An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 | Page 5

and terrible,
but with a noble dignity of its own, and, running through it, the great
artery, the Albert-Bapaume Road, with its endless stream of men, guns,
food lorries, mules and cars, all pressing along with apparently
unceasing energy towards the front. Past all the little crosses where
their comrades had fallen, nothing daunted, they pressed on towards the
Hell that awaited them on the far side of Bapaume. The mud, the cold,
the noise, the misery, and perhaps death;--on they went, plodding
through the mud, those wonderful men, perhaps singing one of their
cheer-making songs, such as:--
"I want to go home. (p. 019) I want to go home. I don't want to go to
the trenches no more, Where the Whizz-bangs and Johnsons do rattle
and roar. Take me right over the sea, Where the Allemande can't
bayonet me. Oh, my! I don't want to die, I want to go home."

[Illustration: V. Warwickshires entering Péronne.]
How did they do it? "I want to go home."--Does anyone realise what
those words must have meant to them then? I believe I do now--a little
bit. Even I, from my back, looking-on position, sometimes felt the
terrible fear, the longing to get away. What must they have felt? "From
battle, murder and sudden death, Good Lord, deliver us."
On up the hill past the mines to Pozières. An Army railway was then
running through Pozières, and the station was marked by a big wooden
sign painted black and white, like you see at any country station in
England, with POZIÈRES in large Roman letters, but that's all there
was of Pozières except a little red in the mud. I remember later, at the
R.F.C. H.Q., Maurice Baring showed me a series of air-photographs of
Pozières as it was in 1914, with its peaceful little streets and rows of
trees. What a contrast to the Pozières as it was in 1917--MUD. Further
on, the Butte stood out on the right, a heap of chalky mud, not a blade
of grass round it then--nothing but mud, with a white cross on the top.
On the left, the Crown Prince's dug-out and Gibraltar--I suppose these
have gone now--and Le Sars and Grévillers, at that time General
Birdwood's H.Q., where the church had been knocked into a fine shape.
I tried to draw it, but was much put off by air fighting. It seemed a
favourite spot for this.
Bapaume must always have been a dismal place, like Albert, but
(p. 020) Péronne must have been lovely, looking up from the water;
and the main Place must have been most imposing, but then it was very
sad. The Boche had only left it about three weeks, and it had not been
"cleaned up." But the real terribleness of the Somme was not in the
towns or on the roads. One felt it as one wandered over the old
battlefields of La Boisselle, Courcelette, Thiepval, Grandcourt,
Miraumont, Beaumont-Hamel, Bazentin-le-Grand and
Bazentin-le-Petit--the whole country practically untouched since the
great day when the Boche was pushed back and it was left in peace
once more.
A hand lying on the duckboards; a Boche and a Highlander locked in a
deadly embrace at the edge of Highwood; the "Cough-drop" with the

stench coming from its watery bottom; the shell-holes with the shapes
of bodies faintly showing through the putrid water--all these things
made one think terribly of what human beings had been through, and
were going through a bit further on, and would be going through for
perhaps years more--who knew how many?
I remember an officer saying to me, "Paint the Somme? I could do it
from memory--just a flat horizon-line and mud-holes and water, with
the stumps of a few battered trees," but one could not paint the smell.
Early one morning in Amiens I got a message from Colonel John
Buchan asking me to breakfast at the "Hôtel du Rhin." While we were
having breakfast, there was a great noise outside--an English voice was
cursing someone else hard and telling him to get on and not make an
ass of himself. Then a Flying Pilot was pushed in by an Observer. The
Pilot's hand and arm were temporarily bound up, but blood was (p. 021)
dropping through. The Observer had his face badly scratched and one
of his legs was not quite right. They sat at a table, and the waiter
brought them eggs and coffee, which they took with relish, but the Pilot
was constantly drooping towards his left, and the drooping always
continued, till he went crack on the floor. Then the Observer would
curse him soundly and put him back in his chair, where he would eat
again till the next fall. When they had finished, the waiter put a
cigarette in each of