An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 | Page 4

stand near the station and hail anything passing, till they found something that would drop them near their destination. As there was an endless stream of traffic going out over the Albert and P��ronne Roads during that time (April 1917), it was easy.
Amiens is a dirty old town with its seven canals. The cathedral, belfry and the theatre are, of course, wonderful, but there is little else except the dirt.
I remember later lunching with John Sargent in Amiens, after which I asked him if he would like to see the front of the theatre. He said he would. When we were looking at it he said: "Yes, I suppose it is one of the most perfect things in Europe. I've had a photograph of it hanging over my bed for the last thirty years."
But Amiens was a danger trap for the young officer from the line, also for the men. "Charlie's Bar" was always full of officers; mirth ran high, also the bills for drinks--and the drink the Tommies got in the little caf��s was terrible stuff, and often doped.
Then, when darkness came on, strange women--the riff-raff from (p.?017) Paris, the expelled from Rouen, in fact the badly diseased from all parts of France--hovered about in the blackness with their electric torches, and led the unknowing away to blackened side-streets and up dim stairways--to what? Anyway, for an hour or so they were out of the rain and mud, but afterwards? Often did I go with Freddie Fane, the A.P.M., to these dens of filth to drag fine men away from disease.
[Illustration: IV. A Tank. Pozi��res.]
The wise ones dined well--if not too well--at the "Godbert," with its Madeleine, or the "Cathedral," with its Marguerite, who was the queen of the British Army in Picardy, or, not so expensively, at the "H?tel de la Paix." Some months later the club started, a well-run place. I remember a Major who used to have his bath there once a week at 4 p.m. It was prepared for him, with a large whisky-and-soda by its side. What more comfort could one wish? Then there were dinners at the Allied Press, after which the Major would give a discourse amid heavy silence; then music. The favourite song at that time was:--
"Jackie Boy! Master? Singie well? Very well. Hey down, Ho down, Derry, Derry down, All among the leaves so green, O.
"With my Hey down, down, With my Ho down, down, Hey down, Ho down, Derry, Derry down, All among the leaves so green, O."
Later, perhaps, if the night was fine, the Major would retire to the (p.?018) garden and play the flute. This was a serious moment--a great hush was felt, nobody dared to move; but he really didn't play badly. And old Hale would tell stories which no one could understand, and de Maratray would play ping-pong with extraordinary agility. It would all have been great fun if people had not been killing each other so near. Why, during that time, the Boche did not bomb Amiens, I cannot understand, it was thick every week-end with the British Army. One could hardly jamb oneself through the crowd in the Place Gambetta or up the Rue des Trois Cailloux. It was a struggling mass of khaki, bumping over the uneven cobblestones. What streets they were! I remember walking back from dinner one night with a Major, the agricultural expert of the Somme, and he said, "Don't you think the pavement is very hostile to-night?"
I shall never forget my first sight of the Somme battlefields. It was snowing fast, but the ground was not covered, and there was this endless waste of mud, holes and water. Nothing but mud, water, crosses and broken Tanks; miles and miles of it, horrible 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 P��ronne.]
How did they do it? "I want to go home."--Does anyone realise what those words must have meant to them then? I