- from ‘the War Illustrated’ 17th February 1917
- 'The Soldier in Battle'
On the Verge of the Unknown
fighting in the mud of no-man's land
What does the soldier feel like when going into battle for the first time — going "over the top," as the phrase born of trench warfare has it ? Some of our nearest and dearest, maybe, have been through the experience, but we hesitate to question them. Self-revelations of the kind must come voluntarily. They can only come from minds apt to self-analysis and able to give expression to their feelings. The Editor of THE WAR ILLUSTRATED has been fortunate enough to meet with such a one, and in this and succeeding issues our readers will he able to share with the Editor the perusal of what is a veritable, human document, of permanent- value and of popular as well as psychological interest, concerning the emotions in the field of a member of the New Army who went Sommewards, and happily, has lived to tell the tale.
I wonder what John really did feel like when he went "over the top," when he killed that horrid German ?
All of you have said, or thought, that you have been amazed at the nonchalance with which John, that quiet, gentlemanly boy of yours, has written saying, "I killed a 'German for you last night, mother," (One of my friends proudly wrote like that to his wife.) The psychology of man in war is probably the most interesting subject at the moment. In these articles I am going to try and explain to you what I felt like, and how my friends seemed to feel, when we went "over the top" ; when we approached the Somme — the greatest field of adventure the world has known ; when in the middle of heavy bombardment; when we waited before going over. And from this consideration of psychology it ought not to be difficult to see how and why we can and do — man to man — beat the Germans easily, and why, therefore, we are certain to win this war.
Let me preface what I have to tell by a line or two about myself, because it is in one's own heart that one must look for the emotions, and one can speak only generally of others. I have served in trenches fourteen months, and on the Somme since the middle of July. I have only twice been scratched — wounds like pin-pricks. I am married and twenty-five years old. I am a journalist by profession. I am sensitive, imaginative — a little fanciful maybe — and more "bookish" than athletic ; more than usually keen on coming back alive ; more than usually alive to the risks run. Most certainly not the orthodox soldier type ; but I hope not; the less a good soldier.
coverpages from 'the War Illustrated'
- left : waiting to for the signal to attack
- right : charging over the top as seen by British artist 'Stanley Wood'
Contrasts in Courage
No two men feel quite alike in the middle of stress; nor is it possible to tell with certainty from a man's behaviour in little peace-day incidents that need decision and courage, what his conduct will be like when the issue is bloody and the result life — or death. Often he is constant, he is at bedrock what you deemed him to be; but occasionally he is false to your hopes, he destroys your common-sense theories.
I remember a man who was a dashing, bustling centre-forward in our company team in England ; a pugnacious chap, awkward, who "looked for trouble" and was not afraid of it when it came ; who would gladly fight, and did, two or three times a week. That man in the trenches was an absolute failure, very fearful, terrified when a trench-mortar or two came over, despised by little chaps who in England were mindful to keep out of his way. Out of trenches he quickly recovered his sang-froid and played as dashing a game of football as ever. Back to trenches, and his courage collapsed again. It is as if the courage that rules one in issues of life and death is not of our lifetime's malting and drilling or inheritance, but a century old or five centuries old ; that one is what one's for-bears were; that it is "stock" or breeding that tells. Else how could one account for a timid, unassuming boy suddenly acting with the heart of a lion, or city-bred clerks and warehousemen combating successfully and cheerfully hardships and horrors that would have filled mediaeval mercenaries and professional soldiers with despair.
Going Into "Real" Battle
Emotions were many in our minds and hearts when news came of our going Sommewards. The news came a week after the offensive began, and suddenly, like a blow in the face, staggering one, and then rousing one's blood. The train journey and the preparation left little time for contemplation, but when the march began, the steady phit-phut, phit-phut over good roads with quick, glancing shadows and glorious country-side, one could ponder a good deal. Already we had done eight months in trenches where things happen, where mines go up with steady certainty and minnenwerfers enliven dull afternoons. We were old soldiers — and yet we felt like recruits again. We felt that we knew nothing of it all, this fierce hand-to-hand fighting, this real warfare where anything might happen at any time. We were awed a little like new boys at school. But there was, too, a little jovial hilarity, a sort of saying with Omar ;
"Ah, my Beloved, fin the cup that clears To-day of past regrets and future fears. To-morrow ? Why, to-morrow I may be Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years."
None Was Afraid
And now and then I had a furious heart-beating and eagerness and hope for battle, and now and then — for it was a fair land and the sun was good and life was sweet — an emptiness and coldness. But again there were times when I had no sensations at all, and I thought but little and that with equanimity of what the future held veiled, and I marched nearer, as men go every day down the coal-mines knowing there is risk but having escaped so often that the danger seems remote. There was also the thought that .here at last was some work to our hand that would shorten the war, and no temporary agony was too great and nothing too terrible to achieve that end. No wish was in our hearts to postpone the day. We knew its inevitability. None of us was afraid — we had laughed at death too often. Yet none of us. was gay and happy,
As we marched nearer we thought less of ourselves and became eagerly and intensely interested in the preparations for war that we saw. Here was war as we had read of it in the peace days ; canvas towns on the roadside, a big gun — a veritable "Long Tom" — in a valley coughing up a shell and rolling back on its haunches to recover its breath ; a road with transport, cavalry, marching men, men who were coming back from the Somme with German helmets cocked on their heads and arms in slings and merry faces. Oh, they were in great spirits, these men! "They're all on the run," they. shouted to us; "you'll have to get on mules to catch 'em." A town-major came up and cried excitedly, "Fritz is throwing in his hand all along the line." And we looked at each other and flashed our teeth and laughed. We were winning easily; we were still "top-dog "'of the world. How exultant we were.
Coming of the Cavalry
One day we were billeted in a village through which runs the main road. That late afternoon the cavalry — thousands upon thousands of them — came at a walk-march through — British cavalry, Indian cavalry, looking hard as nails and keen as mustard; the British staring stolidly at you, the Indians grinning. The last word in fitness and efficiency with their sabres, their rifles, their lances, their machine-guns, how they stirred our hearts ! It was good to be a soldier, to be going to the Somme with these men.
II. Waiting to Go "Over the Top"
coverpages from 'the War Illustrated'
Along the road in the morning mist we tramped, utterly ignorant of how far we had to go or whither we were bound. We felt like dogs led about on strings, knowing nothing of our master's whims or fancies. We might be in battle that day, or not for several days.
It was very weird. The road as yet was good, but one could not see farther than one hundred yards ahead. Ambulances and artillery limbers came up suddenly out of the mist, sometimes missing us by inches. "Reckless devils !" we muttered, and yet — maybe it would be better to be injured now ; perhaps the "bullet with one's name and address on it” was just ahead in the mist.
Our eyes began to smart, and tears ran down our cheeks. Men passed wearing gas-helmets. Tear gas ! We took out our goggles and put them on, making it more difficult to see. We marched stolidly on, speaking, little and singing not at all.
Nightmare Visions in the Mist
I watched a lieutenant marching by my side. He carried his stick, lifting it just a few inches from the ground at every step, just as he used to do in England. It seemed odd, that. He ought to be different in mist — on the Somme — among tear-shells. He marched on, watching the ground, just the same as in England. Odd !
Uphill and the mist thicker. Crash ! went a gun on our left, startling us a good deal. Very close to the road it was. I stared at the roadside. Only the mist. Ah ! A figure sprawled awkwardly on the bank with a haversack dyed red. Very stiff the figure. And; then it was gone in the fog. Next, a horse, its head bloody and smashed was there — and gone. The mist made things come and go in a flash, like figures on a screen ; a wounded man on a stretcher, his arms and hands hanging limp over the sides ; two or three men carrying petrol tins full, of water going our way, but more slowly ; another dead man sprawling stiff on the roadside. Everything was hazy and uncertain. I felt sick and fearful.
Physical Distress Eliminates Fear
Guns crashed on both sides of the. road now, and now and then an enemy shell moaned overhead and burst a hundred yards or so away. The road became very uneven, lumpy, holey, and the work of dragging our Lewis-gun limber was arduous and exhausting. I was in the shafts, flung here and there by the holes, jolted, punched in the back. We were getting very tired. Should we never halt ? Still the men ahead jogged on and on, now slackening a bit, now going faster. Our equipment was getting heavy and pulling at our shoulders. Oh, a bad kick in the back that time from the handle. Why didn't they halt ? Where were we going anyway ? Why didn't they tell us ? Were they afraid of the shells ? Curse the. shells ! Anything for a halt — ten minutes, five minutes. Only to get this horrid equipment off for a minute or two. What if shells were dropping near ? Any risk was nothing compared with a halt. Why didn't they halt ?
We left the road and plunged across a shell-pitted field. Holes everywhere, big holes, little holes. The battalion drew up, formed into companies, and sat down in the holes. We fell into a hole and sat down, leaning our tired, aching backs on the sides. That was good ! We gulped at our water- bottles.
Shells were coming thicker, whizzing, whistling incredulously over our heads and bursting somewhere in the mist near. Nobody minded them.
The relief of halting to me overshadowed everything else. What matter that which was ten minutes ahead ? The moment alone was of account. It is always so. Always the present physical distress over-shadows the dangers beyond. Just as the cutting of your finger as a child filled the world for you with sorrow, so intense physical weariness as a man blots out all else from your mental picture. It is well it is so in war.
As we sat there the mist lifted and with the lifting of the mist came the word that in the afternoon, if the attack about to be made by another brigade were successful, we should attack a village. We received the news, some of us with nonchalance, more with gladness.
Philosophically Facing "the Job"
I talked with the sergeant-major. He said : "The sooner we go over and. do our particular bit, get the job done the better. Then we shall clear out of it."
That was precisely how I felt about it. The job had to be done, it was a bad job, but waiting would make it not better but worse. For very many of us going over meant death, for more still a wound — with pain and suffering, it is true, but with "Blighty" as a result — and who wouldn't suffer tortures to see homes and loved ones again and to lie in a bed ?
And for some of us it meant nothing but a little more experience, a little more agony and sweat of blood. For most of us it would be a decision, either dear "Blighty" or death, and we were glad to make it.
I have waited to go "over the top" three or four times since then, and never has the feeling been quite the same.
Next time there seemed more chance of being killed and less likelihood — even suppose one were wounded — of getting to England ; and the next time it didn't seem to me to be our turn to go, and while no good soldier quarrels with tempting fate when it is his turn, he finds no satisfaction in it when his battalion is taking some other battalion's turn. And on that last time I felt sick unto death, and querulous and angry — angry with the mortal powers that willed it, and angry with a Providence that permitted it. I didn't long then for the time to come, but dreaded it, and was afraid, until the feeling and the personality that I spoke about in my previous article — the century-old personality — came over me and my fear went, and I became rather scornful of men who seemed timid. I found myself surprising myself — do you understand ? — by my cheerfulness and coolness.
The Breed of the Briton
Indeed, I appear- to be two people — one worrying personality for minor happenings, and one big, calm personality for dangerous, huge jobs. So that in big risks I have been a better man than those who were superior to me in smaller affairs. We commonly have said to each other, "I don't know how I stuck it. I can't understand why I volunteered' for that job, where we got that superhuman endurance, that courage, that scorn of death." And largely the explanation is that the British breeding has told. We have had reserve of grit that we knew not of, that only severe trial has brought to light; the old fighting spirit that crushed Charles I and made England free and noble when Germany was not yet a nation. That is why Germany is beaten and will remain beaten. We are better men.
As we lay there we saw the kilties go to the attack, and in a few minutes, it seemed, some of them came back on stretchers. We regarded them without emotion — except it was envy perhaps. They were on their way to "Blighty." Speed on the time for our turn to begin ! Speed on the decision !
III. — "Over the Top, and the Best of Luck!"
coverpages from 'the War Illustrated'
THE great morning of our lives came, and with it the great adventure — suddenly, unlooked for. For after our first wait to go over, we didn't go, and the outlook had changed. We had lain, mildly incredulous, for a few hours in shell-holes, wondering what lay ahead. Wondering, that is, until we said, "Well, hang it, anyway. A sleep won't do us any harm." We had heard nasty rumours about rum coming up — the sure precursor of a "stunt," but a rumour only it was then. So to sleep, lads ! And on this July night we that were soon to have our greatest experience and. those of us who had but a few more hours to have curled up in our holes, worn out, and slept heavily. We were tired of speculating, scornful of rumours. If we were going over — well, we were going over. That was all there was in it.
Comfort and Help of Friendship
I had looked about me and imaged it a little. Here were the best friends I had ever had, tried in danger, tried in arguments on literature and politics, tried in wild nights at theatres in England, at champagne suppers in France; men whose inmost hearts I knew. Medical students, cotton manufacturers, engineers, accountants, barristers — "there was no one like 'em, horse or foot." We had laughed and cursed and sweated and suffered together; we had loved one another. They made "going over" comparatively easy. And the feeling too, was there, "If they can do it, I can do it." Knowing them so well robbed the adventure of some of its novelty and romance, made it a little prosaic. And so I lay down and slept.
I slept about an hour. "Come for your rum !" somebody said. I got up immediately—active service has taught me how to do that — wide awake at once, and walked along to the queue. The captain held the rum jar and doled it out. I drank it and scarcely tasted it. We swore about it. It wasn't a good "tot." Many men went twice and thrice in the dark and got another one.
"Over the Top"
"Prepare to move !" came the word. We knew now. From lip to lip it had been whispered, "We're going to take the wood !” Ah, well, that was settled, then. Nobody said, " We're going to try to take the wood." We never had any doubt about taking it. We sat on our machine-gun magazines and watched part of our battalion go past. They were marching up the road, doggedly, stolidly, silently, not excited. The nearness of the affair had robbed it of some of its formidable nature, as commonly happens with other things. There were a handgrip or two as they went past into the darkness, but no show of feeling. We were Northerners, undemonstrative.
Now it was our turn. We picked up our gun, spare parts, ammunition, our rifles, and moved off. Along the road, then up a bank and "over the top." A thousand yards we had to go. The Germans didn't know yet we were coming, that was certain. Only an occasional shell fell among us or near us. In "blobs" we went. The battalion sergeant-major stood there, a dim shadow, calling, "This way, C Company !" just as he used to in England. It seemed very much like one of our old attacks on a wood on Salisbury Plain. It was just before dawn, you see, and we were fanciful. We progressed slowly, fifty yards or so, and then down on one knee to halt. We covered five hundred yards like that. We lay down flat now when not advancing, and mostly the shells went over our heads.
"Fix bayonets !" came down to us. Odd, that tiny feeling of comfort and safety as the bayonet clicked home. Three hundred yards away now. We lay down in front of the wood. The bombardment was colossal, magnificent. The wood was a mass of leaping flame, of crashing trees. The din was a continuous roar, the French "75's" co-operating with our artillery. How the enemy was catching it ! I felt a little wild with exultation.
Reaching the Wood
"Ha-ah !" yelled our corporal, a yard behind me. I turned round. "What's up. Jimmy ?" I roared in the noise.
"My leg !" he screamed. "My leg !"
He was on his back, shouting with pain. It was still very dark and I could see no injury. No one else was nearer than ten yards. "Come here, some of you. Pass the word for stretcher-bearers !" I roared. No response. "Come here !" I screeched. "You fools ! Send for a stretcher-bearer !"
A man came. We cut Jimmy's equipment and got it off, put his water-bottle handy to his hand, got his field-dressing, and were just about to apply it when "Forward !" went a shout. A hasty hand-clasp, "Give 'em hell for me !" from Jimmy, and we were on again. "Lucky Jimmy," I thought as we went on, "he'll soon be in bed !" Jimmy died.
It was coming light. We stared eagerly about us, making little runs for shell-holes and peering over the edges, going always forward. Here was a dead Highlander, there a "flat-cap," here a little cluster of Germans — all dead from previous attacks. No machine-gun bullets whistled past us. It seemed singularly safe. It was very odd.
Then into the wood. "If this is taking a wood," I thought, "it is easy.” We made for the left, along the top of a trench half filled in with broken trees and soil. Germans dead, Germans wounded, Germans feigning death lay in the trench. How thorough the artillery work had been ! Equipment, rifles and men poked out of the debris. One head just showed half an inch or so through the sand. I ran my fingers over the bristly, cropped head, and cried, "Look at this square-headed joker !" I had no sense of the horror of it and before the war, bodies used to make me feel sick.
Weirdness in the Wood
We picked our way along, "clearing up," running bayonets into the under- growth, firing the machine-gun down dug-outs. The man on my right fell forward and remained kneeling, a hole in his head, dead, as if mutely appealing for mercy — or justice. He had made no cry. The incident caused no excitement or alarm. We were expectant of that sort of thing. We heard the ta-ta-ta-ta- ta of a machine-gun as more bullets cut past, and we got into the trench behind a fallen tree. I crawled a few yards and watched.
Grey helmets bobbed among the foliage twenty yards away with astonishing effrontery. We shot at them, and I believe I hit two. There was no present sense then that a fallen helmet meant a dead or wounded man. They were merely grey hats that dodged, among the green, and seemed to say "Bet you can't hit me," and a hit was a score for our side. I cried joyfully, "Sure I've hit two !"
As we lay there shooting, a man cried out from among the foliage on the right. "Help !" he shouted. We couldn't see him. Was he British or German ? There was only one way to tell — go and see. I went. He was a Scottie with a broken leg. Another man came, and we carried him to our companions.
Nobody hesitated about doing jobs like that or indeed, thought much about them. Danger, you see, was part of the game, and the game had grown to terrific dimensions. Big risks were regarded as calmly as ordinary trench duties in former days.
IV. "Over the Top" — and a Bombardment
coverpages from 'the War Illustrated'
We moved under orders from an officer to a small circular emplacement abutting on the end of an old trench. This emplacement was the leftmost spot we held, guarded the whole left flank of the British position, and proved to be the succouring spot for both our own soldiers and those, of the enemy for many hours. It represented "home" to many a wounded man who had been lying out ahead, and whom we assisted to cover. It was here that the fatigue and stress of the few previous hours proved well-nigh unbearable. Our shoulders ached intolerably from the pulling of our equipment. The mess-tin fastened on the back of the haversack (worn in place of the pack when dressed in fighting order) encountered the trench every time one turned round, and made even leaning against the trench-side difficult and uncomfortable. .
I was thirsty, and drank greedily at my water-bottle. Only half a pint left — flavoured by petrol from the tins in which it had been carried. When should I get some more ? But I drank. Who knew how soon we should need our strength, or how soon a clear, rushing stream would be useless to us ?
A little of the horror of it came over me then. I tried to eat a biscuit, but the piece stuck in my throat. A German was just outside the trench — dead. He was kneeling in the firing position, black, like an ugly waxwork; so still, so shiny. He had a hole in his head — black too. He stank. Earlier that morning I had unconcernedly begun to dig myself in alongside him, but now —
The Brotherhood of Suffering
After a while we recovered, or perhaps I should say we relapsed into our unfeeling condition again. Men crawled in, some with bare chests covered with blood, some with smashed jaws dripping blood, some with hands a mass of pulp, bloody red. But the raw flesh, the anguished cry, the stifled moan did not unnerve us. We were not indifferent. I remember how gentle we were. Some strength, some calmness greater than we had ever before known, seemed given to us. Now and then wounded men in front would call to us, and we would run out, expecting to be shot at, to help them in.
I remember muttering to the German snipers (wherever they were) : "Shoot, you blighters! Shoot if you like!" in a flaunting sort of way. A Scottish corporal was shot just afterwards while on the same job. The bullet cracked as it hit him. Somebody immediately went and brought both men in. We didn't fear the danger much. You see, if you got shot not too badly you would get away ; if you were killed, well, you ran that risk constantly, anyway. If it were net a bullet that hit you then, perhaps, it would be a shell a little later. No one expected to come out unscathed. It was yet morning.
I crawled out and took a full water-bottle off a Highlander, killed that morning. That was a great find. Soon afterwards a German shouted from a shell-hole. We could see he was wounded in the arm, and he came along on our waving to him, like a lame dog, using his feet and one hand all on the ground. He came at a great rate. He was terrified, his eyes wide open. He grasped our hands or our sleeves or tunic buttons with his untouched hand.
He tore off an Iron Cross ribbon that he wore through a buttonhole of his jacket, about four from the top, and stamped on it, cursing the Kaiser and the Army. He pulled out coins, photographs, mark notes', and offered them broadcast. One of our men assured him in German that he was in good hands, and three or four water-bottles were pulled quickly out to give him a drink. We were short of water, very short, and yet our men were offering him a drink with as great, if not greater, alacrity than they would have used towards a Briton. I remarked then how strange it was, and I have thought much about it since. It was simply impossible for us to see this man suffering without helping him, German or no. The war had hit him hard. Two brothers and a brother-in-law, he told us, had been killed at Loos. There seemed, it is simple truth, a little brotherhood between his sufferings and ours.
A Soldier's Gethsemane
In the afternoon the sun grew intensely hot, and I slept for half an hour. In the evening we were shelled very heavily. It was about eight o'clock. We watched the first one fall, away on our left but level with us, and they they crept nearer, each one twenty-five yards closer than the last. They were shelling with devilish system and relentless accuracy. Assuredly one would drop on us. We heard it coming and flattened ourselves against the trench-side, face pressed close, turned towards the direction from which the shell came. Over our heads it flew, bursting with a tearing, rending crash ten yards beyond. Soil and smoke covered us. "Anybody hit ?" we all cried as soon as we could speak. "No !" Faster and faster they came. Surely we could not escape.
I was very afraid. I prayed, saying Christ's words in the Garden : "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done." And I gathered strength and a little calmness from the thought that in greater Hands than man's lay the decision of life and death. Now, though. I was devout enough then, I am not a religious man. I am like countless thousands, uncertain whether I believe. I prayed not from strength but from pure weakness. I talked with other men afterwards, and they told me the same thing. We were all so impotent, crouching there, hearing the whistle of the shells, the deafening crash, feeling the rain of dirt, and coughing over the fumes. They fell so close, every one within a few yards, smothering us with loose earth. Once or twice the shock was so great that I did not know for a minute or two whether I was hit or not, so dazed was I. One man had his arm broken, the only casualty in our little emplacement. Later we were relieved, and I cursed bitterly a man who wanted us to harry along a shell-swept road. I was so exhausted that I was past caring about shells.
Temperament and Physique
I recall another bombardment, months before the one of which I have just written. It was worse — heavier. They sent over all sorts of shells, and minenwerfen ("in column of route" a lad described them, so close behind each other they came), and rifle-grenades, too. I was dozing on a fire-step when it began, and during the first fifteen minutes I was a trembling, useless soldier. But I recovered, oiled my rifle, cursed a lot, became angry. with the enemy, and began to be reconciled to the bayonet fight that we all anticipated.
What you are like in battle depends on the amount of spirit or "guts" you have, and that is largely governed by your physical condition. So that during the day on the Somme, of which I write, I. varied from recklessness born of the immensity of the risks to fear as night drew near and the possibility of relief became greater, and again to indifference when my fatigue became almost insupportable and my eyes very, very heavy. But the impression that remains uppermost on my mind is one of dreamy indifference — as if we had been onlookers rather, than actors in that play of death. And that feeling was widespread among us.
V. — After "Over the Top"
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In little groups — sometimes under an officer, sometimes with no one in charge at all — we made our way down from the wood when the relief was complete. One man made the journey on a motor-bicycle that he found lying beside a dead despatch-rider. The roads were being swept by enemy shrapnel, and at short intervals we came across dead men — carriers of water or rations, or men on their way from the wood back to reserve. We paid no heed to them, the sight had no effect whatever on us, and we hobbled our painful way along.
The shelling did not make us hurry. I was carrying five hundred rounds of ammunition, and the burden made me querulous and a little unbalanced. "Are you afraid of the shells ?" I shouted scornfully to the man who was carrying the machine-gun and making off at a tremendous pace. Very sensibly he did not slacken his pace; but for myself, I would not have hurried from the whole Germany Army and all the shells in Europe. I had gone through too much..
The Opiate of Fatigue
Very doggedly my companion and I plodded on, resting now and then to recover our strength. Men overtook and passed us, but we hurried not. After a mile or so we came on the reserve; kilted lads they were. They were ensconced in narrow trench-like holes, and those that were awake were occupied in the soldiers' most pleasurable task — making tea. So, we were home again. Like unto heaven was this piece of rough ground where we had lived in little holes. It was unsafe, shells whizzed over and exploded near or among us fairly regularly, but we could lie down — and sleep — and make tea. Oh ! But it was heaven enough!
Farther along we found a water-cart, filled our bottles, and drank deep ; and then soon afterwards we stumbled on to the ground allotted to our battalion. Most of our men were already asleep, and we went from hole to hole, striking matches to see if they were occupied. At length we found an empty one. I found also a biscuit-tin and some wood, and using the tin as a brazier I made some tea. And we sat down in our hole and sipped it, boiling hot. We didn't talk. There was nothing to say. Then we stretched our ground-sheets under us and slept.
A Band of Brothers Reunited
The sun was shining down hot when I awoke. It was about ten o'clock. I clambered out. Our cookers bad come tip with rations. I walked over. A score or two of men were about, them, drinking tea, eating beef and potatoes, reading letters, writing field-service post-cards, saying the blessed words "I am quite well." The post had come up for us lads and for the dear lads who would welcome a post no more. Here were piles of letters for them.
"Hallo, Jack !" said a kindly, friendly voice. I turned round. "Awfully glad to see you," continued the quartermaster-sergeant, holding out his hand. He had been no particular friend of mine till now. "Have some tea," he said. "Here's some roast beef, and there are potatoes over there. Oh, and there's several letters for you, Jack. Royle's got 'em."
Everyone I saw held out his hand and gripped mine. We were like a band of brothers long sundered. We just said to one another quietly, "Glad to see you're safe, old man !"
"Heard of Cedric ?" a friend asked. I shook my head.
"Died in my arms," he said, his eyes growing wet as he spoke. I turned my head and walked away, and a sob burst from my lips. We had been as brothers, Cedric and I, our wives almost as sisters. I wept like a child. Other men came and shook hands, but I could not speak. I went and lay down on the hot ground. I can see it now — the glaring sun beating down on the serious faces, scrubby, dirty ; the cookers dirty black; the little knots of men sitting about, some already cleaning their rifles, some washing and shaving in water gathered from shell-holes, some like myself, just lying and thinking. So this was the end of our glorious battalion. Well, we had done magnificently. And now, "There was no one like 'em, horse or foot! "
Back to Rest Billets
But to some of us, with our tears, came added strength of purpose. A friend said to me, "I want to go back to that wood ; I want to finish the job."
"I can't honestly say so," I said, "it is the graveyard of too many pals." But at least it is pure fact that had we been called upon to go back and fight that morning, we should have fought not as men but as devils. For we had the calm resolve of madmen. The bottom seemed, for us, to have dropped out of things.
As we marched back that day to rest billets we sang, not with our old gaiety, but yet with clear, strong voices, the song we had loved best in England.
"One is one and all alone, And, ever more shall be so."
It was our "Vale!" to our loved dead.
I thought a good deal about fate in the succeeding fortnight. The best and the worst men had been killed together. Men I knew for "rotters" were alive and well; men I knew for pure and noble lay dead and rotting. Life seemed ruled by chance and nothing by order of merit or worth ; as if men's destinies ran loose and wild. Or, if there were a ruling destiny, then 't was wholly unjust.
Individual and National Destiny
And every man who thinks in the battle-line is asking, "Is it decreed whether I shall live or die ?" And some find mental peace and rest in a belief in fate embodying "What will be, will be, and I'm done with them," and some believe in chance or luck and have no rest; and the remainder — the great remainder — think and think and think, now believing — usually in intense danger — that they find the solution in Christ, anon despairing of any solution at all and walking in darkness, and crying out in agony, "Why, why, why ?" And listening for but hearing no reply.
But be our individual destiny what it may, of our national destiny there is and can be no doubt. Germany will be defeated because although the German may have a little of the savage's blind faith in his leaders, his country, and his cause, and be willing to be ruled by iron discipline, his civilisation is not so old as ours, his "stock" has not been so tried, and in consequence his character and fortitude are not of that iron nature, and have not that bedrock foundation and that stubborn quality of the British. Your good Briton has — for I have seen it displayed on the battlefield — almost illimitable stores of spirit, of ability to "stick things out." There is, too, in the composition of some of our men an unquenchable love of fun that glows the brighter the more desolate becomes the outlook. I have seen a friend of mine dance round a traverse with his tin hat cocked rakishly on one side and his identification disc tucked for a monocle in his eye, singing, "Things are slow when we are out of town," a second or so after a minenwerfer shell had fallen perilously near.
There is always laughter running alongside death in British trenches. And this war will be won by the men who can laugh.
