Bullets & Billets

CHAPTER II

TOR­TU­OUS TRAV­EL­LING--CLIP­PERS AND TABLETS--DUMPED AT A SID­ING--I JOIN MY BAT­TAL­ION

Not much sleep that night, a sort of fever­ish co­ma in­stead: wild dreams in which I and the gen­darme were at­tack­ing a Ger­man trench, the of­fi­cer in charge of which we found to be the Base Camp Ad­ju­tant af­ter all.

How­ev­er, I got up ear­ly--packed my few be­long­ings in my valise, which had mys­te­ri­ous­ly turned up from the docks, and went off on the tram down to Havre. That hun­dred men I had brought over had noth­ing to do with me now. I was en­tire­ly on my own, and was off to the Front to join my bat­tal­ion. Down at Havre the of­fi­cials at the sta­tion gave me a com­pli­cat­ed yel­low di­agram, known as a trav­el­ling pass, and I got in­to a car­riage in the train bound for Rouen.

I was not alone now; a whole for­est of sec­ond lieu­tenants like my­self were in the same train, and with them a sol­id, con­gealed mass of valis­es, packs, re­volvers and haver­sacks. At last the train start­ed, and af­ter the usu­al hour spent in feel­ing that you have left all the most im­por­tant things be­hind, I set­tled down on a mound of equip­ment and tried to do a bit of a sleep.

So what with sleep­ing, smok­ing and talk­ing, we jolt­ed along un­til we pulled up at Rouen. Here I had to leave the train, for some ob­scure rea­son, in or­der to go to the Palais de Jus­tice to get an­oth­er tick­et. I padded off down over the bridge in­to Rouen, found the Palais, went in and was shown along to an of­fice that dealt in tick­ets.

In this dark and dingy oak-​pan­elled sa­loon, il­lu­mi­nat­ed by elec­tric light and the glit­ter­ing re­flec­tions from gold braid, there lurked a gen­er­al or two. I was here giv­en an­oth­er pass en­ti­tling me to be de­posit­ed at a cer­tain sid­ing in Flan­ders.

Back I went to the sta­tion, and in due course rat­tled off in the train again to­wards the North.

A fear­ful­ly long jour­ney we had, up to the Front! The worst of it was that no­body knew--or, if they did, wouldn't tell you--which way you were go­ing, or how long it would take to get to your des­ti­na­tion. For in­stance, we didn't know we were go­ing to Rouen till we got there; and we didn't know we were go­ing from Rouen to Boulogne un­til, af­ter a night spent in the train, the whole out­fit jolt­ed and jan­gled in­to the Gare de Some­thing, down by the wharf at that salu­bri­ous sea­port.

We spent a com­plete day and part of an evening at Boulogne, as our train did not leave un­til mid­night.

[Il­lus­tra­tion: hav­ing a smoke]

I and an­oth­er chap who was go­ing to the next rail­head to mine at the Front, went off to­geth­er in­to the town and had lunch at a café in the High Street. We then strolled around the shops, buy­ing a few things we need­ed. Not very at­trac­tive things ei­ther, but I'll men­tion them here to show how we thought and felt.

We first went to a “phar­ma­cie” and got some box­es of mor­phia tablets, af­ter which we went to an iron­mon­ger's (don't know the French for it) and each bought a pon­der­ous pair of barbed wire cut­ters. So what with wire clip­pers and mor­phia tablets, we _were_ gay. About four o'clock we calmed down a bit, and went to the same restau­rant where we had lunched.

Here we had tea with a cou­ple of French girls, ex­ceed­ing good to look up­on, who had ap­par­ent­ly es­caped from Lille. We got on splen­did­ly with them till a cou­ple of French of­fi­cers, one with the Le­gion of Hon­our, came along to the next ta­ble. That took all the shine out of us, so we de­ter­mined to quit, and cleared off to the Ho­tel de Folke­stone, where we had a bath to con­sole us. Din­ner fol­lowed, and then, feel­ing par­tic­ular­ly hi­lar­ious, I made my will. Not the ap­proved will of fam­ily lawyer style, but just a let­ter an­nounc­ing, in bald and harsh terms that, in the event of my re­main­ing per­ma­nent­ly in Bel­gium, I want­ed my to­tal small world­ly wealth to be dis­posed of in a cer­tain way.

Felt bet­ter af­ter this out­burst, and, re­join­ing my pal, we went off in­to the town again and by easy stages reached the train.

At about one a.m. the train start­ed, and we creaked and groaned our way out of Boulogne. We were now re­al­ly off for the Front, and the sit­ua­tion, con­se­quent­ly, be­came more ex­cit­ing. We were slow­ly get­ting near­er and near­er to the re­al thing. But what a train! It drib­bled and rum­bled along at about five miles an hour, and, I ver­ily be­lieve, stopped at ev­ery farm­house with­in sight of the line. I could not help think­ing that the en­gine driv­er was a Ger­man in dis­guise, who was try­ing to pre­vent our ev­er ar­riv­ing at our des­ti­na­tion. I tried to sleep, but each time the train pulled up, I woke with a start and thought that we'd got there. This went on for many hours, and as I knew we must be get­ting some­where near, my dreams be­came worse and worse.

I some­how be­gan to think that the en­gine driv­er was be­com­ing cau­tious--(he was a French­man again)--thought that, per­haps, he had to get down oc­ca­sion­al­ly and walk ahead a bit to see if it was safe to go on.

No­body in the train had the least idea where the Front was, how far off, or what it was like. For all we knew, our train might be go­ing right up in­to the rear of the front line trench­es. Some­where round 6 a.m. I reached my sid­ing. All the oth­ers, ex­cept my­self and one oth­er, had got out at pre­vi­ous halts. I got down from the car­riage on to the cin­der track, and went along the line to the sta­tion. No­body about ex­cept a few French­men, so I went back to the car­riage again, and sat look­ing out through the dimmed win­dow at the rain-​soaked flat coun­try. The oth­er fel­low with me was do­ing the same. A sud­den, pro­found de­pres­sion came over me. Here was I and this oth­er cove dumped down at this hor­ri­ble sid­ing; noth­ing to eat, and no­body to meet us. How rude and cal­lous of some­one, or some­thing. I looked at my watch; it had stopped, and on try­ing to wind it I found it was bro­ken.

I stared out of the win­dow again; gave that up, and stared at the op­po­site seat. Sud­den­ly my eye caught some­thing shiny un­der the seat. I stooped and picked it up; it was a watch! I have al­ways looked up­on this episode as an omen of some sort; but of what sort I can't quite make out. Find­ing a watch means find­ing “Time”--per­haps it meant I would find time to write this book; on the oth­er hand it may have meant that my time had come--who knows?

At about eight o'clock by my new watch I again made an at­tack on the sta­tion, and at last found the R.T.O., which, be­ing in­ter­pret­ed, means the Rail­way Trans­port Of­fi­cer. He told me where my bat­tal­ion was to be found; but didn't know whether they were in the trench­es or out. He al­so added that if he were me he wouldn't hur­ry about go­ing there, as I could prob­ably get a lift in an A.S.C. wag­on lat­er on. I took his ad­vice, and hav­ing left all my tack­le by his of­fice, went in­to the near­est es­taminet to get some break­fast. The own­er, a ge­nial but gar­ru­lous lit­tle French­man, spent quite a lot of time ex­plain­ing to me how those hate­ful peo­ple, the Boches, had oc­cu­pied his house not so long be­fore, and had punched a hole in his kitchen wall to use a ma­chine-​gun through. Af­ter break­fast I went to the sta­tion and ar­ranged for my bag­gage to be sent on by an A.S.C. wag­on, and then start­ed out to walk to Nieppe, which I learnt was the place where my bat­tal­ion bil­let­ed. As I plod­ded along the mud­dy road in the pour­ing rain, I be­came aware of a sound with which I was af­ter­wards to be­come hor­ri­bly fa­mil­iar.

“Boom!” That was all; but I knew it was the voice of the guns, and in that mo­ment I re­al­ized that here was the war, and that I was in it.

I ploughed along for about four miles down un­in­ter­est­ing mud canals--known on maps as roads--un­til, fi­nal­ly, I en­tered Nieppe.

The bat­tal­ion, I heard from a pass­ing sol­dier, was hav­ing its last day in bil­lets pri­or to go­ing in­to the trench­es again. They were bil­let­ed at a dis­used brew­ery at the oth­er end of the town. I went on down the squalid street and fi­nal­ly found the place.

A crowd of dirty, war-​worn look­ing sol­diers were clus­tered about the en­trance in groups. I went in through the large arch­way past them in­to the brew­ery yard. Sol­diers ev­ery­where, rest­ing, talk­ing and smok­ing. I in­quired where the of­fi­cers' quar­ters were, and was shown to the brew­ery head of­fice. Here I found the bat­tal­ion of­fi­cers, many of whom I knew, and went in­to their im­pro­vised mess­room, which, in pre­vi­ous days, had ap­par­ent­ly been the Brew­ery Board room.

I found ev­ery­thing very dark, dingy and de­press­ing. That night the bat­tal­ion was go­ing in­to the trench­es again, and last evenings in bil­lets are not gen­er­al­ly very ex­hil­arat­ing. I sat and talked with those I knew, and present­ly the Colonel came in, and I heard what the or­ders were for the evening. I felt very strange and for­eign to it all, as ev­ery­one ex­cept my­self had had their bap­tism of trench life, and, con­se­quent­ly, at this time I did not pos­sess that calm in­dif­fer­ence, bred of painful ex­pe­ri­ence, which is part of the essence of a true trench-​dweller.

The evening drew on. We had our last meal in bil­lets--sar­dines, bread, but­ter and cake sort of thing--slung on to the bare ta­ble by the sol­dier ser­vants, who were more en­grossed in pack­ing up things they were tak­ing to the trench­es than in any­thing else.

And now the time came to start off. I found the ma­chine-​gun sec­tion in charge of a sergeant, a most ex­cel­lent fel­low, who had looked af­ter the sec­tion since the of­fi­cer (whose place I had come to fill) had been wound­ed. I took over from him, and, as the bat­tal­ion moved off along the road, fell in be­hind with my lat­est ac­qui­si­tion--a ma­chine-​gun sec­tion, with ma­chine guns to match. It was quite dusk now, and as we neared the great Bois de Ploeg­stert, known all over the world as “Plugstreet Wood,” it was near­ly night. The road was get­ting rougher, and the hous­es, dot­ted about in dark sil­hou­ettes against the sky-​line, had a cu­ri­ous­ly de­sert­ed and worn ap­pear­ance. Ev­ery­thing was look­ing dark, damp and drear.

On we went down the road through the wood, stum­bling along in the dark­ness over the shell-​pit­ted track. Weird nois­es oc­ca­sion­al­ly float­ed through the trees; the faint “crack” of a ri­fle, or the rum­ble of lim­ber wheels. A dis­tant light flick­ered mo­men­tar­ily in the air, cut­ting out in bold re­lief the ru­ins of the shat­tered chateau on our left. On we went through this scene of dark and hu­mid des­ola­tion, past the oc­ca­sion­al mounds of for­mer habi­ta­tions, on in­to the trench­es be­fore Plugstreet Wood.