History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0469/04694.txt

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$Unique_ID{how04694}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{True Stories Of The Great War
Tales Of The First British Expeditionary Force To France}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Casualty}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{french
battalion
subaltern
officers
first
france
train
havre
little
never}
$Date{1917}
$Log{}
Title:       True Stories Of The Great War
Book:        Tales Of The First British Expeditionary Force To France
Author:      Casualty
Date:        1917
Translation: Benington, Arthur

Tales Of The First British Expeditionary Force To France

I - When The First Battalion Swung Out

Impressions of a Subaltern

Told by "Casualty" (Name of Soldier Suppressed)

[This is another of the soldiers' tales of the Great War.  This soldier tells
thirty-six fascinating experiences in which death is defied. He describes:
"The Advance to Monse"; "Sir John French"; "The Crossing of the Marne"; "The
Crossing of the Aisne"; "The Jaws of Death," among his many adventures.  The
story here told gives his impressions on "Leaving England." It is reprinted
from his volume "Contemptible."]

[Footnote *: All numerals relate to stories herein told - not to chapters
from original sources.]

     No cheers, no handkerchiefs, no bands.  Nothing that even suggested
the time-honored scene of soldiers leaving home to fight the Empire's
battles.  Parade was at midnight.  Except for the lighted windows of the
barracks, and the rush of hurrying feet, all was dark and quiet.  It was
more like ordinary night operations than the dramatic departure of a Unit
of the First British Expeditionary Force to France.

     As the Battalion swung into the road, the Subaltern could not help
thinking that this was indeed a queer send-off.  A few sergeants' wives,
standing at the corner of the Parade ground, were saying good-bye to their
friends as they passed.  "Good-bye, Bill;" "Good luck, Sam!" Not a hint of
emotion in their voices.  One might have thought that husbands and fathers
went away to risk their lives in war every day of the week.  And if the
men were at all moved at leaving what had served for their home, they hid
it remarkably well.  Songs were soon breaking out from all parts of the
column of route.

     .  .  .  .  .  .  .

     In an hour the station was reached.  An engine was shunting up and
down, piecing the troop trains together, and in twenty minutes the
Battalion was shuffling down the platform, the empty trains on either
side.  Two companies were to go to each train, twelve men to a third-class
compartment, N.C.O.s second class, Officers first.  As soon as the men
were in their seats, the Subaltern made his way to the seat he had
"bagged," and prepared to go to sleep.  Another fellow pushed his head
through the window and wondered what had become of the regimental
transport.  Somebody else said he didn't know or care; his valise was
always lost, he said; they always make a point of it.

     Soon after, they were all asleep, and the train pulled slowly out of
the station.

     When the Subaltern awoke it was early morning, and they were moving
through Hampshire fields at a rather sober pace.  He was assailed with a
poignant feeling of annoyance and resentment that this war should be
forced upon them.  England looked so good in the morning sunshine, and the
comforts of English civilization were so hard to leave.  The sinister
uncertainty of the Future brooded over them like a thunder cloud.

     Isolated houses thickened into clusters, streets sprang up, and soon
they were in Southampton.

     The train pulled up at the Embarkation Station, quite close to the
wharf to which some half-dozen steamers were moored.  There was little or
no delay.  The Battalion fell straight into "massed formation," and began
immediately to move on to one of the ships.  The Colonel stood by the
gangway talking to an Embarkation Officer.  Everything was in perfect
readiness, and the Subaltern was soon able to secure a birth.

II - Crossing The Channel On Transports

     There was plenty of excitement on deck while the horses of the
regimental transport were being shipped into the hold.

     To induce "Light Draft," "Heavy Draft" horses and "Officers'
Chargers" - in all some sixty animals - to trust themselves to be lowered
into a dark and evil-smelling cavern, was no easy matter.  Some shied from
the gang-way, neighing; others walked peaceably onto it, and, with a "thus
far and no farther" expression in every line of their bodies, took up a
firm stand, and had to be pushed into the hold with the combined weight of
many men.  Several of the transport section narrowly escaped death and
mutilation at the hands, or rather hoofs, of the Officers' Chargers.
Meanwhile a sentry, with fixed bayonet, was observed watching some
Lascars, who were engaged in getting the transport on board.  It appeared
that the wretched fellows, thinking that they were to be taken to France
and forced to fight the Germans, had deserted to a man on the previous
night, and had had to be routed out of their hiding-places in Southampton.

     Not that such a small thing as that could upset for one moment the
steady progress of the Embarkation of the Army.  It was like a huge,
slow-moving machine; there was a hint of the inexorable in its exactitude.
Nothing had been forgotten - not even eggs for the Officers' breakfast in
the Captain's cabin.

     Meanwhile the other ships were filling up.  By mid-day they began to
slide down the Solent, and guesses were being freely exchanged about the
destination of the little flotilla.  Some said Bolougne, others Calais;
but the general opinion was Havre, though nobody knew for certain, for the
Captain of the ship had not yet opened his sealed orders.  The transports
crept slowly along the coast of the Isle of Wight, but it was not until
evening that the business of crossing the Channel was begun in earnest.

     The day had been lovely, and Officers and men had spent it mostly in
sleeping and smoking upon the deck.  Spirits had risen as the day grew
older.  For at dawn the cheeriest optimist is a pessimist, while at midday
pessimists become optimists.  In the early morning the German Army had
been invincible.  At lunch the Battalion was going to Berlin, on the
biggest holiday of its long life!

     The Subaltern, still suffering from the after-effects of inoculation
against enteric, which had been unfortunately augmented by a premature
indulgence in fruit, and by the inability to rest during the rush of
mobilization, did not spend a very happy night.  The men fared even worse,
for the smell of hot, cramped horses, steaming up from the lower deck, was
almost unbearable.  But their troubles were soon over, for by seven
o'clock the boat was gliding through the crowded docks of Havre.

     Naturally most of the Mess had been in France before, but to Tommy it
was a world undiscovered.  The first impression made on the men was
created by a huge negro working on the docks.  He was greeted with roars
of laughter, and cries of, "Hallo, Jack Johnson!" The red trousers of the
French sentries, too, created a tremendous sensation.  At length the right
landing-stage was reached.  Equipments were thrown on, and the Battalion
was paraded on the dock.

III - Landing In France - Tommies In Havre

     The march through the cobbled streets of Havre rapidly developed into
a fiasco.  This was one of the first, if not the very first, landing of
British Troops in France, and to the French it was a novelty, calling for
a tremendous display of open-armed welcome.  Children rushed from the
houses, and fell upon the men crying for "souvenirs." Ladies pursued them
with basins full of wine and what they were pleased to call beer.  Men
were literally carried from the ranks, under the eyes of their Officers,
and borne in triumph into houses and inns.  What with the heat of the day
and the heaviness of the equipment and the after-effects of the noisome
deck, the men could scarcely be blamed for availing themselves of such
hospitality, though to drink intoxicants on the march is suicidal.  Men
"fell out," first by ones and twos, then by whole half-dozens and dozens.
The Subaltern himself was scarcely strong enough to stagger up the long
hills at the back of the town, let alone worrying about his men.  The
Colonel was aghast, and very furious.  He couldn't understand it.  (He was
riding.)

     The camp was prepared for the troops in a wonderfully complete
fashion - not the least thing seemed to have been forgotten.  The men,
stripped of their boots, coats and equipments, were resting in the shade
of the tents.  A caterer from Havre had come up to supply the Mess, and
the Subaltern was able to procure from him a bottle of rather heady
claret, which, as he was thirsty and exhausted, he consumed too rapidly,
and found himself hopelessly inebriate.  Luckily there was nothing to do,
so he slept for many hours.

     Waking up in the cool of the evening he heard the voices of another
Second-Lieutenant and a reservist Subaltern talking about some people he
knew near his home.  It was good to forget about wars and soldiers, and
everything that filled so amply the present and future, and to lose
himself in pleasant talk of pleasant things at home . . . . The dinner
provided by the French caterer was very French, and altogether the last
sort of meal that a young gentleman suffering from anti-enteric
inoculation ought to have indulged in.  Everything conspired to make him
worse, and what with the heat and the malady, he spent a very miserable
time.

     After about two days' stay, the Battalion moved away from the rest
camp, and, setting out before dawn, marched back through those fatal
streets of Havre, this time deserted in the moonlight, to a sort of shed,
called by the French authorities a troop station.  Here as usual the train
was waiting, and the men had but to be put in.  The carriages could not be
called luxurious; to be frank, they were cattle-trucks.  But it takes more
than that to damp the spirits of Mr. Thomas Atkins.  Cries imitating the
lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep broke out from the trucks!

     The train moved out of the depot, and wended its way in the most
casual manner through the streets of Havre.  This so amused Tommy that he
roared with laughter.  The people who rushed to give the train a send-off,
with many cries of "Vive les Anglais," "A bas les Bosches," were greeted
with more bleatings and brayings.

IV - Quartered In A Belgian Water-Mill

     The journey through France was quite uneventful.  Sleeping or reading
the whole day through, the Subaltern only remembered Rouen, passed at
about midday, and Amiens later in the evening.  The train had paused at
numerous villages on its way, and in every case there had been violent
demonstrations of enthusiasm.  In one case a young lady of prepossessing
appearance had thrust her face through the window, and talked very
excitedly and quite incomprehensibly, until one of the fellows in the
carriage grasped the situation, leant forward, and did honor to the
occasion.  The damsel retired blushing.

     At Amiens various rumors were afloat.  Somebody had heard the Colonel
say the magic word "Liege." Pictures of battles to be fought that very
night thrilled some of them not a little.

     Dawn found the Battalion hungry, shivering and miserable, paraded by
the side of the track, at a little wayside station called Wassigne.  The
train shunted away, leaving the Battalion with a positive feeling of
desolation.  A Staff Officer, rubbing sleep from his eyes, emerged from a
little "estaminet" and gave the Colonel the necessary orders.  During the
march that ensued the Battalion passed through villages where the three
other regiments in the Brigade were billeted.  At length a village called
Iron was reached, and their various billets were allotted to each Company.

     The Subaltern's Company settled down in a huge water-mill; its
Officers being quartered in the miller's private house.

     A wash, a shave and a meal worked wonders.

     And so the journey was finished, and the Battalion found itself at
length in the theater of operations.

     I have tried in this chapter to give some idea of the ease and
smoothness with which this delicate operation of transportation was
carried out.  The Battalions which composed the First Expeditionary Force
had been spread in small groups over the whole length and breadth of
Britain.  They had been mobilized, embarked, piloted across the Channel in
the face of an undefeated enemy fleet, rested, and trained to their
various areas of concentration, to take their place by the side of their
French Allies.

     All this was accomplished without a single hitch, and with a speed
that was astonishing.  When the time comes for the inner history of the
war to be written, no doubt proper praise for these preliminary
arrangements will be given to those who so eminently deserve it.

V - At Madam Mere's - Before The Storm

     Peace reigned for the next five days, the last taste of careless days
that so many of those poor fellows were to have.

     A route march generally occupied the mornings, and a musketry parade
the evenings.  Meanwhile, the men were rapidly accustoming themselves to
the new conditions.  The Officers occupied themselves with polishing up
their French, and getting a hold upon the reservists who had joined the
Battalion on mobilization.

     The French did everything in their power to make the Battalion at
home.  Cider was given to the men in buckets.  The Officers were treated
like the best friends of the families with whom they were billeted.  The
fatted calf was not spared, and this in a land where there were not too
many fatted calves.

     The Company "struck a particularly soft spot." The miller had gone to
the war leaving behind him his wife, his mother and two children.  Nothing
they could do for the five Officers of the Company was too much trouble.
Madame Mere resigned her bedroom to the major and his second in command,
while Madame herself slew the fattest of her chickens and rabbits for the
meals of her hungry Officers.

     The talk that was indulged in must have been interesting, even though
the French was halting and ungrammatical.  Of all the companies' Messes,
this one took the most serious view of the future, and earned for itself
the nickname of "Les Miserables." The Senior Subaltern said openly that
this calm preceded a storm.  The papers they got - Le Petit Parisien and
such like - talked vaguely of a successful offensive on the extreme right:
Mulhouse, it was said, had been taken.  But of the left, of Belgium, there
was silence.  Such ideas as the Subaltern himself had on the strategical
situation were but crude.  The line of battle, he fancied, would stretch
north and south, from Mulhouse to Liege.  If it were true that Liege had
fallen, he thought the left would rest successfully on Namur.  The English
Army, he imagined, was acting as "general reserve," behind the French
line, and would not be employed until the time had arrived to hurl the
last reserve into the melee, at the most critical point.

     And all the while, never a sound of firing, never a sight of the red
and blue of the French uniforms.  The war might have been two hundred
miles away!

     Meanwhile Tommy on his marches was discovering things.  Wonder of
wonders, this curious people called "baccy" tabac!  "And if yer wants a
bit of bread yer awsks for pain, strewth!" He loved to hear the French
gabble to him in their excited way; he never thought that reciprocally his
talk was just as funny.  The French matches earned unprintable names.  But
on the whole he admired sunny France with its squares of golden corn and
vegetables, and when he passed a painted Crucifix with its cluster of
flowering graves, he would say: "Golly, Bill, ain't it pretty?  We oughter
'ave them at 'ome, yer know." And of course he kept on saying what he was
going to do with "Kayser Bill."

     One night after the evening meal, the men of the Company gave a
little concert outside the mill.  The flower-scented twilight was
fragrantly beautiful, and the mill stream gurgled a lullaby accompaniment
as it swept past the trailing grass.  Nor was there any lack of talent.
One reservist, a miner since he had left the army, roared out several
songs concerning the feminine element at the seaside, or voicing an
inquiry as to a gentleman's companion on the previous night.  Then, with
an entire lack of appropriateness, another got up and recited "The Wreck
of the Titanic" in a most touching and dramatic manner.  Followed a song
with a much appreciated chorus -

     "Though your heart may ache awhile,
     Never mind!
     Though your face may lose its smile,
     Never mind!
     For there's sunshine after rain,
     And then gladness follows pain,
     You'll be happy once again,
     Never mind!"

The ditty deals with broken vows, and faithless hearts, and blighted
lives; just the sort of song that Tommy loves to warble after a good meal
in the evening.  It conjured to the Subaltern's eyes the picture of the
dainty little star who had sung it on the boards of the Coliseum.  And to
conclude, Madame's voice, French, and sonorously metallic, was heard in
the dining-room striking up the "Marseillaise." Tommy did not know a word
of it, but he yelled "March on" (a very good translation of "Marchons")
and sang "lar lar" to the rest of the tune.

     Thus passed peacefully enough those five days - the calm before the
storm.