we marched over many a dusty mile of white road and doubled over the green fields towards an imaginary foe. How the British Government and the War Office were cursed for keeping good soldiers rusting in the background!
We got on the move at last and of the places we passed through I have forgotten all but Nreux-les-Mines and Bethune. Never before had we seen a horse on the treadmill climbing an endless stairway as it threshed the corn. How incongruous, too, it seemed to see a giant Frenchman riding in a tiny cart drawn along by four galloping dogs. ‘Lazy – ! Ger-r-r off!’ someone shouted, but he, wise man, whether he understood or not, paid no heed. No one seemed to know where we were bound for. A push, we understood, was about to begin and we were going up to chase the enemy from the field, and a thousand other pieces of folly floated about.
Soldiers take little heed of times or places, general impressions alone are received. The march was an interesting round; the quaint villages; the large towns where we should have liked to stay a while; the nights spent in the open fields wrapped in our overcoats. Three of us slept together for warmth, taking turns who should sleep in the middle.
When I opened my eyes on Saturday morning, September 25th, I could see an aeroplane flying high. All about it round puffs of white smoke appeared, broke, and vanished into the blue. Whose it was I hadn’t a notion. I felt glad that my body was not inside it. He didn’t get the knock while I watched him, which was not for long, for we were routed out of our comfortable beds in the soft furrows of the ploughed land and, after a hurried meal, we hastened on.
We had not gone many kilometres when a new though distant sound could be heard, like far-away thunder with now and again a louder boom. The air seemed vibrant. It was a thrilling noise and it made my heart ache nervously as if it wanted to stop. Our lads had long since stopped singing on the march, and now, saving some braggart spirit, we had almost stopped talking and given ourselves over to thinking and listening.
The roadside gave evidence of our near approach to the battle. All the possible and impossible litter of war-old wrecked wagons, chairs, bedsteads, and mattresses, an old motor-bike and scraps of a machine gun, and in the ditch a dead mule lay, feet in the air, its belly torn out by shell-fire.
A Scots division had been heavily engaged with the enemy; they had suffered tremendous losses. For an hour or two a continuous stream of their wounded had trickled past us on their way to the rear. Most of them were hit about the arms. They looked grim and bloody. Mingling with these wounded troops were captured Germans who didn’t look sorry; rather, one could see in their eyes a look of relief.
It began to grow dark. Vivid wicked flashes could be seen and bright dazzling balls of red, green, and yellow light illuminated the flattish land in front. We tramped on: the jingling of our equipment, the squelching of boots in mud, the laboured breathing of weary men, an occasional curse, was like an obbligato to the thunderous storm of war that surged around us.
After stumbling on for another half-hour, sometimes up to the knees in liquid mud, I could observe by the light of the sky signals the ruined outline of a village. It was Loos.
The moon now shone revealing the roofless walls of the houses, the open spaces where houses had once stood, marked by heaps of rubble. The village was slowly vanishing under the pounding of the guns. A German trench ran along the side of the street.
My company was halted in the village street. It began to rain. We stood talking and smoking and shivering. Suddenly, zip! ‘What’s that?’ ‘Some fool having a bang,’ said a Newcastle lad. Again, zip. A bullet sang past us viciously and buried itself in the crumbling wall behind. ‘Like a sniper,’ someone ventured. At this we crowded together for moral support. Ping! there it was again; this
We got on the move at last and of the places we passed through I have forgotten all but Nreux-les-Mines and Bethune. Never before had we seen a horse on the treadmill climbing an endless stairway as it threshed the corn. How incongruous, too, it seemed to see a giant Frenchman riding in a tiny cart drawn along by four galloping dogs. ‘Lazy – ! Ger-r-r off!’ someone shouted, but he, wise man, whether he understood or not, paid no heed. No one seemed to know where we were bound for. A push, we understood, was about to begin and we were going up to chase the enemy from the field, and a thousand other pieces of folly floated about.
Soldiers take little heed of times or places, general impressions alone are received. The march was an interesting round; the quaint villages; the large towns where we should have liked to stay a while; the nights spent in the open fields wrapped in our overcoats. Three of us slept together for warmth, taking turns who should sleep in the middle.
When I opened my eyes on Saturday morning, September 25th, I could see an aeroplane flying high. All about it round puffs of white smoke appeared, broke, and vanished into the blue. Whose it was I hadn’t a notion. I felt glad that my body was not inside it. He didn’t get the knock while I watched him, which was not for long, for we were routed out of our comfortable beds in the soft furrows of the ploughed land and, after a hurried meal, we hastened on.
We had not gone many kilometres when a new though distant sound could be heard, like far-away thunder with now and again a louder boom. The air seemed vibrant. It was a thrilling noise and it made my heart ache nervously as if it wanted to stop. Our lads had long since stopped singing on the march, and now, saving some braggart spirit, we had almost stopped talking and given ourselves over to thinking and listening.
The roadside gave evidence of our near approach to the battle. All the possible and impossible litter of war-old wrecked wagons, chairs, bedsteads, and mattresses, an old motor-bike and scraps of a machine gun, and in the ditch a dead mule lay, feet in the air, its belly torn out by shell-fire.
A Scots division had been heavily engaged with the enemy; they had suffered tremendous losses. For an hour or two a continuous stream of their wounded had trickled past us on their way to the rear. Most of them were hit about the arms. They looked grim and bloody. Mingling with these wounded troops were captured Germans who didn’t look sorry; rather, one could see in their eyes a look of relief.
It began to grow dark. Vivid wicked flashes could be seen and bright dazzling balls of red, green, and yellow light illuminated the flattish land in front. We tramped on: the jingling of our equipment, the squelching of boots in mud, the laboured breathing of weary men, an occasional curse, was like an obbligato to the thunderous storm of war that surged around us.
After stumbling on for another half-hour, sometimes up to the knees in liquid mud, I could observe by the light of the sky signals the ruined outline of a village. It was Loos.
The moon now shone revealing the roofless walls of the houses, the open spaces where houses had once stood, marked by heaps of rubble. The village was slowly vanishing under the pounding of the guns. A German trench ran along the side of the street.
My company was halted in the village street. It began to rain. We stood talking and smoking and shivering. Suddenly, zip! ‘What’s that?’ ‘Some fool having a bang,’ said a Newcastle lad. Again, zip. A bullet sang past us viciously and buried itself in the crumbling wall behind. ‘Like a sniper,’ someone ventured. At this we crowded together for moral support. Ping! there it was again; this
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