The Glory of the Trenches | Page 6

deserting. Frankly I didn't want to go out; few men do
when it comes to the point. The Front has its own peculiar exhilaration,
like big game-hunting, discovering the North Pole, or anything that's
dangerous; and it has its own peculiar reward--the peace of mind that
comes of doing something beyond dispute unselfish and superlatively
worth while. It's odd, but it's true that in the front-line many a man
experiences peace of mind for the first time and grows a little afraid of
a return to normal ways of life. My second memory is of the wistful
faces of the chaps whom we passed along the road. At the
unaccustomed sound of a car travelling in broad daylight the Tommies
poked their heads out of hiding-places like rabbits. Such dirty Tommies!
How could they be otherwise living forever on old battlefields? If they
were given time for reflection they wouldn't want to go out; they'd
choose to stay with the game till the war was ended. But we caught
them unaware, and as they gazed after us down the first part of the long
trail that leads back from the trenches to Blighty, there was hunger in
their eyes. My third memory is of kindness.
You wouldn't think that men would go to war to learn how to be
kind--but they do. There's no kinder creature in the whole wide world
than the average Tommy. He makes a friend of any stray animal he can
find. He shares his last franc with a chap who isn't his pal. He risks his
life quite inconsequently to rescue any one who's wounded. When he's
gone over the top with bomb and bayonet for the express purpose of
"doing in" the Hun, he makes a comrade of the Fritzie he captures.
You'll see him coming down the battered trenches with some scared lad
of a German at his side. He's gabbling away making throat-noises and
signs, smiling and doing his inarticulate best to be intelligible. He pats
the Hun on the back, hands him chocolate and cigarettes, exchanges
souvenirs and shares with him his last luxury. If any one interferes with

his Fritzie he's willing to fight. When they come to the cage where the
prisoner has to be handed over, the farewells of these companions
whose acquaintance has been made at the bayonet-point are often as
absurd as they are affecting. I suppose one only learns the value of
kindness when he feels the need of it himself. The men out there have
said "Good-bye" to everything they loved, but they've got to love some
one--so they give their affections to captured Fritzies, stray dogs,
fellows who've collected a piece of a shell--in fact to any one who's a
little worse off than themselves. My ambulance-driver was like that
with his "Sure, Mike." He was like it during the entire drive. When he
came to the white road which climbs the ridge with all the enemy
country staring at it, it would have been excusable in him to have
hurried. The Hun barrage might descend at any minute. All the way, in
the ditches on either side, dead pack animals lay; in the dug-outs there
were other unseen dead making the air foul. But he drove slowly and
gently, skirting the shell-holes with diligent care so as to spare us every
unnecessary jolting. I don't know his name, shouldn't recognise his face,
but I shall always remember the almost womanly tenderness of his
driving.
After two changes into other ambulances at different distributing points,
I arrived about nine on a summer's evening at the Casualty Clearing
Station. In something less than an hour I was undressed and on the
operating table.
You might suppose that when for three interminable years such a
stream of tragedy has flowed through a hospital, it would be easy for
surgeons and nurses to treat mutilation and death perfunctorily. They
don't. They show no emotion. They are even cheerful; but their strained
faces tell the story and their hands have an immense compassion.
Two faces especially loom out. I can always see them by lamp-light,
when the rest of the ward is hushed and shrouded, stooping over some
silent bed. One face is that of the Colonel of the hospital, grey,
concerned, pitiful, stern. His eyes seem to have photographed all the
suffering which in three years they have witnessed. He's a tall man, but
he moves softly. Over his uniform he wears a long white operating

smock--he never seems to remove it. And he never seems to sleep, for
he comes wandering through his Gethsemane all hours of the night to
bend over the more serious cases. He seems haunted by a vision of the
wives, mothers, sweethearts, whose happiness is in his hands. I think of
him