Part 17 (2/2)
Several drivers of the artillery are ain, are returning with this division to the Front All the horses here are superb Poor beasts, poor beasts! One daily, hourly, reminds oneself that the very dittoes of theseover there in France Kitchener tells our General that the 7th Division will 'probably arrive after the first phase is over,' which looks as though he fully expects the favourable and early end of the present one
”_October 2nd_--The whole division was out to-day I was h lands, and watched theI had never yet seen Most picturesque and telling And theeainst aeroplanes, especially, and their wheels masked with horse blankets There they lay, black, hu, and as each gun section finished their ith the pick and shovel, they lay flat down to hide theed now! Great news allowed to be published to-day in the papers The Indian Aro at Marseilles, but hoell the secret has been kept! HowLate in the afternoon I saw the Northu the sword exercise!_ With the idea that the sas obsolete (engendered by the Boer War experience), no yeo what use our Scots Greys, Lancers, Dragoon Guards and Hussars have lately beenof the steel, General Capper has insisted on these, his own yeo thus arht-- how to use a new arm on the eve of battle They were , two-deep line on that brown heath, with a heavy bank of dark clouds like mine in 'Scotland for Ever!' behind their heads--a fine subject
[Illustration: THE shi+RE HORSES: WHEELERS OF A 47,
A HUSSAR SCOUT OF 1917]
”Who will look at my 'Waterloos' now? I have but one more of that series to do Then I shall stop and turn all y to this stupendous war I shall call up ain, but _not_ at play this time
”_October 3rd_--Sketched Patrick's three beautiful chargers' heads in water colour Still the word 'Go!' is suspended over our heads
”_October 4th_--The word 'Go!' has just sounded In ten reat coat and sword and be off with his General to London They pass through here to-morrow on their way to embark
”_October 5th_, 1914--I was down at seven, and as they did not finally leave till 815 I had a golden half-hour's respite Then ca”
I left Lyndhurst at once It will ever remain with me in a halo of physical and spiritual sunshi+ne seen through a mist of sadness
On Nove the terrible, prolonged first Battle of Ypres, and was sent ho power at Guy's Hospital, where I saw him He told me that as he lay on the field his General and Staff passed by, and all the General said was, ”Hullo, Butler! is that you?
Good-bye!”[19] General Capper was as brave a soldier as ever lived, but, I think, too fond for a General of being, as he said he wished to be, _in the vanguard_ Thus heon horseback, I understand) at Loos Patrick's brother ADC, Captain Isaac, whom I daily used to see at Lyndhurst, was killed early in the War The poor fellow, to cal my own son, had tried to assure me that, as ADC, he would be as safe as in Piccadilly
Towards the end of 1914 London had becoic aspect, and so very unlike itself Soldiers of all ranks formed the majority of the male population In fact, wherever I looked now there was soat recruiting stations; flags of all the Allies fluttered in the breeze in gaudy bunches; ”po skywards fro ”Taubes” or ”Zeppelins” I went daily to watch the recruits drilling in the parks--such strangely varied types ofthe veriest civilians, from top to toe Yet these very shop-boys had coood felloed to the terrible, shouting drill-sergeants as never they had bowed to any irls who looked on--a far harder ordeal for the boys even than the yells of the sergeants One of the squads in the Green Park was supre to me one day, in (I am bound to say) a semi-comic way These recruits were members and associates of the Royal Acadey, others so piled ar, which was very funny, and showed how light-heartedlyto meet the Boche Of the maimed and blind men one met at every turn I can scarcely write I find that when I as too far behindhome to Ireland I set to work upon a series of khaki water colours of the War for my next ”one-man shohich opened with most satisfactory _eclat_ in May, 1917 One of the principal subjects was done under the ination, for Nurse Cavell had been executed I called the drawing ”The Avengers” Also I exhibited at the Acadeagia, Egypt” This was a large oil painting, commissioned by Colonel Goodden and presented by hie of the British yeomen the year before had sealed the fate of the coypt One of theto introduce, as often happens, portraits of particular characters in the drama Their own mothers would not know the e, or with the haggard pallor on thee all the officers were portraits, and I brought asthe ”distance” regulation The Ene _burnouses_, which helped the uns I, rather reluctantly, had to place the necessary Turkish officers I had studies for those figures and for the desert, which I had o in the East It is well to keep one's sketches; they often come in very useful
The previous year, 1916, had been a hard one Our struggles in the War, the Sinn Fein rebellion in Dublin, and one dreadful day in that year when the first report of the Battle of Jutland was published--these were great trials I certainly would not like to go through another phase like that But I was hard at work in the studio at home in Tipperary, and this kept h trouble Let all who have congenial work to do bless their stars!
On July 31st my second son, the chaplain, had a narrow escape It was at the great Battle of Flanders, where we see_ at last Father Knapp and dick were tending the wounded and dying under a rain of shells, when the old priest told dick to go and get a fewto his sorroork dick met the fine old Car of a shell that had exploded just wherea few minutes before
I see in the Diary: ”_December 11th, 1917_--To-day our army is to make its formal entry into Jerusalem I can scarcely write for excite every yard of that holy ground! dick writes froh another such day as that of the 30th Noverief He lost all his dearest friends in the Grenadier Guards, and he says England little kno near she was to a great disaster when the eneone through the horrors of war say little about thes from rare remarks here and there To sho hurows, here is an instance A soldier was executed at dawn one day for ”cowardice” An officer who had acted at the court-iment as the dead man's that day, who remarked to his officer that all he could say about his dead ”pal” was that he had seen him perform an act of bravery three tiood man,” said the officer, ”why didn't you come forward at the trial and say this?” ”Well, I didn't think of it, sir” After all, to die one way or another had become quite immaterial
One of the most important of my water colours at the second khaki exhibition, held in London in May, 1919, was of the e of the Warwick and Worcester Yeoe outshone the old Balaclava one we love to remember, and which differed from the Criuns, but _held_ theround plans, description of the weather on that memorable day, position of the sun, etc, etc--supplied ularly quick eye and precise perception[20] I called it ”Jerusaleates of the Holy City to us ”The Canadian Boe” was another of the more conspicuous subjects, and this one went to Canada
But I must look back a little: ”_Monday, November 11th, 1918_--Ar London on this day of days I arrived at Victoria into a London of laughter, flags, joy-rides on every conceivable and inconceivable vehicle I had hints on the way to London by eruptions of Union Jacks growing thicker and thicker along the railway, but I could not let -drawn-out trial that I would find on arrival But so it was I went alone for a good stroll through Oxford Street, Bond Street, and Piccadilly Peopleat each other _I_ s at ed with the _true_ happiness in the people's eyes, and there was no ”__” no horse-play, but such _fun_ The reat for rowdyism and drunkenness The croas allowed to do just as it pleased for once, yet I saw no accidents The police just looked on, and would have beamed also, I am sure, if they had not been on duty They had, apparently, thrown the reins on the public's neck I saw some sad faces, but, of course, such as these kept ratitude I felt I could be ast the smilers that day, for both my own sons, who faced death to the very end in so many of the theatres of war to which our armies were sent, had survived
The boat that tookairshi+p serpentining above us We could breathe freely now!
[Illustration: A POST-CARD, FOUND ON A GERMAN PRISONER, WITH ”SCOTLAND FOR EVER” TURNED INTO PRUSSIAN CAVALRY, TYPIFYING THE VICTORIOUS ON-RUSH OF THE GERMAN ARMY IN THE NEW YEAR, 1915]