Contemptible | Page 5

in the chill of that Friday morning the Battalion marched away, not without many handshakings and blessings from the simple villagers. The Subaltern often wonders what became of Mesdames, and that excitable son Raoul, and charming Th��r��se, whom the Subalterns had all insisted on kissing before they left. A very different sort of folk occupy that village now. He only hopes that his friends escaped them.
The Battalion joined its Brigade, and the Brigade its Division, and before the sun was very high in the sky they were swinging along the "route nationale," due northwards. The day was very hot, and the Battalion was hurried, with as short halts as possible, towards Landr��cies. As, however, this march was easily surpassed in "frightfulness" by many others, it will be enough to say that Landr��cies was reached in the afternoon.
Having seen his men as comfortable as possible in the schools where they were billeted for the night, the Subaltern threw off his equipment, and having bought as much chocolate as he and a friend could lay their hands on, retired to his room and lay down.
At about seven o'clock in the evening the three Subalterns made their way to the largest hotel in the town, where they found the rest of the Mess already assembled at dinner. He often remembered this meal afterwards, for it was the last that he had properly served for some time. In the middle of it the Colonel was summoned hastily away by an urgent message, and before they dispersed to their billets, the unwelcome news was received that Battalion parade was to be at three o'clock next morning.
"This," said he, "is the real beginning of the show. Henceforth, horribleness."
A hunk of bread eaten during the first stage of the march was all the breakfast he could find. Maroilles, a suburb of Landr��cies, was passed, and an hour later a big railway junction. The march seemed to be directed on Mauberge, but a digression was made to the north-west, and finally a halt was called at a tiny village called Harignes. The Subaltern's men were billeted in a large barn opening on to an orchard.
After a scrap meal, he pulled out some maps to study the country which lay before them, and what should meet his eye but the field of Waterloo, with all its familiar names: Charleroi, Ligny, Quatrebras, Genappes, the names which he had studied a year ago at Sandhurst. Surely these names of the victory of ninety-nine years ago were a good omen!
"You've only left Sandhurst a year, you ought to know all about this country," some one told him.
A horrible rumour went about that another move was to be made at five o'clock the same evening, but this hour was subsequently altered to two o'clock the next morning. That night a five-franc postal order was given to every man as part of his pay.
Even in the height of summer there is always a feeling of ghostliness about nocturnal parades. The darkness was intense. As might be expected, the men had not by any means recovered from the heat and exertion of the previous day, and were not in the best of tempers. The Subaltern himself was so tired that he had to lie down on the cold road at each hourly halt of ten minutes, and, with his cap for a pillow, sleep soundly for at least eight of those minutes. Then whistles were sounded ahead, the men would rise wearily, and shuffle on their equipment with the single effort that is the hall-mark of a well-trained soldier. The Captain, passing along the Company, called his attention to the village they were passing. It was Malplaquet. The grey light of dawn revealed large open fields. "I expect this is where they fought it out," said the Captain.
Keeping a close eye upon the map, he could tell almost to a hundred yards where the boundary of Belgium crossed the road. A few miles further, a halt for breakfast was ordered, as it was about eight o'clock. The Colonel called for Company Commanders, and while they were away Sir John French, followed by Sir Archibald Murray and a few members of the General Staff, passed by in motors.
Amongst the hundred-and-one pictures that the Subaltern will always carry in his mind of the opening stages of the campaign, this one stands out most vividly. The sun was shining, but it was still cool. On the right of the road was a thick forest of young firs; on the left, a row of essentially suburban villas were being built, curiously out of place in that agricultural district. The men were sitting on the banks of the road, or clustered round the "Cookers," drawing their breakfast rations of bread and cold bacon. Then the Major came back. There was