12 
yi 
LAND & WATER 
December. 13,, U917 
lU' stUl cherished Viigue kleas that war w^s like a ' footba 
n.atrh. and that ^HjnK^vhere in heaven or on earth there %. as .ut 
Dmpire xvhr. saw that the ruk-s were observed, aUhough lu 
was fast coming to the conch.sion tlnit tlie (.ernvuis xyen 
RenerallV " off-side " anil that oecasi<jnaliy tiiey did a louU 
But near M---. after the>- had crossi-d the A.sne on porftooi. 
rafts, thev were undeceived. . 
It happened about nine o'clock one Tuesday moinnit,, 
while thev were waiting in the villag.' in close fonualion tm 
,mr artillery to open fire on a hill which they had been orderon 
to attack." A " Tatibe " flew over the heads of the men n 
the village and just half an hour later the church towel 
crumpled up suddenh- and men were lymg on their backs 
all oN-er the street amid blocks of ma.sonr>-, a cloud ol \eUo\\ 
smoke, and showers of wiiite dust line as flour. \eoman, 
more lortunate, looked round angrily to see who it was 
ha<l suddenly hit him in the back. He coughed, wiped bis 
nose and thrust his knuckles into liis eyes ; he saw that lu' 
was white as a miller from head to loot. 1-rom that time 
forward he began to associate war with sights no les^ tnan 
smells and equally beastly. Later on-m I- landers -these 
assaults on his senses were multiplied : his ear-drums rattiet 
like a tambourine, his e\-es .smarted as though s<)meone had 
thrown pepper into them, and his palate tasted the e.vtiemeb 
of pineapple and chlorine; which is rather like almond-. 
Also iiis tactile sense was offended by lice. All this, however, 
was to come. The next five minutes gave him a glimpse 
of hell. The whole village was tumbling to pieces about him, 
and the streets were a shambles. He heard an order bUc 
out by companies ! Xo doubling ! " Kacli company waited 
its turn witli stolid equanimity. Later in the day on the hill 
above the village they got their own back. ^ eemau was 
better at makiiig history than at writing it ; all hb could ever 
tell vou about the ■' Battle of the Aisne " was "It wur where 
I got a punch in. the back from a C.crman gunner bloke dree 
mile away— hitting l«low the belt I calls it." 
For fi\-c days afterwards they led a woodman's life 111 a 
forest where tliey li\-ed in wigwams made of faggots aiid 
waterproof sheets. W'hen the shrapnel came whining over- 
head they made a bolt for their "splinter-proofs," and lay 
in the burrows for what seemed an interminable time, after 
which first one head would pop out and then another. ' Ihc 
weather was dry, the soil gra\-el, and the bracken made good 
bedding r later 'on, in the wet clay of Flanders, they looked 
back to those days on the Aisne and idealised them as a blithe 
pastoral. Here' Yeoman set snares and caught rabbits, 
which rather raised his reputation in the battalion. They 
got to kno\\- the German ways pretty well— first a salvo, then 
a dead pause for ft\e minutes by way of enticing the unwary 
out of their holes, and then five or 'six salvoes aga:in. This 
tauglit them another lesson, which is that there is such a thing 
a; i)sychology in war or. as Yeoman put it, " There bain't 
no vlics on Vritz." One night when they were standing by 
for an attack, the French put up a " strafe " eight miles 
away at a place called Soifesons, which they knew by its 
tall 'crag of a cathedral tower. There was fhe roar as of a 
thunderstorm in the air and the sky was one great conflagra- 
tion so that you could read your' watch by it and see the 
whites of the'next man's eyes.' At this stage they bega'n to 
realise that the war was going to be rather a big thing, and 
that it might not be over by Christmas after all. 
The leaves had hardly begun to change colour on the 
beeches when their trenches .were taken over by the French, 
and thev were on the move again for an unknown destination 
awax- up North. Tlifv did a great trek of 150 miles by way 
of Abbeville, where they stopped for the night ; a journey, 
chiefly memorable to Yeoman for the fact that there he got 
into' trouble for being found by a prowling " red cap" in an 
estaminet after the hour of 8 p.m. This led to his being 
" told ofi." The CO. asked him if he would take his award, 
and when Yeoman, who was of an obliging disposition said, 
" Yes please, sir." as he always did on these judicial occasions, 
jie was astonished to be merely told not to do it again. • 
" Sorry to disappoint you. my man.", said the CO.. with a 
mysterious SBiilp as ^'eoman waited for something more. 
" By the way, your platoon commander says you showed uj) 
well at Montrcuil. I .suppose you're one of those fellows who 
are always looking for trouble, and so long as the Germans 
))rovide you with it, you're content for the tiiue being." 
^\■hich was true. , * , 
Eleven da\s after they had left tlie Aisne they found tliem- 
selvcs in a flat country \vhere not a beech was to be seen. 
but pollarded willows grew thick as nettles. It reminded 
Yeoman of Sedgemoor. but he had never seen women in 
wooden shoes with towing-ropes round their waists before. 
Also the beer was thin as nettle-beer. It was a bad country 
for artillery observation, and fot infantry it was liea\\' going. 
for the soil was clay and clung to tlie soles of your boots liki' 
.j;east. .\t Bethuno lie gave his coat to a Belgian refugee, and 
£ot " crimed " for " losing by neglect certain articles of 
•clothing to wit one ov.rcoat." It was commonly said of 
Yeoman whose father had been a poacher in days when a 
A\est-country labourer was expected by the gentry to bring 
up a family 'of ten on nine shillings a week, that he did not 
know the 'difference between- mciini and liiiiiih which may 
have been true, -^or he never could keep anything of his 
own if he thought others were in need of it. He soine- 
times "pinched" in the old' days when m the society 
of his pal, but he did this largely from an adventurous 
aijpetite for miscliief : he ne\er indulged in the meaner form of 
larceny which is solitar\- theft. Moreover, since he had seeii 
what the enem\- could do, in the way of loot, he had ceaseil 
to take any pleasure in being liglit-fingered ; he had a vagim 
feeling that fellows who stole might find themselves doing 
worse things. Which in its way was an ethical discovery. 
• NOn the first day they took up a position lacing North, but 
that night thev changed it, and in the morning they fcund 
themselves facing the sun. The Division was, as a matter of 
fact, engaged in wlieeling round with its left, swinging on their 
right as on a pi\ot while masses of French cavalry were 
operating on their left flank in an attempt to roll up the 
German right. It was tlie beginning of " the great sweep, 
and their objective was to cut the German line of retreat on 
Lille. It failed, as e\-ervb(>dy knows, and from that moment 
their long thin line extending away North up to Yprcs, was 
stretched to breaking point, for they had no reserves. The\- 
pushed forward and got astride the Estaires-La Bassee road ; 
it was the extreme point of their advance. They were 
brought up against a wasp's nest of a sugar factory full of 
machine-guns! They could not sec anything to fire at, and 
they dare not nun-e to dig. The next morning their left 
coinpan\- suddenh' found themselves between' two fires ; 
the Germans had ni.shed the regiment on their left and driven 
it in. They knew this from a survivor who, covered, wit^i clay 
from foot to head as though ho were a natural feature of the 
landscape, crawled in a little later. They had just one 
platoon in hand and this they rushed up. It checked the 
enemy's ad\-ance, who max have mistaken the platoon for a 
battalion. There was nothing theatrical about the old 
•B.E.F., except that it Was always on tour, but in one respect 
it 7vas a stage army. It was always pretending to be bigger 
than it was. 
Yeoman remembered that village as " the place where I 
lost my blooming pipe," which is all he did remember. He 
felt rather annoyed about it. 
Then came a night which those who sur\i\-ed arc not likely 
to forget. 
* * * * * , 
But at this point 1 will let Borlase take up the tale. After 
all, "S'eoman was in his company and he knew him better than 
I did, for Yeoman had poached in Borlase's preserves in th(^ 
old days before he took the King's shilling, and he had 
always had 'hopes of him. 
"the enemy made three attacks that night, beginning at 
seven in the evening and repeating themselves at intervals 
of about three hours. Their guns were busy all the time, 
first shrapnel in bursts of six or eight, then H.E. 1 was kept 
pnitty busy dodging the shrapnel as I had to negotiate that 
street several times duriiig the night — I was adjutant just 
then — to get down to the signal office and send messages to 
Brigade Headquarters. I didn't mind the shrapnel ; it 
was the H.E. that troubled me. Yon know what a ' strafe ' 
with heavies is like. You seem to be taking a long breath 
Ijetween each shell and you'\-e no sooner ceased wondering 
where the first is going to burst than you start wondering 
about the next. Also you feel as if the enemy guns had all 
got you specially ' registered ' and were concentrating on 
you personally. Which is rather egotistical when you conn- 
to think of it. Of course, one gets over that obsession after 
a time, and you make up your mind that some inscrutabli' 
Power has long' ago determined that you're either going to get 
hit or you're not, and that whether you loiter or whether 
you hustle it'll all be the same in the end. 
"The air above ns seemed ali\e with frightened birds — first a 
flutter, then a scream, and then, as the enemy began to shorten 
their fuses, we got the shell-bursts right in the middle of the 
village — followed by a roaring landslide of faUing masonry. 
And all along the line stretching right away up to Ypres the 
same thing was going on. A brick landed, on my fo.ot from no- 
where as though thrown by a footpad. I must have looked 
like a ghost, for my face was runnin.g with sweat and the white 
mortar settling on it formed a sort of plaster-mask. There 
were hayricks and barns in the village, and as these caught 
lire one after the other, each rick glowed like a thousand red- 
hot needles. One ])atch of the street would be light as day, 
the next dark as night, and the ' walking cases ' rushed the 
one and tlieii paused to take breath in the other. Their 
figures rnade monstrous sliadows against the xv-all as the\' 
iuiriied past. But there was really no cover anywhere., anil 
along our line e\er\' man who moved was a mark for a licrman 
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