Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

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Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) Page 1433

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE


  I was the guest at Head-quarters of a divisional General, Capper, brother of the heroic leader of the 7th Division, who might truly be called one of the two fathers of the British flying force, for it was he, with Templer, who laid the first foundations from which so great an organization has arisen. My morning was spent in visiting two fighting brigadiers, Mitford and Jelf, cheery weather-beaten soldiers, respectful, as all our soldiers are, of the prowess of the Hun, but serenely confident that we could beat him. In company with one of them I ascended a hill, the reverse slope of which was swarming with cheerful infantry in every stage of déshabille, for they were cleaning up after the trenches. Once over the slope we advanced with some care, and finally reached a certain spot from which we looked down upon the German line. It was an observation post, about 1,000 yards from the German trenches, with our own trenches between us. We could see the two lines, sometimes only a few yards, as it seemed, apart, extending for miles on either side. The sinister silence and solitude were strangely dramatic. Such vast crowds of men, such intensity of feeling, and yet only that open rolling country-side, with never a movement in its whole expanse.

  In the afternoon my brother drove me to the Square at Ypres. It was the city of a dream, this modern Pompeii, destroyed, deserted and desecrated, but with a sad, proud dignity which made you involuntarily lower your voice as you passed through the ruined streets. It was a more considerable place than I had imagined, with many traces of ancient grandeur. No words can describe the absolute splintered wreck that the Huns had made of it. The effect of some of the shells had been grotesque. One boiler-plated water tower, a thing 40 or 50 feet high, was actually standing on its head like a great metal top. There was not a living soul in the place save a few pickets of soldiers, and a number of cats which had become fierce and dangerous. Now and then a shell still fell, but the Huns probably knew that the devastation was already complete.

  We stood in the lonely grass-grown Square, once the busy centre of the town, and we marvelled at the beauty of the smashed cathedral and the tottering Cloth Hall beside it. Surely at their best they could not have looked more wonderful. If they were preserved even so, and if a heaven-inspired artist were to model a statue of Belgium in front, Belgium with one hand pointing to the treaty by which Prussia guaranteed her safety and the other to the sacrilege behind her, it would make the most impressive group in the world. It was an evil day for Belgium when her frontier was violated, but it was a worse one for Germany. I venture to prophesy that it will be regarded by history as the greatest military as well as political error that has ever been made. Had the great guns that destroyed Liège made their first breach at Verdun, what chance was there for Paris? Those few weeks of warning and preparation saved France, and left Germany like a weary and furious bull, tethered fast in the place of trespass and waiting for the inevitable pole-axe.

  We were glad to get out of the place, for the gloom of it lay as heavy upon our hearts as the shrapnel helmets did upon our heads. Both were lightened as we sped back past empty and shattered villas to where, just behind the danger line, the normal life of rural Flanders was carrying on as usual. A merry sight helped to cheer us, for scudding down wind above our heads came a Boche aeroplane, with two British at her tail barking away with their machine guns, like two swift terriers after a cat. They shot rat-tat-tatting across the sky until we lost sight of them in the heat haze over the German line.

  The afternoon saw us on the Sharpenburg, from which many a million will gaze in days to come, for from no other point can so much be seen. It was a spot forbid, but a special permit took us up, and the sentry on duty, having satisfied himself of our bona-fides, proceeded to tell us tales of the war in a pure Hull dialect which might have been Chinese for all that I could understand. That he was a “Terrier “and had nine children were the only facts I could lay hold of. But I wished to be silent and to think — even, perhaps, to pray. Here, just below my feet, were the spots which our dear lads, three of them my own kith, had sanctified with their blood. Here, fighting for the freedom of the world, they cheerily gave their all. On that sloping meadow to the left of the row of houses on the opposite ridge the London Scottish fought to the death on that grim November morning when the Bavarians reeled back from their shot-torn line. That plain away on the other side of Ypres was the place where the three grand Canadian brigades, first of all men, stood up to the damnable gases of the Hun. Down yonder was Hill 60, that blood-soaked kopje.

  The ridge over the fields was held by the cavalry against two army corps, and there where the sun struck the red roof among the trees I could just see Gheluvelt, a name for ever to be associated with Haig and the most vital battle of the war. As I turned away I was faced by my Hull Territorial, who still said incomprehensible things. I looked at him with other eyes. He had fought on yonder plain. He had slain Huns, and he had nine children. Could any one better epitomize the duties of a good citizen in days like these? I could have found it in my heart to salute him had I not known that it would have shocked him and made him unhappy.

  Next day, it was June 1, I left my brother’s kindly care. I had fears for him, for he was much overworked and worried as Adjutant-Generals of busy divisions are likely to be. However, he was never one to admit it or to pity himself, and he begged me to carry the cheeriest report back to his wife. It was a great pleasure to me that so many officers took me aside to say how efficient he was, and how popular. He would not have wished me to say it were he alive, but I can leave it on record now.

  Yesterday had been, full, but the next day was not less so, for I had been asked (or ordered) to lunch at the General Head-quarters at Montreuil, the funny old town on a hill which I had learned to know well in days of peace. As we drove down a winding drive I saw two officers walking towards us. The younger of them stooped and beat the ground with his stick, from which we gathered that we were to go slow and raise no dust. We rightly conjectured that so curt an order could only come from the Chief’s own aide. We saluted as we passed and carried away an impression of a heavy moustache and of abstracted blue eyes.

  I had a very much more definite impression when he came back presently, and we were all shown into the dining-room. I should certainly put Douglas Haig, as I saw him that day, among the handsomest men I have ever known. He was not tall, but he was upright and well proportioned with every sign of strength and activity. But his face was remarkable for beauty and power. His eyes were very full and expressive, devoid of the fierceness of Kitchener and yet with quite as much determination. But the long powerful jaw was the feature which spoke particularly of that never-to-be-beaten quality which saved the army when the line was broken in the first Ypres battle and was destined to save it again in April, 1918, when he gave out his “back to the wall “order of the day.

  He was courteous but not talkative at lunch. After lunch he took me into a side room where he showed me the line of the divisions on the map, saying that I could remember but should not take notes, which was rather maddening. Then we had a long talk over the coffee, but there were several present and nothing intimate was said. He must be worried to death with casual visitors, but still I suppose he need not invite all of them to Head-quarters. He had, I thought, a truly British distrust of foreigners. “He is the worst foreigner I have met yet,” he said, speaking of some Italian General. His kind heart was shown when I said that my son was in the line. He gave a curt order, and then nodded and smiled. “You’ll see him to-morrow,” said he.

  I naturally heard a good deal about our Generalissimo, besides what I actually saw. I think that he had some of the traits of Wellington, though since the war he has concerned himself with the fortunes of his comrades-in-arms a great deal more than the Iron Duke seems ever to have troubled himself to do. But in other things the parallel is close. Haig is not a game-playing man, though fond of horse exercise. Neither was the Duke. Both were abstemious with wine and tobacco. Both were reserved, reticent and had no magnetic connection with those under them. Neither Haig
nor the Duke were human figures to the soldiers, nor were they often if ever seen by them, and yet in each case there was the same confidence in their judgment. Haig was a very serious man, he seldom joked and did not meet a joke half way, so that his mess was the dullest in France. I have known a staff officer apply for an exchange so weary was he of this oppressive atmosphere. All this could equally have been said of the Duke. But these are trivialities compared to the great main fact that each brought rare qualities to the service of their country at critical moments of the world’s history. There was only one other man who might have filled Haig’s place, and that man was the conqueror of Palestine.

  Extraordinary are the contrasts of war. Within three hours of leaving the quiet atmosphere of the Head-quarters Château I was present at what in any other war would have been looked upon as a brisk engagement. As it was it would certainly figure in one of our desiccated reports as an activity of the artillery. The noise as we struck the line at this new point showed that the matter was serious, and indeed we had chosen the spot because it had been the storm centre of the last week. The method of approach chosen by our experienced guide was in itself a tribute to the gravity of the affair. As one comes from the settled order of Flanders into the actual scene of war, the first sign of it is one of the stationary, sausage-shaped balloons, a chain of which marks the ring in which the great wrestlers are locked. We passed under this, ascended a hill, and found ourselves in a garden where for a year no feet save those of wanderers like ourselves had stood. There was a wild, confused luxuriance of growth more beautiful to my eye than anything which the care of man can produce. One old shell-hole of vast diameter had filled itself with forget-me-nots, and appeared as a graceful basin of light blue flowers, held up as an atonement to Heaven for the brutalities of man. Through the tangled bushes we crept, then across a yard—” Please stoop and run as you pass this point “ — and finally to a small opening in a wall, whence the battle lay not so much before as beside us. For a moment we had a front seat at the great world-drama, God’s own problem play, working surely to its magnificent end. One felt a sort of shame to crouch here in comfort, a useless spectator, while brave men down yonder were facing that pelting shower of iron.

  There was a large field on our left rear, and the German gunners had the idea that there was a concealed battery therein. They were systematically searching for it. A great shell exploded in the top corner, but got nothing more solid than a few tons of clay. You could read the mind of Gunner Fritz. “Try the lower corner! “said he, and up went the earth-cloud once again. “Perhaps it’s hid about the middle. I’ll try.” Earth again, and nothing more. “I believe I was right the first time after all,” said hopeful Fritz. So another shell came into the top corner. The field was full of pits as a Gruyère cheese, but Fritz got nothing by his perseverance. Perhaps there never was a battery there at all. One effect he obviously did attain. He made several other British batteries exceedingly angry. “Stop that tickling, Fritz! “was the burden of their cry. Where they were we could no more see than Fritz could, but their constant work was very clear along the German line. We appeared to be using more shrapnel and the Germans more high explosives, but that may have been just the chance of the day. The Vimy Ridge was on our right, and before us was the old French position, with the Labyrinth of terrible memories and the long hill of Lorette. When, the year before last, the French, in a three weeks’ battle, fought their way up that hill, it was an exhibition of sustained courage which even their military annals can seldom have beaten.

  Next day we travelled through Acheux and hit the British line once more to the east of that place. Our official chauffeur had had his instructions, and so had other people, with the result that as we swung into the broad main street of a village — Mailly, I think, was the name — there was a tall young officer standing with his back turned. He swung round at the noise of the car, and it was my boy Kingsley with his usual jolly grin upon his weather-stained features. The long arm of G.H.Q. had stretched out and plucked him out of a trench, and there he was. We had an hour’s talk in a field, for there was nowhere else to go. He was hard and well and told me that all was nearly ready for a big push at the very part of the line where his battalion, the 1st Hampshires, was stationed. This was the first intimation of the great Somme battle, on the first day of which every officer of the Hampshires without exception was killed or wounded. I learned afterwards that before the battle for ten nights running Kingsley crept out to the German wire and stuck up crosses where he found the wire uncut, which were brown towards the enemy and white towards the British, as a guide to the gunners. He lay on his face sometimes with the machine guns firing just above him. For this service Colonel Palk thanked him warmly and said he should certainly have a decoration, but Palk and both majors were killed and no recommendations went forward. Two shrapnel bullets in the neck were all Kingsley got out of the battle, and two months on his back in a hospital. However, he was not a medal hunter and I never heard him complain, nor would he wear his wound badges until he was compelled.

  An hour later I met another member of my household, for my Secretary, Major Wood of the 5th Sussex Territorials, was Town Major of Beauquesne, where I found him at the convenient hour of lunch. He had done nearly two years of hard active service, which was pretty good for a civilian of fifty, and had led his company at Festubert and other engagements. He was now using his excellent powers of organization and administration in making Beauquesne a well-ordered village, as later he made Doullens a well-ordered town. I expect that the British administration will remain as a wonderful legend of sanitation and cleanliness in many of these French towns of the North-East.

  After inspecting Major Wood’s work I went on to Amiens with him and he packed me into the train to Paris, the first part of my task thoroughly done so far as time would permit. I came away with a deep sense of the difficult task which lay before the Army, but with an equally deep one of the ability of those men to do all that soldiers can be called upon to perform. But I saw no end to the war.

  I had two days in Paris — a very dead and alive Paris, such a Paris as has seldom or never been seen before, with darkened streets and the shops nearly all closed. I stayed at the Hotel Crillon, where were a few Russian and British officers. It was extraordinary the difference which the public made between the two. A British officer was disregarded, while a Russian General — I took a walk with one — was looked upon with an adulation which was quite comic. Men came up and made a low obeisance before him. And yet it was our Army, our purse, our factories, above all our Navy, which were saving the situation both for France and Russia, to whom we were bound by no alliance. There was certainly not much sign of appreciation or gratitude. It is a very singular thing how the whole world alternately leans upon and depreciates the British Empire.

  CHAPTER XXIX. EXPERIENCES ON THE ITALIAN FRONT

  The Polite Front — Udine — Under Fire — Carnic Alps — Italia Irredenta — Trentino — The Voice of the Holy Roman Empire.

  TWO days later I found myself, after an uneventful journey, at Padua on my way to the Italian front. The Italian front seemed to have politely come back to meet me, for I was awakened in the night by a tremendous dropping of bombs, with the rattle of anti-aircraft guns. I thought I was as safe in bed as anywhere, and so it proved. Little damage was done, but Padua and the other Italian cities were having a bad time, and it was a one-sided arrangement, since the Italians can do nothing without injuring their own kith and kin across the border. This dropping of explosives on the chance of hitting one soldier among fifty victims was surely the most monstrous development of the whole war, and was altogether German in its origin. If international law cannot now stamp it out, the next war will send the people flying to the caves and calling upon the mountains to cover them, even as was foretold.

  I arrived at last at Udine, the capital of the Friulian Province, where were the Italian Head-quarters — a funny little town with a huge mound in the centre, which looked to
o big to be artificial, but was said to have been thrown up by Attila. My recommendation was to the British Mission, which was headed by Brig.- General Delme-Radcliffe, who received me with hospitality, a bluff, short-spoken and masterful British soldier. The Mission owned a white house on the edge of the town. On the second floor under a window which proved to be that of my bedroom there was a long dark smear upon the whitewashed wall. “That’s the stomach of a baker,” said the soldier-servant with a grin. I thought it was a joke on his part, but it was literally true, for a bomb a few days before had blown the man to bits as he passed the house, and had plastered bits of him on the stonework. The ceiling of my bedroom was full of holes from that or some other explosion.

  There was some tendency at this time to cavil at the Italians and to wonder why they did not make more impression upon the Austrians. As a matter of fact they were faced by the same barbed wire and machine-gun problem which had held up every one else. I soon saw, when I was allowed next morning to get to the front, that the conditions were very like those of Flanders in a more genial climate and in all ways less aggravated. I had been handed over to the Italian Intelligence people, who were represented by a charmingly affable nobleman, Colonel the Marquis Barbariche, and Colonel Claricetti. These two introduced me at once to General Porro, chief of the Staff, a brown, wrinkled, walnut-faced warrior, who showed me some plans and did what he could to be helpful.

 

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