Bullets Billets | Page 4

off on the
tram down to Havre. That hundred men I had brought over had nothing
to do with me now. I was entirely on my own, and was off to the Front

to join my battalion. Down at Havre the officials at the station gave me
a complicated yellow diagram, known as a travelling pass, and I got
into a carriage in the train bound for Rouen.
I was not alone now; a whole forest of second lieutenants like myself
were in the same train, and with them a solid, congealed mass of
valises, packs, revolvers and haversacks. At last the train started, and
after the usual hour spent in feeling that you have left all the most
important things behind, I settled down on a mound of equipment and
tried to do a bit of a sleep.
So what with sleeping, smoking and talking, we jolted along until we
pulled up at Rouen. Here I had to leave the train, for some obscure
reason, in order to go to the Palais de Justice to get another ticket. I
padded off down over the bridge into Rouen, found the Palais, went in
and was shown along to an office that dealt in tickets.
In this dark and dingy oak-panelled saloon, illuminated by electric light
and the glittering reflections from gold braid, there lurked a general or
two. I was here given another pass entitling me to be deposited at a
certain siding in Flanders.
Back I went to the station, and in due course rattled off in the train
again towards the North.
A fearfully long journey we had, up to the Front! The worst of it was
that nobody knew--or, if they did, wouldn't tell you--which way you
were going, or how long it would take to get to your destination. For
instance, we didn't know we were going to Rouen till we got there; and
we didn't know we were going from Rouen to Boulogne until, after a
night spent in the train, the whole outfit jolted and jangled into the Gare
de Something, down by the wharf at that salubrious seaport.
We spent a complete day and part of an evening at Boulogne, as our
train did not leave until midnight.
[Illustration: having a smoke]

I and another chap who was going to the next railhead to mine at the
Front, went off together into the town and had lunch at a café in the
High Street. We then strolled around the shops, buying a few things we
needed. Not very attractive things either, but I'll mention them here to
show how we thought and felt.
We first went to a "pharmacie" and got some boxes of morphia tablets,
after which we went to an ironmonger's (don't know the French for it)
and each bought a ponderous pair of barbed wire cutters. So what with
wire clippers and morphia tablets, we were gay. About four o'clock we
calmed down a bit, and went to the same restaurant where we had
lunched.
Here we had tea with a couple of French girls, exceeding good to look
upon, who had apparently escaped from Lille. We got on splendidly
with them till a couple of French officers, one with the Legion of
Honour, came along to the next table. That took all the shine out of us,
so we determined to quit, and cleared off to the Hotel de Folkestone,
where we had a bath to console us. Dinner followed, and then, feeling
particularly hilarious, I made my will. Not the approved will of family
lawyer style, but just a letter announcing, in bald and harsh terms that,
in the event of my remaining permanently in Belgium, I wanted my
total small worldly wealth to be disposed of in a certain way.
Felt better after this outburst, and, rejoining my pal, we went off into
the town again and by easy stages reached the train.
At about one a.m. the train started, and we creaked and groaned our
way out of Boulogne. We were now really off for the Front, and the
situation, consequently, became more exciting. We were slowly getting
nearer and nearer to the real thing. But what a train! It dribbled and
rumbled along at about five miles an hour, and, I verily believe,
stopped at every farmhouse within sight of the line. I could not help
thinking that the engine driver was a German in disguise, who was
trying to prevent our ever arriving at our destination. I tried to sleep,
but each time the train pulled up, I woke with a start and thought that
we'd got there. This went on for many hours, and as I knew we must be
getting somewhere near, my dreams became worse and worse.

I somehow began to think that the