Part 32

One afternoon, towards the end of the fortnight, I went to Kew Gardens with my friend.

The softness of the warm September day, the calm trees, and the flowers that were pure untroubled beauty (how I envied them their dispassionate lives, their tranquil growth, their effortless attainment of perfection, and their unconscious dying!)--all these had a strangely harmonizing influence upon my discordant spirit. We spoke little, and of the war not at all. Indeed, the war suddenly seemed curiously remote and I could hardly hear the throbbing of the guns. I knew that this afternoon would never be lost, that I would often think of it when back at the front. It would remain a dream of tranquil beauty that would haunt me at unexpected moments. I felt that for this alone my leave had been worth while.

The last morning came. I made a successful effort to control myself. I said good-bye. It was all over.

* * * * *

When I got back to camp all the men were out at work. I sat down alone in my tent. I felt slightly dazed, but not as miserable as I had expected to feel. I did not know how to occupy my time. I had brought several books with me, but I felt no inclination to read. Life seemed empty and purposeless. I waited impatiently for the return of the others.

They arrived and the evening passed quickly in talk. My friend, whose place was next to mine, remarked that I was far more cheerful than men returning from leave usually are.

The next day and many days after I was unable to shake off the feeling of mental torpor and a vague regret for what had been and what had gone for ever. My leave seemed like a thing I had dreamt of long ago. Sometimes I asked myself in a puzzled manner: "Have I really been home on leave?"

The end of the war, no one could tell when that would be. But the next leave--it might come in eight or nine months--that was something to look forward to and I began to think of all the things I would do when it actually did come.

ACROSS THE RIDGES

"And Cuchullain ... deemed it no honour nor deemed he it fair to take horses or garments or arms from corpses, or from the dead."

(TAIN BO CUAILGNE, 5th Century).

There were only a few stars visible above, but the whole eastern horizon was flashing and scintillating. Down in the valley, where several British batteries were in action, long thin jets of flame darted forth incessantly.

As the day dawned we could see that the distant ridges were enveloped in drifts of dense, white fog. From time to time patches of the fog would glow redly and then become brilliantly incandescent and throw up sheets of lurid flame. German shells came whistling over and burst with angry, reverberating roars. Black fountains of earth and smoke spurted up from the fields and left slowly thinning clouds that hung suspended for a while and then dissolved in air. Sepia-coloured puffs appearing in the sky above were followed by sharp explosions and the rattle of descending shrapnel.

For several hours the tumult continued unabated and then the whistle of German shells became less frequent until at last it died down altogether.

Towards noon about a hundred German prisoners passed by under armed escort.

The ridges had been taken.

* * * * *

Our new camp lay at the foot of a gloomy hill. A disused trench ran right across it. Rifles, bayonets, bandoliers, grenades, water-bottles, packs, articles of clothing and bits of equipment lay scattered everywhere. Barbed wire rusted in coils or straggling lengths. Rusty tins and twisted, rusty sheets of shrapnel-riddled corrugated iron littered the sodden mud. Water, rust-stained or black and fetid, stagnated in pools and shell-holes. The sides of the trench were moist with iridescent slime. Dead soldiers lay everywhere with grey faces, grey hands and mouldering uniforms. Their pockets were turned inside out and mud-stained letters and postcards, and sometimes a mildewed pocket-book or a broken mirror, were dispersed round every rotting corpse. In front of my tent the white ribs of a horse projected from a heap of loose earth. Near by a boot with a human foot inside emerged from the black scummy water at the bottom of a shell-hole. An evil stench hovered in the air.

We buried all the dead that lay within the camp-lines. Then darkness descended and we crept into our tents.

We were lying on wet, oozy clay, thinly covered with wisps of soaked grass and decaying straw--there had been a cornfield here a year ago.

There were thirteen of us in one tent. We were wedged in tightly, shoulder to shoulder, our feet all in one bunch.

Candles were lit and some of the men sat up and searched their clothes. I was conscious of a slight irritation, but was so tired and depressed that I resolved to ignore it and postpone my usual search to the following day.

But as I lay still, trying hard to fall asleep, the irritation increased. At last it became so maddening that I started up in bitter rage. I lit my candle and pulled off my shirt.

"Chatty [lousy] are yer?" said someone in an amused tone.

"I've got a big one crawling about somewhere," I answered. None of us ever admitted that we had more than one or two, even when we knew we had a great many. It was also considered less disreputable to have one "big one" than two small ones.

"It's the Gink's fault--'e swarms with 'em. I was standin' be'ind 'im in the ranks the other day an' I saw three of 'em crorlin' out of 'is collar up 'is neck. 'E never washes and never changes 'is clothes, so what can yer expect?"

The "Gink" flared up at once:

"Yer god-damn son of a bitch--it's youss guys that never washes. I bet yer me borram dollar I ant got a god-damn chat on me...."