Читать книгу The Retreat from Mons - Arthur Corbett-Smith - Страница 4

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Now all the youth of England are on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man.

August 5th, 1914! "Who would have dreamed of such a thing!" exclaimed the big majority. "So it has come at last," said the small minority.

Broadly speaking, there you have the country's opinion during those now dimly remembered days which followed immediately upon Germany's throwing down of the gauntlet.

Officers and men of our once-upon-a-time professional Army did not bother very much about it either way. War was their job. Active service was to be welcomed as a picnic change from the monotony of soldiering in England. Also, to the man keen on his profession (and since the Boer War such men have been steadily increasing in numbers) it meant the chance of promotion and of showing what he was made of.

A war, even long foreseen, must inevitably come as a surprise when it does actually break out, and this one was no exception. During the last week of that July there were very, very few in Aldershot who felt certain that the hour was at last striking.

But Aldershot was ready for it. For many a long year past Aldershot had existed for the Army. Latterly it had been the forge where Britain's little striking force, the spear-head of her armies, had been welded, sharpened and tested, made ready for instant launching. So, with the Fleet, were we prepared to fulfil our pact with France; or, if the summons came, to stand by Belgium.

Aldershot existed for war, and the comings and goings of troops passed almost unnoticed. True, it now became increasingly difficult to find rooms in the town, and the local outfitters promptly set to work to reap a golden harvest from the fantastic prices which they put upon war gear of all kinds, but that was all—at least to the eye of a casual observer.

There was Fritz, the doyen of Aldershot hairdressers. I wonder how much he learned in those days of the movements of units. Fritz had been an institution in the camps when present-day G.O.C.'s, grizzled and weather-beaten, had, as junior subalterns, sought his advice upon the training of incipient moustaches. Fritz remembered them all, could instantly reel off details of their careers, their regiments or stations, from the time they had left Aldershot until they had returned in senior commands. All duly pigeonholed in Berlin together with seemingly trivial incidents in their private lives.

Later on, sometime at the Aisne, rumour came round that Herr Fritz had been up to mischief of a more serious nature and that he had been duly lodged in prison, or shot, or something equally suitable.

Those were happy if very strenuous days at Aldershot that week or so before the embarkation. Men talked very little about the future, everyone was really too busy. Thoughts naturally flew back to the South African War when they did talk.

"Nobody was particularly keen on that," was the generally expressed opinion; "nobody wanted to kill the Boers; too one-sided. This—oh! this is the real thing. We've got our work cut out."

The very day after the mobilisation the Officers' Mess showed signs of packing up. It reminded one so much of the third act in The Second in Command. Two notices in the hall brought things home:—

"Officers may wear Service dress or blue undress jackets in Mess."

"Officers are particularly requested to pay their mess bills before leaving."

Packing-cases and parcels began to drift in and lie about: dozens of telegrams passed in and out: a smaller variety of dishes appeared at luncheon and dinner: the regimental band came and played to us every night (the cheerier spirits all took a hand at conducting, especially rag-time).

Everybody had his job, and nobody knew what anyone else was doing. Right at the beginning we experienced a curious feeling of secrecy. You would see an officer at lunch and miss him at dinner.

"Oh yes! I believe he has gone this afternoon," someone remarks.

"When are you off?" Colonel X. would say to an officer in a moment of forgetfulness, hastily adding, "No, I don't want to know—but, mind you pay your mess bill before you go."

This secrecy of movement was certainly the most striking feature of those early days: that, and the splendid organisation. We have got accustomed to it since, but at the time, and to men used to the happy-go-lucky methods of this dear, lovable, muddle-headed old country of ours, that organisation struck one as amazing.

On August 5th every C.O. was handed a file of documents. In these were given the most precise directions as to times, places and dates when his unit was to leave Aldershot. For instance:

"Train No. 463Y will arrive at siding B at 12.35 A.m., August 10th.

"You will complete loading by 3.40 A.m.

"This train will leave siding C at 9.45 A.m., August 10th.

"You will march on to the platform at 9.30 A.m. and complete your entraining by 9.40."

And I believe it is a fact that every train left five minutes ahead of its scheduled time. The London and South Western Railway was given sixty hours in which to send to Southampton 350 troop-trains. They did it in forty-five hours. "Some" hustle! The astonishing efficiency of it all, and the admirable co-operation between military and civil authorities. I very much doubt if there were more than two officers of the Staff at Aldershot H.Q. who knew details of the intended movements. Fritz must have been annoyed. C.O.'s, and other individual officers, who knew when their own unit was timed for departure, entered splendidly into the spirit of the game and loyally kept the information to themselves; would not even tell their people, nor their best girls.

One day the King came down. The visit was as secret as everything else. Each unit received about a quarter of an hour's warning of His Majesty's approach, and the men turned out of their tents or broke off their work to line up by the road. A few words of "good-bye, and good luck" to the men, a warm hand-clasp to the officers, three cheers, and the Royal car slipped forward to the next unit. One could hear the ripple of cheering flow round the camps as His Majesty passed.

By the way, it is a little curious how, from the very beginning, there have been just three words used by everyone in bidding "good-bye." "Good-bye, and good luck." A kind of spontaneous, universal formula. Officers used it, the men, mothers, wives and sweethearts.

"Good-bye, and good luck" to our sailors

(It's a big debt we owe you to-day),

"Good-bye, and good luck" to our soldiers

(Some day we shall hope to repay).

Though anxious the hearts left behind you,

And a tear from the eye seems to fall,

Yet—"good-bye"—God be with you, "good luck attend you,

"Good-bye, and good luck to you all"—

as the refrain of a popular song had it later.

Impressions of those few hurried days are blurred. In a sense one had been through it all many times before. It differed but little from moving station or preparing for manoeuvres. And yet there was something of the glamour of an unknown future before one: an instinctive feeling that this was the end of soldiering as we had known it. Not that anyone dreamed of the war lasting beyond Christmas; there are no pessimists in the Army. We were all at school breaking up for the holidays, and I think that just about sums up the situation as we saw it at Aldershot. The unknown future was more on the lines of "Shall we get any skating?" "Will there be some good shows at the theatres?" "What sort of fun will the Pytchley give us?" "Shall I be able to get in the Hunt Ball?"

And so one has little enough to say about the days of mobilisation and packing up. Besides, quite enough has already been written to satisfy an interested public. One little adventure, however, seems worth recording. It befell a certain Gunner captain who was detailed to conduct a draft of men from one unit to another. The yarn has the merit of being true in every particular. It may form a small chapter to itself.

A TOURING COMPANY

"Putting two and two together," said the A.S.C. major, "I imagine that you're to take this draft on to Portsmouth and hand over to the O.C. of the company down there."

Why a Gunner captain should have to conduct a draft of Field Gunners to a place like Portsmouth and hand them over to the tender mercies of an A.S.C. Company Commander, I couldn't imagine. Nor indeed why a Gunner should take his instructions from an A.S.C. major at all. But the Divisional C.R.A. had sent me up to him with the remark, "It looks as though you ought to report there," and that was all about it.

Mobilisation is responsible for a good many queer happenings, and here at Aldershot on the third day of it most men were rather at sea.

Even in those few hours one had learned not to ask questions. There was no objection to the asking, but the answer was usually a vacant, far-away look over the shoulder and "Eenteenth Brigade Office? Oh, it's over there"; and a wave of the arm would comprehensively include Farnborough, Deepcut and the Town Station.

And that was how the trouble began. If only the A.S.C. major had exercised a little imagination and made five out of his addition sum: if only he had read his own instructions a little more carefully (although we didn't know that till afterwards), a draft of tired Gunners would not have spent the next week trailing about the South of England looking for an A.S.C. company which didn't want them, and their officer would not have received a black mark which nearly damned his future chances at the very outset. But that by the way.

"The men had their breakfast at three this morning," and the cheery little subaltern, who had brought the draft down from Newcastle, saluted and discreetly made himself still smaller by vanishing hastily round the nearest corner.

I took my railway warrant and went out to have a look at the draft.

A fresh-looking lot they were; young, most of them, averaging about twenty-three years old; special reservists the senior sergeant told me. The few old hands, who sadly needed a shave and a wash, showed how young the rest of them were. I didn't take much stock of them, then. One doesn't when it's just a conducting job of a few hours, handing over, and back to Headquarters right away.

The men stood to attention, picked up their kits, and, with a "Fours left," we were off to the station down the shimmering, dancing, sandy roads of the Aldershot camps. The A.S.C. major returned to his ledgers and more arithmetic, and the cheery subaltern reclined at lordly ease in a Gunner Mess arm-chair, with a tinkling glass of gin and ginger beer at his elbow, and discussed the striking results of the previous day's battle in the North Sea—which had not taken place.

The station-master, who didn't look as worried as he felt, touched his cap.

"A local to——, then change and go on to Reigate" (was it Reigate? I forget now, one visited so many out-of-the-way places), "and from there you'll probably get a through train to Portsmouth. If there isn't room in the train you can always turn people out."

Visions of burly, homespun-clad farmers and comfortable market-women being turned out, protesting, by a mere Gunner captain danced through my brain. Actions for assault and battery, damages, bail, prison.

"How an if they will not turn out?" said I.

And then I realised. This was War, red War; and Great Britain was mobilising. The needs of the State were paramount.

"You shall bid them turn out in the Prince's name," and, unlike Dogberry, shall see that you are obeyed.

And I made myself two inches taller because after all a Gunner captain was somebody in the world now. And people looked with a new interest at the lads in khaki and began to realise, perhaps for the first time, that they would have to count on the British Army even though it were "such a little one."

To do the good folk justice there was never a word of protest at the idea of having to turn out. And we had to invite them to do so a good many times before the company finished its tour of the Southern ports. Really it might have been a railway in Germany from the way the civilians gave road to the uniform. This change of attitude was certainly a vivid contrast to the days—last week was it?—when a man in His Majesty's uniform was looked at askance in crowded street and bar.

At Reigate, where we had to wait an hour, a bombardier, one of the old hands, begged leave to visit a certain hotel outside the station to buy some bread and cheese.

He was a man who hardly gave the appearance of being bread-and-cheese hungry, if you quite take my meaning, and the glassy stare with which this ancient tried to fix me augured ill for discipline if there were many others in the draft like him. Permission was refused. It was a trivial point gained but it had its consequences.

Portsmouth was reached in some five hours; and twenty minutes' march brought us to the A.S.C. barracks where a hot dinner would cheer us all; for I had remembered to send a telegram en route to tell them to expect us.

We were received with cordiality by a decrepit old store-keeper, and the stables' cat. Otherwise the barracks looked as though an army had lately sacked the place from floor to basement.

The men looked glum, and there was more than a hint of a move to a near-by hotel for "bread and cheese." Well, they were only young reservists and discipline was an almost unknown quantity.

But dinner had to materialise somehow. So, demanding the keys of the castle from the unwilling seneschal, the senior sergeant, the bombardier, the stables' cat and myself started on a tour of inspection.

Good! The kitchen contained a sack of flour and most of a sheep. Apparently the sheep was intended to last the decrepit servitor and his struggling family for the rest of the week. But we paid no heed to tearful entreaties and ruthlessly tore the meat away from their very mouths.

"This is War," said I.

Soon dinner was well on the way, blankets were found for the men, and off I went to report to Headquarters.

H.Q. "received me most politely," as Harry Fragson used to sing, and didn't think they wanted me nor my company for any performance in Portsmouth.

"Come back to-morrow morning," said H.Q., "and we'll tell you."

The next day. "Oh, yes!" said H.Q., "you're Field Gunners, you're evidently sent here for Hilsea (two miles out): you'd better move on at once."

"Parade with kits in half an hour," I ordered.

Merrily we marched forth from the castle gates. Were we not wanted at Hilsea?

A cyclist orderly threw himself, panting, from his machine.

"H.Q.'s compliments and will you please report there at once."

"Halt! Fours about! Quick march!"

H.Q. again received me most politely.

"No, you're not to go to Hilsea. You've evidently got to join the Eenty-eenth A.S.C. Company which has gone on to Bristol. You'll just catch the 5.0 train if you're sharp."

"We're to go to Bristol," said I to the senior sergeant, "and you've got to get a move on or we'll miss the train."

"I've heard tell of Bristol," he ruminated; "nice place, so my wife's cousin's husband used to say. He did tell as how——"

But I cut the soliloquy short and got the draft out of the castle again.

A few minutes later peaceable citizens fled into doorways and up courts, electric cars pulled up short with a grinding of brakes, policemen held up traffic. The R.F.A. draft approached at a steady double.

"Where's the fire?" yelled some.

"The Germans have captured the 'Hampshire Arms,'" said others.

"It's for a cinema show," screamed a ragged urchin. Everyone gave us kindly encouragement, and girls waved merrily as we flew past. The bombardier, who was on the pavement side, threw an arm gallantly round the waist of a stout matron of some forty summers and dragged her, not unwillingly, half a dozen yards before he could get home with a kiss on the cheek.

But we caught that train with five minutes to spare. The men were now beginning to see the joke. As yet it had escaped me. Of course it was not the first time I had seen "Tommy" at his cheeriest under misadventures; but this cheeriness now struck me vividly for the first time. To-day it is world-famous.

They certainly made that journey a lively one. Six hours in a slow train across country—it is apt to become somewhat tedious. I tried to look like the man who owns a dog which persists in nibbling the trousers of total strangers—to pretend they (the men, not the trousers) didn't belong to me. It was no good. They might have been Lancashire lads off to Blackpool for the "wakes."

So with imitations of Harry Tate, George Robey and other well-known favourites of the music-halls, the railway officials at the various stations being made the butt of the jokes; with a weird medley of harmony and melody, from "Hallo, hallo, who's your lady friend?" to "Sun of my Soul," the journey passed happily enough until the first of the Bristol stations was reached about 11.45 P.m.

As no one knew where the A.S.C. barracks were I got through on the telephone to H.Q.

"This is Captain Estcourt, R.F.A., speaking. I've got——"

The orderly evidently went to fetch someone else. It turned out to be an adjutant, who listened to me most politely.

"No, we've got no A.S.C. here. I don't think there are any in Bristol. But you might ring up—— Barracks and see." Prrr.

"Hallo! Is that—— Barracks? I'm Captain——"

The orderly went to fetch someone. This time, after a long wait, it was evidently an irascible senior officer.

"No. No A.S.C. here. Try Avonmouth." Prrr.

This looked like bedding down in the station waiting-rooms. Still we would try Avonmouth.

Avonmouth Headquarters received me over the telephone most politely, considering the time of night.

"No, we've got no A.S.C. here; but you might ring up the Embarkation Office." Prrr.

"Hallo! Embarkation Office? I'm——, etc."

The Embarkation Office was not quite so polite in its reception. It sounded very worried.

"No. We've got no A.S.C. here. You can come along down if you like in case the company should turn up."

Luckily the last train had not gone. When it drew up in the station the men greeted it as a long-lost friend. To the strains of "All aboard for Dixie" they clambered in, more cheery than ever.

At Avonmouth we came out into a wilderness of mighty sheds. The night breeze from the Bristol Channel carried with it the pungent, cleanly smell of tarred rope.

"This is Avonmouth," said I to the senior sergeant, "and we can't go any farther unless a ship is waiting for us. I'm going to see where we can bed down."

The Embarkation Office had had time to recover from its worries and received me very politely.

Eventually we got the men into one of the sheds where hundreds of sacks of oats lay about. In ten minutes they had made themselves amazingly comfortable and peace reigned.

But I'm glad we went to Avonmouth. It gave me my first real glimpse of the astonishing organisation under which the Expeditionary Force was to take the field; and also of the methods of supply.

Outside the dock gates, by all the approach roads into the little town, there were streaming in hundreds upon hundreds of great motor lorries, the majority of them built to carry three tons.

From all parts of England and Scotland dozens were arriving every hour. The organisation of it! Here was the third or fourth day from mobilisation and there were a couple of thousand ready for transportation.

You picture a vividly green lorry of a big whisky distillery up North axle to axle with the scarlet of a Brixton firm with its blatant advertisement of somebody's corsets. The cockney driver from a London furnishing house exchanged honeyed words with a colleague from "'twixt Trent and Tweed" in a polite inquiry as to why the hell he couldn't let his tail-board down without using his (the Londoner's) radiator to scrape his boots on.

"Can't you imagine Tommy's comments when he finds a 'Johnny Walker' van bringing up his ammunition in the wilds of Belgium," was the general remark, "but I suppose they'll give them a coat of paint first."

They didn't, as a matter of fact; at least not for several months, so that Tommy was able to indulge his gift of language to the full.

And so nearly two days passed. The men amused themselves by wandering about the docks, wondering at the shipping, and making sarcastic remarks about the lorry drivers who were being taught how to handle a rifle.

Then came a telegram from H.Q., Aldershot.

"Return and report here immediately."

"Good," said the senior sergeant to me, "I always did like Aldershot. But we've had quite a pleasant holiday seeing the country."

The draft duly paraded again, and when they learned their next destination their remarks were a joy to listen to.

We caught a 9.0 train in the evening into Bristol. Then we marched across the city, a matter of, say, three miles. It was a Sunday night, the good citizens were abed. But my lads were determined to show that they were by no means downhearted.

The march across was one long pageant of melody. "I'm going home to Dixie" was prime favourite, and splendidly they sang it in harmony. Then some evening hymns, then more rag-time—they were really excellent exponents of that difficult art—then "Onward, Christian Soldiers"; but never a note of "Tipperary." That immortal chorus had not yet "arrived."

The midnight train from Bristol to Reading. A wait of three hours. Finally, Aldershot (the wrong station) at 6.30 A.m. A march of four miles into camp somewhat took the spirit out of the men, breakfastless and carrying heavy kits. But we rallied them at the last post and came in singing "Somewhere the sun is shining," like a choir of Welsh colliers. We certainly looked the part.

"We've been looking for you for a week; where on earth have you been?" was hurled at us as we marched in.

The bombardier started upon a story which would have made that intrepid explorer Captain de Rougemont green with envy. I left him to his astonished audience and went off for a bath and shave before attending my own funeral at H.Q.

It will have been observed that there were varying degrees in the politeness with which successive H.Q.s greeted my touring company. The politeness with which Aldershot Headquarters now greeted me was well below freezing-point.

"I received your telegrams from Portsmouth and various other places," was the Chief's opening. "You appear to have been taking your men upon an extended holiday round the southern coast health resorts. May I inquire, without appearing too inquisitive, your authority for this expenditure of public money?"

"Will you allow me to explain, sir?"

"I am waiting for your explanation."

I began. When I had recounted the story of the A.S.C. major's arithmetical problem I saw that I had the Great Man's attention. As soon as I had caught the 5 P.m. train from Portsmouth——

"Sit down, won't you," said the Great Man; "cigarette?"

I took one from his proffered case and lit it carefully.

"If only I can hold him," thought I, "I shall pull through."

I did hold him, and I did pull through.

"I don't know that I can compliment you on your perspicacity," said the Great Man, "but I can see now where the blame lies. I had intended to withdraw your name from the Expeditionary Force, but——"

I got up, mouth open.

"Expeditionary Force?" It can only have been a feeble gasp which the Great Man heard. "Am I going out with the Force?"

The Great Man smiled and put his hand on my shoulder.

"We'll overlook it this time. Let's see how well you can do your job. And if you send in your claim for travelling expenses, send it to me and I'll countersign it."

I suppose I must have said something by way of thanks. I suppose I must have saluted, and closed the door behind me. I know that I cleared half a dozen or so of the stairs down at a bound and fell over an astonished sentry at the bottom. It must have looked most undignified in a Gunner captain, but—I had actually been selected to join the British Expeditionary Force with a command of my own and——

I leaped into the waiting taxicab in a state of delirium.

The driver touched his cap.

"Where to, sir?" said he.

"Where to? Where to? Oh! Brussels; anywhere."

The driver grinned in sympathetic understanding and got on to third speed in as many seconds.

And that is how I very nearly missed the most gorgeous adventure of my life.