Part 21 (1/2)
It was at night that I used to see the full splendour of the war's infernal beauty. After a long day in the fields travelling back in the repeated journeys to the station of Fortem, where the lightly wounded men used to be put on a steam tramway for transport to the Belgian hospitals, the ambulances would gather their last load and go homeward to Furnes. It was quite dark then, and towards nine o'clock the enemy's artillery would slacken fire, only the heavy guns sending out long-range shots. But five towns or more were blazing fiercely in the girdle of fire, and the sky throbbed with the crimson glare of their furnaces, and tall trees to which the autumn foliage clung would be touched with light, so that their straight trunks along a distant highway stood like ghostly sentinels. Now and again, above one of the burning towns a sh.e.l.l would burst as though the enemy were not content with their fires and would smash them into smaller fuel.
As I watched the flames, I knew that each one of those poor burning towns was the ruin of something more than bricks and mortar. It was the ruin of a people's ideals, fulfilled throughout centuries of quiet progress in arts and crafts. It was the shattering of all those things for which they praised G.o.d in their churches--the good gifts of home-life, the security of the family, the impregnable stronghold, as it seemed, of prosperity built by labour and thrift now utterly destroyed.
15
I motored over to Nieuport-les-Bains, the seaside resort of the town of Nieuport itself, which is a little way from the coast. It was one of those Belgian watering-places much beloved by the Germans before their guns knocked it to bits--a row of red-brick villas with a few pretentious hotels utterly uncharacteristic of the Flemish style of architecture, lining a promenade and built upon the edge of dreary and monotonous sand-dunes. On this day the place and its neighbourhood were utterly and terribly desolate. The only human beings I pa.s.sed on my car were two seamen of the British Navy, who were fixing up a wireless apparatus on the edge of the sand. They stared at our ambulances curiously, and one of them gave me a prolonged and strenuous wink, as though to say, ”A fine old game, mate, this b.l.o.o.d.y war!” Beyond, the sea was very calm, like liquid lead, and a slight haze hung over it, putting a gauzy veil about a line of British and French monitors which lay close to the coast. Not a soul could be seen along the promenade of Nieuport-les-Bains, but the body of a man--a French marine--whose soul had gone in flight upon the great adventure of eternity, lay at the end of it with his sightless eyes staring up to the grey sky. Presently I was surprised to see an elderly civilian and a small boy come out of one of the houses. The man told me he was the proprietor of the Grand Hotel, ”but,” he added, with a gloomy smile, ”I have no guests at this moment In a little while, perhaps my hotel will have gone also.” He pointed to a deep hole ploughed up an hour ago by a German ”Jack Johnson.” It was deep enough to bury a taxicab.
For some time, as I paced up and down the promenade, there was no answer to the mighty voices of the naval guns firing from some British wars.h.i.+ps lying along the coast. Nor did any answer come for some time to a French battery snugly placed in a hollow of the dunes, screened by a few trees. I listened to the overwhelming concussion of each shot from the s.h.i.+ps, wondering at the mighty flight of the sh.e.l.l, which travelled through the air with the noise of an express train rus.h.i.+ng through a tunnel. It was curious that no answer came! Surely the German batteries beyond the river would reply to that deadly cannonade.
I had not long to wait for the inevitable response. It came with a shriek, and a puff of bluish smoke, as the German shrapnel burst a hundred yards from where I stood. It was followed by several sh.e.l.ls which dropped into the dunes, not far from the French battery of cent- vingt. Another knocked off the gable of a villa.
I had been pacing up and down under the shelter of a red-brick wall leading into the courtyard of a temporary hospital, and presently, acting upon orders from Lieutenant de Broqueville, I ran my car up the road with a Belgian medical officer to a place where some wounded men were lying. When I came back again the red-brick wall had fallen into a heap. The Belgian officer described the climate as ”quite unhealthy,” as I went away with two men dripping blood on the floor of the car. They had been brought across the ferry, further on, where the Belgian trenches were being strewn with shrapnel. Another little crowd of wounded men was there. Many of them had been huddled up all night, wet to the skin, with their wounds undressed, and without any kind of creature comfort. Their condition had reached the ultimate bounds of misery, and with two of these poor fellows I went away to fetch hot coffee for the others, so that at last they might get a little warmth if they had strength enough to drink... That evening, after a long day in the fields of death, and when I came back from the village where men lay waiting for rescue or the last escape, I looked across to Nieuport-les-Bains. There were quivering flames above it and sh.e.l.ls were bursting over it with pretty little puffs of smoke which rested in the opalescent sky. I thought of the proprietor of the Grand Hotel, and wondered if he had insured his house against ”Jack Johnsons.”
16
Early next morning I paid a visit to the outskirts of Nieuport town, inland. It was impossible to get further than the outskirts at that time, because in the centre houses were falling and flames were licking each other across the roadways. It was even difficult for our ambulances to get so far, because we had to pa.s.s over a bridge to which the enemy's guns were paying great attention. Several of their thunderbolts fell with a hiss into the water of the ca.n.a.l where some Belgian soldiers were building a bridge of boats. It was just an odd chance that our ambulance could get across without being touched, but we took the chance and dodged between two sh.e.l.l-bursts. On the other side, on the outlying streets, there was a litter of bricks and broken gla.s.s, and a number of stricken men lay huddled in the parlour of a small house to which they had been carried. One man was holding his head to keep his brains from spilling, and the others lay tangled amidst upturned chairs and cottage furniture. There was the photograph of a family group on the mantelpiece, between cheap vases which had been the pride, perhaps, of this cottage home. On one of the walls was a picture of Christ with a bleeding heart.
I remember that at Nieuport there was a young Belgian doctor who had established himself at a dangerous post within range of the enemy's guns, and close to a stream of wounded who came pouring into the little house which he had made into his field hospital. He had collected also about twenty old men and women who had been unable to get away when the first sh.e.l.ls fell. Without any kind of help he gave first aid to men horribly torn by the pieces of flying sh.e.l.l, and for three days and nights worked very calmly and fearlessly, careless of the death which menaced his own life.
Here he was found by the British column of field ambulances, who took away the old people and relieved him of the last batch of blesses. They told the story of that doctor over the supper-table that night, and hoped he would be remembered by his own people.
17
There were picnic parties on the Belgian roadsides. Looking back now upon those luncheon hours, with khaki ambulances as shelters from the shrewd wind that came across the marshes, I marvel at the contrast between their gaiety and the brooding horror in the surrounding scene. Bottles of wine were produced and no man thought of blood when he drank its redness, though the smell of blood reeked from the stretchers in the cars. There were hunks of good Flemish cheese with' fresh bread and b.u.t.ter, and it was extraordinary what appet.i.tes we had, though guns were booming a couple of kilometres away and the enemy was smas.h.i.+ng the last strongholds of the Belgians. The women in their field kit, so feminine though it included breeches, gave a grace to those wayside halts, and gave to dirty men the chance of little courtesies which brought back civilization to their thoughts, even though life had gone back to primitive things with just life and death, hunger and thirst, love and courage, as the laws of existence. The man who had a corkscrew could command respect. A lady with gold-spun hair could gnaw a chicken bone without any loss of beauty. The chauffeurs munched solidly, making c.o.c.kney jokes out of full mouths and abolis.h.i.+ng all distinctions of caste by their comrades.h.i.+p in great adventures when their courage, their cool nerve, their fine endurance at the wheel, and their skill in taking heavy ambulances down muddy roads with skidding wheels, saved many men's lives and won a heartfelt praise.
Little groups of Belgian soldiers came up wistfully and lingered round us as though liking the sight of us, and the sound of our English speech, and the gallantry of those girls who went into the firing-lines to rescue their wounded.
”They are wonderful, your English ladies,” said a bearded man. He hesitated a moment and then asked timidly: ”Do you think I might shake hands with one of them?”
I arranged the little matter, and he trudged off with a flush on his cheeks as though he had been in the presence of a queen, and graciously received.
The Belgian officers were eager to be presented to these ladies and paid them handsome compliments. I think the presence of these young women with their hypodermic syringes and first-aid bandages, and their skill in driving heavy motor-cars, and their spiritual disregard of danger, gave a sense of comfort and tenderness to those men who had been long absent from their women-folk and long-suffering in the bleak and ugly cruelty of war. There was no false sentiment, no disguised gallantry, in the homage of the Belgians to those ladies. It was the simple, chivalrous respect of soldiers to dauntless women who had come to help them when they were struck down and needed pity.
Women, with whom for a little while I could call myself comrade, I think of you now and marvel at you! The call of the wild had brought some of you out to those fields of death. The need of more excitement than modern life gives in time of peace, even the chance to forget, had been the motives with which two or three of you, I think, came upon these scenes of history, taking all risks recklessly, playing a man's part with a feminine pluck, glad of this liberty, far from the conventions of the civilized code, yet giving no hint of scandal to sharp-eared gossip. But most of you had no other thought than that of pity and helpfulness, and with a little flame of faith in your hearts you bore the weight of bleeding men, and eased their pain when it was too intolerable. No soldiers in the armies of the Allies have better right to wear the decorations which a king of sorrow gave you for your gallantry in action.
18
The Germans were still trying to smash their way through the lines held by the Belgians, with French support. They were making tremendous attacks at different places, searching for the breaking- point by which they could force their way to Furnes and on to Dunkirk.
It was difficult to know whether they were succeeding or failing. It is difficult to know anything on a modern battlefield where men holding one village are ignorant of what is happening in the next, and where all the sections of an army seem involved in a bewildering chaos, out of touch with each other, waiting for orders which do not seem to come, moving forward for no apparent reason, retiring for other reasons hard to find, or resting, without firing a shot, in places searched by the enemy's fire.
The enemy had built eight pontoon bridges over the Yser ca.n.a.l, but all of them had been destroyed. This was a good piece of news. But against it was the heavy loss of a Belgian company holding another bridge further down the river. At Dixmude the Belgians held the outer streets. Outside there had been heavy trench fighting. The enemy had charged several times with the bayonet, but had been raked back by the mitrailleuses.
Things were going on rather well at most parts of the line.
The French batteries were getting the range every time, and their gunners were guessing at heaps of German dead. The Belgian infantry was holding firm. Their cavalry was out of action for the time, trying to keep warm on the roadsides.