Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER XX

THAT LEAVE TRAIN--MY OLD PAL--LON­DON AND HOME--THE CALL OF THE WILD

One wants to have been at the front, in the nasty parts, to ap­pre­ci­ate ful­ly what get­ting sev­en days' leave feels like. We used to have to be out at the front for three con­sec­utive months be­fore be­ing en­ti­tled to this priv­ilege. I had passed this nec­es­sary ap­pren­tice­ship, and now had ac­tu­al­ly got my leave.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: Leave!!!]

The morn­ing af­ter get­ting my in­struc­tions I rose ear­ly, and packed the few things I was go­ing to take with me. Very few things they were, too. On­ly a pack and a haver­sack, and both con­tained noth­ing but sou­venirs. I de­cid­ed to go to the sta­tion via the or­der­ly room, so that I could do both in one jour­ney. I had about two miles to go from my bil­lets to the or­der­ly room in the vil­lage, and about a mile on from there to the sta­tion. Some one sug­gest­ed my rid­ing--no fear; I was run­ning no risks now. I start­ed off ear­ly with my ser­vant. We took it in shifts with my heavy bags of sou­venirs. One pack­age (the pack) had four “Lit­tle Willie” cas­es in­side, in oth­er words, the cast-​iron shell cas­es for the Ger­man equiv­alent of our 18-pounders. The haver­sack was filled with alu­mini­um fuse tops and one large piece of a “Jack John­son” shell case. My pock­ets--and I had a good num­ber, as I was wear­ing my great­coat--were filled with a va­ri­ety of ob­jects. A pair of lit­tle clogs found in a roof at St. Yvon, sev­er­al clips of Ger­man bul­lets re­moved from equip­ment found on Christ­mas Day, and a col­lec­tion of bul­lets which I had picked out with my pock­et knife from the walls of our house in St. Yvon. The on­ly ad­di­tion­al lug­gage to this in­ven­to­ry I have giv­en was my usu­al co­pi­ous sup­ply of Gold Flake cigarettes, of which, dur­ing my life in France, I must have con­sumed sev­er­al army corps.

It was a glo­ri­ous day--bright, sun­ny, and a faint fresh wind. Ev­ery­thing seemed bright and rosy. I felt I should have liked to skip along the road like a young bay tree--no, that's wrong--like a ram, on­ly I didn't think it would be quite the thing with my ser­vant there (King's Reg­ula­tions: Chap­ter 158, para­graph 96, line 4); be­sides, he wasn't go­ing on leave, so it would have been rather a dirty trick af­ter all.

[Il­lus­tra­tion]

We got to the vil­lage with aching arms and sou­venirs in­tact. I got my pass, and to­geth­er with an­oth­er of­fi­cer we set out for the sta­tion. It was a leave train. Of­fi­cers from all sorts of dif­fer­ent bat­tal­ions were ei­ther in it or go­ing to get in, ei­ther here or at the next stop.

Hav­ing no wish to get that sta­tion in­to trou­ble, or my­self ei­ther, by men­tion­ing its name, I will call it Crême de Men­the. It was the same rot­ten lit­tle place I had ar­rived at. It is on­ly be­cause I am try­ing to sell the “sta­tion-​mas­ter” a copy of this book that I call the place a sta­tion at all. It re­al­ly is a de­com­pos­ing col­lec­tion of half-​heart­ed build­ings and moss-​grown rails, with an apol­ogy for a plat­form at one side.

We caught the train with an hour to spare. You can't miss trains in France: there's too much mar­gin al­lowed on the time-​ta­ble. The 10.15 leaves at 11.30, the 11.45 at 2.20, and so on; be­sides, if you did miss your train, you could al­ways catch it up about two fields away, so there's noth­ing to wor­ry about.

We start­ed. I don't know what time it was.

If you turn up the word “lo­co­mo­tion” in a dic­tio­nary, you will find it means “the act or pow­er of mov­ing from place to place”; from _lo­cus_, a place, and _mo­tion_, the act of mov­ing. Our en­gine had got the _lo­cus_ part all right, but was rather weak about the _mo­tion_. We creaked and squeaked about up the moss-​grown track, and groaned our way back in­to the sta­tion time af­ter time, in or­der to tie on some­thing else be­hind the train, or to get on to a sid­ing to let a train­load of trench floor­boards and plum and ap­ple jan­gle past up the line. When at last we re­al­ly start­ed, it was about at the speed of the “Rock­et” on its tri­al trip.

Our en­thu­si­as­tic “go­ing on leave” ar­dour was severe­ly test­ed, and near­ly broke down be­fore we reached Boulogne, which we did late that night. But get­ting there, and min­gling with the leave-​go­ing crowd which thronged the buf­fet, made up for all trav­el­ling short­com­ings. Ev­ery va­ri­ety of of­fi­cer and army of­fi­cial was rep­re­sent­ed there. There were colonels, ma­jors, cap­tains, lieu­tenants, quan­ti­ties of pri­vate sol­diers, sergeants and cor­po­rals, hos­pi­tal nurs­es and var­ious oth­er peo­ple em­ployed in some war ca­pac­ity or oth­er. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from ev­ery branch of the Army, in fact, whose turn for leave had come.

I left the buf­fet for a mo­ment to go across to the Trans­port Of­fice, and walk­ing along through the throng ran in­to my great­est friend. A most ex­traor­di­nary chance this! I had not the least idea where­abouts in France he was, or when he might be like­ly to get leave. His job was in quite a dif­fer­ent part, many miles from the Dou­ve. I have known him for many years; we were at school to­geth­er, and have al­ways seemed to have the lucky knack of bob­bing up to the sur­face si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with­out pri­or ar­range­ment. This meet­ing sent my spir­its up high­er than ev­er. We both ad­journed to the buf­fet, and talked away about our var­ious ex­pe­ri­ences to the ac­com­pa­ni­ment of cold chick­en and ham. A mer­ry scene tru­ly, that buf­fet--ev­ery one filled with thoughts of Eng­land. Near­ly ev­ery one there must have stepped out of the same sort of mud and dan­ger bath that I had. And, my word! it is a first-​class feel­ing: sit­ting about wait­ing for the boat when you feel you've earned this sev­en days' leave. You hear men on all sides get­ting the last ounce of ap­pre­ci­ation out of the unique sen­sa­tion by say­ing such things as, “Fan­cy those poor blighters, sit­ting in the mud up there; they'll be just about get­ting near 'Stand to' now.”

You rapid­ly dis­miss a mo­men­tary flash in your mind of what it's go­ing to be like in that buf­fet on the re­turn jour­ney.

Ear­ly in the morn­ing, and while it was still dark, we left the har­bour and ploughed out in­to the dark­ness and the sea to­wards Eng­land.

I claim the hon­oured po­si­tion of the world's worst sailor. I have cov­ered sev­er­al thou­sand miles on the sea, “brooked the briny” as far as In­dia and Cana­da. I have been hur­tled about on the largest At­lantic waves; yet I am, and al­ways will re­main, ab­so­lute­ly im­pos­si­ble at sea. Look­ing at the docks out of the ho­tel win­dow near­ly sends me to bed; there's some­thing about a ship that takes the stuff­ing out of me com­plete­ly. Whether it's that hor­ri­ble pale var­nished wood­work, min­gled with the smell of stuffy up­hol­stery, or whether it's that nau­se­at­ing whiff from the open hatch of the en­gine-​room, I don't know; but once on a ship I am as naught ... not nau­ti­cal.

Of course the Chan­nel was go­ing to be rough. I could see that at a glance. I know ex­act­ly what to do about the sea now. I go straight to a bunk, and hope for the best; if no bunk--bribe the stew­ard un­til there is one.

I got a bunk, de­sert­ed my friend in a cheer­less way, and re­tired till the cross­ing was over. It _was_ very rough....

In the cold grey hours we glid­ed in­to Dover or Folke­stone (I was too anaemic to care which) and fas­tened up along­side the wharf. I had a dim rec­ol­lec­tion of get­ting my pal to hold my pack as we left Boulogne, and now I could see nei­ther him nor the pack. Fear­ful crush strug­gling up the gang­way. I had to scram­ble for a seat in the Lon­don train, so couldn't waste time look­ing for my friend. I had my haver­sack--he had my pack.

The train moved off, and now here we all were back in clean, fresh, lux­uri­ous Eng­land, glid­ing along in an En­glish train to­wards Lon­don. It's worth do­ing months and months of trench­es to get that buoy­ant, elec­tri­cal sen­sa­tion of pass­ing along through En­glish coun­try on one's way to Lon­don on leave.

I spent the train jour­ney think­ing over what I should do dur­ing my sev­en days. Time af­ter time I men­tal­ly con­jured up the forth­com­ing per­for­mance of catch­ing the train at Padding­ton and glid­ing out of the shad­ows of the huge sta­tion in­to the sun­lit coun­try be­yond--the rapid ex­press jour­ney down home, the drive out from the sta­tion, back in my own land again!

We got in­to Lon­don in pret­ty quick time, and I rapid­ly con­vert­ed my dreams in­to facts.

Still in the same old trench clothes, with a good­ly quan­ti­ty of Flan­ders mud at­tached, I walked in­to Padding­ton sta­tion, and col­lared a seat in the train on Num­ber 1 plat­form. Then, col­lect­ing a quan­ti­ty of pa­pers and mag­azines from the book­stalls, I pre­pared my­self for en­joy­ing to the full the two hours' jour­ney down home.

I spent a gor­geous week in War­wick­shire, dur­ing which time my friend came along down to stay a cou­ple of days with me, bring­ing my miss­ing pack along with him. He had had the joy of car­ry­ing it laden with shell cas­es across Lon­don, and tak­ing it down with him to some­where near Alder­shot, and fi­nal­ly bring­ing it to me with­out hav­ing kept any of the con­tents ... Such is a true friend.

As this book deals with my wan­der­ings in France I will not go in­to de­tails of my hap­py sev­en days' leave. I now re­sume at the point where I was due to re­turn to France. In spite of the joys of Eng­land as op­posed to life in Flan­ders, yet a cu­ri­ous phe­nomenon pre­sent­ed it­self at the end of my leave. I was anx­ious to get back. Strange, but true. Some­how one felt that slog­ging away out in the dis­mal fields of war was the re­al thing to do. If some one had of­fered me a nice, safe, com­fort­able job in Eng­land, I wouldn't have tak­en it. I claim no cred­it for this feel­ing of mine. I know ev­ery one has the same. That buc­ca­neer­ing, rough and tum­ble life out there has its at­trac­tions. The spir­it of ad­ven­ture is in most peo­ple, and the de­sire and will to biff the Boches is in ev­ery one, so there you are.

I drift­ed back via Lon­don, Dover and Boulogne, and thence up the same old stag­nant line to Crême de Men­the. Once more back in the land of mud, bul­lets, bil­lets, and star shells.

It was the greyest of grey days when I ar­rived at my one-​horse ter­mi­nus. I got out at the “sta­tion,” and had a soli­tary walk along the emp­ty, mud­dy lanes, back to the Trans­port Farm.

Plod­ding along in the thin rain that was falling I thought of home, Lon­don, Eng­land, and then of the job be­fore me. An­oth­er three months at least be­fore any fur­ther chance of leave could come my way again. Evening was com­ing on. Across the flat, som­bre coun­try I could see the tall, sway­ing poplar trees stand­ing near the farm. Be­yond lay the rough and rugged road which led to the Dou­ve trench­es.

How nice that leave had been! To-​mor­row night I should be go­ing along back to the trench­es be­fore Wul­verghem.