Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER XXVIII

WE MARCH FOR YPRES--HALT AT LOCRE--A BLEAK CAMP AND MEA­GRE FARE--SIGNS OF BAT­TLE--FIRST VIEW OF YPRES

We marched off in the Bailleul di­rec­tion, and ere long en­tered Bailleul. We didn't stop, but went straight on up the road, out of the town, past the Asy­lum with the baths. It was get­ting dusk now as we tramped along.

“The road to Locre,” I mut­tered to my­self, as I saw the di­rec­tion we had tak­en. We were ev­ident­ly not go­ing to the place we had been re­hears­ing for.

“Locre? Ah, yes; and what's be­yond Locre?” I pulled out my map as we went along. “What's on be­yond Locre?” I saw it at a glance now, and had all my sus­pi­cions con­firmed. The word YPRES stood out in blaz­ing let­ters from the map. Ypres it was go­ing to be, sure enough.

“It looks like Ypres,” I said, turn­ing to my sergeant, who was silent­ly trudg­ing along be­hind me. He came up lev­el with me, and I showed him the map and the di­rec­tion we were tak­ing. I was mighty keen to see this fa­mous spot. Sto­ries of fa­mous fights in that great salient were com­mon talk amongst us, and had been for a long time. The won­der­ful de­fence of Ypres against the hordes of Ger­mans in the pre­vi­ous Oc­to­ber had filled our lines of trench­es with pride and su­pe­ri­or­ity, but no won­der­ment. Ev­ery one re­gard­ed Ypres as a stren­uous spot, but ev­ery one se­cret­ly want­ed to go there and see it for them­selves. I felt sure we were now bound for there, or any­way, some­where not far off. We tramped along in the grow­ing dark­ness, up the wind­ing dusty road to Locre. When we ar­rived there it was quite dark. The bat­tal­ion marched right up in­to the sort of vil­lage square near the church and halt­ed. It was late now, and ap­par­ent­ly not nec­es­sary for us to pro­ceed fur­ther that night. We got or­ders to get bil­lets for our men. Locre is not a large place, and fit­ting a whole bat­tal­ion in is none too easy an un­der­tak­ing. I was stand­ing about a hun­dred yards down the road lead­ing from the church, de­cid­ing what to do, when I got or­ders to bil­let my men in the church. I marched the sec­tion in­to a field, got my sergeant, and went to see what could be done in the church. It was a queer sight, this church; a com­pa­ny of ours had had or­ders to bil­let there too, and when I got there the men were al­ready tak­ing off their equip­ment and mak­ing them­selves as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble un­der the cir­cum­stances, in the main body of the church. The French cler­gy had for some time grant­ed per­mis­sion for bil­let­ing there; I found this out the next morn­ing, when I saw a par­ty of nuns clean­ing it up as much as pos­si­ble af­ter we had left it. The on­ly part I could see where I could find a rest for my men was the part where the choir sits. I de­cid­ed on this for our use, and told the sergeant to get the men along, and move the chairs away so as to get a large enough space for them to lie down in and rest.

It was a weird scene, that night in the church. Imag­ine a very lofty build­ing, and the on­ly light in the place com­ing from var­ious bits of can­dles stuck about here and there on the backs of the chairs. All was dark and drear, if you like: a fit­ting set­ting for our en­try in­to the Ypres salient. When I had fixed up my sec­tion all right, I left the church and went to look about for the place I was sup­posed to sleep in. It turned out to be a room at the house oc­cu­pied by the Colonel. I got in just in time to have a bit of a meal be­fore the ser­vants cleared the things away to get ready for the ear­ly start the next day. I spent that night in my great­coat on the stone floor of the room, and not much of a night at that. We were all up and pa­rad­ed at six, and ready to move off. We soon start­ed and trekked off down the road out of Locre to­wards Ypres. I no­ticed a great change in the scenery now. The land was flat­ter and al­to­geth­er more un­in­ter­est­ing than the parts we had come from. The weath­er was fine and hot, which made our march hard­er for us. We were all strapped up to the eyes with equip­ment of ev­ery de­scrip­tion, so that we ful­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed the short pe­ri­od­ic rests when they came. The road got less and less at­trac­tive as we went on, added to which a hor­ri­ble gusty wind was blow­ing the dust along to­wards us, too, which made it worse. It was a most cheer­less, bar­ren, arid waste through which we were now pass­ing. I won­dered why the Bel­gians hadn't giv­en it away long ago, and thus saved any fur­ther dis­pute on the mat­ter. We were now mak­ing for Vlamert­inghe, which is a place about half-​way be­tween Locre and Ypres, and we all felt sure enough now that Ypres was where we were go­ing; be­sides, passers-​by gave some of us a tip or two, and ru­mours were cur­rent that there was a bit of a both­er on in the salient. Still, there was noth­ing told us def­inite­ly, and on we went, up the dusty, un­in­ter­est­ing road. Some­where about mid­day we halt­ed along­side an im­mense grass­less field, on which were in­nu­mer­able wood­en huts of the sim­plest and most unattrac­tive con­struc­tion. The dust whirled and swirled around them, mak­ing the whole place look as un­invit­ing as pos­si­ble. It was the rotten­est and least en­cour­ag­ing camp I have ev­er seen. I've seen a few mon­strosi­ties in the camp line in Eng­land, and in France, but this was far and away a cham­pi­on in re­pul­sion. We halt­ed op­po­site this place, as I have said, and in a few mo­ments were all marched in­to the cen­tral, baked-​mud square, in the midst of the huts. I have since learnt that this camp is no more, so I don't mind men­tion­ing it. We were now dis­missed, where­upon we all col­lared huts for our men and our­selves, and sat down to rest.

We had had a very ear­ly and scratch sort of a break­fast, so were rather keen to get at the lunch ques­tion. The lim­bers were the last things to turn up, be­ing in the rear of the bat­tal­ion, but when they did the cooks soon pulled the nec­es­sary things out and pro­ceed­ed to knock up a meal.

I went out­side my hut and sur­veyed the scene whilst they got the lunch ready. It _was_ a rot­ten place. The huts hadn't got any sides to them, but were made by two slopes of wood fixed at the top, and had tri­an­gu­lar ends. There were just a few huts built with sides, but not many. Apart from the huts the desert con­tained noth­ing ex­cept men in war-​worn, dirty kha­ki, and clouds of dust. It re­mind­ed me very much of In­dia, as I re­mem­bered it from my child­hood days. The land all around this mud plain was flat and scrub­by, with noth­ing of in­ter­est to look at any­where. But, yes, there was--just one thing. Away to the north, I could just see the top of the tow­ers of Ypres.

I won­dered how long we were go­ing to stay in this Sa­hara, and turned back in­to the hut again. Two or three of us were rest­ing on a lit­tle scanty straw in that hut, and now, as we guessed that it was about the time when the cooks would have got the lunch ready, we crossed to an­oth­er larg­er hut, where a long bare wood­en ta­ble was laid out for us. With sore eyes and a parched throat I sat down and de­voured two chilly sar­dines, repos­ing on a wa­ter bis­cuit, drank about a cou­ple of gal­lons of wa­ter, and felt bet­ter. There wasn't much con­ver­sa­tion at that meal; we were all too busy think­ing. Be­sides, the C.O. was get­ting mes­sages all the time, and was im­mersed in the study of a large map, so we thought we had bet­ter keep qui­et.

Our Colonel was a splen­did per­son, as good a one as any bat­tal­ion could wish to have. (He's sure to buy a copy of this book af­ter that.) He was with the reg­iment all through that 1914-15 win­ter, and is now a Brigadier.

We had made all prepa­ra­tions to stay in the huts at that place for the night, when, at about four o'clock in the af­ter­noon, an­oth­er mes­sage ar­rived and was hand­ed to the C.O.

He is­sued his or­ders. We were to march off at once. Ev­ery one was de­light­ed, as the place was unattrac­tive, and what's more, now that we were on the war-​path, we want­ed to get on with the job, what­ev­er it was.

Now we were on the road once more, and march­ing on to­wards Ypres. The whole brigade was on the road some­where, some bat­tal­ions in front of us and some be­hind. On we went through the driv­ing dust and dis­mal scenery, mak­ing, I could clear­ly see, for Ypres. We ticked off the miles at a good steady march­ing pace, and in course of time turned out of our long, dusty, wind­ing lane on to a wide cob­bled main road, lead­ing ev­ident­ly in­to the town of Ypres it­self, now about two miles ahead. It was a fine sight, look­ing back down the wind­ing col­umn of men. A long line of stur­dy, bronzed men, in dust-​cov­ered kha­ki, tramp­ing over the grey cob­bled road, singing and whistling at in­ter­vals; the rat­tling and click­ing of the var­ious metal­lic parts of their equip­ment form­ing a kind of low ac­com­pa­ni­ment to their songs. We halt­ed about a mile out of the city, and all “fell out” on the side of the road, and sat about on heaps of stones or on the bank of the ditch at the road-​side. It was easy enough to see now where we were go­ing, and what was up. There was ev­ident­ly a se­vere “scrap” on. Par­ties of bat­tered, di­shev­elled look­ing men, be­long­ing to a va­ri­ety of reg­iments, were now stream­ing past down the road--many French-​African sol­diers amongst them. From these we learnt that a tremen­dous at­tack was in progress, but got no de­tails. Their sto­ries re­ceived cor­rob­ora­tion by the fact that we could see many shells burst­ing in and around the city of Ypres. These va­grant men were wound­ed in a de­gree, inas­much as most of them had been un­der­go­ing some prodi­gious bom­bard­ment and were dazed from shell-​shock. They cheered us with the usu­al ex­ag­ger­at­ed and har­row­ing yarns com­mon to such peo­ple, and passed on. This was what we had come here for--to par­tic­ipate in this busi­ness; not very nice, but we were all “for it,” any­way. If we hadn't come here, we would have been at­tack­ing at that oth­er place, and this was miles more in­ter­est­ing. If one has ev­er par­tic­ipat­ed in an af­fair of arms at Ypres, it gives one a sort of hon­ourable trade-​mark for the rest of the war as a mem­ber of the ac­cept­ed suc­cess­ful Mata­dors of the Flan­ders Bull-​ring.

We sat about at the side of the road for about half an hour, then got the or­der to fall in again. Stiff and weary, I left my heap of stones, took my place at the head of the sec­tion, and pre­pared for the next act. On we went again down the cob­bled road, crossed a com­pli­cat­ed mix­ture of or­di­nary rails and tram-​lines, and struck off up a nar­row road to the left, which ap­par­ent­ly al­so end­ed in the city. It was now evening, the sky was grey and cloudy. Ypres, on­ly half a mile away, now loomed up dark and grey against the sky-​line. Shells were falling in the city, with great hol­low sound­ing crash­es. We marched on up the road.