Nothing of Importance A record of eight months at the front with a Welsh battalion, October, 1915, to June, 1916 — Story, Setting & Ideas

“The mask of glory,” I said, “has been stripped from the face of war.”

“And we are fighting the better for that,” continued my friend.

“You see that?” I exclaimed. “But of course you do. We know it, and you at home know it. And you want to know the truth?”

“Of course,” was the reply.

“I do not say that what you have read is not true,” said I; “but I do say that I have read nothing that gives a complete or proportioned picture. I have not yet found a perfect simile for this war, but the nearest I can think of is that of a pack of cards. Life in this war is a series of events so utterly different and disconnected, that the effect upon the actor in the midst of them is like receiving a hand of cards from an invisible dealer. There are four suits in the pack. Spades represent the dullness, mud, weariness, and sordidness. Clubs stand for another side, the humour, the cheerfulness, the jollity, and good-fellowship. In diamonds I see the glitter of excitement and adventure. Hearts are a tragic suit of agony, horror, and death. And to each man the invisible dealer gives a succession of cards; sometimes they seem all black; sometimes they are red and black alternately; and at times they come red, red, red; and at the end is the ace of hearts.”

“I understand,” said my friend. “And now tell me your hand.”

“It was a long hand,” I replied; “I think I had better try and write it down in a book. I have never written a book. I wonder how it would pan out? At first my hand was chiefly black with a sprinkling of diamonds; later I received more diamonds, but the hearts began to come as well; at last the hearts seemed to be squeezing out the clubs and diamonds. There were always plenty of spades.”

There was another silence.

“There was one phrase,” I resumed, “in the daily communiqués that used to strike us rather out there;” it was, “Nothing of importance to record on the rest of the front.” I believe that a hundred years hence this phrase will be repeated in the history books. There will be a passage like this: “Save for the gigantic effort of Germany to break through the French lines at Verdun, nothing of importance occurred on the western front between September, 1915, and the opening of the Somme offensive on the 1st of July, 1916.” And this will be believed, unless men have learnt to read history aright by then. For the river of history is full of waterfalls that attract the day excursionist--such as battles, and laws, and the deaths of kings; whereas the spirit of the river is not in the waterfalls. There are men who were wounded in the Somme battle, who had only seen a few weeks of war. I have yet to see a waterfall; but I have learned something of the spirit of the deep river in eight months of “nothing of importance.”

This, then, is the book that I have written. It is the spirit of the war as it came to me, first in big incoherent impressions, later as a more intelligible whole. Perhaps it will seem that the first chapters are somewhat light in tone and inclined to gloss over the terrible side of War. But that is just what happens; at first, the interest and adventure are paramount, and it is only after a time, only after all the novelty has worn away, that one gets the real proportion. If the first chapters do not bite deep, remember that this was my experience. This book does not claim to be always sensational or thrilling. One claim only I make for it: from end to end it is the truth.

The events recorded are real and true in every detail. I have nowhere exaggerated; for in this war there is nothing more terrible than the truth.

All the persons mentioned are also real, though I have thought it better to give them pseudonyms.

NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE

NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE

“Good-bye. Don’t forget to send me that Hun helmet!”

“All right! Good-bye!”

The train had long ago recovered from the shock of its initial jerk; a long steady grinding noise came up from the carriage wheels, as though they had recovered breath and were getting into their stride for Folkestone, regardless of the growing clatter of the South-Eastern rhythm;--if, indeed, so noble a word may be used for the noise made by the wheels as they passed over the rail-joints of this distinguished line.

“Don’t believe it’s a good thing having one’s people to see you off,” said Terry, whose people had accompanied him in large numbers to Charing Cross.

“They _will_ come, though,” remarked Crowley very wisely.

“I tried to persuade my people not to come,” said I; “but they think you like it, I suppose. I would certainly rather say good-bye at home, and have no one come to the station.”

And so I started off my experience of “the great adventure” with a “lie direct”: but it does not weigh very heavily upon my conscience.

Six of us sat in a first-class carriage on the morning of the 5th of October, 1915: for months we had been together in a reserve battalion waiting to go out to the front, and now at last we had received marching orders, and were bound for Folkestone, and thence for France. For which battalion of our regiment any or all of us twelve officers were destined, we had no knowledge whatever; but even the most uncongenial pair of us would, I am sure, have preferred each other’s company to that of complete strangers. I, at any rate, have never in my life felt more shy and self-conscious and full of stupid qualms: unless, indeed, it was on the occasion, ten months before, when I had stood shaking in front of a platoon of twenty men!

The last few days I had gone about feeling as though the news that I was going to the front were printed in large letters round my cap. I felt that people in the railway carriages, and in the streets, were looking at me with an electric interest; and the necessary (and unnecessary!) purchases, as well as the good-byes, were of the kind to make one feel placed upon a pedestal of importance! Now, in company with five other officers in like predicament, I felt already that I had climbed down a step from that pedestal; in fact, the whole experience of the first few days was one of a steady reduction from all-importance to complete insignificance!

As soon as we had recovered from the silence that followed my remarks upon the disadvantages of prolonged valedictions, we commenced a critical survey of our various properties and accoutrements. Revolvers leapt from brand new holsters; feet were held up to show the ideal trench-nails; flash lamps and torches, compasses, map-cases, pocket medicine-cases, all were shown with an easy confidence of manner that screened a sinking dread of disapprobation. The prismatic compass was regarded rather as a joke by some of us; its use in trench warfare was a doubtful quantity; yet there were some of us who in the depths of our martial wisdom were half expecting that the Battle of Loos was the prelude of an autumn campaign of open-country warfare. There was only one man whose word we took for law in anything, and that was Barrett. He had spent five days in the trenches last December; he had then received his commission in our battalion. He was the “man from the front.” And I noticed with secret misgivings that he had not removed the badges of rank from his arm, or sewed his two stars upon his shoulder-straps; he had not removed his bright buttons, and substituted for them leather ones such as are worn on golfing-jackets; and in his valise, he told us, he had his Sam Browne belt.

“But you never wear Sam Brownes out there,” I said: “all officers now dress as much as possible like the men.”

That was so, we were informed; but officers used to wear them in billets, when they were out of the firing-line.

“Well,” said Crowley, “we could get them sent out, I expect.”

“Yes,” said I; “I expect they would arrive safely.”

But this infantile conversation is not worthy of record! Suffice to say we knew nothing about war, and were just beginning to learn that fact!

The first check to our enthusiasm was at Folkestone. We reported to the railway transport officer, whom we then regarded as a little demi-god; he told us to report in time for the boat at a certain hour. This we did, signed our names with a feeling of doing some awful and irrevocable deed, and then were told to wait another three hours: there was no room for us on this boat! We retired to an hotel with a feeling that perhaps after all there was no such imperious shouting for our help over in France, such as we had all, I think (save only Barrett, who was cynical and pessimistic!) secretly imagined.

Darkness came ere we started. The crossing did not seem long, and I stood up on deck with Barrett most of the time. Two destroyers followed a little astern, one on either side; and there were lights right across the Channel. We were picked out by searchlights more than once, although all lights were forbidden on board. I felt that I was now fair game for the Germans; and it was exciting to think that they would give anything to sink me! At last I was in for “the great adventure.”

At Boulogne we had to wait a long time on a dismal quay and in a drizzling rain to interview an irritated and sleepy railway transport officer. After a long, long queue had been safely negociated we were given tickets to ----; and then again we had to wait quite an hour on the platform. Some of our party were excited at their first visit to a foreign soil; but their enthusiasm abated when at the buffet they were charged exorbitant prices and their English money was rejected as “dam fool money.”

Then there came a long jerky journey through the night in a crowded carriage. (As I am out for confessions, I will here state that I did not think this could be an ordinary passenger train, and I wondered vaguely who these men and women were who got in and out of other carriages!) At Étaples there was a still longer wait, and a still longer queue; but, fortunately, my signature had not lengthened. I remember sitting tired and dazed on the top of a valise, and asking Barrett what the time was.

“What a time to arrive!” I replied. But in war three forty-five is as good a time as any other, I was soon to discover.

We walked to a camp a mile distant from the station; our arrival seemed quite unlooked for, and a quartermaster-sergeant had to be procured, by the officer who was our guide, in order to gain access to the tent that contained the blanket stores. Wearily, at close on five o’clock, we fell asleep on the boarded bottom of a bell-tent.

It must have been about 10 a.m. on the 6th when we turned out and found ourselves in a sandy country; behind us was a small ridge, crowned by a belt of fir trees; the sun was well up and shone warm on the face as we washed and shaved in the open. The feeling of camp was exhilarating, and I was in good spirits.

But two blows immediately damped my ardour most effectively. When I learned that I was posted to our first battalion, and I alone of all of us twelve, the thought of my arrival among the regulars, with no experience, and not even an acquaintance, far less a friend, was distinctly chilling! To add to my discomfiture there befell a second misfortune: my valise was nowhere to be seen!

Indeed, the rest of the day was chiefly occupied in searching for my valise, but to no purpose whatever. I did not see it until ten days later, when by some miracle it appeared again! I can hardly convey the sense of depression these two facts cast over me the next few days; the interest and novelty of my experiences made me forget for short periods, but always there would return the thought of my arrival alone into a line regiment, and with the humiliating necessity of borrowing at once. Unknown and inexperienced I could not help being; but as a fool who lost all his property the first day, I should not cut a brilliant figure!

We obtained breakfast at an _estaminet_ by the station; omelettes, rolls and butter, and _café noir_. I bought a French newspaper, and thought how finely my French would improve under this daily necessity; but I soon found that one could get the Paris edition of the _Daily Mail_, and my French is still as sketchy as ever! I remember watching the French children and the French women at the doors of the houses, and wondering what they thought of this war on their own soil; I knew that the wild enthusiasms of a year ago had died down; I did not expect the shouting and singing, the souvenir-hunting, and the generous impulses that greeted our troops a year ago; but I felt so vividly myself the fact that between me and the Germans lay only a living wall of my own countrymen, that I could not help thinking these urchins and women must feel it too! The very way in which they swept the doorsteps seemed to me worth noting at the moment.

In the course of my wild peregrinations over the camp in search of my valise, I came upon a group of Tommies undergoing instruction in the machine-gun. Arrested by a familiar voice, I recognised as instructor a man I had known very well at Cambridge! He recognised me at the same moment, and in a few seconds we parted, after an invitation from him to dinner that evening; he was on “lines of communication” work, he told me.

Sitting in his tent after Mess, I was amazed at the apparent permanence of his abode; shelves, made out of boxes; novels, an army list, magazines, maps; bed, washstand, candlesticks, a chair; baccy, and whisky and soda! It was all so snug and comfortable. I was soon to find myself accumulating a very similar collection in billets six miles behind the firing-line, and taking most of it into the trenches! I remember being impressed by the statement that the cannonade had been heard day after day since the 25th, and still more impressed by references to “the plans of the Staff!”

I left Étaples early on the morning of the 7th, after receiving instructions, and a railway warrant for “Chocques,” from a one-armed major of the Gordons. Of our original twelve only Terry and Crowley remained with me; with a young Scot, we had a grey-upholstered first-class carriage to ourselves.

In the train I commenced my first letter home; and I should here like to state that the reason for the inclusion in these first chapters of a good many extracts from letters is that they do really represent my first vague, rather disconnected, impressions, and are therefore truer than any more coherent account I might now give. First impressions of people, houses, places, are always interesting; I hope that the reader will not find these without interest, even though he may find them at times lacking in style.

“I am now in the train. We are passing level-crossings guarded by horn-blowing women; the train is strolling leisurely along over grass-grown tracks, and stopping at platformless stations. It is very hot. At midday I shall be about ten miles from the firing-line, and I expect the cannonade will be pretty audible. I feel strangely indifferent to things now, though I have the feeling that all this will be stamped indelibly on my memory.” How well I remember the thrill of excitement when I found the name Chocques on my map, quite close to the firing-fine! And as we got nearer, and saw R.A.M.C. and cavalry camps, and talked to Tommies guarding the line, saw aeroplanes, and yes! a captive balloon, excitement grew still greater! At last we reached Chocques, and the railway transport officer calmly informed us that we had another four miles to go. He brilliantly suggested walking. But an A.S.C. lorry was there, and in we climbed, only to be ejected by the corporal! Eventually we tramped to Béthune with _very_ full packs in a hot sun.

Walking gave us opportunity for observation; and that road was worth seeing to those who had not seen it before. There were convoys of A.S.C. lorries, drawn up (or “parked”) in twenties or thirties alongside the road, each with its mystical marking, a scarlet shell, a green shamrock, etc., painted on its side; Red Cross ambulances passed, impelling one to turn back and look in them, sometimes containing stretcher-cases (feet only visible), or sitting cases with bandaged head or arm in sling. Then there were motor-cars with Staff officers; motor-cars with youthful officers in immaculate Sam Brownes and “slacks”; and as we drew nearer Béthune, we saw canteens with Tommies standing and lounging outside, small squads of men, English notices, and boards with painted inscriptions,

+-------------+ +----------------+ | BILLETS. | | | such as | Officers--2 | or | H.Q. | | Men--30 | |117th Inf. Bde. | +-------------+ +----------------+

and in the distance loomed the square tower of the cathedral, which I thought then to be a decapitated spire.

And so we came into the bustle of a French city.

I had never heard of Béthune before. As the crow flies it is about five to six miles from the front trenches. The shops were doing a roaring trade, and I was amazed to see chemists flaunting auto-strop razors, stationers offering “Tommy’s writing-pad,” and tailors showing English officers’ uniforms in their windows, besides all the goods of a large and populous town. We were very hungry and tired, and fate directed us to the famous tea-shop, where, at dainty tables, amid crowds of officers, we obtained an English tea! I was astounded; so were we all. To think that I had treasured a toothbrush as a thing that I might not be able to replace for months! Here was everything to hand. Were we really within six miles of the Germans? Yet officers were discussing “the hot time we had yesterday”; while “we only came out this morning,” or “they whizz-banged us pretty badly last night,” were remarks from officers redolent of bath and the hairdresser! Buttons brilliantly polished, boots shining like advertisements, swagger-canes, and immaculate collars, gave the strangest first impression of “active service” to us, with our leather equipment, packs, leather buttons, and trench boots!

“Old Barrett was right about the Sam Brownes,” I said to Terry, vainly trying to look at my ease.

“Let’s look at your map,” he answered. Then, after a moment:

“Oh, we’re not far from the La Bassée Canal. I’ve heard of that often enough!”

“So have I,” I replied. “Is La Bassée ours or theirs?”

“Ours, of course”; but he borrowed the map again to make sure!

Refreshed, but feeling strangely “out” of everything, we eventually found our way to the town major. Here my letter continues: