The Soul of the War. Philip Gibbs
were only allowed on the rare trains which ran without notice at any hour of the day or night, at the discretion of military officers, according to the temporary freedom of the line from troop trains and supply trains. Those tourist crowds suffered intolerable things, which I shared with them, though I was a different kind of traveller. I remember one such scene at Dijon, typical of many others. Because only one train was starting on that day to the capital, and the time of it was utterly unknown to the railway officials, three or four hundred people had to wait hour after hour, for half a night, penned up in a waiting-room, which became foul with the breath and heat of so many people. In vain did they appeal to be let out on to the platform where there would be more air and space. A sentry with fixed bayonet stood with his back to them and barred the way. Old ladies sat down in despair on their baggage, wedged between legs straddled across their bags. A delicate woman near me swooned in the stifling atmosphere. I had watched her grow whiter and whiter and heard the faintness of her sighs, so that when she swayed I grasped her by the arm and held her up until her husband relieved me of her weight. A Frenchwoman had a baby at her breast. It cried with an unceasing wail. Other babies were crying; and young girls, with sensitive nerves, were exasperated by this wailing misery and the sickening smell which pervaded this closed room.
When the train came in, the door was opened and there was a wild rush for the carriages, without the English watchword of "women and children first." Thrust on one side by sharp elbows, I and my two friends struggled at last into the corridor, and for nineteen hours sat there on the sharp edges of our upturned trunks, fixed rigidly between the bodies of other travellers. To the left of us was a French peasant, a big, quiet man, with a bovine gift of patience and utterly taciturn. After the first five minutes I suspected that somewhere concealed about his person was a ripe cheese. There was a real terror in the malodorous vapours which exhaled from him. In a stealthy way they crept down the length of the corridor, so that other people, far away, flung open windows and thrust out heads, in spite of the night air with a bite of frost in it. I dozed uneasily with horrid dreams as I sat on three inches of hard box, with my head jogging sideways. Always I was conscious of the evil smell about me, but when the peasant was still I was able to suffer' it, because of sheer weariness, which deadened my senses. It was when he moved, disturbing invisible layers of air, that I awakened horribly.
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For the nice people of the world whom fate had pampered, there was a cruelty in this mode of travel. Hunger, with its sharp tooth, assailed some of them for the first time. We stopped at wayside stations—still more often between the stations—but American millionaires and English aristocrats were stupefied to find that not all their money could buy a sandwich. Most of the buffets had been cleaned out by the army passing to the front. Thirst, intolerable and choking, was a greater pain in those hot dog-days and in those tedious interminable journeys.
Yet it is only fair to say that on the whole those tourists chased across the Continent by the advancing spectre of war, behaved with pluck and patience. Some of them had suffered grievous loss. From Bale and Geneva to Paris and Boulogne the railways were littered with their abandoned luggage, too bulky to be loaded into overcrowded trains. On the roads of France were broken-down motor-cars which had cost large sums of money in New York and London. But because war's stupendous evil makes all other things seem trivial, and the gifts of liberty and life are more precious than wealth or luxury, so these rich folk in misfortune fraternized cheerfully in the discussion of their strange adventures and shared the last drop of hot tea in a Thermos flask with the generous instincts of shipwrecked people dividing their rations on a desert isle.
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This flight of the pleasure-seekers was the first revelation of the way in which war would hurt the non-combatant and sacrifice his business or his comfort to its supreme purpose. Fame was merely foolishness when caught in the trap of martial law. I saw a man of European reputation flourish his card before railway officials, to be thrust back by the butt end of a rifle, No money could buy a seat in a railway carriage already crowded to suffocation. No threat to write a letter to the Times would avail an old-fashioned Englishman when his train was shunted for hours on to a side line to make way for troop trains, passing, passing, through the day and night. Nations were at war, and whatever stood in the way of the war's machine would be trampled underfoot or thrust on one side with brutal indifference. Their fame did not matter nor their struggles to escape from a closing net. Neither the beauty of women nor the weakness of children nor the importance of the world's great somebodies mattered a jot. Nothing mattered except fighting-men, and guns, and food for guns and men.
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The French soldiers who were being sent towards the unknown front—not knowing their own destination and forbidden to ask—had recovered from the shock of the sudden call to the colours and the tragedy of their hurried partings from wives, and sweethearts, and old mothers, who are always dearest to Frenchmen's hearts. The thrill of a nation's excitement brought a sparkle to their eyes and a flush to their cheeks. The inherent gaiety of the French race rose triumphant above the gloom and doubt which had preceded the declaration of war. Would they never tire of singing the Marseillaise? Would all this laughter which came in gusts through the open doors of cattle trucks and the windows of third-class carriages change into the moan of the wounded at their journey's end? It was hard to look forward to that inevitable fate as I watched them pass. They had tied flowers to the handles of their trains and twisted garlands round the bars. There were posies in their kepis, and bouquets were pinned by the plump hands of peasant girls to the jackets of the soldiers of the line, gunners, cuirassiers, dragoons, and fusiliers marins. Between the chorus of the Marseillaise came snatches of songs learnt in the cabarets of Montmartre and the cafés chantants of provincial towns. They swarmed like bees—in blue coats and red trousers—upon those enormous troop trains which passed through Gournai and Pontoise, Rouen and Amiens. Rows of them, grinning down under peaks at freakish angles, dangled their legs over as they squatted on the roofs of the wooden trucks. They hung on to the iron ladders of the guards' vans. Sometimes six of them would be installed on the ledge behind the funnel of the engine, with their russet faces to the wind. In the argot of Paris slums, or in the dialects of seaport towns, they hurled chaff at comrades waiting on the platforms with stacked arms, and made outrageous love to girls who ran by the side of their trains with laughing eyes and saucy tongues and a last farewell of "Bonne chance, mes petits! Bonne chance et toujours la victoire!" At every wayside halt artists were at work with white chalk drawing grotesque faces on the carriage doors below which they scrawled inscriptions referring to the death of "William," and banquets in Berlin, and invitations for free trips to the Rhine. In exchange for a few English cigarettes, too few for such trainloads, they gave me ovations of enthusiasm, as though I stood for England.
"Vive l'Angleterre! Vos soldats, ou sont ils, camarade?" Where were the English soldiers? It was always that question which sprang to their lips. But for a little while I could not answer. It was strange. There was no news of the crossing of the Expeditionary Force to France. In the French and English newspapers no word was said about any British soldiers on French soil. Was there some unaccountable delay, or were we fulfilling our bond privately, a great drama being played behind the scenes, like the secret war?
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Then just for a moment the veil was lifted and Lord Kitchener allowed the British people to know that their soldiers had landed on the other side. Even then we who knew more than that were not allowed to mention the places to which they had gone. Never mind. They were here. We heard quite suddenly the familiar accents of English Tommies in provincial towns of France, and came unexpectedly upon khalfi-clad battalions marching and singing along the country roads. For the first time there rang out in France the foolish ballad which has become by a queer freak the war song of the British Army: "It's a long way to Tipperary," learnt with comical accent by French peasants and French girls, who, in those early days, in the first fine thrill of enthusiasm, sang it emotionally as though it were a hymn, holding all their love for England, all their hope of England's help, all their admiration of these clean-shaven boys going to war in France in a sporting spirit as though it were a great game. I went back to Paris for a day when General French arrived, and even now in remembrance I hear those shouts of "Vive l'Angleterre!" which followed the motor-car in which our General made his triumphant progress. The shopgirls of Paris threw flowers from the windows as the car passed. Dense