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"CONTEMPTIBLE"




SOLDIERS' TALES OF THE GREAT WAR

Each volume cr. 8vo, cloth.

I. WITH MY REGIMENT. By "Platoon Commander."

II. DIXMUDE. The Epic of the French Marines. Oct.-Nov. 1914. By
Charles le Goffic. _Illustrated_

III. IN THE FIELD (1914-15). The Impressions of an Officer of Light
Cavalry.

IV. UNCENSORED LETTERS FROM THE DARDANELLES. Notes of a French Army
Doctor. _Illustrated_

V. PRISONER OF WAR. By Andre Warnod. _Illustrated_

VI. "CONTEMPTIBLE." By "Casualty."

VII. ON THE ANZAC TRAIL. By "Anzac."

Philadelphia J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY London: WILLIAM
HEINEMANN




"CONTEMPTIBLE"

BY

"CASUALTY"

Philadelphia: J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

MCMXVI




_Printed in Great Britain._




CONTENTS


CHAP. PAGE

I LEAVING ENGLAND 1

II CALM BEFORE THE STORM 10

III THE ADVANCE TO MONS 14

IV MONS 21

V THE BEGINNING OF THE RETREAT 27

VI DARKNESS 34

VII VENEROLLES 39

VIII ST. QUENTIN AND LA FERE 44

IX SIR JOHN FRENCH 51

X A PAUSE, AND MORE MARCHING 55

XI A REAR-GUARD ACTION 62

XII VILLIERS-COTTERETS 66

XIII HEAT AND DUST 74

XIV THE OCCUPATION OF VILLIERS 78

XV THE LAST LAP 86

XVI THE TURN OF THE TIDE 95

XVII THE ADVANCE BEGINS 98

XVIII THE CROSSING OF THE MARNE 104

XIX AN ADVANCED-GUARD ACTION 109

XX DEFENCE 117

XXI THE DEFENCE OF THE BRANDY 122

XXII STRATEGY AS YOU LIKE IT 126

XXIII THE LAST ADVANCE 133

XXIV SATURDAY NIGHT 141

XXV THE CROSSING OF THE AISNE 151

XXVI THE CELLARS OF POUSSEY 161

XXVII THE FIRST TRENCHES 168

XXVIII IN RESERVE AT SOUVIR 177

XXIX TO STRAIGHTEN THE LINE 186

XXX THE JAWS OF DEATH 193

XXXI THE FIELD HOSPITAL 204

XXXII OPERATION 213

XXXIII ST. NAZAIRE 219

XXXIV SOMEWHERE IN MAYFAIR 221




CHAPTER I

LEAVING ENGLAND


No cheers, no handkerchiefs, no bands. Nothing that even suggested the
time-honoured scene of soldiers leaving home to fight the Empire's
battles. Parade was at midnight. Except for the lighted windows of the
barracks, and the rush of hurrying feet, all was dark and quiet. It was
more like ordinary night operations than the dramatic departure of a
Unit of the First British Expeditionary Force to France.

As the Battalion swung into the road, the Subaltern could not help
thinking that this was indeed a queer send-off. A few sergeants' wives,
standing at the corner of the Parade ground, were saying good-bye to
their friends as they passed. "Good-bye, Bill;" "Good luck, Sam!" Not a
hint of emotion in their voices. One might have thought that husbands
and fathers went away to risk their lives in war every day of the week.
And if the men were at all moved at leaving what had served for their
home, they hid it remarkably well. Songs were soon breaking out from all
parts of the column of route. As the Club House, and then the Golf Club,
stole silently up and disappeared behind him, the Subaltern wondered
whether he would ever see them again. But he refused to let his
thoughts drift in this channel. Meanwhile, the weight of the
mobilisation kit was almost intolerable.

In an hour the station was reached. An engine was shunting up and down,
piecing the troop trains together, and in twenty minutes the Battalion
was shuffling down the platform, the empty trains on either side. Two
companies were to go to each train, twelve men to a third-class
compartment, N.C.O.s second class, Officers first. As soon as the men
were in their seats, the Subaltern made his way to the seat he had
"bagged," and prepared to go to sleep. Another fellow pushed his head
through the window and wondered what had become of the regimental
transport. Somebody else said he didn't know or care; his valise was
always lost, he said; they always made a point of it.

Soon after, they were all asleep, and the train pulled slowly out of the
station.

When the Subaltern awoke it was early morning, and they were moving
through Hampshire fields at a rather sober pace. He was assailed with a
poignant feeling of annoyance and resentment that this war should be
forced upon them. England looked so good in the morning sunshine, and
the comforts of English civilisation were so hard to leave. The sinister
uncertainty of the Future brooded over them like a thunder cloud.

Isolated houses thickened into clusters, streets sprang up, and soon
they were in Southampton.

The train pulled up at the Embarkation Station, quite close to the wharf
to which some half-dozen steamers were moored. There was little or no
delay. The Battalion fell straight into "massed formation," and began
immediately to move on to one of the ships. The Colonel stood by the
gangway talking to an Embarkation Officer. Everything was in perfect
readiness, and the Subaltern was soon able to secure a berth.

There was plenty of excitement on deck while the horses of the
regimental transport were being shipped into the hold.

To induce "Light Draft," "Heavy Draft" horses and "Officers'
Chargers"--in all some sixty animals--to trust themselves to be lowered
into a dark and evil-smelling cavern, was no easy matter. Some shied
from the gangway, neighing; other walked peaceably on to it, and, with a
"thus far and no farther" expression in every line of their bodies, took
up a firm stand, and had to be pushed into the hold with the combined
weight of many men. Several of the transport section narrowly escaped
death and mutilation at the hands, or rather hoofs, of the Officers'
Chargers. Meanwhile a sentry, with fixed bayonet, was observed watching
some Lascars, who were engaged in getting the transport on board. It
appeared that the wretched fellows, thinking that they were to be taken
to France and forced to fight the Germans, had deserted to a man on the
previous night, and had had to be routed out of their hiding-places in
Southampton.

Not that such a small thing as that could upset for one moment the
steady progress of the Embarkation of the Army. It was like a huge,
slow-moving machine; there was a hint of the inexorable in its
exactitude. Nothing had been forgotten--not even eggs for the Officers'
breakfast in the Captain's cabin.

Meanwhile the other ships were filling up. By midday they began to slide
down the Solent, and guesses were being freely exchanged about the
destination of the little flotilla. Some said Boulogne, others Calais;
but the general opinion was Havre, though nobody knew for certain, for
the Captain of the ship had not yet opened his sealed orders. The
transports crept slowly along the coast of the Isle of Wight, but it was
not until evening that the business of crossing the Channel was begun in
earnest.

The day had been lovely, and Officers and men had spent it mostly in
sleeping and smoking upon the deck. Spirits had risen as the day grew
older. For at dawn the cheeriest optimist is a pessimist, while at
midday pessimists become optimists. In the early morning the German Army
had been invincible. At lunch the Battalion was going to Berlin, on the
biggest holiday of its long life!

The Subaltern, still suffering from the after-effects of inoculation
against enteric, which had been unfortunately augmented by a premature
indulgence in fruit, and by the inability to rest during the rush of
mobilisation, did not spend a very happy night. The men fared even
worse, for the smell of hot, cramped horses, steaming up from the lower
deck, was almost unbearable. But their troubles were soon over, for by
seven o'clock the boat was gliding through the crowded docks of Havre.

Naturally most of the Mess had been in France before, but to Tommy it
was a world undiscovered. The first impression made on the men was
created by a huge negro working on the docks. He was greeted with roars
of laughter, and cries of, "Hallo, Jack Johnson!" The red trousers of
the French sentries, too, created a tremendous sensation. At length the
right landing-stage was reached. Equipments were thrown on, and the
Battalion was paraded on the dock.

The march through the cobbled streets of Havre rapidly developed into a
fiasco. This was one of the first, if not the very first, landing of
British Troops in France, and to the French it was a novelty, calling
for a tremendous display of open-armed welcome. Children rushed from the
houses, and fell upon the men crying for "souvenirs." Ladies pursued
them with basins full of wine and what they were pleased to call beer.
Men were literally carried from the ranks, under the eyes of their
Officers, and borne in triumph into houses and inns. What with the heat
of the day and the heaviness of the equipment and the after-effects of
the noisome deck, the men could scarcely be blamed for availing
themselves of such hospitality, though to drink intoxicants on the march
is suicidal. Men "fell out," first by ones and twos, then by whole
half-dozens and dozens. The Subaltern himself was scarcely strong enough
to stagger up the long hills at the back of the town, let alone worrying
about his men. The Colonel was aghast, and very furious. He couldn't
understand it. (He was riding.)

The camp was prepared for the troops in a wonderfully complete
fashion--not the least thing seemed to have been forgotten. The men,
stripped of their boots, coats and equipments, were resting in the shade
of the tents. A caterer from Havre had come up to supply the Mess, and
the Subaltern was able to procure from him a bottle of rather heady
claret, which, as he was thirsty and exhausted, he consumed too rapidly,
and found himself hopelessly inebriate. Luckily there was nothing to do,
so he slept for many hours.

Waking up in the cool of the evening he heard the voices of another
Second-Lieutenant and a reservist Subaltern talking about some people he
knew near his home. It was good to forget about wars and soldiers, and
everything that filled so amply the present and future, and to lose
himself in pleasant talk of pleasant things at home.... The dinner
provided by the French caterer was very French, and altogether the last
sort of meal that a young gentleman suffering from anti-enteric
inoculation ought to have indulged in. Everything conspired to make him
worse, and what with the heat and the malady, he spent a very miserable
time.

After about two days' stay, the Battalion moved away from the rest
camp, and, setting out before dawn, marched back through those fatal
streets of Havre, this time deserted in the moonlight, to a sort of
shed, called by the French authorities a troop station. Here as usual
the train was waiting, and the men had but to be put in. The carriages
could not be called luxurious; to be frank, they were cattle-trucks. But
it takes more than that to damp the spirits of Mr. Thomas Atkins. Cries
imitating the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep broke out from
the trucks!

The train moved out of the depot, and wended its way in the most casual
manner through the streets of Havre. This so amused Tommy that he roared
with laughter. The people who rushed to give the train a send-off, with
many cries of "Vive les Anglais," "A bas les Bosches," were greeted with
more bleatings and brayings.

* * * * *

The journey through France was quite uneventful. Sleeping or reading the
whole day through, the Subaltern only remembered Rouen, passed at about
midday, and Amiens later in the evening. The train had paused at
numerous villages on its way, and in every case there had been violent
demonstrations of enthusiasm. In one case a young lady of prepossessing
appearance had thrust her face through the window, and talked very
excitedly and quite incomprehensibly, until one of the fellows in the
carriage grasped the situation, leant forward, and did honour to the
occasion. The damsel retired blushing.

At Amiens various rumours were afloat. Somebody had heard the Colonel
say the magic word "Liege." Pictures of battles to be fought that very
night thrilled some of them not a little.

* * * * *

Dawn found the Battalion hungry, shivering and miserable, paraded by the
side of the track, at a little wayside station called Wassigne. The
train shunted away, leaving the Battalion with a positive feeling of
desolation. A Staff Officer, rubbing sleep from his eyes, emerged from a
little "estaminet" and gave the Colonel the necessary orders. During the
march that ensued the Battalion passed through villages where the three
other regiments in the Brigade were billeted. At length a village called
Iron was reached, and their various billets were allotted to each
Company.

The Subaltern's Company settled down in a huge water-mill; its Officers
being quartered in the miller's private house.

A wash, a shave and a meal worked wonders.

And so the journey was finished, and the Battalion found itself at
length in the theatre of operations.

* * * * *

I have tried in this chapter to give some idea of the ease and
smoothness with which this delicate operation of transportation was
carried out. The Battalions which composed the First Expeditionary Force
had been spread in small groups over the whole length and breadth of
Britain. They had been mobilised, embarked, piloted across the Channel
in the face of an undefeated enemy fleet, rested, and trained to their
various areas of concentration, to take their place by the side of their
French Allies.

All this was accomplished without a single hitch, and with a speed that
was astonishing. When the time comes for the inner history of the war to
be written, no doubt proper praise for these preliminary arrangements
will be given to those who so eminently deserve it.




CHAPTER II

CALM BEFORE THE STORM


Peace reigned for the next five days, the last taste of careless days
that so many of those poor fellows were to have.

A route march generally occupied the mornings, and a musketry parade the
evenings. Meanwhile, the men were rapidly accustoming themselves to the
new conditions. The Officers occupied themselves with polishing up their
French, and getting a hold upon the reservists who had joined the
Battalion on mobilisation.

The French did everything in their power to make the Battalion at home.
Cider was given to the men in buckets. The Officers were treated like
the best friends of the families with whom they were billeted. The
fatted calf was not spared, and this in a land where there were not too
many fatted calves.

The Company "struck a particularly soft spot." The miller had gone to
the war leaving behind him his wife, his mother and two children.
Nothing they could do for the five officers of the Company was too much
trouble. Madame Mere resigned her bedroom to the Major and his second in
command, while Madame herself slew the fattest of her chickens and
rabbits for the meals of her hungry Officers.

The talk that was indulged in must have been interesting, even though
the French was halting and ungrammatical. Of all the companies' Messes,
this one took the most serious view of the future, and earned for itself
the nickname of "Les Miserables." The Senior Subaltern said openly that
this calm preceded a storm. The papers they got--_Le Petit Parisian_ and
such like--talked vaguely of a successful offensive on the extreme
right: Muelhouse, it was said, had been taken. But of the left, of
Belgium, there was silence. Such ideas as the Subaltern himself had on
the strategical situation were but crude. The line of battle, he
fancied, would stretch north and south, from Muelhouse to Liege. If it
were true that Liege had fallen, he thought the left would rest
successfully on Namur. The English Army, he imagined, was acting as
"general reserve," behind the French line, and would not be employed
until the time had arrived to hurl the last reserve into the melee, at
the most critical point.

And all the while, never a sound of firing, never a sight of the red and
blue of the French uniforms. The war might have been two hundred miles
away!

Meanwhile Tommy on his marches was discovering things. Wonder of
wonders, this curious people called "baccy" tabac! "And if yer wants a
bit of bread yer awsks for pain, strewth!" He loved to hear the French
gabble to him in their excited way; he never thought that reciprocally
his talk was just as funny. The French matches earned unprintable names.
But on the whole he admired sunny France with its squares of golden corn
and vegetables, and when he passed a painted Crucifix with its cluster
of flowering graves, he would say: "Golly, Bill, ain't it pretty? We
oughter 'ave them at 'ome, yer know." And of course he kept on saying
what he was going to do with "Kayser Bill."

One night after the evening meal, the men of the Company gave a little
concert outside the mill. The flower-scented twilight was fragrantly
beautiful, and the mill stream gurgled a lullaby accompaniment as it
swept past the trailing grass. Nor was there any lack of talent. One
reservist, a miner since he had left the army, roared out several songs
concerning the feminine element at the sea-side, or voicing an inquiry
as to a gentleman's companion on the previous night. Then, with an
entire lack of appropriateness, another got up and recited "The Wreck of
the _Titanic_" in a most touching and dramatic manner. Followed a song
with a much appreciated chorus--

"Though your heart may ache awhile,
Never mind!
Though your face may lose its smile,
Never mind!
For there's sunshine after rain,
And then gladness follows pain,
You'll be happy once again,
Never mind!"

The ditty deals with broken vows, and faithless hearts, and blighted
lives; just the sort of song that Tommy loves to warble after a good
meal in the evening. It conjured to the Subaltern's eyes the picture of
the dainty little star who had sung it on the boards of the Coliseum.
And to conclude, Madame's voice, French, and sonorously metallic, was
heard in the dining-room striking up the "Marseillaise." Tommy did not
know a word of it, but he yelled "March on" (a very good translation of
"Marchons") and sang "lar lar" to the rest of the tune.

Thus passed peacefully enough those five days--the calm before the
storm.




CHAPTER III

THE ADVANCE TO MONS


The Battalion had arrived at Iron on a Sunday morning. It had rested
there, while the remainder of the British Army was being concentrated,
until Friday morning. On Thursday night the Battalion Orders made it
clear that a start was to be made. Parade was to be earlier than usual,
and nothing was to be left behind. Every one was very sorry to be
leaving their French friends, and there were great doings that night.
Champagne was produced, and a horrible sort of liquor called "alcahol"
was introduced into the coffee. Such was the generosity of the miller's
people that it was only with the greatest difficulty that the Captain
induced Madame to accept any payment for her kindness. And so in the
chill of that Friday morning the Battalion marched away, not without
many handshakings and blessings from the simple villagers. The Subaltern
often wonders what became of Mesdames, and that excitable son Raoul, and
charming Therese, whom the Subalterns had all insisted on kissing before
they left. A very different sort of folk occupy that village now. He
only hopes that his friends escaped them.

The Battalion joined its Brigade, and the Brigade its Division, and
before the sun was very high in the sky they were swinging along the
"route nationale," due northwards. The day was very hot, and the
Battalion was hurried, with as short halts as possible, towards
Landrecies. As, however, this march was easily surpassed in
"frightfulness" by many others, it will be enough to say that Landrecies
was reached in the afternoon.

Having seen his men as comfortable as possible in the schools where they
were billeted for the night, the Subaltern threw off his equipment, and
having bought as much chocolate as he and a friend could lay their hands
on, retired to his room and lay down.

At about seven o'clock in the evening the three Subalterns made their
way to the largest hotel in the town, where they found the rest of the
Mess already assembled at dinner. He often remembered this meal
afterwards, for it was the last that he had properly served for some
time. In the middle of it the Colonel was summoned hastily away by an
urgent message, and before they dispersed to their billets, the
unwelcome news was received that Battalion parade was to be at three
o'clock next morning.

"This," said he, "is the real beginning of the show. Henceforth,
horribleness."

A hunk of bread eaten during the first stage of the march was all the
breakfast he could find. Maroilles, a suburb of Landrecies, was passed,
and an hour later a big railway junction. The march seemed to be
directed on Mauberge, but a digression was made to the north-west, and
finally a halt was called at a tiny village called Harignes. The
Subaltern's men were billeted in a large barn opening on to an orchard.

After a scrap meal, he pulled out some maps to study the country which
lay before them, and what should meet his eye but the field of Waterloo,
with all its familiar names: Charleroi, Ligny, Quatrebras, Genappes, the
names which he had studied a year ago at Sandhurst. Surely these names
of the victory of ninety-nine years ago were a good omen!

"You've only left Sandhurst a year, you ought to know all about this
country," some one told him.

A horrible rumour went about that another move was to be made at five
o'clock the same evening, but this hour was subsequently altered to two
o'clock the next morning. That night a five-franc postal order was given
to every man as part of his pay.

Even in the height of summer there is always a feeling of ghostliness
about nocturnal parades. The darkness was intense. As might be expected,
the men had not by any means recovered from the heat and exertion of the
previous day, and were not in the best of tempers. The Subaltern himself
was so tired that he had to lie down on the cold road at each hourly
halt of ten minutes, and, with his cap for a pillow, sleep soundly for
at least eight of those minutes. Then whistles were sounded ahead, the
men would rise wearily, and shuffle on their equipment with the single
effort that is the hall-mark of a well-trained soldier. The Captain,
passing along the Company, called his attention to the village they were
passing. It was Malplaquet. The grey light of dawn revealed large open
fields. "I expect this is where they fought it out," said the Captain.

Keeping a close eye upon the map, he could tell almost to a hundred
yards where the boundary of Belgium crossed the road. A few miles
further, a halt for breakfast was ordered, as it was about eight
o'clock. The Colonel called for Company Commanders, and while they were
away Sir John French, followed by Sir Archibald Murray and a few members
of the General Staff, passed by in motors.

Amongst the hundred-and-one pictures that the Subaltern will always
carry in his mind of the opening stages of the campaign, this one stands
out most vividly. The sun was shining, but it was still cool. On the
right of the road was a thick forest of young firs; on the left, a row
of essentially suburban villas were being built, curiously out of place
in that agricultural district. The men were sitting on the banks of the
road, or clustered round the "Cookers," drawing their breakfast rations
of bread and cold bacon. Then the Major came back. There was an
expression on his face that showed he was well aware of the dramatic
part he was about to play. Imagine him standing by the wayside,
surrounded by his Officers, two Sergeant-Majors, and some half-dozen
senior Sergeants, all with pencils ready poised to write his orders in
their Field Service Note-books. There was a pause of several seconds.
The Major seemed to be at a loss quite how to begin. "There's a lot that
I needn't mention, but this is what concerns this Company," he said with
a jerk. "When we reach" (here he mentioned a name which the Subaltern
has long since forgotten) "we have to deploy to the left, and search the
village of Harmigne to drive the enemy from it, and take up a
position...."

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