Servants of the Guns.

by Jeffery E. Jeffery.

PART I

THE NEW "UBIQUE"

BEGINNING AGAIN

As the long troop train rumbled slowly over the water-logged wastes of Flanders, I sat in the corner of a carriage which was littered with all the _debris_ of a twenty-four hours' journey and watched the fiery winter's sun set gorgeously. It was Christmas evening. Inevitably my mind went back to that other journey of sixteen months ago when we set forth so proudly, so exultantly to face the test of war.

But how different, how utterly different is everything now! Last time, with the sun shining brilliantly from a cloudless sky and the French sentries along the line waving enthusiastically, we pa.s.sed cheerfully through the pleasant land of France towards our destination on the frontier. I was a subaltern then, a subordinate member of a battery which, according to pre-war standards, was equipped and trained to perfection--and I can say this without presumption, for having only joined it in July I had had no share in the making of it. But I had been in it long enough to appreciate its intense _esprit-de-corps_, long enough to share the absolute confidence in its efficiency which inspired every man in it from the major to the second trumpeter.

But now it is midwinter, the second winter of the war, and the French sentries no longer wave to us, for they have seen too many train-loads of English troops to be more than mildly interested. The war to which we set out so light-heartedly sixteen months ago has proved itself to be not the "greatest of games," but the greatest of all ghastly horrors threatening the final disruption of civilised humanity. More than a year has pa.s.sed and the end is not in sight. But the cause is as righteous, the victory as certain now as it was then.... The methods and practice of warfare have been revolutionised. Theory after theory has been disproved by the devastating power of the high explosive and the giant gun. Horse and field batteries no longer dash into action to the music of jingling harness and thudding hoofs. They creep in by night with infinite precautions and place their guns in casemates which are often ten feet thick; they occupy the same position not for hours, but for months at a time; they fire at targets which are sometimes only fifty yards or even less in front of their own infantry, with the knowledge that the smallest error may mean death to their comrades; and the control of their shooting is no longer an affair of good eyesight and common sense, but of science, complicated instruments, and a multiplicity of telephones.

And I, a novice at all this kind of work, am no longer a subaltern. I am directly responsible for the welfare and efficiency of the battery which this long train is bearing into the zone of war. How we fare when we get there, what kind of tasks are allotted to us, and how we succeed in coping with them I hope to record in due course. But this I know now--the human material with which I have to deal is good enough. We have the advantage of being a h.o.m.ogeneous unit, for we belong to one of the "locally raised" divisions. With only a very few exceptions (notably the sergeant-major, who is a "serving soldier" of vast proportions and great merit), the N.C.O.'s and men all come from the same district. Many of them were acquainted in private life and enlisted in little coteries of five or six. Christian names are freely used, which is fortunate seeing that we have four Jones', five Davies', and no less than eight Evans' on our roll. In moments of excitement or of anger they resort to their own language and encourage or abuse each other in voluble Welsh....

A few miles back we pa.s.sed G.H.Q. I was vaguely impressed with the silent dignity, the aloofness, as it were, of that now celebrated place.

Our train drew up in the station, which seemed as deserted as that of a small English country town on a Sunday. "Here, within a mile of me," I thought, "dwell the Powers that Be, whose brains control the destinies of a million men. Here somewhere is the individual who knows my destination and when I am likely to get to it." But this surmise proved incorrect. It was three-thirty on Christmas afternoon and even the staff must lunch. Presently a R.T.O.[1] issued from a cosy-looking office and crossed the line towards me. His first question was positively painful in its nave simplicity.

[1] Railway Transport Officer.

"Who are _you_?" he inquired haughtily. My reply was not only correct but dignified. "We know nothing about you," he said. "The staff officer who should have been here to give you your instructions is away at present." (I think I mentioned that it was Christmas Day!)

"Never mind," I replied, "but would it be disturbing your arrangements at all if I watered my horses and gave my men some food here? They've had nothing since last night, and the horses have been ten hours without water."

"No time for that. You'll leave in two minutes."

And sure enough in half an hour we were off again!...

When, soon after five, we learnt that we were within a few minutes of our journey's end I leant across and woke "The Child"--who is my junior subaltern. If this war had not come to pa.s.s the Child would probably be enjoying his Christmas holidays and looking forward to his last term at his public school. Actually, he has already nine months' service, of which three have been spent at the front. He has been home wounded and is now starting out again as a veteran to whom less experienced persons refer their doubts and queries. Last week he celebrated his eighteenth birthday. He is the genuine article, that is he holds a regular commission and has pa.s.sed through "the Shop."[2] His clothes fit him, his aspirates appear in the right places, he is self-possessed, competent, level-headed and not infrequently amusing. Of his particular type of manhood (or rather boyhood) he is a fine example.

[2] R.M.A. Woolwich.

"Wake up, Child," I said. "We're nearly there."

He rubbed his eyes and sat up, wide awake at once.

"_Some_ journey," he observed. "Hope it's not h.e.l.l's own distance to our billets."

The R.T.O. at ---- where we detrained was an expert, the pa.s.sion of whose life it is apparently to clear the station yard in an impossibly short s.p.a.ce of time. He addressed me as follows, the moment I was out of the train.

"You _must_ be unloaded and out of this in two hours. You can sort yourselves in the road afterwards."

I promised to do my utmost, but the prospect of sorting men, horses, vehicles, and harness on a narrow road flanked by deep ditches whilst the rain streamed down out of a sky as black as tar, appealed only vaguely to my optimistic spirit.

The R.T.O., having given minute instructions and made certain that they were in course of being carried out with feverish haste, became communicative.

"You see," he said, "there's been the d.i.c.kens of a row lately. One unit took four and a half hours to detrain and several have taken more than three. Then 'Bra.s.s Hats' get busy and call for reasons in writing, and I have to render a report and everybody gets d.a.m.ned. If you exceed your time I shall _have_ to report you. I don't want to, of course, and I'm sure you don't want me to."

But at this moment I spotted, by the light of an acetylene flare, my prize-fool sergeant (every battery is issued with at least one of these) directing his drivers to place their harness just where it could not fail to be in everybody's way. I turned to the R.T.O.

"My good man," I said, "you can report me to any one you please. I've reached the stage when I don't care _what_ you do." And I made for the offending sergeant. The R.T.O., justly incensed, retired to the warmth of his office.

As a matter of fact things went rather well; the men, heartened by the thought that rest and food were not far distant, worked with a will, and by the time the allotted two hours had elapsed we were not only clear of the yard, but hooked in on the road and nearly ready to start. Moreover, being the first battery of the Brigade to arrive we had had our choice of billets, and knew that we had got a good one. The Child, preceded by a cyclist guide whose knowledge of the country was palpably slight, and followed by the mess cart, had gone off into the darkness to find the way. It was his job to make all arrangements and then come back to meet us. Since it was only drizzling now and not really very cold, the outlook was distinctly brighter.

"Walk--march," I ordered, and we duly started. We progressed without mishap for, roughly, twenty-five yards, when there was a shout from the rear of the column. The sergeant-major took in its ominous purport before I did. He forgot himself--and swore aloud. "G.S. wagon's overturned in the ditch" was what I eventually heard. It was enough to make an angel weep tears of vexation.

A battery is provided by a munificent government with two G.S. wagons.

One contains supplies (_i.e._ food for horse and man), the other contains baggage and stores. To be without either is most unpleasant. I went back to the scene of the disaster. The ditch was deep and more than half full of water. In it, completely overturned and firmly wedged, was the baggage wagon. Behind the wagon, also in the ditch and still mounted upon a floundering steed, was our old farrier, talking very fast to himself in Welsh. We got him out and soothed him--poor old man, he was wet through from the waist downwards--and then looked sadly, reluctantly, at the wagon. Evidently there was no hope of shifting it without unloading, and that would take too long. So three unfortunate gunners and a bombardier were told off to mount guard over it, given some tins of bully beef and a few biscuits and marooned, as it were, till the morning. All this took time. And we were very tired and very hungry.

"I am the most unlucky devil on earth," I thought, as riding up to the front again I found that the pole of an ammunition wagon had broken and was going to cause still further delay. But it was a selfish thought.

There was a distant rumbling, not of thunder, far behind us. I looked back. The night was clearing and the black horizon was a clear-cut line against the heavens. Into the sky, now here, now there, kept darting up tiny sparks of fire, and over the whole long line, for miles and miles, a glimmer, as of summer lightning, flickered spasmodically. For in that direction lay "the front." On this Christmas night in the year of grace nineteen hundred and fifteen, from the North Sea to the Alps, there stood men peering through the darkness at the dim shape of the parapet opposite, watching for an enemy who might be preparing some sinister scheme for their undoing. And I had dared to deem myself unlucky--I who had hope that some time that night I should undress and slip into bed--warm and dry....

St. Stephen's Day! I wonder if the U.H.C. are meeting at Clonmult to-day. Closing my eyes I can picture the village street with its crowd of holiday-making farmers, buckeens, horse-dealers, pinkcoated officers and country gentlemen, priests and "lads on jinnets," as it was when I went to a meet there that Boxing Day the year that "Brad" and I spent our leave in Cork. But now hunting is a thing of small importance and Brad--is a treasured memory....

We are comfortable here, extraordinarily so. The whole battery is in one farm and more than half the horses are under cover. The men sleep in a roomy barn with plenty of straw to keep them warm, the sergeants have a loft of their own. We have arranged harness rooms, a good kitchen for the cooks, a washhouse, a gun park, a battery office, and a telephone room. "_M. le patron_" is courtly and obliging, Madame is altogether charming. Their parlour is at the officers' disposal for a living-room: I've got a bedroom to myself. We are, in fact, in process of settling down.

My admiration for the soldiers of the New Army increases daily. For I perceive that they too, in common with their more highly trained, more sternly disciplined comrades of the original "Regulars," possess the supreme quality of being able to "stick it." The journey from our station in England to this particular farm in northern France was no bad test for raw troops--and we are raw at present, it is idle to deny the fact. We marched to Southampton, we embarked (a lengthy and a tiring process). We were twelve hours on the boat, and we had an exceptionally rough crossing, during which nine-tenths of the battery were sick. We disembarked, we groomed our horses and regarded our rusty harness with dismay. We waited about for some hours, forbidden to leave the precincts of the quay. Then we marched to the station and entrained. Any one who has ever a.s.sisted to put guns and heavy wagons on to side-loading trucks, or to haul unwilling horses up a slippery ramp, knows what that means. And I may add that it was dark and it was raining. We travelled for twenty-four hours--with a mess-tin full of lukewarm tea at 8 a.m.

to hearten us--and then we detrained at just the time when it was getting dark again and still raining. Moreover, whilst we were in the train, cold, hungry, dirty and horribly uncomfortable, we had ample time to remember that it was Christmas Day, a festival upon which the soldier is supposed to be given a gratuitous feast and a whole holiday. But all this, to say nothing of a five-mile march to our billet afterwards and the tedious process of unharnessing and putting down horse lines in the dark, was done without audible "grousing." Truly this morning's late _reveille_ was well earned.

The sun is shining this afternoon. The gunners are busy washing down the guns and wagons, the drivers sit around the courtyard scrubbing away at their harness: through the open window I can hear them singing softly.

The poultry picking their way delicately about the yard, the old _patron_ carrying armfuls of straw to his cattle, and Madame sitting sewing in the kitchen doorway almost make one feel that peace has come again into the world. But from the eastward occasionally and very faintly there comes that ominous rumbling which portends carnage, destruction--Death....

It was the quartermaster-sergeant's idea originally. He is a New Army product, but he has already developed the two essential attributes which go towards the making of a good quartermaster-sergeant--a suave manner and an eye to the main chance. It was he who suggested, laughingly, that since the men had missed their Christmas dinner, we should pretend to be Scotch and celebrate New Year's Day instead. The arrangements are now complete. The men are to be "paid out" to-morrow and they have all agreed to subscribe a franc apiece. This will be supplemented until the funds are sufficient. The Expeditionary Force canteen at ---- has been visited, and in spite of the heavy demands previously made upon it for Christmas has provided us with numerous delicacies. The old farmer, entering cheerfully into the spirit of the affair, has offered beans and potatoes which Madame proposes to cook for us. Bottled beer has been purchased, beer on draught will be forthcoming. There are even crackers.

To crown all, the Child returns triumphantly seated upon the box seat of a G.S. wagon which contains--a piano!...

In the end circ.u.mstances forced us to celebrate the birth of the year of victory on the last day but one of 1915. For to-day two officers and a large party of N.C.O.'s and men departed for the front on a course of instruction. So we had to have our "day" before they went. And what a day it was! The dinner--thanks largely to the energy and resource of the "quarter-bloke" and the cooks--was an immense success. Every man ate until, literally, he could eat no more. Then, after the issue of beer and a brief interval for repose and tobacco, an inter-section football match was started. The two subalterns whose commands were involved made a sporting agreement that the loser should stand a packet of cigarettes to every man of the winning section--some sixty in all. The game, which was played in a water-logged meadow, ended in a draw, so they each stood their own men the aforesaid packet--a highly popular procedure.

The piano, need I say, was going all the afternoon. It was necessary to practise for the evening's concert, and besides we are Welsh and therefore we are all musical. Moreover--and this I record with diffidence--I saw the one sergeant we have who is _not_ Welsh but Irish inveigle the dairymaid into waltzing round the yard!

In the officers' mess we too "spread ourselves a bit." We had guests and we gave them an eight-course dinner which began with _hors d'oeuvre varies_ (but not very varied seeing that there were only sardines and chopped carrots) and ended with dessert. Specially selected ration beef was, of course, the _piece de resistance_, but it was followed by roast pigeon and a salad, the latter mixed and dressed by Madame's own fair hands. But the pigeons, though cooked to a nicety, were undeniably tough--a fact which was not surprising seeing that they were quite possibly the oldest inhabitants of the farm!

Eventually, well pleased with ourselves and each armed with a brand of cigar which one can buy at the rate of nine inches for twopence, we adjourned to the smoking concert in the barn. The stage was our old friend the G.S. wagon; the lights, siege lamps, hung round at intervals.

Bottled beer and cigarettes were in constant circulation; the performers were above the average, and the choruses vociferous but always tuneful.

Every unit has its amateur comedian; but we have got a real professional one--a "lad fra' Lancasheer" who is well known in the north of England.

I will not divulge his stage name, but he is a corporal now. His voice is exceptional, his good-nature unlimited, and as for his stories--well! Moreover, he is gifted enough to be always topical, often personal, but never disrespectful.

The Child also performed. He has no great voice and had dined well, but, since he _is_ the Child and sang a song about any old night being a wonderful night, was wildly applauded. Then the saddler-sergeant, a quaint character of whom more anon, brought the house down by playing a quavering solo upon a penny whistle. Finally, the sergeant-major made a speech which ended as follows:--

"Now there's just one point I want to remind you of. We all wear a badge in our caps with a gun on it--those of us that is who haven't gone against orders and given them away as souvenirs" (audible giggles--although as a matter of fact this has not occurred). "We're all members of the Royal Regiment. It's got a fine history--let's play up to it. We'll now sing 'the King,' after which there'll be an issue of tea and rum...."