Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER I

LAND­ING AT HAVRE--TOR­TONI'S--FOL­LOW THE TRAM LINES--OR­DERS FOR THE FRONT

[Il­lus­tra­tion: G]

Glid­ing up the Seine, on a trans­port crammed to the lid with troops, in the still, cold hours of a Novem­ber morn­ing, was my de­but in­to the war. It was about 6 a.m. when our boat silent­ly slipped along past the great wood­en sheds, posts and com­pli­ca­tions of Havre Har­bour. I had spent most of the twelve-​hour trip down some­where in the depths of the ship, deal­ing out ra­tions to the hun­dred men that I had brought with me from Ply­mouth. This sounds a com­par­ative­ly sim­ple pro­cess, but not a bit of it. To be­gin with, the ship was filled with troops to burst­ing point, and the mere mat­ter of pro­ceed­ing from one deck to an­oth­er was about as dif­fi­cult as try­ing to get round to see a friend at the oth­er side of the ground at a Crys­tal Palace Cup fi­nal.

I stood in a queue of Gor­dons, Seaforths, Worces­ters, etc., slow­ly mov­ing up one, un­til, fi­nal­ly ar­riv­ing at the com­pan­ion (near­ly said stair­case), I to­bog­ganed down in­to the hold, and spent what was left of the night deal­ing out those ra­tions. Hav­ing fin­ished at last, I came to the sur­face again, and now, as the trans­port glid­ed along through the dirty wa­ters of the riv­er, and as I gazed at the mot­ley col­lec­tion of French­men on the var­ious wharves, and saw a va­ri­ety of sol­diery, and a host of oth­er war­like “props,” I felt acute­ly that now I was _in_ the war at last--the re­al thing! For some time I had been re­hears­ing in Eng­land; but that was over now, and here I was--in the com­mon or gar­den ver­nac­ular--“in the soup.”

At last we were along­side, and in due course I had col­lect­ed that hun­dred men of mine, and found that the num­ber was still a hun­dred, af­ter which I land­ed with the rest, re­ceived in­struc­tions and a guide, then start­ed off for the Base Camps.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: “Ra­tions”]

These Camps were about three miles out of Havre, and thith­er the whole con­tents of the ship marched in one long col­umn, ac­com­pa­nied on ei­ther side by a crowd of ragged lit­tle boys shout­ing for sou­venirs and bis­cuits. I and my hun­dred men were near the rear of the pro­ces­sion, and in about an hour's time ar­rived at the Base Camps.

I don't know that it is pos­si­ble to con­struct any­thing more atro­cious­ly hideous or un­in­ter­est­ing than a Base Camp. It con­sists, in mil­itary par­lance, of noth­ing more than:--

Fields, grass­less 1 Tents, bell 500

In fact, a huge space, once a field, now a bog, on which are perched rows and rows of squalid tents.

I stum­bled along over the mud with my troupe, and hav­ing found the Ad­ju­tant, af­ter a con­sid­er­able search, thought that my task was over, and that I could slink off in­to some odd tent or oth­er and get a sleep and a rest. Oh no!--the Ad­ju­tant had on­ly ex­pect­ed fifty men, and here was I with a hun­dred.

Con­ster­na­tion! Two hours' tele­phon­ing and in­tri­cate back-​chat with the Ad­ju­tant even­tu­al­ly led to my be­ing or­dered to leave the ex­pect­ed fifty and take the oth­ers to an­oth­er Base Camp hard by, and see if they would like to have them there.

The ri­val Base Camp ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to have this oth­er fifty, so at last I had fin­ished, and hav­ing found an emp­ty tent, lay down on the ground, with my great­coat for a pil­low and went to sleep.

I awoke at about three in the af­ter­noon, got hold of a buck­et of wa­ter and pro­ceed­ed to have a wash. Hav­ing shaved, washed, brushed my hair, and had a look at the gen­er­al ef­fect in the pol­ished back of my cigarette case (all my kit was still at the docks), I emerged from my can­vas cave and start­ed off to have a look round.

I soon dis­cov­ered a small café down the road, and found it was a place used by sev­er­al of the of­fi­cers who, like my­self, were tem­porar­ily dumped at the Camps. I went in and got some­thing to eat. Quite a good lit­tle place up­stairs there was, where one could get break­fast each morn­ing: just cof­fee, eggs, and bread sort of thing. By great luck I met a pal of mine here; he had come over in a boat pre­vi­ous to mine, and af­ter we had had a bit of a re­fresh­er and a smoke we de­cid­ed to go off down to Havre and see the sights.

A tram passed along in front of this café, and this we board­ed. It took about half an hour get­ting down to Havre from Bléville where the Camps were, but it was worth it.

Tor­toni's Café, a place that we looked up­on as the last link with civ­iliza­tion: Tor­toni's, with its blaze of light, look­ing-​glass and gold paint--its pop­ping corks and hur­ry­ing wait­ers--made a deep and pleas­ant in­dent on one's mind, for “to-​mor­row” meant “the Front” for most of those who sat there.

As we sat in the midst of that kalei­do­scop­ic pic­ture, formed of French, Bel­gian and En­glish uni­forms, in­ter­min­gled with the var­ied and gaudy robes of the lo­cal nymphs; as we mused in the midst of dense clouds of to­bac­co smoke, we could not help re­flect­ing that this _might_ be the last time we should look on such scenes of rev­el­ry, and came to the con­clu­sion that the on­ly thing to do was to make the most of it while we had the chance. And, by Gad, we did....

A lit­tle af­ter mid­night I part­ed from my com­pan­ion and start­ed off to get back to that Base Camp of mine.

Stand­ing in the main square of the town, I re­al­ized a few points which tend­ed to take the edge off the suc­cess of the evening:

No. 1.--It was too late to get a tram.

No. 2.--All the taxis had dis­ap­peared.

No. 3.--It was pour­ing with rain.

No. 4.--I had three miles to go.

I start­ed off to walk it--but had I known what that walk was go­ing to be, I would have but­toned my­self round a lamp-​post and stayed where I was.

I made that fa­tal mis­take of think­ing that I knew the way.

Lean­ing at an an­gle of forty-​five de­grees against the driv­ing rain, I stag­gered along the tram lines past the Casi­no, and feel­ing con­vinced that the tram lines must be cor­rect, de­ter­mined to fol­low them.

Af­ter about half an hour's walk, most­ly up­hill, I be­came rather sus­pi­cious as to the road be­ing quite right.

See­ing a sen­try-​box out­side a pala­tial ed­ifice on the right, I tacked across the road and looked for the sen­try.

A lurid thing in gen­darmes ad­vanced up­on me, and I let off one of my cur­tailed French sen­tences at him:

“Pour Bléville, Mon­sieur?”

I can't give his an­swer in French, but be­ing in­ter­pret­ed I think it meant that I was com­plete­ly on the wrong road, and that he wasn't cer­tain as to how I could ev­er get back on it with­out re­turn­ing to Havre and start­ing again.

He pro­duced an en­ve­lope, made an un­in­tel­li­gi­ble sketch on the back of it, and start­ed me off again down the way I had come.

I re­al­ized what my mis­take had been. There was ev­ident­ly a branch tram line, which I had fol­lowed, and this I thought could on­ly have branched off near the Casi­no, so back I went to the Casi­no and start­ed again.

I was right about the branch line, and start­ed mer­ri­ly off again, tak­ing as I thought the main line to Bléville.

Af­ter an­oth­er half-​hour of this, with eyes fever­ish­ly search­ing for rec­og­niz­able land­marks, I again be­gan to have doubts as to the ve­rac­ity of the tram lines. How­ev­er, pre­tend­ing that I placed their hon­esty be­yond all doubt, I plod­ded on; but round a cor­ner, found the out­look so un­fa­mil­iar that I de­ter­mined to ask again. Not a soul about. Present­ly I dis­cov­ered a small house, stand­ing back off the road and show­ing a thin slit of light above the shut­ters of a down­stairs win­dow. I tapped on the glass. A sound as of some­one hur­ried­ly try­ing to hide a pile of cov­er­less um­brel­las in a cup­board was fol­lowed by the open­ing of the win­dow, and a bristling head was sil­hou­et­ted against the light.

I squeezed out the same old sen­tence:

“Pour Bléville, Mon­sieur?”

A fear­ful cataract of un­in­tel­li­gi­ble words burst from the head, but left me al­most as much in the dark as ev­er, though with a faint glim­mer­ing that I was “warmer.” I felt that if I went back about a mile and turned to the left, all would be well.

I thanked the gol­ly­wog in the win­dow, who, some­how or oth­er, I think must have been a print­er work­ing late, and start­ed off once more.

Af­ter an­oth­er hour's route march I came to some scat­tered hous­es, and fi­nal­ly to a vil­lage. I was in­dig­nant­ly star­ing at a house when sud­den­ly, joy!--I re­al­ized that what I was look­ing at was an un­fa­mil­iar view of the café where I had break­fast­ed ear­li­er in the day.

An­oth­er ten min­utes and I reached the Camp. Time now 2.30 a.m. I thought I would just take a look in at the Or­der­ly Room tent to see if there were any or­ders in for me. It was lucky I did. In­side I found an or­der­ly asleep in a blan­ket, and woke him.

“Any­thing in for me?” I asked. “Bairns­fa­ther's my name.”

“Yes, sir, there is,” came through the blan­ket, and get­ting up he went to the ta­ble at the oth­er end of the tent. He sleep­ily hand­ed me the wire: “Lieu­tenant Bairns­fa­ther to pro­ceed to join his bat­tal­ion as ma­chine-​gun of­fi­cer....”

“What time do I have to push off?” I in­quired.

“By the eight o'clock from Havre to-​mor­row, sir.”

Time now 3 a.m. To-​mor­row--THE FRONT! And then I crept in­to my tent and tried to sleep.