The Soul of the War Part 33

There are many chateaux of this kind in Champagne, and in one of them we entered a long, bare room, where a French general stood with some of his officers, and I knew that the old spirit of France and its traditions of chivalry have not died. This general, with a silver star on his breast, seemed to me like one of those n.o.bles who fought in the wars of the sixteenth century under the Duc de Guise.

He is a man of less than fifty years of age, with a black beard and steel-blue eyes, extraordinarily keen and piercing, and a fine poise of the head, which gives him an air of dignity and pride, in spite of the simplicity and charm of his manners. I sat opposite to him at table, and in this old room, with stone walls, he seemed to me like the central figure of some mediaeval painting. Yet there was nothing mediaeval except the touch of chivalry and the faith of France in the character of this general and his officers. Men of modern science and trained in a modern school of thought, their conversation ranged over many subjects both grave and gay, and, listening to them, I saw the secret of Germany's failure to strike France to her knees.

With such men as these in command, with that steel-eyed general on the watch--energy and intellectual force personified in his keen, vivacious face--the old faults of 1870 could not happen so easily again, and Germany counted without this renaissance of France.

These men do not minimize the strength of the German defensive, but there is no fear in their hearts about the final issue of the war, and they are sure of their own position along this front in Champagne.

It was to the first lines of defence along that front that I went in the afternoon with other officers. Our way was through a wood famous in this war because it has been the scene of heavy fighting, ending in its brilliant capture by the French. It has another interest, because it is one of the few places along the front--as far as I know the only place- where troops have not entrenched themselves.

This was an impossibility, because the ground is so moist that water is reached a few feet down. It was necessary to build sh.e.l.l-proof shelters above-ground, and this was done by turning the troops into an army of wood-cutters.

This sylvan life of the French troops here is not without its charm, apart from the marmites which come cras.h.i.+ng through the trees, and shrapnel bullets which whip through the branches. The ground has dried up during recent days, so that the long boarded paths leading to the first lines are no longer the only way of escape from bogs and swamps.

It might have been the scene of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as I made my way through thickets all aglint with the first green of the spring's foliage, treading on a carpet of white and yellow flowers and accompanied on my way by b.u.t.terflies and flying beetles.

But a tremendous noise beyond the stage would have spoilt the play.

French batteries were hard at work and their sh.e.l.ls came rus.h.i.+ng like fierce birds above the trees. The sharp "tang" of the French "Soixante-quinze" cracked out between the duller thuds of the "Cent- vingt" and other heavy guns, and there were only brief moments of silence between those violent explosions and the long-drawn sighs of wind as the sh.e.l.ls pa.s.sed overhead and then burst with that final crash which scatters death.

In one of the silences, when the wood was very still and murmurous with humming insects, I heard a voice call. It was not a challenge of "Qui va la?" or "Garde a vous," but the voice of spring. It called "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" and mocked at war.

A young officer with me was more interested in the voices of the guns. He knew them all, even when they spoke from the enemy's batteries, and as we walked he said alternately, "Depart.. Arrive...

Depart... Arrive..." as one of the French sh.e.l.ls left and one of the German sh.e.l.ls arrived.

The enemy's sh.e.l.ls came shattering across the French lines very frequently, and sometimes as I made my way through the trees towards the outer bastions I heard the splintering of wood not far away.

But the soldiers near me seemed quite unconscious of any peril overhead. Some of them were gardening and making little bowers about their huts. Only a few sentinels were at their posts, along the bastions built of logs and clay, behind a fringe of brushwood which screened them from the first line of German trenches outside this boundary of the wood.

"Don't show your head round that corner," said an officer, touching me on the sleeve, as I caught a glimpse of bare fields and, a thousand yards away, a red-roofed house. There was nothing much to see--although the enemies of France were there with watchful eyes for any movement behind our screen.

"A second is long enough for a shot in the forehead," said the officer, "and if I were you I would take that other path. The screen has worn a bit thin just there."

It was curious. I found it absolutely impossible to realize, without an intellectual effort, that out of the silence of those flat fields death would come instantly if I showed my head. But I did not try the experiment to settle all doubts.

23

In the heart of the wood was a small house, spared by some freak of chance by the German sh.e.l.ls which came dropping on every side of it. Here I took tea with the officers, who used it as their headquarters, and never did tea taste better than on that warm spring day, though it was served with a ladle out of a tin bowl to the music of many guns.

The officers were a cheery set who had become quite accustomed to the menace of death which at any moment might shatter this place and make a wreckage of its peasant furniture. The colonel sat back in a wooden armchair, asking for news about the outer world as though he were a s.h.i.+pwrecked mariner on a desert isle; but every now and then he would listen to the sound of the sh.e.l.ls and say, "Depart! ...

Arrive!" just like the officer who had walked with me through the wood.

Two of the younger officers sat on the edge of a truckle-bed beneath the portrait of a buxom peasant woman, who was obviously the wife of the late proprietor. Two other officers lounged against the door- posts, entertaining the guests of the day with droll stories of death.

Another came in with the latest communique received by the wireless station outside, and there was a "Bravo! bravo!" from all of us because it had been a good day for France. They were simple fellows, these men, and they had the manners of fine gentlemen in spite of their mud-stained uniforms and the poverty of the cottage in which they lived. Hardly a day pa.s.sed without one of their comrades being killed or wounded, but some officer came to take his place and his risk, and they made him welcome to the wooden chair and his turn of the truckle-bed. I think in that peasant's hut I saw the whole spirit of the French army in its surrender of self-interest and its good- humoured gallantry.

The guns were still thundering as I drove back from the wood. The driver of the car turned to me for a moment with a smile and pointed a few yards away.

"Did you see that sh.e.l.l burst then? It was pretty close."

Death was always pretty close when one reached the fighting-lines of France.

Soldiers of France, for nearly a year of war I have been walking among you with watchful eyes, seeing you in all your moods, of gaiety and depression, of youthful spirits and middle-aged fatigues, and listening to your tales of war along the roads of France, where you have gone marching to the zone of death valiantly. I know some of your weaknesses and the strength of the spirit that is in you, and the sentiment that lies deep and pure in your hearts in spite of the common clay of your peasant life or the cynical wit you learnt in Paris.

Sons of a great race, you have not forgotten the traditions of a thousand years, which makes your history glorious with the spirit of a keen and flas.h.i.+ng people, which century after century has renewed its youth out of the weariness of old vices and reached forward to new beauties of science and art with quick intelligence.

This monstrous war has been your greatest test, straining your moral fibre beyond even the ordeal of those days when your Republican armies fought in rags and tatters on the frontiers and swept across Europe to victories which drained your manhood. The debacle of 1870 was not your fault, for not all your courage could save you from corruption and treachery, and in this new war you have risen above your frailties with a strength and faith that have wiped out all those memories of failure. It is good to have made friends among you, to have clasped some of your brown hands, to have walked a little along the roads with you. Always now the name of France will be like a song in my heart, stirring a thousand memories of valour and fine endurance, and of patience in this senseless business of slaughter, which made you unwilling butchers and victims of a b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice.

Bonne chance, soldats de France!

Chapter X The Men In Khaki

1

When our little professional army landed on the coast of Prance there was not one in a thousand soldiers who had more than the vaguest idea as to why he was coming to fight the Germans or as to the character of the fighting in which he was to be engaged. If one asked him "Why are we at war with Germany" this regular soldier would scratch his head, struggle to find a reasonable answer, and mutter something about "them b.l.o.o.d.y Germans," and "giving a hand to the Froggies." Of international politics, world-problems, Teutonic ambitions, Slav perils, White Papers or Yellow Papers, he knew nothing and cared nothing. As a professional soldier it was his duty to fight anybody he was told to fight, of whatever colour he might be, or of whatever country. For some months it had been in his mind that he might have to do a bit of shooting in Ireland, and on the whole he was glad that this enemy was to speak a foreign language. It made the game seem more as it should be. What was it Blatchford had said about the Germans? He couldn't quite remember the drift of it, except that they had been preparing for years to have a smack at England.

Wanted to capture all our Colonies, and were building s.h.i.+ps like blazes. Of course our Government had been asleep as usual, and didn't care a d.a.m.n. No British Government ever did, as far as he could remember. Anyhow, the Germans were his enemy, and the French were our friends--which was queer--and the British army was going to save Europe again according to its glorious traditions as mentioned more than once by the Colonel. It had been a fine time before saying good-bye to the wife and kids. Every man had been a hero to his fellow citizens, who had clapped him on the back and stood free drinks in great style. "Bring us back some German helmets, Jock!" the girls had shouted out, "And mind your P's and Q's with them French hussies."

It would be a bit of a change to see the Continental way of doing things. They spoke a queer lingo, the French, but were all right. Quite all right, judging from the newspapers, and a fellow who had gone out as a chauffeur and had come back with fancy manners. "After you, Monsieur. Pardonney-more." There would be some great adventures to tell the lads when the business was over. Of course there would be hot work, and some of the boys would never come back at all-- accidents did happen even in the best regulated wars--but with a bit of luck there would be a great home-coming with all the bells ringing, and crowds in the streets, and the band playing "See the conquering hero comes," or "when Tommy comes marching home." We had learnt a thing or two since South Africa, and the army was up to scratch. These Germans would have to look out for themselves.

2

I think that represents fairly enough the mental att.i.tude of the average British soldier who came out to France into an unknown land in which he was to do "his bit." The younger men knew nothing of the psychological effect of sh.e.l.l-fire, and their imagination was not haunted by any fear. The older men, brought back to the Colours after a spell of civil life, judged of war according to the standards of the South African campaign or Omdurman, and did not guess that this war was to be a more monstrous thing, which would make that little affair in the Transvaal seem a picnic for boys playing at the game. Not yet had they heard the roar of Germany's ma.s.sed artillery or seen the heavens open and rain down death.

The British officer was more thoughtful, and did not reveal his thoughts to the men. Only in quiet conversation in his own mess did he reveal the forebodings which made his soul gloomy.

"There is no doubt the German army is the greatest fighting machine in Europe. We might dislike some of their methods, their cast-iron system and all that--oh, I know what the Times man said about their last man?uvres--but they have been preparing for this war for years, and their organization is all cut and dried. How about the French?

Yes, they have plenty of pluck, and I've seen something of their gunners--quite marvellous!--but have they got any staying power?

Are they ready? How about their politicians? I don't like the look of things, altogether. We have joined in this infernal war--had to, of course--but if things go wrong in France we haven't anything like an army to tackle a job like this. . . . Not that I'm a pessimist, mind you."

No, they were not pessimists, these British officers, when they first came out to France; and the younger men, all those lieutenants who had come quite recently from Sandhurst and Stonyhurst, and public schools in England, with the fine imperturbable manner of their cla.s.s and caste, hiding their boyishness under a mask of gravity, and not giving themselves away by the slightest exuberance of speech or gesture, but maintaining stiff upper lips under a square quarter of an inch of fair bristles, went into this war with unemotional and unconscious heroism. Unlike the French officer, who had just that touch of emotionalism and self-consciousness which delights in the hero-wors.h.i.+p in the streets, the cheers of great crowds, the fluttering of women's handkerchiefs, and the showering of flowers from high balconies, these English boys had packed up their traps and gone away from homes just as they had got back to school after the holidays, a little glum, and serious, at the thought of work. "Good-bye, mother."

The embrace had lasted a few seconds longer than usual. This mother had held her son tight, and had turned a little pale. But her voice had been steady and she had spoken familiar words of affection and advice, just as if her boy were off to the hunting-fields, or a polo match.

"Good-bye, darling. Do be careful, won't you? Don't take unnecessary risks."

"Right-o! ... Back soon, I hope." That was all, in most cases. No sobs or heartbreaks. No fine words about patriotism, and the sweetness of death for the Mother Country, and the duty of upholding the old traditions of the Flag. All that was taken for granted, as it had been taken for granted when this tall fellow in brand new khaki with nice- smelling belts of brown leather, was a bald-headed baby on a lace pillow in a cradle, or an obstreperous boy in a big nursery. The word patriotism is never spoken in an English household of this boy's cla.s.s. There are no solemn discourses about duty to the Mother Country. Those things have always been taken for granted, like the bread and b.u.t.ter at the breakfast table, and the common decencies of life, and the good manners of well-bred people. When his mother had brought a man-child into the world she knew that this first-born would be a soldier, at some time of his life. In thousands of families it is still the tradition. She knew also that if it were necessary, according to the code of England, to send a punitive expedition against some native race, or to capture a new piece of the earth for the British Empire, this child of hers would play his part, and take the risks, just as his father had done, and his grandfather. The boy knew also, though he was never told. The usual thing had happened at the usual age.

"I suppose you will soon be ready for Sandhurst, d.i.c.k?" "Yes, I suppose so, father."

3

So when the war came these young men who had been gazetted six months or so before went out to France as most men go to do their job, without enthusiasm, but without faltering, in the same matter-of- fact way as a bank clerk catches the 9.15 train to the city. But death might be at the end of the journey? Yes. Quite likely. They would die in the same quiet way. It was a natural incident of the job. A horrid nuisance, of course, quite rotten, and all that, but no more to be s.h.i.+rked than the risk of taking a toss over an ugly fence. It was what this young man had been born for. It was the price he paid for his caste.

There were some undercurrents of emotion in the British army not to be seen on the surface. There had been private dramas in private drawing-rooms. Some of the older men had been "churned up," as they would say, because this sudden war had meant a leave-taking from women, who would be in a deuce of a fix if anything happened to certain captains and certain majors. Love affairs which had been somewhat complicated were simplified too abruptly by a rapid farewell, and a "G.o.d bless you, old girl. ... I hate to leave you with such ragged ends to the whole business. But perhaps after all it's a way out--for both of us. Eh?" The war offered a way out for all sorts of men with complicated lives, with debts that had been rather a worry, and with bills of folly that could not be paid at sight, and with skeletons in the cupboard rattling their bones too loudly behind the panels. Well, it was a case of cut and run. Between the new life and the old there would be no bridge, across which a woman or a ghost could walk.