Читать книгу A "Temporary Gentleman" in France - A. J. Dawson - Страница 3

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Here we are at last, "Somewhere in France," and I suppose this will be the first letter you have ever had from your "Temporary Gentleman" which hasn't a stamp on it. It is rather nice to be able to post without stamps, and I hope the Censor will find nothing to object to in what I write. It's hard to know where to begin.

Here we are "at last," I say—we were nearly a year training at home, you know—and I shall not easily forget our coming. It really was a wonderful journey from Salisbury Plain, with never a hitch of any sort or kind, or so much as a buttonstick gone astray. Someone with a pretty good head-piece must arrange these things. At ten minutes to three this morning we were on the parade ground at —— over a thousand strong. At twenty minutes to eleven we marched down the wharf here at ——, well, somewhere in France; and soon after twelve the cook-house bugle went in this camp, high up on a hill outside the town, and we had our first meal in France—less than eight hours from our huts on the Plain; not quite the Front yet, but La Belle France, all the same. I wonder if I should ever have seen it had there been no war?

Our transport, horses, mules, and limbers had gone on ahead by another route. But, you know, the carrying of over a thousand men is no small matter, when you accomplish it silently, without delay, and with all the compact precision of a battalion parade, as this move of ours was managed. Three minutes after our train drew up at the harbour station, over there in England, the four companies, led by Headquarters Staff, and the band (with our regimental hound pacing in front) were marching down the wharf in column of route, with a good swing. There were four gangways, and we filed on board the steamer as if it had been the barrack square. Then off packs and into lifebelts every man; and in ten minutes the Battalion was eating its haversack breakfast ration, and the steamer was nosing out to the open sea, heading for France, the Front, and Glory.

The trip across was a stirring experience in its way too. The wide sea, after all, is just as open to the Boche as to us, and he is pretty well off for killing craft and mines. Yet, although through these long months we have been carrying troops to and fro every day, not once has he been able to check us in the Channel. The way the Navy's done its job is—it's just a miracle of British discipline and efficiency. All across the yellow foam-flecked sea our path was marked out for us like a racecourse, and outside the track we could see the busy little mine-sweepers hustling to and fro at their police work, guarding the highway for the British Army. Not far from us, grim and low, like a greyhound extended, a destroyer slid along: our escort.

The thing thrilled you, like a scene in a play; the quiet Masters of the Sea guarding us on our way to fight the blustering, boastful, would-be stealers of the earth. And from first to last I never heard a single order shouted. There was not a single hint of flurry.

It is about seven hours now since we landed, and I feel as though we had been weeks away already—I suppose because there is so much to see. And yet it doesn't seem very foreign, really; and if only I could remember some of the French we were supposed to learn at school, so as to be able to understand what the people in the street are talking about, it would be just like a fresh bit of England. Although, just a few hours away, with no sea between us, there's the Hun, with his poison gas and his Black Marias and all the rest of the German outfit. Well, we've brought a good chunk of England here since the war began; solid acres of bully beef and barbed wire, condensed milk and galvanised iron, Maconochie rations, small-arm ammunition, biscuits, hand grenades, jam, picks and shovels, cheese, rifles, butter, boots, and pretty well everything else you can think of; all neatly stacked in miles of sheds, and ready for the different units on our Front.

I think the French are glad to see us. They have a kind of a welcoming way with them, in the streets and everywhere, that makes you feel as though, if you're not actually at home, you are on a visit to your nearest relations. A jolly, cheery, kindly good-natured lot they are, in spite of all the fighting in their own country and all the savage destruction the Huns have brought. The people in the town are quite keen on our drums and bugles; marching past them is like a review. It makes you "throw a chest" no matter what your pack weighs; and we are all carrying truck enough to stock a canteen with. The kiddies run along and catch you by the hand. The girls—there are some wonderfully pretty girls here, who have a kind of a way with them, a sort of style that is French, I suppose; it's pretty taking, anyhow—they wave their handkerchiefs and smile. "Bon chance!" they tell you. And you feel they really mean "Good luck!" I like these people, and they seem to like us pretty well. As for men, you don't see many of them about. They are in the fighting line, except the quite old ones. And the way the women carry on their work is something fine. All with such a jolly swing and a laugh; something brave and taking and fine about them all.

If this writing seems a bit ragged you must excuse it. The point of my indelible pencil seems to wear down uncommonly fast; I suppose because of the rough biscuit box that is my table. We are in a tent, with a rather muddy boarded floor, and though the wind blows mighty cold and keen outside, we are warm as toast in here. I fancy we shall be here till to-morrow night. Probably do a route march round the town and show ourselves off to-morrow. The C. O. rather fancies himself in the matter of our band and the Battalion's form in marching. We're not bad, you know; and "A" Company, of course, is pretty nearly the last word. "Won't be much sleep for the Kaiser after 'A' Company gets to the Front," says "the Peacemaker." We call our noble company commander "the Peacemaker," or sometimes "Ramsay Angell," as I think I must have told you before, because he's so deadly keen on knuckle-duster daggers and things of that sort. "Three inches over the right kidney, and when you hear his quiet cough you can pass on to the next Boche," says "the Peacemaker," when he is showing off a new trench dagger. Sort of, "And the next article, please," manner he has, you know; and we all like him for it. It's his spirit that's made "A" Company what it is. I don't mean that we call him "the Peacemaker" to his face, you know.

We can't be altogether war-worn veterans or old campaigners yet, I suppose, though it does seem much more than seven hours since we landed. But everyone agrees there's something about us that we did not have last year—I mean yesterday. From the Colonel down to the last man in from the depot we've all got it; and though I don't know what it is, it makes a lot of difference. I think it is partly that there isn't any more "Out there" with us now. It's "Out here." And everything that came before to-day is "Over in England," you know; ever so far away. I don't know why a man should feel more free here than in England. But there it is. The real thing, the thing we've all been longing for, the thing we joined for, seems very close at hand now, and, naturally, you know, everyone wants to do his bit. It's funny to hear our fellows talking, as though the Huns were round the corner. If there's anything a man doesn't like—a sore heel, or a split canteen of stew, or a button torn off—"We'll smarten the Boche for that," they say, or, "Righto! That's another one in for the Kaiser!"

You would have thought we should have had time during the past six months or so to have put together most of the little things a campaigner wants, wouldn't you? especially seeing that a man has to carry all his belongings about with him and yet I would make a sporting bet that there are not half a dozen men in the Battalion who have bought nothing to carry with them to-day. There is a Y. M. C. A. hut and a good canteen in this camp, and there has been a great business done in electric torches, tooth-powder, chocolate, knives, pipe-lighters, and all manner of notions. We are all very glad to be here, very glad; and nine out of ten will dream to-night of trenches in France and the Push we all mean to win V.C.'s in. But that's not to say we shall forget England and the—the little things we care about at home. Now I'm going to turn in for my first sleep in France. So give what you have to spare of my love to all whom it may concern, and accept the rest yourself from your

"Temporary Gentleman."