X. THE SCRAMBLE AT VARESNES

4 A.M.: For the best part of a mile my groom and I had the moonlit road to ourselves. We pa.s.sed at the walk through the stone-flagged streets of Baboeuf, our horses' hoofs making clattering echoes in what might have been a dead city. Along the whole length of the tortuous main street were only two indications that there was life behind the closed doors and fastened shutters. Two French soldiers, leaning against a wall and talking, moved away as we rode up; then a door banged, and all was quiet. Once, too, a cat ran stealthily across and startled my horse: I remember that distinctly, because it was the first cat I had seen since coming back to the fighting area.

At the junction, where the way from Baboeuf joined the main road that ran parallel with the ca.n.a.l, stood a single British lorry. A grey-headed lieutenant, who was lighting a cigarette, came up when I hailed him, and told me our waggons had pa.s.sed. He had pointed out the way, and they had gone to the left. "The first turning on the right after that will bring you to the bridge," he ended.

Our column was now moving along one of France's wonderful main roads--perfectly straight, tree-bordered, half its width laid with pave. On either side good-sized villas, well-kept front gardens, "highly desirable residences"--comfortable happy homes a week before, now shattered, silent, deserted. The road as we followed it led direct to the battle-front.

We had gone a mile past the railway station, and were in open country, and had still to reach the first turning to the right. I asked the sergeant-major to trot ahead and let me know how much farther we had to go. "Over a mile yet, sir," was his report.

At last, however, a sign-post loomed up, and we struck right along a track that led over dreary waste lands. Before long we were forging through a damp clinging mist, that obviously came from the ca.n.a.l.

Somewhere near the point towards which we were making, sh.e.l.ls from a Boche big gun were exploding with dull heavy boomings. I sent the sergeant-major forward again, and he came back with the bewildering report, "We're on the wrong road, sir!"

"Wrong road!" I repeated. "What do you mean?"

"There are some French lorries in front, sir, and the sentry won't open the bridge gates to let them cross."

I felt puzzled and angered, and rode forward to question the French sentry. Half a dozen protesting lorry-drivers stood round him.

The bridge did lead to Varesnes, he admitted, but it was only a light bridge, and he had orders to allow no military traffic over it. I became almost eloquent in describing the extreme lightness of my vehicles; but a _sous-officier_ stepped out of a little hut and said he was sorry, the orders were very strict, and he could not open the gates. The bridge we wanted was approached by the next turning to the right, off the main road. He a.s.sured me that it was a much better way, and, in any case, he couldn't open the gates.

There was nothing else for it: we made the long tedious journey back, out of the fog and into it again, and so got on the right track.

Weariness through lack of sleep and the dampness of the air made one feel chilly, and I got off my horse and walked. The horses stepped out mechanically; the men had lost their chirpiness. There was a half-hour or so when I felt melancholy and depressed: the feeling of helplessness against the triumphant efficiency of the Boche got on one's nerves.

Wasn't this talk of luring him on a myth? Why was he allowed to sweep forward at this overpowering pace, day after day, when each of our big advances had been limited to one hard, costly attack--and then stop? I quickened my step, and walked forward to where A Battery moved along the same road.

"Hullo, Dumble," I said. "You and C are running as separate batteries again, aren't you? How did you leave the cider-cellar?"

"We came back from there at about 5 P.M." There was a big discussion as to whether we should come farther back. The colonel wanted to stay, and the --rd's B Battery were in action there until four this morning. It was a Divisional decision that there should be a retirement to the next ridge. The poor old infantry were fed to the teeth. They'd sweated blood digging trenches all day on the Caillouel ridge, and then in the evening had to fall back and start digging again.

"Have you seen the colonel?" I asked.

"He was still there with General ---- when we came away. The --rd relieved us last night, instead of first thing this morning; and we got down to Grandru, and had three hours' sleep before your note arrived."

"Battery's pretty done, I suppose?"

"Well, it was just about time we came out of action. Men and horses would have been all-in in another day."

We crossed the fine broad ca.n.a.l, watched by the French soldiers guarding the bridge. Dumble was silent for some seconds, and then muttered, "You know, I hate to be coming back like this with the French looking on."

"Yes, I know," I replied,--"but they are good soldiers, and they understand."

"Yes--when I think of poor old Harville, and the fight he put up----"

he broke off; and we trudged along.

"Do you know Harville always kept that speech of Beatty's in his pocket-book, that speech where he said England would have to be chastened and turn to a new way of life before we finished the war?"

said Dumble later.

"Yes, he was like that--old Harville," I said quietly.

Over another bridge; and I still walked with Dumble at the head of his battery. There was a long wait while a line of French waggons moved out of our way. Some of the men were yawning with the sleepiness that comes from being cold as well as tired. We were now on the outskirts of a village that lay four miles from Varesnes.

"What do you say if we stop at this place and go on after a rest?" said Dumble. I agreed.

I put Headquarter waggons and horses into an orchard, and found a straw-loft where the men could lie down.

It was six in the morning, and I told the sergeant-major to have breakfast up at 7.30. There was a cottage opposite the orchard; some French soldiers were inside breakfasting. As I looked through the window I felt I would give anything for a sleep. The old housewife, a woman with a rosy Punch-like face, waited on the men. I asked her if she would let me have a room. She demurred a while, said everything was dirty and in disorder: the French _sous-officier_ was not gone yet.

Then I think she noticed how f.a.gged I was. In two minutes my servant had brought my valise in. "I'm going to take my clothes off," I said, "but don't let me sleep after 7.30."

7.30 A.M.: I woke to find the sun streaming through the window. The booming of guns sounded nearer than before. I got off the bed and looked out. The fifty Headquarter men were breakfasting or smoking.

Something prompted me: I had the feeling that we ought to leave the village at once. I shouted through the window for the sergeant-major.

The column could be ready to move in a quarter of an hour, he answered.

My servant brought me a change of boots and leggings, and I shaved.

"Won't you wait and have breakfast, sir?" asked the sergeant-major.

"No. Pack up everything; we'll get to Varesnes as soon as you are ready."

I went round to see Dumble before we started, but he said he wasn't going to hurry. "I'll let the men have a proper clean-up and march off about eleven," he decided.

The Headquarter column wound away from the village, and set out on a long smooth road that ran through a wood and edged away from the ca.n.a.l.

Two miles from Varesnes we met the brigade-major. His tired eyes lighted up when he saw me. "What batteries have actually got over the ca.n.a.l?" he questioned. I told him that A were in the village I had just left. "C and B are coming round by the Noyon bridge," he informed me.

"I expect we shall send Headquarters and B on to Thiescourt to get you out of the way--and give you some rest." And he nodded and rode on.

It looked as if the German rush was not expected to go much farther, for Varesnes was the first little town fully occupied by civilians that we had come to. Most of them were preparing to leave, and roomy French farm carts, piled high with curious medleys of mattresses, chairs and tables, clothing, carpets, kitchen utensils, clocks and pictures, kept moving off. But children played about the streets; girls stood and talked to French and British soldiers; and M. le Maire continued to function.

The colonel, neat and unruffled, but pale with fatigue, stood waiting in the main thoroughfare as we came in. I informed him at once where I had left A Battery and what the brigade-major had mentioned. He told me he had remained with the Infantry brigadier until 6.30 A.M., the hour at which Colonel ---- of the --rd had formally to relieve him; and he had only just crossed the ca.n.a.l. The infantry were still falling back.

"I've lost Laneridge and my two horses," he added, shaking his head.

"Laneridge missed me in the fog when I sent for him, and I'm half afraid he went towards the Hun lines. It was very puzzling to get your bearings up there this morning. I walked part of the way here and got a lift in a lorry."

9.30 A.M.: The colonel had seen the C.R.A. and received instructions about continuing the march. We were going on another ten miles to the place which a week ago was to have become the rest area for Divisional Headquarters. I had come across a section of the D.A.C. who had arrived the night before and secured a billet, and they gave the colonel and myself breakfast. I had discovered B Battery's mess in another cottage, every officer deep in a regular Rip Van Winkle slumber that told of long arrears of sleep. And I had been greatly cheered by the sudden appearance, mounted on a horse, of Briercliffe, the missing brigade clerk. He explained his absence. When one of the orderlies returned to Grandru, saying he couldn't find B Battery's waggon lines, the admirable Briercliffe had retorted that they must be found, and he went in quest of them himself. Then when he heard the sudden order to cross the ca.n.a.l he had the common-sense to come along with B Battery.

Neither C Battery nor A Battery had yet arrived. The colonel, having shaved, felt ready for the fray again, dictated the route-march orders, and told me to fix 11.30 A.M. as the time of starting. Fortunately his horses and his groom had turned up. The traffic down the main street, with its old-fashioned plaster houses, its squat green doors, and the Mairie with its railed double-stone steps, was getting more congested.

Infantry transport and French heavy guns were quickening their pace as they came through. The inhabitants were moving out in earnest now, not hurriedly, but losing no time. A group of hatless women stood haranguing on the Mairie steps; a good-looking girl, wearing high heels and bangles, unloaded a barrow-load of household goods into a van the Maire had provided, and hastened home with the barrow to fill it again; a sweet-faced old dame, sightless, bent with rheumatism, pathetic in her helpless resignation, sat on a wicker-chair outside her doorway, waiting for a farm cart to take her away: by her side, a wide-eyed solemn-faced little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, and trying bravely not to cry.

10.15 A.M.: The colonel met me in the street; he had just come from seeing the C.R.A. again. "Better tell B and D Batteries to move off at once, B leading. Headquarters can start as well. It will be best to get out of this place as quickly as possible. The enemy is coming on fast, and there will be an awkward crush shortly."

11 A.M.: The Boche machine-guns could be heard now as plainly as if they were fighting along the ca.n.a.l banks. B Battery had marched out with their waggons, Headquarters behind them. I stood with the colonel in the square to watch the whole brigade go through. Young Bushman had ridden off towards the ca.n.a.l to seek news of C Battery.

And now the first enemy sh.e.l.l: a swishing rush of air and a vicious crack--a 42 H.V. It fell two streets from us. Another and another followed. Shouts from behind! The drivers spurred their horses to a trot. Clouds of dust rose. Odd civilians alternately cowered against the wall and ran panting for the open country, making frightened cries as each sh.e.l.l came over. A butcher's cart and a loaded market cart got swept into the hurrying military traffic.

"I don't like this," muttered the colonel, frowning. "It would be stupid to have a panic."

On the Mairie steps I could see M. le Maire ringing a hand-bell and shouting some sort of proclamation. With a certain dignity, and certainly with little apparent recognition that sh.e.l.ls were falling close, he descended the steps and strode along the street and through the square, all the time determinedly shaking his bell. As he pa.s.sed, I asked him gravely why he rang the bell. He stared over his gla.s.ses with astonishment, responded simply "Pour partir, m'sieur," and walked on, still ringing. A bizarre incident, but an instance of duty, highly conceived and carried out to the end.

A colonel of one of our Pioneer battalions rode by and hailed the colonel. "We seem to be driving it pretty close," he said. "There's a lot more artillery to cross yet, and they are sh.e.l.ling the bridge hard.

Which way do you go from here?"

"I've got two batteries to come, and I'm afraid one of 'em's still over the bridge," responded the colonel. "We go to Thiescourt from here."