Part 24 (1/2)

The first visit to the front undertaken by an on the 8th of May, 1915, thatof the _Lusitania_

I shall not give any account of reat cannonade, or seeing shells burst, or catching a glis none were or could afford an experience so terrible as the sight I saw at Bailleul A nu,between life and death, lay on their stretchers in rows in the vestibule of the Hospital, awaiting ree, lifeless voices, like men recalled from death by some potent spell But on this unnecessary horror of war I do not mean to dwell I shall, however, quote fro, because it gives a glinored

_May 19th, 1915:_--From the hospital ent to one of the most wonderful places in the theatre of war, a place of which I had heard a great deal, but not a word tooDirectly overlooking the plain in which Ypres stands are two hills, Scherpenberg and Ke pounded by artillery fire of all sorts, but Scherpenberg, for soe or at any rate unknown reason, is never shelled, and the wind rass of the hill-top, with thein the little hazel brake on our left, it was very difficult to believe that one was looking not only at the scene of recent battle, but at the scene of a battle proceeding at that very ed in a fierce counter-stroke on the North-Eastern front of the Ypres salient The only indication was the bursting of a good deal of shrapnel at this point It was here that I first saw shrapnel shells and noticed the little white puffs of smoke, which for all the world looked like the steam let off by an ordinary loco hill, there was a big British gun which was firing steadily on the German trenches The rush of the shell made a distinctly cheerful sound My co but cheerful when the direction was reversed and the shell, instead of going fro towards you Then the noise was converted into a melancholyon the trenches to the North-East of us, there was noticeable a good deal of dark cloud round Ypres, due, as we learnt afterwards, to so the Gerlasses one could see quite clearly the tower of the Cloth Hall, which had not apparently been at all injured The towers of the Cathedral were also quite plain, but owing to the roof having been blown off, it was very difficult to realise that they belonged to the sa and were not independent towers The wood to the South-East of Ypres was very clearly seen This is the wood, as far as I can make out, which R---- had on several occasions told me was a dreadful place, filled with unburied bodies, pitted with shell-holes and with half the trees broken by explosions and ready to fall None of this, however, could be seen frohe with its prominent church spire was to the left and it was quite i abnormal in its appearance

It looked even then like an ordinary prosperous Fle and Ypres, lay what everyone calls ”dickybush” and Voormezeele, or as the soldiers would say, Ver up and down the road, which ran straight froh ”dickybush” The ground all round was being tilled quite as assiduously as if there had been no war In fact, close to us the only difference the war reatbackwards and forwards on the road, just as one sees them at manoeuvres They appeared to be perfectly at hoood terms with the inhabitants

Just below the hill, or, rather, half-way down, is a very pleasant- looking s peasant's house As I had not yet talked to a Belgian peasant I felt Iso We therefore went to the house andto the people Several women came out and all more or less talked volubly--but unfortunately in Flehter of about sixteen or seventeen calish interirl, with beady black eyes She told us that she had been living in Ypres up till a fortnight before I suppose as a servant or possibly in a shop It seereeable in the boot so hot that she deterh she looked the picture of health and good spirits, she told us that towards the end she had felt rather nervous She had been near toohouses and seen too many people killed In fact, as the Toer I asked her how she had got away The ansas sihe and then, ”fetching a coot into ”dickybush” and so holed, and added that ”les soldats Anglais sont si gentils” She had had a good many lifts in motor-cars on the road I did not doubt it She was just the kind of girl, perfectly straight and of good intent I aet lifts fro, froun

As we finished our conversation with the group of wo what the furnishi+ngs of a Flemish farmhouse were like There, to my amazement, I sao pri at a table and just beginning to have tea, or, rather, coffee It was the modern version of those seventeenth century Flemish pictures which one sees in most Museums, where a brutal and licentious soldiery are in possession of soian yeo to pay liberally for their coffee and were evidently behaving with the pink of propriety

From the farm alked down the road half-way into ”dickybush” and then, turning to the right, took a field-path up a little hill to get one last view of Ypres under its canopy of mist and smoke, pierced by the towers of the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral The little field-path was of the kind which one sees everywhere on the Continent, a path solish field-path At the end of it stood a typical Belgian peasant, for ere over the border I asked him a question, but he shook his head, for he could only talk Fle the usual sign for throat cutting It was curious to see that this was not done in the conventional, theatrical way, but with a grim stoicism which was not uni hard in his fields He esture some expression like ”those da Hill with great regret It was a wonderful ”specular azed over the battle-ground, one see not quite as horrible or sensational as one gathers fro full of a deadly earnestness, intensity, and ot it at e of battle” of which Milton spoke, out yonder in the trenches The battlefield seen frooing over a hospital and seeing the flowers in the wards, the perfect sanitary arrange the operating-theatre with all its griedies In a battle of this kind the first-line trench is the operating theatre, hidden away from the people who have no business in it

As a pendant to what I saw fro on in the salient, I ust, 1916), I and a friend climbed the steep path of yellow sand which leads to the top of ”Le Mont des Cats,” a sister summit From this isolated sandhill, one sees the whole plain of Flanders laid out like a green , as I had seen fro, the poust afternoon from the Mont des Cats was apparently one of perfect peace

The opposing armies lay quiet in their trenches Only the booun which the foe or the British were firing (cheerfully rather than sullenly) and now and then the noise of an ”Archie” warning a Taube to ”keep off the grass” in the vault of Heaven, destroyed the illusion of profound rest and reminded one that the orld was at war Otherwise the pacific fallacy was for the ht of the late summer afternoon the whole earth seemed lapped in happy slumber

Yet two hours after, and at the actual sunset, so quick are the changes at the front, the present writer, by that tiloriously alive with the pageantry of conflict The vault was pitted oolly tufts of shrapnel and beautiful dead-whitesmoke-wreaths from the phosphorescent boh and low and seemed to fill the skies On both sides the aerial coes by the way And all the ti in chorus These evening voluntaries, including the winding-up of a goodwith the last rays of the glorious indolent, setting sun, and were ood deal of ”field h it was a reminder of war, see of a dramatic fantasia of the sky than a real cannonade It was one of the eants of the sky that human eyes ever beheld Even Staff Officers stopped their cars and got out to look A series of accidents: a gorgeous sunset, a clear sky, great visibility, all coner ht have envied but could never have imitated

In November, 1915, I also paid a visit to the front I had soive, not war reminiscences which will seedom, but merely to describe an incident which co

I was taken byfriend, Lord Ruthven, then the Master of Ruthven, and chief Staff Officer of the Guards Division, into the first trench-line opposite the Aubers Ridge, and incidentally to view some of the worst and wettest trenches on the whole front, at the iuides naturally took me up a communication-trench, named ”Fleet Street,” where one was always up to one's knees in water and soht me back, however, by Drury Lane, which was a somewhat drier street, also appropriate to _The Spectator_ Here again I will quote froed from the end of the Drury Lane communication-trench upon the Route de Tilleloi, we proceeded down that excellent road, discoursing on a hundred war topics Suddenly, however, we cae spectacle,--a row ofwith extrenards their front and the distances between them, across a piece of ht was good and we could see in this row of intent backs that there was a subaltern in the ht or nine men on each side of hiinning to think within myself how very worthy it was of the said subaltern to take out a section of his platoon and practise them in so more closely at the line of backs, I noticed that theslung over their shoulders I then saw that these so devil of a subaltern, quite contrary to orders and at the risk of court in a hare drive under shell-fire! His hted in the adventure The whole proceeding was marked by that seriousness which Aed in soh for the trenches, but not to be thought of when on a predatory sporting expedition Fortunately forto his Division, and so he was able to turn a blind eye My heart warht to be very stern in suchis forbidden by the French law, and of course a French proprietor feels it a horrible outrage that while he is not allowed to shoot, sos his hares That is lad to think that it is being stamped upon Still, when all is said and done, I wouldn't havehares under shell- fire for anything in the world It is correct to say that the drive was conducted under shell-fire, but no oneat everybody's feet All the same, only a little ti party, and a very little tiht, about two hundred yards froeneral position was not unlike that described by Mr Jorrocks: the shooters were having all the pleasures and excitements of ith only one per cent of the risks

After a very pleasant visit to General French at his headquarters at St

Omar, the visit ended with a touch of excite of my departure, we received news that a hospital shi+p had been sunk in the Channel At 1030, I finished ne Having been told that all the ht, I was to have started by the 1215 boat, that is the boat which started an hour after the doomed hospital shi+p We were all told, however, that ere not to cross by the said 1215, or leave-boat, but must wait for the P & O enerals and big ere placed under the same condemnation I saas useless to protest, and went and had lunch I can only presu of the hospital shi+p and also of the steam collier, and wanted to be sure that there were no ly we did not sail till 345, no one in the shi+p, of course, knowing anything about the disaster I only heard of it co up in the train to London, and then the news characteristically ca--but from a subaltern who had somehow picked up the news on the Folkestone quay

It was curious to reflect that if anyone had offeredon a hospital shi+p as one of the sights, I should have closed with it unhesitatingly Luckily for me, however, I had not come across any R A M C people, and therefore aed to get to Brooks's for some late supper at 930 At first I was told that I could only have cold beef, but not being a Staff Officer, and not being afraid of being called a luxurious and self-indulgent pig, I insisted upon having some hot soup and some cold pheasant, and also a cup of hot cocoa After this ware packets of letters and proofs Nextmy Thursday leader at _The Spectator_ office, ”as usual”

My last and ust 2, 1916, that is, just after the great attack on the So toStill, there were one or two iht a guest at Lord Haig's advanced headquarters, and from a little hill above the chateau in which he lived, I was able to see the trench-line by night

During dinner, the guns began to speak loudly, and after dinner I got one of the Staff to take hts of the battle-line It was a uns on one side, and of those of the Germans on the other, ht Besides, everythe front, one could see the Ger the trench-line These flares are used as one uses a bull's-eye on a dark walk Just as you turn the bull's-eye on any place which you are not quite sure of, so a flare-light is sent up when either side suspects evil designs on a particular part of their trench-line The effect of the lights was very much like that of a distant firework display, but the continual roar of the guns gave a touch of anger andwar and not a Brock's Benefit The roar of the artillery lasted all night, and when I woke early in theon Just about five o'clock, however, it suddenly stopped, and I realised with a thuoing over the parapet at Pozieres

At breakfast the Coe he had just received fro that we had carried the piece of trench which we desired to carry, and had inflicted considerable losses upon the Ger too heavily ourselves We had, besides, taken several hundred prisoners

In the course of this visit, I had the good luck to go into the former German trenches at Notre Dame de Lorette, and also to see so-outs on the So statue But although this was exciting, it was eclipsed by a visit to Ypres, which I was able to induce e for me Ypres just then was not considered a very healthy spot I was General Hunter Weston's guest at the Chateau de Louvet

I had once before been in Ypres It was in the course of a bicycle tour in 1896 or '97, a fact which affordedthat is impressed on my memory was a curious and pathetic little idyll which is thus recorded in my Diary

We left our car outside the walls, and entered Ypres close to the Menin Gate, now deo

(We bicycled froone to see the Lille bust--a journey which the whole wealth of the world could not now buy one the right to take)

I was glad to find that reat grey-brick walls and the wide moat which in June, 1896, was covered hite waterlilies There seemed to be none now, but perhaps ”they withered all” when the town died I should not wonder if this were so, for shellsthe e, ent to the _Place_, once bordered by one of the greatest and nificent examples of civic mediaeval architecture the world had to show--the Cloth Hall of Ypres Its walls now only stand soh The reher, and one of the pinnacles of the Cloth Hall points like a gaunt grey finger to the sky I wandered alone into the Institute of St Vincent de Paul, which stands to the north of the _Place_ and is only partially ruined The facade, a pleasant exa, and there are also pieces of the roof intact One enters by the church or chapel door I passed through this, with its desecrated altars and its ruined ecclesiastical finery, into the sacristies and other roo one lofty room lined entirely with blue-and-white tiles While there, I heard, tobrooh those empty, roofless halls with a weird sound, for at that rowl of artillery in the air

Everything else was strangely quiet Needless to say, an uninhabited town is never noisy, and at five o'clock in theit is not merely not noisy but deadly still Greatly astonished, I followed the sound through a long succession of ruined rooms, until I ca the floor of a small empty room a little off the main sacristy He had a steel helmet upon his head, like myself