No Hero-This

by Warwick Deeping

  I say, “Bon soir, mesdames et monsieur.”

  They reply almost sullenly, “Bon soir, messieurs.”

  * * *

  We spread ourselves in this semi-deserted village, but again I choose a stretcher in place of a bed. There is something sinister about the beds. Germans have slept in them. Finch comes in with a cup of tea and much conversation. The men have quickly discovered that house with the two girls, and have broken the ice more effectually than we could have done.

  “We stood ’em supper, sir, and you should have seen their eyes bulge. Old monsieur has smoked his first pipe for umpteen years.”

  “Starved, Finch?”

  “Absolutely, sir. War bread and turnips. We gave ’em jam.”

  “Did they say anything about the Germans?”

  “A lot, sir. They said that Jerry isn’t a bad sort, but that his officers are beasts. Jerry’s very tired. Tail right down. Sick in the tummy, most of ’em. They told the girls that we had too much stuff for them, ’planes and tanks and guns. Jerry’s done, sir.”

  “Fed up with not being fed, Finch?”

  “I guess that’s about it, sir.”

  * * *

  Yes, Bulgaria and Turkey out, and Austria wobbling. It is an amazing transformation, and if the German army is suffering from war gastritis, and enteritis, the end must be near. No army can fight with its stomach out of order. Perhaps that is the explanation of the way Germany is crumpling.

  I wake very early, and an impelling curiosity pushes me out to look at this liberated village by daylight. I see white sheets hung out of windows and one trailing from the church steeple. It is a gold and grey autumn morning, serene and still. I wander out of the village and along a hedgeless lane with grass fields on either side. Three huge black shapes squatting over there in shallow pits make me stand and stare. They are three German howitzers, big fellows with caterpillar wheels, their snouts still pointing skywards. There is an orchard on my right, and I turn aside, and following the hedge, sight another gun with its muzzle cocked at an acute angle. This gun is also a big fellow, and it is plain to me that the Boche gunners were trying to save the gun, but the orchard ditch must have been too deep for them, and the wheels stuck in the ditch.

  But there are other objects here besides this gun, and other explanations of its surrender. I see several grey-blue figures lying at intervals along the green bank beside the ditch. Dead Germans. I realize that these are the first dead Germans I have seen, and I go to look at them. The first man is not a pleasant sight, his belly has been ripped open by a piece of H.E. I pass on to the next body and stand at gaze.

  It is the body of a dark, good-looking boy. He could not have been much more than nineteen. His uniform is clean and new, and he lies on his back with his arms spread, his head on the soft grass, his eyes closed. He might be sleeping. I can see no wound on him, and no blood on his tunic, but when I look more closely I discover a little triangular blood-mark at the base of his neck. A fragment of shell or a shrapnel bullet must have struck downwards into his chest, and killed him.

  I am not conscious of gloating over these poor dead. Indeed, this German boy moves me to compassion. We say that it is glorious to die for one’s country, but how little of life was his. He was a comely lad, and one can credit him with a pride in his uniform and his looks. No doubt someone will weep, but what satisfaction is that to him, for life is passionate and sweet, and the cold earth so final.

  As I stand there close to this French orchard I can remember saying to Gibbs, after having to dress a man who had been terribly wounded, that I should like to see hundreds of Germans lying dead and to be able to walk amid the bodies and exult, but now as I look at this clean young corpse, bitterness and hate seem to pass from me. I am conscious of nothing but the horror and pity of this war. We have all been mad, brutally and blatantly mad, and this gentle autumn day seems to open its eyes upon a world that is waking from some evil dream.

  It may be good to die for one’s country, but surely it is better to live for it in the peaceful creating of beautiful things? Will this war be the end of war, as we who have suffered in it hope and pray? Are the illusions of gore and of glory and of flag-waving shattered? Or will brass-bands play for some other generation, and fool crowds shout and women throw flowers? Must man, like some mischievous urchin, try out some new devil’s toy, his latest stink-machine or death ray? I should feel profoundly and cynically sad did I believe that this horror could repeat itself and our young men rush like poor sheep to the slaughter. We have borne so much for the peace we pray for that I think that I would rather see all humanity lying dead like this German boy, than it should blunder blindly into a war even more terrible than this has been.

  XXVII

  We have moved forward into a larger village called Retz. Our Division is being given a three days’ rest, and other troops have pushed towards Le Quesnoy and Le Cateau. Retz is only three or four miles behind the firing line, and all day transport and troops are pouring along its straight and narrow street, yet not a shell has fallen into the village for three days. This last phase of the war is almost unreal.

  Retz has suffered little destruction. The only building in ruins is the church, which the Germans blew up before they retreated. The village is full of the poor French—women, children, and old men—- many of them refugees from places that were in the fighting zone. A virulent type of influenza is spreading, and these poor people become easy victims to it. They look bleached and yellow and starved. They have no doctor, no drugs, no milk or eggs, and only the shabby clothes and poor blankets that have served for the last four years. The Germans commandeered all their cattle, and did not leave so much as a hen in the place.

  We have established ourselves in a brick building set back off the main street. It was a girls’ seminary before the war, and the Germans had used it as a hospital, and they have left it in a state of filth. The room on the ground floor which Fairfax and I have appropriated has manure and rubbish piled six feet high against one wall. I have never seen so many flies, not even at Gallipoli. They are in the sleepy, autumnal stage, and they collect on the walls in black sheets. Our cookhouse is out-of-doors, and on the wall behind it I can say without exaggeration that the brickwork is covered completely with flies. They swarm so furiously and filthily in our mess that I lose my temper with the foul things, rout out an old garden syringe, mix a bucket of cresol and drench the walls and the ceiling and the black insects with disinfectant. It kills or extrudes them, but the room smells for days like a lavatory.

  We open out as a divisional hospital here, and are soon full of sick, but our own men are not our only patients. Our A.S.C. are being compelled to feed the French civilians, and we have to doctor them. In a few days I find myself with quite a small country practice, and at six o’clock each evening I hold a civilian sick parade. Our medical comforts are a godsend in this crisis, for one cannot feed on bully beef and biscuits people who are acutely ill.

  Never have I seen anything so shabby and sad and weary as this French village. The poor people bless us for freeing them, but they seem beyond smiles. The peeling, eczematous doors hide many tragedies. When a window pane was broken during the war, the hole had to be stuffed with rags or covered with paper. The village has had practically no soap for months, and the infernal flies buzz everywhere.

  Tragedies, yes. There is one cottage where I am attending a girl in the last stages of consumption. Before she dies she may see the man she was to marry. I go there one morning and find a French poilu squatting on a chair outside the door of the next cottage. He has a pale, dead, apathetic face. I ask my French friends about him, and they tell me that he is the first French soldier to come on leave to this liberated village. For months he had had no news of his home, and he arrived to find his young wife and mother dead, and his small girl aged four so frightened at a stranger that she became screaming and hysterical when this poor, bearded creature tried to kiss her.

  I have another patient at a farm out
side the village, and in the field in which it stands the Germans appear to have collected all the farm implements from the whole neighbourhood, and smashed them. Ploughs, harrows, seed drills and reapers are parked in rusting ruin. All the trees have been felled. A petty, spiteful business this! The farmhouse holds no fewer than three families in addition to its owners, and every room is packed with humanity and flies. My patient, an old lady and her daughter, refugees from Quéant, occupy one room on the ground floor. The old lady is suffering from broncho-pneumonia, and is gallantly refusing to die.

  The daughter is a silent woman, with a swarthy, tragic face. I do not think I have ever seen more tragic eyes in any human face. Their home, of course, at Quéant, is a rubbish heap, and all their menfolk appear to be dead.

  I remember, after my first visit, the daughter producing a poor shabby little purse, and offering to pay me. Nothing has touched me more during the whole war.

  When I made her understand that we were giving our services, and gladly so, tears came into her eyes.

  “Monsieur is very kind.”

  Good God, are we as sworn healers mere commercialists?

  I have two other patients in this farmhouse, a child with tuberculous glands, and a youth with what I take to be pernicious anæmia, but my pet patient is the old lady from Quéant. It seems to me that the daughter with the tragic eyes regards her mother as the one thing life has left her, for she is middle-aged, and plain, homeless, and alone in the world save for this old woman. Moreover, there is a gaillard spirit in madame that challenges me. She has a happy old face, in spite of all her troubles, perhaps because the future is shorter for her, and not so hopeless and shabby as it must appear to the daughter.

  I draw meat essence and milk, and even a bottle of champagne for madame from Bond’s medical comforts stores. The flies are one of the principal pests. The daughter sits beside her mother’s bed and spends her time keeping the foul things off the old lady’s face.

  I say, “I wish we could get rid of these flies.”

  Madame crinkles up her face at me.

  “God made both the flies and the Germans, monsieur.”

  Such courage and so jocund a spirit shall survive, but I wish these French would not seal up their windows against all fresh air. The house smells of crowded, unwashed humanity, and but for madame’s brave face, it would nauseate me.

  * * *

  Victory! My Lady of Quéant is going to get well. Her chest is clearing up, and her pulse is stronger. Good business.

  When I tell the daughter that I think her mother is out of danger, her poor, haggard face seems to crumple up with emotion. She makes a quick movement, grabs my hand and kisses it.

  * * *

  The 81st has attacked again and gone forward. They are nearing Le Cateau. Everywhere the news is good, and we are beginning to hope that we shall not have to endure another winter in the trenches.

  What an amazing transformation in six months!

  * * *

  We hear that the Americans have been having a bloody time in the Argonne. Their transport arrangements broke down, and for a while there was chaos.

  * * *

  It is we English and Colonials who are dealing Germany the last hammer blows. I am proud. This country of ours has endured, and I, too, can call myself English.

  * * *

  Potter has come back to us, beat to the world, with his feet in rags, and his pince-nez minus one lens, but absurdly happy. We put him to bed. Finch is a great collector of gossip, and he tells me what the men have to say about Potter. He has done very brave things in his quiet, mild way, wandering serenely in and out of the Boche barrage, and getting wounded men back.

  Am I jealous of Potter? Yes and no. I tell Fairfax what Finch has told me, and Potter is to be put up for a decoration.

  * * *

  Gibbs has gone up to take Potter’s place.

  Two new and very raw medical officers have joined us. We find them useless, for they are so utterly and mutely green.

  Our men have taken Le Cateau. News comes back to us that the Germans are deluging the captured town with gas-shells. Its cellars are full of French, many of whom have been gassed, and there is a call for help and rescue work.

  My wretched cowardice seems unquenchable. It is trying to suborn me during these last days, and to persuade me to play for personal safety. Damn my foul little self! Somehow in this war I have made a conquest of my fear, or contrived to hide it, and I will not let it shame me at this last hour. Other men have endured far more horrible things than I have had to suffer, and given far more than I have given.

  I tell Fairfax that I want to go to Le Cateau, and help rescue these French. The face of France is for me the face of Pauline Malaunay. Fairfax gives his consent, and I take an ambulance, and Corporal Block, Finch, and two other men. Le Cateau lies in a hollow, and when we reach the edge of the plateau, and the ambulance swings round a curve of the downward hill, we get a glimpse of the town and see shells bursting in it.

  Block says to me, “Jerry’s using up his left-overs, sir. Spiteful old beggar.”

  I smile at Block, and reflect upon the friendships I have made with these plain men. I have had nothing but goodwill and kindness from them, and in the years to come I shall treasure the memory of it.

  There is a peeling, excoriated shabbiness about this town that gives it the look of a body that is diseased. Unpainted shutters hang awry, windows are broken, walls desquamating. The road is full of slime. The sinister, sweet smell of gas is here, and before we reach the centre of the town we are stopped by a sentry in a gas mask. We put on our masks. The sentry points us to a particular street in which gas-shells have fallen, and we find Gibbs and Carless at work here. I recognize Gibbs by his bulk and ginger hair, Carless by his breeches.

  They are rescuing the French from the cellars in which they had taken refuge. It would have been much better for the poor people if they had climbed to the attics instead of crowding into the cellars. Two or three big shells crash on the houses while we are at work. I have Pauline Malaunay’s face before me, and I am not afraid. We carry some of the milder cases to the upper rooms. My own ambulance and two others are waiting in the street, and we load them up with women and children and old men. There is a fat, red-faced curé who has been working like a hero. He is badly gassed, and in spite of it he wants to stay with his people, and we have to persuade him by force into the last ambulance.

  I go back with the convoy. There is a C.G.S. in another village close to Retz which is dealing with gas cases. I sit beside the driver of the leading ambulance. We are clear of that poisoned town, and my mask is off, and I am breathing the sweet, fresh air. Open country, trees, fields. Thank God this bloody business is nearing its end. I look at a distant church spire with a white sheet still trailing from it, and the thing is like a symbol of peace and of sanity. How man has blasphemed against his own soul! Almost it would seem that the chemist has been the evil spirit of this brutal war. He may plead that his cleverness has been debased by the cunning and the desperate necessity of his masters, but in the future I would shut up our chemists in cages until the goodwill and the kindliness of plain men have made such clever devilry impossible.

  * * *

  When I return to Retz and our seminary I find Fairfax alone in the mess. Of our two new M.O.s one has gone sick with ’flu, and the other is acting as accoucheur to a Frenchwoman who cannot swear, poor dear, that Jove has visited her, and who will have to excuse herself to some returning husband for a baby that is Boche. Fairfax is writing home. I rid myself of steel hat and box-respirator, and pick up a paper that is lying on the table.

  “Satisfied, Stephen?”

  Fairfax is looking at me intently, and with the air of the kind and gentle physician. Does he understand what willed me to go? And suddenly I am moved to tell him that my secret self was trying to persuade me to remain embusqué during these last days, and that he has been too kind to me.

  “Have I, Stephen? I think not.”


  I put the paper down, and rest my arms on the table. I feel somehow that I want to confess myself to the man who has been so magnanimously my friend. I tell him that all through this war I have been afraid, and that of all the emotions fear can be most humiliating and shameless.

  I am aware of him smiling at me.

  “Well, you have camouflaged it pretty well, Stephen. I have not been conscious of any lapse.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “Oh, nonsense.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  He scribbles a few more words on his letter pad, and then looks up at me suddenly.

  “That’s a good enough decoration for any C.O. But I do not think there will be much more fear, Stephen. That’s what I am telling my wife in this letter.”

  * * *

  Rumour is busy, but it is more than rumour. Rankin comes to visit us and he warns us that we shall have to pack up and move on in a day or two. It is an open secret among those in high places that Germany has asked for an armistice, and that the end is near. The rank and file are not supposed to know of this, though why such solemn secrecy should be maintained, passes my comprehension. Is it that our masters think that we shall go to earth like rabbits and refuse to dare a last gamble with death now that the great reprieve is about to rise like a new sun in the east?

  * * *

  I go to see my old lady at the farm. She is sitting up in bed swathed in a shabby old pink shawl. I tell her that the war is passing, and that peace is coming to the world, and that Germany will be made to pay for all the destruction she has wrought.