Part 11 (1/2)

And the men who had been out before, and were taking back with them the scars they had earned, were just as anxious as the rest. That was the spirit of every man on board. They did not like war as war, but they knew that this was a war that must be fought to the finish, and never a man of them wanted peace to come until Fritz had learned his lesson to the bottom of Lie last grim page.

I never heard a word of the danger of meeting a submarine. The idea that one might send a torpedo after us popped into my mind once or twice, but when it did I looked out at the destroyers, guarding us, and the airplanes above, and I felt as safe as if I had been in bed in my wee hoose at Dunoon. It was a true highway of war that those whippets of the sea had made the Channel crossing.

Ahm, but I was proud that day of the British navy! It is a great task that it has performed, and n.o.bly it has done it. And it was proud and glad I was again when we sighted land, as we soon did, and I knew that I was gazing, for the first time since war had been declared, upon the sh.o.r.es of our great ally, France. It was the great day and the proud day and the happy day for me!

I was near the realizing of an old dream I had often had. I was with the soldiers who had my love and my devotion, and I was coming to France--the France that every Scotchman learns to love at his mother's breast.

A stir ran through the men. Orders began to fly, and I went back to my place and my party. Soon we would be ash.o.r.e, and I would be in the way of beginning the work I had come to do.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: Harry Lauder preserves the bonnet of his son, brought to him from where the lad fell. ”The memory of his boy, it is almost his religion.” (See Lauder05.jpg)]

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: A tatter of plaid of the Black Watch on a wire of a German entanglement barely suggests the h.e.l.l the Scotch troops have gone through. (See Lauder06.jpg)]

CHAPTER XIII

Boulogne!

Like Folkestone, Boulogne, in happier times, had been a watering place, less fas.h.i.+onable than some on the French coast, but the pleasant resort of many in search of health and pleasure. And like Folkestone it had suffered the blight of war. The war had laid its heavy hand upon the port. It ruled everything; it was omnipresent.

From the moment when we came into full view of the harbor it was impossible to think of anything else.

Folkestone had made me think of the mouth of a great funnel, into which all broad Britain had been pouring men and guns and all the manifold supplies and stores of modern war. And the trip across the narrow, well guarded lane in the Channel had been like the pouring of water through the neck of that same funnel. Here in Boulogne was the opening. Here the stream of men and sup-plies spread out to begin its orderly, irresistible flow to the front. All of northern France and Belgium lay before that stream; it had to cover all the great length of the British front. Not from Boulogne alone, of course; I knew of Dunkirk and Calais, and guessed at other ports. There were other funnels, and into all of them, day after day, Britain was pouring her tribute; through all of them she was offering her sacrifice, to be laid upon the altar of strife.

Here, much more than at Folkestone, as it chanced, I saw at once another thing. There was a double funnel. The stream ran both ways.

For, as we steamed into Boulogne, a s.h.i.+p was coming out--a s.h.i.+p with a grim and tragic burden. She was one of our hospital s.h.i.+ps. But she was guarded as carefully by destroyers and aircraft as our transport had been. The Red Cross meant nothing to the Hun--except, perhaps, a s.h.i.+ning target. s.h.i.+p after s.h.i.+p that bore that symbol of mercy and of pain had been sunk. No longer did our navy dare to trust the Red Cross. It took every precaution it could take to protect the poor fellows who were going home to Blighty.

As we made our way slowly in, through the crowded harbor, full of transports, of ammunition s.h.i.+ps, of food carriers, of destroyers and small naval craft of all sorts, I began to be able to see more and more of what was afoot ash.o.r.e. It was near noon; the day that had been chosen for my arrival in France was one of brilliant suns.h.i.+ne and a cloudless sky. And my eyes were drawn to other hospital s.h.i.+ps that were waiting at the docks. Motor ambulances came das.h.i.+ng up, one after the other, in what seemed to me to be an endless stream. The pity of that sight! It was as if I could peer through the intervening s.p.a.ce and see the bandaged heads, the places where limbs had been, the steadfast gaze of the boys who were being carried up in stretchers. They had done their task, a great number of them; they had given all that G.o.d would let them give to King and country. Life was left to them, to be sure; most of these boys were sure to live.

But to what maimed and incomplete lives were they doomed! The thousands who would be cripples always--blind, some of them, and helpless, dependent upon what others might choose or be able to do for them. It was then, in that moment, that an idea was born, vaguely, in my mind, of which I shall have much more to say later.

There was beauty in that harbor of Boulogne. The sun gleamed against the chalk cliffs. It caught the wings of airplanes, flying high above us. But there was little of beauty in my mind's eye. That could see through the surface beauty of the scene and of the day to the grim, stark ugliness of war that lay beneath.

I saw the ordered piles of boxes and supplies, the bright guns, with the sun reflected from their barrels, dulled though these were to prevent that very thing. And I thought of the waste that was involved--of how all this vast product of industry was destined to be destroyed, as swiftly as might be, bringing no useful accomplishment with its destruction--save, of course, that accomplishment which must be completed before any useful thing may be done again in this world.

Then we went ash.o.r.e, and I could scarcely believe that we were indeed in France, that land which, friends though our nations are, is at heart and in spirit so different from my own country. Boulogne had ceased to be French, indeed. The port was like a bit of Britain picked up, carried across the Channel and transplanted successfully to a new resting-place.

English was spoken everywhere--and much of it was the English of the c.o.c.kney, innocent of the aitch, and redolent of that strange tongue.

But it is no for me, a Scot, to speak of how any other man uses the King's Englis.h.!.+ Well I ken it! It was good to hear it--had there been a thought in my mind of being homesick, it would quickly have been dispelled. The streets rang to the tread of British soldiers; our uniform was everywhere. There were Frenchmen, too; they were attached, many of them, for one reason and another, to the British forces. But most of them spoke English too.

I had most care about the unloading of my cigarettes. It was a point of honor with me, by now, after the way my friends had joked me about them, to see that every last one of the ”f.a.gs” I had brought with me reached a British Tommy. So to them I gave my first care. Then I saw to the unloading of my wee piano, and, having done so, was free to go with the other members of the Reverend Harry Lauder, M.P., Tour to the small hotel that was to be headquarters for all of us in Boulogne.

Arrangements had to be made for my debut in France, and I can tell you that no professional engagement I have ever filled ever gave me half so much concern as this one! I have sung before many strange audiences, in all parts of the world, or nearly all. I have sung for folk who had no idea of what to expect from me, and have known that I must be at work from the moment of my first appearance on the stage to win them. But these audiences that I was to face here in France gave me more thought than any of them. I had so great a reason for wanting to suceed with them!

And here, ye ken, I faced conditions that were harder than had ever fallen to my lot. I was not to have, most of the time, even the military theaters that had, in some cases, been built for the men behind the lines, where many actors and, indeed, whole companies, from home had been appearing. I could make no changes of costume. I would have no orchestra. Part of the time I would have my wee piano, but I reckoned on going to places where even that sma' thing could no follow me.

But I had a good manager--the British army, no less! It was the army that had arranged my booking. We were not left alone, not for a minute. I would not have you think that we were left to go around on our own, and as we pleased. Far from it! No sooner had we landed than Captain Roberts, D.S.O., told me, in a brief, soldierly way, that was also extremely businesslike, what sort of plans had been made for us.

”We have a number of big hospitals here,” he said. ”This is one of the important British bases, as you know, and it is one of those where many of our men are treated before they are sent home. So, since you are here, we thought you would want to give your first concerts to the wounded men here.”

So I learned that the opening of what you might call my engagement in the trenches was to be in hospitals. That was not new to me, and yet I was to find that there was a difference between a base hospital in France and the sort of hospitals I had seen so often at home.