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Page 37
As we turned back, I noticed a little ruined cottage, with a Red Cross
flag floating. Our guide explained that it was a field dressing-station.
It was not for us--who could not help--to ask to go in. But the thought of
it--there were some badly wounded in it--pursued me as we walked on
through the beautiful evening.
A little farther we came across what I think moved me more than anything
else in that crowded hour--those same companies of men we had seen sitting
waiting in the fields, now marching quietly, spaced one behind the other,
up to the trenches, to take their turn there. Every day I am accustomed to
see bodies, small and large, of khaki-clad men, marching through these
Hertfordshire lanes. But this was different. The bearing was erect and
manly, the faces perfectly cheerful; but there was the seriousness in them
of men who knew well the work to which they were going. I caught a little
quiet whistling, sometimes, but no singing. We greeted them as they
passed, with a shy "Good luck!" and they smiled shyly back, surprised, of
course, to see a couple of women on that road. But there was no shyness
towards the General. It was very evident that the relations between him
and them were as good as affection and confidence on both sides could make
them.
I still see the bright tea-table in that corner of a ruined farm, where
our young officers presently greeted us--the General marking our maps to
make clear where he had actually been--the Captain of the battery
springing up to show off his gramophone--while the guns crashed at
intervals close beside us, range-finding, probably, searching out a
portion of the German line, under the direction of some hidden observer
with his telephone. It was over all too quickly. Time was up, and soon
the motor was speeding back towards the Divisional Headquarters. The
General and I talked of war, and what could be done to stop it. A more
practical religion "lifting mankind again"?--a new St. Francis, preaching
the old things in new ways? "But in this war we had and we have no choice.
We are fighting for civilisation and freedom, and we must go on till we
win."
III
It was long before I closed my eyes in the pretty room of the old ch�teau,
after an evening spent in talk with some officers of the Headquarters
Staff. When I woke in the dawn I little guessed what the day (March 2nd)
was to bring forth, or what was already happening thirty miles away on the
firing line. Z�lie, the _femme de m�nage_, brought us our breakfast to our
room, coffee and bread and eggs, and by half-past nine we were
down-stairs, booted and spurred, to find the motor at the door, a simple
lunch being packed up, and gas-helmets got ready! "We have had a very
successful action this morning," said Captain ----, evidently in the best
of spirits. "We have taken back some trenches on the Ypres-Comines Canal
that we lost a little while ago, and captured about 200 prisoners. If we
go off at once, we shall be in time to see the German counter-attack."
It was again fine, though not bright, and the distances far less clear.
This time we struck northeast, passing first the sacred region of G.H.Q.
itself, where we showed our passes. Then after making our way through
roads lined interminably, as on the previous day, with the splendid
motor-lorries laden with food and ammunition, which have made such a new
thing of the transport of this war, interspersed with rows of ambulances
and limbered wagons, with flying-stations and horse lines, we climbed a
hill to one of the finest positions in this northern land; an old town,
where Gaul and Roman, Frank and Fleming, English and French have clashed,
which looks out northward towards the Yser and Dunkirk, and east towards
Ypres. Now, if the mists will only clear, we shall see Ypres! But, alas,
they lie heavy over the plain, and we descend the hill again without that
vision. Now we are bound for Poperinghe, and must go warily, because there
is a lively artillery action going on beyond Poperinghe, and it is
necessary to find out what roads are being shelled.
On the way we stop at an air-station, to watch the aeroplanes rising and
coming down, and at a point near Poperinghe we go over a casualty-clearing
station--a collection of hospital huts, with storehouses and staff
quarters--with the medical officer in charge. Here were women nurses who
are not allowed in the field dressing-stations nearer the line. There were
not many wounded, though they were coming in, and the Doctor was not for
the moment very busy.
We stood on the threshold of a large ward, where we could not, I think, be
seen. At the farther end a serious case was being attended by nurses and
surgeons. Everything was passing in silence; and to me it was as if there
came from the distant group a tragic message of suffering, possibly death.
Then, as we passed lingeringly away, we saw three young officers, all
wounded, _running_ up from the ambulance at the gate, which had just
brought them, and disappearing into one of the wards. The first--a
splendid kilted figure--had his head bound up; the others were apparently
wounded in the arm. But they seemed to walk on air, and to be quite
unconscious that anything was wrong with them. It had been a success, a
great success, and they had been in it!
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