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Page 64
It was Sunday, the 10th of November. We had no work to do and wandered
restlessly round the town. An official communique was posted up outside
the Mairie, but it contained nothing new. There was a crowd of soldiers
round a Belgian boy who was selling English papers. We bought the last
copies, but they were of the previous Thursday and did not add to our
knowledge. The suspense was becoming unbearable. My conviction that the
Germans would reject the terms of the Allies was shaken--not by any
further evidence, but by the general atmosphere of excitement and
hopeful expectation which communicated itself to me. I kept on repeating
to myself, "They will not sign, they will not sign," and intellectually
I believed my own words. And yet I was continually imagining the war
already over and what I merely thought seemed unessential and
irrelevant. The stress of wild hopes and mental agitation became almost
a physical pain.
Darkness came on and we retired to our tents. I gradually became aware
of a faint noise, so faint that I hardly knew whether it was real or
not. As soon as I listened intently I could hear nothing. Then one of us
said: "What's that funny noise?" There it was again, a low, hollow sound
like that of a distant sea. It grew louder and then ceased. Then it
became audible once more and grew louder and still louder. Suddenly we
realized what it was--it was the sound of cheering. It came nearer and
nearer, gathering speed. It flooded the whole town with a great rush,
paused a moment, and then burst over our camp.
Everybody went mad. The men rushed out of the tents and shouted: "It's
over--it's over--it's over!" I could hear one shrill voice screaming
wildly: "No more bombs--no more shells--no more misery." The deafening
clamour from innumerable throats was topped by the piercing blasts of
whistles and the howling of catcalls. A huge bonfire was lit in the camp
and sheets of flame shot skyward. The brilliant stars of signal-rockets
rose and fell in tall parabol� and lit up all the neighbourhood. The
Sergeant-Major blew his whistle with the intention of restoring order.
He was answered by a hullabaloo of derisive hoots and yells. He gave up
the attempt and instead he headed a procession that marched into the
town, banging empty tins and whirling trench-rattles. An anti-aircraft
battery opened fire with blank charges. Aeroplanes flew overhead with
all lights on.
Many of us went back into our tents and sang with all the power of our
lungs.
So the war was over! The fact was too big to grasp all at once, but
nevertheless I felt an extraordinarily serene satisfaction. Then someone
said: "The people who've lost their sons and husbands--now's the time
they'll feel it." The truth of this remark struck me with sudden
violence. My serenity was broken and I looked into the blackness beneath
it. I knew what I was going to see, but, nevertheless, I looked, in
spite of myself, and saw innumerable rotting dead that lay unburied in
all postures on the bare, shell-tossed earth. A horror of death such as
I had never known before came upon me--a crushing, annihilating horror
that seemed to impart a fiendish character to the shouting and singing
in the camp, as though millions of demoniac spirits were howling and
dancing with devilish glee over the accomplishment of the greatest
iniquity ever known. At the same time I felt ashamed of not joining in
the general jubilation, and bitterly disappointed that my own
thoughts--always my worst enemies--should obsess me at this supreme
hour. But I knew that the war had lasted too long and that the world's
misery had been too great ever to be shaken off. I also knew that all
the dead had died in vain. In order to escape from my intolerable
meditations I sat up and began to talk to my neighbour:
"I suppose it'll be read out officially to-morrow morning?"
"Sure--and we'll get a day off at least."
We continued to talk of commonplace things. It was several hours after
midnight and the uproar was dying down a little. I felt sleepy and
something like contentment was beginning to steal over me once again.
Reveill� did not sound until nine o'clock on the Monday morning. The
whistle blew for parade. There would, of course, be an official
announcement that the Armistice had been signed and perhaps a letter of
thanks to the "splendid troops who had won the war" (which would bore us
extremely) and a holiday (which would be welcomed with loud cheers).
We paraded. The Sergeant-Major addressed us:
"I'm sorry, boys, but nothing official's coom through. You must go to
work as usual. It's a damned shame, I know, but I can't help it. I
expect the message'll coom during the day and you're sure to get
to-morrow off."
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