the line. An orderly will -alight from the train and race across the field, and you'll see the -party rise, hastily pitch their utensils incontinently into a rug, -and climb aboard as the train steams out. The order has come to move -up again and "take on." ... This is one aspect of the state of flux -in which the world behind the lines stands day and night, month after -month. - -At the _gare_ here is a canteen for _voyageurs_ exclusively. A blatant -and prohibitory notice says so with no uncertainty. This is English. -An English girl is in charge of it. She gets as little respite as the -_chef de gare_. Who can say when she sleeps? She is supplying tea and -cakes and cigarettes to troops every day and every night. No one is -refused at any hour, however unhallowed. French railway-stations on -the lines of communication all carry such an English girl for such a -purpose; and usually they are in the front rank of English aristocracy. -The English nobility have not spared themselves for "the Cause." Their -men have fallen thick; their women have resigned the luxury of their -homes to minister to the pain and the hunger of the force in France. -And they do it with a thoroughness apparently incompatible (though only -apparently so) with the thoroughgoing luxury and splendour of their -civilian way of life. - -_Thursday, --th._--This afternoon I walked down the river that winds -through the town and goes south. It is a comfortable, easy-flowing -trout-stream. Beyond the town bridge it turns into pastures and -orchards and cultivated fields, nosing a way through stretches of brown -stubble, apple-groves, and plantations of beet. Groves of elm and -beech overspread the high grass on its brink. The hop clusters with -the wild-strawberry and the red currant: a solitary trouter stands -beyond the tangle. The fields slope gently away from the stream--very -gently--up to the tree-lined road on the ridge. The brown-and-gold -stubble rises, acre beyond acre, to the sky-line; and in the evening -light takes on a rich investiture of colour that is bold for stubble, -but not the less lovely because it is virtual only. As the evening -wears on, this settles into a softness of hue that you cannot describe. - -Such is the Somme country: such is the land of war. - -At nine to-night all the station lights were switched off. Advice -had come from ---- of enemy aircraft approaching this junction. They -did not come--not to our knowledge. But the _chef de gare_ waddled -over to his private house and bundled wife and children down into the -cellar--and _cave_, as they call it--and when he had seen them safely -stowed, returned to his station to await orders. The French girls and -women inhabit the cellar with alacrity at such times. Every house has -its funk-hole, for there is hardly a dwelling so small as to neglect -a vault for _cidre_ and _vin ordinaire_. "In the season" they lay up -a year's store; as a rule, the _cidre_ is home-brewed, too. At table -the jug goes round, filling the glass of the _enfant_ and the _père_ -without discrimination. By the end of the meal the colour has mounted -in the cheeks of the little girls, and they are garrulous and the boys -noisy. Amongst the _cidre_ barrels there is good and secure cover from -Taubes. - -When the lights got switched on again, the detraining of the ----th -Division resumed.... - -_Friday --th._--I was wakened at two o'clock this morning by the hum of -their collective conversation. Sergeants-major were roaring commands in -the moonlight; some of them were supplemented by remarks not polite. -Many English sergeants-major speak in dialect: most of them do. There -is something repellent about words of command issued in dialect. Why -can't England cut-out dialect? It's time it went. Dialect is a very -rank form of Conservatism. Why can't a uniform pronunciation of vowels -be taught in English schools? Active-service over a term of years will -perhaps help to bring about a standardising of English speech. One -hopes so.... - -I got up and looked out. As far as could be seen along any street, -and all over the square, was a faintly mobile sea of black on which -danced the glow of the cigarette (damnable, how the cigarette has put -out the pipe!). Detachments were still marching from the train to the -halting-places, and detachments were moving out momentarily on the -night march. - - "Hark, I hear the tramp of thousands, - And of arméd men the hum." - -They moved off--some to drum and fife band; some to the regimental -song; some to the regimental whistle; some to the unrhythmic -accompaniment of random conversation. The general impression they gave, -at two in the morning, was of an abnormal cheerfulness. - -A French ambulance-train came in this afternoon crowded with slightly -wounded--sitting cases. They were immensely cheerful, though there was -not by any means sitting accommodation for all. These were all nice -light "Blighty" wounds; they meant respite from the dam'd trenches -without dishonour. The fellows were immensely cheered by this. They -were more like a train-load of excursionists than a body of wounded -warriors from a hell like the Somme. They had hundredweights of German -souvenirs. Most of it was being worn--helmets, tunics, arms, and the -like. I bought several pieces. They were not expensive. A French -Poilu's pay is _cinq sous_ (twopence ha'penny) per day: fifteen or -twenty francs means about three months' pay for him. He'll part with -a lot of souvenir for that. And he has such a bulk of it that a few -casques, trench daggers, rifles, and telescopic sights, more or less, -are neither here nor there. - -The English girls who administer the _gare_ canteen move up and down -with jugs of coffee. They are thanked (embraced, if they'd stand it) -with embarrassing profusion. - -_Saturday, --st._--Bombs were dropped in the Citadelle moat to-day. The -Citadelle is now a casualty clearing station. This is not incongruous -with its history. It was besieged in the fifteenth century. No doubt -there were casualties within it then--though, judging its defensive -properties at this distance of time, there were more without: many -more. It's tremendously strong still--an incredible depth of dry -moat, thickness of wall, and height of rampart surmounting it: outer -ramparts on three sides from which the defenders retired across the -bridges--still standing--after they had done their worst. And there -are bowels in the place from which galleries set out to neighbouring -villages whence reinforcements used to be brought up. You can walk -miles in these galleries beneath the Citadelle itself, without -journeying beneath the surrounding country; for the ground-plan of the -Citadelle is not small. A walk round the walls will lead you a mile and -a half, traversing buttresses and all: the buttresses bulge hugely into -the moat-bed. - -The whole area is terraced, originally for strategic purposes. The -buildings are many and strong and roomy. - -A fine hospital it happens to have made. The multiplicity of buildings -offers all a C.O. could ask in the way of distribution of wards -and facilities for segregation, and isolated buildings for stores, -messes, Sisters' quarters, officers' quarters, operating-theatres, -laboratories. - -His convalescents can bask and promenade on the ramparts in the winter -sunshine, and stroll healthfully through the groves and about the paths -of the area. In the wide level, grassy, moat-basin the orderlies play -their football matches and the C.O. takes his revolver practice. - -The ghastliness of the wards is all out of harmony with this. There is -a gas-ward, hideously filled--blackened faces above the ever-restless -coverlets. The surgical wards in a station so near the line hold the -grimmest cases--cases too critical for movement down to a base: head -wounds, abdominal wounds, spinal cases that can bear transport no -farther, and that have almost no hope of recovery as it is. Men plead -piteously here for the limbs that a cruelly-kind surgeon can do nothing -with but amputate. "Doctor, I've lost the arm; that won't be so bad if -you'll only leave the leg." The plea is usually put in this form, which -implies the power of choice in the M.O. between alternatives; whereas -the gangrenous limb leaves him no room for debate. - -In a station so close, too, the operating-theatre cannot afford to be -either small or idle--no mere cubicle with two tables; but two large -wards with six tables each, and (when a push has been made in the line) -with every table in use late in the night: a bloody commentary on the -righteousness of war. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE CAFÉ DU PROGRÈS - - -The Café de Progrès stands in the Rue de ---- half-way down to the -river. It's the place where merchants most do congregate. The manager -of the Banque de ---- leads them. The place that the first bank manager -in the town frequents daily is thereby given a tone which no other café -in D---- can have. So it is the first among the lounging-places only. -That leads to a rough division of all the cafés in the town into two -great classes: those you lounge and drink in, and those to which you -go for a meal. In the one you will see the French relaxing (there are -some rich "retired" gentlemen who do nothing _but_ relax); in the other -you will see the English officer satisfying his hunger more or less -incontinently. Need I say which is the place of interest? - -Our favourite seat used to be upon a small dais in recess overlooking -the billiard-table immediately and the whole room generally. Its only -disadvantage was that it did not overlook that other recess--separated -from it by a partition--in which Thérèse mixed the drinks and brewed -the coffee. - -The billiard-table occupied one-half the room; the other half centred -round the stove. The tables were arranged in concentric circles about -it. The regular denizens of the place--the men who lived there--would, -during the snow, come early, occupy the innermost circle of tables, -and omit to move out until sundown. And sometimes they would stay far -into the night. The retired business-man is more amenable to a sense -of cosiness than any other mortal of his age. He would get Thérèse to -bring him snacks--they were not meals--at intervals during the day. And -there he would settle himself, with his boon companions, for twelve -hours on end. - -Cards is the diversion: cards and dominoes. The habitual inner -circle there is made up by the proprietor, the ex-Mayor of the -town, _le directeur de la Banque de ----_, and the manager of the -_Usine de ----_. The last named used to have inscrutable spells of -absence--inscrutable until it was explained that the occasion was the -visit of M. ---- the elder, himself, from Paris--a man of iron and the -proprietor of the _Usine_. He it was who quelled with his own hand and -voice an ugly strike of his _ouvriers_ who dared ask for more money. - -The ex-Mayor was never absent. He was a well preserved old dog whom -no severity of weather was allowed to keep from the post of duty by -the stove. The whole room was obsequious to him by force of habit. He -was the presiding genius over the café: he, rather than the proprietor -himself. He would come rolling in, and fairly rattle the glasses with -his "_Bonjour, messieurs!_" He usually walked over to the buffet before -seating himself, and, if so minded, greeted Thérèse with a fatherly -kiss, which she--poor girl!--thought dignified her; whereas Thérèse, -to be accurate, was worth far more than the embraces of this pompous -old aristocrat. With his intimates he shook hands noisily, and slapped -them on the back. The herd half-rose in its seat throughout the room -in traditional deference. I suspect it was the general obsequiousness, -rather than the interest of the game, or of the company, which brought -the old egoist here daily. - -The _directeur_ of the bank is not worth considering. He was the -incarnation of obsequiousness. It was plain that he had habitually -sold his soul to patrons. And since it is likely that at one time the -ex-Mayor was his chief patron (and perhaps was so still), you will -believe that he was more slavish toward him than the humblest townsman -sipping his cognac. You almost looked for him to lick his master's -mighty hand. - -The proprietor was a sinewy fellow who had been a soldier. It was -wounds he had had; which had not, however, incapacitated him for -vigorous action. Also, he had been a prisoner of war in Germany. These -German experiences he would recount to you with much wealth of gesture, -and a wealth of exaggeration too, if by chance--or by design--he were -drunk enough. He was in a state of perennial intoxication; at any hour -of any day or night it was only a question of degree. - -In the game of cards in a French café the stake is superfluous. -Englishmen profess they require the stake to hold their interest. -Usually the French play with counters only. The interest of the game -is enough. It is a very voluble game with them. They excite themselves -seemingly beyond all reason. You might imagine them a nest of pirates, -inflamed with liquor, playing in some den of the sea with fair captives -for stakes. These French enthusiasts upset the drink by thumping down -their cards. They have rare disputes; but they are not quarrels. - -Thérèse is the girl who carries drinks. She has dimples and a happy -smile. French girls are either very free or super-continent; there is -no middle course. Thérèse is of the latter class, but not puritanical. -Subalterns have been seen attempting to kiss her in the seclusion of -a recess. They have been routed. The only occasion on which Thérèse -allowed herself to be kissed was New Year's Day. Then it was general. -Everyone was doing it--in the street--the merest acquaintances. That -day Thérèse submits as a matter of course. That day, too, the ex-Mayor -gallantly embraced that old hag, her aunt, to the diversion of the -populace. - -The aunt brews and dispenses behind the buffet. She objects to -Thérèse's loitering when she serves, even though loitering may be good -for trade. Thérèse describes her as a very sober-minded woman. - -The billiard-table attracts a lot of attention--from onlookers as -well as from players. There the _directeur_ of the _banque_ plays his -chief accountant and drinks champagne and _grenadine_ between the -shots--a poisonous combination, that, but a popular. The French like -things sweet, and they like them definitely coloured. The _directeur_ -is a handsome fellow, with a perfectly balanced head and a curiously -pleasing harmony of nose and chin in profile. His accountant is a -loose-looking youth. - -The billiard-table is a favourite resort of officers' batmen. They have -nothing else to do, and they can play half a day for almost nothing -at all. I always remember an acute-looking Scotch batman in kilts -(servant to the Rents-Officer). He was proud of his calves and of his -French--and (justly) of his billiards. He could bring discomfiture -upon any Frenchman who would play with him. He is the sort of officer's -servant (and there are many of them, the voluptuous dogs!) who could -carry a commission with ease and credit. But they prefer the whole days -of idleness on which they are free to follow their own devices. - -The _facteurs_ drop in for a drink on their rounds. They hobnob here -a great part of the day, seemingly. And there is poor Marcelle at the -pork-shop pining for the letter from her _garçon_ in the line which -this gossiping dog has in his _serviette_ beside the cognac. All -_facteurs_ are discharged soldiers, and should know better. There is, I -fear, but a belated delivery of letters in this easy-going old town. - -On market-day the café is filled with _les paysans_, who have come in -to vend their pigs and cattle, rabbits, eggs, butter, and vegetables. -The elderly ladies from the farms, with their generous growth of -moustache, sit and drink neat cognac with a masculinity that is but -fitting. The young girls sip white wine. The old men gossip, between -draughts, with their pipes trembling in their toothless gums. There are -no young men. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -L'HÔTEL DES BONS ENFANTS - - -It stands facing the Place de l'Église, with its back to the Route -de ----. There is something medieval in its name; so is there in its -surroundings and in its appearance. The gargoyles of the Église frown -down upon its southern door. There is an old Flemish house facing it in -the _Place_. It is Flemish and rambling in design itself. Its stables -are low and capacious, like those of a Chaucerian inn. The rooms of the -hotel are low-roofed, and each is large enough for an assembly ball. -There is an air of generosity about the place. You have the feeling, as -you enter, that these people enjoy living; they would have a love of -life which is Italian in its deliberateness. They would taste life with -a relish. - -If you see madame you will be confirmed in this. She is rotund and -high-coloured. The placidity of her feature is infectious. As soon as -you see her (and it is not long before you will) you want to bask about -the place. The pleasantness of her smile will tell you that her first -concern is not lucre, but life. She must work to live. But neither work -nor the money it brings are ends in themselves for her. - -In her day she must have been very well featured. She is still. But -rotundity is clouding the lines of her beauty in face and figure. -She has a daughter of eight playing in the anteroom. She will be as -handsome as her mother has been. She is pretty, with a regularity of -feature uncommon in a child so young. A placid nurse-girl has the care -of her. She is reading at one of the small round drinking-tables. In -fact, it is the domesticity of the place which charms you as much as -its quaint architecture. English officers in groups and French officers -with their lady friends are entering and taking seats. But madame talks -audibly and naturally of nursery matters with the nurse, the child -herself is engaged upon her _leçon de l'école_ beside the buffet, -and her nursemaid is at work upon a garment at the same table as two -highly-finished Subalterns are taking their aristocratic ease and their -Médoc. - -But however homely the hotel may be in France, it is rarely free from -the blemish of the _upper room_. Officers may dine gaily with their -lady friends with as little obstruction from the management as is -offered to the payment of the bill. - -We had our Christmas dinner at the Bons Enfants. It was not home, but -it was very jolly. Jolly is the word rather than happy. At home the -grub would not have been French. There would have been sisters (and -others) with whom to make merry afterwards. And we would (we hope) have -been served by someone less unlovely than the well-meaning middle-aged -woman whom madame detailed to wait upon our table. But we sang long and -loud in chorus; and afterwards went into the hall and took possession -of the piano and danced with each other; and those who couldn't dance -improvised some sort of rhythmic evolutions about the room. At any -rate, we were gay. We were determined that absence from home was -not going to seem to make us sad. And perhaps some of us forced the -merriment rather obviously. But madame, I believe, thought we were -completely happy. She came and shook us all by the hand at parting, and -gave us good wishes, and was happy she should have helped us so far to -Christmas jollity in "a furrin clime." Someone reproached her with the -plebeian features of our waitress when we had got out into the shelter -of the street, and someone--I forget who--kissed her (_i.e._, madame) -in the shadow of the porch; and she gave a gentle little scream of -delight, retrospective of the days of her blooming youth when she was -more prone to thoroughgoing reciprocity. - -We returned some weeks later. Someone of the mess had a birthday, -and went down in the morning to madame and in the sunny courtyard -talked to her intimately of pullets, and _poisson_, and _boisson_, -and _omelettes_, and wafers, and cheeses, and fruits; returned to the -mess before lunch, furtively countermanded the standing orders amongst -the servants for the evening meal, and at lunch flung out a general -invitation to the Bons Enfants at eight. We lived again through the -Christmas festivities--with the difference that madame detailed a less -unhandsome wench to wait on table; and that we left earlier. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -PROVINCIAL SHOPS - - -All _magasins_ of any standing are served by pretty girls. This is a -point of policy. Proprietors of French shops in the towns of the War -area have come to know that the man to whom they sell is largely the -English officer in rest about the town or on his way through it. He -also knows enough of the psychology of the English officer to be sure -that if his shop is known to be served by pretty girls, the officer who -has been segregated from women for three months will enter, ostensibly -to purchase, actually to talk with the girls; also that every time he -wishes to see pretty girls he will make a purchase the pretext, and -will not be dismayed by the frequency of his purchases nor by their -price. To the officer from the line feminine intercourse is reckoned -cheap at the price of socks and ties. - -They know the temper of the man in rest from the trenches; he will have -what he likes, and hang the price. So they ask what they like, and get -it. This is, of course, hard on the man permanently stationed in the -town; but it is not for him they cater. And even should he refuse to -buy at all, it is nothing to them. They can batten on the traveller and -the man in rest, and they do. - -The best-remembered shops in D---- are the provision shop (agent for -Félix Potin), the newspaper shop opposite the Hôtel de Ville, the boot -shop in the Rue ----, the pipe shop in the Rue ----. - -Félix Potin's agency is proprieted by a masterful woman, extremely -handsome and well-figured. She is consciously proud of this as she sits -at the receipt of custom and directs the policy. She is a very able -business woman. She is never baffled by the smallest detail referred -to her by an underling. She knows the price of the smallest bottle -of perfume (though there she may, of course, be improvising--and -with safety). If stock has been exhausted in any commodity she -knows when its reinforcements will arrive from Paris. She herself -does the Parisian buying. The whole town knows when she has been to -Paris, and when she will be going next. She makes a knowledge of -these buying-excursions intimate to all her considerable patrons. -Her periodical trips are parochial events. You will hear one officer -say to another in an English mess: "Oh, Madame ---- is off to Paris -on Sunday;" or, "Madame ---- will be back to-morrow." This is very -flattering, and very good for business. - -But she purchases well. There is the finest array of perfumes and -soaps, champagne and liqueurs, cakes and biscuits, chocolates, Stilton -and Gruyère, eggs and butter, almonds and chestnuts. It is Félix Potin -in little, with all the richness of Félixian variety and quality. If -it's wine you are buying, she'll take you below to the cellars; that's -a rich and vivifying spectacle. The whole shop is shelved, desked, and -finished with an appearance of distinction; the windows are dressed -with a taste and an avoidance of super-crowding that would grace the -Rue de la Paix. The whole _magasin_ is in a class beyond compare with -any other shop in D----. It puts one in the dress-circle to purchase -a box of chocolates there. But in the interests of finance he had far -better make the purchase at the Expeditionary Force Canteen. At the -canteen you pay neither for the atmosphere of the place nor for the -expense of importation from Paris. - -The stationer's shop opposite the Hôtel de Ville gets the English -newspaper daily. Towards evening there is an incessant stream of -privates, N.C.O's, and Staff-Officers asking for the daily sheet -from England. "_'Delly Mell,' m'sieur?--pas encore arrivée._" (The -_voyageur_ arrives late in these parts.) It's with difficulty you can -elbow your way about this shop at most hours of the afternoon. Soldiers -who call for the paper loiter, attracted by the post-cards or the range -of English novels. The post-cards are spread out in an inciting array. -They are Parisian in their frankness. - -Everyone knows the boot shop. There are four boot shops in D----. But -when you speak of the boot shop there is no doubt in the mind of the -company which is the shop referred to, because the prettiest girl in -D---- is there. When an officer appears in the street with new boots -(though he guilelessly bought them at Ordnance) his friends will say: -"Ha! did she try them on for you? Was she long about it? It's a pretty -pair of shoulders, _n'est-ce pas_?" It is but fitting that the shop -with the prettiest girl in D---- should be the most expensive. So it -is. Better go bare-footed unless you have "private means" or can get -access to an Ordnance clothing store--or (better still) get an "issue." - -But who can avoid the tobacconist's in the Rue ----? One must have a -well-finished pipe now and then, and the widow's daughter is handsome -and speaks a kind of English. In accordance with the French usage, -madame, as a widow, has been given this tobacco shop by the State. Had -she been daughterless, or had her daughter been unlovely, she would -have imported some _jolie demoiselle_. But she had no need. Marie -Thérèse fills the rôle. And Marie Thérèse is kept busy by a genuine -queue of purchasers. For this is the shop where small purchases are -most excusable, and in any case it is an easy matter to ask for an -impossible brand of tobacco and listen with feigned amazement to Marie -Thérèse's pretty, well-gestured regrets that she has it not. But -she has other. But you explain how you are a purist, and none other -will do. And if the shop is not busy--which is seldom indeed--such -explanations can be made elaborate and prolonged, and Marie Thérèse -can be made intelligently interested in the inscrutable whims of -thoroughgoing smokers. But the damsel is not all guileless. If it is -your ill-fortune that she has what you ask, you pay well and truly. And -Marie Thérèse knows as well as you (though neither says so) that you -have paid for the repartee. - - -BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of By-ways on Service, by Hector Dinning - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY-WAYS ON SERVICE *** - -***** This file should be named 63006-0.txt or 63006-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/0/0/63006/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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} - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of By-ways on Service, by Hector Dinning - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: By-ways on Service - Notes from an Australian Journal - -Author: Hector Dinning - -Release Date: August 22, 2020 [EBook #63006] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY-WAYS ON SERVICE *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -<p class="ph1">BY-WAYS ON SERVICE</p> - -<p class="ph2" style="margin-top: 5em;">NOTES FROM<br /> -AN AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL</p> - -<p class="ph4" style="margin-top: 10em;">BY</p> -<p class="ph3">HECTOR DINNING</p> - -<p class="ph3" style="margin-top: 10em;">LONDON<br /> -CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, LTD.<br /> -1918</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter" style="margin-top: 10em;"> -<h6 class="nobreak"><span class="smcap">Printed in Great Britain</span></h6> -</div> - - - - -<p class="ph3" style="margin-top: 10em;"> -To<br /> -AUSTRALIA -</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" >NOTE BY THE AUTHOR</h2> -</div> - - -<p>These sketches were not originally written for publication in the form -of a book; and there has been little opportunity of revising them with -that object. The idea of collection and publication came late, after -they (most of them) had appeared in the daily press or in some other -journal; and it came rather by suggestion from friends than on the -writer's initiative.</p> - -<p>The collection is rough and inconsecutive. It does not attempt to give -a complete picture of what was to be seen by an Australian at any stage -after embarkation from Australia. It is a series of impressions gained -from an outlook necessarily limited. I wrote about the things that -impressed me most, chiefly for the reason that they impressed me; there -was also the motive of conveying to a small circle of friends some -notion of what I saw.</p> - -<p>In the light of the offensive fighting of 1917 in Western Europe, -a great deal of this book will appear feeble, and even flippant. -Descriptions of Egyptian cities and of the Canal-Zone will seem a -kind of impertinence, in a book from the War-area, after tales of the -fighting in Picardy. But they are published with the belief that after -Peace has broken out some soldiers may find an interest in awakening -the memory of their first-love in the world outside Australia. For most -of them Egypt was that; and though in the desert they often declared -themselves "fed-up" with Egypt, it was a transient and liverish -judgment, and their relationship with this first-love was never stodgy. -For the East of the sort they stumbled across in Cairo and on the -Canal, Australians discovered in themselves a liveliness of interest -that was almost an affinity.</p> - -<p>But no apology for reminiscences of Anzac is called for, let the -fighting at Pozieres be never so fierce. It is certain that Gallipoli -is overshadowed by the fierce intensity and ceaselessness of the -struggle in France. But it is only the intensity of the Turkish -fighting that is overshadowed. No intensity of the struggle on the -Somme will ever eclipse the intense pathos of that ill-starred -adventure on the ridges of Anzac.</p> - -<p>These sketches were written hurriedly and in the midst of a good deal -of distraction. There has been no time to attend to considerations -of style or arrangement of the matter within the limits of single -articles. Often I was stuck for leisure, and sometimes for paper. -Most of the Anzac sketches were written in the dug-out at nights in -circumstances that would have contented transitorily the most Bohemian -scribbler. Those from Egypt were mostly scrawled in a desert camp. In -either case there was the Censor to reckon with. That is seized as -another excuse for inconsecutiveness.</p> - -<p>My acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Cassell and Company for their -permission to include in this volume the sketch of Anzac which appeared -in the <i>Anzac-Book</i>.</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 65%;">HECTOR DINNING.</span><br /> -<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 5%;"><span class="smcap">Somme</span>,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 10%;"><i>December, 1917</i>.</span><br /> -</p> - - - - -<div class="chapter" style="margin-top: 5em;"> -<h2 class="nobreak" >CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - - -<table summary="toc" width="65%"> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#BOOK_I">BOOK I.—WAITING</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#Section_A_ON_THE_WAY">SECTION A.—ON THE WAY</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><small>CHAPTER</small></td> <td></td> <td><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Ia">TRANSPORT</a></td> <td align="right">1</td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIa">UP THE CANAL</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIa">ABBASSIEH</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#Section_B_CAIRO">SECTION B.—CAIRO</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Ib">ON LEAVE IN CAIRO</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIb">THE MOOSKI</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#BOOK_II">BOOK II.—GALLIPOLI</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Ic">THE JOURNEY</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIc">GLIMPSES OF ANZAC.—I.</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIc">GLIMPSES OF ANZAC.—II.</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IVc">SIGNALS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">V.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Vc">THE DESPATCH-RIDERS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_96">96</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIc">THE BLIZZARD</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VII.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIc">EVACUATION</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#BOOK_III">BOOK III.—BACK TO EGYPT</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Id">LEMNOS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IId">MAHSAMAH</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIId">CANAL-ZONE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IVd">ALEXANDRIA THE THIRD TIME</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">V.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Vd">THE LAST OF EGYPT</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#BOOK_IV">BOOK IV.—FRANCE</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#Section_A_A_BASE">SECTION A.—A BASE</a></td></tr> - - - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Ie">ENTRÉE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIe">BILLETED</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIe">THE SEINE AT ROUEN</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IVe">ROUEN <i>REVUE</i></a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">V.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Ve">LA BOUILLE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#Section_B_PICARDY_AND_THE_SOMME">SECTION B.—PICARDY AND THE SOMME</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_If">BEHIND THE LINES.—I.</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIf">BEHIND THE LINES.—II.</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIf">C.C.S.</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IVf">THE FOUGHTEN-FIELD</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">V.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Vf">AN ADVANCED RAILHEAD</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIf">ARRAS AFTER THE PUSH</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_232">232</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><a href="#Section_C_FRENCH_PROVINCIAL_LIFE">SECTION C.—FRENCH PROVINCIAL LIFE</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">I.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Ig">A MORNING IN PICARDY</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_242">242</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">II.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIg">THÉRÈSE</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">III.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIg">LEAVES FROM A VILLAGE DIARY</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_260">260</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IVg">THE CAFÉ DU PROGRÈS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">V.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_Vg">L'HÔTEL DES BONS ENFANTS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td align="right">VI.</td> <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIg">PROVINCIAL SHOPS</a></td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td></tr> -</table> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I">BOOK I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">WAITING</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[Pg 3]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" >BY-WAYS ON SERVICE</h2> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Section_A_ON_THE_WAY"><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—ON THE WAY</h2> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Ia">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">TRANSPORT</p> - - -<p>There is something high-sounding in the name Australian Imperial -Expeditionary Force. The expedition with which our troop-ship -cast loose justified, so far, our part in that name. The false -alarms relating to the date of embarkation, raised whilst we were -still in camp, had bred in us a kind of scepticism as to all such -pronouncements. When it was told that we would go aboard on Tuesday, -most of us emitted a sarcastic "te-hee!" And it was not until on Monday -morning our black kit-bags were piled meaningly on the parade ground -for transport that we began to rein-in our humour and visualise the -method of voyaging and believe there must have been some fragment of -truth in what we called the Tuesday fable. We believed it all when -the unit marched in column of route on Tuesday to the ship, and the -quartermaster brought up the odds and ends on a lorry in the rear. But -even so, we were prepared to lie a few hours, at least (and some said -a few days), before casting-off. Some of us had even devised visits to -and from the homes of our friends,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[Pg 4]</span> in our mongrel-civilian fashion, to -sit once more—or twice—and say good-bye. Quite the majority of us saw -ourselves swaggering about the port, slaking thirst, and being pointed -at as "the Boys." By two o'clock the last baggage came over the side, -and we sat a moment to breathe. Some didn't wait to breathe. As soon as -they got well off the pier, the gangways were raised. By 2.20 we were -in motion. The hope of embarkation, deferred so long, was realised with -a suddenness that almost forbade the saying good-bye. Many a friend, -expecting the hand-clasp, watched the transport steam relentlessly -away; many a man, bracing himself to the final show of a light heart, -saw the gangway rudely raised as he innocently rested after the labour -of embarkation; and all his show of bravery ended in an unwonted -glistening of the eye and a silent turning away from those who would -have turned homewards from the shore, but could not. Many smothered -what they felt in the wild hilarity of jingoistic dialogue with the -shore and with civilian craft flitting about the transport. Two belated -members of the column tore along the pier towards the ship in motion, -embarked in a launch, and were received; and three months of irksome -sitting in a preparatory camp were well-nigh gone for nothing. Two -others, who had "gone up the street for an hour" to make merry finally -with their friends, were left lamenting.</p> - -<p>It was a Leviathan we found ourselves upon; the largest boat—as they -say—that ever has come to us. And certainly she carries more men than -one ever expected to find afloat (in these waters) on one vessel—a -kind of city full. So huge is she that you wonder, in the half-logical -excitement of the first few hours,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[Pg 5]</span> whether she will pitch on the open -sea. "Sweet delusion!" smiles the quizzical reader; "you'll soon see." -Well, we haven't seen. She has pitched hardly enough to upset the -gentlest sucking-dove. That, however, is, perhaps, not all by virtue of -our tonnage; so smooth a sea, and so consistently smooth, the tenderest -liver could hardly hope for. There have, perhaps, a dozen men been -ill; and what are they among so many? With a smooth start, such as we -are blest with, notoriously weak sailors may even hope to get through -without a spasm. At least there are those aboard amazed at their own -heartiness.</p> - -<p>Is there any call to relate the daily routine on a troop-ship? Everyone -at home, you say, knows it; it's all there is in most letters from the -fleet. But all kind and patient readers of these notes may not have -friends in the fleet.</p> - -<p>Well, then, <i>réveille</i> blows providentially later than on shore—six -o'clock; providentially and paradoxically, for who wants "a little more -folding of the hands to sleep" at sea? Who, on land, does not, save the -few fanatical or deranged? As many as can find ground-room there, sleep -on deck, and have been peeping at the Day's-Eye for half an hour before -the strident note crashes along the decks. He is <i>blasé</i> and weary -indeed who can lie insensible to the dawn here. There is one glory of -the hills at sunrise; the sea hath another glory. On land you see the -dawn in part, here the whole stately procession lies to your eye, and -you see all the detail of the lengthening march defined by the gently -heaving sea. He who sees it not has got well to the Devil! But whether -you are of the Devil or not, you obey the summons to get up, and cut -short<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[Pg 6]</span> your contemplation of the pageant. There is no before breakfast -duty, except for a casual swabbing-fatigue. The men mess at seven on -their troop-decks; the sergeants and officers at 8.30. Thereby hang two -digressions.</p> - -<p>The troop-decks have been installed in the holds, or located where old -passenger cabins have been knocked out. Much refitting of a liner, -indeed, had been necessary to make of her a troop-ship. The troops -have been quartered thus: the sergeants mess and sleep in the old -dining-saloon; the officers' mess is the old music-room; both the -smoke-room and gymnasium have been transferred into hospitals. The -sergeants and the men sleep in hammocks slung above their mess-tables. -The officers sleep in such cabins as are left standing.</p> - -<p>The other digression ought to show why the sergeants and officers -(apart from the distinctions which the superiority of those creatures -demands) mess an-hour-and-a-half later than the men. Each unit must -appoint, as ashore, an orderly-officer and orderly-sergeant for the -day, and part of their duty is to supervise the issue and distribution -of rations. Each sergeant is given, beside, the supervision of the -quarters of a section of the unit, and this includes overlooking the -complete setting-in-order after messing. Each unit in rotation supplies -a ship's orderly-officer and ship's troop-deck sergeant, whose duties -are general and at the dictation of the ship's commandant.</p> - -<p>After breakfast we massage ourselves internally and open up our chests -with an hour's exercise, much as ashore; but we must drill in small -sections, for want of space. Most parades, apart from this last, which -is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[Pg 7]</span> universal, are for lectures; in which the officers endeavour to -put the theoretical side—appropriately enough, for the practice must -precede the theory in any matter whatsoever, but especially in the -game of war. We were men before we became philosophers; we digested -our food before we thought of physiological research; and we can put a -bullet through a vulnerable part before we know much about the chemical -combustion preceding the discharge. Lectures are, naturally, more or -less directly on the topic of mechanical-transport, in some aspect of -it, but some are on topics of generally military importance.</p> - -<p>Curious is the variety in the method of receiving lecture; the rank and -file do not readily adjust themselves to the academic outlook. "Another -b——y lecture, Bill!" "That's all right; 'e'll take a tumble——" -(<i>The Censor did not pass the rest of this conversation.</i>) But these -are extreme comments, and rather a form of playfulness than serious -utterances. Of the rest, some sit it through in a bovine complacency, -some take the risks of dozing, some crack furtive jokes; most listen -attentively enough. There are many intelligent, well-trained men who -prick up their ears here and there and carry on a muffled discussion, -in a sort of unauthorised <i>semina</i>. There is, on an average, one hour's -lecture in the day.</p> - -<p>Perhaps half the day is the men's own—clear. It is spent largely in -lounging and smoking, partly in sleeping, a little in reading. There -are well-worn magazines—such as Mr. Ruskin would disapprove—and -little else, except sixpenny editions of the limelight authors. But in -reading and such effeminate arts what good soldier will languish long?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[Pg 8]</span></p> - -<p>There are sports, of a sort—very sporadic and very confined. They -commonly take the form of passing-the-ball and leap-frog.</p> - -<p>The Censor has an <i>ipse dixit</i> way, and is his own court of appeal. -These notes could otherwise be made a little less inconsecutive.</p> - -<p>We steamed out of —— a little after dawn in column of half sections, -artistically out of step and with the alignment nautically groggy. Our -ship took the head of one column; the flagship led the other. That -procession is a sight unique, which you are defied to parallel in the -annals of passenger shipping. The files come heaving along, like a -school of marine monsters disporting themselves....</p> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(<i>Censor at work again.</i>)</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>In preparation for the European winter in store for us, about which -so much has been written and spoken at home, and by which so much Red -Cross knitting and tea-drinking have been inspired—as a preparation -for this, the weather is becoming intolerably hot. As we approach the -line the best traditions of that vicinity are being maintained. We wake -in the morning with that sense of lassitude you read of as the regular -matutinal sensation of the Anglo-Indian in Calcutta. At six o'clock the -sun beats down—or beats along—with as much effect as he achieves high -in the heavens in the early Australian summer. No sluggard sleeping on -deck but would rather get up and under cover than remain stewing in -the oblique, biting rays. At the breakfast-mess, situated in as cool -and strategic a position as the brazen sergeants could get chosen, you -perspire as though violently exercising. In a few<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[Pg 9]</span> isolated cases this -is justified; but as the day wears on you perspire without provocation -of any sort. The men on their improvised troop-decks are in hell—and -use a language and attitude appropriate in the circumstances. Not -unnaturally, you see the most grotesque attires designed to make life -tolerable. To the devil with uniformity! Men must first live. The -general effect is motley. Leggings and breeches and regimental boots -are not to be seen—except on the unhappy sentry. A following wind -blows upon us, and just keeps our pace; there is not a breath; the sea -is unruffled; the men lie limp off parade (for parade persists); one -begins to recall an ancient mariner and the tricks the sultry main -played upon him. And discussions arise, as animated as the heat will -allow, as to whether you'd rather fight in the burning Sahara or the -frozen trenches of Northern Europe.</p> - -<p>A change in the manner of life on a troop-ship has been effected -almost as complete as <i>Oliver Twist</i> shows to have taken place in -the administration of public charity, or as Charles Reade shows in -the conduct of His Majesty's prisons. Trooping in the 'seventies and -'eighties resembled pretty closely transport on an old slaver—in -respect of rations, ventilation, dirt, and space for exercise. By -comparison this is luxurious. Perhaps the most notable difference -is that there is no beer. The traditional regimental issue of one -pint <i>per</i> man <i>per diem</i> (and three pints for sergeants) has been -abolished. It is chiefly in a kind of Hogarth theory that this is -deplorable; most of the romance of beer-drinking is confined to the art -of such delineators as Hogarth and Thackeray. But amongst a section -of the men the regret is genuine. Especially hard was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[Pg 10]</span> a beerless -Christmas for many who had been accustomed to charge themselves up with -goodwill towards men at that season.</p> - -<p>There is a dry canteen, the most violent beverage, obtainable at which -is Schweppes's Dry, and hot coffee. Besides, it drives an incessant -trade in tobacco, groceries, clothing, and chocolate. We are a people -whose god is their belly. During canteen hours an endless queue moves -up the promenade-deck to either window of the store, and men purchase, -at the most prodigal rate, creature comforts they would despise on -land. With many of them it is part of the day's routine.</p> - -<p>The leisure and associations of Christmas Day here brought home to the -bosoms of most men, more clearly than anything had done previously, -what they had departed from. There was hilarity spontaneous; there was -some forced to exaggeration, probably with the motive of smothering -all the feelings raised by the associations of the festival. You may -see, in your "mind's eye, Horatio," the troop-decks festooned above the -mess-tables, and all beneath softened with coloured sheaths about the -electric bulbs. There is strange and wonderful masquerading amongst the -diners, and much song. A good deal of the singing is facetiously woven -about the defective theme of "No Beer."</p> - -<p>But beside, the old home-songs were given, and here and there a -Christmas hymn. It was a strangely mingled scene, but not all -tomfooling—not by a great deal.</p> - -<p>The Chaplain-Colonel celebrated Holy Communion in the officers' mess at -7 and 8 a.m., and afterwards at Divine-Service on deck addressed the -men. Chiefly he was concerned with an attempted reconciliation of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[Pg 11]</span> the -War with the teaching of Christianity. The rest of the day went <i>ad -lib.</i></p> - -<p>The night is the unsullied property of the men—in a manner of -speaking; but in a manner only. The same could not be said of the -officers, as a body. The officers, it is true, fare sumptuously every -night, and dress elaborately to dine. The ill-starred private, his -simple meal long since consumed, perambulates, and looks on at this -good feasting from the promenade deck. "Gawd! I'd like them blokes' -job. Givin' b——y orders all day, an' feedin' like that—dressin' up, -too! 'Struth! Nothin' better t' do!" Now, that is the everlasting cry -of the rank-and-file against those in authority. It's in the business -house, where the artificer glares after the managing director—"'Olds -all the brass, an' never done a day's work in 'is loife!" It's not so -common in military as in civil experience. But as the artisan overlooks -the brooding of the managing director in the night watches, whilst he -sleeps dreamless, filled with bread, so the private tends to forget -that when the Major's dinner is over and his cigar well through, he may -work like the deuce until midnight, and be up at <i>réveille</i> with the -most private of them. The officers are a picturesque group of diners, -and they promenade impressively for an hour thereafter; but they have -their night cares, which persist long after the rank and file is well -hammocked and snoring.</p> - -<p>But before any snoring is engaged in there is a couple of hours of -yarning and repartee and horse-play and mirth of all orders. The band -plays; the name of the band is legion aboard, and often several members -of the legion are in action simultaneously, blaring out their brazen -hearts in some imperial noise<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[Pg 12]</span> about (say) Britannia and the waves and -the way she rules them; and if you're one of the dozen ill, you cast up -a prayer that she will see fit, in her own time, to rule them rather -more straight.</p> - -<p>Hardly a night but there is a concert, from which the downright -song—as such—is rigidly excluded, and nothing but burlesque will be -listened to.</p> - -<p>As the sun sets, you may lie and wait the lift of the long southern -swell of the Indian Ocean. The sunsets are already coloured with the -rich ultra-tropical warmth that caught the imagination of so many who -looked on that "Sunset at Agra." "Yet but a little while," you say -fondly, "and we shall glide south of that fabled Indian land of spice"; -and you shudder at the vileness of contending man. There is danger in -the distracting fascination of a voyage of discovery, embraced by this -transporting to the land of war. For the old soldier—of whom the fleet -carries more than a few—it is hardly possible to realise the utter -glow of the imagination in the tyro, seeing for the first time those -spaces of the earth he has visualised for twenty years. You, therefore, -like a good soldier, put on the breast-plate of common sense, and -look up on the fore-masthead at the tiny mouth of fire, delicately -gaping and closing, uttering the Morse lingo (St. Elmo's fire, caught -and harnessed to human uses, by some collective Prospero) and make an -attempt to construe in your clumsy, 'prentice way.</p> - -<p>Almost you will always fall asleep at this, and lie there a couple of -hours. And when you wake you go on lying there; and it is of little -consequence whether you lie there all night, or not, in the delicate -tropic air. And often you do so, and dream of all things but war.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[Pg 13]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIa">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">UP THE CANAL</p> - - -<p>We put into the outer harbour at Aden for some hours to wait for the -main fleet, from which we had been parted mysteriously off Colombo. -They came in the early morning, handed us a heavy home-mail, and by -sundown we were all in motion, steaming up into the heat of the Red -Sea. If this is the Red Sea in midwinter, the Lord deliver us from -its summer! The heat is beguiled by heavy betting as to the port -of disembarkation. But as we get up towards Suez the hand of the -war-lords begins to show itself in cryptic paragraphs of troop-ship -orders—and the like. Marseilles is our desired haven, and next to that -Southampton. But—</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 25%;"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It sounds like stories from the land of spirits</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If any man get that which he desires,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or any merit that which he obtains.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>Before lunch on the —th the African coast loomed up on the port-bow. -About mid-day we were steaming over the traditionally located -Israelitish crossing. Curious! the entirely unquestioning attitude of -the most blasphemous trooper afloat towards the literal authenticity of -Old Testament history. The Higher Criticism has, at any rate, no part -with the devil-may-care soldier full of strange oaths. Apparently to a -man<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[Pg 14]</span> the troops speak in quite an accepted fashion of the miraculous -Israelitish triumph over the Egyptian army: the inference from which -is, perhaps, that blasphemy is rather an habitual mannerism in such men -than anything deliberate. But after a month's living in their midst it -requires no such occasion as this discussion of Mosaic geography to -tell you that.</p> - -<p>After lunch the Arabian coast also was to be seen. The contrast between -the coasts is memorable. It was a warm, grey day, and Arabia showed -more delicate than we had yet seen it. The immense mountains were -almost beyond sight. All the foreground was opalescent sand shot with -tiny cones and ridges of rock, themselves streaked with colour as -though sprinkled with the same sand. The effect of opalescence must be -purely atmospheric—but it is very beautiful.</p> - -<p>But the African coast is rugged to the water's edge. The mountains -tower out of the sea; and the grey day, which drew out the iridescence -of Arabia, only blackened deeper the gigantic mountains of Africa. The -one is delicate pearl and amber, the other is ebony. Well justified -by sight and feeling were the judgments of books upon the perfumes -and delicate-bred steeds and philosophy of Arabia as over against the -grimness of "Darkest Africa."</p> - -<p>All gazing was distracted by a death on board at sunset. The body -was buried under the moon at eight o'clock. Every soldier stands to -attention; the engines are stopped; in the sudden silence the solemn -service is read; the body is slid from the plank; the massed buglers -sound the Last Post.... The engines begin again to throb and grind, and -the routine, broken rudely but momentarily, resumes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[Pg 15]</span></p> - -<p>Next morning we wakened in the harbour of Suez. We lay here a day. -There appeared to have been some guerilla sniping from the banks of the -Canal. The troop-ship bridges were barricaded with sandbags, and all -ranks warned against exposing themselves unnecessarily. A shot in the -back out of the desert would be a more or less ignominious beginning, -and, as an ending, unutterable!</p> - -<p>At ten in the morning we started into the Canal. Much valuable Egyptian -shore was missed by our being obliged to cross to starboard and salute -a French cruiser lying in the mouth. But before we had well passed -her the Arabian bank became thick with Ghurkas. War—or the rumour -of war—was brought home to our bosoms by their deep and elaborate -entrenchments, barbed-wire entanglements, and outworks. The Ghurkas -justify, seen in the flesh, all that has been said of their physique: -short, deep-chested fellows, with a grin that suggests war is their -sport indeed.</p> - -<p>On the Egyptian side the Suez suburbs stretched away in a thin strip -of fertile country bearing crops and palm-groves and following the -rail to Cairo—easily visible, running neck-and-neck with a half-dozen -telegraph-lines. Later on, the line draws still nearer to the Canal, -making a halt at each of the Canal stations. The stations, with their -neat courtyards and neat French offices, and the neat and handsome -red-roofed villa, break the monotony of sand-ridge. And the monotony of -ejaculation from the deck is broken by a robust French voice shouting a -greeting through the megaphone from the station pontoon.</p> - -<p>The Egyptian bank is still more strongly fortified;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[Pg 16]</span> for in addition -to the entrenchments and entanglements of the other shore, the -place bristles with masked-batteries. The troops here were chiefly -Australian, with a sprinkling of Ghurka and of Sikh cavalry. Here -and there an Indian trooper would indicate by pantomime that firing -and bayoneting were in progress in the interior. But how much was -histrionic fervour and how much the truth remains to be known.</p> - -<p>The Canal is embanked with limestone as far as the Bitter Lakes, and -at intervals thereafter. The Egyptian shore from the Lakes almost to -Ismailia is planted with a graceful grove of fir. The controllers -of the Canal evidently intend it shall be more than a commercial -channel—in some sense, a place to be seen. This is essentially French.</p> - -<p>It was evident that trouble from the Turk was expected. The strongest -fortifications yet seen had been erected on the Arabian bank: much -artillery, thousands of men, searchlight, and frequent outpost. Our own -stern-chasers were unmasked and charged, ready in the event of game -showing. Almost every hour the troops were called to attention to pass -a British or French gunboat. All the warships had their guns run out -and their sandbags piled.</p> - -<p>We steamed steadily to Port Said, at a pace which, if made habitual by -shipping here, would prove bad for the Canal shore and channel.</p> - -<p>The towns of this route increase in size as we progress. Port Said -spreads herself out to prodigal limits.... On a nearer approach you -may see the wharves of the Arabian side lined with coal-tramps, backed -in like so many vans and disgorging<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[Pg 17]</span> into barges. There is the flash -of a grin, the white of an eye. The Port-side is the more interesting. -The finest buildings of the city would seem to be standing along the -water's edge. The business advertisements of the most cosmopolitan -city in the world are emphatically English; the signs for Kodak, and -Lipton's, and King George the Fourth Whisky, and the rest of them, look -familiarly out.</p> - -<p>The touch of war is to be seen at any interval along the Canal; here -it is laid on with a trowel. Ghurkas are encamped in the suburb; -reclining at the foot of the Admiralty steps is a submarine rusted -and disfigured; ten minutes after, you pass the seaplane station; and -before the ship is at rest a hydroplane has buzzed over our masthead -and taken the water for a half-mile at the stern. Before dark three -monoplanes and a biplane have swept in out of the southern distance and -gone to roost after their scouting flight.</p> - -<p>We were anchored within fifty yards of the heart of the city. One knew -not whether to be galled by the proximity of our prison-house to the -blandishments of such a city or grateful for a proximity which let us -see so much of it from deck. Seen through a glass, Arab, Frenchmen, -Italian, British, Yankee, Jap, and Jew justified the cosmopolitan -reputation of a city mid-set on the trade-route between the East and -West. The Canal here is gay as a Venetian highway and busy with flying -official cutters and pleasure craft and native boats. These last -swarmed to the side and drove a trade that was fierce; for the night -was coming, when no man could work at that. This was the degenerate -East indeed—not a cigar to be had, nothing to smoke but cheap and -foul Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[Pg 18]</span> fit food for eunuchs and such -effeminate rascals—for their vendors (for example) dressed in a most -ambiguous skirt: you never know whether, beneath skirt and turban, you -have a man or a woman!</p> - -<p>The money-getters over the side included, here, a boat-load of -serenaders and one of jugglers. The first rung the changes on their -orchestra and their throats until we were as tired as they; and in -consequence their gorgeous parasol, gaping for coin in the hands of the -boy, gathered in some missiles whose purchasing power was not high. The -jugglers were more deserving.</p> - -<p>The same unhallowed load of black bargees as at Aden came alongside to -coal and make night hideous. But they worked harder—time was short -and the boss used a rope's-end, and actually "laid out" more than one -who dared to stop for scraps thrown. They eked out their industry with -an alleged chant, echoed in derision by the troops all over the ship. -About midnight firing—or its equivalent—began to the south. At the -sound of guns the Mohammedan bargees forgot their labours and the -rope's-end—as did the boss, together with his authority—cast aside -their baskets, and incontinently fell on their faces in the coal-dust -and called in terror upon Allah.</p> - -<p>Soon after dawn we stood out for Alexandria, and were there early the -following morning. The sun rising behind the city cast into flat black -Pompey's Pillar and the Port. It was hard to see, in the first blush, -in this city—when the sun had risen above it—a centre of action of -Pompey and of Alexander and of Cæsar. There is a curious blending of -age and of what is intensely modern; and so it is more easy to conceive -Sir Charles Beresford bombarding from the <i>Condor</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[Pg 19]</span> with Admiral -Seymour pounding from behind; or Napoleon storming the citadel. From -our anchorage it was with ease we saw the scene of bombardment and the -converging-point from which the Egyptians fled helter-skelter to the -hinterland.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Anchored in the harbour, we supposed by habit we should have to be -content with externals and with conjecture as to what was to be seen in -the midst of the city. But we loitered some days to disembark infantry, -and leave was granted freely. One would have easily given a month's pay -for a day ashore—apart from the month's pay he could spend there—had -that been necessary.</p> - -<p>Your first business after leaving the gangway is to stave-off the -horde of beggars and gharry-drivers (an Australian cab-rank is put -to shame here) and choose one of the latter's vehicles approximately -respectable. It takes ten minutes' brisk driving to get you well out of -the labyrinth of wharves, docks, and dhows. You emerge by one of seven -dock-gates, vigilated by native police, into the Arab quarter, by which -alone approach to the city proper is possible. Cook's tourists drive -hurriedly through this region, and protect their eyes and noses with -the daily newspaper. The wise man knows that if he is to see Alexandria -he will dismiss the gharry and walk—and walk slowly—through the -native-quarter. In fact, he will care not a damn whether he ever gets -to imposing French and English residential quarters or not....</p> - -<p>So, in your wonder at the utter strangeness of everything you overpay -the driver some five piastres and begin to thread your way over the -cobbles. All<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[Pg 20]</span> building is of stone, with a facing of cement, which once -was bright-coloured, but has faded into faint blues and browns and -greys; and if you look up and along the street of crumbling, flat-faced -upper storeys broken by tiny balconies, you feel intensely the gentle -irregularity and the mass of mellow colour. The one and the other is -never seen in Australia, with our new shining-painted angularities of -hardwood and bright nails and eaves and gables and sharp-sloping roofs. -A gentle irregularity, in a street where boards thrust out and planks -give way and vulgarly project themselves, where neither roofs nor -fronts are flat, is unknown in our country.</p> - -<p>What Mr. Wells calls "the inundating flood of babies" ebbs and flows -in the streets. The Arab women, bare-legged, slovenly of gait, broad -of person, with swaying, unstable bust, move up and down or sit in the -doorways, or lounge and haggle over a purchase. Every hovel in the -bazaars, with its low door and dark recesses, sells or makes something, -and the Arab quarter is a succession of bazaars. The artificers squat -at their work in brass or clay or fabric or gold; the greybeards sit -at the doors with hubble-bubble and dream through the day in a state -of coma. Fruits and dates, sweets and pastry, and Eastern culinary -products that defy nomenclature by the Australian, are piled in an -Eastern profusion. Sweets and pastry abound in excess and are curiously -cheap. Toffee is sold from stands at every street-corner, and the -quantity you might carry off for sixpence would be embarrassing. Pastry -is made here of a flavour and lightness unexcelled by any English -housewife. Sit at an open restaurant, call for a light lunch, and you -will have a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[Pg 21]</span> plate heaped with the most delicious meat and spice pastry -and sugared fruits, for something less than the price of a street-stall -pie in Australia, and with a glass of sherbet thrown in. The fineness -of the fabrics sold (amongst bales of Manchester rubbish) will draw -the better class of Egyptian woman into the bazaars of this east-end; -they are beautiful in rich black silk from head to toe, with a delicate -white yashmak; they have a regularity of feature and a complexion and -a beauty of eye and of gait to make you look again. Nothing is lost to -them by the setting through which they glide: the ragged bargainers, -the sluttishness of the women, the unmitigated dirt of earth and asses -and children and tethered goats, and water-carriers with their greasy -swine-skins filled and shining. They offer an analogy to the stately -mosque and minaret which lifts its graceful head above the squalid -erections of the poor. And as futilely might the stranger pry into -those features with his free curiosity as attempt an entrance to the -Mosque unattended.</p> - -<p>Progress is slow towards the Square. Not the interest of the scene -alone invites you to linger: the whole atmosphere is one of lounge. -Everyone moves at a lounging pace; those not in motion lounge; there -are periodical cafés where the men lounge in the fumes of smoke and -native spirits by the half-day together. No one hurries. Business seems -rather a hobby and an incident than the earnest, insistent thing it is -in England. The advantage surely lies with the Arab; he finds time to -live and contemplate and get to know something of himself. God help the -American! Better, perhaps, to spend the evening of your life with your -chin on your knees and your hubble-bubble ad<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[Pg 22]</span>jacent, looking out on the -life before you, and within upon your own, than boast yourself still -keen in the steel trade; that your features are "mobile and alert," -though your head is grey, whereas your contemporaries are "failing." ...</p> - -<p>At the end of a half-day you'll know your proximity to the -Centre by the uprising of "respectable" cafés and imposing -cigarette-manufactories and of hotels. And you come into the Square -overlooked by the noble statue of the noble Mahomet Aly—every ounce a -soldier.</p> - -<p>Wide and well-built streets lead away into the regions of high-class -trade and residence. You had best take a gharry here. There are two -extreme classes amongst tourists—the thoroughgoing Cook's sight-seer -who works exclusively by the vehicle and the book, and the tourist who -steadily refuses to "do" the stock places. Each is at fault if he is -inflexible: the former in the Arab quarter, the latter when he emerges -from it. For in a city such as Alexandria the visitor who declines to -see the spots relict of the ancient history of this world is clearly -an obdurate fool with a strange topsy-turvey-dom of values. Let him -take a gharry and a book in his hand when the time is ripe; let him be -free with his piastres when Pompey's Pillar stands over the catacombs -of the city. The Forts of Cæsar and of Napoleon watch over the sea. He -may stand upon the ground where was the library of Alexandria and where -Euclid reasoned over his geometrical figures in the sand. Here Hypatia -suffered martyrdom and Cleopatra held her court and died in her palace. -On the northern horn of the harbour stood the great Beacon of Pharos, -one of the Seven Wonders.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[Pg 23]</span></p> - -<p>So you get your vehicle and a chattering guide....</p> - -<p>On the way back to ship the Park and the Nouzha Gardens are a delicious -sight after the aridity of the desert.... The gharry is dismissed on -re-entering the Arab quarter; it would be a sad waste of opportunity to -drive....</p> - -<p>We climbed the gangway bearing much fruit and dirt, and very much -late for dinner. And after mess the boat-deck and the pipes and our -purchases in tobacco and our ventures in cigars—and the day all over -again.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[Pg 24]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIIa">CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">ABBASSIEH</p> - - -<p>We left the ship's side in a barge that might have carried twice our -number without crowding. Every man of us had chafed at the confinement -of the voyage, but not one did not now regret the dissociation from our -unit, with all the chances it carried of never rejoining, and even, -possibly, of never getting to Europe at all. Private friendships do -not fall within the consideration of motives in the issue of military -orders. Men were calling a farewell from the deck with whom we would -have given much to go through the campaign. There was nothing for it -but to cultivate the philosophy of the grin and simulate an elation at -being free, at last, from the prison-house, and chaff the others about -the bitter English winter they were sailing into, and claim we had the -best of it. But in our hearts we coveted their chances of moving into -Europe first. No part in the Egyptian army of occupation, with the -off-chance of a fitful brawl with the Turk, compensated for that.</p> - -<p>Baggage required but brief handling. We had little more than our rifles -and equipment and kit-bags. By sunset we were entrained, and flying -between the back-yards of Alexandria. A five hours' run was before us. -There was nothing to be seen except each other, and we had had enough -of that in the last five weeks.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[Pg 25]</span> We cast about for something to eat -(the ship's cooks' fatigue had bagged a sack of cold fowl before making -their exit from the bowels of the transport), and composed ourselves to -sleep. The cessation of motion at Cairo, at 2 a.m., awakened us. Half -an hour afterwards we were at Abbassieh, tumbling out into the cold -and "falling-in." A guide was waiting. The baggage was piled on the -platform under a guard until the morning. A pair of blankets per man -was issued, and we marched through a mile of barracks to the camp. The -fuddled brains of those still half asleep had conceived a picture of -tents and the soft, warm sand and the immediate resumption of slumber. -This was ill-founded. We poked about for a place in which to sleep. -Ultimately we stumbled upon a line of blockhouses erected for messing, -wherein we crept, posted a couple of sentries, and disposed ourselves -about the tables. It was very cold; had we been less tired, we should -have been about before seven the next morning.</p> - -<p>Abbassieh, except for its mosque, is nothing but a barrack-settlement. -Barracks almost encircle the camp. Indeed, it would appear that the -Regular Cairene troops are mostly quartered in this suburb. The eastern -and northern barracks are for the Egyptian Regulars; the Territorials -occupy those on the west. We see much of either. The Egyptians are -impressive—very lithe and strongly built, but not tall. Alertness is -the badge of all their tribe. The first impression they give is that -everything in their training is done "at the double." As you turn in -your bed at 5.30, you hear their <i>réveille</i> trumpeted forth from the -whole barrack settlement; and that is significant. To a man, they bear -about the mouth those lines seen<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[Pg 26]</span> upon the face of the thoroughgoing -athlete. They love to fraternise with the Australians. The Turks they -hate with a perfect hatred; more than one has lost a brother "down the -Canal." If this is the type of man Kitchener had with his British, the -consistent victories of his Egyptian campaign are quite in the order of -nature. They show an individual strength, efficiency, and alertfulness -which probably is to be seen nowhere else—except, perhaps, among the -Ghurkas—in all the British forces now under arms. The best Australian -or Territorial unit will have its weeds and its blear-eyed and its -round-shouldered and its slouchers. Here you look for them in vain.</p> - -<p>The Camp is busy enough at any time of the day, and the Army Service -Corps which supplies it is almost as busy as any unit on active -service. The difference is that it is not feverishly busy, and that -it has a convenient and resourceful base from which to work—the city -of Cairo, as well and variously stocked as the most fastidious army -could wish. And an army which is merely sitting in occupation is in -danger of growing fastidious—with shops of Parisian splendour and -Turkish baths and cafés of the standard of the <i>Francatelli</i> within -two miles, and opportunity of generous leave. In the first half of -the day the camp supply depôt is animated with men of more than one -race and beasts of many breeds. Long trains of camels and donkeys -move in from the irrigation with their loads of green fodder and -vegetables, and the high and narrow Arab carts, decorated fore and -aft in quasi-hieroglyphic, bring in the chaff and grain. General -service waggons, manned by Australians, are there too. The unloading -and distribution is done<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[Pg 27]</span> chiefly by hired Arabs working under the -superintendence of our men. The din is terrific; no Arab can work -without much talk and shout. If he has no companion to be voluble -with, he talks with and at his beast. But here is a crowd of a -hundred of them, and it is with difficulty the superintendents make -themselves audible, much less intelligible. All the heavy fatigue -work is done by natives attached—splitting wood, digging drains and -soakage-pits, erection of out-houses, removal of refuse of all sorts. -Native labour is extremely cheap, and beside its official employment -the men use it for such purposes as private washing; a native takes -your week's soiled clothes and returns them next day, snow white, for -a couple of piastres. During certain hours the camp swarms with Arab -vendors of newspapers, fruit, sweets, cakes, post-cards, Arab-English -phrase-books, rifle-covers (invaluable, almost indispensable, here to -the right preservation of arms), clothing, tobacco and cigarettes. They -easily become a bane if encouraged in any degree. Native police patrol -the place day and night for the sole purpose of keeping them in check. -This is no easy matter. They are slippery as eels, cunning as foxes, -and impudent as they make 'em. They fight incessantly; bloody coxcombs -are to be seen daily, and the men rarely hesitate to fan an embryonic -fight into a serious combat as a relief from the lassitude of the -mid-day; for the noon is as hot as the night is cold. To incite is the -soldier's delight: "Go it, Snowball!"—"Well hit, Pompey!"—"Get after -him!" ... until a couple of native police break in and carry off the -combatants by the lug. Even then, they often break away and resume, or -clear off into the desert. And a policeman<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[Pg 28]</span> in thick blue serge, with -leggings and bayonet, is no match in a chase for a bare-footed Arab in -his cotton skirt.</p> - -<p>The Arab is intelligent, and in many cases has picked up decent English -and speaks with fluency. Between the early parade and breakfast we -often engage them in talk, partly for amusement, partly to improve our -mongrel Arabic. They are good subjects for interrogation, with a nice -sense of humour—indulged often at your expense—and a knack of getting -behind the mind of the questioner. They excel, too, in the furnishing -of examples in illustration of answers to questions about custom and -usage in Egypt. The best conversationalists, by far, are the native -police sergeants, who are chosen a good deal for their intelligence -and mental alertfulness. Get a police sergeant into your tent after -tea, and you have a fruitful evening before you. He readily discusses -Mohammedanism, and Egyptian history and peoples, and local geography -and customs, and is as pleased to discuss as you to start him. The -intelligent Arab in British employ is a revelation in intellectual -freshness and open-mindedness. He never speaks in formula, and is -clearly astonished at the want of intellectual curiosity in many of his -interlocutors.</p> - -<p>The men sleep in bell-tents—some in the sand; others, more flush of -piastres, on a species of matting supplied by the native weavers. Sand -may be warm and comfortable enough in itself, but it breeds vermin -prolifically, specialising in fleas. And at midnight you will see an -unhappy infested fellow squatting, roused from sleep because of their -importunity, conducting a search by candle-light, engaged in much the -same business as his Simian ancestors; the difference is that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[Pg 29]</span> whereas -they were too strong-minded to be disturbed in their sleep by any such -trifle, his search is mostly nocturnal—though not exclusively so; -and, moreover, in place of their merely impatient gibbering, he speaks -with eloquence and consecutiveness, often in quite sustained periods, -logically constructed and glowing with purple patches.... The Medical -Officer has got a paragraph inserted in camp routine orders about a -bathing parade on Fridays, compelling a complete ablution. But what -avails cold water, once a week? Most men, however, have been known to -bathe more often.</p> - -<p>The military Medical Officer in this country is as considerable a -personage as the medicine-man amongst the American Indians. In a land -where the rainfall is not worth mentioning, and the sun is hot, and the -natural drainage poor, and sanitation little considered by the natives, -he is a man whose word in camp is law. He speaks almost daily, through -camp orders or through pamphlets of his own compiling, imperative words -of warning, and in the daily camp inspection the Commandant is his -mere satellite. "Avoid," says he (in effect) in his fifth philippic -against dirt, "the incontinent consumption of fruit unpeeled and -raw or unwashed vegetables. Therefrom proceed dysentery, enteritis, -Mediterranean fever, parasitic diseases, and all manner of Egyptian -scourges. Would you fly the plagues of Egypt, abhor the Arab hawker -and the native beer-shop." Certain quarters are hygienically declared -"out of bounds." They include "all liquor-shops and cafés, except -those specified hereafter ..."; the village of Abbassieh; the village -adjoining the Tombs of the Caliphs (the most squalid in Cairo). It<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[Pg 30]</span> is -for other reasons than hygienic that the gardens of the Sultan's palace -at Koubbeh and the Egyptian State-railways are placed out of bounds too.</p> - -<p>Men scarcely need go to Cairo for the satisfaction of their most -fastidious wants. The regimental institute receives camp-rent from -grocer, haberdasher, keeper of restaurants, vendor of rifle-covers, -barber, boot-repairer, tailor, and proprietor of the wet-canteen.</p> - -<p>We get precious and intermittent mails from Australia. Their delivery -is somewhat irregular. That is no fault of our friends. What may be the -fault of our friends is an ultimate scarcity of letters. One has read -of the ecstasies of satisfied longing with which the exile in Labrador -reads his half-yearly home mail. If friends in Australia knew fully the -elation their gentle missives inspire here, they would write with what -might become for them a monotonous regularity. The man who gets a fair -budget on mail-day hankers after no leave that night.</p> - -<p>Sabbath morning in the Egyptian desert breaks calm; there is no -before-breakfast parade. The sergeants set the example of lying a -little after waking, as at home. Through the tent door, as you lie, -you can see the sun rise over the undulating field of sand. The long -stone Arab prison, standing away towards the sun in sombre isolation, -is sharply defined against the ruddy east. The sand billows redden, -easily taking the glow of the dawn; and the hills of rock in the south, -which look down over Cairo, catch the level rays until their rich brown -burns. A fresh breeze from the heart of the desert, pure as the morning -wind of the ocean, rustles the fly and invites you out, until you can -lie no longer. Throwing on your great-coat, you saunter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[Pg 31]</span> with a towel, -professedly making for the shower-baths, but careless of the time you -take to get there, so gentle is the morning and so mysteriously rich -the glory of Heliopolis, glittering like the morning star, and so -spacious the rosy heaven reflecting the sun-laved sand.</p> - -<p>You dawdle over dressing in a way that is civilian. By the time these -unregimental preliminaries to breakfast are over, the mess is calling; -and thereafter is basking in the sun beneath the wall of the mess-hut -with the pipes gently steaming, reading over the morning war-news. -The news is cried about the camp on Sunday more clamorously than on -any other day: Friday is the Mohammedan Sabbath. Sunday brings forth -special editions of the dailies, and all the weeklies beside. The -soldier is the slave of habit, and the Sunday morning is instinctively -unsullied. Even horse-play is more or less disused. The men are content -to bask and smoke.</p> - -<p>At 9.15 the "Fall-in" sounds for parade for Divine service. Columns -from all quarters converge quietly on a point where the Chaplain's -desk and tiny organ rest in the sand. By 9.30 the units have massed -in a square surrounding them and are standing silently at ease. The -Chaplain-Colonel whirrs up in his car. He salutes the Commandant and -announces the Psalm. Thousands of throats burst into harmonious praise, -and the voice of the little organ, its leading chord once given, is -lost in the lusty concert. The lesson is read; the solemn prayers for -men on the Field of Battle are offered: no less solemn is the petition -for Homes left behind; the full-throated responses are offered. The -Commandant resumes momentary authority. He com<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[Pg 32]</span>mands them to sit down; -they are in number about five thousand. The Chaplain bares his head, -steps upon his dais, and reclining upon the sands of Egypt the men -listen to the Gospel, much as the Israelites may have heard the Word of -God from the bearded patriarch—even upon these very sands.</p> - -<p>At no stage in the worship of the God of Battles is the authority of -military rank suppressed. The parade which is assembled to worship -Him that maketh wars to cease is never permitted to be unmindful of -a Major. One despises proverbial philosophy in general, but herein -the reader may see, if he will, a kind of comment on the truism that -Heaven helps those that help themselves. Colonels and Majors are part -of the means whereby we hope to win. The persistence of military rank -throughout Divine worship is the implicit registering of a pledge to do -our part. There is nothing in us of the unthinking optimist who says it -will all come out well and that we cannot choose but win....</p> - -<p>As the Chaplain offers prayer a regiment of Egyptian Lancers gallops -past with polished accoutrements and glittering lance-heads for a -field-day in the desert. Bowed heads are raised, and suppressed -comments of admiration go round, and the parson says <i>Amen</i> alone.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[Pg 33]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Section_B_CAIRO"><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—CAIRO</h2> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Ib">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">ON LEAVE IN CAIRO</p> - - -<p>It is not so long ago as to render it untrue now that Dean Stanley -said, looking down from the Citadel: "Cairo is not the ghost of the -dead Egyptian Empire, nor anything like it."</p> - -<p>The interval elapsed since that reflection was uttered has, indeed, -only deepened its truth. Cairo is becoming more modern every season. -The "booming" of Cairo as a winter resort for Europeans was begun at -the opening of the Canal by the Khedive Ismail. His ambition was the -transforming of Cairo into a kind of Paris of Africa. The effort has -not died with him. It has persisted with the official-set and their -visitors. The result now is that in half an hour's ride you may pass -from those monuments of antiquity, the Sphinx and the Pyramid of -Cheops, in a modern tram-car, along a route which is neither ancient -nor modern, into a city which blends in a most amazing fashion Europe -of to-day with Egypt of a very long time past. There are wheels within -wheels: at the foot of the Great Pyramid are crowded shanties and -taverns such as you might enter in a poorer Melbourne Street or on a -new-found gold-field; and the intensity of the contradiction in Cairo -itself baffles description.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[Pg 34]</span></p> - -<p>Cairo has been so accurately portrayed in every aspect with the pen -that it seems presumptuous to attempt to reproduce even impressions, -much less relate facts. One prefers, of course, if he does attempt to -do either, to give impressions rather than facts. Any guide-book will -give you facts. And the reader who demands a sort of Foster-Frazer -tabulation of facts is analogous to those unhappy readers of romance -who rank incident above characterisation.</p> - -<p>What one feels he must say, chiefly, is that it is the living rather -than the dead in Cairo that attract most strongly. You go to the Museum -or stand beside the sarcophagus of the King's Chamber in the Great -Pyramid once, and again; not because it is conventionally fitting, but -because that conventional appropriateness rests upon a broad and deep -psychology: these places have their hold upon you. But incomparably -stronger is that which draws you times without number to the bazaars. -"Fool!" says Teufelsdröckh. "Why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy -antiquarian fervour, to gaze on the stone Pyramids of Geeza, or the -clay ones of Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and -inert, looking over the desert, foolishly enough, for the last three -thousand years...."</p> - -<p>A half-day in the bazaars I would not exchange for a whole wilderness -of Sphinxes. You may go twice and thrice before the Sphinx, but there -comes a time when there is no place for you but the ebb and flow of the -human tide in the narrow streets; when you spend all your leave there, -and are content to commend the venerable dead and their mausolea to the -Keeper of Personality for ever.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[Pg 35]</span></p> - -<p>I dare not enter on the multiplicity of the charm of the bazaars: more -accurately, I cannot. The dazzling incongruity of vendors and of wares -under the over-meeting structures multiplies multiplicity. They move -and cry up and down classified bazaars. A vociferous Arab hawks a cow -for sale through the boot-bazaar; the delicious Arabian perfumes of -the picturesque scent bazaar are fouled by a crier of insanitary food; -Jews, French, Italians, Tunisians, Greeks, and Spaniards jostle each -other through the alleys of the tent bazaar, braziers' bazaar, bazaar -of the weavers, book bazaar—bazaar of any commodity or industry you -care to name; and the proprietors and artificers squat on their tiny -floors, maybe four feet square. In the busy forenoon, looking up the -Mooski, it is as though the wizard had been there: almost you look -for the djin to materialise. Rich colour is splashed over the stalls -and the throng; there is music in the jingle of wares and the hum of -voices; and the sober and graceful mosque, its rich colour gently -mellowed by centuries of exposure, lifts a minaret above the animation. -If this is the complexity of the broad view, what contrasts are thrust -at you from the detail of men and things, as you saunter through!</p> - -<p>Here in the Mooski is the micro-Cairo—Cairo bodied forth in little, -except for the intruding official set and the unrestrained quarter of -the brothels. But less truthfully might you set out to picture the real -Cairo with the former than without the latter. Any account which passes -without note the incessant trade—in the high-noon as under the garish -night-lights—driven by the women of Cairo will altogether misrepresent -the city. It is with a hideous propriety that she should<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[Pg 36]</span> stand -partly on the site of Old Babylon. She is a city which, in perhaps -her most representative quarter, lives in and for lasciviousness. The -details of that trade in its thoroughgoing haunts are no more to be -described than looked upon. There is no shame; sexual transactions are -conducted as openly and on as regular and well-established a footing -of bargaining and market values as the sale of food and drink. Meat -and drink, indeed, they must furnish to much of the population, and -its alimentary properties are to be seen at every corner and in every -gutter in hideousness of feature and disease unutterable. Not Paris, -nor Constantinople, approaches in shamelessness the conduct of venereal -industry in Cairo. All the pollution of the East would seem to drain -into their foul pool. That which is nameless is not viewless. I speak -that I do know and testify that I have seen. The phrase, the act, every -imagination of the heart of man (and of woman), is impregnated with the -filth of hell.</p> - -<p>The official set you will see disporting itself on the piazza at -Shepheard's or the Continental every afternoon. The official set -is also the fashionable set, and it or its sojourning friends—or -both—make up the monied set. I had no opportunity of going to a -race-meeting at Gezireh; but it should come near to holding its own in -"tone" with the great race-day at Caulfield.</p> - -<p>Shepheard's is an habitual rendezvous of British officers at any time. -The officers of the permanent army at Cairo assemble there, and the -general orders are posted in the entrance-hall as regularly as at -the Kasr-el-Nil Barracks. It is at Shepheard's that officers most do -congregate. According to a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[Pg 37]</span> tacit agreement—extended later -into an inescapable routine order—none lower in rank than a Subaltern -enters there.</p> - -<p>Otherwise, everywhere is the soldier; there is nothing he does not -see. Everything is so utterly new that a day in Cairo is a continual -voyage of discovery; and if he does no more than perambulate without -an objective, it is doubtful if he has not the best of it. Fools and -blind there are who look on everything from a gharry, fast-trotting. -God help them! How can such a visitor hope to know the full charm -of manner and voice and attire of the vendor of sherbet or sweet -Nile-water if he move behind a pair of fast-trotting greys? How may -he hope to know the inner beauties of a thoroughgoing bargaining-bout -between two Arabs, when he catches only a fragment of dialogue and -gesture in whisking past? What does he know of the beggars at the city -gate in the old wall?—except how to evade them. Little he sees of the -delicate tracery of the mosque; no time to wander over ancient Arab -houses with their deserted harems, floor and walls in choice mosaic, -rich stained windows, with all the symbolism of the manner of living -disposed about the apartment. It is denied to him to poke about the -native bakeries, to converse with salesmen, to look in on the Schools -chanting <i>Al Koran</i>, to watch the manual weavers, tent-makers, and -artificers of garments and ornaments. One cannot too much insist that -it is a sad waste of opportunity to go otherwise than slowly and afoot, -and innocent of "programmes," "schemes," <i>agenda</i>—even of set routes.</p> - -<p>The alleged romance of Cairo is alleged only. Cairo is intensely -matter-of-fact. In Carlyle's study of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[Pg 38]</span> Mahomet you read: "This night -the watchman on the streets of Cairo, when he cries 'Who goes?' will -hear from the passenger, along with his answer, 'There is no God but -<i>God</i>.'—'<i>Allah akbar, Islam</i>,' sounds through the souls, and whole -daily existence, of these dusky millions."</p> - -<p>This is romance read into Cairo by Carlyle. The watchman gets far -other rejoinders to his cry this night—answers the more hideous for -Carlyle's other-worldly supposition. Romance is gone out of Cairo, -except in a distorted mental construction of the city. Cairo is not -romantic; it is picturesque, and picturesque beyond description.</p> - -<p>Alfresco cafés are ubiquitous. Their frequency and pleasantness suggest -that the heat of Australia would justify their establishment there in -very large numbers. Chairs and tables extend on to the footpaths. The -people of all nations lounge there in their fez caps, drinking much, -talking more, gambling most of all. Young men from the University -abound; much resemble, in their speech and manner, the young men of -any other University. They deal in witty criticism of the passengers, -but show a readiness in repartee with them of which only an Arab -undergraduate is capable.</p> - -<p>The gambling of the cafés is merely symbolic of the spirit of gambling -which pervades the city. It is incipient in the Arab salesman's love -of bargaining for its own sake. The commercial dealings of Egypt, -wholesale and retail alike, are said to want fixity in a marked degree. -Downright British merchants go so far as to call it by harder names -than the "spirit of gambling." The guides are willing to bet you -anything on the smallest provocation. Lottery tickets<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[Pg 39]</span> are hawked about -the streets like sweetmeats; there are stalls which sell nothing but -lottery tickets, and thrive upon the sale.</p> - -<p>You will see much, sitting in these cafés at your ease. Absinthe and -coffee are the drinks. Coffee prevails, served black in tiny china -cups, with a glass of cold water. It is a delicious beverage: the -coffee fiend is not uncommon. Cigarettes are the habitual smoke in the -streets. At the cafés you call for a hubble-bubble. They stand by the -score in long racks. The more genteel (and hygienic) customers carry -their own mouth-pieces, but it is not reckoned a sporting practice.</p> - -<p>You cannot sit five minutes before the vendors beset you with edibles, -curios, prawns, oranges, sheep's trotters, cakes, and post-cards. The -boys who would polish your boots are the most noisome. The military -camps in the dusty desert have created an industry amongst them. A -dozen will follow you a mile through the streets. If you stop, your leg -is pulled in all directions, and nothing but the half-playful exercise -of your cane upon the sea of ragged backs saves you from falling in.</p> - -<p>The streets swarm with guides, who apparently believe either that you -are inevitably bound for the Pyramids or incapable of walking through -the bazaars unpiloted. And a guide would spoil any bazaar, though at -the Pyramids he may be useful. If you suggest you are your own guide, -the dog suggests an assistant. They are subtle and hard to be rid of, -and frequently abusive when you are frank. The hawkers and solicitors -of the streets of Cairo have acquired English oaths, parrot-wise. The -smallest boy has got<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[Pg 40]</span> this parasitic obscenity with a facility that -beats any Australian newsboy in a canter.</p> - -<p>There is a frequent electric tramway service in Cairo. It is very -convenient and very dirty, and moderately slow, and most informally -conducted. The spirit of bargaining has infected even the collector -of fares. Journeying is informal in other ways; only in theory is -it forbidden (in French, Arabic, Greek, and English) to ride on the -footboard. You ride where you can. Many soldiers you will see squatting -on the roofs. And if the regulations about riding on footboards were -enforced the hawkers of meats and drinks and curios would not plague -you with their constant solicitation. The boot-boys carry on their -trade furtively between the seats: often they ride a mile, working -hard at a half-dozen boots. The conductor objects only to the extent -of a facetious cuff, which he is the last to expect to take effect. -Both motorman and conductor raise the voice in song: an incongruous -practice to the earnest-working Briton. But the Cairene Arab who takes -life seriously is far to seek. There is nothing here of the struggling -earnestness of spirit of the old Bedouin Arabs to whom Mahomet -preached. The Cairene is a carnal creature, flippant and voluptuous, -with more than a touch of the Parisian. You'll find him asleep at -his shop-door at ten in the morning, and gambling earlier still. -Well-defined articulation is unknown amongst the Arabs here, except in -anger and in fight. They do not open their teeth either to speak or to -sing. The sense of effort is everywhere wanting—in their slouching -gait, their intonation; their very writing drags and trails itself -along. But what are you due to expect in a country where the heat -blisters most of the year;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[Pg 41]</span> where change of temperature and of physical -outlook are foreign—a country of perennially wrinkled skins, where -a rousing thunder-storm is unknown, and where the physical outlook -varies only between the limits of sand and rock? The call for comment -would arise if physical inertia were other than the rule. And of the -Anglo-Egyptian, what may you expect?...</p> - -<p>One has not seen Cairo unless he has wandered both by day and by night. -So, he knows at least two different worlds. To analyse the contrast -would take long. It is hard to know which part of a day charms you the -most. The afternoon is not as the morning; the night is far removed -from either. Go deeper, and you may get more subtle divisions of -twelve hours' wandering than these; with accuracy of discrimination -you may even raise seven Dantean circles in your day's progress. The -safe course, then, is to "make a day of it." Tramp it, after an early -breakfast, over the desert to the car, and plod back past the guard -after midnight. You'll turn in exhausted, but the richer in your -experience (at the expense of a few piastres) by far more than any gold -can buy.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[Pg 42]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIb">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE MOOSKI</p> - - -<p>The camp at Tel-el-Kebir is a good camp, as camp sites go. None the -less exhilarating for that is the prospect of leave in Cairo. After -retiring, you spend most of the night before you go in planning the -most judicious economy of the few hours you will have in the great -city. And so you wake up short of sleep—for the train leaves soon -after sunrise—and curse yourself for an incontinent fool, no better -than some mercurial youngster who cannot sleep for thinking of the -party on the next day.</p> - -<p>But the journey revives you. How deliciously it revives you!—and how -generously! as you skim across that green delta, sleeping under the -dew, with the mist-wreaths winding about the quiet palm-fronds. The -sweet-water canal runs silently beside you all the way between its -clover-grown tow-paths, without a ripple. The buffalo stand motionless -in the lush berseem. The Egyptian State railways are the smoothest in -the world. Two hours' swift gliding through these early-morning haunts -of quietness retrieves your loss of sleep, and would reinforce you for -a day in any city.</p> - -<p>As you approach Cairo you find the delta has wakened. The mists have -departed, disclosing the acres of colour in the blossom of the crops. -The road beside the Canal is peopled. The fellaheen and his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[Pg 43]</span> family -are moving along to work on donkey and buffalo and camel. The women in -their black robes and yashmaks are moving to the dipping-places in the -Canal, pitcher on head, walking with a grace and erectness that does -you good to look on. Some are already drawing, knee-deep in the cool -water; or emerging, and showing to the world, below the freely raised -robe, that of whose outline they have no call to be ashamed. Some of -the labourers are already at work, hoeing in squads under an overseer -or guiding the primitive Vergilian plough behind its yoke of oxen. -The blindfold yak has started his weary, interminable round at the -water-wheel. The camels are looping along with their burdens of fruit -and berseem, and the tiny donkeys amble under their disproportionate -loads, sweeping the ground; they are hardly to be seen; in the distance -they show merely a jogging hillock of green. By nine o'clock, as you -race through the outskirts of Cairo, you see an occasional waiting man -asleep full-stretch on the sod; the hour is early for sleeping. On the -suburban roads are moving towards the centre venerable sheikhs, squat -on the haunches of their well-groomed donkeys; merchants lying back -in their elaborate gharries; gabbling peasants driving their little -company of beasts; English and French officials, carefully dressed, -smoking the morning cigarette.</p> - -<p>Shortly the Pyramids emerge on the eastern sky-line, and over the -thickening house-tops rises the splendid relief of the Makattam Hills, -with the stately citadel perched on the fringe, looking down on the -City under its soaring minarets.</p> - -<p>You had formed plans for the economy of the day;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[Pg 44]</span> they are all -dissipated when you step from the train and realise yourself within -a mile of the bazaars. Their call is irresistible. The Pyramids, the -mosques, the museum—all can wait, to be visited if there is time for -it. You enter a gharry and alight at the mouth of the Mooski. It is -palpably a mouth to that seething network, as plainly defined (as you -gaze up Mooski Street from the Square) as the entrance to an industrial -exhibition.</p> - -<p>There is a crowd of men in the early stages of Mooski Street, whose -business, day and night, is to conduct. They lurk privily for the -innocent, like the wicked men in the Book of Psalms. The guides have -come so much into disrepute that they mostly hasten to tell you they -are not guides. "What are you, then?"—"I am student, sair"; or "I am -agent, sair"; or "I am your friend; I do not wish for money." You'll -meet such self-abnegation nowhere on earth as in the Mooski. Those -who do own to being guides will never name a price. "How much do you -want?"—"I leave that to you, sair. If you are pleased, you give me -what you think." ... This is all very subtle: the man who is agent -will get his commission and tender for baksheesh for having put you -in the way of purchase (whereas he is in league with the rogue who -fleeces you in the sale). The student shows no sort of ideal scholastic -contempt for lucre; it's of degrees of gullibility that he's chiefly -a student—and an astute one, gathering where he has not strawed. The -man who is your friend and wouldn't think of money turns out a mere -liar, downright—who does care, greatly. These are the subtlest ways -of approaching you and broaching the subject of a tour. The rascal may -simply fall into<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[Pg 45]</span> step and ask the time of day and proceed to talk -of the weather—merely glad of your company—and abruptly close the -half-mile walk with a demand for cash, like any guide requisitioned. In -short, it's to be doubted whether in any city men live on their wits -more artfully and unscrupulously than in the Cairene bazaars.</p> - -<p>As a practice, it's wise to decline all offers to accompany—as a -practice; but first time through it's wise to accept. No one can hope -to unravel the tangle of the Mooski geography unaided or by chance. -The labyrinth of overshadowed alleys is as confusing as the network of -saps near the firing-line. Take a guide at your first going. If he does -no more than show "the bright points" in an experience of the bazaars, -he has earned his exorbitant fee. After that, refuse him, which you -will never do without harsh discourtesy. A mere "No, thank you," is as -nothing. "Yallah minhenna"—or its equivalent—uttered in your most -quarrelsome manner, is the least of which he will begin to take notice.</p> - -<p>The best beginning is through the narrow doorway off Mooski Street -into the spice bazaar. Of so unpretentious a doorway you never would -suspect the purpose without a guide, and that's the first argument -for tolerating him. Can such a needle's-eye lead to anything worth -entering? You arrive in an area where the air is voluptuous with the -scent of all the spices of the East—something more delicious than even -the scent bazaar, and less enervating. All the purchasers are women, -moving round behind their yashmaks. They boil and beat the spices to -grow fat, and to be fat is a national feminine aspiration. The boys -are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[Pg 46]</span> pounding the wares in large stone mortars, crushing out the -sweetness, which pervades like an incense.</p> - -<p>Appropriately enough, it is but a step into the scent bazaar proper, -and many of the purchasers there are (inappropriately) men. That the -men should wear and hanker after perfumes to this degree is one phase -of Egyptian degeneracy. The vendors squat in their narrow cubicles -lined with shelf upon shelf of gaily-coloured phials. They invite you -to sit down. Coffee is called for, and whilst that is preparing you -must taste the sweets of their wares on your tunic-sleeve. Bottle by -bottle comes down; he shakes them and rubs the stopper across your -forearm: attar of roses, jasmine, violet, orange-blossom, banana, and -the rest of them, until you are fairly stupid with the medley of sweet -fumes. You saunter off rubbing your sleeve upon your breeches, and -wondering what your comrades in arms will say if they catch you wearing -the odours of the lord of the harem. You have a tiny flask of attar of -roses upon you to send home to its appropriate wearer.</p> - -<p>You move on to the tarbush bazaar; Tunis bazaar, where the fine -Tunisian scarves of the guides are sold; slipper bazaar, showing piles -of the red canoe-shoe of the Soudanese hotel-waiter, and of the yellow -heelless slipper of the lounging Egyptian; blue bazaar, where the women -buy their dress-stuffs—their gaudy prints and silks, all the rough -material for their garments. No Australian flapper can hold a candle -to them in their excited keenness of selection; and there is the added -excitement of bargaining. The feminine vanities of adornment are deep -and confirmed in Cairo. To see the Cairene aristocrats purchasing -dress-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[Pg 47]</span>material, go to Stein's or Roberts's, Hughes's or Philips's or -Senouadi's, or to any of the other big houses, in the middle afternoon. -It's there, and not at any vulgar promenading (for they all drive), -that you see the fine women of Cairo. Mostly French they are, and -beautiful indeed, dressed as aptly and with as much artistry as in -Alexandria; and that is saying the last word. There you will see a -galaxy of beauty—not in any facetious or popular sense, but actually. -It's a privilege to stand an hour in any such house and watch the -procession: a privilege that does you good. The Frenchwomen of Cairo -perform very naturally and capably the duty of matching their beauty. -They have an unerring æsthetic sense, and evidently realise well enough -that to dress well and harmoniously is a form of art almost as pure as -the painting of pictures.</p> - -<p>But we were in the Mooski, where the art is not so purely practised. -The Egyptian women do not dress beautifully nor harmoniously. They -dress with extreme ugliness; their colours outrage the sense at -every turn. Only the extreme beauty of their features and clarity of -complexion save them from repulsiveness. The glaring fabrics of the -blue bazaar express well the Egyptian feminine taste in colour.</p> - -<p>The book bazaar leads up towards the Mosque al Azhar. The books are -all hand-made. Here is the paradise of the librarian who wails for -the elimination of machine-made rubbish of the modern Press. At any -such work the Egyptian mechanic excels in patience and thoroughness. -Making books by hand is, in fact, an ideal form of labour for him, as -is hand-weaving, which still prevails, and the designing and chiselling -of the silver and brass work. <i>Al Koran</i> is here in all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[Pg 48]</span> stages of -production; and with propriety there is a lecture-hall in the midst -of the book bazaar, which is, so to speak, "within" the Al Azhar -University close by. A lecture is being delivered. The speaker squats -on a tall stool and delivers himself with vigour to the audience seated -on the mat-strewn floor. Well dressed and well featured they are, -jotting notes rather more industriously than in most Colonial halls of -learning, or listening with an intensity that is almost pained.</p> - -<p>The Moslem University in the Mosque al Azhar has a fine old front -designed with a grace and finished in a mellowness of colour that any -Oxonian College might respect. You show a proper respect—whether you -will or no—by donning the capacious slippers over your boots, as in -visiting any other mosque, and enter the outer court, filled with the -junior students. The hum and clatter rises to a mild roar. All are -seated in circular groups, usually about a loud and gesticulating -teacher; and where there is no teacher the students are swaying gently -in a rhythmic accompaniment to the drone with which <i>Al Koran</i> is being -got by heart. There is no concerted recitation or repetition: every -man for himself. That, perhaps, helps to visualise the swaying mass of -students and to conceive the babel of sound. There is no roof above -that tarbushed throng. This is the preparatory school. The University -proper, beyond the partition, containing the adult students, alone -is roofed. Here they are all conning in the winter sunshine. Little -attention is given to visitors; most students are droning with closed -eyes, presumably to avert distraction. Few are aware of your presence. -That consciousness is betrayed chiefly by a furtively whispered -"Baksheesh!"—the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[Pg 49]</span> national watchword of Egypt—uttered with a strange -incongruity in a temple of learning—a temple literally.</p> - -<p>Beyond, in the adult schools, you will hear no mention of baksheesh, -except from the high-priest of the Temple, the sheikh of the -University, who demands it with dignity, as due in the nature of a -temple-offering, but appropriated (you know) by himself and for his -own purposes. Any knowledge of a British University renders this place -interesting indeed by sheer virtue of comparison. The Koran is the -only textbook—of literature, of history, of ethics, and philosophy in -general: a wonderful book, indeed, and a reverend. What English book -will submit successfully to such a test?...</p> - -<p>Here is the same droning by heart and the same rhythmic, absorbed -accompaniment, but in a less degree. The lecturer is more frequent -and more animated in gesture and more loud and dogmatic in utterance. -Declamation of the most vigorous kind is the method with him, and rapt -attention with the undergraduates. The lecturers are invariably past -middle age, and with flowing beards, and as venerable in feature as -the Jerusalem doctors. The groups of students are small—as a rule, -four or five. Yet the teachers speak as loud as to an audience of two -hundred. The method here is that of the University <i>semina</i>: that is to -say, small, and seemingly select, groups of students; frequent, almost -incessant, interrogation by the student; and discussion that is very -free and well sustained. The class-rooms, defined by low partitions, go -by race, each with its national lecturers.</p> - -<p>Within the building are the tombs of former sheikhs, enclosed and -looked upon with reverence. These<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[Pg 50]</span> approximate to tablets to pious -founders. The sheikh will tell you that, as he puts it, the Sultan -pays for the education of all students: he is their patron. That is -to say, in plain English, the University is State-controlled and -State-supported. Moreover, the students sleep there. You may see their -bedding piled on rafters. It is laid in the floor of the lecture-room -at night.</p> - -<p>When you have delivered over baksheesh to the sheikh and to the -conductor and to the attendants who remove your slippers at exit, you -move down to the brass and silver bazaar. Here is some of the most -characteristic work you'll see in Egypt. Every vessel, every bowl -and tray and pot, is Egyptian in shape or chiselled design, or both. -As soon as you enter you are offered tea, and the bargaining begins, -although <i>Prix Fixé</i> is the ubiquitous sign. It is in the fixed-price -shops that the best bargains are struck, which is at one with the -prevailing Egyptian disregard for truth. The best brass bazaars have -their own workshops attached. Labour is obviously cheap—cheap in any -case, but especially cheap when you consider that at least half the -workers in brass and silver are the merest boys. Whatever may be the -Egyptian judgment in colour, the Egyptian instinct for form is sound; -for these boys of eight and ten execute elaborate and responsible work -in design. They are entrusted with "big jobs," and they do them well. -There is almost no sketching-out of the design for chisel work; the -youngster takes his tool and eats-out the design without preliminaries. -And much of it makes exacting demands upon the sense of symmetry. This -is one of the most striking evidences of the popular artistic<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[Pg 51]</span> sense. -The national handwriting is full of grace; the national music is of -highly developed rhythm; and the national feeling for form and symmetry -is unimpeachable.</p> - -<p>You need more self-control in these enchanting places than the -confirmed drinker in the neighbourhood of a <i>pub</i>. Unless you restrain -yourself with an iron self-discipline, you'll exhaust all your -<i>feloose</i>. The event rarely shows you to emerge with more than your -railway-fare back to camp. But under your arm are treasures that are -priceless—except in the eyes of the salesman. You trek to the post -office and send off to Australia wares that are a joy for ever. And -there you find on the same errand officers and privates and Sisters. -There is a satisfied air about them, as of a good deed done and money -well spent, as who should say: "I may squander time, and sometimes I -squander money and energy in this Land; but in this box is that which -will endure when peace has descended, and purses are tattered, and -Egypt is a memory at the Antipodes."</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[Pg 53]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II">BOOK II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">GALLIPOLI</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[Pg 55]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Ic">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE JOURNEY</p> - - -<p>We were given twelve hours to collect bag and baggage and clear out -from Abbassieh. It was a night of alarms and excursions. In the midst -of it all came a home-mail. That was one of many occasions on which -one in His Majesty's service is forced to postpone the luxury of -perusal. Sometimes a mail will come in and be distributed just before -the "Fall-in" is blown. This means carrying about the budget unopened -and burning a hole in the pocket for a half-day—and more. In this -case the mail was read in the train next morning. We were out of camp -at sunrise, with the waggons ahead. By eight o'clock we had taken -leave of this fair-foul, repulsive yet fascinating city, and were -sweeping across the waving rice-fields of the delta towards the city of -Alexandria.</p> - -<p>We arrived about mid-day. The urgency of the summons had justified -the inference that we should embark directly. Not so. We entered what -was technically known as a rest camp at Gabbari. Rest camps had been -established at various points about the city to accommodate temporarily -the British and French expeditions then arriving daily <i>en route</i> to -the Dardanelles. The time was not yet ripe for a landing. Here was the -opportunity to stretch the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[Pg 56]</span> legs—of both men and horses, and of the -mules from Spain.</p> - -<p>At no stage even of the classical occupation of Egypt—or -thereafter—could the inner harbour of Alexandria have given more -vividly the impression of the imminence of war. It was crammed with -transports, ranged in long lines, with here and there a battle-cruiser -between. As many as could come alongside the Quay at one time were -busily disembarking troops (mostly French), which streamed down the -gangways in their picturesque uniforms and moved off in column through -the city to the camps on the outskirts. The moral effect of such -processions upon the Egyptians could hardly be over-estimated. Long -queues of Arab scows ranged along the railway wharf, taking ammunition -and moving off to the troopships. Day and night the harbour was dotted -with launches tearing from transport to transport bearing officers of -the General Staff. As for the city—the streets, the restaurants, the -theatres and music-halls, fairly teemed with soldiers; and civilian -traffic constantly gave way before the gharries of officers—and of men.</p> - -<p>Many French were in our camp. There was something admirable in them, -hard to define. There was a sober, almost pathetic, restraint amongst -them—beside the Australians, which was as much as to suggest that what -they had seen and known through their proximity to the War in Europe -had had its effect. It could hardly be temperamental in the vivacious -French. They were not maudlin; and on rare occasions, infected by the -effervescing spirits of the Australians, would come into the mess-hut -at night and dance or chant the <i>Marseillaise</i> in unison with the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[Pg 57]</span> -melody of a French accordion. But in general they seemed too much -impressed with the nature and the possibilities of their mission for -jollification. They showed a simple and honest affection amongst -themselves. The Australians may—and do—have it, but it is concealed -under their knack of mutual banter and of argument. The French love -each other and do not shame to show it. Riding in the car a man would -fling his arm about his friend; in the streets they would link arms to -stroll. Very pathetic and very sincere and affectionate are the French -fighters.</p> - -<p>The evenings off duty were precious and well earned and well spent. -Little can be seen of the city at night, except its people. The best -way of seeing them as they are is to take two boon companions from the -camp, ride to town, and instal yourselves in an Egyptian café for the -night, containing none but Egyptians, except yourselves; invite three -neighbours to join you in coffee and a hubble-bubble. They'll talk -English and are glad of your company. At the cost of a few piastres (a -pipe costs one, and lasts two hours, and a cup of coffee a half) you -have their conversation and the finest of smokes and cup after cup of -the best Mocha. This is no mean entertainment.</p> - -<p>This kind of thing developed into a nocturnal habit, until the Italian -opera-season opened at the Alhambra. We sat with the gods for five -piastres ("a bob"). The gods were worth that in themselves to sit -amongst. The gallery is always interesting, even in Australia; but -where the gods are French, Russian, Italian, English, Jewish, Greek, -and Egyptian, the intervals become almost as interesting as the acts, -and there is little temptation to saunter out between them....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[Pg 58]</span></p> - -<p>But all theatres and all cafés were for us cut short abruptly by the -order to embark.</p> - -<p>The refugee camp at Alexandria made its contribution. One had been -galled daily by the sight of strong men trapesing to and from the city -or lounging in the quarters provided by a benevolent Government. This -resentment was in a sense illogical: they had their wives and their -babies, and were no more due to fight than many strong Britishers -bound to remain at home. But the notion of refugee-men constantly got -dissociated from that of their dependents. It was chiefly the thought -of virile idleness under Government almsgiving that troubled you. -Eventually it troubled them too; for they enlisted almost in a body and -went to Cairo for training. The Government undertook to look after the -women.</p> - -<p>We found them fellow-passengers on our trooper. They were mostly young, -all from Jaffa, in Palestine. Seemingly they marry young and are -fathers at twenty. They brought three hundred mules with them, and were -called the Zion Mule Transport Company. It is a curious name. They were -there to carry water and food to the firing-line.</p> - -<p>Their wives and mothers incontinently came to the wharf to see them -leave. Poor fellows! Poor women! They wailed as the women of Israel -wail in Scripture, as only Israelitish women <i>can</i> wail. The Egyptian -police kept them back with a simulated harshness, and supported them -from falling. Many were physically helpless. Their men broke into a -melancholy chant as we moved off, and sustained it, as the ship passed -out over the laughing water, until we reached the outer-harbour. They -got frolicsome soon, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[Pg 59]</span> forgot their women's weeping. We stood -steadily out into the rich blue Mediterranean. The Zionites fell to -the care of their beasts. By the time the level western rays burned on -the blue we had the geography of the ship, and had ceased speculation -as to the geography of our destination—except in its detail. We knew -we should run up through the Sporades: it was enough for us that we -were about to enter the Eastern theatre of war. That was an absorbing -prospect. To enter the field of this War at any point was a prospect -to set you aglow. But the East had become the cynosure of all eyes. No -one thought much about the sporadic duelling in the frozen West. The -world's interest in the game was centred about the Black Sea entrance. -It was the Sick Man of Europe in his stronghold that should be watched: -is he to persist in his noisome existence, or is the community of -Europe to be cleansed of him for ever?</p> - -<p>But before reaching the zone in which an attempt was being made to -decide that we were to thread a course through the magical Archipelago. -All the next day we looked out on the beauty of the water, unbroken -to the horizon. The men of Zion did their work and we took charge of -their fatigues. They cleaned the ship, fed and watered their mules, -and resumed their military training on the boat-deck. The initiative -of the Australian soldier is amazing. Abstractly it is so; but put -him beside a mob from Jaffa (or, better, put him over them) and he is -a masterful fellow. The Jews leap to his command. Our fellows found -a zest in providing that not one unit in the mass should by strategy -succeed in loafing. Diamond cut diamond in every corner of the holds<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[Pg 60]</span> -and the alley-ways. The language of the Australian soldier in repose -is vigorous; put him in charge of fatigue and his lips are touched as -with a live-coal—but from elsewhere than off the altar. He is commonly -charged with poverty in his range of oaths. Never believe it. The boss -and his fatigue were mutually unintelligible—verbally, that is. But -actually, there was no shadow of misunderstanding. Oaths aptly ripped -out are universally intelligible, and oaths here were supplemented with -gesture. There was no injustice done. The Australian is no bully.</p> - -<p>The Jerusalem brigade, though young men, were adults, but adults -strangely childish in their play and conversation. It was with the -eagerness of a child rather than with the earnestness of a man that -they attacked their drill. They knew nothing of military discipline, -even less of military drill. Their sergeant-major made one son of -Israel a prisoner for insubordination. He blubbered like a child. Great -tears coursed down as he was led oft to the "clink." The door closed -after him protesting and entreating. This is at one with the abandoned -wailing of their women.</p> - -<p>Drill must be difficult for them. The instruction was administered -in English; The men, who speak nothing but an admixture of Russian, -Hebrew, German, and Arabic, understood not a word of command or -explanation. They learned by association purely. They made feverish -and exaggerated efforts, and really did well. But of the stability and -deliberative coolness of a learning-man they had not a trace. This -childish method of attack never will make fighters. But they are not to -fight. They are to draw food and water.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[Pg 61]</span> As a matter of form they are -issued with rifles—Mausers taken from the Turks on the Canal.</p> - -<p>At evening of the second day out we got abreast of Rhodes, with -Karpathos on the port-bow. Rhodes stood afar off: would we had -come nearer! The long darkening streak of Karpathos was our real -introduction to the Archipelago. All night we ploughed through the maze -of islands. "Not bad for the old man," said the second-mate next day; -"he's never been here before, and kept going through a muddy night." -The night had been starless. And when morning broke we lay off Chios, -with a horrible tempest brewing in the north.</p> - -<p>A storm was gathering up in the black bosom of Chios. Here were no -smiling wine-clad slopes, no fair Horatian landscape. All that seemed -somehow past. A battle-cruiser lay half a mile ahead. She had been -expecting us, together with two other transports and a hospital-ship in -our wake. A black and snaky destroyer bore down from far ahead, belched -past us, turned in her own length abreast of the transports, flashed -a Morse message to the cruiser across the darkening water, and we -gathered round her. She called up each in turn by semaphore: "Destroyer -will escort you westward"; and left us.</p> - -<p>The journey began again. There was not a breath of wind; no beam -of sunlight. The water was sullen. The islands were black masses, -ill-defined and forbidding. This introduction to the theatre of war was -apt. We were bearing up into the heart of the Sporades in an atmosphere -surcharged and menacing. No storm came. It was the worse for that. Gone -were the golden "isles that crown the Ægean deep" beloved<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[Pg 62]</span> of Byron. -Long strata of smoke from the ships of war lay low over the water, -transecting their shapes.</p> - -<p>After lunch the sun shone out. In the middle afternoon we came west -of Skyros, and left our transports there. They were French: Skyros -is the French base. At the end of the lovely island we turned east -and set our course for Lemnos. It was ten before the lights of Lemnos -twinkled through the blackness. At 10.30 we dropped anchor in the -outer harbour of Mudros Bay. The light on the northern horn turned and -flashed—turned and flashed upon us. Inside the boom a cruiser played -her searchlight, sweeping the zone of entrance. A French submarine -stole under our bows and cried "All's well," and we turned in to sleep.</p> - -<p>We were up before the dawn to verify the conjectures as to land and -water hazarded in the darkness and the cruiser's pencil of light. -At sunrise we moved in through the boom. Here were the signs of war -indeed: a hundred and fifty transports lying at their moorings; a dozen -cruisers before; the tents of the Allies clothing the green slopes.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Lemnos is beautiful. The harbour is long and winds amongst the -uplands. We were anchored beside an islet, flecked with the colour of -wild-flowers blooming as prodigally as the Greeks said they did when -they sailed these seas. The slopes about the shore were clothed with -crops and vines. Behind were grey hills of granite.</p> - -<p>In Mudros we lay a week, waiting, waiting. Let the spot be lovely as -you will, waiting is not good with the sound of the guns coming down on -the wind day and night. Our fifth morning on Lemnos was the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[Pg 63]</span> Sabbath. -We woke to the soft boom of naval guns. Lemnos is a goodish sail from -the straits. The "boom, boom," was a low, soft growl, felt rather than -heard. The day before, at sundown, the first trooper of the fleet had -gone out, with band playing, to the cheering of the cruisers. The -Army and Navy have always in this campaign, shown themselves happily -complementary. A seaplane escorted them out aloft, two cruisers below. -Great was the rejoicing at the beginning of the exodus.</p> - -<p>Next morning we left the mules of Zion and transferred to a store-ship. -She lay two days. We solaced ourselves with bathing in the clear bay -from the ship's side, and basking nude, with our pipes, afterwards in -the pleasant heat of the spring sun; with visits to the shore, where we -wandered into the Greek Church, in size and magnificence of decoration -out of all consonance with its neighbouring villages, and where the -wine of Lemnos might be drunk for a penny a glass; with bargaining at -the boats that drew alongside from the shore, as at Aden, filled with -nuts, figs, dates, Egyptian delight—all the old stock, except Greeks, -who manned them here. The dwellers on Lemnos are all Greeks.... Would -we never move?</p> - -<p>On the seventh day at noon the naval cutter ran alongside. In half an -hour we were moving through the boom. As soon as we had cleared the -south-east corner of the island, Imbros stood out to port, and Tenedos, -our destination, lay dead ahead, under the mountains of Turkey in -Asia. A fresh breeze blew out of the Dardanelles, thunder-laden with -the roar of the guns, and every heave of our bow brought it down more -clear. Before sundown we were abreast of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[Pg 64]</span> Tenedos and had sighted the -aeroplane station and had seen five of the great amphibious planes come -to earth. As we swung round to a view of the straits' mouth, every -eye was strained for the visible signs of what we had been hearing so -long. The straits lay murky under the smoke of three days' firing. The -first flash was sighted—with what a quickening of the pulse! In three -minutes we had the lay of the discharges and the bursts. An attempt was -made to muster a fall-in aft for the first issue of tobacco ration. Not -a man moved! The attempt was postponed until we should have seen enough -of these epoch-making flashes. "We can get tobacco at home—without -paying for it; you don't see cruisers spitting shrapnel every day at -Port Philip!" At length two ranks got formed-up—one for cigarettes -(appropriately, the rear), the front rank for those who smoked pipes. -Oh, degenerates!—the rear was half as long again! Two ounces of -medium-Capstan per man—in tins; four packets of cigarettes: that was -our momentous first issue.</p> - -<p>The bombardment went on, ten miles off. No one wanted tea. At 7.30 the -Major half-ordered a concert aft. Everyone went. It was really a good -concert, almost free of martial songs. But here and there you'd find a -man sneak off to the bows to watch the line of spurting flame in the -north; and many an auditor, looking absently at the singer, knew as -little of the theme as of the havoc those shells were working in the -night.</p> - -<p>We lay three days at Tenedos: so near and yet so far from the forts of -the Dardanelles. We could see two in ruins on the toe of Gallipoli, and -one tottering<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[Pg 65]</span> down the heights of the Asiatic shore at the entrance to -the straits. But the straits ran at a right-angle with the shore under -which we lay. We could see the bombarding fleet lying off the mouth. We -could see them fire, but no result. What more tantalising?</p> - -<p>We lay alongside Headquarters ship, loaded with the Directing Staff. -H.Q. moved up and down, at safe distances, between us and the -firing-line. We were one of an enormously large waiting fleet of -transports and storeships. The impression of war was vivid: here was -this waiting fleet, and tearing up and down the coast were destroyers -and cruisers without number, and aloft, the whirring seaplanes.</p> - -<p>Our moving-in orders came at three on an afternoon. This was the -heart-shaking move; for we were to sail up, beyond the mouth, to an -anchorage off the Anzac position. We were to see in detail everything -that we had, for the last three days, seen as an indistinct whole. -We were to pass immediately behind the firing-line, to test the -speculations we had been making day and night upon what was in -progress, upon the geography of the fighting zone, upon the operations -within the mouth. Every yard was a step farther in our voyage of -discovery.</p> - -<p>The demolitions became plain. The ports on the water's edge had toppled -over "in a confused welter of ruin." Such wall as still stood gaped -with ghastly vents. These had been the first to come under fire, and -the cruisers had done their work with a thoroughness that agreed well -with the traditional deliberation of the British Navy. And thorough -work was in progress.</p> - -<p>Far up the straits' entrance lay the black lines of gunboats. We moved -up the coast past an ill-starred<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[Pg 66]</span> village: the guns were at her from -the open sea. By sundown we had passed from this scene of action to -another, at —— Beach, where the Australians had landed. The heights -above —— Beach were the scene of an engagement far more fierce than -any we had seen below. The Turks were strongly posted in the shrubs of -the Crest. Our batteries were hardly advanced beyond the beach, and -were getting it hot. Night was coming on. A biting wind was blowing off -the land, bringing down a bitter rain from the hills of the interior. -It was almost too cold to stand in our bows and watch: what for those -poor devils juggling shell at the batteries and falling under the rain -of fire? After dark there was an hour's lull. At nine o'clock began a -two hours' engagement hot enough to make any fighter on shore oblivious -of the temperature. Towards midnight the firing ceased and the rain and -the wind abated.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[Pg 67]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIc">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">GLIMPSES OF ANZAC</p> - -<p class="center">I</p> - - -<p>It's the monotony that kills; not hard work, nor hard fare. We have -now been disembarked on the Peninsula rather longer than three months. -But there has been little change in our way of living. Every day there -is the same work on the same beach, shelled by the same guns, manned -by the same Turks—presumably the same; for we never seem to knock-out -those furtive and deadly batteries that enfilade the Cove Beach and -maim or kill—or both—almost daily. Every morning we look out on the -same stretch of the lovely Ægean, with the same two islands standing -over in the west.</p> - -<p>Yet neither the islands nor the sea are the same any two successive -days. The temper of the Ægean, at this time, changes more suddenly and -frequently than ever does the Pacific. That delicious Mediterranean -colour, of which we used to read sceptically, and which we half -disbelieved in J.M. Turner's pictures, changes in the quality of its -hue almost hourly. And every morning the islands of the west take on -fresh colour and are trailed by fresh shapes of mist. The atmosphere -deludes, in the matter of distance, as though pranking for the love of -deception. To-day Imbros<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[Pg 68]</span> stands right over-against you; you see the -detail of the fleet in the harbour, and the striated heights of rocky -Samothrace reveal the small ravines; to-morrow in the early-morning -light—but more often towards evening—Imbros lies mysteriously afar -off like an isle of the blest, a delicate vapour-shape reposing on the -placid sea.</p> - -<p>Nor is there monotony in either weather or temperature. This is the -late October. Late October synchronises with late autumn. Yet it is a -halting and irregular advance the late autumn is making. Changes in -temperature are as incalculable as at Melbourne, in certain seasons. -Fierce, biting, raw days alternate with the comfortableness of the mild -late-summer. To-day to bathe is as much as your life is worth (shrapnel -disregarded); to-morrow, in the gentle air, you may splash and gloat an -hour, and desire more. And you prolong the joy by washing many garments.</p> - -<p>The Ægean autumn has yet shown little bitterness. Here on Anzac we -have suffered the tail-end of one or two autumn storms, and have had -two fierce and downright gales blow up. The wind came in the night -with a suddenness that found most unprepared. There was little rain; -insufficient to allay the maelstroms of choking dust that whirled over -our ploughed and powdered ridges. In half an hour many of us were -homeless, crouching about with our bundled bed-clothes, trespassing -tyrannically upon the confined space of the more stout dug-outs of -our friends: a sore tax upon true friendship. Men lay on their backs -and held down their roofs by mere weight of body, until overpowered. -Spectral figures in the driving atmosphere collided and wrangled and -swore and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[Pg 69]</span> blasphemed. The sea roared over the shingle with a violence -that made even revilings inaudible. It was a night for Lear to be out. -Men had, for weeks, in spare time, been formally preparing dug-outs -against the approach of winter, but they were unprepared for weather of -such violence. And if this is a taste of the quality of winter storms, -the warning comes timely.</p> - -<p>For the morning showed a sorry beach. Barges had been torn adrift from -moorings and trawlers, and hurled ashore. Some were empty; some were -filled with supplies; all were battered; some disabled; some utterly -broken. One was filled with rum. Never before, on active service, had -such a chance of unlimited spirits offered. Many jars had been spirited -away when the time of unlading came. There were riotous faces and -super-merriment on the beach that morning; and by mid-day the "clink" -was overflowing. Far more serious was the state of the landing-piers. -There were—there had been—three. One stood intact; the landward -half of the second was clean gone; of the third there was no trace, -except in a few splintered spars ashore. A collective grin overlooked -the beach that morning at the time of rising. The General grinned -too—a sort of dogged grin. The remedying began forthwith; so did the -bursting of shrapnel over the workmen. This stroke of Allah upon the -Unfaithful was not to go unsupplemented. But it was as with the unhappy -Armada: the winds of heaven wrought more havoc than the enemy guns. By -nightfall the abridged pier was re-united to the shore—and this in -spite of a sea that made it impossible for barges to come alongside. -For two days the after-wind of the gale<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[Pg 70]</span> kept bread and meat and mails -tossing on the face of the waters off Anzac; and we fed on bully-beef -and biscuit, and eyed wistfully the mail-trawler pitching there with -her precious burden.</p> - -<p>The arrival of mails eclipses considerations of life and death—of -fighting and the landing of rations. The mail-barge coming in somehow -looms larger than a barge of supplies. Mails have been arriving -weekly for six months, yet no one is callous to them. Sometimes -they come twice in a week; for a fresh mail is despatched from the -base post-office in instalments which may spread over three or four -landings. The Army Corps Post Office never rests. Most mails are -landed between sunset and dawn—generally after midnight. Post-office -officials must be there to supervise and check. It's little sleep -they get on "mail nights." Incoming mails do not constitute all their -cares. Mails outgoing from the firing-line are heavy. And there are the -pathetic "returns" to be dealt with, the letters of men who will never -read them—letters written before the heavy news had got home. It is -a huge bulk of correspondence marked <i>Killed</i> and re-addressed to the -place of origin of the fallen. Their comrades keep their newspapers. -Usually the parcels of comforts directed to them bring melancholy cheer -to their still fighting comrades in arms. What else is to be done with -them?</p> - -<p>Of incoming mails letters stand inevitably first. They put a man at -home for a couple of hours. But so does his local newspaper. Perusing -that, he is back at the old matutinal habit of picking at the news -over his eggs-and-coffee, racing against the suburban business-train. -Intimate associations hang about the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[Pg 71]</span> reading of the local -sheet—domestic and parochial associations almost as powerful as are -brought to him by letters. Relatives at home, did they know this fully, -would despatch newspapers with a stricter regularity.</p> - -<p>And what shall be said of parcels from home? The boarding-school -home-hamper is at last superseded. No son away at grammar-school ever -pursued his voyage of discovery through tarts, cakes and preserves, -sweets, pies and fruit, with the intensity of gloating expectation -in which a man on Gallipoli discloses the contents of his "parcel": -"'Struth! a noo pipe, Bill!—an' some er the ole terbaccer. Blimey! -cigars, too! 'Ave one, before the crowd smells 'em. D——d if there -ain't choclut! look 'ere! An' 'ere's some er the dinkum coc'nut ice the -tart uster make. Hullo! more socks! Never mind: winter's comin'.—'Ere! -'ow er yer orf fer socks, cobber? Take these—bonzer 'and-knitted. -Sling them issue-things inter the sea.... I'm b——d!—soap fer the -voy'ge 'ome.... 'Angkerch'fs!—orl right when the —— blizzerds -come, an' a chap's snifflin' fer a ——in' week on end.... Writin' -paper!—well, that's the straight —— tip! The ——s er bin puttin' it -in me letters lately, too. Well, I'll write ter night, on the stren'th -of it.... Gawd! 'ere's a shavin'-stick!—'andy, that; I wuz clean run -out—usin' carbolic soap, —— it!... Aw, that's a dinkum —— parcel, -that is!"</p> - -<p>"Bonzer tarts" (and others) may infer that a parcel is as a gift from -the gods, and carries more than "its intrinsic worth." Such treasures -as the 'and-knitted socks and coc'nut ice bring home rather more near -than it ever comes to the man who has no part in the parcel mail.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[Pg 72]</span></p> - -<p>Mails deserve all the organised care the War-Office can bestow; they -make for efficiency.</p> - -<p>There is no morning delivery of the daily newspaper at Anzac. But we -get the news. At the foot of Headquarters gully is the notice-board. -The wireless messages are posted daily. At any hour men are elbowing -a way into the perusing circle. There is news of the operations along -our own Front and copious messages from the Eiffel Tower of the Russian -and Western Fronts. The Melbourne Cup finish was cabled through -immediately. The sports foregathered and collected or "shelled out"; -there were few men indeed who did not handle their purses round the -board that evening. No war news, for months, had been so momentous as -this. The associations called up by the news from the Australian Mecca -at Flemington, whither the whole continent makes annual pilgrimage, -were strong, and homely as well as national. All the detail of the -little annual domestic sweeps at the breakfast-table came back with -a pathetic nearness. Men were recalled for a while from the land of -blood to the office, the bank, the warehouse, the country pub., the -shearing-shed, where the Cup bets were wont to be made. Squatters' sons -were back at the homestead making the sweeps. The myriad-sided sporting -spirit is perhaps stronger than any other Australian national trait. -The Defence-Department knew it when they made provision for a cabled -despatch of the running.</p> - -<p>Three weeks ago began the flight of birds before the Russian winter. -They came over thick, in wedge formation, swallowing up, in their -hoarse cries, the crack of rifles over the ridges, from which, -otherwise, only the roar of a half-gale delivers us, day or night.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[Pg 73]</span> -Over Anzac—which seemed to mark a definite stage in the journey—they -showed a curious indecision as to direction. Possibly they were -interested in the bird's-eye view of the disposal of forces. They -wheeled and re-formed into grotesque figures; men would stop in their -work and try to decipher the pattern. "That's a W."—"Yes; and what's -that?"—"Oh, that?" (after a crafty pause)—"that's one er them Turkish -figgers—'member them in Cairo?"</p> - -<p>The flight of birds south is surely the most reliable of all forecasts -as to what we may expect in temperatures. Yet the official account, -published for the information of troops, of the traditional weather -between October and March shows we need expect nothing unreasonably -severe before the middle of January; but that then will come heavy -snow-storms and thoroughgoing blizzards. Furthermore, men are advised -to instruct their sisters to send Cardigans, sweets in plenty, and much -tobacco. <i>Amen</i> to this; we shall instruct them faithfully.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the systematic fortification of dug-outs against damp and -cold goes on.</p> - -<p>We foresee, unhappily, the winter robbing us of the boon of daily -bathing. This is a serious matter. The morning splash has come to be -indispensable. Daily at 6.30 you have been used to see the bald pate of -General Birdwood bobbing beyond the sunken barge in shore, and a host -of nudes lining the beach. The host is diminishing to a few isolated -fellows who either are fanatics or are come down from the trenches and -must clear up a vermin- and dust-infested skin at all costs. Naturally -we prefer to bathe at mid-day, rather than at 6.30, when the sun has -not got above<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[Pg 74]</span> the precipitous ridges of Sari Bair. But the early -morning dip is almost the only safe one. The beach is still enfiladed -by Turkish artillery from the right flank. But times are better; -formerly both flanks commanded us. The gun on the right continues to -harass. He is familiarly known as Beachy Bill. That on the left went by -a name intended for the ears of soldiers only. Beachy Bill is, in fact, -merely the collective name for a whole battery, capable of throwing -over five shell simultaneously. Not infrequently Beachy Bill catches a -mid-morning bathing squad. There is ducking and splashing shorewards, -and scurrying over the beach to cover by men clad only in the garments -Nature gave them. Shrapnel bursting above the water in which you are -disporting yourself raises chiefly the question: Will it ever stop? -By this you, of course, mean: Will the pellets ever cease to whip the -water? The interval between the murderous lightning-burst aloft and -the last pellet-swish seems, to the potential victim, everlasting. The -suspense always is trying.</p> - -<p>The times and the seasons of Beachy Bill are inscrutable. Earlier on, -the six o'clock bather was not safe. Now he is almost prepared to bet -upon his chances. Possibly an enemy gun is by this time aware that -there goes on now less than heretofore of that stealthy night discharge -of lighters which used to persist beyond the dawn—until the job was -finished.</p> - -<p>Wonderful is the march of organisation. It appreciably improves daily, -under your eyes—organisation in mule transport to the flanks, in the -landing of sup<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[Pg 75]</span>plies, in the local distribution of rations; the last -phase perhaps most obvious, because it comes home close to the business -and bosoms of the troops. Where, a month ago, we languished on tinned -beef and biscuit, we now rejoice daily in fresh meat, bread, milk, and -(less frequently) fresh vegetables. It all becomes better than one -dared to expect: a beef-steak and toast for breakfast, soup for dinner, -boiled mutton for tea. This is all incredibly good. Yet the sickness -diminishes little. Colic, enteric, dysentery, jaundice, are still -painfully prevalent, and our sick are far-flung and thick over Lemnos, -Egypt, Malta, and England. So long as flies and the unburied persist, -we cannot well be delivered. But the wastage in sick men deported is -near to being alarming.</p> - -<p>A regimental canteen on Imbros does much to compensate. Unit -representatives proceed thence weekly by trawler for stores. One feels -almost in the land of the living when, within fifteen miles, lie tinned -fruit, butter, coffee, cocoa, tinned sausages, sauces, chutneys, pipes, -"Craven" mixture and chocolate. Such a <i>répertoire</i>, combined with a -monthly visit from the Paymaster, removes one far from the commissariat -hardships of the Crimea.</p> - -<p>The visualising of unstinted civilian meals is a prevalent pastime -here. Men sit at the mouths of their dug-outs and relate the <i>minutiæ</i> -of the first dinner at home. Some men excel in this. They do it with -a carnal power of graphic description which makes one fairly pine. -I have heard a Colonel-Chaplain talk for two hours of nothing but -grub, and at the end convincingly exempt himself from the charge of -carnal-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[Pg 76]</span>mindedness. Truly we are a people whose god is their belly. One -never realised, until this period of enforced deprivation, the whole -meaning of the classical fable of the Belly and the Members.</p> - -<p>Yet in the last analysis (all this talk is largely so much artistry) -one is amazingly free from the hankering after creature-comforts. -There is a sort of rough philosophy abroad to scorn delights and live -laborious days. Those delights embraced by the use of good tobacco -and deliverance from vermin at nights are the most desired; both -hard to procure. There is somehow a great gulf fixed between the -civilian quality of any tobacco and the make-up of the same brand for -the Army. (The Arcadia mixture is unvarying, but cannot always be -had.) This ought not to be. Once in six months a friend in Australia -despatches a parcel of cigars. Therein lies the entrance to a fleeting -paradise—fleeting indeed when one's comrades have sniffed or ferreted -out the key. After all, the pipe, with reasonably good tobacco, gives -the <i>entrée</i> to the paradise farthest removed from that of the fool. -One harks back to the words of Lytton: "He who does not smoke tobacco -either has never known any great sorrow or has rejected the sweetest -consolation under heaven."</p> - -<p>Of the plague of nocturnal vermin little needs be said explicitly. -The locomotion of the day almost dissipates the evil. It makes night -hideous. One needs but think of the ravages open to one boarding-house -imp amongst the sheets, to form some crude notion of what havoc may be -wrought at night by a vermin whose name is legion. Keating's powder is -<i>not</i> "sold<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[Pg 77]</span> by all chemists and storekeepers" on the Peninsula. One -would give a week's pay for an effective dose of insectibane.</p> - -<p>The tendency is to retire late, and thus abridge the period of -persecution. There is the balm of weariness, too, against which no -louse is altogether proof. One's friends "drop in" for a yarn and a -smoke after tea, and the dreaded hour of turning in is postponed by -reminiscent chit-chat and the late preparation of supper. One renews -here a surprising bulk of old acquaintance, and the changes are nightly -rung upon its personnel. All this makes against the plagues of vermin; -and against the monotony that kills, too. Old college chums are dug -out, and one talks back and lives a couple of hours in the glory of -days that have passed and in the brighter glory of a potential re-entry -to the old life. Believe it not that there is no deliverance possible -from the hardness of active service, even in its midst. The retrospect, -and the prospect, and the ever-present faculty of visualisation, are -ministering angels sent to minister.</p> - -<p>Rude interruptions come in upon such attempts at self-deliverance. -Enemy aircraft make nocturnal bomb-dropping raids and rudely dissipate -prospect and retrospect. One harbours a sneaking regard for the -pluckily low elevation at which these night flights are made. Happily, -they have yet made few casualties.... On a ridge above us stands a -factory for the manufacture of bombs and hand grenades. Every night -mules are laden there for the trenches. One evening a restive mule, -ramping about, thrust his heel through a case of bombs adjacent. They -responded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[Pg 78]</span> with a roar that shook the hill-side. Three other cases -were set going. At once the slopes and gullies were peopled by thinly -clad figures from the dug-outs rushing to and fro in astonishment. The -immediate inference was of enemy missiles: no one suspected our own -bomb factory. The most curious conjectures were abroad. One fellow -bawled that the Turks had broken our line and were bombing us from the -ridge above; another shouted that Zeppelins had crept over; one man -cried that the cruiser, at that moment working under her searchlight -on enemy positions, had "messed up" the angle of elevation and was -pouring high-explosive into us. Shouting and lanterns and the call for -stretcher-bearers about the bomb factory soon disclosed the truth. -The festive mule, with three companions, had been literally blown to -pieces; next morning chunks of mule were lying about our depôt. The -worst was that our own men were killed and shattered. This was ghastly. -Is it not enough to be laid low by enemy shell?</p> - -<p>Yet the work of enemy shell on this beach is peculiarly horrible. -Men are struck down suddenly and unmercifully where there is no heat -of battle. A man dies more easily in the charge; here he is wounded -mortally unloading a barge, mending a pier, drawing water for his -unit, directing a mule-convoy. He may even lose a limb or his life off -duty—merely returning from a bathe or washing a shirt on the shingle.</p> - -<p>One of our men was struck by shrapnel pellet retiring to his dug-out -to read his just-delivered mail. He was off duty—was, in fact, far up -the ridge above the beach. The wound gaped in his back. There was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[Pg 79]</span> no -stanching it. Every thump of the aorta pumped out his life. Practically -he was a dead man when struck; he lived but a few minutes, with his -pipe, still steaming, clenched in his teeth. They laid him aside in -the hospital. That night we stood about the grave in which he lay -beneath his ground-sheet. Over that wind-swept headland the moon shone -fitfully through driving cloud. A monitor bombarded offshore. Under -her friendly-screaming shell and the singing bullets of the Turk the -worn, big-hearted Padré intoned the beautiful Catholic intercession for -the soul of the dead, in his cracked voice. At the burial of Sir John -Moore was heard the distant and random gun. Here the shell do sometimes -burst in the midst of the burial-party. Bearers are laid low. There is -indecent running for cover. The grave is hastily filled in by a couple -of shovelmen; the hideous desecration is over; and fresh graves are to -be dug immediately for stricken members of the party. To die violently -and be laid in this shell-swept area is to die lonely indeed. The day -is far off (but it will come) when splendid mausolea will be raised -over these heroic dead. And one foresees the time when steamers will -bear up the Ægean pilgrims come to do honour at the resting-places of -friends and kindred, and to move over the charred battle-grounds of -Turkey.</p> - -<p>There is more than shrapnel to be contended with on the beach, though -shrapnel takes far the heaviest toll. Taube flights over the position -are frequent by day, and bombs are dropped. The intermittent sobbing -shriek of a descending bomb is unmistakable and heart-shaking. You know -the direction of shrap<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[Pg 80]</span>nel; you know in which direction the hellish -shower will spread; there is time for lightning calculation and action. -But a bomb gives little indication of its degree of proximity, and with -it there is no "direction" of burst; a circle of death hurtles forth -from the missile. No calculation is possible as to a way of escape.</p> - -<p>Taube bombs and machine-gun bullets are not the only missiles from -above of which it behoves Anzac denizens to beware. Men are struck by -pellets and shell-case from the shrapnel discharged at our 'planes from -Turkish anti-aircraft guns. Our aircraft is fired at very consistently. -There is a temptation to stand gaping there, face to the sky, watching -their fortunes. Such temptation comes from below, and should not be -yielded to—unless our 'planes are vertically overhead or on our -west. If they are circling over the Turkish position, take cover; for -"what goes up must come down," according to the formula accompanying -a schoolboy trick; and shrapnel discharged at 'planes on your eastern -elevation may as well come down on your altruistically-inquisitive head -as bury in the earth beside you.</p> - -<p>To all such onslaughts from aloft and around most men show an -indifference that is fairly consistent. The impression is left with -you that there is quite a large number of them who have "come to terms -with themselves" on the subject of an eventuality of whatever nature, -and this is abundantly clear when you see them after their tragedy -has eventuated. There is little visible panic in the victims in any -dressing station, little evidence of astonishment, little restlessness. -Men lie there quiet under the thrusts and turns of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[Pg 81]</span> the sword of pain, -steadfast in the attitude of no-compromise with suffering. To this -exceptions will be found; all men have not reckoned up squarely and -accurately beforehand the cost of all emergencies that are possible. -But most of them have.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[Pg 82]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIIc">CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">GLIMPSES OF ANZAC</p> - -<p class="center">II</p> - - -<p>A whole legion of Gallipoli maps has been published in the Press. They -show the landing-places. All Australians know the Anzac positions where -their sons and brothers scrambled from the boats, splashed to the fatal -sand, and fell forthwith or fixed the steel and charged to conquer or -fall above. This spot, where Australians showed the world what manner -of man is nurtured beneath the Southern Cross, is fair to look on. We -saw it first from the sea, in the full burst of the spring. Literature, -ancient and Byronic, glows with the beauties of the Ægean spring. It's -all true. Anzac is reckoned a true type of that loveliness. The charge -was made up a steep ridged hill opening upon an irregular tableland. -Either flank of that hill is gently undulating low country. The thin -belt of light sand fronts all. The deep wild-flower colour flung in -broad splashes upon the low country of the flanks is foiled by the -delicious blue that bathes the sand-strip. When the ancients gave us a -picture of all this we questioned it, as perhaps painted inaccurately -in the elation of literary composition. That is not a right inference. -One attempts to describe it as it appears in 1915; but there is the -danger of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[Pg 83]</span> being disbelieved, because the prodigal flinging of spring -colour over the shores of Gallipoli utterly surpasses in richness the -colour of Australia. England doubtless shows something far more like it -in spring. The colour ashore is a glowing red—acres of poppy waving -there upon the green plains. Neither do we know the Ægean blue in -Australian waters, somehow. The reader, harassed by the war news from -this smiling land, may conceive the incongruity of this fair landscape -splashed with colour of another sort—the red dust of a moving troop, -the hideous discolour of bursting lyddite, and the grey smudge of -shrapnel. A grand range of chalk hills runs south behind the pasture of -the right flank. The low shore plain of the left flank is backed by a -group of green pinnacles moving north towards the glittering salt-lake. -The coast, northerly, sweeps out to the southern horn of Saros Bay—a -rough, sheer-rising headland, southern sentinel of the great Saros -Cliffs.</p> - -<p>Moving inshore to the foot of the Anzac plateau, one gets a delusive -impression of Anzac smoothness. Anzac in detail is rough: small -gulches, ravines—Arabian <i>wadys</i>—which at once hindered and assisted -the aggressors at landing. Leaving behind the beach, with its feverish -busyness, the climb up to the trenches begins forthwith. You follow a -well-engineered road levelled in the bed of the ravine. In the sides -the dug-outs are as thick as dwellings in a Cairene alley—which is -saying much. Beaten side-tracks branch off like rivulets which join a -mountain torrent. The only haven for mules and horses is the shelter of -the banks, which have been half dug out at intervals into an extensive -sort of stable. It is the height of the after<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[Pg 84]</span>noon. There is no wind -stirring under the hill. The men off duty are sleeping heavily—have -flung themselves down, worn-out, and lie in the thick dust of their -shelters, where the flies swarm and the heat reeks. But all are not -sleeping. Periodically a regimental office is dug in; the typewriters -are noisy: they make a strange dissonance with the hum of bullets -above, which does not cease. The post-office lies in a bend of the -path. This is dug deep, with sandbag bulwarks. There's no sleeping -here. A khaki staff sorts and stamps, in this curious subterranean -chamber, amidst a disorder of mail-bags and the fumes of sealing-wax. -One hopes, in passing, the shrapnel will spare this sanctuary.... Half -a mile up, the road peters out into a rough and dusty track under the -hill-crest. It is heavy climbing. One realises fully for the first -time what a scaling was here at the first charge. It has been hard -work up a beaten road: what for those hampered infantrymen, with their -steel-laden rifles and their equipment, and the Turks raining death -from their entrenchments aloft? It was seventeen minutes' work for -them; we have been panting and scrambling for forty, and are not up -yet. Five minutes more brings us to the sentry guarding the entrance -to the communication-trench. He sets us on our stooping way. You dare -not walk erect. Here the bullets are not "spent," though "spent" -bullets can do damage enough. The labour of trench-making must have -been enormous. Here is a picked trench five feet deep, and half as wide -again as your body, cut out of a soft rock—hundreds of yards of it, -half-miles of it. Fifteen minutes looping along brings us to an exit -opening on a battery, where two guns are speaking from their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[Pg 85]</span> pits. In -a dug-out beside the pit lies the presiding genius with his ear to a -telephone. His lingo is almost unintelligible, except to the initiated. -From the observers on our flanks he is transmitting the corrections and -directions to his gunners. One man is juggling shell from the rear of -the pit; one is laying the gun; the rest are understrappers. The roar -of discharge, heard from behind, is not excessive. What comes uppermost -is the prolonged whizz and scream of the shell. Artillery work must -be far the most interesting. The infantryman, a good deal, aims "in a -direction," and hopes for the best. The man at the gun watches each -shot, the error is gauged, and he acts accordingly at the next. His is -a sort of triumphal progress upon his mark.... Re-entering the trench, -we crept to our second line. There were a few scattered marksmen. There -is a kind of comfort, even in trenches. The sleeping-places hollowed -out under the lee of the wall, a foot from the floor, will keep one -more or less dry in rain. There are carnal symbols of creature comfort -scattered up and down—blankets, newspapers, tobacco-tins, egg-shells, -orange-peel, and the wrappings of Mexican chocolate. But it's harsh -enough. From the crackle of musketry and the song of the bullet and the -intimate scream of the shell there's little respite.</p> - -<p>The labyrinth of trenches becomes very intricate as you approach the -front line: saps, communication trenches, tunnels, and galleries, make -a maze that requires some initiation to negotiate successfully. In the -rear lines the men off duty are resting, as well as may be, plagued -as they are with flies, heat and dust. In general they are too far -exhausted to care<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[Pg 86]</span> much, so long as they can get their tobacco and a -place to lie. They try to lie comfortable in the squalor; try to cook -a trifle at their pathetic little hole-in-the-wall fires. The most -impressive thing near the first line (there are things more impressive -when you get there) is the elaborateness and permanency of the trenches -and dug-outs and overhead cover. One might think the beggars are -here for a year: which God forbid! The impression of keenness and -alertness here is in striking contrast with the easy-going aspect of -the "reservists." The men work at frequent intervals, in pairs, one -observing with the periscope, the other missing no chances with the -rifle. We looked long and earnestly through a periscope. Two things -arrest you. The first is the ghastly spectacle of our dead lying beyond -the parapet. They have been there since the last charge; that is three -weeks ago, and they are black and swollen. They lie in so exposed -a place that they dare not be approached. The stink is revolting; -putrefying human flesh emits an odour without a parallel. An hour's -inhalation was almost overpowering. One asks how our men have breathed -it for three and five months. The flies swarm in hosts.</p> - -<p>The second thing that arrests you is the amazing proximity of the -enemy trenches. You put down the periscope and look furtively through -a loophole to verify. The average distance is about fifteen yards. Our -conductor smiled at the expression of amazement. "Come along here; -they're a bit closer." He took us to a point at which the neutral -ground was no more than five yards in width; rifle and bayonet extended -from either trench could have met across it. We well believed our -men could hear the Turks snore. This<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[Pg 87]</span> is an uncanny proximity. One -result is that the bomb is the chief weapon of offence. To shy a bomb -effectively over five yards is as good a deed as drink. Bomb wounds are -much to be dreaded. The missile does not pierce, it shatters, and there -is no choosing where you will have your wound. We laid well to heart -the admonition to be momentarily on the look out for bombs.</p> - -<p>We worked slowly back along a tortuous route. These are old Turkish -trenches. They had been so constructed as to fight in the direction of -the sea. When our men took them they had immediately to turn round and -build a parapet on the side more remote. They were choked with Turkish -dead. To bury them in the open was unthinkable; they had to be thrown -into pits excavated in the trench wall, or flung aloft, and buried -beneath the new inland parapet. The consequence is that as you make -your way along the trench floor you occasionally come into contact with -a protruding boot encasing the foot of a Turk. We had more than one -such unsavoury encounter. The odour arising from our own dead is not -all with which our infantry have to contend. War isn't fun. A good deal -of drivel is spoken and written about the ennobling effects of warfare -in the field.</p> - -<p>The men who have had four months of this are, in great part, -pasty-faced ghosts, with nerves on raw edge. What may one expect? -Inadequate rest, and that rudely and habitually broken; almost an -entire want of exercise—except in the charge; food that is necessarily -scanty and ill-nourishing; a perpetual and overpowering stink of -the most revolting kind; black swarms of flies that make quiescence -impossible—even if enemy<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[Pg 88]</span> shelling and enemy bomb-slinging did not; -a nervous strain of suspense or known peril (or both) that never is -lifted. Australians have done their part with unequalled magnificence. -But they are not gods. Flesh and blood and spirit cannot go on at -this indefinitely. God help the Australian infantryman with less than -a frame of steel wire, muscles of whipcord, and a heart of fire. The -cases are rare, but men have been driven demented in our firing-line, -and men who in civil-life were modest, gentle, tender-hearted, and -self-effacing, have become bloody-minded, lusting to kill. War is <i>not</i> -fun; neither is it ennobling.</p> - -<p>It was fighting of another sort when Greeks and Persians traversed this -ground. For the Narrows was, more than possibly, the crossing-place -of the Hellespont for either host. Anzac or Gaba Tepe would be, -almost inevitably, right in the track. Australian trenches perhaps -cut across the classic line of march. Who is to say that the site of -Xerxes' Headquarters-camp is not at this moment serried with Australian -dug-outs? Where he stood to embark, the wireless operator may now be -squatting in his sandpit receiving from our cruisers. Certainly every -mile over which we are fighting is charged with classical associations.</p> - -<p>The new geographical nomenclature stands contrasted with the classical, -as do methods of transport and fighting. What does the dust of Persian -Generals know of Quinn's Post, Walker's Ridge, or Pope's Hill? Even the -Turkish names are despised. We are "naming" our own map as we go on. -Pope's Hill is a feature in the landscape considerable enough to have -justified a Turkish name before we came here. The map of Gallipoli, -as well as that of Western<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[Pg 89]</span> Europe, is in a state of flux. Should -Gallipoli be garrisoned, Australian terms, not to be found in the -dictionary, will stick; scrubs, creeks, and gullies, dignified with the -names of heroes who commanded there, will abound.</p> - -<p>It is by way of Shrapnel Gully we regain the beach. The Australian -hospital stands on the right extremity—by no means out of danger. A -sparse line of stretchers is moving down almost continuously. This -is a hospital for mere hasty dressing to enable wounded to go aboard -the pinnace to the Hospital ship standing out. Collins Street doctors -who have left behind surgeries "replete with every convenience" find -themselves in others that are mere hastily run up <i>marquées</i>. Half the -attendants hop or limp. They have been peppered. The dentist's outfit -is elaborate, and plagued men may have teeth "stopped" or extracted. -There is a mechanical department, too, where artificial teeth are -repaired—teeth that have been wrecked on the Army biscuit, which is -not just angels'-food. Dentists' kit is almost complete; lacks little, -in fact, but an electric current.</p> - -<p>The beach is animated. There are A.S.C. depôts almost innumerable, -wireless stations, ordnance stores, medical supply stores, and -what-not. This is not the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious -war, but the hard facts and hard graft and dirt, sweat and peril, of -righteous war. It is by these mundane means the clash of ideals is -proceeding, and by which a decision will come....</p> - -<p>Only when the masked enemy batteries of the flanks are firing (which -is many times in the day) is the beach cleared and quiet. At one stage -a couple of Lieu<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[Pg 90]</span>tenants-Colonel limited the adminitory patrolling -to themselves during fire. They walked up and down unconcernedly -with an heroic and nonchalant self-possession, swearing hard at the -men who showed themselves. The hidden battery cannot be located. The -cruisers are doing their best with searching fire; their bluejackets -are climbing the masts to observe; the balloon is aloft; the seaplanes -are vigilant; our own outposts never relax. There is no clue. It is -concealed with devilish ingenuity. Every day it is costing us dearly.</p> - -<p>All's fair in war. Their sniping is awfully successful. They have -picked off our officers at a deadly rate. Lance-corporals have become -Lieutenants in a single night. Transport of supplies to the flanks -is done by mule-carts manned by Sikhs. The route is sniped at close -intervals, by night as well as by day, and by machine-gun as well as -by the rifle; beside, it is swept by shrapnel. Only under the most -urgent necessity are supplies taken to the flanks by day. Then the loss -in men and mules is heavier than we can bear. The Turkish sniper is -almost unequalled—certainly unexcelled—as an unerring shot. At night -the rattle of the mule-carts directs the fire. At certain more exposed -intervals of the route the carts move at the gallop, the drivers lying -full-stretch in the bottom of the carts and flogging on to safety. -Is not this worse than trench-fighting? The Sikhs are doing a deadly -dangerous work unflinchingly well.</p> - -<p>It was reported unofficially that two Turkish women were captured -sniping. Rumours are persistent enough as to the presence of women in -and behind the Turkish lines. Our outposts claim to have seen them, -and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[Pg 91]</span> victorious attacking parties that have captured Turkish camps -have been said to declare they have found hanging there garments of -the most significant lace-frilled sort. The unbelieving diagnose these -as the highly-embellished pyjamas of Turkish officers. The whole thing -is probably to be disbelieved. The Turk is too seriously busy to be -distracted by the blandishments of his women. Harems doubtless are left -well at home, to be revelled in when the British have ultimately been -driven into the sea.</p> - -<p>The men bathe, but often pay too dearly for the bath. The bathing beach -is a place notorious for good-humoured but successful "lifting." In the -early stages there was mixed bathing of Colonels and lance-corporals, -Majors and full privates. The Colonel leaves his boots on the sand; -a private is sneaking off—"Hey! those —— boots are mine!" ... All -ranks go about ashore dressed alike, with the rank shown symbolically; -distinguishing marks of rank become distinguishing marks for -sharp-shooters too: you must know a Captain by his bearing rather than -his clothes. Curious dialogues arise. The officers are in a garb which -differs in many ways from their dress of the promenade at Shepheard's -Hotel.</p> - -<p>There is little damping of spirits. Most men are happy. Pettiness -is snubbed. All are bound by the common danger into the spirit of -amity. There is growling day and night—the legitimate growling of the -overwrought man, which means nothing. Little outbursts of the liver -there are, but of a different quality from those civilian ventings of -the spleen.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[Pg 92]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IVc">CHAPTER IV</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">SIGNALS</p> - - -<p>The step is a far one from the signal-office of the first month in -Anzac to that of December. The first crude centre of intelligence was -like a Euclidean point—without magnitude, with position only. It was -a mere location from which signals could be despatched, without any -of the show of a compartment, and without apparatus. And the wireless -station was a hastily scratched hole in the sand, where the operator -supported himself on an elbow and received.</p> - -<p>Now in December this is all changed. The Army Corps Signal Office -is a building, of sandbags and timber and galvanised iron, standing -four-square, solid as a blockhouse, protected alike from wind and the -entrance of rain and (by its branch-thatched roof) from the hawk-glance -of the aircraft observer.</p> - -<p>Within there is an incongruous sense of civilisation. The staff is -clean, neatly dressed, shaven—in a word, civilianised. The spirit -of order presides. Except that the denizens wear a uniform, and that -the walls are of sandbag, you might be in a metropolitan telegraphic -office. They sit there tap-tap-tapping in their absorbed fashion. The -shrapnel screams overhead and bursts to their north. They are too -intent to hear it, mostly. All that has disturbed them, in the last -month, is the cry of "<i>Taube!</i>" (colloquial <i>Torb!</i>).<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[Pg 93]</span> Anti-aircraft -bring them trooping out to squint up at the swift, black, forbidding -craft humming raucously across the position. They laugh at shrapnel, -under the lee of the protecting ridge: no ridge makes immune from that -whirring dove of peace up there!</p> - -<p>As you stumble up the Gully at night the illumination of the -signal-office gives a touch of the arclight and of city brilliance to -the place. The operators, sitting there, as you peer in from the outer -darkness, are a part of another world. Those not transmitting or under -call sit reading sixpenny editions and smoking cigarettes. They are -tapping out no orders from Headquarters. Neither in the words before -them nor in the placid <i>tap</i> of the instruments is there any hint of -war. They're in London. But that sudden roar as of a locomotive is of -no London street traffic; London streets do not roar in a <i>crescendo</i>. -This is as of a rushing, mighty wind, rising to the scream of a -tornado. Comes the blast of explosion which unsettles them in their -seats. The walls of their house quake about them, and the shower of -earth and <i>débris</i> descends; the foul stink drives through the dust, -and the well-ordered city room is hurried back, in the twinkling of -an eye, into the midst of war in the troublous land of Turkey. A -six-inch howitzer shell has exploded in the bank over against them—so -close that the unuttered thought flies to the possibility of a nearer -ultimate burst. The howitzer, searcher out of the protected sites in -ravines, under looming hill-crests, is a searcher of hearts too—a -disturber of the placid sense of security.</p> - -<p>The <i>débris</i> is cleared and the fumes pass, and order returns. The -operator goes back to his dot-and-dash monotone, and his neighbour -resumes his novel and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[Pg 94]</span> lights another cigarette. The quiet undertone of -conversation revives.</p> - -<p>Money is the sinews of war: where, in the anthropomorphic figure, will -you place these men of the Army Corps Signal Office? Analytical reader, -you may place them at your leisure—if you can. They make vocal (or -scriptural) the will of Headquarters. A general order they tap out to -the utmost post on the flanks. The flanks flash into them the hourly -report of progress. The watch in the trenches is realised, through -them, by Headquarters. If the Turk is quiescent, it is the telegraphist -here who knows it; if a move is made in the enemy lines—a Turkish -mule convoy sighted from the outpost, an enemy bombardment set up—it -is flashed through incontinently. These men, who see so little of -war—apart from searching howitzer—may, if they choose, visualise the -whole outlook along our line. They are to Army Headquarters what the -sergeant is to the Captain of infantry: the one may scribble or bawl -orders until weary; if the other is not there to distribute and enforce -the given word, all will perhaps be in vain.</p> - -<p>And Army Corps Signal Office is the link between the Peninsula and -General Headquarters stationed in that island lying on the west. -Divisions flash in their reports from the flanks to Army Corps; all is -transmitted by cable to Imbros. And this is the medium through which -G.H.Q. orders materialise. Helles reports here also, by cable, for -transmission by cable. Here is the hub of all intelligence relating -to the Turkish campaign. For the network of cables centres here: -cable from Alexandria to Lemnos, Lemnos to Tenedos, Lemnos to Anzac, -Helles to Anzac, Anzac to G.H.Q. on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[Pg 95]</span> Imbros. Thus there is direct -communication between G.H.Q. and the intermediate base in Egypt; cabled -dialogues are practicable regarding reinforcements of troops and -supplies of equipment and of food. The storeships that dodge submarines -from Alexandria lie at Lemnos waiting to disgorge; Anzac requirements -are cabled down to them, and they off-load accordingly into the small -transports that the Turks shell daily off Anzac. News of mail is -flashed up from Alexandria and from Mudros, and the mail despatch from -the Peninsula cabled down. No progress in operations is possible apart -from this wizard's hut where the signallers sit and tap and smoke and -read.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[Pg 96]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Vc">CHAPTER V</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE DESPATCH-RIDERS</p> - - -<p>But though Army Corps Headquarters is in touch with the flanks by both -telephone and telegraph, that is not enough. Either or both may fail. -But apart from that, there are some communications which no officer -will trust to a wire. And until that is premised one wonders vaguely -what is the use for despatch-riders. Almost it would seem that in -these days, when so much of the romance of war has departed, telephone -and telegraph would do all; indeed, the despatch-rider and his steed -would seem among the first of the old usages to vanish before the -march of science in the field. But here they are, these lithe, brown -fellows with their furrowed bushmen's features—lined, not with years -(they average twenty-five) nor with care (they're of a flinging, happy -frame), but with the sparse, clear lines of the athlete about the -mouth, and about the eyes of the man who has peered into long distances -over the interminable plains of Western Queensland. They're horsemen -down to the tendons of their heels. You may see them tending their -horses at sundown, any day, in mule gully, slinging their saddles -across the bar outside their dug-out; and, after, boiling the billy. -They're modest, too, like many another good horseman, and will relate -the experience of their rides from Suvla only if you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[Pg 97]</span> press for it. -But there is no need for a relation; you may see them ride and sniped -most days of the week, if you'll be at the pains to climb the ridge -overlooking the level country of the left flank. Before the saps were -made their work was no game at horsemanship. But there are intervals -where the sap avails them nothing; and here they gallop at the stretch; -you may trace their route by the cloud of dust in the wake; and you -see them slow suddenly as they get into protected territory. The -sniping (they will tell you) is, curiously enough, worst at night; the -Turk creeps forth into advanced sniping-positions, and even brings up -his machine-gun within striking distance, and directs his aim by the -horse's clatter. Despatch-riding, day or night, is known as "the dinkum -thing."</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[Pg 98]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIc">CHAPTER VI</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE BLIZZARD</p> - - -<p>One knows little of the times and the seasons at which the early -Gallipoli winter plays its pranks. It is fairly gymnastic in its turns -of temperature. Still, we never expected a snow-blizzard in November. -For thus spoke the official weather-god (through the <i>Peninsula Press</i>) -regarding that fair month: "November generally comes in fine, with -a lovely first ten-days or so. It, however, becomes rather sharp at -night, and there may be expected a cold snap in the second or third -week of the month. This lasts a few days, after which the weather -gets fine and warm until the end of the month. November is, in fact, -considered by many to be the most glorious month of the year." ...</p> - -<p>Thus had it been a month to mark with a white stone. Instead, it marked -itself with white stones that were many. The halting autumn was full of -vagaries, but there was a persistent bitterness creeping in the wake of -the fitful November gales:</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 25%;"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all around me ev'ry bush and tree</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Says autumn's here, and winter soon will be—</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That snows his soft white silence over all.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>We had foreseen the snow-drift no nearer than that.</p> - -<p>But on the Sabbath morning of the 28th of November we woke to find a -Peninsula of snow, with snow-men<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[Pg 99]</span> bearing snow-rifles walking over the -snow-ridges. This was the introduction of most of us to a fall. The -nearest we had yet come to the meeting was at the "movies" which had -shown Cossacks ploughing through their native drifts for the Front. -Here was our first touch with reality in utter cold.</p> - -<p>The Australian has a reputation for adaptability of which not even -cold can rob him. He moved about like any Esquimau. This was true, -literally; for the first time he donned his rabbit-skin jacket and -his Balaclava cap and peaked field-service. The resemblance to an -Esquimau in his bear-skin coat and hood was remarkable. His curiosity -worked complementarily to his adaptability. This was like seeing a new -country for the first time. The snow made a new world, and no excess -of cold was to keep him from examining and wandering. He sloshed about -the gullies scrutinising the flakes as they lodged on his clothes; he -climbed the ridges to see something more of the general effect. The -Englishman regarded him from the stronghold of his snowy tradition with -superior commiseration, as who should say: "This'll make the beggar -hop!" The ill-starred Egyptians, never previously out of Lower-Egypt, -literally and piteously wailed with the cold. The Australians mostly -grinned and sky-larked.</p> - -<p>By eight o'clock he was pasting all passers-by from his store of -ammunition; and after breakfast was conducting a sort of trench-warfare -in the gullies, bombing out the glowing enemy with a new brand of -hand-grenade, pure-white.</p> - -<p>The wind blew a gale, driving the snow like thick smoke over the turbid -Ægean. Like rain it was not:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[Pg 100]</span> far too thick and cloudy. The towering -ridges on our east happily saved us the extreme bitterness of the -blast. But it whistled down our sheltered ravines in a gusty fashion.</p> - -<p>The trenches had another tale to unfold. For them was no grateful ridge -shelter. The freezing gale cut like a frosty knife across the parapet, -and drove a jet of ice through the loophole, and whistled ruthlessly -down any trench it could enfilade. The "Stand-to" at 5.30 that morning -was an experience of Arctic rigour.</p> - -<p>No sun relieved the grey, relentless day. The men slopped on through -the slush. Never had they conceived anything so cold underfoot. But -next morning the ground was frozen hard. Every footprint was filled -with ice. Where yesterday we had bogged, we progressed to-day like -windmills, with arms spread to keep a balance on the glassy and steep -inclining surface. Buckets and pans were frozen over. The bristles of -shaving-brushes were congealed into a frozen extension of the handle. -It was a valiant man who, having pounded them out into a sort of -individuality, ventured to use a razor: the blade seared like a knife -of fire.</p> - -<p>The sun shone bravely, but could not touch the stubborn ice of the -ground. That night was, to denizens of tropical Australia, incredibly -frosty. There was no breath of air. The cold bit through six -thicknesses of blanket and lay like an encasement of ice about your -limbs beneath the covers. Few in Turkey slept two hours that night, and -those by no means consecutively.</p> - -<p>Next morning the slush oozed out to the sun, and the whole position -was as an Australian cow-yard in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[Pg 101]</span> winter rains. And that's how the -glorious month of November made its <i>adieux</i> to Gallipoli.</p> - -<p>Yet it's an ill blizzard that blows nobody good. Recent storms had -played Old Harry with the landing of supplies at Anzac. In especial, -the water-barge had been cast high and dry on Imbros. Warfare is not -easy in a country where every pint of water consumed must be landed -under fire. Though summer was past, men must drink; salt bacon, salt -"bully," dry biscuit, are thirst-provoking; and beside that "insensible -perspiration" of which De Quincey was wont to make so much, there is -activity on the Anzac Beach, if not in the trenches: a normal activity -intermittently stimulated by the murderous shriek of shell from the -flanks.</p> - -<p>The reserve-supply of water had been already tapped. For a week we had -been on a quarter-ration. This eked out at about half a mug of tea -per man <i>per diem</i>. You ate salt beef for the evening meal without -tea; went to bed thirsty, dreaming of the rivers of water, woke to a -breakfast of salt bacon unmitigated by tea; and entered on a burning -day—though it was winter—a day relieved only by the half-pint at -lunch, at which you crunched biscuit and jam.</p> - -<p>Men were foregoing their precious nightly issue of rum because it -wrought a pleasant fire in the veins, and they had already had enough -of fire in the veins. Not only were you drought-stricken, but frozen -too, and that to a degree from which heating food would have saved you -in part. But there was no water for cooking the heating oatmeal waiting -to be issued, nor for the heating rice, which could not be boiled in -sea-water.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[Pg 102]</span></p> - -<p>Though the blizzard came in the midst of this drought it changed all -that. Rum-jars, buckets, biscuit-tins, water-cans—yea, the very -jam-tins—were filled with snow and there was the precious potential -water. Parched and frozen throats were slaked, beards shaven, porridge -boiled, bacon and beef defied to do their worst. Removed from the fire, -it had a dusty smack. But it was water!</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[Pg 103]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIIc">CHAPTER VII</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">EVACUATION</p> - - -<p>There will be a leavening of Egyptian in the Australian vernacular -after peace has broken out. It will persist, and perhaps have a weighty -etymological influence—at any rate on the colloquial vocabulary. -"Baksheesh" will be a universal term, not confined to sketches of -Oriental travel. "Baksheesh" is merely one of the many grafted Arabic -terms, but it will be predominant. "Sae'eda" will be the street -greeting (varied by the Sikh "Salaam, sahib"). "Feloose kiteer," -"mafish," "min fadlak," "taali hina," "etla," and the rest of them, -will be household words. Other phrases, not remarkable for delicacy, -will prevail in pot-houses and stable talk. Forcible ejection from a -company and polite leave-taking will both be covered by an "imshee"; -there will be "classy" "imshees" and "imshees" that are undignified.</p> - -<p>Such an evacuation as was effected at Anzac was distinctly "classy." -When first the notion of evacuation was mooted there was misgiving. -We were with our back (so to speak) to the sea, hemmed in in a narrow -sector of coast, with no ground whatever to fall back upon. There -was no one who did not expect disaster in evacuating a position such -as that; the only debate was as to degree. What would it cost us in -lives and money? And there was a greater fear unspoken—<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[Pg 104]</span>the hideous -reflection that an evacuation would make almost vain the heavy losses -of eight months' fighting. Everyone hoped against a giving-up. But -soon there was no mistaking the signs of the times—the easing off in -the landing of supplies, the preliminary and experimental three days' -restraint from fire all along the line, the added restriction upon -correspondence—in especial the order to refrain from any reference to -the movements of troops either present or prophetic, and either known -or surmised; the detailing of inordinately large fatigues to set in -order once more the last line of defence.</p> - -<p>The most obtuse soon saw his worst fears realised. Notice to quit was, -in general, short. On Sunday afternoon, the 12th, the O.C. came panting -up the gully. "Fall in the unit at once." They were given an hour and a -half's notice to have all ready for transport to the pier. Notice was -in many cases far shorter, resolving itself into minutes. But an hour -and a half is brief enough. Then there was bustle and feverish stuffing -of kit-bags. The dug-out which had been as a home for four months was -dismantled and left in dishevelment in a half-hour. It's hard to leave -a dug-out—your shelter from shrapnel and the snowy blast and the -bitter Turkish frost. It's here that you have smoked the consolatory -pipe for so many months—consumed the baksheesh steak and marmalade, -read the home letters and the local sheet of home from Australia, -played nocturnal poker, yarned with a fellow-townsman, and spread the -frugal late supper. It has been home in a sense other than that you ate -and slept there; it was home indirectly—by virtue of home mails, home -talk, home memories, visualisations<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[Pg 105]</span> nurtured under its shelter in the -night watches. Home because it was in Turkey, and that way duty lay.</p> - -<p>Now, in a few desecratory minutes, it was rudely stripped, bunks -overturned, the larder ratted, the favourite prints brushed from the -hessian in the bustle. The vultures from neighbouring dug-outs flocked -round for the spoil; the men who yet had no notice to evacuate came -for baksheesh. With a swelling heart you disgorged your little stock -of luxuries, that you would have taken but had no room for. It breaks -your heart to give over to the hands of strangers your meagre library -amassed during a quarter's residence, your little table, your baksheesh -butter and strawberry jam, potatoes and oatmeal, surplus luxuries in -clothing, the vital parts of your bunk, the odds and ends of private -cooking utensils that have endeared themselves by long and frequent -service at the rising of the sun and at the going down of the same, and -late at night. Though the life of a soldier is checkered, without any -abiding city, shot with hurried moves by flood and field, yet we had -had so many months in Anzac, in the one spot, that we had broken with -tradition and had made a sort of home in a sort of settled community. -And this was the rude end of all.</p> - -<p>We took a hurried snack as the mule-carts were loaded. The cooks made -merry (cooks, somehow, always contrive to have a convivial spirit at -hand), calling on all and sundry to drink a farewell with them while -they scraped and packed their half-cold dixies. Nevertheless—for -reasons explicit and subconscious—it was a melancholy toast. We -followed the transport to Walker's Pier—taking the sap, though, -without exception. This thought was uppermost; "What if<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[Pg 106]</span> Beachy Bill -should get us now?" To a man we took all the cover there was. No one, -at such close prospect of deliverance for ever from that shell-swept -beach, neglected precautions.</p> - -<p>Round at Walker's the beach was thickly peopled with units awaiting -embarkation. The bustle and shouting were almost stupefying. The unit -"pack up" had been this in a small degree. That was bad enough. Here -our own little preparation was both magnified and intensified. It -was growing dusk. A whole brigade was waiting with all its Cæsarian -<i>impedimenta</i>. Impromptu piers had been run out, and were lighted -by smoking flares. Pinnaces and barges moved noisily between them. -Military landing-officers and naval transport-officers, and middies and -skippers of trawlers, bawled orders and queries and responses. On the -beach the men lay about on their baggage. Non-commissioned officers -marshalled and moved them off. Mule transports threaded a way amongst -the litter of men and kit-bags. Officers who knew their time was not -yet stood in groups chatting and joking. The men, always free from -responsibility, played cards and formed schools of two-up, dipped into -their haversacks, and munched and raised to their lips vessels which -were not always mess-tins, and did not always contain cold tea only—or -even cold tea at all.</p> - -<p>We waited. The hour of embarkation was postponed from six to nine. At -nine most of the excitement had subsided, and the men lay quiet—except -where they revived themselves with a dark issue-liquid. There was -melancholy abroad—more than that of weariness in physical exertion. -As the hour of embarkation drew on (it was now postponed to ten) its -significance<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[Pg 107]</span> came home to their bosoms. The rifles cracked on the -ridges, the howitzers spoke, the din of bombs came down the ravine. -There were those fellows in the trenches being left to see the last -of it, and to get off if they could. Not the most resolute optimist -could look towards the bloodless evacuation which the event has shown -to an astonished world. Every flash of the guns in the half-moonlight, -every rifle fusillade, called up the vision of a last party attempting -to leave, and perhaps failing fatally to its last number. "If I could -get drunk," said a man wearing his equipment, "I would—blue-blind -paralytic. I never felt so like it in my life."</p> - -<p>We lay about another hour and a half. Then the order came suddenly to -go aboard—so suddenly that the half of the equipment had to be left. -The first load was got down; a return was being made for another. -"Can't wait," roared the N.T.O.; "leave your stuff or get left. The -barge is leaving now. Cast off, for'ard. Go ahead, cox'n." This was not -bluff. There was a scramble for the barge. There up in the sap lay the -cooks' gear, and half the private kit, to be despoiled (so we said) -by some barbarous Turk. "Put that match out. No talking." We puffed -out otherwise in silence, into the Ægean darkness. Liberty to talk, to -smoke, would have been a boon. There was talking in whispers—worse -than nothing. Cigarettes were quenched—and the spirits of that -unhappy, close-packed, silent load of silent men. The spent bullets -sang overhead in a kind of derision, getting lower and more intimate as -we moved on. Soon they were spitting about us and tapping the barge, -coming unreasonably near to tapping skulls and chests.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[Pg 108]</span></p> - -<p>But we got to the side of the darkened transport untouched, after long -wandering and hailing of many ships in the darkness. There was complete -exhaustion at the end. The men dropped down against their kits and -slept fitfully (it was bitterly cold) till the dawn. This was the last -look on Gallipoli; it had been a penultimate sight we had of it in the -dusk of the previous Sabbath evening, though we knew it not. For a -time we could only see the great grey mass flecked with an occasional -spurt of flame, where the guns were still belching. Then the glorious -sun slowly uprose, and threw up the detail. There were the old and -well-remembered and well-trodden heights of Anzac, and lower down we -came abreast of all the positions we had known, afar off, and now saw -more clearly than ever before. We looked along the deadly Olive Grove. -There lay the Beachy Bill battery, which every day had rained screaming -hell over the Anzac Beach, and was even now speaking sullenly in the -early morning glow.</p> - -<p>Achi Baba rose up to the south in a sort of soft splendour; how -different from the reality! That rosy tipped mountain, could we have -seen its detail, would show looming bastions, high forbidding ridges, -and galleries of guns, and rugged ravines that had well-nigh flowed -with the blood of our storming parties. Now it stood there, sloping -gently down towards Helles, behind the high, quiet headlands and -the bays of the coast. Soon we were abreast of Helles, then of the -multitude of shipping in the Straits mouth, and so on down behind -Imbros and under Tenedos, and away over the freshening sea to Lemnos, -a pale cloud, bigger than a man's hand on the starboard bow. And by -mid-day we lay in the quiet waters of Mudros Bay, looking over the -canvas-clad slopes.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[Pg 109]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III">BOOK III</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">BACK TO EGYPT</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[Pg 111]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Id">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">LEMNOS</p> - - -<p>After many delays we landed, and after many wanderings arrived at a -camping-ground, and went supperless and tentless to bed—too tired to -remark, rolled in our blankets, either drenching dew or stony ground, -but not so weary as to be unconscious of the absence of shell. Our -Last Post for many months had been sounded by bursting shell (for -many a man it had been Last Post indeed); the massed buglers of the -battalions seemed now a voice from the land of spirits. There were men -(they are to be believed) literally wakened by the stillness in the -night, restless through the sudden deprivation of the midnight shriek -from the flank and of our own roar of discharge from above. For the -nocturnal crack and whistle of bullets, here was the distraction of -utter quietness. For a week it was disconcerting.</p> - -<p>The <i>réveille</i> which wakened you at dawn was hard to place in the -first few moments of semi-consciousness. "Am I dreaming? Back in -camp at Melbourne?" The flood of consciousness sweeps off that sweet -delusion—however sweet this island of rest may be.... A woman's voice -draws you blinking to the tent door—"<i>Vashung! Vashung!</i>" It has a -Teutonic gerundial flavour. But it's only the Greek ladies soliciting -in the mist the soiled garments of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[Pg 112]</span> soldiers. They move about the camp -until the sun is well transmuted from that dull-glowing ball into the -mist-dispelling Day's-Eye, stripping the whole landscape down into -stony detail and making those volcanic peaks in the north to glow. -Before breakfast is well on the women have amassed their huge bundles, -and the 'cute Greek boys, in pantaloons and soldiers' cast-off tunics, -have sold you a day's store of oranges and chocolate.</p> - -<p>The days are easy. We know we shall move to Egypt (or "elsewhere") -incontinently, and will take the leisure the war-gods provide us while -we may. Only the fatigues necessary to camp cleanliness and to eating -mar the day. Most of it is spent lounging, reading, smoking, yarning -reminiscently of Anzac, and scrambling. Write letters we may not at -this stage. The general order prohibiting letters dealing with the -evacuation and with movements of troops either known or surmised has -never been revoked; and has been reinforced by a prohibition against -correspondence of any sort—except upon field-service cards—those -"printed abominations" for which correspondents at home "thank you very -much indeed for sending me."</p> - -<p>"What'll we do to-day? Go to the village or to Therma or to the -stationary hospital?—to the Greek church or the monastery?—or on a -voyage of discovery nowhere in particular?—or just have a loaf?—or go -and see if there's any mail in?"</p> - -<p>The Australian general hospitals claimed a high average of visits from -those men who made friends there. They lay across the water. The Greek -ferry-men transported passengers in their gaily coloured craft for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[Pg 113]</span> as -much as they could get. A fare was "laid down," but the Greek is as -inveterate a bargainer as your Egyptian, and the Australian's hobby is -to elude a fleecing. So that the burden of the conversation on the way -over lay mostly upon fares, conducted in as good Grammar-School Greek -as could be resurrected: which was not very good. But the cardinal -numerals were all that was really necessary: gesture and other physical -complementaries did the rest.</p> - -<p>The stationary hospital is a township, downright, with canvas blocks -and a main street and side-roads. Hospital <i>marquees</i> of the larger -sort always convey a sense of permanency. But when pitched in such -numbers and with a view to such a lengthy sojourn as these Lemnian -hospitals anticipated, they gave an impression of stability not -ordinarily associated with even a base. The huts of the Sisters' -quarters, dental huts, canteen shacks, X-ray huts, and so forth, -deepened the impression. And the furnishings took nothing from it: the -matting, the iron beds, the chairs and lounges, the lockers, tables, -medicine-chests. The blue suits of convalescents were in sympathy, too, -though they smacked rather of the permanence of the penitentiary. And -the traffic in the motor-lorries sometimes added the <i>quasi</i>-roar of -street traffic.</p> - -<p>The Sisters entertained friends at tea in their recreation-tent—a -luxurious red and yellow snuggery, one of the largest <i>marquees</i>, -furnished in a way quite adequate to the tone of a vice-regal -garden-party. Distinctions in rank were deleted. Privates, and officers -of the General Staff, hobnobbed as though in mufti. The recreation-tent -was a great leveller; there a sergeant presumed with impunity to argue -the point with a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[Pg 114]</span> Colonel from Headquarters. It was the most democratic -assembly active-service had yet produced. The common bond may have -been the dainty afternoon-tea—the fine china; the tiny sandwiches, -furnishing half an active-service mouthful; the fine linen of the -table-cover; the gentle tones of the hostess's voice: all these were -as unaccustomed to the Brigadier-General as to the Private on the -Peninsula. There was here the sweet half-delusion of a tea-party at -home, which broke down, for a couple of hours, barriers of rank. You -can conceive the exquisite contrast of the whole thing (you who rail -at afternoon-tea conventions—deliciously absent here, though!) with -the enforced boorish ruggedness of Anzac. And there was the walk after -along the ridge of the Peninsula on which the hospital lay, commanding -the fine harbour both ways: on the south bulwarked by precipitous hills -rising sheer as from a Scottish lake, and to the north checked by the -gentle slopes of that rich-hued country, volcanic to the core, from -which the afternoon sun drew out the warm, unnatural colour; and the -purple of the peaks lay beyond by the seaboard. "Is there a war on?" -The question recurred again and again, audibly, and was answered, not -by the company, but by the blue-clothed figures hobbling painfully upon -the broad road or lying helplessly in the warm December sun.</p> - -<p>One of the finest churches stands on the border of Portianus, the -village that was nearest to our Sarpi camp. It is richly decorated -with a profusion of Apostles, Saints, and scenes from Biblical history -on walls and roof. The altar stands beyond a screen as wide as the -building, fairly overcrowded with symbolic paintings. The sanctuary -was filled daily with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[Pg 115]</span> soldiers, who placed baksheesh in the plate as -they emerged past the old priest, smiling a Benediction at the door. -Those who could make anything of it crowded round the fine black-letter -vellum Greek Bible at the reading-desk—a treasure indeed. The rest -made an attempt at transliteration of the titles daubed beneath the -pictures of the Saints. (Most men on Lemnos acquired at least a -nodding-acquaintance with the Greek alphabet.) The old priest had -little English, but he was very willing to make a shot at exegesis upon -the Biblical pictures. There was an enormously large group of them at -the door of exit. He liked best to explicate, in his broken English, -a painting of the Last Judgment—God, a stout and irascible-looking -old gentleman sitting aloft upon the bench, with the Head-Saints about -him, suspending above a mortal the scales of Justice; on the right -the gaping mouth of hell, belching flame, and Satan uprising from the -heat; on the left the golden gate of heaven, with St. Peter graciously -admitting one of the approved, and a condemned wretch cowering -towards Hell.... The realism of it appealed to the priest's powers of -exposition. The others he passed over with a mere cursory indication -of the subject. He was a genial old man—genial even when he took us -out to the sepulchral yard behind the church and showed the vaults of -departed parishioners, with the bones deposited upon the slabs.</p> - -<p>Christmas came upon us in Lemnos. There was leisure to be unreservedly -merry, and that was much. The Billies came a couple of days before. No -one who does not remember well the unloading of Christmas stockings -can have a notion of the merriment that was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[Pg 116]</span> abroad. Santa Claus is -not dead. Had the evacuation been timed a little later he would have -visited the trenches. As it was, he came out of the mythological past -as another Greek god to Lemnos. And the Greeks, in the whole gamut of -their worship, never evolved a deity more beneficent. Psychologists -may debate the point whether Santa Claus, had he visited Australians -in the trenches, would have brought a keener zest of enjoyment with -his gifts than in the quiet of Lemnos. But the luxury of appreciation -of all things Christmas was upon the Australians at rest on this -beautiful island, and what is certain is that had the blessed donors -seen the distribution and the opening-up they could have had no more -precious reward. The Peninsula would have offered a sharper contrast of -enjoyment, but less leisure to enjoy. On the whole, it was probably a -good thing that we got our Billies during a respite.</p> - -<p>The letters enclosed mostly assumed the men in the trenches on -Christmas Day. Other assumptions were made, notably that in the -cartoon, on the Billies, of a conquering kangaroo and the inscription: -"This bit o' the world belongs to us." That hurt.</p> - -<p>Soldiers are children the world over—that is to say the best and the -worst of them. In the throes of Turkish toil and peril they had read in -the mailed newspapers of the initiation of the Billy-can scheme. Enemy -submarines were uncommonly active at the time. Hypothetical philippics -used to be launched at night against the submarine that might yet sink -the transport conveying the Christmas mail. Men threatened to desert to -the Navy for purposes of revenge in any such event.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[Pg 117]</span></p> - -<p>Nothing was lost through the mundane fact that the Billies were a -regimental issue—like bacon and jam and cheese. We forgot that. For a -half-day (they came in the afternoon) the camp went mad. We masqueraded -in fools' caps, swapped delicacies—and swapped (above all) letters. -Whatever may have become of the age of chivalry since Edmund Burke -mourned it in Europe, the age of sheer kindness-of-heart is vouchsafed -to us for ever since reading the letters in our Billies. Those letters -stand worthily beside the finest utterances with the indelible pencil -from the trenches; for, after all, true heroism resides as much in -those who wait and work in quietness at home for their men as in those -at war. Some day an anthology of those letters should be made and -published to correct selfishness and churlishness on the earth. For -that there is no kind of space here. But it may be well to say, in all -moderation, that no such fillip had before been given to the men in the -war zone as came with those missives which lay beneath the treasures in -the Billies. This was not Christmas at home; but it brought us near to -it, and proved again unanswerably (if proof were needed) that intrinsic -values in the gifts of this life are very little at all.</p> - -<p>The revelry of Christmas had hardly subsided when embarkation orders -came again. In the mist of a December morning we struck camp and moved -out from the stone pier to the waiting transports—wondering, most of -us, when embarkation in the service would cease to recur, and how long -it would be before embarkation would come for that long voyage across -the Pacific to a Christmas under the Southern Cross.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[Pg 118]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IId">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">MAHSAMAH</p> - - -<p>"The ——th and ——th Divisions will move from —— to —— in flights -of —— thousands daily. Two hundred and fifty camels will be allotted -to each flight for baggage-transport. Mahsamah will be the end of the -first stage.... You will proceed to Mahsamah, taking with you —— -thousand rations, establish a depôt, and issue rations to the flights -for twenty-four hours."</p> - -<p>So ran the order. Confound the flights! Why can't they train it? -Mahsamah's out of the world. These camps in desert places are ghastly. -We shall be enforced hermits. Entraining, they could get the whole -thing over in four days; this way it'll take fourteen. The weather's -getting midsummer. The battalions have just had a fresh boot-issue. -They'll be sore-footed and sick and sun-stricken. What's the game with -Headquarters—to harden the men or impress the natives?</p> - -<p>What's that to you? You've got to go, whatever garbled motives -Headquarters may have. So get your supplies aboard, and your men, and -leave in the morning.</p> - -<p>So we found ourselves sweeping over the desert at 9 a.m., with tents -and camp equipment in the guard's van and half a dozen trucks laden -with supplies trail<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[Pg 119]</span>ing behind. The sweet-water canal tore beside us, -and patches of irrigated land emerged at intervals into the field of -vision, and the low sand-dunes standing away towards Ismailia grew -higher; and before the canal fir-groves could become more than a blur -in the east we halted and got down, and had our trucks detached, and -the train moved off canal-wards, and we set about looking for a site on -which to build.</p> - -<p>And there was no time to waste. The first flight had left Tel-el-Kebir -that morning, and any moment their advance-guard might loom up on the -heat-hazed horizon and come in soliciting grub.</p> - -<p>A permanent camp of Royal Engineers close at hand lent a fatigue. By -three o'clock the virgin depôt was well established.</p> - -<p>At four, through a cloud of dust, the advance-party (mostly Staff -Officers on horseback) rode in very hot and very thirsty. Brigade -Majors boast a thirst at any time and in any weather. Aggravated now, -it had first to be assuaged. The Battalion of Pioneers who followed us -by train had mapped out the plan of camp on paper, and now proceeded -to conduct battalions; for they followed close in the heels of their -staffs, dusty and sweating under their packs, and dragging a weary -way through the yielding sand. Lucky Majors rode, and surveyed their -perspiring men from the cool and luxurious height of a horse. The -battalions plumped down in the sand and the sun where they stood. -The camel-trains followed, plonking along with their flat-spreading -feet and aspiring noses and loads of ration, blankets, tents, tables, -and general camp <i>impedimenta</i>. Their Indian "dravees" led them by -the nose. They gurgled with the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[Pg 120]</span> heat, and foundered on very slight -provocation indeed.</p> - -<p>By five the whole flight is established in bivouac lines. For a couple -of hours there is feverish bustle at the supply depôt. Half the issuing -is carried out by lamp-light. The battalions settle down to sleep with -the sun, and there is little energy left for horse-play, though there -is a good deal of singing, and even concerts improvised.</p> - -<p>But the whole camp is quiet by nine; the men are sleeping in the sand -under the moon; there are no lights except in the two tents erected for -Staff Officers.</p> - -<p>You're wakened at four the next morning by the camp astir, to be off at -sunrise. But they have their ration, and you don't get up, but thank -Heaven you're a part of no flight.</p> - -<p>A part of nothing—for the moment. That's the beauty of this mission. -You're subject to nobody. You've brought your own supplies, built -your own depôt, and can dictate to Staff Captains and Colonels and to -all the tin-hats who may approach you for ration. A supply officer is -deeply respected, <i>ex-officio</i>. Though he be a mere Subaltern, it is -known he holds the distribution of fleshly favours. The officer drawing -ration who is incivil is in danger of being the worse for it; only the -respectful get baksheesh.</p> - -<p>The Fortress Company of Anglesey Engineers camped permanently, who had -lent an emergency fatigue, turned out to be a boon and a blessing. -It took less time than usual to penetrate the admirable English -reticence surrounding their companionable qualities. The penetration -began with a neighbourly invitation to their regimental sports, held -conjointly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[Pg 121]</span> with those of a detachment of Hyderabad Lancers camped at -Mahsamah for patrol purposes. They united in a half-day's competition -in foot-racing, football, jumping, tug-o'-war, cycle-racing, and the -rest of the athletics common to Indians and Britishers. Beside, the -Hyderabads gave exhibitions in horseback-wrestling, tent-pegging, -cleaving the lime at the gallop, and allied exercises, in which -Englishmen do not compete. The Captain of the Lancers was a young -Indian aristocrat who spoke English faultlessly, and was a regular and -interesting member of the Anglesey mess.</p> - -<p>The English gentlemen who drew him and the Supply Officer were in no -way roughened by a six months' campaign at Suvla Bay. Gordon was an -Irishman from Trinity College, Dublin, who had preceded his course -in engineering by reclining in Arts three years and browsing richly -and refraining resolutely from cram—an engineer balanced ideally -between the world of mere mathematical horse-sense and a gentle -other-worldliness, and rich in a fitful and whimsical Irish humour -that was good to live with; a man devoted to duty (when any was put -in his way, which was seldom), otherwise exercising himself genially -upon self-appointed surveys, geological rambling, artful shooting, -photography, and banter. No tongue in the mess was a match for his; -he emerged from argument with ease and credit always, and left his -opponents floundering. A fearless, tender-hearted, courteous Irish -gentleman, modest to the point of self-effacement and able to the point -of genius. His mother was a friend of Edward Dowden and his circle, -and Gordon had in store a rich fund of anecdote relating to academical -Dublin.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[Pg 122]</span></p> - -<p>The Medical Officer—"Doc," familiarly—was a Scotchman with a -burr and a subtle uncaledonian quality of humour, and a sparkling -intellectuality quite out of harmony with the traditional Scotch -lumbering cerebration. Doc was lovable; and a butt through his -popularity, though not a butt who took it lying down. But he was never -a match for Gordon, though he usually routed the Captain—also a -Scotchman—whose hobby was the facetious discussion of ways and means -to getting a competent M.O. attached. The Doc's duties were purely -nominal, the care of any who might fall victims amongst the Angleseys -to toothache, boils, vermin, colds, gashes—any ills, in short, to -which men in a desert camp might be liable. For the rest, he shot -with the mess, dawdled with "films," perused his Scotch newspapers, -improvised schemes in sanitation, dabbled in canal parasites and -mosquito larvæ, and forged jokes.</p> - -<p>Seymour was a highly-intelligent animal (taking seven-and-five-eighths -in hats), who argued with a kind of implacable ferocity, and when he -sat down to bridge would never stop before two or three. But all his -argument was for mental exercise and not from conviction, and his -fiercest encounters were wont to end in a thrust of bathos at which the -mess roared. He was a fine intellectual and physical animal, as keen in -riding and shooting and bathing as in dialectic.</p> - -<p>The Captain was a diminutive, ceremonious Scotchman, commanding -deference out of doors, bullied to death in the mess by his Subalterns. -The contrast between out- and indoors was striking. The last letter of -the law in discipline and ceremony was observed outside the mess, but -at table no Australian<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[Pg 123]</span> officers' mess was ever more informal. Barriers -of rank were thrown down, and none but surnames tolerated by the least -even unto the greatest.</p> - -<p>That mess was as luxuriously appointed as a civilian home. Easy-chairs, -writing-tables, messing-tables and their appointments, punctilious -servants, matted floors, made one forget for a few hours daily that a -war was in progress. For the man who makes himself at home on service -you are commended to the English officer. And in a permanent camp such -as this he excelled himself. Eating was delicate, glass and silver -shone and prevailed. Hours for meals were late and irregular: breakfast -at 8.30; lunch light, and at any time; dinner at any hour between 8 and -9.30, and long-drawn-out, so that you generally rose from table between -10 and 11, and sat back for pow-wow after.</p> - -<p>It was a rare day there was not game in the mess. Adjoining the -sweet-water canal was a lagoon, reed-fringed and with reed-islands -where you could row a mile and believe yourself in Australia; no sand -to be seen. Three times a week we shot. There were duck and snipe and -teal. The Sheikh of the village furnished half a dozen shot-guns and as -many boats and boatmen, and came himself, carrying a gun (and proud he -was of his shooting—and justly so).</p> - -<p>One man one skiff was the order. We would set out at 4.30, after tea, -and return at 8. The danger was to forget the duck in the still beauty -of the evening. As you watched the reddening west over the reeds, the -birds coming across the ruddy ground would recall you to business. -Shooting was easy, so we got a lot. The place was untrammelled. Except -for an<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[Pg 124]</span> occasional General who came up for a day's sport (the Staff -had got to know the Mahsamah Lagoon), there was little shooting done, -and the water had not yet become a scare-area. The Sheikh did a little -on his own account. The underlings he provided knew their work, and -would ejaculate and advise in Arabic: <i>Talihena! Bakaskeen kebir!</i> -(snipe—big one!)—in a hoarse, excited whisper, as the birds rose -on the breeze. <i>Aywah</i>, you mutter, making ready. They would strip -and go into the reeds waist-deep for birds fallen there. <i>Quaiys -kiteer!</i> (fine), greeted a hit; and if you missed, a consolatory -<i>Malish!</i> (never mind), <i>Bukrah</i> (perhaps to-morrow), uttered with a -gentle ironical intonation. Rowing back there was always baksheesh in -cigarettes or cartridges—or both; and some, with their skins wet and -muddied from wading, deserved it. Some did not.</p> - -<p>The natives fished the lagoon systematically with nets, at night. You -encountered them as you pursued duck. They regularly exported crates -of fish to Cairo and Zagazig. When the nets were spread they would -"beat-up" the fish with tomtoms in the boats. You might hear their -solitary cries and their rhythmic tattoo on the water all night.</p> - -<p>They fished with lines, too—to order. If you gave them an order at the -camp for a dozen they would have them back in half an hour, wriggling -on a string. They were proud of their craft, and would throw you a -triumphant glance, as who should say, "Let's see you do that!"</p> - -<p>The Arab village lay on the banks of the canal. Comely villagers they -were, with well-featured women and men with a continent, contented air, -living by<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[Pg 125]</span> fishing or growing of crops. The camera they funked, and -that distinguished them from the raucous, dissolute denizens of Cairo, -who delight to ape attitudes for the photographer. They showed all the -best qualities of the fellaheen. There was no obsequiousness in the -men, as in the capital. There is no crowd more cowardly and villainous -than the Cairene mob. But the men at Mahsamah, when the sojourning -Australians attempted to commandeer their canal-ferry, pushed them -incontinently into the stream. This was conduct unprecedented in the -Egyptian. A town-and-gown fight ensued. Skulls were cracked, and the -Australians had by no means the better of it. There was a dash of -the old fighting Bedouin blood in these fellows. There was to be no -bullying here; and there was none.</p> - -<p>Only the station-master had forfeited his independence of spirit. He -alone of the whole village was in habitual contact with "the public." -It had wrought in him a fawning plausibility the more contemptible by -its contrast with the sturdiness of the surrounding natives. He lied -by habit; the fictitious way was more natural with him than the way -of truth. In official dealings he lied first, and afterwards modified -it into truth. Regardless of consistency, he said invariably what -he thought would please. Railway time-tables with him varied with -the estimated temper of the inquirer. This seems incredible, but it -is true. He was the only village inhabitant who ever invited you to -take coffee; and he (the potentially dignified station-master) alone, -in all the village, was ever known to solicit baksheesh—an oily, -yellow, perennially-smiling, small-bodied, altogether small-souled -railway-official,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[Pg 126]</span> in him seemed incarnated the slavish spirit of -officialdom in all Egypt.</p> - -<p>Bathing in the Canal was forbidden along its whole length. There lurked -a parasite that played Old Harry with livers. It ravaged the natives in -rare cases, though, having drunk and washed in the canal from infancy, -a sort of immunity was claimed for them. But there were victims to the -parasite to be seen amongst them—no pretty sight.</p> - -<p>A favourite walk at sundown was the canal-bank. The reed-shot lagoon on -the east, traversed by sporadic, crying duck; the gentle wind, blowing -warm off the Libyan Desert, drifting the silent dhow; a solitary -fellaheen on his ambling beast; an Arab doing his devotions in the -tiny praying-crib on the water's brink; the west darkening behind the -palm-tufts over the illimitable sand. There was a peace here little -known in our other halting-places in the Delta.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[Pg 127]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIId">CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">CANAL ZONE</p> - - -<p>At Serapœum, sprawled upon the Canal-banks just above the Bitter -Lakes, you are sufficiently far from Cairo to be delivered from the -hankering after the city such as gnaws you intermittently at such -a place as Tel el Kebir. From the old battle-ground you may run up -in a couple of hours; from the Canal the length of the journey is -trebled, and encroaches seriously upon your <i>feloose</i>, and that is -a consideration which ought not to—which will not—be despised on -service. And beside the fact that the rail journey is trebled from -the desert camp, there are some miles of dismal sand-plodding between -you and the railway-station, and the desert has inspired you with the -Sahara lassitude and an unfevered frame. You feel, in this waste of -brown sand, the incipiency of the mood of the contemplative Arab, to -whom the whirl of the metropolis is anathæma; but only its incipiency, -because there is still in your blood the subconscious resentment of -eight months' enforced inactivity on Anzac. Compulsory monotony, -whatever its form, raises a temperamental hostility: whether the -monotony of geographical confinement, limited vision, shell-scream, -innutritious food, inescapable dirt and vermin, or that of wide and -sand-billowed outlook, delicate messing, tranquil sleeping, luxurious -Canal-bathing,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[Pg 128]</span> heat, and flies. Cairo is Cairo. The Peninsula, as -comfortable as this, would have been far less intolerable. But so long -as it is something less than the trackless Ægean that divides from the -glamour of Egyptian cities, you clamour for leave.</p> - -<p>This is unintelligible—this <i>blasé</i>, surfeited mind of the Australian -soldier, in Cairo. "Never want to see it again! I'm fed up with Cairo!" -is a judgment strangely prevalent in the army of occupation. How -any land and people so utterly strange to the Australian can become -indifferent to him is incomprehensible. Every Cairene alley is a haunt -of stinks and filth—but a haunt of wonder, too. Cairene habits that -are annoying and repulsive are at the same time intensely interesting. -To get behind the mind of this people and hazard an estimate and a -comparison of its attitude towards life is an occupation endlessly -amusing.</p> - -<p>But you may clamour for leave here with little effect. Divisional -orders have minimised it to men going to Cairo on duty. Duty-leave is -a time-honoured slogan that has been accustomed to cover a multitude -of one's own ends. But the added stringency of leave regulations which -preface a projected move of the division scrutinise very closely all -that is connoted by the term "Duty-leave," and lop away a good many of -its excrescences. So that, on the whole, you end by settling down in -the great sand and feigning a lively response to the call of the desert.</p> - -<p>You do respond. You must. Anyone would; but not ardently.</p> - -<p>We are on the Sinai side of the Blue Trough which colours richly -between its shores of light sand. We<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[Pg 129]</span> also are colouring richly. It's -far too hot for representative uniform clothing. Yet the clothing is -uniform—uniform in respect of a discardment of tunic and cap and a -ubiquity of shirt. The broad-brimmed hat and the gauze shirt and the -half-bared thigh for us; and the daily bathe.</p> - -<p>The soldier is very busy indeed—too busy to live—who cannot get time -to trudge over to the blue water, doff, and disport himself in that -cool, tideless limpidity, which recreates (we are gross, material -creatures) his world. The banks swarm with brown, deep-chested nudes; -the water is strewn thickly with smooth-haired, colliding Australians, -elated by the bodily change almost beyond belief. Desert livers, desert -lassitude, and desert shortness of temper, cannot persist in this -medium. And the rest of the day is transmuted by it. The Canal adds to -efficiency.</p> - -<p>Ships of all nations pass daily, and ships of all classes at Lloyd's. -Those are reckoned A1 which bear women-passengers. Raucous warning to -those men who are back to nature on the bank is given as the mail-boat -creeps up. Everyone who is wearing his birthday garment plunges and -swims out. The ship is surrounded by a sea of heads, and greeted with -all the grafted Arabic phrases that Australians have acquired—no, -not all; but with all those suited to polite society. The facetious -cry for baksheesh rises with a native Arabic insistence (but is -responded to with a freedom not customarily extended to natives): -"<i>Sai-eeda!—Baksheesh!—Gib it!—Gib it baksheesh for the baby!—Gib -it!—One cigarette!—Gib it tabac!—Gib it half-piastre!—Enta -quies!—Quies kiteer!—Kattar kairak!</i>" as the shower descends: tins -of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[Pg 130]</span> cigarettes and chocolate, and keepsakes that are not edible.</p> - -<p>There is as much excitement on deck as in the water. There is monotony -of sea-travel as well as of desert life; the same encounter interrupts -both. And apart from that, one can believe that these peoples are -genuinely glad to see each other. The soldiers have looked in the face -of no woman for far too long, and the admiration of the women for the -fellows is not necessarily feigned. They throw over greetings with the -other baksheesh luxuries, and these are returned in kind. The girls are -sports in the Australian sense, offering suggestions to come aboard, -and go tripping with rather more freedom than they would probably -use were there any possibility of an acceptance of the invitation. -Inevitably there is one woman (never a girl) in fifty who spoils it all -by a touch of Jingoism—calling them brave and noble fellows to their -faces, and screaming "Are we downhearted?" in a way Stalky would have -disapproved. This is volubly resented in responses to that oratorical -question which have no direct reference to the state of their spirits.</p> - -<p>The boat moves on, fluttering with handkerchiefs, to the transport -staging, always crowded with men, who are not nude. The shower of -baksheesh is flung over again. Women are not notoriously good shots. -For the packages that fall short the men leap in, clothes and all, -and scramble, and reckon themselves well repaid. One afternoon the -largest package for which clothes were wetted proved to be a bundle of -<i>War-Cries</i> and allied journals, dropped either by some humourist or -by one sincerely exercised for the spiritual<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[Pg 131]</span> welfare of the troops. -The latter was the inevitable assumption. The donor was greeted by the -dripping warriors with a chorus of acknowledgments that could leave no -doubt as to their spiritual needs. Soldiers have a religion, but they -are not accustomed to make it explicit.</p> - -<p>The passing ships lighten the dulness. They bring a whiff of the great -British civilian world that is otherwise so unrelentingly far removed, -and which Cairo (when one does get there) brings very little nearer.</p> - -<p>The Canal is crossed at Serapœum by pontoon ferry, row-boat, and -pontoon-bridge. Take your choice. But that is not always possible. -Sometimes the bridge is swung open for hours on end to allow liners, -tugs, dhows, and launches to pass. It was built for vehicular and -animal traffic—for the transport of supplies, in fact, from Egypt to -the troops in Sinai. When open it therefore bears a constant stream of -G.S. waggons loaded with army stores. It's one stage of the journey -of beef from the plains of Queensland to the cook's "dixies" in the -Sinaian desert trenches. Supplies are disembarked at Suez and Port -Said, entrained to Egyptian Serapœum, transported by waggon across -this bridge to the desert railway terminus on the opposite bank; they -are trucked out to railhead beyond the sandy horizon, and thence Canal -trains bear them to the desert outposts for final distribution. And -that is the chequered career of the Argentine ox, who never dared -hope for himself any such distinction as that of contributing to the -efficiency of His Majesty's Forces in the Peninsula of Sinai.</p> - -<p>The miniature desert railway is no despicable<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[Pg 132]</span> contrivance, puffing -there and back-firing from its nuggety petrol engine. It can make -fifteen miles an hour with fifteen trucks of supplies lumbering behind. -Sometimes it leaves the somewhat flimsy track; sometimes it runs down -an unaccustomed Arab in a desert dust-storm; and sometimes it "sticks" -quite as annoyingly as any petrol-driven vehicle can do. Whatever the -nature of the obstacle—mangled Arab or jibbing engine—there is lusty -swearing; for the business of the desert railway is of more urgency -than that of most links in the lines of communication. For instance, -it—and it alone—can furnish with anything approaching expedition the -daily water-supply of the advanced trenches in the April Arabian sand.</p> - -<p>It was during the first day of the <i>khamseen</i> that the engine-wheels -became clogged with the remains of a man whom the whirling dust -prevented from seeing or hearing anything of engines. The violence of -the annual April <i>khamseen</i> is incredible by those who haven't suffered -it. The initial days of the <i>khamseen</i> period the Egyptians celebrate -in the festival of <i>Shem el Nessim</i>. They go out into the fields of the -Delta (of the Delta, mark you) with music and with dancing. There's no -disputing about taste—if, that is, the <i>khamseen</i> is blowing "up to -time." Nothing more distressing you'll meet amongst desert scourges. -It's the <i>khamseen</i> which kills camels in mid-desert by suffocation. -That is a fair test of the driving and dust-raising powers of the storm.</p> - -<p>It begins with a zephyr for which the uninitiated thanks Allah in -the first half-hour. By the end of an hour he is calling upon Allah -for deliverance. At the end of a day he speculates upon his chances -of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[Pg 133]</span> seeing the morning. At the end of the second day he calls upon -Allah to take away his life. The <i>khamseen</i> this year lasted two days -without intermission. It began at dark without further warning than -that of a leaden sky and a compression of the atmosphere. But these -are indications that are, in Egypt, so often indicative of nothing, -that they lose significance altogether. On the 20th of April they -proved to have been highly charged with meaning. In forty minutes the -gale had reached its height. And there it stayed. Men expected relief -momentarily; but it never came that night—nor the next day—nor the -night following. "Such violence cannot last," said the Australian. In -twenty-four hours he was not sure it might not last for ever. Few tents -stood the strain longer than an hour. Men grumbled and turned in with -a half-sense of security from the tempest without. They hardly looked -for their house to come tumbling about their ears before midnight. -But few escaped that; the others spent the night under fallen canvas. -Sinaian desert sand cannot be expected to bear an indefinite strain -upon tent-guys. Those tents which stood at sunrise (if sunrise it -could be called) were kept up only by the frequent periodicity of the -mallet's application in the thick night. As soon as one tent-peg left -earth, the beginning of the end was come unless the inmate crouched out -and replaced it and strengthened the others. He came back with ears and -nose and eyes clogged and face stung painfully. At the third attempt to -keep his home up he said: "I'll go no more! Damn it! Let it come!"—and -it came.</p> - -<p>The morning showed no sun—showed nothing farther than six yards away. -Men showed a face<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[Pg 134]</span> above demolished canvas and drew back hastily, stung -and half-choked by the driving grit. In those tents still standing -the furniture could not be judged by appearances. Thick dust covered -everything as with a garment. Regimental office tents that had fallen -before the gale had lost documents that could not be replaced or easily -recreated. Food in the mess was inedible; no one ate except to satisfy -the more urgent demands of hunger. The outdoor work had to proceed. You -couldn't see more than in a North Sea fog. Collisions were inescapable. -You couldn't smoke; you couldn't speak, without swallowing the gale. -Men got disgusted with continuing to live. On the third morning the -desert smiled at you as though nothing had happened. The quiet and -the purity of the air were like release from pain. Men set to work at -cleaning their hair and alleviating a desert throat.</p> - -<p>Anzac Day came upon us at Serapœum—the first anniversary of the -day of that landing which has seized and fired the imagination of -the Empire. No doubt there are other empires than the British which -marvelled at the impetuousness of that maiden proving of Australian -temperament; for it was temperament that carried us up. The world had -no sound ground for being surprised at success on the 25th of April, -except in so far as the world was ignorant of Australian temperament. -Yet surprise contended with adoration in the newspaper headings -which announced our success in planting a foot on Turkish ridges. -But inaccuracy in a use of terms is a quality not inseparable from -journalistic headlines in times of public excitement. The fact is that, -notwithstanding the world's<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[Pg 135]</span> expectation of the fatal elaborateness of -the Turkish preparation to receive us, there was no call for surprise -at the event in people that knew Australian conditions of life and -resultant Australian character. And, granting that as known, the fact -that we were fleshing virgin swords was no legitimate further ground -for surprise, though it was commonly published as such. It should -have been anything but that. People knowing Australians would be due -to recognise that, in all the circumstances, they would fight better, -under the eyes of the world, in a probationary struggle calculated to -establish their reputation than would experienced soldiers who knew -more than they of what the task exacted and of its possibilities. -Ignorance of warfare other than theoretical was in no sense a handicap -to men of Australian temperament: to such men it was material aid. In -a word, Australians could not help themselves at the Landing. Were -it otherwise, our troops would not have overstepped requirements to -the extent of unorganised and spasmodic pursuit of the routed enemy. -Success at the Landing was the inevitable result of temperament rather -than the contrived result of qualities deliberately summoned up on the -occasion....</p> - -<p>The supreme charm of the desert resides in her nights. Long purple -shadows spread over the sand-tracts before evening. This gives to the -sand-sea an appearance of gentle undulation which is virtual only, but -none the less grateful for the delusion. The distances are shortened; a -crushing blow is dealt by the peace-loving evening to the desert curse -of monotony. The Suez hills transform to rich purple masses, splendid -in the depth of their colour. The Bitter Lakes sleep<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[Pg 136]</span> in the south. The -Canal settles down to gleam stealthily between its amorphous banks. -The fir-groves on the shore thicken; the dancing daylight interstices -in their meagre ranks are filled by the on-coming darkness until you -feel there are acres of thick plantation; they moan quietly in the -dusk in relief from the pitilessness of these burning days. The little -rivers of water scooped about their roots are filled, and the delicious -absorption begins.</p> - -<p>Down-stream the coolies are chanting together in response to an -improvised wail unerringly consistent with the rhythm of their chorus. -You will hear nothing more pathetic than this song removed by distance. -The solo comes down the water in the cadences of desolation. It may be -the irregularity of the cadence that gives the sense of lamentation; -it may be because the enunciation is never full-chested—nor even -full-throated. It is as though extorted by a depth of desolation of -spirit that cannot stoop beneath the dignity of rhythmic utterance. -Near or far, the coolie choruses bear the same import of pathos; and, -indeed, there is little happiness amongst the Egyptians: nothing -buoyant (their climate forbids it); nothing approaching French vivacity -of spirit. There is a profound solemnity in the heart of the Egyptian. -It sometimes finds exaggerated vent in an unnatural but curtailed burst -of merriment, which quickly repasses into the temperamental sombreness. -The folk-songs and chants of a people are a safe index to temperament: -nothing more consistently pathetic than this will you hear without -travelling far.</p> - -<p>The chant ceases as the bow searchlight of a vessel turns out of -the Lakes into the Canal channel, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[Pg 137]</span> illuminates it like a walled -street. There are ships that pass in the night, and they light their -own way with a brilliancy that takes no risk of collision. The tiny -wind-ridges in the banks are in relief; for a mile ahead the minutest -floating object is discovered. The coolies hail her as she passes. The -night-gangs at work on the barges that bear supplies from Suez and -Port Said interrogate hilariously, out of harmony with the still glory -of the night, but consonantly enough with the brilliant illumination. -There is not much dialogue. Most of the hailing is from the shore -alone.... She moves on. The banks close blackly about her stern. The -lanterns swing again about the barges.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[Pg 138]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IVd">CHAPTER IV</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">ALEXANDRIA THE THIRD TIME</p> - - -<p>It's like returning to visit an old friend—rushing towards the sea -of masts behind the sea of white towers glittering beside the sea -of Mediterranean blue. At the first glimpse of that multitudinous -shipping you lose interest in the sea of green delta through which -you are rushing; the mud-walled village-islands rising from it lose -charm in anticipation of the big city you know so well. You remember -it with a sort of yearning for its nobility. For noble it is. There -is no nobility in Cairo, except seen from the fringe of the Mokattam -Hills as you stand on the Bey's Leap at the Citadel looking down on the -busy expanse under its wealth of minarets. Cairo is more interesting, -because more truly Oriental; it has the charm of utter strangeness. -Alexandria is better built, more stately, less evil-smelling; it's the -charm of a well-ordered European city that holds you; and there is -always the loveliness of that Mediterranean outlook from the clean, -generously-broad esplanade. The sea about Cairo is true desert-sand, -unending, which is not lovely, except at the dawn and sundown, when the -colour leaps up about the far horizon.</p> - -<p>For three hours, since leaving Cairo, you have been scouring the -green plain in a train of the Egyptian State railways, which bears -comparison well with most<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[Pg 139]</span> other rolling-stock that a limited knowledge -of the travelling world has given you. The Delta is unnaturally rich -and almost unnaturally green. Many centuries of Old Nile depositing -of fat mud have seemed to concentrate within that Nile Valley all -the richness that is in the soil of Egypt. Nor is it a green that is -ultra-rich by contrast with a desert background, for as far as you see -either way there is no sand; you're in the heart of the crops. There's -a monotony of level cultivation which tires you in the end, however -rich; a monotony broken only by a monotonous succession of out-cropping -palm-groves, sleeping canal, white creeping sail, mud-walled village, -and dilapidated mosque. You tire of the regularity of recurrence. -There is a hankering after the quiet stir and variety of the city of -Alexandria quite as strong upon you as Johnson's fervent passion for -the atmosphere of London.</p> - -<p>There is a simple crudity in the man who persists in being an -Englishman to the backbone in the land of Egypt. The Australian enters -much more aptly into the spirit of the country—worms his way into -the intricacies of the bazaars and markets, and talks much with the -Alexandrian denizens, if only in pantomime. He "does as they do" far -more consistently than the restrained Tommy—even to the extent of -consuming their curious dishes, riding on their beasts and in their -vehicles, tasting their drinks and smoking their pipes. The Englishman -tends to call always for English beer and for roast beef, and sticks -tenaciously to his briar.</p> - -<p>Alexandria has changed, too, at the quays. The transports are no longer -lading noisily, nor, when they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[Pg 140]</span> are lading, taking in ammunition. -Mostly they are lying out quietly in the harbour, waiting. In March of -last year the harbour was alive with barges bearing fodder and supplies -and ammunition, and with motor-launches rushing to and fro carrying -officers of the General Staff. Now an occasional Arab dhow drifts -lazily, bearing nothing in particular, and the quay-sides are noisy -only with a sort of civilian bustle.</p> - -<p>And the ubiquitous nursing-sister was not ubiquitous last year; she -was rarely to be seen in the streets; then she was like the motor-car -twenty years ago: you turned round and looked until her gharry was -swallowed in the traffic. Now she is, in twos and threes, in the cafés, -the Oriental shops, the car, the post office, the mosque; on the -esplanade, on the outlying pleasure-roads of Ramleh, the golf-links, -the race-course; the Rue Cherif Pacha teems with her, shopping or -merely doing the afternoon promenade. She is sprinkled among the -tea-parties at Groppi's; her striking red and grey adds colour to the -Square of Mahomet Ali, the Rue Ramleh, and the Rue Rosette.</p> - -<p>Do not infer, gentle reader, that there is nothing to be done in -hospital. There is; but less. Gallipoli wounds either are healed or -sent to Australia to heal in the fine St. Kilda air. It's mostly sick -in hospital now, and sick requiring merely routine attention. And, -beside, there are more hospitals than a year ago. Since the Turkish -fight began they have been increasing; and now it's over, the Lemnian -hospitals of the advanced base have sailed back, and, in cases where -they are not yet re-established, their Sisters are running about the -capital unchained, revelling in a well-earned respite, with the Ægean -roses blowing in their cheeks.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[Pg 141]</span></p> - -<p>Of hospitals there is no end, in the airy suburbs. The splendid -houses of rich Beys fly the Red Cross at unexpected stages of the -ride to Ramleh. An amazing number of private houses are in use thus. -The convalescents wander over the lawns and through the shrubberies -and perch on the balconies. There is evidence of the havoc played by -Turkish weapons and Turkish sickness on all hands. The impression is of -Alexandria's having been hard put to it to find hospital accommodation.</p> - -<p>In these respects Alexandria has changed, but not in itself. It has the -same well-bred appearance as a city. There is the same absorption of -its regular population in business or in pleasure. The Bourse, the hub -of the city, is as animated as ever with bearded, gesticulating French, -Italian and Greek financiers taking their coffee on its verandah -looking down the Square. The Rue Cherif Pacha is as close-packed as -before with the carriages of rich French dowagers and pretty French -aristocrats. They have their coachmen in livery, and they know how to -dress irresistibly. There are not many finer human sights in this world -than is made by a young French mother, gowned and toileted with an art -that conceals art, reclining in the barouche with her daughters in the -Alexandrian winter afternoon sunshine. The Melbourne "Block" brags of -its reputation for beauty, but here is a fine essence of beauty such -as Paris at her best would own, which Paris, one suspects, actually -does flaunt in the summer. The best beauty of Paris, Milan, and Athens, -winters here. So does much of England. At present it is chiefly the -wives of officers; and they are no mean stock.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[Pg 142]</span></p> - -<p>That Place Mahomet Ali is endlessly interesting and endlessly -picturesque. The gamut of the city's life is run-over here any -afternoon. It's a stately Square: stately in the buildings that -surround it—Stein's and the majestic Bourse and St. Mark's and the -best hotels. There are the rows of well-kept gharries and well-groomed -horses—kept as well as most private carriages. The two well-planted -islands stand green and quiet in the midst of the gentle roar and -moving colour, and the fine equestrian statue of Mahomet Ali looks with -dignity down upon it all. It's perhaps the most cosmopolitan crowd -in the world that moves about the Square. The typically Arab quarter -is segregated—lies in a labyrinth of bazaars in a well-defined area -off the Square. Cairo is flooded with the life and business of the -Arab in every quarter. Cairo, too, is compassed about with so much of -Ancient Egyptian relics as to distract you from the occupation of first -importance: looking upon the living. They are of more import than the -dead. In Alexandria the ancient monuments are few, but those few are -well preserved and mostly confined within the walls of the Classical -Museum. You may watch the life of Alexandria undistracted by any -subconscious urging to be out stooping and panting through the Great -Pyramid for the fifth time (that nothing be lost), or wandering among -the silent Tombs of the Caliphs.</p> - -<p>A right good sight in Alexandria is the broad, mansion-skirted -promenade of the Rue Rosette on a Sunday morning. The French "quality" -of the city seems to reside there, and the best of it all is to watch -the dainty little French girls going to Mass in the pleasant sunshine. -They promenade that street<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[Pg 143]</span> in groups for two or three hours until -all are retired into the residences for the mid-day meal. There is a -delicacy of beauty in these little girls that affects one strangely -after eight months from the haunt of woman and child.</p> - -<p>The Rue Rosette in the morning, or the Quai Promenade Abbas II., -fronting the lovely Crescent of Port Est: this is the place to laze -away a morning, hanging over the broad stone wall on the water's edge, -or lounging in the open cafés behind the smooth road. There is that -generous expanse of glittering sea heaving gently between the horns -of the bay. The Fort Kait Bey lies brown on the western lip and Fort -Sel Sileh on the east, half embracing the blue. A rich mellow colour -they have, and a richer blue it is for that. And the white piles of -Alexandria thrust up all about the bay's brink, fringing the clear -basin with a sort of stately splendour. It's fine, too, the comfortable -laziness of the red-tarbushed fishermen on the wall, smoking and -fooling away the morning in the soft landbreeze blowing sweet off the -city. The only movement is with the Arab boys racing along the parapet -or the quiet motion of the fishing-smacks lying off. An old Russian -aristocrat is taking the air in a gharry; the nursemaids are out with -the babes; the well-dressed unemployed Egyptians (they throng the city) -are sipping their morning coffee in the glass-walled cafés. Alexandria -often gives the impression—except in the Square—that there are no -livings to be made. There is a luxurious spirit of idleness abroad in -the place, which appears on the balconies of the houses, in the cafés, -in the carriages of the suburbs. The idle rich—who are largely not -the vulgar rich—<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[Pg 144]</span>are here, whole battalions of them. There is nothing -like the studied idleness of Edinburgh Town or of Naples—nor of Cairo. -There are plutocrats who know how to dress and how to take their ease -without boredom, and to pursue pleasure without apparent <i>ennui</i>. All -these things (you feel) have they observed from their youth up; they -practise none of them crudely. They are well schooled in a placid and -luxurious enjoyment of life.</p> - -<p>The Alexandrian night begins about 9.30. It is for that hour the opera -overture is timed; then cafés and music-halls begin to be thronged. -At one in the morning it is at its height. The opera may conclude at -two; and after that is the supper, and after that the drive. Far the -best way to see it all is to sit up in the diggings of your friend -overlooking the brilliant Rue Ramleh from twelve on toward the dawn. -There are sacred pipes and Alexandrian fruits, and other things; they -include the conversation of the man who has lived in Alexandria a year -and looked about him not casually, and who realises the import of all -he sees in the pulsing street below.</p> - -<p>This is the fine side of Alexandrian night life. There is the sordid -aspect, not good—<i>i.e.</i>, pleasant—to look on nor to relate. -Alexandria cannot compare with Cairo in lasciviousness. Perhaps no -place on earth can, nor any under earth. For crude carnality you -are to be commended to the Wazzia of Cairo; there the flesh-pots of -Egypt are seething and steaming. Apart from the temperately-conducted -biological friendships of the leisured French and Russians and -Italians, the carnal traffic of Alexandria is limited very closely. -It does not clog the alleys, as in Cairo,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[Pg 145]</span> on every hand. Indeed, it -is rather the pot-house and the tavern, where the sole business of -the waitresses is to bring traffic in beer, that is the scourge of -Alexandria. Their blandishments mostly are content with coquettish -inducements to "fill 'em up again"; to achieve that they will perch -on the knees of the soldiers and stroke their visages in a fashion -not just maidenly, but effective in the eyes of the beer-boss. These -taverns are at close intervals in all the poorer streets. There is -always a piano, at least, and an employed performer; sometimes there -is an embryonic orchestra—harp and fiddle—whose <i>répertoire</i> is -Tipperary and another—or perhaps two others. There is a continuous -fierce roaring, which subsides only when a Tommy rises to sing. The -pianist ramps out an improvised accompaniment. No pianist has ever been -known to decline to make an attempt. Everybody joins in the chorus. -By the time the chorus of the fifth stanza is under way, there is a -rare drunken hullabaloo, and spilt beer and broken glasses. Ogling -girls and flushed, embracing Tommies, yells for more beer, and drunken -miscalculations of the score and feebly thundering band—all are -checked with a parade-ground suddenness when the red-caps appear with -their roars of <i>Nine o'clock!</i> And the pot-house, so to speak, closes -with a slam.</p> - -<p>The picquets are irresistibly strong and numerous. They parade in -squads in half-sections, each under an officer. The Provost-Marshal, -with a scrape o' the pen, has placed out of bounds most of the -danger-zones which a year ago were open territory to the soldier.</p> - -<p>The Arab quarters are at their best at midnight.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[Pg 146]</span> They have their -music-halls, blatant and raucous and evil-smelling. The star performers -are usually confined to one bloated, painted woman who screams an -Arab rhythm at intervals under the influence of hasheesh, to the -accompaniment of an orchestra of pipes and drums whose performers -are elated by the same familiar spirit. Arab music is strident to a -degree that sears the nerves. No drunkenness in the audience ever -drowns <i>that</i>. It soars like a siren above the frantic mirth of the -drinkers. Applause breaks forth at unprovoked intervals. The lady is -never perturbed. She is reinforced occasionally by the brazen-throated -orchestra, which is chorus too. The din is unimaginable when they are -working in concert. The Arab sense of rhythm is unerring. Their rhythms -are irregular and without consecutiveness in their habits, to the -European ear that is not closely attentive; drawn out, as it were, into -irregular strands—totally unsystematised, it seems—with the intervals -at cross-purposes. They despise the Western mathematical rhythmical -"groups" and the regular Western recurrence of stresses and intervals. -English rhythm is as much unlike it as the characters of a London -morning sheet differ from the gracefully irregular type of the native -Egyptian press; the difference is as striking as between the tortuous -Eastern mind and the British downrightness; as between an English tweed -suit and the Arab flowing robe. Yet in this rhythmical maze no member -of the orchestral chorus ever loses his way. There is perfect agreement -in the disclosing of the scheme, which, after half an hour's turbulent -listening, begins to show its shape through the rhythmical murk. And -you know before you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[Pg 147]</span> leave that though English music may make a sweeter -sound than this, the Arab mastery of rhythm is mastery indeed. And that -knowledge is, of course, deepened if you'll stop any day and listen to -a group of Arab workmen chanting at their job.</p> - -<p>So long as you withstand the glad-eye of the serpent of Old Nile (who -descends now and then from the boards and collects baksheesh piastres) -and keep to coffee, you will find these Egyptian music-halls absorbing -enough. There are never women in the audience. The Egyptian woman—at -any rate in the lower and middle classes—is never a "theatre-goer," -as far as can be judged. She earns most of the living. All the -<i>feloose</i> would seem to go into her lord's mighty hand, which does the -spending—mostly on himself. Night after night he comes there in his -red tarbush and sees the evening out with liquor and vociferous talk. -Somewhere in the small-hours a gharry comes for the lady, and the hall -noisily gets emptied. And as you climb up to your room in the hotel -opposite, you can hear the dispersing throng in argument and criticism -far along the emptying street. Standing at your balcony door, it merges -imperceptibly into the subdued murmur of the city, broken by a belated -wailing, street-cry.</p> - -<p>In the morning you wake at some hour later than <i>réveille</i>, and gloat -for a time that is indefinite over the luxury of a spring-mattress -and of a day's time-table that is of your own framing—that shall -be when you summon up energy sufficient to begin upon it. The city -wakens almost as late as you. By the time you have bathed and dressed -at exaggerated ease and meandered round to the Italian restaurant -it is ten<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[Pg 148]</span> o'clock. Exotic Italian dishes are good for all their -strangeness.... Across the peopling Square you get a car to Pompey's -Pillar, towering above the Arab cemetery. The green mound bearing that -granite column is an oasis in the desert of squalor about it. From the -crest of the hillock you see Lake Mareotis spread out like a cloud in -the morning mist—those shores now waste that grew the wine beloved of -Horace.</p> - -<p>The old municipal guide totters up the slope and offers you below, -through the Catacombs. You have seen the other Catacombs, beside the -Lake, which alone are really worth seeing. He shows you the Roman -mortuary-chapel in sandstone at the entrance to the galleries, lights -up his candle-lamp, and you traipse after him through the labyrinth. -The niches in the wall are robbed of their mummies; all epitaphs are -long since gone—assuming there ever were any; there is hardly anything -to be seen that is even symbolic. The old fellow mutters continually in -a lingo quite unintelligible, except in short and isolated fragments. -The linguistic accomplishments of many of the official attendants on -the ancient monuments of Egypt are deplorably shallow. You notice it -far more at places that are of far more historical importance than -the Catacombs. The tombs of the Sacred Bulls at Sakkhara afford the -most striking instance. A relic so bound up with the ancient religion -as is the Serapœum ought to be in charge of an attendant who not -only can speak English fluently, but is beside alive to the import of -his subject. The old dotard at the Serapœum has no further English -(obviously) than: <i>Sacra' Bool! Sacra' Bool!</i> and <i>Bakshish</i> and <i>T'ank -you, Sair!</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[Pg 149]</span></p> - -<p>The Catacombs <i>par excellence</i>, lie along the Rue Bab-el-Melouk south -of Pompey's Pillar; but since we've been there before rather more often -than once, they must be passed over.</p> - -<p>And so must a great deal else.</p> - -<p>The Greek and Roman Museum hard by the Rue Rosette is hard to find, -retiring into a side-street with a true classical unobtrusiveness. It -is less famed than the Egyptian Museum at Cairo, but more interesting. -Most people have at least a nodding acquaintance with the history of -the classical occupation of Egypt—and here are the relics of it; -whereas Egyptian history is not popularly read, even in a cursory -fashion. In any case, for the inveterate Egyptologist there is a small -mummified Egyptian section. The Cleopatra relics are well preserved, -and especially a magnificent bust of the Siren. Mural and portal -decoration of Roman and Greek houses are there in fine fragments, and -there is a legion of vases and other ornaments from the living-rooms. -Probably the most significant specimens, historically, are the coins; -of them there is an enormously large collection. And the priceless -papyri lie near at hand. Of sepulchral emblems there are a great many, -but none beautiful except the laurel-crowned cinerary urns.</p> - -<p>The museum is small but highly charged with meaning. There is a -courtyard attached for the preparation (and restoration) of specimens, -and it has some Roman monuments and gateways too huge for the interior.</p> - -<p>The faithful Soudanese are the janitors and the conductors. Here, -again, they are ignorant and English-less, and you sigh for a -well-informed, well-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[Pg 150]</span>paid, and intelligible informant. Only within -the last fifteen months has a catalogue been compiled; and that is -in French—though in that there is hardly any legitimate ground for -complaint.</p> - -<p>Most Australians at home will have heard of the Nouzha Gardens lying -along the Canal Mahmoudieh: the gardens in whose café their men have -sat listening to the band and drinking afternoon beer and watching the -youngsters romp—and even joining in the sport; and finding a welcome, -too. But few Australians will know of the Jardin Antoniadis, beyond -Nouzha, and only half as large; but finer, which is a bold saying. It's -the garden of a rich Greek Bey who has attained almost the splendour of -the Hanging Gardens. He employs sixty men. In theory, you cannot enter -without a pass—to be obtained, Heaven knows where; perhaps "at the -warehouse." But five piastres in the palm of the trusty <i>sa'eda</i> at the -gate passes you through, and you wander amazed for a couple of hours -amongst those flowers and lawns, fountains and nymphs, ghouls and fauns -and satyrs and dryads, and centre about the master's palace buried in -the heart of the garden. It is gardening on a scale of magnificence -and ingenuity—so it is said. Any public map of Alexandria will show -the Jardin Antoniadis in bold letters. The afternoon we paid a visit -we were puzzled to know the motive which could have obliged a dozen -stalwart gardeners to stand at intervals of a dozen yards beating tins -and howling at the sky. When questioned, they pointed alternately at -the heavens and the freshly planted lawn, and we thought they must be -calling primevally upon the water-gods for rain. But on consideration -the unromantic con<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[Pg 151]</span>clusion prevailed: merely scaring birds or locusts -from the springing grass.</p> - -<p>The fine drive is from Nouzha round the shore of Lake Mareotis and -back to the Square by way of Ramleh—the Toorak of Alexandria. You -are defied to conceive a suburb better bred. To drive through it in a -gharry is to put yourself in the dress-circle.</p> - -<p>If you are back in time—that is, by 6.30—you may perhaps go to the -weekly organ-recital at St. Mark's. Nothing will bring Home before -you more vividly than the tones of a pipe-organ. But you must close -your eyes, for almost everything else in the church tears you back to -war. There's more khaki than tweed in the pews, and most of the women -present are Sisters from the hospitals. And the organist is a private -who plays at an Edinburgh church when peace is on, and the soloist (and -well he can sing) is an A.M.C. Sergeant. The "Gyppo" hired servant is -even here—as he is everywhere—creeping up and down the aisle in his -incongruous colours: none the less incongruous for his brushing against -the Cambridge graduate's gown of the Assistant-Chaplain, distributing -programmes. Music of Handel and Bach sends you aching back to your -hotel. That night you do not want to go into the Arab quarter.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[Pg 152]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Vd">CHAPTER V</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE LAST OF EGYPT</p> - - -<p>The map shows Port Said dumped at the end of a lean streak of sand -flanking the Canal. For half the distance from Ismailia the train -sweeps along this tract. There is the Canal on your right, rich-blue -between its walled banks and foiled by the brown heat-hazed world -east; and on your left are the interminable shallows exuding the stink -of rank salt, and traversed drearily by fishing-craft. Port Said at -the approach much resembles Alexandria: the same brown, toppling -irregularity, and the multitude of masts protruding.</p> - -<p>The Canal at its city mouth is fretted with rectangular berthing-basins -crammed with craft, very busy and noisy. A network of railways threads -the quays. The green-domed Canal company's offices tower above the -smoke and din, redeeming them; they make a noble pile. All the shipping -is on the west bank; the east is bare, but for some sombre stone houses -and a Red Cross hospital in the sand, and a self-contained Armenian -refugee camp south of the city-level. The Canal mouth is stuffed with -cruisers and commercial ships anchored between the two stalwart stone -sea-walls. They protrude two miles into the Mediterranean, keeping the -channel. That on the west is crowned by the de Lesseps monument.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[Pg 153]</span></p> - -<p>The lean sand-neck that you traversed by rail from Ismailia takes a -right-angled turn at the head of the de Lesseps mole and runs seven -miles west into the Mediterranean. It begins with a fine residential -quarter standing behind the firm beach and the horde of bathing-boxes; -west still, and safely segregated from the decency of the city, is the -seething Arab quarter, of enormous dimensions and smelling to heaven; -and beyond Arab Town the promontory bears the city's burial-ground, -lying desolate in the sand-neck; and then peters out dismally in the -shallows.</p> - -<p>A new-comer takes in the straightforward geographical scheme of the -place at a glance. It's a small city, lying, as it does, midway on the -sea-road linking the East and West worlds. Its atmosphere is intensive -rather than extensive. It is highly charged with busyness. The little -area of the city is thickly peopled with every nationality (excepting -German and Austrian), promenading or sitting at the open cafés. The -shipping is congested to a degree that is apparently unwieldy. And the -period of war has taken nothing from the atmosphere of bustle. This is -the main supply base for the whole of the Canal defences and for a good -deal of Upper Egypt too. An enormous levy is made daily on railroad and -on Canal barges for transport of Army supplies. The supply depôt has -commandeered half the Quay space and receives and disgorges day and -night without intermission.</p> - -<p>For that reason (as well as because shipping is thick in the Canal -mouth) the place is good game for hostile aircraft. The morning after -our arrival Fritz came<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[Pg 154]</span> over before breakfast and dropped six bombs -and left two Arabs stretched on the quay. Anti-aircraft guns let fly, -and innumerable rifles. The din of bombs and guns and musketry took -one back for a vivid twenty minutes to Anzac—for the first time -since leaving that place of unhappy memory. No damage was done—to -the raiders. But the two coolies lay there, and the rest (seven -hundred strong) fled like one man to Arab Town, and neither threats -nor inducements would bring them back. For forty-eight hours the work -of the depôt would have ceased had not the Armenian refugees been -requisitioned—a whole battalion of them. They were glad to come, and -they worked well. It was better for them than being massacred by Turks: -and they got paid for it.</p> - -<p>The second raid happened a week later, at three in the morning, under -a pale moon. Four 'planes came with sixteen missiles. This was more -serious. Our guns could shoot only vaguely, in a direction; and ten to -one the direction was at fault. Four bombs dropped in the main street. -The terror by night seized the civilians. There was a screaming panic. -The populace poured into the streets in their night garments and rushed -about incontinently. So a few who would perhaps otherwise have escaped -met their end. A night raid over Anzac when the guns were speaking -without intermission was hardly to be noticed. But this onslaught upon -civilian quietness in the night watches was heart-shaking. The deadly -whirring of the engine in the upper darkness; the hoarse, intermittent -sobbing of the missile in descent—none could say how near or far; the -roar of explosion<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[Pg 155]</span> checking the suspense momentarily, but only until -the next increasing sob touches the ear; the din of our own wild and -random fire and the crackle of the sentries' rifles; the raucousness of -the sirens, the piercing screams of the women, and the cries of little -children in the extremity of terror; the misdirected warnings and the -disorganised directions of the men—these all combined to make an -impression of horror of a kind unknown on Anzac.</p> - -<p>The visitation lasted half an hour. That half-hour seemed to endure a -whole night. Four were killed outright, five died soon of their wounds, -seven were wounded who would recover.</p> - -<p>Shooting a man from a trench is one thing; this potential and actual -murder of women and little children is altogether another. One wishes -it could be made to cease. It calls for reprisal, or revenge, or -whatever it should be called; but not in kind.</p> - -<p>That was a Sunday morning. The Anglican parson at matins later tried -lamely to reassure a sparse congregation by preaching futilely from the -text: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night." The latter -end of his discourse was drowned in the pitiful <i>Zaghareet</i> raised by -the Egyptian women next door: they had lost a man in the night. Their -shrill, ear-splitting wail submerged the sermon. There was an end of -reassurance—even supposing it had ever begun.</p> - -<p>The raid had come close on the heels of the Casino dance. The Casino -is the best hotel in Port Said, which is to say a good deal. Every -Saturday night the Casino "gives" a dance to the quality of the -Port. There you will see the best. It's always worth going to. Quite -half the European population of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[Pg 156]</span> town is composed of the British -Government officials and their wives and daughters, English visitors -from the mail-boat <i>en route</i>, the French Canal Company's officials and -their families, and the wives of British naval and military officers -stationed here. There is probably as pure a quality of European beauty, -well-breeding, and accomplishment as you'll meet outside Britain and -France. The women and the naval officers know how to dance. So much -cannot be said of the Army's representatives. They consist chiefly in -stout Colonels and somewhat young and frisky Subalterns. But apart -from that, they may not carry with them the ballroom gear that a naval -officer can stow in his quasi-permanent home. A valise or a kit-bag -is another thing from a sea-chest, nor is a moving tent a snug and -cupboarded cabin. Especially the French flappers, with their delicate -transparent beauty, dance with an exquisite grace, and the French -dowager-chaperons sit at an end of the room far less sedately than -British duennas. The English Subalterns who can speak French find the -flappers rising easily to the level of their spirits in the intervals -on the dimly-lit piazza; and they probably are not ungrateful that the -fear of a nocturnal bombardment from the sea has extorted from the -authorities an order obliging the proprietor to subdue his sea-front -lights.</p> - -<p>They're great nights. There's no such stuff in anybody's thoughts as -Taubes. Yet on that Sunday morning many a girl and many a dowager could -hardly have put head to pillow before the first bomb crashed. A little -earlier timing on the part of Fritz, and the sound of revelry by night -would have been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[Pg 157]</span> far more rudely hushed than was that of Brussels long -ago by the distant gun on the eve of Waterloo. The period of this war -is surcharged with dramatic situations more intense than were held by -Belgium's capital then. But there is no Byron to limn them.</p> - -<p>The Casino denizens you will find in the surf before the hotel any -morning after eleven. The girl who was so charming last night is no -less charming now, as she moves across the sand. She wears almost as -much this morning. All that this means (whatever it may seem to imply) -is that her bathing-dress is ultra-elaborate. There is a great deal of -it; and it includes stockings; and is so fine in texture and harmonious -in colour that you wonder she has the heart to wet it. But there—she's -in. You wait till she comes out, and marvel that she hardly has -suffered a sea-change.</p> - -<p>The surf between eleven and one any day; the Eastern Exchange open-café -from eleven to five on Sunday; and the de Lesseps Mole from three to -six on a Sunday afternoon: it is there and then you will see Port -Said representatively taking the air—or the waters. The Eastern is -the heart of the City; to sit sipping there during a pleasant Sabbath -afternoon is the equivalent of doing the "Block" in Melbourne. The de -Lesseps Pier will reveal the utterly cosmopolitan character of the -populace: all classes promenade it. And the great bronze engineer -towers over them and points his scroll down the mouth of his handiwork; -and embossed boldly on the pedestal is his own boast: <i>Aperire -terram centibus</i>. The gigantic de Lesseps is a landmark of the whole -sea-front. He faces, and points<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[Pg 158]</span> the way to, every East-bound ship that -enters his Canal. There is a sort of pride in his bearing.</p> - -<p>The streets are tree-lined and over-arched, and the tables are set out -beneath the boughs; and there is singing and dancing in the open air -at every café. There is a finely fashioned and adorned Greek church. -Nothing expresses the cosmopolitan nature of the floating populace -better than the extraordinary notice on the inner wall of the Roman -Catholic Cathedral: <i>Proibito di sputare in terram</i>.</p> - -<p>There are two cabarets—Maxime's and the Kursaal—where wine and -fornication is the business, driven unblushingly, as one has come to -expect in any part of Egypt. As these things go in the land, Port Said -is amazingly clean. It was not ever so. A deliberate campaign was -lately organised to purge. The segregation of the Arab quarter did much -to effect that. Five years ago the Port was the carnal sink of Egypt. -Now Cairo is.</p> - -<p>We were hurried back to Serapœum for the move. This had been -pending any time the last two months: the Turkish feints beyond -railhead had delayed it. But it had come now. We were in the desert a -bare thirty-six hours. We entrained in the scorching afternoon. The -<i>khamseen</i> was whispering potentially, but not menacingly. We moved -out in the cool of the afternoon. Nefisha was passed, with its hordes -of bints and wales hawking chocolate, fruits, and fizzy drinks—and -hawking successfully ... on through Ismailia cooling off under her -fir-groves beside the delicious lake ... up through Mahsamah, where -the flights to the Canal had made their first footsore halt ... on and -on, taking our last look on the soft evening<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[Pg 159]</span> desert, and keeping the -placid sweet-water Canal. We felt we were seeing it all for the last -time. And we hoped we were, though now it looked inviting enough. But -it was not the desert normal, and well we knew it; we had seen too -often this seductive evening gentleness turn to relentless blistering -heat in the morning.... On through Kassassin, always—since reading the -Tel-el-Kebir epitaphs—the scene of that "midnight charge" ... up to -Tel-el-Kebir itself, its miles of tents darkening beside the hanging -dhow-sails ... through Zagazig in the late dusk, with its close-packed -houses and its semi-nudes in the upper stories ... and so on into the -night, with snatches of sleep, until we were wakened at 2 a.m. by the -sudden stop and the bustle at the Alexandrian quays.... The three -hours' embarking of men and baggage, and so to bunk, and white sheets -and yielding mattress and the feeling of a <i>room</i> about one—and to -sleep.</p> - -<p>There were a few hours' leave next day, when we took a last -affectionate perambulation about the well-loved, well-bred city. And as -we breakfasted next morning we were moving out of the inner harbour. -By ten we could look back at the brown towers, and see the place as -a whole from the low strip of Mex, away to the eastern sand-dunes at -Ramleh. Alexandria had been good to us, and it was hard to leave her, -whatever the exaltation of anticipating the new field. Egypt as a -whole, despite its stinks, its filth, its crude lasciviousness, its -desert sand and flies, heat and fiery, dusty blasts, had charmed and -amazed and compensated in a thousand ways. It was our introduction to -foreign-ness, and, as such, had made an arresting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[Pg 160]</span> impression that -could never be deleted. France may cause us less discomfort, and may -hold a glamour and a brilliance of which Egypt knows nothing; but the -impression left by France can hardly be more vivid than that of Egypt, -our first-love in the world at large.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[Pg 161]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_IV">BOOK IV</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">FRANCE</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[Pg 163]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Section_A_A_BASE"><span class="smcap">Section A.</span>—A BASE</h2> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Ie">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">ENTRÉE</p> - - -<p>You can conceive the sense of exaltation with which one would enter the -South of France in June, after five months in Egypt. You can conceive -better than describe it. So can the writer. In a moment it comes -back from this distance, with a reality that elates; but it defies -description. The universal sand of Egypt: the timbered heights and the -flowered valleys of the Riviera; the stinks of the Egyptian cities: the -June fragrance breathing down from the hills of Marseilles; the filth -and deformity of the Cairene denizens: the fair women of France and the -lovely grace of the little children; the searing heat of the desert: -the tempered sunniness of this blossoming land. If you can make these -things explicit to yourself, you may know something of the high sense -of emancipation with which we left the ship. For we had been looking -on Marseilles and sniffing the air from the harbour for two days. And -in the last hundred miles of the journey by sea we had skirted the -Riviera coast, gazing absorbedly on verdure and perching <i>château</i>, and -nestling, red-topped village and silver sand-strip. Then the cliffs of -the harbour mouth—that hide the city—uprose, and we threaded<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[Pg 164]</span> a way -beneath them and about the titanic rocks towering in the bay; and a -sudden turn to starboard threw all Marseilles into the field of vision -in five minutes—red tiles along the water's edge in great congested -blotches; thin red patches straggling back in the green up the hills; -and in the near, high-reared horizon, grey scarred cliffs overlooking -all; and on the main harbour headland Notre Dame de la Garde, dazzling -gold in the setting sun, gazing benignly over the city.</p> - -<p>We looked and pondered till darkness came on, and in the morning were -on deck early to see it all by the eastern sun. But they wouldn't let -us land. So we spent two days explicating the detail with glasses.</p> - -<p>We moved in suddenly and entrained at once. By the goodness of Heaven -we were detailed to proceed by a slow passenger-train, as distinct from -a fast troop-train. A troop-train rushes express, and is crowded; ours -stopped at every station, and gave room to sleep. At the big towns we -stayed as long as four and six hours. For all this we were commiserated -by the French: "<i>Ah! trois jours dans la voiture!</i>" But we could have -wished it would last three weeks.</p> - -<p>Think, patient reader! Three days across France from Marseilles to -Rouen in the gentle French midsummer; and time to look about you at -every village.</p> - -<p>Four impressions will always remain: the desecration by war of this -beautiful land; the inescapable evidence that the last fit man in -France is in the field; the ravages upon these quiet civilian homes -by death in the front line; the incontinently affectionate welcome of -Australians by the French girls.</p> - -<p>It was, above all, pitiful to know that somewhere to the east Teuton -shell was ravaging country such as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[Pg 165]</span> this. You found yourself saying: -Is it such a valley as that in which the trenches are dug? Are German -shell (and French shell, too) changing the whole topography of a -province such as this?—smudging the sleeping landscape and tearing up -the smiling crop. Is it in such a grove that the sacrilege of the guns -is perpetrating itself? "Gad!" you would hear, "this country's worth -fighting for!"</p> - -<p>In Egypt it's another thing. It is less unnatural that the godless sand -of the desert should be stained and erupted; but this is different. And -the old consolation comes—that has always consecrated the sacrifices -of Gallipoli—that the ideals in question are more precious than any -land, however fair.</p> - -<p>In the fields of the provinces it's women and bent old men who are -working—and boys. They wave pathetically as the train rushes on. And -in the towns there is not an eligible man to be seen—except in uniform.</p> - -<p>Seven in ten women are in mourning at any stage of the journey. One -attempted at first to be consoled by the notion that the French -temperament would put on mourning for a second and third cousin. But -conversation with Frenchmen soon corrected that. Six in ten of these -women wear weeds for a son or a brother or father or lover fallen in -the two years that are past.</p> - -<p>It was a welcome and a half that the girls gave. Apart from all -fighting, the deep-lined, barbed-wire Australian visage attracts in a -land where the men are smooth-faced. And the notion of men fighting -for France from the other end of the earth made no favour too much. -Troop-trains had been passing at regular<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[Pg 166]</span> intervals for a month, and -they were on the lookout for khaki. They swarmed to the stations with -favours of fruit and flowers and embraces. They waved as the train came -in; they chatted sweetly and unintelligibly at the platform; and they -waved long and friendly as we moved away. The little children came with -lilies and roses (little French girls are the loveliest things God ever -made), and held up their faces to be kissed. And their big sisters not -only did not blench at embraces, but invited them; and would get up and -ride five miles <i>pour compagnie</i>.</p> - -<p>We stayed three hours at Avignon—at night. An Englishman we -encountered on the station was so glad to see men of his own tongue -that he took us about the streets and the cafés to show us the city -proper, and missed his train without a pang. This was about midnight, -and Avignon was just fairly awake. Trade in the cafés was at its -zenith. Amongst other things we saw (for the first time) how tactful, -shrewd, and charming a waitress a French provincial girl may be.</p> - -<p>Lyons we reached at 2.30 a.m., and had time for a four hours' walk. -The inevitable route was over the Rhône, mist-laden, and up the -villa-crowned hill in the midst of the city; and, when the sun had -overspread the wakening valley, down into the strawberry markets, and -away to the station, threading a way amongst the strawberry waggons, -bearing in the fruit in voluptuous piles.</p> - -<p>Macon, the next long stop, we remember for the provender we put aboard -there. This is mere carnality, but the capons and fruits and pies and -pastry of Macon were unforgettable.</p> - -<p>This lasted us to Dijon. Dijon we shall always<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[Pg 167]</span> remember as the city -where the girls were hungriest for souvenirs. Souvenirs had been -demanded (and sometimes given) at any stage of the journey. But at -Dijon the houris were infected with a souvenir madness; and since they -were the prettiest girls we had yet seen, we departed stripped and -deploring we had not brought from Australia each a bushel of badges. -For there were bound to be more girls, quite as irresistible.</p> - -<p>Then there was Laroche, where more rations had to be got. This was a -hungry business—and even a thirsty.</p> - -<p>And between Laroche and the great city an unhappy thing occurred. We -were due to change at Villeneuve, a Parisian suburb. But at Villeneuve -(2 a.m.) no one seemed to be awake; and at 3 we were in Paris, -forlorn and regretful (though in a thoroughly half-hearted fashion) -of the oversight which had disorganised our movement-order. There was -therefore nothing to be done but hastily swallow <i>café au lait</i> in -a matutinally busy eating-house, and hail a taxi in the Place de la -Bastille: this after learning that the Rouen train would not leave -before 7.30. "<i>Vue Générale de Paris—trois heures</i>," was the order, -in crude English-French. And the chauffeur put down the dividing glass -window behind him, and in his taxi-jargon showed us everything—Hôtel -de Ville, Notre-Dame, the Pantheon, l'Académie de France, Palais du -Sénat, the Invalides, the Champs-Elysées, the Eiffel Tower, Place de -la Concorde, l'Église de la Madeleine, round about the Louvre and the -Luxembourg, and the rest of them.</p> - -<p>This was vulgar Americanism; but nothing else<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[Pg 168]</span> was to be done. And so -we got back to the Gare Lyon, and in the half-hour to spare descended -and gaped unsophisticated at the Parisian tube railways disgorging -their freight of men and women (mostly women) who had found their work.</p> - -<p>Then the train began its crawl up to Versailles and its loveliness, -nestling in the thick wooded heights, and by many blessed stops and -shuntings we came by Juvisy and Achères to Rouen, late in the drizzling -night, took a cup of steaming coffee at the Croix Rouge Cantine pour -Permissionaires, and marched out to camp; and didn't care much where it -might be, so long as we had where to lay our head.</p> - -<p>Three days in Rouen left one with the knowledge that it is dangerous -to transport suddenly a body of Australians, after eighteen months' -residence on Anzac and in Egypt, to a land where the wine is cheap and -every girl is pretty.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[Pg 169]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIe">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">BILLETED</p> - - -<p>The natural course was to advertise. The <i>Journal de Rouen</i> received -us tolerantly, even compassionately. No one of us could speak French, -but one pretty member of the office staff (more accurately, one member -of the pretty office staff) could speak a kind of English. The first -demand was for a <i>petite annonce</i> in French. And when the lady saw this -was out of the question for us, she offered a translation of an English -paragraph.</p> - -<p>It brought a shoal of responses in French. A kind of horse-sense -had led us to get them addressed "to this office," where the fair -translator could be requisitioned. They were seductive replies—in -the inevitable language of proprietresses. Some offered rooms and -meals; some rooms and breakfast; some rooms and no more; others -specified a <i>femme de chambre</i> of the first quality (and these were -looked at twice). None offered a bath. This is the most extraordinary -country. It drives you to the conclusion, anyhow, that a bathroom is -necessary neither to health nor good looks, and thereby runs counter -to a long-established English prejudice. A bathroom is by no means a -necessary part of the furniture of a good hotel. Those that have been -driven by the English occupation into adding one, brag about it in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[Pg 170]</span> -their advertisements and charge "a franc a time." Those that steadily -decline to add it are losing custom.</p> - -<p>The conclusion of the matter was we yielded to none of their -blandishments, but went to an hotel, and that for good reasons. They -resolve themselves into a question of feeding—<i>i.e.</i>, of meal-hours. -You go into lodgings in a flat, and of necessity there are more or less -definitely limited periods for meals. This is killing, even when not -regarded in the light of irregular working hours. To be tied to 8 for -breakfast, 1 for lunch, and 6 for dinner, is to be in gaol. The chief -beauty of an hotel is that you may have breakfast from 6.30 to 10, -lunch from 12 to 2.30, and dinner from 6 to 9.30. This leaves you, to -some extent, at freedom with the leisure an exacting Headquarters does -sometimes throw to you.</p> - -<p>Breakfast is altogether French. You'll get no more than <i>café au lait</i> -and roll—not even <i>confiture</i>, without paying through the nose for -this violation of French usage. If you order eggs or <i>omelette</i> (or -both) you not only wait long for it, but are looked on with disfavour -even in a first-class establishment. But the coffee is so rich and -mellow and the roll so crisp and the butter so creamy that you can make -a large meal of them. You usually eat and drink far more than it's good -form to consume. He's a barbarian who asks for anything better.</p> - -<p>This you take in the early morning almost alone in the winter-garden -looking on the courtyard. The matutinal <i>femme de chambre</i> is frequent -and busy about the place. The call for hot water and for grub in the -rooms is insistent. If you want to be called early and to shave, you -write up on the blackboard in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[Pg 171]</span> bureau the formula: 31 (<i>no. de -chambre</i>)—5-1/2—<i>e.c.</i> (<i>eau chaude</i>)—<i>entrez</i>; that is, let the -damsel enter without knocking. And enter she does with the steaming -jug; and, with a charming frankness, wakens you by the shoulder, and, -if not abnormally busy (and she's seldom too busy for that), sits on -the edge of the bed with her shining morning face, telling you sweetly -the quality of the weather, and that it's time you were out, until -satisfied you are on the way to uprising, as distinct from turning -over again. And morning greetings of the most refreshing sort have -been known to be exchanged thus over the edge of the bed. One of the -satisfactions of such an exchange (though not necessarily the chief) -would be that you know the sweet creature associates nothing sordid -with the greeting—even though this is a bedroom and you're in your -'jamas. An English maid in the circumstances would probably begin with -a hostile shriek, and end by relating to the manager how a base and -licentious soldier had made violent overtures to her; and you would -suffer ejection with ignomy.</p> - -<p>And so the French (and especially the French women) score in morality -at every turn.</p> - -<p>You see nothing of the hotel all morning. But on returning for lunch -your <i>chambre</i> is "done" with a taste and thoroughness that delight, -and drive you to register a vow you'll never more be guilty of -untidiness. British officers in France have a reputation for hoggishly -littering their rooms that requires a lot of redeeming. But the French -maid is not dismayed. She returns to the attack daily, with a pride in -her art which no piggery can dissipate.</p> - -<p>Luncheon has the light touch that's the prime charm<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[Pg 172]</span> of French cooking. -There's endless variety without heaviness or monotony: a whiff of <i>hors -d'œuvre</i>, a taste of fish, a couple of "made" dishes (made well), a -scrap of delicious cold-meat, salads, fruits (who shall do justice to -the fruits of Normandy in June?—her strawberries, peaches, plums, -grapes, melons, and cherries), <i>crême</i>, cheeses, biscuits, <i>cidre</i> and -coffee. Then you hear a barbarous Captain beside you blaspheming: "The -first thing I'll do when I get leave is to go to the Savoy and have a -decent English feed. I can't stick this French grub!" This is the sort -of man that ought to be suppressed by the State and debarred from going -abroad. It's with justice that the French taunt us with our English -"heaviness"—heaviness in eating, in drinking, thinking, and doing. One -of the privileges of being in France is that of eating what the French -alone know how to prepare.</p> - -<p>All the same, one does not immediately get used to horse. <i>Cheval</i>, in -some form or other, is served out every dinner. There's not nearly so -much beef as horse consumed. The French like it better. The sign of -a golden horse's head surmounts the doorway of most butcher's shops; -many a shop displays the severed head, as the English do those of sheep -and pigs. The Parisian taxi-cabs are ousting the horse-cabs fast. -Proprietors are selling off their beasts. The newspapers, announcing -the result of the sales, will tell you most of the horses went to -butchers, as a matter of course.</p> - -<p>In the medley of French on the menu-card (which you don't scan very -closely) you miss <i>cheval</i> until it's pointed out to you: it's -disguised. You then discover you've been eating horse for weeks, -unwittingly, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[Pg 173]</span> enjoying it. It's too late to turn back, even if you -didn't like the beast. So you continue to eat and relish the faithful -defunct friend to man.</p> - -<p>Dinner begins about nine. That's the meal for which people who don't -live at the hotel "drop in"—people from the suburbs and the country: -wounded and base-Colonels, with their wives and daughters; music-hall -artistes, business-men. The place hums and echoes with high-spirited -chatter. Much wine gets drunk—as much by the women as by the men. At -the end of an hour the place is fairly agog. The proprietor himself, -dressed in his best—as though persisting in the time-honoured practice -of a tavern-host—carves an enormous joint (a kind of half a pony) -in the centre of the room, under the apex of the dome. This is very -interesting. Only one thing is awry: the women eat greedily. The -prettiest of them (and whether they take wine or not) masticate with a -primitive eagerness and <i>abandon</i> that is disgusting.</p> - -<p>The late-sitters remain until eleven over their wine and cigarettes, -and then adjourn to the courtyard and sit and call for coffee and -liqueurs. If they move before midnight, it's unusual. The courtyard -resounds until the small-hours have crept on. And in those hours the -maids on duty are busy enough answering the call of the chamber-bells -with drinks. You will see them hurrying up and down the lighted -staircases and in and out the rooms of the brilliantly lit front, -muttering (one imagines) the complaint of the frogs: "It may be sport -to you, but it's death to us!" But they never let you think so: at two -in the morning they will smile and rap out repartee with a good-humour -that it's hard to believe feigned. And who's to say<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[Pg 174]</span> that it is? These -people are unfeignedly light-hearted. They satirise us for our moods -and our livers; and tell us (not without justice) we don't know how to -live. By comparison, we're not happy unless we're miserable....</p> - -<p>You will catch the youngsters in the courtyard only by dining at six. -You can play with them an hour in the twilight after, and that's a joy -not to be lost, recur as often as it may. You can talk their language, -even if you can't talk French.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[Pg 175]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIIe">CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE SEINE AT ROUEN</p> - - -<p>I don't know what the Seine at Rouen is like in times of peace-trade. -They say war has quadrupled its congestion. I well believe it. The -pool is crammed below the Grand Pont—there's nothing above but barge -traffic—with ships disgorging at a frenzied rate at the uneven cobbled -quays.</p> - -<p>One can imagine the port lazing along before the War in the informal -and leisurely way that is French. The French enjoy living. They are -industrious enough for that. But they don't take their work hardly -nor continuously. They take it in chunks. It gets done. But there is -no sort of inflexible determination in their method. The Egyptians, -too, have not continuity, but with them the work does <i>not</i> get done. -Both peoples work sporadically. But the Egyptian takes his chunk of -work because he has to; the Frenchman because he likes it. That is the -difference. The Egyptian is not industrious. The French like work, and -therefore take it in tastes, never hogging it. They like to get the -flavour of work. The Englishman who eats it down misses all that, and -is commiserated by the French for the desecrating greed with which he -attacks his task.</p> - -<p>So you can envisage the quay in peace-time: the unsystematic and -picturesque dumping of merchandise<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[Pg 176]</span> in the open quays, and the hum of -leisured talk; the additions to the acres of wine-barrels under the -elms beyond, and the subtractions from them; and the rich fruitiness -of the <i>bon arome</i> soaking out of those casks. You get it now if you -walk amongst them: walk through the shadowed wine-store on a hot day, -and the odour hanging beneath the trees is a refreshment in itself. -But in these days the lading and the discharge of the wine-ships is -done feverishly and raucously, and too hurriedly for any attempt at -arranging them on shore. The wine-ship lies there with the stuff piled -monstrously on every yard of her deck, and it's being slung off as fast -as may be. It's the only drink of the French soldier; there's as much -urgency for its transit as for the off-loading of English supplies. -Huge tanks stand as waggons on the adjoining railway and they wait to -be filled, and so the <i>vin ordinaire</i> goes up in bulk that exceeds the -content of many score of barrels.</p> - -<p>The same urgency hurries off supplies from the ships. The Admiralty -is shouting continuously for the completion of discharge. No ship, at -this time, lies there at her ease. She fairly groans and creeks in -travail of discharge. It proceeds as vigorously at night, under the -flares, as by day. Hordes of labour battalions are handling it into -the store-hangars, or into the waiting supply-trams, or into lorries. -The parti-coloured French are trundling the wine-barrels hither and -thither for store or for despatch. The rattle of cranes, the panting -of lorries, the scream and rumble of trains, the shouting of orders, -are deafening and incessant. Supply-ships, timber-ships, coal-ships, -wine-ships, ammunition-ships, petrol-ships, are strung<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[Pg 177]</span> down-stream in -a deafening queue. The base is a distractingly busy place.</p> - -<p>Over against all that is the quiet domesticity of the barges. War -doesn't hurry them, nor sap at the foundations of their family life. -They'll sleep along the river, happen what may. General Joffre's -professed aspiration <i>après la guerre</i> is to retire to a Seine barge, -and finish there. He could choose nothing in sharper contrast with the -turmoil of war. The reaction from Generalship could not well be borne -in more complementary circumstances. The comfortable somnolence of a -Seine barge is invincible. They are not yet requisitioned for the base -purposes of war. They are a thing apart, and therefore have no call for -busyness.</p> - -<p>They are enormously long, and have a grace of outline unexampled in the -world of barges. A Thames barge is stumpy and crude beside them. There -is scope in their length for grace of line. Look down on them from the -heights of Bonsecours, packed orderly amongst the Seine islands. Look -at them in queue dreaming along in the wake of some fussy tug; either -way you'll get their nobility of contour.</p> - -<p>Each is a microcosm. They are self-contained as to family, burden, -poultry, pony, cat and dog, rabbit-pen, and garden. The mother and -daughter and the small boys all take a hand in pushing on the business -of <i>le père</i>. In fact, it is they who do the thing: he lounges and -smokes and directs the policy. In the waist of the ship is the stable, -with a pony that usually is white, and perhaps a cow, and the pens of -hens, and the basketed rabbit-hutch. The boys pursue the dog round -the potted plants when there's no work.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[Pg 178]</span> In the same circumstances -the mother and daughters sun themselves on the hatches. Children -are born there to a lifelong sojourn in the craft. There they get -their schooling, and there, until adolescence, they acquire their -knowledge of the world. There probably is scope for a science of -barge-psychology. Can one in reason expect a world war to intrude far -into the life of a Seine barge? Hardly that.</p> - -<p>They hold as much as a small ship; the journey to Paris is far and -slow. They are cut off from the world almost as effectually as a -marooned Swiss Family Robinson.</p> - -<p>Hospital ships berth below the bridge, and are filled from the motor -ambulances with an awful celerity. You may always know when an -ambulance train is at the Rive Gauche Gare by the long procession of -Red Cross motors streaming from the station over the Grand Pont to -the hospital berth, and by the wide-eyed crowd making a slow-swaying -cordon round the military police to watch the procession of stretchers -ascending the gangways. The Red Cross ship may get her complement in -two or three hours. Then she turns business-like and heads down-stream -for <i>le Havre</i>. And then!—<i>Blighty</i>, for comfort and fitting -alimentation, and <i>home</i> for the tortured.</p> - -<p>The Seine is a tragic stream at Rouen. Corpses are fished up daily. -Parisian suicides float down and are intercepted, and dogs and other -beasts seem to get drowned in plenty. This is hard on so fair and happy -a city. Why can't Paris look after her own weary-of-breath?</p> - -<p>The Ile la Croix stands at the heart of the city. The Pont Corneille -rests across it. The island is a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[Pg 179]</span> town in itself, with theatres, -churches, factories, baths, and thick residential quarters, and groves, -and well-defined streets. Here is another little world in itself, -consistent with the barges that lie about it.</p> - -<p>All over the island—and, still more ubiquitously, all over the -quay-sides—are girls and women hawking fruit and cakes and chocolate. -The girls are pretty. They better custom by fooling English Tommies to -the top of their bent by that French-Arcadian intersexual frankness -of discourse and gesture of which English girls know so little, -and which Tommy adores so ardently and furtively. This gives the -right to put up the price. Tommy, in this land of vines, and in the -season—finds himself paying her two francs a pound for grapes. "<i>Très -cher aujourd'hui, Monsieur!</i>"—"<i>Mais oui, m'selle—voulez-vous -m'embrasser?</i>"—."<i>Nothin' doin', ole shap!</i>" ... These girls are -quick-brained, as alertful in mind as you could expect by their -well-moulded features and their lithe, straight bodies. There is no -insistence, in France, upon the ugly vulgarism of rotundity in women -and girls. The girls of France spell, in their bodies, anything but -sombreness in spirit or clumsiness in brain. They have never been out -of Rouen, but they fling repartee in Arabic at Australians as though -they had lived in Cairo. Their only source of such an accomplishment is -the Australian soldier himself, and the persistence of Arabic with him. -And he does not go out of his way to teach anyone. He learns French -with halting slowness, even when some Rouennaise is making efforts -to teach him. But these girls take up his English and his incidental -Arabic in their swift and light mental stride.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[Pg 180]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IVe">CHAPTER IV</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">ROUEN <i>REVUE</i></p> - - -<p>Except when Lena Ashwell comes with her English concert-party, evening -entertainments—that is, public entertainments—in Rouen are limited -by some cinemas and two theatres that stage <i>revue</i>. The cinemas are -like all other cinemas, except that the humour is broader and sexual -intrigue is shown in a more fleshly and passionate form. The audience -differs from an English, not in that flirtation is more fierce, but -in the running fire of comment directed at the film, and from the way -in which crises in the plot are hailed. Everyone smokes who has the -habit. The women who do not, masticate noisily at sweets. The girls -in the front row of stalls playfully pull the hair of the orchestra, -specialising in the 'cello: his deep, detached notes amuse them. This -is their way of showing he attracts their attention. The conductor is -the pianist too. In his dual capacity he displays astounding resource -and agility. The combination of these functions is diverting, even in -an Englishman. The films present a preponderance of carnal domestic -problems.</p> - -<p><i>Revue</i> is another story. An Englishman has no right to attend French -<i>revue</i> without being prepared to discount it at a rate governed by -the difference between the national temperaments. Where English<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[Pg 181]</span> -<i>revue</i> suggests and insinuates, French explicates the detail. French -insinuates too, on occasion, but with the motive of subtlety as -distinct from that of English furtiveness: the difference between -cleverness and morbidity. All this applies to <i>amours</i>, chiefly -between the already-married. French <i>revue</i> goes further, and deals -disgustingly in physiological detail which the English stage declines -to handle even by implication. And the ladies on the stage are -obviously amused by the cruder passages to an unprofessional degree. -They giggle outright. The work on the stage, in fact, is curiously -informal. Dialogue <i>sotto voce</i> in the corners is not make-believe—nor -rehearsed. They carry on a genuine conversation, much of which is -criticism of their colleagues at work, much personal comment on the -advanced rows of the audience. A French company is never afraid to let -you know that, after all, it's only acting you're looking at. English -downrightness would maintain the delusion at all costs.</p> - -<p>A lot of improvisation goes on—some by choice, some of necessity. -French versatility flashes out brilliantly here and there with -something that's not in the book; and when a fellow's memory fails -he improvises with convincing readiness. There's no such thing as a -breakdown, though <i>revue</i> here runs for so long a season that actors -might easily be forgiven for growing too stale to improvise. But that -they avert by the habit of improvisation from choice.</p> - -<p>When, therefore, there comes a "turn" which purports to be classical -poses, the effect is blasphemous rather than ludicrous. The spectacle -of thick-painted whores clutching clumsily at the spirit of Greek<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[Pg 182]</span> -motion and Greek suspension-of-motion, with their lewd simperings and -vulgar disproportion of bust, is repellent. At the critical moment -someone giggles in the wings and the goddess baulks. The orchestra -swells to cover the gaping <i>hiatus</i> which no improvisation can bridge. -The Salome-dance and the <i>ballet</i> are quite other things. They perform -them here to perfection. Their temperament provides the <i>abandon</i> -without which such turns fall stodgy. But classical poses? No!—hardly -that!</p> - -<p>A French audience in war-time clamours for a military turn or two; -and gets them. There's a scene from the trenches presented with a -convincing sort of realism—from the death of a comrade to the exchange -of fornicatory ribaldries and the pursuit of vermin. Asphyxiation is -effected, not by the enemy, but by the corporal's removing his boots. -The humour is broad and killing. Shrieking applause drowns half the -repartee. Judged by the accompanying gesture, some obviously good -things are missed. The delivery of the mail under the parapet, and its -perusal, leave little doubt as to the proper function of <i>la bonne -marraine</i>—the fair unknown correspondent acquired by advertisement.</p> - -<p>Then there is a turn military which discloses the nature of the -friendly encounters between the <i>Poilu</i> and the girls of the village -through which he is passing.</p> - -<p>There is some really good singing. And there is always a song in -English, delivered with a naïve crudity of pronunciation, to which the -English soldiers respond at the chorus with allied fervour. "The Only -Girl," "Who were you with Last Night?" "Here we are Again," are the -favourites.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[Pg 183]</span></p> - -<p>The ushers are girls. They know how to keep in order the crowd of lewd -French youths in spirited attire who affect the pit, who, without -restraint, would make the place unbearable. Mostly the ushers do it -with their tongues; where these weapons fail they cuff them, and cuff -them hard—no mere show of violence. The French termagant is a fearsome -creature. She's here, and she's conducting on the tram-cars. There she -is a match for any man. No lout is free to dispute her authority. She -always emerges from a battle of words master of the situation. <i>Master</i> -is the word. The conductors are the only girls (though mostly women) in -Rouen who are not pretty as a class. Individuals are, but the class is -unsexed, growing moustaches which are often more than incipient. The -only womanly thing about them is their black dress and perky, red-edged -cap. They give the impression that they would do well in the trenches. -The theatre ushers—who are "chuckers-out" too—are less masculine -and less plain-featured. The management chooses them with half an eye -to feature, with a regard chiefly to physical strength. The tramways -manager lays no store by looks. Why should he? Good looks don't draw -custom on the cars. But he does ensure that they shall be able to take -care of themselves, and "boss" the vehicle.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[Pg 184]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Ve">CHAPTER V</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">LA BOUILLE</p> - - -<p>The steamer leaves the Quai de Paris every afternoon at two. Most -days it is crowded. The War does not hinder women and the ineligible -and <i>les blessés</i> from taking their pleasure down the lovely Seine. -Why should it? People should in war-time look to the efficiency of -civilians as well as of soldiers. It is as profitable, to this end, -that the Seine pleasure-boats should run as that the London theatres -should keep open under the darkened anti-Zeppelin sky.</p> - -<p>It's women who crowd the boat, with their sons and their younger -brothers. There's also a leavening of handsome women who go down -for purposes not considered virtuous by the British. There are many -soldiers—<i>en permission</i>, with powers of enjoyment equal to those of -the Tommy who shouts to the liftmaid in the Tube: "Hurry up, miss! I've -only got ten days!" These fellows from the trenches, with their women -hanging upon them, are prepared to compress much into their leave. -There are a few wanting limbs, who are not on leave.</p> - -<p>The boat races down the pool of Rouen through the gauntlet of colliers, -timber-ships, supply-ships, multitudinous barges, and swinging cranes. -Once past the island, the commercial river-side is done with, and -the journey proceeds through some of the most exquisitely<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[Pg 185]</span> beautiful -hill-country in Normandy. Rouennaise merchants have grown fat on the -trade of decades of peace, and have built their <i>maisons</i> on the grand -scale on the slopes of the Dieppedale and Roumare Forêts. The forests -clothing this Seine Valley are famed through all Europe for growth and -colour. The <i>maisons</i> lie buried in their depths, thrusting up their -towers and high gables. The slim Seine Islands are thick with groves, -and mansions stand in the midst of them too. And for many miles down -the right bank under the chalk ridge the houses stand trim in their -orchards on the river's brink. Their little summer-houses overlook the -road, seated and cushioned; and the old people sit there looking on the -river, watching the youngsters play and the old men and the soldiers -fishing from the wall.</p> - -<p>These banks are castled, too, like the Rhine. The potentates of -Normandy chose the heights of this river basin from all the rest of -Normandy, for reasons that are obvious. Apart from the elevation of -these hills, the beauty of the sites is something to aspire to live -in the midst of. Many of these old seats are crumbling. Some are so -strongly built they will last for ever. All were built by men with some -force of personality. Famous amongst them is the fine old castle of -Robert le Diable, the rough parent of William the Conqueror. It's the -oldest, and half decayed, but its strong points are still reared up -there on the hill-brow.</p> - -<p>You move on under these noble hills, broken rarely by a timbered -valley. There is nothing sombre aboard. Whatever the French can or -cannot do, they can talk—gratefully and incessantly. The Norman -tongue, however unintelligible, is incredibly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[Pg 186]</span> pleasing in the mouths -of its women. It is as free from harshness as the landscape. And the -prattle of the children is music which a river orchestra would defile.</p> - -<p>The beautiful La Bouille is the objective of most passengers. -<i>Untrammelled</i> is the word for this little town. The women are fresh; -the men are simple; the houses straggle quaintly and cleanly along the -front; and the white walls and the gables climb in an unsophisticated -fashion up the wooded hills beside the white, winding road. There is a -<i>Place</i> set out by the landing-stage, lined with cafés under the trees. -The river-men in their wide <i>pantalons</i> and loose corduroy blouses sip -wine with their women; their children romp in the centre of the square. -You will be nobly entertained if you do no more than sit there and call -for refreshment to the red-cheeked waitress. But you will probably -not be content without wandering up the hill-road after an hour at -the tables. And if you do not grow envious of the youths who sit on -the bank with company by that road-side, you are more than human. In -Normandy love-making there is nothing embarrassed, but an unforced give -and take that is not traditionally reputed to lie along the path of -true love. Whether this is true love or not (and it probably isn't), it -looks quite as delicious, and it sufficeth them. One wonders whether, -after all, they are due to demand much more. The girl looks at you -frankly from the midst of it, as who should say: "And why do not you, -in this land of sweet sunlight, fulfil, too, the law of your existence?"</p> - -<p>From almost every house, as you ascend, some houri smiles a -half-welcome at you and would not be greatly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[Pg 187]</span> confused or displeased if -you took it for a whole, and, entering, made yourself at home.</p> - -<p>At the hilltop you'll come on the old <i>Maison brûlée</i>, with a café in -the recess, and much merry company. If you stay there as long as you -want to, you'll miss the last boat to Rouen. So you quit drinking-in -the Seine beauty revelling below you up and down the river basin, and -saunter back to the steamer. All the town is there to see her leave. -Everyone smiles and "waves" and says <i>Come again</i> in no uncertain -pantomime. And all the journey back in the soft evening you say you -will.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[Pg 188]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Section_B_PICARDY_AND_THE_SOMME"><span class="smcap">Section B.</span>—PICARDY AND THE SOMME</h2> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_If">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">BEHIND THE LINES—I</p> - - -<p>The road between —— and —— is a fearful and wonderful place in -the swift-closing winter evening. The early winter rains are drifting -gustily across it. The last of the autumn leaves are whirling away. The -far western valley is a gulf of mist; the rain-squalls wash about its -slopes.</p> - -<p>The road beneath you, between its low flanks, is a channel of mobile -black slush, too far churned for striation. Ever since the rains began, -two weeks ago, there has been a traffic on it that is continuous—a -traffic that has had to be directed and disentangled at innumerable -stages along its length. So the road surface (it washes over a solid -foundation) is a squirting slime.</p> - -<p>The motor-lorry is the vehicle <i>par excellence</i>. The wonder is how -it is supplied and maintained at this rate. In most villages is a -tyre-press where its wheels are re-rubbered as often as need be—and -begad! that's often enough to keep a large and noble army of mechanics -hard-worked. Any day you can see the old tyre being prised off and the -new, smooth, full, blue one pushed on. The old is like nothing so much -as a rim of Gruyère cheese, with the perforations clean<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[Pg 189]</span> through to the -rim, everywhere. The question that always occurs is: Did the lorry run -to the last on a tyre like that? The answer is: Yes—had to.</p> - -<p>The motor-lorry it is, then, that monopolises the road. There is a -stream of them passing either way which is not quite constant, but is -nearly so. Lorries are almost as thick as the trees that line every -road in France.</p> - -<p>Between these honking, rumbling streams, and in the gaps of them, other -traffic goes as it can—that is, Colonel's cars, motor-cycles (there -are almost as many cycles as lorries; but they can pant an intermittent -course through any maze), motor-ambulances, tractors. There are French -Colonels, English Colonels, mere Majors, and even Generals, threading -impatiently through the maze. It is obviously aggravating to them, this -snail's pace. A Colonel likes to tear along, because he is a Colonel. -One is speaking now of a main road between railheads. Put them on a -side-road, where there is nothing in sight but a few ambulances, a -lorry or two, and some cows and women, and they move at a pace that -inspires an adequate respect in all who have to stand aside for their -necks' sake.</p> - -<p>But in this horde of beastly lorries what can a Colonel do, more than -glare and gnaw a rain-dewed moustache? There are supply lorries, -ammunition lorries, Flying Corps lorries, road-repairing lorries, -lorries bearing working-parties, freights of German prisoners, lorries -returning empty. Beside, there are always a few 'buses moving troops, -and sometimes, participating in the general <i>mêlée</i>, is a troop of -cavalry or a half-mile of artillery limbers or a divisional<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[Pg 190]</span> train of -horse transport—or all three—making an adequate contribution to the -creaking, rattling, lumbering, panting, honking, shouting, cursing, -squelching, bobbing, swaying, dodging throng. A military highroad -in France behind the line, any time in the day or night, baffles -description—especially if it's raining.</p> - -<p>Conceive (if you can) what this becomes at ten o'clock at night in an -advanced section of the road where lights would be suicidal. But I -doubt if you can—no, not unless you've been in the whirl of it.</p> - -<p>Far the pleasanter journey you'll have by boarding your motor-lorry on -a fine summer morning. The country smiles all about you. <i>Smile</i> is the -only word. You catch the infection of green bank, green plain flecked -with brown and gold stubble and streaked with groves of elm and beech, -poplar and plane: you get infected and rejoice. If you climb the crest -of one of the slopes less gentle than most slopes here, you may look -down on it all—on the double line of trees setting-off here and there -across the plains, up the slopes, down the valleys, marking the roads, -of which trees are the invariable index; at the winding stream, banked -with hop and willow, flowing through a belt of richer greenness: that's -how you know a stream from a height—not by the water, of which you see -nothing for the groves that border it, but by the irregularity of these -plantations (the roads are planted with a deliberate symmetry) and the -deepening in the colour of the lush grasses of the basin.</p> - -<p>You'll look down, too, on the villages dropped irregularly along its -course. There's the low roof, the gable, the amorphous mass of greys -and yellows<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[Pg 191]</span> topped by the pyramidal church spire rising grey slate to -its summit. The number of villages you may see in thirty square miles -of the Somme district is amazing. The whole Somme Valley is a mazed -network of roads and streams, with groves and harvest-fields in the -crowding interstices, the whole teeming with grey villages. This is the -character of the country; and very lovely it is.</p> - -<p>From your hilltop you'll see, perhaps, a bombing-school at play in -the valley—the line of murderous, irregular bursts in their white, -vapourish smoke, all forced into the extremity of unnaturalness by the -deep colour of the wood behind.</p> - -<p>In June the depth of the colour in this French country gave the sky -itself a depth of colour not known in Australia. The cumulus resting on -the sky-line would be arresting in its contrast with wood and pasture, -and the blue of the gaps above it heightened too. Sometimes the days -were clouded in the vault, but with a clear horizon; then you would get -a kind of rich opalescence, the sunlight shut out above deflected and -concentrated in the glowing horizon, its streaks of colour intensified -fourfold by the depth of green in the landscape. Some such middle -afternoons I never shall forget.</p> - -<p>Upon the less frequented roads civilian traffic is frequent. It's -mostly country-women in carts with pigs or oxen behind or with produce -(or merchandise) for a village market. The village markets for a whole -district are conducted by a sort of mobile column of vendors. They -move (under a pass issued from the <i>gendarmerie</i>) from village to -village in a species of caravan. Every village has a set market-day; -the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[Pg 192]</span> vendors move in agreement with it. They sell under booths on -the pavements—sell fabrics, fruit, vegetables, fish, drapery, and -clothing; and at some corner agreed upon they have the cattle market, -with all the beasts tethered by a rope from horns to knee.</p> - -<p>Approaching a village which is "holding" its market, you'll meet these -beasts being driven in gangs, united in sixes and sevens by a rope -connecting their horns. They are almost all conducted by women and -boys. The boys are incredibly cruel to them, not only <i>en route</i>, but -at the market-place.</p> - -<p>It's not the women and girls conducting the market cattle who abuse -them. They (and those in the market wagons) give you a smile and "<i>Bon -jour, m'sieur</i>." There is a charm about this French usage of looking -you in the eye and giving you a frank smile and a cheerful <i>Good-day</i> -without ever having met you before.</p> - -<p>You cannot go far without traversing some part of a military -highroad—such is the frequency and the height of mobility. Especially -is this so about those railheads adjacent to the line. Troops of -cavalry, infantry, and artillery and horsed transport crowd French -routes, even to the exclusion of the motor-lorry. For miles you may -see nothing but a sea of yellow, bobbing, wash-basin trench-helmets. -Unlovely they are, but useful. In such parts, too, the motor-'buses -for rushing up reinforcements prevail. They come in long, swaying -processions, filled with grinning warriors, who exchange repartee -between themselves and the freight of other 'buses, and spend a lot of -time in gnawing biscuit and jam. They gesticulate with these morsels.</p> - -<p>The 'buses are just such as you see in the Strand,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[Pg 193]</span> except for colour, -which here is, of course, a dingy khaki. Above and within, when they -are stuffed, they have an enormously useful carrying capacity.</p> - -<p>At some stages of a route (and at very frequent stages) you pass a -lorry-park, in the vicinity of which you are ordered to reduce the -pace. There are whole battalions of lorries laagered and parked—miles -of them—lining the main roads, lining the side-roads, lined in the -fields; hordes of them radiating from the H.Q. at the main road. They -are splashed and streaked and pied with colour, like Jacob's ewes, -to baffle aircraft. They resemble, indeed, the streaked cruisers off -Anzac. Some columns have other decorations. You'll pass, for instance, -a Dickens convoy: the lorries are named from the novels—Sarah Gamp -preceding Mr. Pickwick, with Little Nell panting in the rear; Bill -Sykes, Scrooge, and the rest of them—with (in rare cases) crude -attempts at illustration by portraiture.</p> - -<p>The fleets of lorries give a sense of efficiency and mobility—even of -dignity—as they stand ranked there.</p> - -<p>Casualty clearing stations are very frequent indeed in these advanced -posts. With a curious appearance of contradictoriness, their marquees -are streaked and splashed against aircraft, but here and there bear an -enormous Red Cross glaring an appeal at the heavens. The language of -all this is: "We're hospital, and you know it from these outward and -visible signs. But if you're going to be frightful, we'll make it as -hard as we can for you to hit." ... Over the road is the burial-ground, -significantly full.</p> - -<p>Mostly these hospitals are on a railway-line. Some<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[Pg 194]</span> are not. From the -latter the stream of motor-ambulances is continuous at certain seasons. -There are Sisters in these advanced stations; they are little more -than dressing stations, and more than seldom they are shelled. It's -no joke for women; they do not blench. There have been "honours and -rewards" made them for continuing to dress cases when suffering wounds -themselves.</p> - -<p>And who shall describe the strafings suffered by some of the -advanced railheads? Shelling of clearing stations may be more or -less accidental, but railheads are good game and are shelled very -deliberately and very thoroughly. I visited one afternoon a railhead -supply depôt that had been shelled from five to nine that morning. The -havoc was good ground for self-congratulation by the enemy batteries -that caused it. Nine-inch shell for four hours, if well observed by -those who deliver it, can do great things. There were shell-holes all -over the station yard—lines ripped up, trucks blown to splinters, -supply stacks scattered to the fields, petrol dump smouldering, -station-house battered. This is horribly disorganising. Only one thing -is worse, of that kind: the strafing of a railway junction by bombs. -This is obstructive, and isolating almost beyond retrieve.</p> - -<p>The villages about such stations suffer seriously. They bear the marks -about the house walls. Villages adjacent to batteries—apart from -railheads—get it even worse. Generally they lie behind a wood which -conceals our heavy artillery.</p> - -<p>At any junction along a military road you are impressed by the -usefulness of the military police. They stand there directing the -traffic by pantomime,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[Pg 195]</span> just as in London. Their word is law from which -there is no appeal. If a driver grows argumentative it is always -the worse for him. District A.P.M.'s will allow no dispute of the -directions of their minions. You must wait for their instructions -and obey them very exactly. If they tell you to wait you dare not -budge; if you do, there's your number glaring on your bonnet, and -your goose is cooked. The military police are all-powerful on the -road, and proportionately autocratic. A sergeant will step into a -stretch of clear rural road and address the driver: "What limit is on -your speed?"—"Six miles."—"My instructions to you are to go much -slower."—"Why" (irritably), "what am I going now?"—"Never mind that" -(with a conclusive gesture); "I've timed you from the last post, and -you're too fast. I'm not making a case of it, but you go slower. Hear?" -And this monument of British administrative exactitude walks off, after -saluting perfunctorily (he gives you no loophole), and throws you -permission to go on and behave.</p> - -<p>You proceed, with the guns belching over the ridge, the observation -balloons overhanging the slope silently spotting and sending down -cool and deadly mathematical messages. The 'planes drone above; the -multitudinous machinery of war creaks and rumbles down the road; the -landscape lies around you incongruously quiet and lovely.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[Pg 196]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIf">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">BEHIND THE LINES—II</p> - - -<p>The lines of communication one can expect to be trailed with interest. -There the strings are being pulled—though that is a pitiable figure. -It is more than a rehearsal for the soul-shaking drama enacting on -the Front; but it is as full of interest as orchestral rehearsal is -more interesting than the performance <i>coram publico</i>. Rehearsal in -orchestra shows the final performance in the making: here you see the -Somme Battle in the making. A French town that is within seven miles -of the guns, and is also the Headquarters of the ——th Army, unites -the ordered busyness of the base with the fevered activity of the -second line. It slumbers not nor sleeps. The stream and the screech and -roar of trains is intense and incessant. There is no more appreciable -interval between troop-trains, supply-trains, ammunition-trains, -rumbling through than there is between the decipherable belchings -of the guns over the north-east ridge. The buzz of 'planes is as -unintermittent as either. The Army Headquarters in the Hôtel de -Ville is as strident a centre by night as by day. "The sea is in the -broad, the narrow, streets, ebbing and flowing." These words recur by -suggestion with a peculiar insistence. It is the flood military; and -to this peaceful pastoral town<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[Pg 197]</span> it is as foreign and as ubiquitous as -an encroaching sea. The Hôtel de Ville is the centre of a wide area -of civil buildings commandeered for its purposes by Headquarters. -This sometime produce-store is now "Reports Office"; that hotel is -"Signals"; a private <i>maison</i> adjoining is for "Despatch-Riders." -All civilian and pedestrian traffic stands aside for the horde of -despatch-riders and their motor-cycles. The cars of the Staff whirl -through the crowded streets with a licence which takes account of -nothing but their objective. Mounted officers are trooping day and -night.</p> - -<p>More significant than all this is the unending stream of -motor-ambulances. They transport from the dressing stations behind the -line to the colony of casualty clearing-stations here; they transfer -from them to the ambulance-trains; and what these cannot take they pant -away with gently to the nearest base. You may stand on the upreared -Citadelle ramparts any night and watch these long processions of pain -throbbing quietly down the sloping road from —— into the town. And -simultaneously you will see another column climbing the road to —— at -the other side. The head lights make a long concurrent brilliance, like -the ray of a searchlight.</p> - -<p>An advanced C.C.S. behind the line sees a constant ebb and flow. -Jaded Sisters will hear with a sense of relief the order to evacuate, -glimpsing a respite, however brief. But before the evacuation is -completed a causal connection is evident between the order and an -attack at dawn on the —st instant, and all its ghastly fruits. And -whilst the last of the old maimed are being put gently aboard, the -new-comers, stained<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[Pg 198]</span> with mud and blood, are being laid in the still -warm beds. There is no time for orderliness here. Life for the Sisters -is one fevered and sporadic attempt at alleviation—more than an -attempt: the relief is accomplished, but at a cost to the workers which -leaves its index on feature and figure.</p> - -<p>All this is in piteous contrast with the healing peacefulness of the -country-side. If you climb the low ridge behind the town any evening -you can see the flap-flap of the gun-flashes like a disorganised -Aurora. And if you stay till midnight you'll see it intensify into a -glowing wall. So gentle is the landscape immediately about you that -you can conceive what it would be without that murderous wall of fire -and that portentous heart-shaking thunder. This is war, relentless and -insatiable.</p> - -<p>The days open dewy and crisp with the first touch of winter's severity, -before his tooth is keen. The first breath of a French September -morning is elating. The harvest is just reaped and cocked, and stands -in its brown and yellow stubble. The head of a slope will give you -the landscape gently undulating under its succession of woods and -streams and gathered harvest, with frequent villages scattered down the -valleys and straggling up the slopes. Over all this you look away to -the captive balloons depending over the line spotting for the belching -guns; and the song of the little birds that the distant guns cannot -quench is swallowed in the buzz of the aircraft engines of a flight -of scouters setting off on patrol; to-morrow it will be the whirr of -a squadron of battle-'planes tearing through the upper distance on a -raid. And any morning the air above you is flecked with the puffs of -missiles sent<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[Pg 199]</span> hurtling after a Fokker out of its proper territory. As -the peaceful evening settles down you will see a whole school of our -craft coming home to roost at ——: eighteen to twenty, like a flock -of rooks settling at the end of the day. The <i>Angelus</i> ringing in the -belfry of the village <i>Église</i> is drowned in the hum.</p> - -<p>The little wayside Calvaries are daily smothered in the dust of -motor-lorries. Peaceful French domesticity makes an attempt to live -its life in the welter of trains and 'planes, tractors and lorries, -cars and cycles, horse and foot. It will get it lived <i>après la -guerre</i>—not before. The children of the villages do not play much; -they gaze open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the incessant train of troops -and strident vehicles. Unless the War finishes soon, they will have -forgotten how to play. The village estaminet is no longer the haunt of -the light-hearted, light-speaking, wine-sipping French <i>paysan</i>; it -is overcrowded with noisy, sweaty Tommies who have no abiding city, -demanding drink. The air of it reeks. The girls are too busy for -repartee; they have time only for feverish serving.</p> - -<p>Passenger trains are rarely to be seen—traffic <i>militaire</i> by day and -by night. Rural domestic journeys on the <i>chemin de fer</i> are over and -gone. It is supplies or troops or guns; a frantic railway staff and a -frenzied <i>chef de gare</i> who has forgotten what smooth and intermittent -traffic on his line is like.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[Pg 200]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIIf">CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">C.C.S.</p> - - -<p>The ——th C.C.S. claims to be the hospital farthest advanced on the -Somme. The claim is justified. Its grounds are lit at night by the -gun-flashes. The discharge of our own heavies rattles the bottles in -its dispensary and makes its canvas tremble. Sleep is sometimes driven -from the eyes of its patients, not by pain, but by the thunder of -bombardment. Convoys from the dressing stations have but a short run. -The wounded arrive with the trench-mud wet upon them. Clearing them up -is quick, if filthy, work, and in clearing them up is engaged a small -battalion of orderlies.</p> - -<p>The whole hospital is under canvas, except the operating-theatre, which -is a hut, hermetically sealed, as it were, and heated to a working -temperature—and, incidentally, an even temperature—by some ingenious -device. Surgery cannot get done with numbed hands. Yes—and the -officers' ward is a hut, to deepen the great gulf fixed between Tommy -and his officer, even when they both are in mortal pain. The difference -in the degrees of comfort between a marquee and a hut, in the Somme -winter, is incredible. Unhappily, too, in these winter months there is -a horrible shortage of coal and paraffin. This tells again in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[Pg 201]</span> favour -of the hut. The officers' hut is as warm as your civilian sitting-room, -and wellnigh as comfortably furnished. No ingenuity could make it -possible to say this of a marquee.</p> - -<p>But it is only the wounded officers who are comfortable. The Medical -Officers freeze and soak in bell-tents. You'll see the batmen drying -their blankets nightly at the mess-fire before their "bosses" go to -rest. No artificial heating is possible in these tents, because there -is no fuel available for those who are well. M.O.'s retire after an -all-night bout in the theatre to their clammy beds, and sleep from -exhaustion; and for no other reason. They wake, and shiver into dewy -clothes. They shiver through their meals in the biting mess-tent, -and they plod through the sea of slush that surrounds the wards -incessantly, now that the winter has set in. For the ground is never -dry. When it's not raining (which is seldom) it's snowing—and snowing -good and hard, as a rule, in fat flakes as big as carnations.</p> - -<p>But they're a cheerful mess, with work enough to save them from -dwelling overmuch on the discomforts of the Somme winter. There -are twenty of them. The Colonel is a Regular, with long years of -Indian service behind him, whose favourite table topics are big-game -and economic problems—particularly those hypothetical economic -difficulties which are likely to confront us after this war. His -customary opponent is Padré Thomas, the Roman Catholic Chaplain, who -took a double-first at Oxford and was one time an Eton master. He -receives weekly from a favourite nephew, reading for matriculation, -Latin prose exercises, the merits of which he discusses with those -members of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[Pg 202]</span> mess whose classical scholarship war has not quite -obliterated.</p> - -<p>There is Wallace, the X-ray expert, whose chief topic is the shortage -of paraffin, lacking which his apparatus cannot carry-on. He's a -Scotchman who once graduated in Arts. He is chief consulting specialist -with the Chaplain on the merits of his nephew's prose composition.</p> - -<p>The Anglican padré is a raw-boned Scot (six-feet four) who has lived -mostly in Russia and Germany. He talks a great deal of vodka and the -hoggishness of German manners. "What a treat it would be," he says, -"to march into Berlin with the pipes playing, go through to meet the -Russians on the other side, and have a foregathering! That night I -should cast away <i>all</i> my ecclesiastical badges!"</p> - -<p>He preaches to the camp of German prisoners close by with a grace that -is not altogether good. He cannot abide Germans. One envisages him as -delivering them fire-and-brimstone discourses and calling them weekly -to repentance.</p> - -<p>The quietest members of the mess are the surgical specialists, P—— -and R——. They are also the hardest worked and the most irregular at -meals. It is rarely that they are taking their soup before the others -have finished. This is perhaps a good thing, in the light of their -frank physiological discussion at table of cases just disposed of in -the theatre. On taking-in day they frequently do not come to table at -all. I doubt whether they eat; if they do, it is a snack between cases -in the <i>abattoir</i>. The hospital takes in and evacuates on alternate -days. Theatre cases must be done at once, for it may be necessary -to evacuate<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[Pg 203]</span> them to the base on the following day; it is, in fact, -necessary, unless they are unable to bear transportation, and many are -too critical for that—head cases, spinal cases, and the like. Cases -that suffer greatly are visited with the merciful hypodermic before -they start on their jolting journey in the ambulance-train. Not that -A.T.'s are rough: they're amazingly smooth. But however smooth, they -are agonising to the man whose nerves are lacerated and exposed, or -into whose tissue the scalpel has cut deep.</p> - -<p>The A.T. draws into an improvised siding adjacent to the wards. There -is no question of mechanical transport to the train. It is the practice -to establish C.C.S.'s beside a railway, where evacuation during a push -can be facile and expeditious.</p> - -<p>P—— and R——, the men of few words, but of great and bloody deeds, -have operated in some degree or other on wellnigh every case that -boards the ambulance-train.</p> - -<p>Added to the shortages in fuel which hit the wounded so hard is -that other present hardship: the congestion on railways. As soon -as an A.T. is wired as having left the Army garage at ——, such -preparations must be made as will ensure that the wounded will be -ready to board her immediately on her arrival. They must be waiting -in the evacuation tents by the siding before the minimum time of her -arrival. But notwithstanding regulations which provide that A.T.'s -shall take precedence over all other railway-traffic whatsoever, that -requisitioned is frequently four or five hours late—such is the -present state of the roads. That means four hours of frozen agony in -the evacuation tents. Fuel cannot be spared for warming them, when<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[Pg 204]</span> it -is more than the wards can do to get warmed. A shivering padré moves -round amongst them administering comfort which makes no pretence at -being spiritual, except in a punning sense. That's one thing very few -padrés in the war-zone have been obtuse enough not to learn: that -attempts at spiritual consolation may sometimes be inopportune. Every -padré knows the full war-value of creature-comforts—even for his -spiritual ends. So he moves about the evacuation tent ministering to -the body rather than to the soul.</p> - -<p>The surgical specialists have long since ceased to have connection with -this stage of their patients' movements basewards. They are in the -theatre making ready more for the journey down.</p> - -<p>The mess harbours the O.C. of a mobile laboratory. He moves between -the hospitals within the Army testing serums. He wears the peering -aspect of a man accustomed to microscopic examination. All his table -conversation is of an inquiring nature—better, an investigatory -nature—into matters that are quite impersonal. During a whole meal -he will talk of nothing but the Northern Territory of Australia or -the structure of the Great Barrier Reef on the Queensland coast. If -he's talking of the Reef he deals in a series of questions and in -an examination of your answers thereto, until he has built up for -himself—with the aid of diagrams contrived with table implements and -slabs of bread—an accurate notion of the surface structure. He's -as much interested in modern history as in science. One evening he -edified the mess, by arrangement, with an hour's discourse on the -causes leading up to the American Civil War. For this he prepared -with academic care. It was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[Pg 205]</span> curious to see how he could, for an hour, -sustain the interest of the mess in so remote and comparatively -insignificant a struggle, when that mess was stationed in the -heart of the Somme at the height of the push.... His laboratory -walls were decorated with pictures by no means scientific, and yet -physiological. They are extracted from <i>La Vie Parisienne</i>, a French -weekly illustrated journal of extraordinary frankness. But in this -man there is nothing lewd. But he has an unusual appreciation of -French cleverness; and that is a faculty alarmingly wanting in the -normal English officer. French drawings, which the English call lewd -are by no means lewd: merely intensely clever. They convey no notion -of lewdness to the French mind. But the English, except in the case -of isolated representatives of that race, will never understand the -French—in other matters than that of art. So great is the gulf of -miscomprehension fixed between the French and English that it becomes -a daily deepening mystery how they could ever have found themselves -Allies. Still more mysterious is it that they should continue so....</p> - -<p>These are the men who impress you most in the mess. There's Wallace, -the Scotchman who never says more than he's obliged, but has the tender -heart with his patients. He always trembles when giving the anæsthetic -in critical cases. He calls himself weak-kneed for it, and reviles -himself unmercifully for a womanish fellow (he's intensely masculine); -but he can't help it.</p> - -<p>There's Thompson, another Scotchman (the mess is fairly infested with -Scots) who is dental surgeon. His gift is disconcerting repartee, with -which he occasionally routs the C.O.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[Pg 206]</span></p> - -<p>These are the officers. But what of the Sisters? There are eight -of them. When you have said they are entirely unselfish, you have -included most attributes. That includes an irrepressible spirit that -no continuity of labour can break. It includes gentleness which -familiarity with pain in others does not quench. And it includes a -contempt of personal comfort that must sometimes amaze even themselves -if they ever find time to grow either introspective or retrospective. -They sleep in tents; they lack fuel; they shiver by the hour in damp -beds unless exhaustion drives them to sleep; and they rise in the murky -morning to don sodden garments. They work hard and without intermission -for twelve to sixteen hours—and indefinitely when a "stunt" has -brought the convoys from the line. But none of these things beats them -down.</p> - -<p>The theatre Sisters deserve immortalisation. All the qualities of -patience and gentleness, endurance and cheerfulness, seem intensified -in them. They have not the smallest objection to your watching them -work in the theatre; nor have the surgeons. Rather, they encourage you, -and get you to help in a minor way when the place is busy.</p> - -<p>It is rarely on receiving-day that four "tables" are not in use -simultaneously. This makes it inevitable that the victims, as they are -brought in and laid out for the anæsthetic, see within six feet sights -not calculated to fortify them. Some smile in hardy fashion; some smile -in a fashion that is not hardy. The abject terror of those wretches out -of whom pain has long since beaten all the fortitude is horrible to -see. What must be the state of that man, made helpless by unassuaged<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[Pg 207]</span> -suffering, who sees the scalpel at work upon a fellow beside him—the -gaping incision; the merciless pruning of the shattered limb; the -hideous bloodiness of the steaming stump at amputation—and hears the -stertorous breathing of the subject and his agonised subconscious -moaning, which has all the infection of terror that actual suffering -would convey?</p> - -<p>Yes; this is inevitable. There can be no privacy. Despatch is -everything. Nowhere is rapidity so urgent as in the theatre of a C.C.S. -It means lives. The hideous gas-gangrene forms and suppurates in a -single hour. This is the worst enemy of the field hospital surgeon. -Half an hour's postponement of operation—even less—may mean death. -And in other cases, if the preliminary operation is not performed in -time for the case to move by A.T. for finishing at the base, it may -cost a life equally. The surgeon has not time to fortify his victim by -explanation or exhortation. He is lifted from stretcher to table; the -anæsthetist takes his seat at the head, sprinkles the mask and applies -it; the surgeon moves up (he has already seen the case in ward); the -stertorous breathing begins; the Sister attends and places ready to -his hands what the surgeon requires in swabs and implements; and with -the impressive directness of long and varied experience the incision -is made and the table is in a moment stained. But let there be no -confounding of rapidity with haste, despatch with carelessness. As -much time as is necessary, so much will be given; but not more. Most -striking feature of all is the curiously impersonal and scientific -thoroughness of the surgeon here; this, and the providential faculty -of humour in both surgeons and Sisters in the throes of it all,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[Pg 208]</span> -without which the tragedy of the place would be overwhelming. The -case is treated with the impersonality (and the persistence) due -to a scientific problem, and as such is wrestled with. Three hours -will be given, if necessary; and sometimes they are. It is a grim -and continuous fight with death, without intermission. But, like any -successful warrior, the surgeon jokes in the midst of it. A smile—even -a gentle guffaw—comes with a strange effect in this place of blood, -but it "saves the situation." This, with the marked impersonality of -the surgeon, can be nothing but reassuring to the potential victim, -waiting his turn on the adjacent table.</p> - -<p>One does not realise until he sees it what hard physical labour an -amputation involves, with scalpel and saw; nor how bloodless it can be; -nor how revolting is the warm stink of steaming human flesh suddenly -exposed; nor how interest swamps repulsion as you watch a skull -trephined; nor how utterly strange, for the first time, is the sight -of a man lying there with his intestines drawn forth reposing upon his -navel.</p> - -<p>A man can suffer many wounds and still live—one man with multiple -bomb and shell wounds; not a limb untouched; an arm and a leg gone; a -skull trephined; fragments extracted from thigh and chest and shoulder; -the other hand shattered; to say nothing of wounds and bruises and -putrefying sores innumerable. Human endurance and survival can become -incredible.</p> - -<p>There are sessions in the theatre at which an orderly is kept almost -busy passing between the M.O.'s, registering, for purposes of record, -the nature of the operation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[Pg 209]</span></p> - -<p>"What shall I enter, sir?"</p> - -<p>"Appendicitis, acute—abdomen closed," says P——.</p> - -<p>"If you had not added <i>abdomen closed</i>," says R——, "would one be at -liberty to infer it had been left open?"</p> - -<p>"Get your head read!" says P——.... The orderly passes on.</p> - -<p>"What's this, sir?"</p> - -<p>"Damn you! Can't you see I'm busy?" K—— is boring, with all the -strength of his massive shoulders, into the skull of his case. -Trephining is, literally, hard work; but not that alone. L—— is -cutting, cutting, cutting, at the buttock of the wretch, paring the -hideous gas gangrene as one would pare the rottenness from an apple. -A third surgeon is probing for bomb splinters in rear of the thigh; -and getting them. The man is splintered all over. For one horrible -moment you conceive him as suddenly and treacherously deprived of -unconsciousness, with —— boring here to the brain membrane, —— -slicing generously at his buttock, and —— probing relentlessly to the -bone in the gaping incision.</p> - -<p>"Well, it certainly looks as though we are doing what we like," says -----. "It <i>is</i> rather bloody; yet the C.O. says the most revolting -operation to watch is that of the removal of a finger-nail."</p> - -<p>"If we go much further, he'll drop his subconscious ire upon us," says -----.</p> - -<p>"Yes, I suppose his subconsciousness is protesting in blasphemous -silence: '<i>Pourquoi</i>'?"</p> - -<p>"Stitches, Sister," says ——, at the head. The blood-clot has flowed; -and in a twinkling the triangular exposure of skull is covered by the -stitched scalp.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[Pg 210]</span></p> - -<p>"He'll be easier," says ——.</p> - -<p>And then begins the tabulation of his multiple wounds. They cover half -a page. It's a miracle of symbolism which can suggest all that man has -suffered (and has yet to suffer) in the handwriting of half a page....</p> - -<p>"Clear, thank God!" says ——, as Multiple Wounds is borne out -insensible half an hour later. "It's eleven, and I've been here since -the middle of the morning; and I could almost sleep. Good-night, -Sister! I'm off."</p> - -<p>So they go to the freezing dampness of their camp stretchers. The -orderlies set about "cleaning up."</p> - -<p>But at one they're all called. The railhead, three kilometres off, has -been shelled. A convoy has brought forty casualties. Half of them must -pass through the theatre without delay. So the nerve-jangling work -recommences, and goes on past the murky dawn, beyond the breakfast -hour. It is snowing hard. They are hard-pressed to keep the theatre -warm enough for delicate surgery. To equalise the temperature has -become impossible. But things are as they are, and cannot be bettered; -and there will come an end to this spurt, though how long will be the -respite, who can say? It would be longer if the surgeons were not so -dangerously understaffed. There's —— on a long-deferred and necessary -leave; there are —— and —— who have fallen ill: one through the -overstrain of incessant surgery; the other a victim to his sopping, -inclement tent. The watchword is <i>Carry on</i>. There may be assistance -by importation to the staff; on the other hand, there may not. There -will be, if possible; but the pressure is severe all over the Somme -Hospitals during the offensive, and the bases are drained.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[Pg 211]</span></p> - -<p>The hospital railhead was shelled one afternoon. One may have the -charity to surmise the Hun was shooting at the aerodrome; which stands -seven hundred yards from the hospital; for the shell fell about the -aerodrome rather than in the C.C.S. However that may be, shell did -burst in the hospital, either by accident or design.</p> - -<p>The order was to evacuate immediately. The Colonel ordered the Sisters -to enter a car and be transported beyond range. They declined. The -Colonel, a bachelor, not skilled in negotiation with the long-haired -sex, commanded the matron to command them. Matron ordered them to their -tents to prepare to flit. She went to them in ten minutes' time. "Are -you ready?"—"No, Matron; there's a small mutiny brewing here. If the -patients are to go, we're going with them."—"I'm not going; I was just -in the middle of my dressings; I'm going to finish the others."—"They -shan't go without us, Matron!" ... So with a splendid indignation -they disobeyed. The Matron is accustomed to obedience, but she didn't -get it. She went to the Colonel and explained. "Well, damn 'em! the -witches! Let 'em have their way!" The Matron broke into a run. "Take -your flasks and your hypodermics; you can go!"</p> - -<p>So they superintended all the removings, attending here and there with -the merciful preliminary syringe; and, when the preliminaries to the -journey were over, jumped up with the car-drivers, and the evacuation -began into a field on the —— road. Those that could walk, walked; and -some that couldn't well walk had to do so....</p> - -<p>They laid them out in rows, by wards. Some were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[Pg 212]</span> dying. Some died on -the way. Some died in the grass, cut by the bitter wind as they lay -there gazing into the unkindly heaven. The rain came in frozen gusts. -Those still hovering on the border-line were blown and soaked into -death. The groaning of the wounded was hideous. Shattered limbs are -hard to bear in the complete comfort of a civilian hospital. What -is a wounded man to do but die, exposed to the pelting rain of the -Somme winter? Brandy and hot tea and cigarettes brought a transient -consolation: most men were insensible to aid from such fragmentary -comfort. It began to be plain that the risk from shell-fire was not -more dangerous than this from exposure; a return was ordered. Sisters, -doctors, patients, concurred with equal fervour. And so they were taken -back.</p> - -<p>The shelling had ceased.</p> - -<p>Next morning came the ambulance-train.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[Pg 213]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IVf">CHAPTER IV</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE FOUGHTEN FIELD</p> - - -<p>I visited the fields of Beaumont-Hamel and Miraumont and Bapaume soon -after they had been abandoned, in the pleasant sunshine of an April -Sabbath afternoon. It was the abomination of desolation I saw—and -felt. Of Beaumont-Hamel there was not a stone left standing, it was -not until I had been told that a village once stood there that I began -to distinguish the powdered rubble from its surroundings. There was -difficulty in doing that, for not only were the buildings demolished, -but their bricks crunched and crumbled.</p> - -<p>As we approached the old line from ——, the degrees of demolition -in the villages showed clearly how near they had stood to the field -of fire, and how systematic had been the German bombardment. The -remoter villages showed merely sporadic gaps in the walls—which might -have been the result of accident rather than of purpose—or a church -spire tottering. Nearer villages showed large areas containing not -more than the skeletons of houses. The villages which had been in -occupation—such as Beaumont-Hamel itself—had not one stone left upon -another. The twisted wire straggled through them; the battered trenches -wormed about.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[Pg 214]</span></p> - -<p>We left the car at Miraumont and walked up the old road overlooking -the village and Grandcourt Wood. They call it a road for the sake -of topography. But did you ever see ring-barked trees standing in -a morass?—that is it, with this difference: that these trees are -branchless. You can conceive nothing more gaunt and desolate than that -colony of splintered trunks standing down in the grassless valley of -pools. The pools are shell-holes, so frequent that they have the aspect -of a morass striated by thin ridges of black mud. The ridges are the -lips of shell-holes.</p> - -<p>Miraumont stands down the slope above the wood. It is less completely -ruined than Beaumont-Hamel, but by that the more pathetic to look on. -You can see what it has been: you cannot judge what Beaumont-Hamel may -have been.</p> - -<p>As far as you can see in any direction there is no blade of grass, -though the spring has begun, and all the earth untouched by war is -greening. Between —— and —— the loveliness of the early spring is -upon the land; the primrose and the violet are starring the grass in -the woods, and all the terraced slopes of the valleys are fair with -the young crop. Here you see nothing but brown clay pocked by shell, -the graceless grey zigzag of the ruined trench, the litter of deserted -arms and equipment and smashed shelter, battered frames of village -dwellings, and the limbless deformity of the splintered woods.</p> - -<p>We walked up the ruined road beyond Miraumont. Both sides were thick -with dug-outs. The road had been a kind of shelter between its low -banks. I thought what the traffic on this road must have been when -it was ours and the Germans were entrenched beyond it;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[Pg 215]</span> how it would -be shelled because it was low and naturally congested with British -traffic; how the dug-outs would be peopled continuously by passers-by -flinging themselves in for a momentary respite when the bursts were -accurate.... The dug-outs were deep and littered with cast-off -great-coats, tunics, scarves, boots; with jam-tins, beef-tins, rusted -bayonets, clips of unused cartridge, battered rifles. It had been -a road for the supply of ammunition to the front line. Its corners -were choked with bombs, shell-case, and small-arm ammunition. In its -excavations were dumps of barbed wire unused. You could infer all the -busyness and congestion, the problem and the cursing of harassed and -supercrowded transport in this road.</p> - -<p>We reached the crest of the hill and struck to the left across the old -field. This brought us upon a plateau. There had been more intense -fighting here than on the slopes. There had been rain incessantly, -too. The shell-holes were filled, and they were so frequent that the -landscape resembled nothing so much as a coral reef at low tide. It was -with the risk of slipping in that one made a way along the field at -all. To have fallen in and taken a mouthful of that green liquid would -have meant death. Those pools that were not green were red. Either -colour implied only the degree of putrefaction of the corpses that lay -beneath; but not always beneath. Here protruded a head, there a knee -or a shoulder or a buttock; sometimes a gaunt hand alone outstretched -from the stinking pool. The pools stunk; the ground stunk; the whole -landscape smelt to heaven. My friend had brought, in his wisdom, some -black Burmah cheroots. They were as strong as could be got, but they -could not overwhelm<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[Pg 216]</span> the revolting stink of human putrefaction that -rose all round. One asks what will it be when the spring is advanced -and the pools are dry. One asks, too, when and how this land will be -re-farmed. It is sown with live bomb and "dud" shell. One foresees the -ploughing peasant having the soul blown out of him one spring morning. -It will be long before the sword becomes the ploughshare. In the making -of the <i>via sacra</i>, too, will there be many casualties.</p> - -<p>Fighting on this plateau must have been hellishly intense and deadly. -The only conceivable cover was the trench and dug-out: no natural mound -nor sheltering bank. The dug-outs were correspondingly deep, burrowing -down into the bowels of the earth. Like pimples on the broad face of -the plateau were machine-gun and artillery emplacements. These had -plainly been built extraordinarily strong, but not strong enough to -stand the direct fire to which they had been exposed inevitably. How -any structure—or any excavation, indeed—withstands the intensity of -modern artillery fire is inconceivable.</p> - -<p>The tangles of wire that traversed this high ground were gapped and -contorted. A rifle was wrapped about in the murderous mesh; it had -been grasped by a human hand; beyond was the man to whom it may have -belonged, caught in the same gentle embrace. The steel helmet beneath -the network, the rag of tunic flapping in the breeze from the jags, -were all-expressive. You needed not to be told explicitly of what they -were the symbols.</p> - -<p>Near the edge of the plateau was the crater of an exploded mine. It had -been sapped from beneath the brow of the rise. Now it was a pond. The -hideous<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[Pg 217]</span> deep green hue of the water betrayed the full meaning of that -formula: "We exploded a mine and occupied the lip of the crater." Some -of them were still occupying it: others were lying in the foul mouth of -it.</p> - -<p>To look on the whole of it—mottled acres, pimples of emplacements, -streak of trench, wall of wire—was to know something of the -hellishness of life here when this area was the field of battle.</p> - -<p>We stumbled off the tableland into ground which had been German. -Immediately beneath the crest they had had their howitzer emplacements. -There were battered guns of theirs still there. We nosed down into -their dug-outs, built well, and to a depth that was safe. They had -been artillery dug-outs; the telephone-wires still crept down the -wooden wall beyond the entrance. Below we found hideous dead, some -shattered, as though bombed by an invader; heaps of beer-bottles, too, -and many German novels. You could visualise these fellows having nights -of revelry down there, drinking themselves oblivious to the roar of -the guns above. It was possibly in the height of mirth that we broke -through and bombed them where they reeled below in festivity. One does -not know. This may be maligning them. Possibly they were a temperate -lot, filled with zeal for the Fatherland. These bottles may have been -the moderate collection of months. They may have been bombed beneath -because they had decided to die hard. The facile assumption is far too -common that the German is a drunken brute whose hobby is debauchery.</p> - -<p>The area about the gun emplacements was littered with scores of tons of -ammunition, which will probably never be salved. Littered with bombs it -is too, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[Pg 218]</span> with trench helmets, and the leather and brass and iron of -equipment. We got many souvenirs here, creeping about like ghouls among -the dead and the heaps of material.</p> - -<p>We returned to the main road past the groups of irregular graves, past -the French labour-parties at work upon fresh roads and upon salvage, -back to the skeleton of Miraumont. Then the car swept down behind -Beaumont-Hamel, through the woods to Albert, which we skirted by the -putty factory. The Virgin with her Child looked down, hideously maimed, -from the cathedral spire. We came home through the ridges and the -avenues of Acheux, down the valley of the Authie.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[Pg 219]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Vf">CHAPTER V</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">AN ADVANCED RAILHEAD</p> - - -<p>At an advanced railhead one has to contend with other difficulties than -that of the congestion of railway traffic, which is inevitable near the -line. There are the French, who control all the traction. This includes -the shunting: you must not forget the shunting. It's the shunting -that kills. Your pack (<i>pack</i> is the technical term for supply-train) -may arrive at railhead at 5 p.m.; but it may not be in position for -clearance by divisions until midnight. This plays the devil with -divisional transport. You advise them by telephone that their pack will -arrive at railhead at 5: let them get their transport down. Transport -arrives at 4.30, to be "on the safe side"; but it waits impatiently six -and eight and ten hours to clear. Very hard on horses, this; almost -as hard on lorry-drivers, if the division is clearing by mechanical -transport. There is language used by drivers waiting thus for hours in -the snow or the bitter wind. The language of a horse-transport driver -is a very expressive thing; it has a directness that is admirable.</p> - -<p>At —— the transport—and especially the horse transport—got tired -of this system, if system it could be called. They got to the stage -at which they posted an orderly at railhead to watch the shunting of -packs<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[Pg 220]</span> with his own eyes. That orderly was not to move off until he -not only saw the train arrive, but saw it in position too. Not until -he returned to Headquarters with this doubtfully welcome news were the -horses taken from their lines.</p> - -<p>It's urgently necessary that packs should be "placed" early, for more -reasons than one. But one is that the men in the line are depending -on a prompt delivery of rations by the divisional transport. If, -therefore, the pack arrives twenty-four hours late (as frequently -it does), it is manifestly undesirable that the French should delay -its clearance ten hours more. Another reason is that if you have -four packs arriving in the day—as many railheads have—your <i>cour -de gare</i> will not accommodate them all for clearance simultaneously; -usually it will not accommodate more than two at once. For yours -are not the only trains whose clearance is urgent: there are -ammunition-trains, stone-trains for road-making, trains of guns and -horses for disembarkation, trains stuffed with ordnance stores and -canteen stores, trains of timber for the R.E.'s. The clearance of any -is needed urgently at any railhead. The term "railhead," by the way, is -interpreted somewhat foggily by the popular mind. There used to be a -notion abroad that it connoted a railway terminus. That is, of course, -not so. It does connote a point in the line convenient for clearance -by divisions. There may be five railheads in eighty miles of line, and -the last of them not a terminus. A railhead, therefore, because it is a -point convenient, is inevitably busy.</p> - -<p>If tardiness in despatch from the base or railroad congestion <i>en -route</i> should congest your railhead<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[Pg 221]</span> suddenly, it may be necessary to -indent for fatigue from the corps whose railhead yours is. Usually -it is a night fatigue that must be requisitioned. Conceive the -attitude of the fatigue that marches to railhead at 9 p.m. through -the snow-slush, for eight hours' work. Conceive, also, the ingenuity -with which, during operations, they secrete themselves in the nooks -and crannies of supply-stacks, out of the bitter blast, until the rum -issue is made. Half the energy of the N.C.O.'s is dissipated in keeping -their disgusted mob up to strength. Conceive, too, the appropriation -of "grub" that goes on in the bowels of these supply-stacks, and the -cases of jam and veal-loaf dropped and burst by accident in transit. -All-night fatigues that are borrowed are the very deuce.</p> - -<p>The winter-night clearance at railhead goes on in the face of much -difficulty and hardship. The congestion of transport in the yard is -almost impossibly unwieldy: it moves in six-inch mud and in pitch -darkness, except for the flares of the issuers, and except when there -is neither rain nor snow, which is seldom. The cold is bitter and -penetrating, so is the wind. Horses plunge in the darkness; drivers, -loaders, and issuers curse; and to the laymen, who cannot be expected -to see the system which does lie beneath this apparent chaos, it is -miraculous that the clearance gets done at all.</p> - -<p>The mistakes occur which are inevitable in the circumstances. The -divisions clear by brigades. One brigade sometimes gets off with the -rum or the fresh vegetable of another. Sometimes this is accidental, -sometimes not. In any case it is a matter for internal adjustment by -the division itself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[Pg 222]</span></p> - -<p>The adjustment of packs is a matter of extreme difficulty at the -railhead of a corps whose troops are mobile. Any corps railhead in the -Arras sector in March, 1917, furnished a good example of that. We were -to push at Arras. This meant that reinforcements whose arrival it was -difficult, if not impossible, to forecast, were constantly coming in -and raising the strength of the divisions drawing. It takes three days -for orders on the base increasing the packs to take effect at railhead. -An increase of five thousand in ration strength may be effected at half -a day's notice only. They must be fed. The pack is inadequate to this -extent. The division must be sent to another railhead to complete, or -to a field supply depôt, or to a reserve supply depôt. It may take them -a day to collect their full ration. You immediately wire the base for -an increase in pack. By the time the wire has taken effect at railhead, -the reinforcements (in these mobile days of an advance) may have moved -on beyond Arras; you have all your increase as surplus on your hands. -They must be dumped, and the increase in pack cancelled. It's not -impossible that, the day after you have cancelled it, you will have -need of it for fresh unadvised arrivals.</p> - -<p>The thaw restrictions in traffic hit very hard the clearance at -railheads. For seven days during the thaw, such was the parlous -softness of the roads, it was out of the question to permit general -traffic in lorries. All the clearance must be done by horse transport, -which, by comparison with M.T., is damnably slow. It delayed the -clearance of trains by half-days. Divisions which had to trek by G.S. -waggon to other railheads to complete were hard put to it to get their -men in the line fed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[Pg 223]</span></p> - -<p>Units which had no horse transport available had been instructed -beforehand to draw thaw and reserve rations to tide them over the -period. They stuck to their quarters, and ate tinned beef and biscuit.</p> - -<p>But special dispensations had to be granted for traffic by lorries. -When a coal-train arrived at railhead it was unthinkable to clear -it by H.T. General Service waggons would take a week to clear four -hundred tons of coal. Dispensations had to be granted for other urgent -reasons. The cumulative effect was that of lorry traffic to a dangerous -extent—dangerous because the frost bites so deep that when the thaw -is at its height ruts are two feet deep. It bites down at the soft -foundation beneath the cobble-stones of the village streets; and on -the country roads the subsoil has no such protection as cobbles from -the oppression of loaded lorries. But it was curious to see, in the -villages, the cobbles rising <i>en masse</i> like jelly either flank of -the lorry, or rising like a wave in the wake of the lumbering thing. -Lorries got ditched in the country roads beyond immediate deliverance -by other lorries. Nothing less than a steam tractor could move them. A -convoy of tractors was set aside in each road-area for no other purpose -than to obey calls to the rescue of ditched lorries. Certain roads -were so badly cut that they had to be closed to traffic of any kind: -motor-cycle with side-car that ventured on was bogged. The personnel -of the road-control was increased twenty-fold to check speeds and to -indicate prohibited roads. The worst tracts of the roads in use were so -bad as to be paved with double rows of railway sleepers until the frost -had worked out. Some roads will never recover; they will have to be -closed until remade.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[Pg 224]</span></p> - -<p>This advanced railhead was so near the line as to be full of interest -on the eve of the April push. It was here you could see the immediate -preparations and the immediate results of the preparatory activity. -The local casualty clearing stations gave good evidence; you could -tell, by watching their convoys, and talking with the wounded, and -observing in the operating-theatre, what was going on. Such significant -events as the growth of fresh C.C.S.'s and the kind of reserves they -were putting-in, were eloquent. Talk with the legion of Flying-Corps -observers who were about railhead was enlightening; so was the nature -of the reserves they were laying up. The bulk and description of the -supply-reserves dumped at railhead for pushing up by lorry-convoy to -Arras told their tale also. Every night a convoy of lorries would -load and move up under cover of the darkness. There was no mistaking -the meaning of such commodities in their freight as chewing-gum and -solidified alcohol. Do not suppose, reader, that chewing-gum is for -mere distraction in the trenches. Neither is solidified alcohol for -consumption by the addicted, but for fuel for Tommies' cookers when -coal and wood are impossible of transport. Commodities such as these -make one visualise a sudden and overwhelming advance. —— tons of -baled straw were dumped at railhead. This was not for forage, but -to strew the floors of empty returning supply-trains for wounded. -Each C.C.S. in the area had to be prepared to improvise one such -ambulance-train per day when the push was at its height. The handling -of these things makes one abnormally busy; if he gets four-hours' sleep -in twenty-four he is doing famously. But one is never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[Pg 225]</span> so jaded as not -to be interested in these portentous signs.</p> - -<p>Once I went up to Arras on a night lorry. The convoy crept up into -the lip of the salient. The guns flashed close on either flank; the -star-shells lit the road from either side. The reserve dump was in -an old factory in the Rue ——. An enormous dump it was. The Supply -Officer lived next it on a ground-floor. His men burrowed in an -adjacent cellar. He had laid on the floor of the attic above him eight -layers of oats. A direct hit would have asphyxiated him with oats. -His dump was unhappily placed. There were two batteries adjacent. -Whenever there was a raid and the batteries let fly, they were -immediately searched for. In the search his dump was found, on more -than one occasion. There were ugly and recent shell-holes about it. The -off-loading convoy was hit many nights at one point or another. He took -me to the bottom of the road after dark. The scream of shell was so -incessant that it rose to a melancholy intermittent moan.</p> - -<p>Next day he took me about the town. Civilians were moving furtively. -They were not used to emerge before night. In any case such shops and -<i>estaminets</i> as remained were prohibited from opening before 7.30 in -the evening. Wonderful!—how the civilians hang on. They have their -property; also, they have the money they can always make from the herds -of troops who make a fleeting sojourn in the place. Apart from the -proprietors of cafés and <i>estaminets</i>, they are mostly caretakers who -stay on: caretakers and rich old men with much property who prefer the -chance of being hit to leaving what their industry has amassed over -thirty years of labour....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[Pg 226]</span></p> - -<p>The German fatigue on the railway was useful, if slow. It was supplied -from the prisoners of war camp near the station. When the thaw was in -progress we lost them, so heavy were the demands upon the camp for -road labour. The O.C. the camp sometimes visited to see what manner -of work they did. He threw light on their domestic behaviour in camp: -"The greediest ——s on earth!" he would say. "If one of them leaves -table for two minutes, his friends have pinched and swallowed his -grub. They steal each other's food daily—and they're fed well enough. -They're a sanctimonious crew, too; most of their post-cards from home -are scriptural, laden with texts and pictorial demonstration of the way -the Lord is with them. The camp is half-filled with religious fanatics; -they sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs when they're free. But -there's not much of the New Testament notion of the brotherhood of man -amongst 'em; they do each other down most damnably!..."</p> - -<p>When the Arras advance was imminent their camp was moved farther back -from the line, and we lost them. The Deputy-Assistant-Director of -Labour sent a fatigue of 125 of the halt and the maimed—the P.B.'s; -altogether inadequate.</p> - -<p>A Permanent-base man may be incapable of lumping. And even if he is not -incapable, he is usually in a position to say he is—none daring to -make him afraid. P.B. fatigues are highly undesirable.</p> - -<p>"Pinching" supplies was by no means unheard of amongst them. -(Amongst whom at all is it unheard-of? Australians themselves are -the arch-appropriators of Army supplies.) But P.B. men do not pinch -with that faculty of vulpine cunning which is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[Pg 227]</span> clear of detection. -One morning, after an all-night clearance, the A.P.M. found one of -the P.B.'s sneaking back to billet in the cold grey dawn with three -tins of pork and beans, two loaves of bread, six candles, imperfectly -concealed. He promptly put him in the clink. There was a court-martial. -The unhappy fellow got three months. Pinching in the Army should be -done judiciously. It is not a moral crime. Getting caught is. At any -rate, that is an intellectual, if not a moral crime.</p> - -<p>I messed with a C.C.S. Most messes of medical officers are interesting -and varied. The Colonel was a Regular—an accessible and companionable -Regular. An Irishman he was, kind of heart and quick of temper; and so -able that it was never dangerous for him to allow his Captains to argue -with him on questions of administration, because he could always rout -them: he was always right. A less able man would have taken risks in -permitting argument on the subject of his administration.</p> - -<p>He was the fiercest smoker and the ablest bridge-player I have ever -known. He used to complain bitterly of the standard of bridge played -by the mess in general. He put out his pipe chiefly to eat—to eat -rather than to sleep. He was a hearty, but not a voluptuous, eater. -His appetite was the consequence of genuine cerebration and of hard -walking. He walked, unless hindered by the most inevitable obstacles, -five miles a day—hard, with his two dogs and the Major. He was very -deaf, and very fond of his dogs. They slept in his room, usually (one -or other) on his bed. He slept little. He read and smoked in bed -regularly until about two; was wakened at six;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[Pg 228]</span> took a pipe (or two) -with his tea before getting up; and sometimes—though rarely—resumed -his reading in bed until eight, or spent a happy hour in earnest -conversation with the dogs before rising.</p> - -<p>His officers liked him; the Sisters loved him. To them he was -indulgent. The day before the push began a Sister approached him in his -office. She said that although it was her afternoon off, the Matron -had advised her against tramping, lest a convoy of wounded should -come in suddenly. He said: "My dear, you go."—"And how long may I be -away?"—"Well, you don't go on duty until eight in the morning; as long -as you're back by then, it's good enough. But mind—don't come reeling -in at 8.30 with your hair down your back! That's all I ask." She left, -adoring.</p> - -<p>The Major was a mid-Victorian gentleman, with the gentlest manners -and language, except when it came to talk of Germans. He got an acute -attack of <i>Wanderlust</i> soon after I came—felt the call of Arras—and -got command of a field ambulance up in the thick of it. The last I -heard of him was that he was hurrying about the city under a steel -helmet, succouring with his own hand those stricken down in the streets.</p> - -<p>A French interpreter was attached to the hospital. He was a man of -forty-five, with the heart of a boy of fifteen. He would sit at the -gramaphone by the hour, playing his favourite music and staring into -vacancy. His favourites were: a minuet of Haydn, Beethoven's Minuet -in G, selections from the 1812 Overture, the Overture to <i>Mignon</i>, -and the Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy. Everyone "pulled his leg"; -everyone liked him—he was so gentle of heart, but so baffling<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[Pg 229]</span> in -repartee. They called him the <i>Pawkie Duke</i>, a name that came to him -through his comments when the facetious song of that title in the "St. -Andrew's Song-Book" was being sung. He lived in a hut in hospital. Part -of his duty consisted in mediation between the civilian sick and the -English M.O.'s; for by international agreement they were due to treat -any civilian sick who needed it. I first met Pawkie waiting in the -anteroom of the operating-theatre with a distracted mother whose child -was within under operation for appendicitis. She was a lovely girl of -ten. The mother was weeping anxiously. Pawkie was almost in sympathetic -tears himself. He made excursions of high frequency into the theatre -to report progress to the mother. I went in. He came after, fumbling -nervously with his hands and regarding the surgeons with a gaze of -appeal. He would whisper to the Colonel, who reassured him. He tore -out, colliding with the orderlies who were bearing in another "case." -Seizing madame by the hands, he cried: "<i>Bien, madame! Elle va bien! -La pauvre petite fille fait de bon progrès. Les chirurgiens-major sont -très adroits. Le Capitaine est le chirurgien-spécialiste. Le Colonel -assiste aussi. Ça ne fait rien, madame!</i>" And he left madame with the -conviction that nothing could go wrong.</p> - -<p>But it was pathetic to see that beautiful child, her fair face -smothered under the mask. At the end, when the wound was stitched, the -surgeon took her up as gently as though she were his own offspring and -carried her to her mother, and so on to the ward. There she stayed two -weeks, tended by him with the affection of an elder brother.</p> - -<p>On the eve of the push, during the preparatory and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[Pg 230]</span> retaliatory -bombardment, the theatre was a ghastly chamber. An abbatoir it was, -five hours after the arrival of the convoys, when the preparation of -the cases for operation had been completed. Five "tables" were in -continuous use. On "taking-in" night the surgeons invariably worked -through to daylight. This is very exhausting, so exhausting that they -never worked continuously. At about two o'clock they adjourned to -the mess for a rest and a meal—a solid meal of bacon and eggs and -coffee. For the push there came reinforcements—<i>teams</i>, as they were -called. They amounted to eight fresh surgeons, ten Sisters, and fifty -additional orderlies.</p> - -<p>The Colonel called his M.O.'s together in the anteroom the Sabbath -before the attack, and gave them plain words of warning and advice. -In a push they were not to be too elaborate; it would lead to -injustice. Better twelve "abdominals" done roughly but safely than -four exquisitely finished operations. In the former case all twelve -would be rendered safe as far as the base; in the latter, the remaining -eight would probably die on their hands.... The examining officers in -the reception-room must come to a complete agreement with the surgeons -as to what manner of "case" it was imperative to operate upon before -evacuation to the base. There must be waste of neither surgical time -nor surgical energy in operating upon "cases" that would carry to the -base without it—and so on....</p> - -<p>Anything one might say of Nursing-Sisters in France must seem -inadequate. The wounded Tommy who has fallen into their hands is making -their qualities known. They work harder than any M.O., and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[Pg 231]</span> M.O.'s -are hard-worked. Indeed, I defy a man to bear indefinitely the kind -of work they do indefinitely—its nervous strain and its long hours. -The M.O.'s do their examinations and their dressings and pass on; -they are the merest visitors. The Sisters stay on and fight for the -man without cessation, and then see him die. Five and six deaths in -the ward in a night is horribly hard on the Sister in charge of it. -No one but a Sister could do the work she does, in a ward or in the -operating-theatre. It is nonsense to speak of abolishing women from the -medical service; it would be inadequate without them. But their work -will leave its mark upon them for ever. They have not a man's faculty -of detachment.</p> - -<p>Because they are so absorbed by their work—-as well as for other -feminine reasons—they see the ethics of the struggle less clearly than -a man.</p> - -<p>Sisters on service are more prone to depression out of working hours -than are men; which is not amazing. They are more the subjects of -their moods, which is but temperamental too. But in the reaction of -elation after depression they are more gay than any man—even in his -most festive mood after evening mess. They smoke a good deal (and they -deserve it), but not as heavily as their civilian sisters in general, -though in isolated cases they smoke more heavily than any civilian -woman. But no one blames the fair fiends, however false this form of -consolation may be.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[Pg 232]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIf">CHAPTER VI</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">ARRAS AFTER THE PUSH</p> - - -<p>The traffic on the cobbled road to Arras raises a dust—although it is -cobbled. The spring green of the elms that line it is overcast with the -pallor of a man under the anæsthetic. The fresh breeze raises a dust -that sometimes stops a motor cyclist; sometimes it is the multiplicity -of traffic that stops him. His face and hair are as dust-pallid as the -trees.</p> - -<p>The push is over. The traffic in and out is as heavy as it could be. -There is no intermission in it. It files past the road control in a -procession in which there are no intervals.</p> - -<p>The ingoing traffic is not all military. Incongruously among the -lorries lumber civilian carts stuffed with all the chattels of -returning refugees. One knows not whether it is more pathetic to see -these forlorn French families returning to the desolation of their -homes or flying from it. They will lumber down the flagged streets -lined with houses, rent and torn and overthrown, that were once the -homes of their friends and the shops of their dealers. Here at one -time they promenaded in the quiet Sabbath afternoon sunshine. Now the -pavement is torn with shell-holes and the street is ditched with them -and defaced with half-wrecked barriers. The Grand Place, where once -they congregated for chat in the summer twilight,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[Pg 233]</span> or sunned themselves -in the winter, is choked with supplies and sweating troops. The troops -are billeted in the half-wrecked houses of every street. The refugees -will drive through to the place of their old homes and see the spring -greening the trenches which zigzag through their old gardens, and -clothing the splintered trees in their old orchards. This is worse -than fleeing from the wrath of shell to come. But they love their town -so intensely that they rattle through the city gate with an aspect of -melancholy satisfaction.</p> - -<p>The push has left its mark all over Arras. There was desolation before -it. But such was its punishment when it was the centre from which we -pushed, that destruction has spread into every street. Intensity is the -quality of the destruction. And it is still going on. Shell are still -screaming in.</p> - -<p>The splendid cathedral is an amorphous heap of stone; there are -infrequent pillars and girders that have escaped, and stand gaunt among -the ruins. The Hôtel de Ville retains but a few arches of its beautiful -carved front. Splendid <i>maisons</i> are in ruins. In the streets there -are the stone barricades and entaglements of barbed wire. The <i>gare</i>, -as busy as the Amiens <i>gare</i> before the war, and as fine, is rent and -crumbling. The network of lines under its glass roof is grass-grown. -The fine <i>Place</i> before it, where you can envisage the peace traffic -in taxi's and pedestrians, is torn by shell, or by fatigues which have -uprooted the stone for street barricades.</p> - -<p>Most people who see for the first time the desolation of such -buildings as the cathedral cry out angrily upon German vandalism, -with the implication that it is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[Pg 234]</span> because they were fine and stately -that the cathedral and the Hôtel de Ville were battered. This is not -only unjust, but nonsensical. The German has other things to think -of than the deliberate destruction of beautiful buildings because -they are beautiful. What he has to consider is their height and their -potential usefulness as observation-posts. And this is what he does -consider, as we would and do consider such features too. Had we been -bombarding Arras, it is the tall and beautiful cathedral that we would -have shattered first. You may as logically rail against the Germans -for smashing down these potential observation-posts as object to the -prosecution of the War on Sunday....</p> - -<p>The old warning notices persist, and have been put up more plain and -frequent: <i>Assembly-Point</i>, indicating the cellars of refuge; warnings -against touching unexploded shell; and so forth.</p> - -<p>The Town Major, the Railhead Ordnance Officer, the Railway Transport -Officer, the Railhead Supply Officer, the Railhead Salvage Officer—all -are intensely busy, and all well sandbagged. The Salvage officer -is beset by his friends for souvenirs. The R.O.O. is beset by the -quartermasters of battered battalions for fresh equipment. The R.S.O. -is hunted by the hungry. The R.T.O. is at his wits' end to entrain and -detrain men and guns—especially men. The town teems with troops.</p> - -<p>The returning refugees trouble none of these officials. They go to the -French Mission for directions as to resettling.</p> - -<p>As soon as you emerge on the eastern side of Arras you see the line -from the rising ground. The captive<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[Pg 235]</span> balloons mark it well; they are -so frequent—huge hovering inflations with the tiny observer's basket -dangling, and the streaming pennon half-way down the cable to avert -collision with the patrolling aircraft. For they must be patrolled -well. The Hun has lately the trick of pouncing on them from aloft, -shooting the tracer bullet as he dives. The tracer will put the thing -in flames in the twinkling of an eye. The observer does not wait if -he sees a Hun coming for him. He leaps for it. His parachute harness -is always about his shoulders, and his parachute tucked beneath the -balloon. But even with the Hun making for him, this leap into space is -a fearsome thing. He falls sheer for some seconds before the parachute -is wrenched from its place. Then there is that second of horrible -uncertainty as to whether she will open. And if there is a hitch, his -dive to earth becomes a flash and his breathless body thuds into pulp -below. So ended the man who "made" the song "Gilbert the Filbert." So -end others, failed by their parachute.... Sometimes combustion is so -rapid that the parachute is burnt with the balloon; then he leaps from -the death by fire to death of another sort. Nor does a well-released -parachute always let you down lightly. If the wind is strong and -contrary, you may drift five miles and land 'midst Huns. If the wind is -strong and favourable, your pendulic swing beneath the parachute may -land you roughly with wounds and bruises. You may be smashed against -chimneys, torn by trees, dragged through canals, and haled bleeding up -the bank. But if the Lord is with you, you will swing slowly down in -the still air and be landed tenderly in a field of clover.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[Pg 236]</span></p> - -<p>Sometimes balloons get set afire by lightning. If then the parachute is -saved, the observer is fortunate indeed. Lightning gives rather less -warning to leap than does the flying Hun.</p> - -<p>All the country from Arras to the line bears the scars of recent -fighting. A great deal of it bears the marks of German occupation; you -see this in German <i>Verboten</i> signs and in German canteen notices.</p> - -<p>The dwellings of the eastern suburbs lie in ruined heaps of brick; -there may be the ground-plan indicated by the low, rugged remnant of -wall. A jagged house-end may still lean there forlornly, with the -branches of the springing trees thrusting through its cracks and the -spring vines trailing through its shell-rents. With the spring upon it, -the whole landscape is more pathetic than in the bareness of winter. -This ruination sorted better with leafless boughs and frozen ground. -The sweet lush grass smiling in the interstices of ruin is hard to -look on. The slender poplar aspiring with tapering grace above the -red and grey wreckage is the more beautiful thereby, but the wreckage -is more hideously pathetic. It would break your heart to see the -pear-tree blossoming blithely in the rubble-strewn area that was once -its orchard. The refugee who returns will know (or perhaps he will not) -that in place of this <i>débris</i> of crunched brick, splintered beam, -twisted iron, convulsed barbed wire, strewn about the trenches and -shell-holes of his property, was once the ordered quietness of orchard -and garden—his ranks of pear and apple, trim paths, shrubberies, the -gay splashes of flower-colour and carpeted softness of lawn. This -will wring his heart more than the loss of furniture. Though much of -his furniture was heir<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[Pg 237]</span>loom, this little orchard and garden were the -fruit of his own twenty years of loving nurture. This little area he -idealised as his farmed estate, his stately <i>parc</i>. Here on Sabbath -evenings he walked down the shrubbed paths with his wife and children, -after returning from the weekly promenade of the streets of Arras. His -children romped on the lawn since they could crawl. Now not only is it -gone, but its associations too—torn by shell, defiled by trenches, -desecrated by the cruel contortions of rusting wire. The zigzagged clay -parapet winds about his well-beloved plots; the ruins of a machine-gun -emplacement lie about the remnant of his summer-house; beef-tins, -jam-tins, and undischarged hand-grenades, are strewn beneath his -splintered shade-trees. The old sweet orchard air is defiled by the -sickening, indefinable stink of a deserted trench; the broken sandbags -lie greening about the turf.</p> - -<p>This is all ruin of a sort more or less inevitable. Follow the road -winding down the valley beyond the suburb, and you will see the foul, -deliberate ruin of whole avenues of trees that once lined the route. -You know how these stately elm and beech met overhead for leagues -along the pleasant roads of France; there they lie now naked in the -turf by the road-side, untimely cut down by the steam-saw of the -Hun. He traversed the whole length of this road with that admirable -German thoroughness of his and felled them all across it to bar our -progress. The shattering of Arras Cathedral was necessary; this is mere -expediency, and near to wantonness. Forty years of stately growth lie -there gaunt and sapless. Soon you will see the tender tufts of green -spring from the smooth-<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[Pg 238]</span>cut stump. They have been beautifully cut: -German machinery is unimpeachably efficient. McAndrew's song of steam -is the noble celebration of the triumph of human mechanical genius; -these bleeding stumps are the monument that will testify for half a -century to the blasphemous misapplication of German mechanical skill. -The steam-saw must have worked beautifully. You can conceive the German -N.C.O. in charge of it standing by emitting approval as the stately -beech crashed across the road from the fine, smooth cut—"<i>Schön!... -Schön!</i>" ...</p> - -<p>This will hurt the French more than other peoples think; they are so -proud of their forestry; they plant with such considerate foresight -into the pleasure that posterity will have in their trees—with such -prevision as to the arrangement of plantations and as to the <i>tout -ensemble</i> of the avenue and the <i>forêt</i> when the trees shall be mature. -A tree is nothing until you have personified it: the French personify -the trees of their private plantations; they are like members of the -<i>famille</i>. And such is the State care of forestry that you almost -believe it has personified the State plantations in a collective -sort of way, regarding them almost as a branch of society or of the -nation. The national care of trees is with them a thing analogous to -the administration of orphanages. The German will have reckonings to -make after the War for maimed and murdered trees and for annihilated -orchards, as well as for fallen and deformed Frenchmen....</p> - -<p>After the trenches of Anzac, you are overwhelmed in France with the -pathos of the contiguity of trench with dwelling. It is less unnatural -that the unpeopled wilderness of Anzac should be torn by shell<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[Pg 239]</span> and -scarred by trench-line. In France there is a piteous incongruity in -the intimacy of warfare with domesticity. The village that has been -the stronghold is shattered beyond all reviving; and inevitably the -villages of the fighting area have been used as a fleeting shelter -from the fierceness of the tempest of shell. <i>L'Église</i> is a roofless -ruin. <i>L'Hôtel de Ville</i> and <i>la Marie</i> are amorphous masses of jagged -and crumpled wall. The trenches traverse the street and the garden and -the <i>cour de maison</i>. The tiny rivulet on the outskirts of the village -has been hailed as a sort of ready-made trench and hastily squared and -fire-stepped. The farm is pocked with shell-holes; the farmhouse is -notoriously open to the heavens and gaping about the estate through its -rent walls. On Anzac only the chalk ridges were scored and the stunted, -uncertain growth uprooted; there were not even trees to maim. Here the -cellars are natural dug-outs in the trench-wall; the <i>maison</i> is the -billet for the reserve battalion; the communication trench ploughs -rudely through the quiet cobbled street. The desecrating contrast cries -from the ground at every turn. The village that used to sleep in the -sun with its pleasant crops about it now sleeps in ashes and ruination -for ever. The battle-lines of Turkey will be effaced and overgrown by -the seasons, but that which was a village in France will never more -know the voices of little children again in its streets, because it has -no streets, and because new villages will be built rather than this -hideousness overturned and effaced and built-upon afresh.</p> - -<p>If you walk east an hour from Arras you'll get near enough to Tilloy to -see the shelling of our line. Again<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[Pg 240]</span> Anzac is superseded. Anzac never -saw shell of this size (except from the monitors that bombarded from -the sea); nor did Anzac know bombardment of this intensity, except in -isolated spurts. Here the normal bombardment is intense. This is mere -routine; but it's as fierce as preceded any attack on Gallipoli. What -chance has the individual when modern artillery is at work? Yet the -chance of death cannot be greater than say, one in four; otherwise -there would be no men left. The rank of balloons is spotting; the -'planes are patrolling them; other 'planes are circling over our -batteries—spotting; others are going in squadron over the line—"on -some stunt," as Tommy puts it. Our own guns are speaking all about, so -loud that the noise of crowding transport is altogether drowned: by -them, and by the crack of the German bursts and by the shell-scream. -The transport on this road is not mechanical; we are too near the line -for that.</p> - -<p>A German 'plane is being "archied" to the north, and there is a barrage -of "archies" being put up behind it to give our 'planes time to rise to -attack it. Two of them are climbing up to it now over our heads. They -climb very steep. They are very fast 'planes. They are on the level -of the Hun very quickly: they are above it. The barrage has ceased, -because the Hun is trying to risk running through rather than waiting -to fight two Nieuports. But one has intercepted him and is coming for -him in the direction of the line. The other is diving on him from -above. There is the spasmodic rattle of Lewis guns. The Hun is firing -thick on the man rushing him. He has done it, too; for suddenly our man -swerves and banks in a way that is plainly involuntary, and then begins -to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[Pg 241]</span> fall, banking irregularly. Suddenly the flames begin to spurt from -her body. As suddenly she seems to regain control and dives steep for -earth, flames streaming from the wings and in a comet-tail behind. She -tears down at a horrible angle. Then you know in a moment that this is -not steering, but a nose-dive to death, and that it is controlled by no -pilot. We can hear the roar of flame. She is nearer to us, making for -us. She crashes horribly a hundred yards away and roars and crackles. -The delicate wings and body are gone long before we reach her; there is -only a quiet smouldering amongst the cracked and twisted frame, and the -sickening smell of burnt flesh and of oil-fumes.</p> - -<p>The Hun has escaped—at least, we fear he will escape. He and our other -man are small specks in the blue above the German line. They cannot -"archie" them together. Our man turns, and grows. Then he gets it—the -deadly white puffs on every hand of him. But he comes through, and -proceeds to patrol.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[Pg 242]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Section_C_FRENCH_PROVINCIAL_LIFE"><span class="smcap">Section C.</span>—FRENCH PROVINCIAL LIFE</h2> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Ig">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">A MORNING IN PICARDY</p> - - -<p>The beginning of spring in Northern France is elating above the month -of May in the Rhône Valley—not because spring in Southern France is -not more beautiful, but because it is less welcome. It is by comparison -that the loveliness of the Picardy spring takes hold upon you: by -comparison with the bitterness of the Picardy winter. You may walk -about Marseilles or Lyon in January without a great-coat; in Arras this -would be the death of you. The frozen mud, the sleet, the snow, the -freezing wind, the lowering sky, and the gaunt woods of Pas de Calais, -are ever with you, from September to April. But by the beginning of May -the leaves are sprouting and the greening of the earth is begun. There -is rain—much of it. But there are sunny days without the bitterness -of wind. There is singing of birds in the early morning. The children -no longer creep along the frozen street to school; they race, and fill -the street with their laughter. The 'planes whose hum fills the air -look less forbidding than they seemed a month ago. In February, in the -darkening heaven, they showed a relentless aspect; they seem to fly -now as though at sport. The old <i>citadelle</i> has lost its grimness; the -ramparts are green<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[Pg 243]</span>ing; the shade of blackness taken on by its grey -slate-roofs when the trees were leafless is gone now; the moat that was -a pool of mud is flowering.</p> - -<p>The Authie flows below it, full-tided. The margin now is not snow. It -has been snow for long, and half the stream was murky snow-slush. Now -it is clear. The ducks from the château that looks up at the Citadelle -are sporting in it again.</p> - -<p>Saint-Pol Road, Amiens Road, Arras Road, are beginning to stand grey -again. In the winter there was nothing but their bare trees to mark -them; they were the colour of the fields. Now both trees and fields -foil them, setting out over the slopes.</p> - -<p>It is a joy to walk down the Authie on a spring morning. The Citadelle -towers above you on the left. You are conscious of its graceful -immensity long after you have passed it. The little French cottages -straggle down-stream from the Citadelle base. They are white and grey, -red and white—French in construction from their tiny dormer windows -to the neat little gardens with their bricked-up margins flushed by -the stream. Long tree-lined boulevardes start away from the road which -skirts the river; you can see for many kilometres along their length. -The wine-barrels are piled beneath the plane-trees. The children play -about them. You will come upon a château standing stately in its low -ground fronting the river. And beyond the château, which marks the -border of the town, you are in the richness of the river fields and -the river slopes. Here are the elm-groves, and the clumps of soaring -poplar, and the long lines of stubby willow clipped yearly by the hand -of industry; they sprout long and delicate from the head.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[Pg 244]</span> <i>Groseille</i> -and hop tangle about the bank. Far off on the ridges the white road -traverses under its elms, picking a way among the hedged terraces. You -see no denizens here other than the old men and the girls who are at -work in the fields. From them you will have a cheery "<i>Bonjour</i>" and -some shrewd remarks on the weather: "<i>Ah, oui!—toujours le travail, -m'sieur—toujours! Mais ça ne fait rien: nous sommes contents—oui.</i>" -And so they are.</p> - -<p>Then you come to Gezaincourt. That fine old château in its <i>parc</i>. The -<i>parc</i> is of many acres, and there are deer in the woods of it, and a -lake where the wild-fowl are.</p> - -<p>To return we left the river and struck up into the ridge. We came to -Bretel, midway between Gezaincourt and the Citadelle. We entered a -private <i>maison</i> standing back in its garden; it was, none the less, -marked <i>café</i>. Madame received us unprofessionally, inviting into -the kitchen to drink. There she was preparing the dinner. <i>Je ne -sais pas pourquoi</i>—but the French are deliciously friendly with the -Australians. They take us into their homes with a readiness that is -elating. They will not do it with the English. But, after all, they -are frank, and we approach them frankly. We are given to domesticity, -and they are intensely domestic. Indeed, the Australian temperament is -far nearer to the French than is the English. The Australian tendency -to the spirit of democracy finds sympathy in the provinces of this -splendid Republic. The national spirit of democracy has its counterpart -(may even have its roots) in the local trend towards communism which, -in France, makes you welcome to enter the <i>maison</i>, chatting easily<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[Pg 245]</span> -about its domestic affairs, and, in Australia, makes you welcome in -the house of the country stranger, where you drink and eat without -embarrassment at the hospitable table for the first and last time. The -Australian is guiltless of the habitual industry of the French—of -their intense interest in the detail of their lives and work; but he -has their unconventionality and their lightness of heart and their -hospitality. He understands their communistic way of life in the -provinces. And when a French girl on a country road looks him directly -in the eye for the first time, and with the smile of friendly frankness -gives him a "<i>Bonjour, m'sieur</i>," he is no more embarrassed than she. -He meets and returns the greeting with an understanding of which an -Englishman knows nothing. The French and the Australians are allies by -nature. There is nothing amazing in their immediate understanding of -each other. How, on the other hand, the English and the French continue -to do anything in conjunction is a source of continual wonder. Between -their temperaments there is a great gulf fixed.</p> - -<p>So Madame takes us direct to the kitchen, where she is basting. She -makes exhaustive inquiries into the Australian methods of cooking. We -explain that the foods are largely the same—but in the mode, <i>quelle -différence</i>! She thinks the Australian practice of the hearty breakfast -an extraordinary beginning to the day. The drinking of tea she cannot -away with: wine and <i>cidre</i> are the only fluids to be taken with -food—or without it. She prefers beef to horse; it is in Normandy they -eat so much horse. We express approval of the French universal usage -of butter in cooking: they fry their eggs in butter, roast their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[Pg 246]</span> meat -with it, fry potatoes in it. She asks what is our substitute for it. -Lard and dripping. "<i>O, la la! Quel goût!</i>" And so it is; Australians -know little of the blessings of butter in cookery. She asks if we are -fond of salads. "Up to a point, yes; but not as you are." "<i>En France, -toujours la salade, m'sieur! Regardez le jardin.</i>" She takes us to the -window and indicates the vegetable-garden with a proud forefinger: -"<i>Voulez-vous vous promener?</i>"—"<i>Oui, madame, avec plaisir.</i>"</p> - -<p>"<i>Madeleine!</i>" She calls her daughter. Madeleine is a comely girl who -has been at work in the next room. She shakes hands as though she had -known us as boys, and fills up the glasses again before we go out, and -takes one herself with the grace of a lady. For high-bred ease and -graciousness of manner, in fact, you are to go to the <i>demoiselles</i> -of the provinces. "<i>A votre santé, m'sieur.</i>" She raises her glass -and smiles—as well as enunciates—the toast. "<i>A votre santé, -mademoiselle!</i>" "<i>A la paix, madame!</i>" "<i>Bonne santé!</i>"—"<i>Oui, à la -paix, messieurs!—nécessaire, la paix!</i>" ...</p> - -<p>Madeleine leads the way into the garden. It is clear at once to what -degree the French are addicted to salads: canals of water-cress, fields -of lettuce and radish and celery. Most of the plants in that garden -are potentially plants for a salad. But there are some fine beds of -asparagus, and of these <i>le père</i> is proud. He is obviously pleased -to meet anyone who is interested by his handiwork. It's politic even -to feign an exaggerated interest in every plot; you are rewarded by -the old man's enthusiastic pride: "<i>Ah, messieurs, le printemps s'est -éveillé! Bon pour le jardin!</i>" We finish by the rivers of water where -the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[Pg 247]</span> cress grows. "<i>Regardez la source</i>," says Madeleine. She points -to it oozing from the hill-side. They have diverted it and irrigated a -dozen canals each thirty yards long and two wide. There is more cress -there than the whole village could make into salads, you say. But three -housewives come with their bags, buying, and each takes such a generous -load of the <i>cresson</i> that you know the old man has not misjudged his -cultivation.</p> - -<p>"<i>Voulez-vous une botte de cresson, messieurs?</i>"—"<i>Oui, s'il vous -plait, m'sieur: merci bien!</i>" The old fellow places his little bridge -across the canal, cuts a bundle, and binds it from the sheaf of dried -grass at his waist. "<i>Voilà, messieurs!</i>"</p> - -<p>The purchasers stop far longer than is necessary to talk about the War -and the price of sugar and the scarcity of <i>charbon</i>. Conversation is -the provincial hobby, as it is the national hobby. Yet I have never -seen the French mutually bored by conversation—never. Nor are there, -in French conversation, those stodgy gaps which are to be expected in -the conversation of the English, and, still more, of the Australians. -French conversation flows on; <i>ebbs and flows</i> expresses better not -only the knack of apt rejoinder which gives it perfect naturalness, but -also the rhythmic rise and fall of it which makes it pleasant to hear, -even when you don't understand a word. That, and its perfect harmony of -gesture, make it a living thing, with all the interest of a thing that -lives.</p> - -<p>We (unnecessarily, again) wander about the garden with Madeleine. She -gives the history of each plot. What interests us is to her a matter -of course: the extraordinary neatness of the garden, the uniformity<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[Pg 248]</span> -of plot, the assiduous exclusion of weeds, the careful demarcation of -paths, the neatness of the all-surrounding hedge. The French genius for -detail and for industry shows itself nowhere so clearly as in a garden. -They are gardeners born.</p> - -<p>On returning to the house, madame insists that we stay to dinner. We -accept without hesitation. <i>Le père</i> comes in and brings the dogs. -Soon we know their history from puppyhood. <i>Finu</i> is morose and -jealous; she has a litter of pups that make her unfriendly. <i>Koko</i> is -a happy chap—always a friend to soldiers, as the old man puts it. -He is a <i>souvenir</i> left by a Captain of artillery. All this is, in -itself, rather uninteresting, but in the way in which it is put it is -absorbing. That, in fact, is the secret of the charm of most French -conversation. In the mouth of an Englishman—such is its trifling -detail—it would be deadly-boring. The French aptness and vividness of -description dresses into beauty the most uninteresting detail.</p> - -<p>It soon appears that the whole family are refugees from Arras; have -lived here two years. I told them I had recently visited Arras. This -flooded me with questions. I wish I had known the detailed geography of -Arras better. The narrative of a recent Arras bombardment moved them to -tears. They love their town: they love more than their home. This is -the spirit of the Republic. The Frenchman's affection for his town is -as strong as the Scotchman's for his native heath.</p> - -<p>They had brought from Arras all their worldly goods. They took us -to the sitting-room and to the bedroom. Much of the furniture was -heirlooms.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[Pg 249]</span> Each piece had its age and history. The carved oak wardrobe -was extremely fine; it had belonged to madame's great-grandmother. -Chairs, table-covers, pictures—all were treasured. Here was more -evidence to expose the fallacy that French family life is decaying. -Gentle reader, never believe it. Family history is as sacred in the -provinces as natural affection is strong: which is to say much.</p> - -<p>But the typical French family heirloom is antique plate. This takes the -form of china and porcelain embellished with biological and botanical -design. Some of it is very crude and ugly, but dear to the possessor. -Every French <i>salle à manger</i> has a wall-full; they are in the place of -pictures.</p> - -<p>The dinner was elaborate and delicious. No French <i>famille</i> is so poor -that it does not dine well: soup, fish with <i>salade</i>, veal with <i>pommes -de terre frites</i>, fried macaroni with onions, prunes with custard, -coffee and cigars. This—except for the cigars, perhaps—was presumably -a normal meal. And between each course Madeleine descended the <i>cave</i> -and brought forth a fresh bottle of <i>cidre</i>. And Madeleine's glass was -filled by her parent, with a charming absence of discrimination, as -often as ours—or as her mother's. The colour mounted in her cheeks; -but she did not talk drivel. To generous draughts of wine and <i>cidre</i> -had she been accustomed from her youth up. And the youngest French -child will always get as much as Madeleine to drink at table. So the -French are not drunkards.</p> - -<p>After lunch came two visitors to talk. They were sisters, friends of -Madeleine. For two years and a half they had been prisoners in a French -town held by the Germans, near Albert, and had been liberated<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[Pg 250]</span> only -a month before by the German evacuation. They told pitiful tales of -German ill-usage, though not of a physiological nature. But constantly -the Boches demanded food and never paid, so that they themselves went -hungry daily. Also, they worked for Germans under compulsion, and never -were paid; and worked very hard. The German soldiers they described -as not unkind, though discourteous, but the officers were invariably -brutal. <i>Maintenant vous êtes chez nous</i> was the German officers' -formula, with its implied threat of violation; which was never -executed, however.</p> - -<p>We rose to go, and made to pay. This was smiled at indulgently. "<i>Au -revoir, messieurs! Bonne chance!</i>" cried <i>le père</i>. "<i>Quand vous -voudrez</i>," said Madame. "<i>Quand vous voudrez</i>," echoed Madeleine. So we -went—like Christian—on our way rejoicing.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[Pg 251]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIg">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THÉRÈSE</p> - - -<p>I was sitting on a log at the crest of the splendidly high La Bouille -ridge gloating over the Seine Valley. Here, from the grounds of <i>La -Maison Brûlée</i> (now raucous with revellers in the late afternoon) you -have a generous sweep of the basin and of its flanking forest slopes. -A Frenchman and his wife sauntered past with their daughter and took -a seat beyond. The daughter was beautiful, with an air of breeding -that sorted well with the distinguished bearing of the old man and the -well-sustained good looks of her mother. They sat for half an hour, and -as they re-passed on the return mademoiselle said: "How do you like the -view?" in excellent English. This was justification enough for inviting -them to share my log. We talked a long time, mademoiselle and I; the -old people hadn't a word of English. She had had a two years' sojourn -in Birmingham about the age of sixteen, and had acquired good English -ineradicably. She had got caught into Joseph Chamberlain's circle; he -used to call her Sunny Jim. The name sat well upon her: the facetious -aptness of it was striking. She was of the "fire and dew" that make up -the admirable French feminine lightness of spirit-vivacity, frankness, -sunniness, whimsicality, good looks, and litheness of body.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[Pg 252]</span></p> - -<p>The end of it all was that I was to come down to Sahurs (over the -river) the next Sunday and see their home and get taught some French in -an incidental fashion. There was no manner of doubt of every need of -that.</p> - -<p>And there was no manner of hesitancy in accepting such an invitation. -She flashed a smile behind as they left, and I resumed the log, wishing -to-morrow were Sunday, as distinct from Monday. This was a damnable -interval of waiting. As I was repeating this indictment over and over, -watching them disappear into the forest, she waved. I lapsed into a -profane silence, and brooded on the flight of time, and reviewed in -turn all the false allegations of its swiftness I could call to mind.</p> - -<p>It was obviously wise to leave the margin of this darkling wood and -get down to the boat. It would never do to miss it, and be driven to -crossing to Sahurs to tell them so. No! that wouldn't do: better catch -the thing and be done with it. So I did; and had a journey of easy -contemplation up to Rouen.</p> - -<p>Next Sunday I got a "bike": it can be made to leave earlier than the -boat. And the river-bank is more interesting than the middle-stream.</p> - -<p>From Rouen to Sahurs the right bank of the Seine is bulwarked by a -traversing limestone ridge, clothed with forest. But the river-side -is escarped and precipitous, thrusting out its whiteness beneath the -forest crest and, as a foil, casting up the châteaux and splendid -<i>maisons</i> on the river level, with their embracing gardens and orchards.</p> - -<p>This rich accumulation of colour—deep forest, gleaming cliff-side, red -roof, grey mellow wall, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[Pg 253]</span> blooming garden and orchard, and white -river road—is unforgettable, and perhaps unexcelled. Nothing finer -you'll see in the whole Rhône Valley; and that is a bold saying.</p> - -<p>The especial charm of a cycle is that you can stop and look. You can -gaze as long as you like (as long as is consistent with the fact -that Sunny Jim is at the other end of the journey) at this quaint -half-timbered, gable-crowded <i>maison</i> standing in its graceful -poplar-grove; at the sweet provincial youngsters playing on the road. -You can lay up your machine and enter the rambling Normandy café -squatting on the river-bank, with its groups of blue-clad soldiers <i>en -permission</i> making the most of things with the bloused and pantalooned -civilians and with their cider (<i>cidre</i> is the national drink of -Normandy, as wine is of most other provinces) and you are greeted, in -such a house, with the delicious open French friendliness which is so -entrancing (by contrast) to most Englishmen. After their own national -reticence, this is pleasant beyond description. Of some it is the -undoing. The soldiers greet you, and you are adamantine if you don't -sit at their table rather than alone. The girl who serves welcomes you -like a brother. Quite sorry you are, at rising, you never came here -before.... You push on with your wheel. On the slopes of the other bank -they are getting in the harvest on the edge of the wood—some old men -and many women and a handful of soldiers on leave who have forgotten -the trenches.</p> - -<p>There are soldiers with their families fishing on the bank beside you -at intervals. You stop to talk to these. You can't resist sitting with -them for a spell<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[Pg 254]</span> and kissing the little girls who nestle up. The -basket that contains other things than bait and the catch is opened; -you're a villain if you don't sip from that yellow bottle and take some -bread and a handful of cherries....</p> - -<p>Halfway to Sahurs, opposite the timbered island, you pass the German -prisoners' camp, patrolled, beneath the barbed wire topping the wall, -by those quaint, informal French sentries. They're in red-and-blue -cap, red-and-blue tunic, red-and-blue breeches. They lounge and chat -and dawdle, with their rifles slung across their backs, and their -prodigiously long bayonets poking into the upper air. They appear -casual enough, but they detest the generic German sufficiently to leave -you confident that, however casual they may seem, he will not escape.</p> - -<p>Farther down, you'll meet a gang of Boches road-making—fine, brawny, -light-haired, blue-eyed, cheerful beggars they are. Obviously they -don't aspire above their present lot so long as wars endure.</p> - -<p>Four kilometres above Sahurs is the Napoleonic column marking the spot -where the ashes of Bonaparte were landed between their transfer from -the boat which brought them up the river to that which bore them to -Paris. As I approached this column from above, Sunny Jim, on her wheel, -approached it from Sahurs. Her friend Yvonne was with her (wonderful, -in this land, is the celerity with which the barriers surrounding -Christian names are thrown down!), and the dog.</p> - -<p>The ride on to Sahurs is on a road that deflects from the river. It is -over-arched with elms continuously. Thérèse (that's her name) calls it -<i>la Cathédrale</i>:<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[Pg 255]</span> and the roof of branches aloft is like the groined -roof of a cathedral.</p> - -<p>M. Duthois and madame come out to meet you. It's a welcome and a half -they give—none of your English polite formulas and set courtesy. A -warm, human, thoroughgoing sincerity sweeps you into the hall, and -there you stand in a hubbub of greeting and interrogation (of which -less than half is intelligible: but no matter!) for ten minutes, -everyone too busy talking to move on, until Thérèse suggests we go -round the garden and the orchard.</p> - -<p>Everyone goes.</p> - -<p>Thérèse gives us the French for every flower and shrub to be seen, -and the old man makes valiant, clumsy attempts at English, and you -make shamelessly clumsy attempts at French. One evidence of the -thoroughgoing courtesy of the French is that they will never laugh -at your attempts at their language. We smile at them: somehow their -English is amusing. Possibly the reason they do not smile at us -attempting French is that there is nothing at all amusing in our -flounderings—more likely to irritate than amuse. The old man is -accommodating in his choice of topics that will interest you and be -intelligible—accommodating to the point of embarrassment. He talks -quite fifteen minutes about the shape and coloration of your pipe, -certain that this will interest the selfish brute. Madame doesn't say a -word—carries on a sort of conversation with smiles and other pantomime.</p> - -<p>Somehow, in the garden (I don't know how) Yvonne got named <i>Mme. la -Comtesse</i> by M. Duthois. This for the time being embarrassed her into -complete and blushing silence because we all took it up. All manner<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[Pg 256]</span> -of difficulties were referred to the superior wisdom of <i>la Comtesse</i>. -It was she who must decide as to the markings of the aeroplane humming -up in the blue; the month when the red currants would be ripened; the -relationship of the two crows croaking in the next field; the term of -the War's duration.</p> - -<p>But an authority on this last subject now emerged from the wicket-gate -which opened from the neighbouring house. Madame —— had taken Thérèse -to Alsace after her return from Birmingham, and had taught her to speak -German there. Madame had lived in Alsace three years before, and spoke -German very well indeed. She related in German her dream-message of -the night before, that fixed the duration of the War unquestionably at -three months more. This subconscious conviction was so conclusive for -her that she would take bets all round. Thérèse staked all her ready -cash. No doubt she will collect about Christmas-tide.</p> - -<p>We all went on to tea spread in the orchard, and spread with an -unerring French sense of fitness: such a meal, that is, as would be -spread in the orchard but not in the house—French rolls and dairy -butter, and <i>confiture de groseille</i> made from the red currants of the -last season, fruit and cream, Normandy cake, cherries, wafers, and -<i>cidre</i> sparkling like champagne, bearing no relationship whatever to -the flat, insipid green-and-yellow fluid of the Rouennaise hotels.</p> - -<p>There was no dulness at table. French conversation flows easily and -unintermittently. There were tussles to decide whether Thérèse should -or should not help herself first. The English custom of "ladies first" -is looked on as rather stupid, with its implied inferiority<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[Pg 257]</span> of women: -"But you will not beat me! <i>Mais oui!</i> but you are very obstinate!" And -she would not be beaten; for she said she didn't like Normandy cake -(though she adored it), and helped herself generously when it had been -round, and proclaimed her victory over English convention with a little -ripple of triumph. <i>Après vous</i> became a mirth-provoking password.</p> - -<p>All the pets came round the table—the fowls (to whom I was introduced -singly; they all have their names); <i>Mistigri</i> the cat, <i>Henri</i> -the goose, the pigeons, the pug, the terrier. All these you are -expected to make remarks to, on introduction, as to regular members -of the family—which they are, in effect: "<i>Bon jour, Henri! Comment -allez-vous? Parlez-vous anglais? Voulez-vous vous asseoir?</i>" When these -introductions are over, M. Duthois brings forth his tiny bottle of -1875—the cognac he delights in.</p> - -<p>Thérèse proposes a walk. Shall it be down by the river or through the -village? "<i>Both</i>," you say. So we go by the river and return by the -hamlet.</p> - -<p>Setting out, Thérèse pledges me to the French tongue alone, all the -way. If I don't undertake to speak no English, I cannot go walking, -but must sit with her in the summer-house behind the orchard and learn -French with a grammar. I at once decline so to undertake. She varies -the alternative: she will not reply if I speak in English. Well, no -matter: that's no hardship. She forgets the embargo when she squelches -a frog in the grass. English is resumed at once. She is led on to a -dissertation in English upon frogs as a table-dish. This leads to -talk of other French table abnormalities—horse as preferred to ox, -the boast of French superiority in salads and coffee,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[Pg 258]</span> the outlandish -French practice of serving your <i>pommes de terre</i> after meat; and such -carnal topics.</p> - -<p>Pappa wanders ahead at an unreasonable pace with <i>Mme. la Comtesse</i>. -Thérèse and I set about gathering daisies and poppies, with which the -green is starred. The dogs come out from the neighbouring farmhouse; -and Thérèse, who fears dogs horribly, has to be adequately protected.</p> - -<p>We come up with pappa on the river-bank. We all set off dawdling -single-file along the brush-hemmed river-path.... The Normandy twilight -has settled down; but it will last till ten. La Bouille lies on the -other shore under the cliffs that gleam through their foliage. The -river gleams beneath them. There is a long track of light leading to -the ridge at the bend where the tottering battlements of the castle -of Robert le Diable stand against the sky-line. A hospital ship, now -faintly luminous, lies under the shadow of the la Bouille ridge. The -village lights have begun to twinkle on the other shore. The soft cries -of playing children creep over the water. The cry of the ferryman ready -to leave is thrown back from the cliffs with startling clearness. The -groves that fringe the cliff are cut out branch by branch against the -ruddy sky.</p> - -<p>We don't want to talk much after coming on the river: neither do we....</p> - -<p>It has darkened palpably when we turn to enter the village, an -hour after. The hedged lanes are dark under the poplar-groves. The -latticed windows of the cottages are brilliant patchwork of light. The -glow-worms are in the road-side grass and in the hedges. We pluck them -to put them in our hats. Thérèse weaves all manner of wistful fancies -about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[Pg 259]</span> them. We pass under the Henry VIII. <i>église</i> to the house, and -enter quietly.</p> - -<p>Thérèse sits at the piano without stupid invitation, and sings some -of the lovely French folk-songs, and (by a special dispensation) some -German, that are almost as haunting. The old man watches his daughter -with a sort of fearful adoration, as though this creature, whose spirit -gleams through the fair flesh of her, were too fine a thing for him to -be father of.</p> - -<p>Between the songs we talk. There is cake and wine—that and the -common-sensed sallies of <i>Mme. la Comtesse</i> to restrain the romance and -the sensuousness of the warm June Normandy night.</p> - -<p>I left at midnight. We said an <i>au revoir</i> under the porch; and far -down the road came floating after the dawdling wheel a faint "<i>Au -'voir ... à Dimanche</i>"—full of a sweet and friendly re-invitation to -all this. I registered an acceptance with gratitude for the blessings -of Heaven, and wandered on along the white night road for Rouen. Why -hasten through such a night? Rouen would have been pardoned for being -<i>twice</i> ten miles distant. The silent river, the gleaming road, the -faintly rustling trees, and the warm night filled with the scents of -the Forêt de Roumare, forbade fatigue and all reckoning of hours.... -And that was the blessed conclusion of most Sabbath evenings for three -months.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[Pg 260]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IIIg">CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">LEAVES FROM A VILLAGE DIARY</p> - - -<p><i>Sunday, —th.</i>—This morning a Taube came over our village, dropping -bombs. They all fell in the neighbouring wood. Our aircraft defences -made a fervent response, but ineffectual.</p> - -<p>At 6.30 this evening I counted eighteen of our 'planes flying home. -They have a facetious trick of shutting off their engines high and far -from home and floating down on resistance. It's curious watching a -'plane suddenly dissociated from the raucous buzz of its engine.</p> - -<p>To-night the whole eastern sky is illuminated as though by summer -lightning in which there are no intervals—an unintermittent flap-flap. -The din is tremendous and heart-shaking. This is war—"and no error." -Anzac was hard. The country was rough and untenable—a hell, in our -strip, of lice, stinks, flies, mal-nutrition and sudden death. Food -was repulsive, and even so you did not get as much as you desired. You -got clean in the Ægean at peril of your life. Here, on the other hand, -is fighting-space gentle and smiling—a world of pastures, orchards, -streams, groves, and white winding roads, with room to sanitate and -restrain plagues. There is an over-generous ration of food that tempts -you to surfeit; Expeditionary Force canteens, as well stocked as a -London grocer's, as far<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[Pg 261]</span> up as the riskiest railhead; snug farmhouse -billets, with un-infested straw; hot baths behind the lines; cinemas -for resting battalions. But Anzac never knew the relentlessness of this -offensive fighting. There we faced an enemy with whom fighting was a -hobby, taken sportingly, if earnestly. Here we wrestle at sweaty and -relentless grips with a foe to whom the spirit of sport is strange -and repulsive, and who never had a sense of humour; who fights hating -blindly and intensely. Most days you could not jab a pin between the -gun-belches. You feel the whole world is being shaken, and, if this -goes on for long, will crumble in a welter of blood and hate. It cannot -last at this rate: that's the assurance that rises day by day and hour -by hour within you. But the assurance is melancholy: how much of either -side is going to survive the intensity of it? What will be the state, -when all is over, of the hardly-victorious?</p> - -<p><i>Monday, —th.</i>—To-day, in nine hours, three divisions were rushed -through this town for the —— sector. They came in motor-'buses. At -twelve miles an hour they tore through the astonished streets, which -got themselves cleared quickly enough. The military police tried to -restrain the pace. They were French 'buses driven by Frenchmen who had -got a fever of excited speed in their blood. They cleared the military -police off the route with impatient gestures, as one waves aside an -impertinence.... This is mobility.</p> - -<p>Feverish processions of this kind are altogether apart from battalions -marching, cavalry clattering, engineers lumbering. A fifteen-inch gun, -distributed over five steam tractors, goes through at midnight<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[Pg 262]</span> with -flares and clamour. One trusts that such engines offer compensation -for their unwieldiness, for that is incredible: five gigantic tractors -<i>with</i> trailers, to move one of them at this strident snail's pace. The -nine-point-two's are accommodated each on one tractor. The field-guns, -tossed on to waggons, hurry through, toys by comparison.</p> - -<p><i>Tuesday, —th.</i>—I was on the —— Road this morning in the gusty -drizzle. A column of artillery was moving towards ——. It was -miserable weather for horsed-transport. All the men had wry-necks, with -the list against the wind. The flanks of the officers' horses were -overspread by the voluminous waterproof cape. At —— there was a horse -column encamped. Nothing could appear more miserable than the dejected -horse lines in the sea of mud—manes and draggle-tails blown about in -the murk.</p> - -<p>A party of ineligible Frenchmen were road-patching near ——. The -main roads have them at work always. They fill the holes and minute -valleys that military traffic makes continuously. Lorry-holes are -insidious things. They magnify at an astonishing rate if left for -two days. They must be treated at once. The gangs move up and down -the roads with mobile loads of earth and gravel, treating all the -depressions and maintaining a surface tolerable for Colonels' cars. -(You can judge the freight of a car by its speed; the pace of Majors -is slightly less fierce than that of Colonels. Brigadiers make it -killing.) The road-menders get in where they can between the flights. -It's a disjointed business, and a mucky one, this weather. A Colonel's -car-wheels spurt into the green fields. The gangers get mottled with -the thin<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[Pg 263]</span> brown fluid. They are a pathetically decrepit folk—men too -old or infirm for the trenches and boys who are too young. But this -work, in this weather, carries a test almost as severe as that of -trench-warfare.</p> - -<p>The road-signs—admonitory, hortatory, prohibitive—are raised at very -frequent intervals. Military routes behind the lines are in a state of -continual flux—to such a degree that road-maps are not only useless, -but misleading, to drivers of vehicles. Their best course is to ignore -the map, watch the road-directions as they are approached, and use -their horse-sense. Signs are quite explicit: "Closed to lorries and -ambulances"; "Closed to traffic in this direction" (arrowhead). The -distance and direction of every village, however small, is put up with -a clearness that excludes the possibility of error. The location of -every ammunition-dump, supply-dump, railhead, camping-ground, billeting -area, watering-place, intelligence Headquarters, motor-tyre press (an -institution much in demand), is indicated very exactly. Most other -signs are designed to regulate speed: "Maximum speed through village ----- for lorries and ambulances, —— for light tractors, —— for -cars"; "Danger: cross-roads"; "Lorry-park; slow down"; "Go slow past -aerodrome to avoid injuring engines through dust." (Can you conceive -British administration in the Army giving the reason, thus, for an -order?)</p> - -<p>Some French signs persist: <i>Attention aux trains.</i></p> - -<p>Some signs are not official: "Level crossing ahead: keep your -blood-shot eyes open."</p> - -<p>The village streets show signs that have no reference to speed. Most -estaminets publish "English Stout"; "Good beer 3d., best beer 4d."; -"Officers' horses, 10";<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[Pg 264]</span> "Cellar, 50"—<i>i.e.</i>, we have a cellar that -will billet fifty men. The villages are very quiet and old-time—grey -and yellow walls abutting directly on the roads (footpaths are -unknown); thatch or slate roofs; low windows from which, sitting, your -feet would touch road; tortuous streets; plentiful girl and women -denizens; a wayside Calvary on the outskirts; a church spire rising -somewhere from the roofs; a preponderance of taverns, estaminets, -cafés, and sweet-shops in the chief street.</p> - -<p><i>Wednesday, —th.</i>—I got some notion this morning of life on the -ambulance trains. They move between railhead and the bases with the ebb -and flow of the offensive tide. After their load is discharged to a -base they garage at a siding erected in this station for the purpose, -and await orders. They may rest three days or three hours. Sisters -and M.O.'s have lived on the same train—some of them—for twelve or -fifteen months, but are too busy to be mutually bored. At the garage -you will see them dismounted from the train taking their lunch among -the hay-ricks in the harvested field beside the line. An orderly will -alight from the train and race across the field, and you'll see the -party rise, hastily pitch their utensils incontinently into a rug, -and climb aboard as the train steams out. The order has come to move -up again and "take on." ... This is one aspect of the state of flux -in which the world behind the lines stands day and night, month after -month.</p> - -<p>At the <i>gare</i> here is a canteen for <i>voyageurs</i> exclusively. A blatant -and prohibitory notice says so with no uncertainty. This is English. -An English girl is in charge of it. She gets as little respite as the -<i>chef<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[Pg 265]</span> de gare</i>. Who can say when she sleeps? She is supplying tea and -cakes and cigarettes to troops every day and every night. No one is -refused at any hour, however unhallowed. French railway-stations on -the lines of communication all carry such an English girl for such a -purpose; and usually they are in the front rank of English aristocracy. -The English nobility have not spared themselves for "the Cause." Their -men have fallen thick; their women have resigned the luxury of their -homes to minister to the pain and the hunger of the force in France. -And they do it with a thoroughness apparently incompatible (though only -apparently so) with the thoroughgoing luxury and splendour of their -civilian way of life.</p> - -<p><i>Thursday, —th.</i>—This afternoon I walked down the river that winds -through the town and goes south. It is a comfortable, easy-flowing -trout-stream. Beyond the town bridge it turns into pastures and -orchards and cultivated fields, nosing a way through stretches of brown -stubble, apple-groves, and plantations of beet. Groves of elm and -beech overspread the high grass on its brink. The hop clusters with -the wild-strawberry and the red currant: a solitary trouter stands -beyond the tangle. The fields slope gently away from the stream—very -gently—up to the tree-lined road on the ridge. The brown-and-gold -stubble rises, acre beyond acre, to the sky-line; and in the evening -light takes on a rich investiture of colour that is bold for stubble, -but not the less lovely because it is virtual only. As the evening -wears on, this settles into a softness of hue that you cannot describe.</p> - -<p>Such is the Somme country: such is the land of war.</p> - -<p>At nine to-night all the station lights were switched<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[Pg 266]</span> off. Advice -had come from —— of enemy aircraft approaching this junction. They -did not come—not to our knowledge. But the <i>chef de gare</i> waddled -over to his private house and bundled wife and children down into the -cellar—and <i>cave</i>, as they call it—and when he had seen them safely -stowed, returned to his station to await orders. The French girls and -women inhabit the cellar with alacrity at such times. Every house has -its funk-hole, for there is hardly a dwelling so small as to neglect -a vault for <i>cidre</i> and <i>vin ordinaire</i>. "In the season" they lay up -a year's store; as a rule, the <i>cidre</i> is home-brewed, too. At table -the jug goes round, filling the glass of the <i>enfant</i> and the <i>père</i> -without discrimination. By the end of the meal the colour has mounted -in the cheeks of the little girls, and they are garrulous and the boys -noisy. Amongst the <i>cidre</i> barrels there is good and secure cover from -Taubes.</p> - -<p>When the lights got switched on again, the detraining of the ——th -Division resumed....</p> - -<p><i>Friday —th.</i>—I was wakened at two o'clock this morning by the hum of -their collective conversation. Sergeants-major were roaring commands in -the moonlight; some of them were supplemented by remarks not polite. -Many English sergeants-major speak in dialect: most of them do. There -is something repellent about words of command issued in dialect. Why -can't England cut-out dialect? It's time it went. Dialect is a very -rank form of Conservatism. Why can't a uniform pronunciation of vowels -be taught in English schools? Active-service over a term of years will -perhaps help to bring about a standardising of English speech. One -hopes so....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[Pg 267]</span></p> - -<p>I got up and looked out. As far as could be seen along any street, -and all over the square, was a faintly mobile sea of black on which -danced the glow of the cigarette (damnable, how the cigarette has put -out the pipe!). Detachments were still marching from the train to the -halting-places, and detachments were moving out momentarily on the -night march.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 25%;"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Hark, I hear the tramp of thousands,</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And of arméd men the hum."</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>They moved off—some to drum and fife band; some to the regimental -song; some to the regimental whistle; some to the unrhythmic -accompaniment of random conversation. The general impression they gave, -at two in the morning, was of an abnormal cheerfulness.</p> - -<p>A French ambulance-train came in this afternoon crowded with slightly -wounded—sitting cases. They were immensely cheerful, though there was -not by any means sitting accommodation for all. These were all nice -light "Blighty" wounds; they meant respite from the dam'd trenches -without dishonour. The fellows were immensely cheered by this. They -were more like a train-load of excursionists than a body of wounded -warriors from a hell like the Somme. They had hundredweights of German -souvenirs. Most of it was being worn—helmets, tunics, arms, and the -like. I bought several pieces. They were not expensive. A French -Poilu's pay is <i>cinq sous</i> (twopence ha'penny) per day: fifteen or -twenty francs means about three months' pay for him. He'll part with -a lot of souvenir for that. And he has such a bulk of it that a few -casques, trench daggers, rifles, and telescopic sights, more or less, -are neither here nor there.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[Pg 268]</span></p> - -<p>The English girls who administer the <i>gare</i> canteen move up and down -with jugs of coffee. They are thanked (embraced, if they'd stand it) -with embarrassing profusion.</p> - -<p><i>Saturday, —st.</i>—Bombs were dropped in the Citadelle moat to-day. The -Citadelle is now a casualty clearing station. This is not incongruous -with its history. It was besieged in the fifteenth century. No doubt -there were casualties within it then—though, judging its defensive -properties at this distance of time, there were more without: many -more. It's tremendously strong still—an incredible depth of dry -moat, thickness of wall, and height of rampart surmounting it: outer -ramparts on three sides from which the defenders retired across the -bridges—still standing—after they had done their worst. And there -are bowels in the place from which galleries set out to neighbouring -villages whence reinforcements used to be brought up. You can walk -miles in these galleries beneath the Citadelle itself, without -journeying beneath the surrounding country; for the ground-plan of the -Citadelle is not small. A walk round the walls will lead you a mile and -a half, traversing buttresses and all: the buttresses bulge hugely into -the moat-bed.</p> - -<p>The whole area is terraced, originally for strategic purposes. The -buildings are many and strong and roomy.</p> - -<p>A fine hospital it happens to have made. The multiplicity of buildings -offers all a C.O. could ask in the way of distribution of wards -and facilities for segregation, and isolated buildings for stores, -messes, Sisters' quarters, officers' quarters, operating-theatres, -laboratories.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[Pg 269]</span></p> - -<p>His convalescents can bask and promenade on the ramparts in the winter -sunshine, and stroll healthfully through the groves and about the paths -of the area. In the wide level, grassy, moat-basin the orderlies play -their football matches and the C.O. takes his revolver practice.</p> - -<p>The ghastliness of the wards is all out of harmony with this. There is -a gas-ward, hideously filled—blackened faces above the ever-restless -coverlets. The surgical wards in a station so near the line hold the -grimmest cases—cases too critical for movement down to a base: head -wounds, abdominal wounds, spinal cases that can bear transport no -farther, and that have almost no hope of recovery as it is. Men plead -piteously here for the limbs that a cruelly-kind surgeon can do nothing -with but amputate. "Doctor, I've lost the arm; that won't be so bad if -you'll only leave the leg." The plea is usually put in this form, which -implies the power of choice in the M.O. between alternatives; whereas -the gangrenous limb leaves him no room for debate.</p> - -<p>In a station so close, too, the operating-theatre cannot afford to be -either small or idle—no mere cubicle with two tables; but two large -wards with six tables each, and (when a push has been made in the line) -with every table in use late in the night: a bloody commentary on the -righteousness of war.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[Pg 270]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IVg">CHAPTER IV</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">THE CAFÉ DU PROGRÈS</p> - - -<p>The Café de Progrès stands in the Rue de —— half-way down to the -river. It's the place where merchants most do congregate. The manager -of the Banque de —— leads them. The place that the first bank manager -in the town frequents daily is thereby given a tone which no other café -in D—— can have. So it is the first among the lounging-places only. -That leads to a rough division of all the cafés in the town into two -great classes: those you lounge and drink in, and those to which you -go for a meal. In the one you will see the French relaxing (there are -some rich "retired" gentlemen who do nothing <i>but</i> relax); in the other -you will see the English officer satisfying his hunger more or less -incontinently. Need I say which is the place of interest?</p> - -<p>Our favourite seat used to be upon a small dais in recess overlooking -the billiard-table immediately and the whole room generally. Its only -disadvantage was that it did not overlook that other recess—separated -from it by a partition—in which Thérèse mixed the drinks and brewed -the coffee.</p> - -<p>The billiard-table occupied one-half the room; the other half centred -round the stove. The tables were arranged in concentric circles about -it. The regular denizens of the place—the men who lived there—<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[Pg 271]</span>would, -during the snow, come early, occupy the innermost circle of tables, -and omit to move out until sundown. And sometimes they would stay far -into the night. The retired business-man is more amenable to a sense -of cosiness than any other mortal of his age. He would get Thérèse to -bring him snacks—they were not meals—at intervals during the day. And -there he would settle himself, with his boon companions, for twelve -hours on end.</p> - -<p>Cards is the diversion: cards and dominoes. The habitual inner -circle there is made up by the proprietor, the ex-Mayor of the -town, <i>le directeur de la Banque de ——</i>, and the manager of the -<i>Usine de ——</i>. The last named used to have inscrutable spells of -absence—inscrutable until it was explained that the occasion was the -visit of M. —— the elder, himself, from Paris—a man of iron and the -proprietor of the <i>Usine</i>. He it was who quelled with his own hand and -voice an ugly strike of his <i>ouvriers</i> who dared ask for more money.</p> - -<p>The ex-Mayor was never absent. He was a well preserved old dog whom -no severity of weather was allowed to keep from the post of duty by -the stove. The whole room was obsequious to him by force of habit. He -was the presiding genius over the café: he, rather than the proprietor -himself. He would come rolling in, and fairly rattle the glasses with -his "<i>Bonjour, messieurs!</i>" He usually walked over to the buffet before -seating himself, and, if so minded, greeted Thérèse with a fatherly -kiss, which she—poor girl!—thought dignified her; whereas Thérèse, -to be accurate, was worth far more than the embraces of this pompous -old aristocrat. With his intimates he shook hands noisily, and slapped -them on the back.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[Pg 272]</span> The herd half-rose in its seat throughout the room -in traditional deference. I suspect it was the general obsequiousness, -rather than the interest of the game, or of the company, which brought -the old egoist here daily.</p> - -<p>The <i>directeur</i> of the bank is not worth considering. He was the -incarnation of obsequiousness. It was plain that he had habitually -sold his soul to patrons. And since it is likely that at one time the -ex-Mayor was his chief patron (and perhaps was so still), you will -believe that he was more slavish toward him than the humblest townsman -sipping his cognac. You almost looked for him to lick his master's -mighty hand.</p> - -<p>The proprietor was a sinewy fellow who had been a soldier. It was -wounds he had had; which had not, however, incapacitated him for -vigorous action. Also, he had been a prisoner of war in Germany. These -German experiences he would recount to you with much wealth of gesture, -and a wealth of exaggeration too, if by chance—or by design—he were -drunk enough. He was in a state of perennial intoxication; at any hour -of any day or night it was only a question of degree.</p> - -<p>In the game of cards in a French café the stake is superfluous. -Englishmen profess they require the stake to hold their interest. -Usually the French play with counters only. The interest of the game -is enough. It is a very voluble game with them. They excite themselves -seemingly beyond all reason. You might imagine them a nest of pirates, -inflamed with liquor, playing in some den of the sea with fair captives -for stakes. These French enthusiasts upset the drink by thumping down -their cards. They have rare disputes; but they are not quarrels.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[Pg 273]</span></p> - -<p>Thérèse is the girl who carries drinks. She has dimples and a happy -smile. French girls are either very free or super-continent; there is -no middle course. Thérèse is of the latter class, but not puritanical. -Subalterns have been seen attempting to kiss her in the seclusion of -a recess. They have been routed. The only occasion on which Thérèse -allowed herself to be kissed was New Year's Day. Then it was general. -Everyone was doing it—in the street—the merest acquaintances. That -day Thérèse submits as a matter of course. That day, too, the ex-Mayor -gallantly embraced that old hag, her aunt, to the diversion of the -populace.</p> - -<p>The aunt brews and dispenses behind the buffet. She objects to -Thérèse's loitering when she serves, even though loitering may be good -for trade. Thérèse describes her as a very sober-minded woman.</p> - -<p>The billiard-table attracts a lot of attention—from onlookers as -well as from players. There the <i>directeur</i> of the <i>banque</i> plays his -chief accountant and drinks champagne and <i>grenadine</i> between the -shots—a poisonous combination, that, but a popular. The French like -things sweet, and they like them definitely coloured. The <i>directeur</i> -is a handsome fellow, with a perfectly balanced head and a curiously -pleasing harmony of nose and chin in profile. His accountant is a -loose-looking youth.</p> - -<p>The billiard-table is a favourite resort of officers' batmen. They have -nothing else to do, and they can play half a day for almost nothing -at all. I always remember an acute-looking Scotch batman in kilts -(servant to the Rents-Officer). He was proud of his calves and of his -French—and (justly) of his billiards.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[Pg 274]</span> He could bring discomfiture -upon any Frenchman who would play with him. He is the sort of officer's -servant (and there are many of them, the voluptuous dogs!) who could -carry a commission with ease and credit. But they prefer the whole days -of idleness on which they are free to follow their own devices.</p> - -<p>The <i>facteurs</i> drop in for a drink on their rounds. They hobnob here -a great part of the day, seemingly. And there is poor Marcelle at the -pork-shop pining for the letter from her <i>garçon</i> in the line which -this gossiping dog has in his <i>serviette</i> beside the cognac. All -<i>facteurs</i> are discharged soldiers, and should know better. There is, I -fear, but a belated delivery of letters in this easy-going old town.</p> - -<p>On market-day the café is filled with <i>les paysans</i>, who have come in -to vend their pigs and cattle, rabbits, eggs, butter, and vegetables. -The elderly ladies from the farms, with their generous growth of -moustache, sit and drink neat cognac with a masculinity that is but -fitting. The young girls sip white wine. The old men gossip, between -draughts, with their pipes trembling in their toothless gums. There are -no young men.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[Pg 275]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_Vg">CHAPTER V</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">L'HÔTEL DES BONS ENFANTS</p> - - -<p>It stands facing the Place de l'Église, with its back to the Route -de ——. There is something medieval in its name; so is there in its -surroundings and in its appearance. The gargoyles of the Église frown -down upon its southern door. There is an old Flemish house facing it in -the <i>Place</i>. It is Flemish and rambling in design itself. Its stables -are low and capacious, like those of a Chaucerian inn. The rooms of the -hotel are low-roofed, and each is large enough for an assembly ball. -There is an air of generosity about the place. You have the feeling, as -you enter, that these people enjoy living; they would have a love of -life which is Italian in its deliberateness. They would taste life with -a relish.</p> - -<p>If you see madame you will be confirmed in this. She is rotund and -high-coloured. The placidity of her feature is infectious. As soon as -you see her (and it is not long before you will) you want to bask about -the place. The pleasantness of her smile will tell you that her first -concern is not lucre, but life. She must work to live. But neither work -nor the money it brings are ends in themselves for her.</p> - -<p>In her day she must have been very well featured. She is still. But -rotundity is clouding the lines of her beauty in face and figure. -She has a daughter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[Pg 276]</span> of eight playing in the anteroom. She will be as -handsome as her mother has been. She is pretty, with a regularity of -feature uncommon in a child so young. A placid nurse-girl has the care -of her. She is reading at one of the small round drinking-tables. In -fact, it is the domesticity of the place which charms you as much as -its quaint architecture. English officers in groups and French officers -with their lady friends are entering and taking seats. But madame talks -audibly and naturally of nursery matters with the nurse, the child -herself is engaged upon her <i>leçon de l'école</i> beside the buffet, -and her nursemaid is at work upon a garment at the same table as two -highly-finished Subalterns are taking their aristocratic ease and their -Médoc.</p> - -<p>But however homely the hotel may be in France, it is rarely free from -the blemish of the <i>upper room</i>. Officers may dine gaily with their -lady friends with as little obstruction from the management as is -offered to the payment of the bill.</p> - -<p>We had our Christmas dinner at the Bons Enfants. It was not home, but -it was very jolly. Jolly is the word rather than happy. At home the -grub would not have been French. There would have been sisters (and -others) with whom to make merry afterwards. And we would (we hope) have -been served by someone less unlovely than the well-meaning middle-aged -woman whom madame detailed to wait upon our table. But we sang long and -loud in chorus; and afterwards went into the hall and took possession -of the piano and danced with each other; and those who couldn't dance -improvised some sort of rhythmic evolutions about the room. At any -rate, we were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[Pg 277]</span> gay. We were determined that absence from home was -not going to seem to make us sad. And perhaps some of us forced the -merriment rather obviously. But madame, I believe, thought we were -completely happy. She came and shook us all by the hand at parting, and -gave us good wishes, and was happy she should have helped us so far to -Christmas jollity in "a furrin clime." Someone reproached her with the -plebeian features of our waitress when we had got out into the shelter -of the street, and someone—I forget who—kissed her (<i>i.e.</i>, madame) -in the shadow of the porch; and she gave a gentle little scream of -delight, retrospective of the days of her blooming youth when she was -more prone to thoroughgoing reciprocity.</p> - -<p>We returned some weeks later. Someone of the mess had a birthday, -and went down in the morning to madame and in the sunny courtyard -talked to her intimately of pullets, and <i>poisson</i>, and <i>boisson</i>, -and <i>omelettes</i>, and wafers, and cheeses, and fruits; returned to the -mess before lunch, furtively countermanded the standing orders amongst -the servants for the evening meal, and at lunch flung out a general -invitation to the Bons Enfants at eight. We lived again through the -Christmas festivities—with the difference that madame detailed a less -unhandsome wench to wait on table; and that we left earlier.</p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[Pg 278]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIg">CHAPTER VI</h2> -</div> - -<p class="center">PROVINCIAL SHOPS</p> - - -<p>All <i>magasins</i> of any standing are served by pretty girls. This is a -point of policy. Proprietors of French shops in the towns of the War -area have come to know that the man to whom they sell is largely the -English officer in rest about the town or on his way through it. He -also knows enough of the psychology of the English officer to be sure -that if his shop is known to be served by pretty girls, the officer who -has been segregated from women for three months will enter, ostensibly -to purchase, actually to talk with the girls; also that every time he -wishes to see pretty girls he will make a purchase the pretext, and -will not be dismayed by the frequency of his purchases nor by their -price. To the officer from the line feminine intercourse is reckoned -cheap at the price of socks and ties.</p> - -<p>They know the temper of the man in rest from the trenches; he will have -what he likes, and hang the price. So they ask what they like, and get -it. This is, of course, hard on the man permanently stationed in the -town; but it is not for him they cater. And even should he refuse to -buy at all, it is nothing to them. They can batten on the traveller and -the man in rest, and they do.</p> - -<p>The best-remembered shops in D—— are the provision shop (agent for -Félix Potin), the newspaper<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[Pg 279]</span> shop opposite the Hôtel de Ville, the boot -shop in the Rue ——, the pipe shop in the Rue ——.</p> - -<p>Félix Potin's agency is proprieted by a masterful woman, extremely -handsome and well-figured. She is consciously proud of this as she sits -at the receipt of custom and directs the policy. She is a very able -business woman. She is never baffled by the smallest detail referred -to her by an underling. She knows the price of the smallest bottle -of perfume (though there she may, of course, be improvising—and -with safety). If stock has been exhausted in any commodity she -knows when its reinforcements will arrive from Paris. She herself -does the Parisian buying. The whole town knows when she has been to -Paris, and when she will be going next. She makes a knowledge of -these buying-excursions intimate to all her considerable patrons. -Her periodical trips are parochial events. You will hear one officer -say to another in an English mess: "Oh, Madame —— is off to Paris -on Sunday;" or, "Madame —— will be back to-morrow." This is very -flattering, and very good for business.</p> - -<p>But she purchases well. There is the finest array of perfumes and -soaps, champagne and liqueurs, cakes and biscuits, chocolates, Stilton -and Gruyère, eggs and butter, almonds and chestnuts. It is Félix Potin -in little, with all the richness of Félixian variety and quality. If -it's wine you are buying, she'll take you below to the cellars; that's -a rich and vivifying spectacle. The whole shop is shelved, desked, and -finished with an appearance of distinction; the windows are dressed -with a taste and an avoidance of super-crowding that would grace the -Rue de la Paix. The whole <i>magasin</i> is in a class beyond compare with -any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[Pg 280]</span> other shop in D——. It puts one in the dress-circle to purchase -a box of chocolates there. But in the interests of finance he had far -better make the purchase at the Expeditionary Force Canteen. At the -canteen you pay neither for the atmosphere of the place nor for the -expense of importation from Paris.</p> - -<p>The stationer's shop opposite the Hôtel de Ville gets the English -newspaper daily. Towards evening there is an incessant stream of -privates, N.C.O's, and Staff-Officers asking for the daily sheet -from England. "<i>'Delly Mell,' m'sieur?—pas encore arrivée.</i>" (The -<i>voyageur</i> arrives late in these parts.) It's with difficulty you can -elbow your way about this shop at most hours of the afternoon. Soldiers -who call for the paper loiter, attracted by the post-cards or the range -of English novels. The post-cards are spread out in an inciting array. -They are Parisian in their frankness.</p> - -<p>Everyone knows the boot shop. There are four boot shops in D——. But -when you speak of the boot shop there is no doubt in the mind of the -company which is the shop referred to, because the prettiest girl in -D—— is there. When an officer appears in the street with new boots -(though he guilelessly bought them at Ordnance) his friends will say: -"Ha! did she try them on for you? Was she long about it? It's a pretty -pair of shoulders, <i>n'est-ce pas</i>?" It is but fitting that the shop -with the prettiest girl in D—— should be the most expensive. So it -is. Better go bare-footed unless you have "private means" or can get -access to an Ordnance clothing store—or (better still) get an "issue."</p> - -<p>But who can avoid the tobacconist's in the Rue ——? One must have a -well-finished pipe now and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[Pg 281]</span> then, and the widow's daughter is handsome -and speaks a kind of English. In accordance with the French usage, -madame, as a widow, has been given this tobacco shop by the State. Had -she been daughterless, or had her daughter been unlovely, she would -have imported some <i>jolie demoiselle</i>. But she had no need. Marie -Thérèse fills the rôle. And Marie Thérèse is kept busy by a genuine -queue of purchasers. For this is the shop where small purchases are -most excusable, and in any case it is an easy matter to ask for an -impossible brand of tobacco and listen with feigned amazement to Marie -Thérèse's pretty, well-gestured regrets that she has it not. But -she has other. But you explain how you are a purist, and none other -will do. And if the shop is not busy—which is seldom indeed—such -explanations can be made elaborate and prolonged, and Marie Thérèse -can be made intelligently interested in the inscrutable whims of -thoroughgoing smokers. But the damsel is not all guileless. If it is -your ill-fortune that she has what you ask, you pay well and truly. And -Marie Thérèse knows as well as you (though neither says so) that you -have paid for the repartee.</p> - - -<p><small>BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND</small></p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of By-ways on Service, by Hector Dinning - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY-WAYS ON SERVICE *** - -***** This file should be named 63006-h.htm or 63006-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/0/0/63006/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, Graeme Mackreth and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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