Читать книгу The Motor-Bus in War - A. M. Beatson - Страница 7

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In the early stages of the War it was by no means uncommon for a man to enlist in the Army Service Corps in the afternoon and the same night find himself marching, in company with a good many others, into the Mechanical Transport Depot at Grove Park, singing "Tipperary." The following morning, having been put into khaki, he would be told off to a motor-lorry, on which he would chalk such cryptic remark as "London-Berlin Express." Later in the day he would be driving his lorry—one of a convoy of many similar vehicles—to ——, and a few hours after that he would be in France.

This is not exactly what happened to the author; suffice it to add that in the first few days of August 1914 he enlisted, and on October 28th made the meteoric flight from private in a Territorial Battalion to a second-lieutenant in the Army Service Corps. On Sunday, November 15th, he had just come up from Grove Park to London on a few hours' leave of absence from duty, when a telegram arrived. It read:

"Return at once.—ADJUTANT."

Having followed this order, he was packed off at once to Woolwich, and here found he was posted to the —— Indian Cavalry Division Supply Column. On Tuesday, the 17th, the column was due to leave Woolwich for —— and sail for France almost immediately after arrival at the port of embarkation. So on that morning we entrained; the motor-lorries and half the personnel had gone on by road the previous day. The same night we found ourselves at ——, ten officers and some 700 N.C.O.'s and men, the latter composed of lorry drivers and supply details, with roughly 160 motor-lorries and cars. Half the lorries were old buses off the London streets, but not of the usual "London General" appearance, for they had been converted from passenger to food and forage carrying vehicles by the substitution of van-shaped open bodies in place of the familiar bright red, two-decker bus bodies. I was destined to travel many thousands of miles on the front seat of many of these, and it has often occurred to me during the course of my journeys that perhaps the same buses that I have taken to Ypres have perhaps taken me on previous occasions, before the War, down Piccadilly or along the Strand, under entirely different circumstances. The remainder of the lorries were brand new Silent Knight Daimlers, and the carrying capacity of the majority of the lorries was thirty hundredweight. Painted grey-green service colour, they presented a sombre spectacle, "parked" in a long line along a straight open road just outside the docks. Besides the lorries for carrying supplies, we had the large, closed, high-bodied, portable workshop lorries, fitted with the essential tools—lathes, drilling-machines, and the like—driven by petrol-electric sets, to effect repairs to broken-down lorries in the field. Also the closed-in store lorries, fitted with interior shelves and pigeon-holes, in which were carried engineers' tools, stores of all kinds, spare parts, and various equipment. In addition, we had five 12-16 h.p. Sunbeam four-seater cars and a dozen or so Douglas motor-bicycles. Collectively, the column occupied just a mile of road.

At —— we did not enjoy ourselves. For one thing, 700 men, mostly quite unaccustomed to military discipline, are not altogether easy to deal with, and for another, the only sleeping accommodation available for officers and men consisted in the floors of the various offices and goods-yards at —— Railway Station. Moreover, it was snowing hard, and on the night of November 17th there were several degrees of frost. Matters were made very much easier by the presence of an Army Chaplain who was on duty at the docks. He mixed with and chatted to the men, telling them what splendid fellows they were, and on the evening of our arrival got up an impromptu concert, which proved a great divertissement. Our stay was not, however, a long one; we did not even wait to effect certain most necessary repairs to the lorries, and those that were able to run under their own power towed those that could not, and the splendid hydraulic cranes on the quayside at —— soon picked up each vehicle and securely deposited it—at the rate of about five minutes per lorry—in the holds of the four tramps that, sailing under sealed orders, were to transport the column to France. So on the evening of November 19, 1914, I left England on H.M. Transport Trevithoe, in company with two other second-lieutenants. On board we had roughly a quarter of our personnel and vehicles. Our departure was quite unlike that of any ship I have ever seen leave port or left port on myself. There were no scurrying, hurrying crowds of people on the quayside. The men filed on board almost silently in the darkness, each carrying his rifle and kit. There were none of the usual spectators, no relatives or friends to see us off. As each man crossed the gangway he was handed a small piece of paper; on it was printed Lord Kitchener's message to every soldier about to join the Expeditionary Force:

You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honour of the British Army depends on your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better service than in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of a British soldier.

Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted; your conduct must justify that welcome and trust. Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women; you must entirely resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.

Do your duty bravely.

Fear God.

Honour the King.

KITCHENER,

Field-Marshal.

When all were safely on the Trevithoe, the padre whom I have already mentioned came on board and called the men around him. The senior officer present called all to "Attention," and the padre proceeded to bid us farewell and God-speed. He adjured the men to place absolute confidence in their officers and obey them implicitly. He added that he hoped all might come home safe and sound in due course, though there were some who might never return. Our caps removed, he raised his hand and gave the Blessing, and shaking hands with each officer and a good many men, he went ashore. Emotion travels quickly through a crowd, and his words had brought tears to the eyes of many who were leaving home so suddenly, for the first time, only a few days after they had been following their accustomed occupations as of yore. Never, I must admit, have any words I have heard uttered made me feel so momentarily miserable. Still, from the religious point of view it was, I suppose, necessary to remind each man going out on active service of the consequent possibility of meeting his death, that he might order his life and conduct accordingly. The whistle blew, the hawsers were cast off, and the Trevithoe steamed slowly away from the quay. I leant over the side of her deck to have a long last look at Old England, whose gradually disappearing shore and lights I could just distinguish, as we steamed out into the darkness. I wondered how long it would be before I should see them again. Only the silhouetted figures of the padre and an Embarkation Staff officer were to be seen on the quay.

I lit a cigarette and lingered a few minutes on deck, and as I looked across the dark silent sea, the throb of the ship's engines seemed to say repeatedly, "Three years or the duration!"

I am glad to have an opportunity of expressing our thanks to the captain and officers of the ship's company of the Trevithoe for the hospitality they extended to us on board. They gave us the run of the ship; we messed with them in their saloon and had a right royal time.

The captain offered to take me one day for a voyage more or less round the world. After the war I hope to find an opportunity of holding him to his promise!

Of the other ships which transported the Supply Column from —— to France, one was the Woodfield—and it was with regret that I read a year or so later in the papers that she had come to an untimely end, through being torpedoed by a German submarine—not, however, before she had put up a gallant fight against superior odds and given the U-boat a very unpleasant time of it.

After a voyage more or less uneventful, we lay to off Le Havre on the evening of the 21st. The next morning we picked up a pilot and steamed leisurely up the winding River Seine, appreciating the beautiful scenery and no less the greeting of the riverside inhabitants, who waved Union Jacks and the Tricolour, and whose frequent shouts of "Vive l'Angleterre" and "Vive les Anglais" could be plainly heard, so narrow is the river at many points. Such was our welcome to France, and towards the evening of Sunday, November 22nd, we arrived at Rouen, and the next day set foot on French soil. In a few hours, with the help of the French pontoon cranes, so different, alas! to the hydraulic jibs at ——, we successfully slung and landed all the vehicles, without any casualties of serious importance. The lorries were parked in a long line on the road outside a former cinema theatre on the outskirts of Rouen, which building was for the time being the Advanced Mechanical Transport Depot of the British Expeditionary Force, and no time was lost in completing equipment before starting on the journey by road up country. Rouen, with its magnificent cathedral and quaint narrow streets, is an altogether delightful town. It was, of course, full of khaki, and it seemed strange to think that it, of all towns, should be occupied by British troops. A few days later we started on the journey to the front. The column went up in two sections. I was with the second to leave Rouen, and we had with us half our vehicles, and carried all our equipment, cooking utensils, stores, etc., for all the world like a huge travelling circus. Leaving Rouen by the Route Nationale Number 28, we wondered how soon it would be before we should encounter patrols of Uhlans or come under shell fire. No one knew where the front exactly was, how far away, or what it was like.

I had the pleasure of travelling together with our French Interpreter, in the car which led the convoy, with the senior lieutenant who was in charge of it. The first night after leaving Rouen we stopped at Neufchâtel-en-Bray, where there is a small country hotel, kept, strangely enough, by an Englishwoman, who put up a very good dinner for us and the best cider that Normandy can produce, which is saying a good deal. The next morning we were on the road again, and by mid-day reached Abbeville, outside which the convoy was halted while the officer in charge proceeded into the town for orders as to our ultimate destination. Pushing on, we arrived at Hesdin and stayed there the night. Travelling throughout the following day, we at length reached Lillers. This little town was full of troops of almost every imaginable regiment, from dusky Indian Cavalry soldiers to kilted Highlanders. Guns were booming away in the distance, and we realized that we were at last at the front and within measurable distance of the trenches.

I was billeted for the night in a café in the square; all night long could be heard the regular tramp of men marching, horses, and the wheels of limbered wagons rumbling along the cobbled street, for Lillers is on the main road to Béthune, not far beyond which were the trenches. Resuming our journey the following day, we passed through the picturesque old town of Béthune, with its typical pavé Grande Place and square-towered church. At that time it was to all intents and purposes momentarily deserted by its civilian population, for the Germans had on the previous day caused much alarm and some damage by an aeroplane raid and bomb-dropping exploit, and civilians took more notice of such unaccustomed incidents at this period than they do nowadays. Eventually we arrived at Fouquereuil, which for the time being was to be our railhead. It consisted of a railway station, a couple of dozen or so small cottages, a few estaminets and a brickfield. The latter served as the parking ground for our mobile workshops and a good number of the supply lorries, while the roofed-in part of it was used as sleeping quarters for officers and men, the column office, and officers' messroom. In the latter our table and chairs, if one may thus describe them, were composed of loose bricks built up in heaps to the required shapes. The Indian Cavalry regiments were billeted in the surrounding villages.

The same evening two officers of the Supply and Transport Corps, Indian Army, joined us, so that our establishment was complete and we were ready to carry on. The following day we tasted for the first time the joys of "loading"—refilling the lorries from the supply train at railhead, which brings up from the Base the rations and forage for the troops. It appeared at first a complicated and extremely lengthy business, and the mud and rain—it seemed to rain continuously—did not make matters any easier. Notwithstanding these several disadvantages, a complete division of Indian Cavalry "in the field" was for the first time in history rationed in Europe, and also for the first time anywhere by means of mechanical transport.