Chapter 8 FROM BETHUNE TO YPRES

While we were stationed at Lillers, in the latter part of December 1914, a detachment of the Indian Cavalry was sent up in the r?le of infantry to the trenches beyond Béthune for a short spell, where they reinforced the Lahore and Meerut Divisions, the latter two Divisions comprising the Indian Corps (infantry). This corps was moved to another theatre of war at the beginning of 1916, after having borne the brunt of the fighting through two winters in France and Flanders and suffered many casualties.

The cavalry on this occasion gave a good account of themselves in the fighting round Festubert and Givenchy. During the time that they were there we convoyed the motor-lorries with rations for the detachment in the trenches, but although our destination was shelled during this period and was within earshot of rifle fire in the trenches and the "rat-tat-tat" of machine guns, like so many gigantic typewriters at work, we never managed to be actually there whilst any excitement was on.

In this neighbourhood are the graves of many gallant Native troops, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Garhwalis, and Pathans of the Indian Corps. Our Dominion troops have rightly won universal praise and admiration for the gallant part they have played in the war and the way they have come forward of their own free will to fight, but it is to be regretted that our Indian troops have in this respect been somewhat neglected. The nature of their loyalty is different somehow to that of any of our other overseas troops. "For East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." Perhaps it is not generally known that every Native cavalryman provides his own horse or its equivalent value in money on enlistment. I shall never forget the Review of the Indian Cavalry Corps by the Prince of Wales in France; the way they gave "eyes right" as each squadron marched past the Prince left in one the impression that they really meant it and were saluting the future King-Emperor. These contingents, infantry and cavalry alike, came to a far-away, strange, cold land, and to a particularly bleak part of it at that, during the rainiest winter ever experienced in a proverbially wet part of the country, dressed only in their thin Indian khaki, be it remembered. They found themselves taking part in a kind of warfare that was entirely new to them, in deep trenches, frequently up to their middles in water, and always in thick mud and slush, such as they had never experienced before in their lives. Moreover, not only were they unused to shell fire, but they found their own particular methods and tactics of war in open country impossible under such circumstances; yet, in spite of all this, they upheld the fighting traditions of the Indian Army, and stuck it through the very heaviest of the fighting and under the worst climatic conditions it is possible to imagine. I am referring now chiefly to the Indian Infantry Corps.

During the nights and days which preceded the battle of Neuve Chapelle we heard guns away in the distance making a continuous bombardment, and a deep roar like thunder rent the air. This was the prelude to the attack. On March 9th Sir Douglas Haig's Special Order to the 1st Army was published.

Our minds at this time must have been dwarfed, for the attack on Neuve Chapelle was as nothing in magnitude, compared with subsequent attacks, in the matters of men and guns.

The Indian Cavalry Corps was moved up towards the direction of the attack and massed some way behind the line in woods, where they remained "standing to," in co-operation with divisions of British and French cavalry, the whole representing, I believe, the greatest number of mounted troops ever massed together, up to that time.

The Supply Column made two or three journeys up on its usual errand, but the cavalry were sent back to the previous billets after a few days, it being found that no opportunity for cavalry fighting had been effected. Although this was the case it must not be thought that the Indian Cavalry Corps were kept entirely in a state of idleness. The -- Divisions of the Corps, under the command of Lieut.-General Rimington, were directly under the orders of General Headquarters, and were available to be attached to any army and sent to any part of the line where it was considered that an opportunity for using them might arise. Meanwhile they did their bit of reserve trench digging in various parts of the line, and many a pleasant summer day I have spent in convoying up the lorries of supplies for the different digging parties, and off-loaded them at various points between Locon and Estaires. The R.H.A. batteries attached to the Corps were almost continually in action at different places, though more in the r?le of Field than of Horse Artillery.

The most interesting journeys, from the Supply Column point of view, were when the Indian Cavalry were sent up to the trenches, again in the r?le of infantrymen, to the Ypres Salient. This was in the early summer of 1915, when they reinforced the line immediately after the first German gas attack, from which our line naturally suffered severely through being unprepared for another new and previously unanticipated form of German "Kultur."

It is interesting at this point to note that during this time a British Cavalry Regiment, forming part of a Native Cavalry Brigade, assisted in the attack and capture of Hooge Chateau, which has changed hands so many times.

The rendezvous for the motor-lorries on these occasions was at some shelter huts on an open, flat piece of ground, where once grass had grown and now used as a camping-ground for troops recently out of, or about to take their turn in, the trenches just beyond. On it are erected a number of huts, similar to those which can be seen in many parts of England where troops in training have been encamped. A road runs through the middle of this plain, and at a prearranged point on it was the ration dumping-ground. Here the motor-lorries were met by the Supply Officer and their contents off-loaded. The use made by us of this ground as a camp was, of course, not unknown to the Germans, who occasionally favoured it with a certain amount of shelling. On one or two occasions they shelled it at a most inopportune moment. A smoking concert had been got up and was to take place in one of the largest huts. It was to start at 8 p.m., and no sooner had the first performer on the programme mounted the improvised platform than a shell landed just outside; it was followed by several others. There was only one thing to be done, and the senior officer present ordered the hut to be evacuated. So everyone departed, cursing the Huns roundly for being so extremely inconsiderate as to spoil an evening's amusement.

One Sunday a Church Parade was being held, and those present were lustily singing a hymn, the opening line of which is, "Stand up, stand up for Jesus." As the words "Stand up" were leaving their lips, a shell came screaming over and exploded near by. Every one, the padre included, instinctively "ducked"!

From the rest camp, as from many other points behind the line, an aerial combat is no unusual sight. One hears the drone of the aeroplane engines and sees the hostile machine speeding along over the line, while little white puffs, like flakes of cotton-wool, spring suddenly into being all around it, as the shrapnel shells from anti-aircraft batteries, familiarly known always as "Archies," burst. Or perhaps the gunners may favour it with high explosive shells, which leave little black puffs. On a still day the puffs of smoke linger for several minutes in the blue sky like tiny clouds and gradually disperse. The hostile aeroplane darts hither and thither. All eyes are turned skywards, and the following are the type of comments overheard as the shells burst: "Just a bit too low," "Too far ahead," "The next'll get him," "Got him," "No, he's only doing a dive down into his own lines." Often the whole path which the aeroplane has taken across the sky is literally covered with these little white puffs of shrapnel smoke. I have counted as many as a hundred and eighty, and even then the aeroplane not infrequently escapes without apparent damage. But the Taube does not have things all its own way, for one or more of our own 'planes rise to attack, and if one is very lucky one sees it descend with a long and rapid dive-nose first, in flames, a tangled mass of framework and burning canvas. An air duel on a clear day is not only wonderful from a spectacular point of view, but the most exciting episode it is possible to witness. If, however, one happens to be directly underneath where the shrapnel shells are bursting and realizes that all that goes up comes down again, one takes more than a spectacular interest in such an incident. By night aviators afford one even greater excitement, trying to spot the hostile machine and locate it by the sound of its engine. Then perhaps a terrific crash as it drops an incendiary bomb, the explosion of which lights up the whole neighbourhood with a dull red glow.

The weather all through that month of May 1915 was ideal, and nothing could have looked more beautiful than the long, straight white roads, with their line of tall trees on either side that characterize the Routes Nationales and Routes de Grande Communication, the main arteries leading across the borders of France into Belgium, and which run through miles of intensely cultivated land. The main road from Hazebrouck to Ypres is a typical example of the highways of Flanders; with its strip of raised pavé in the centre, it is flanked by earth on either side and runs between an avenue of tall and stately poplars. It has been followed by troops from every part of the world over which flies the Union Jack or the Tricolour, and they have marched along it on their way to fight the bloodiest battles of the world's history. The nearer one gets to the trenches, the worse becomes the condition of the roads, and that leading through Poperinghe to Ypres was among the roughest on which I have ever travelled. Leaving Hazebrouck, it gradually became worse and worse as one approached and crossed the frontier of Belgium. The pavé in the centre is narrow and has a high camber. The earth that borders it on either side is soft, so that it is particularly difficult for two heavy motor-lorries proceeding in opposite directions to pass one another. It is to the credit of British motor-car manufacturers that the lorries and cars with the Expeditionary Force in France have stood up so well on roads such as they were never designed or intended to travel on.

They were sad runs these, up to the trenches, where every village through which the convoy passed was suffering more from the devastating effects of shell fire than the last. Every day almost one would notice a change; another church tower a little more damaged, or a house that yesterday was proudly standing and a landmark is a victim to German artillery and a ruined mass to-day. Fewer and fewer buildings left standing, not a piece of glass remaining in any single window frame; the bare walls, perhaps, of a house here and there still standing, but bespattered with shrapnel bullets. The further up one got, the fewer civilian inhabitants one saw, until the last villages, such as Vlamertinghe on the road to Ypres, which had been entirely evacuated by the civilian population, except perhaps for one or two old peasants here and there, who had possibly spent all their lives in their own particular village and intended to continue doing so, even if this entailed living a considerable part of the time in cellars. We often passed little parties of refugees making their way slowly into France, there to throw themselves on the hospitality of their more fortunate friends. Turning their backs for ever on their old homes, which they instinctively knew they had seen for the last time, a whole family, perhaps, the father leading a horse and cart piled up with such odd bits and pieces of household goods as they had managed to save, perhaps all their worldly possessions-a bed, mattress, and a few sticks of furniture-the other members of the family either riding on the cart or following in a sorrowful little procession behind it, their possessions amongst the animal world not being forgotten, but frequently represented by a goat and a few chickens. The further up one got, too, the more congested were the roads with the impedimenta of war: motor-lorries, ambulances, guns, wagons and the like. The Military Police, being stationed on point duty on the more important cross roads, with the aid of red and green flags directed the traffic, and for all the world it was often like a block of vehicular traffic at Piccadilly Circus, the usual accompaniment of language not being forgotten!

From the rest huts at Vlamertinghe right into Ypres, or what remained of it, was only a matter of five minutes on a motorcycle. Never have I seen or imagined a sight so tragic. Street after street in a state of absolute wreck and ruin. What had once been beautiful and massive buildings, such as the famous Cloth Hall, which dates from the thirteenth century, and the Church of St. Martin, now heaps of debris and broken glass lying across the road. Houses destroyed, many of them, beyond recognition; some had been set alight by shells and were slowly smouldering; others, with their fronts completely blown away, were still standing and displayed their contents nakedly to the passer-by. Such is the ugliness of war's destruction-the desolation of desolation, deserted by every living soul. Never before have I experienced such a sensation of utter loneliness. This struck me more forcibly, I think, than anything else. If one had searched amongst those ruins, what treasures and what gruesome tragedies might one have encountered! Ypres must once have been a very beautiful city and capital of Flanders; now it was a city of Death. To visit it in 1915 was to see the eighth wonder of the world. Surely it will for ever be haunted by the spirits of the soldiers who have fallen in fighting to hold it. That the Ypres Salient has been consistently held against fearful odds and the heavy attacks which the enemy has made on it, with Calais as his objective, is an everlasting memorial to the valour of British soldiers.

I picked up some pieces of coloured glass, which had once formed part of the stained-glass windows of St. Martin's Church, now shattered and littered over the ground around its ruins, to take away as a memento, and as these thoughts were just passing through my mind, a shell whistled overhead and burst with a crash a little distance away and awoke in me a sense of duty. I made my way out of Ypres along the debris-strewn road, containing here and there some fine examples of shell-holes in the middle of it. On the way out I passed what had once been a General Service wagon with horses and riders, now a horrible inert mass of horse-flesh and wheel-spokes-at least, that is the impression that this sight left on my mind. A shell had caught it fair-a direct hit-a few minutes before.

Ypres at this time, it will be seen, was by no means a health resort. The long straight road leading into it was shelled regularly as clockwork every day; usually at about five or six o'clock the evening "hate" started. That is what is meant when the official communique states that "artillery fire was directed upon billets, railheads, and communication roads"; for this was a road which much transport loaded with rations, ammunition, and other material for the trenches there travelled along, and in the villages along that road troops on their way up to or out of the trenches were frequently temporarily billeted.

Whether it is a peculiarly machine-like working of the German mind or due to the fact that German organization is carried to such limits of mathematical precision I do not know, but the fact remains that this road was normally quite safe except between certain fixed and regular hours each evening. So I was never particularly anxious to delay the return journey of the convoy of empty motor-lorries longer than was absolutely necessary, and used to leave the danger zone as soon as we had off-loaded the rations and secured the Supply Officer's receipt for them. On one occasion only, on the return journey, however, did we have any excitement. We were travelling in convoy along a narrow road leading from the huts up to and at right angles to the main road. Just as we came to the junction of the two a few shells landed in the adjoining field, planted with tall poles, around which twining hops grew, doubtless of the famous Popeninghe brand. A few of these were destroyed, and quantities of earth were thrown up, the shells leaving dense grey-black clouds of smoke in the air, but doing no other damage. We were only just in time, though, that day, for a few hours later a motor-cyclist dispatch rider, who had come along the same road, caught up the convoy at Hazebrouck and told me that further back the road was being heavily shelled.

The saddest sight of all is just behind the line, in those roadside fields where rest the fallen. No matter to what part of the line one goes, but particularly behind Ypres-and nowhere scarcely along the whole front has the fighting been heavier than on this bit of the British line-one sees clustered together in groups here and there the little wooden crosses which mark the graves of those of whom Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "They despised Death and have won their discharge." They are cared for now and duly registered, and as far as possible inscribed with names and dates by that excellent department, the Graves Registration Committee at General Headquarters. "Oh, Cromwell's England, must thou yield for every inch of ground a son?" asks the poet; and these little graves will for ever remain, silent witnesses to the fact that here Death once reaped a rich harvest.