A "Temporary Gentleman" in France. A. J. Dawson
in spite of all the fighting in their own country and all the savage destruction the Huns have brought. The people in the town are quite keen on our drums and bugles; marching past them is like a review. It makes you "throw a chest" no matter what your pack weighs; and we are all carrying truck enough to stock a canteen with. The kiddies run along and catch you by the hand. The girls—there are some wonderfully pretty girls here, who have a kind of a way with them, a sort of style that is French, I suppose; it's pretty taking, anyhow—they wave their handkerchiefs and smile. "Bon chance!" they tell you. And you feel they really mean "Good luck!" I like these people, and they seem to like us pretty well. As for men, you don't see many of them about. They are in the fighting line, except the quite old ones. And the way the women carry on their work is something fine. All with such a jolly swing and a laugh; something brave and taking and fine about them all.
If this writing seems a bit ragged you must excuse it. The point of my indelible pencil seems to wear down uncommonly fast; I suppose because of the rough biscuit box that is my table. We are in a tent, with a rather muddy boarded floor, and though the wind blows mighty cold and keen outside, we are warm as toast in here. I fancy we shall be here till to-morrow night. Probably do a route march round the town and show ourselves off to-morrow. The C. O. rather fancies himself in the matter of our band and the Battalion's form in marching. We're not bad, you know; and "A" Company, of course, is pretty nearly the last word. "Won't be much sleep for the Kaiser after 'A' Company gets to the Front," says "the Peacemaker." We call our noble company commander "the Peacemaker," or sometimes "Ramsay Angell," as I think I must have told you before, because he's so deadly keen on knuckle-duster daggers and things of that sort. "Three inches over the right kidney, and when you hear his quiet cough you can pass on to the next Boche," says "the Peacemaker," when he is showing off a new trench dagger. Sort of, "And the next article, please," manner he has, you know; and we all like him for it. It's his spirit that's made "A" Company what it is. I don't mean that we call him "the Peacemaker" to his face, you know.
We can't be altogether war-worn veterans or old campaigners yet, I suppose, though it does seem much more than seven hours since we landed. But everyone agrees there's something about us that we did not have last year—I mean yesterday. From the Colonel down to the last man in from the depot we've all got it; and though I don't know what it is, it makes a lot of difference. I think it is partly that there isn't any more "Out there" with us now. It's "Out here." And everything that came before to-day is "Over in England," you know; ever so far away. I don't know why a man should feel more free here than in England. But there it is. The real thing, the thing we've all been longing for, the thing we joined for, seems very close at hand now, and, naturally, you know, everyone wants to do his bit. It's funny to hear our fellows talking, as though the Huns were round the corner. If there's anything a man doesn't like—a sore heel, or a split canteen of stew, or a button torn off—"We'll smarten the Boche for that," they say, or, "Righto! That's another one in for the Kaiser!"
You would have thought we should have had time during the past six months or so to have put together most of the little things a campaigner wants, wouldn't you? especially seeing that a man has to carry all his belongings about with him and yet I would make a sporting bet that there are not half a dozen men in the Battalion who have bought nothing to carry with them to-day. There is a Y. M. C. A. hut and a good canteen in this camp, and there has been a great business done in electric torches, tooth-powder, chocolate, knives, pipe-lighters, and all manner of notions. We are all very glad to be here, very glad; and nine out of ten will dream to-night of trenches in France and the Push we all mean to win V.C.'s in. But that's not to say we shall forget England and the—the little things we care about at home. Now I'm going to turn in for my first sleep in France. So give what you have to spare of my love to all whom it may concern, and accept the rest yourself from your
"Temporary Gentleman."
THE FIRST MARCH
We reached this long, straggling village in pale starlight a little after six this morning; and with it the welcome end of the first stage of our journey from the port of disembarking to our section of the French Front.
In all the months of our training in England I never remember to have seen "A" Company anything like so tired; and we had some pretty gruelling times, too, during those four-day divisional stunts and in the chalk trenches on the Plain; and again in the night ops. on the heather of those North Yorkshire moors. But "A" Company was never so tired as when we found our billets here this morning. Yet we were in better form than any other company in the Battalion; and I'm quite sure no other Battalion in the Brigade could march against our fellows.
The whole thing is a question of what one has to carry. Just now, of course, we are carrying every blessed thing we possess, including great-coats and blankets, not to mention stocks of 'baccy, torches, maps, stationery, biscuits, and goodness knows what besides; far fuller kits, no doubt, than tried campaigners ever have. (I found little M——, of No. 3 Platoon, surreptitiously stuffing through a hedge a case of patent medicines, including cough-mixture and Mother Somebody's Syrup!) If you ever visit France you probably won't travel on your own ten toes; but if you should, be advised by me and cut your kit down to the barest minimum; and when you've done that, throw away a good half of what's left.
Boots and socks. Some people will tell you that stocks and shares and international politics are matters of importance. I used to think the pattern of my neckties made a difference to our auctions. I know now that the really big things, the things that are really important, are socks and boots, and hot coffee and sleep, and bread—"Pang—Compree?" says Tommy to the French women, with a finger at his mouth—and then socks and boots again. You thought we paid a good deal in the shop for those swanky trench boots, W—— and myself. That was nothing to what we've paid since for wearing 'em. Excellent trench boots, I dare say; but one has to walk across a good bit of France before getting to the trenches, you know. Those boots are much too heavy to carry and no good for marching. They look jolly and workmanlike, you know, but they eat up too much of one's heels. Tell all the officers you know to come out in ordinary marching boots, good ones, but ordinary ankle boots. Plenty time to get trench boots when they get to the trenches. Good old Q.M. Dept. will see to that. Our respected O.C. Company had no horse, you know (we haven't yet made connection with our transport), and his heels to-day look like something in the steak line about half-grilled.
We left camp at the port I mustn't name about eight o'clock last night, and marched down the hill to the station in sort of thoughtful good spirits, the packs settling down into their grooves. To save adding its immensity to my pack, I wore my imposing trench coat, with its sheep-skin lining; waist measurement over all, say a hundred and twenty-five. Two of us had some difficulty about ramming "the Peacemaker," through his carriage door into the train, he also being splendid in a multi-lined trench coat. Then we mostly mopped up perspiration and went to sleep.
Between twelve and one o'clock in the morning we left the train (not without emotion; it was a friendly, comfortable train), and started to march across France. The authorities, in their godlike way, omitted to give us any information as to how far we were to march. But the weather was fine, and "A" Company moved off with a good swing, to the tune of their beloved "Keep the Camp Fires Burning." The biggest of packs seems a trifle, you know, immediately after four hours' rest in a train. But after the first hour it's astonishing how its importance in your scheme of things grows upon you; and at the end of the third or fourth hour you are very glad to stuff anything like bottles of Mother Somebody's Syrup through a gap in the nearest hedge.
It was at about that stage that word reached us of one or two men falling out from the rear companies. At this "the Peacemaker" began jogging up and down the left of our Company—we march on the right of the road in France—and, for all his sore heels and tremendous coat, showing the skittishness of a two-year-old. And he's even good years older than any of the rest of us, or than anyone else in the Company. I chipped my fellows into starting up another song, and my Platoon Sergeant cheerfully passed the word round that if anybody in No. 1 dared to fall out he'd disembowel him with a tin-opener.
As an actual fact not a single "A" Company man did fall