Part 4

When things were quiet it was our custom to make ourselves comfortable in a deserted wayside cottage. The comforts we improvised in that billet were wonderful to us, and it was, naturally, an object of our “Tommy's” pride and affection. One evening, returning from taking a casualty down to the advanced dressing station, I don’t know why, but I became obsessed with an intense feeling of distrust for our cottage. Call it what you like; I felt fear, funk, nervousness, insecurity and an unmistakable impression that something was going to happen. Strangest thing of all, all my distressing symptoms were centred on that beloved billet—nothing else—not even on the shell swept track along which we carried our wounded.

Sensible men never turn a deaf ear to such a pointed warning. I persuaded my pals to leave the cottage and “dig in.” For a couple of hours we worked hard forming a little trench to hold four, and we completed our earthwork by covering the top with doors on which we loaded earth to act as a protection against falling shrapnel.

This was our billet for that night.

And now for the sequel.

At midnight the enemy, instead of “searching” here and there with his shells, as was usual, suddenly developed the dreaded creeping barrage, and within five minutes of the commencement of that bombardment our cottage sustained a clean hit and collapsed in flames.

Furthermore, when we crept out of our trench at dawn we found the surrounding fields ploughed up with shells, the nearest four hits being within twenty yards of our little trench.

“Luck,” some say. “Instinct,” I argue.

But what is “Instinct?”

Saved by an Apparition

DURING the War I drove a Sunbeam Ambulance and at one time was attached to the 92nd Field Ambulance. The division was in action at Ypres and the first-aid post was in a dug-out on the canal bank. As soon as darkness fell it was our duty to drive from Flaniatyage to the first-aid post, pick up the wounded and convey back to Poperinghe clearing station.

One very dark night I had just arrived at the first-aid post behind Essex Farm, where I was told to return immediately with a very bad abdominal case, and was given instructions to get to Poperinghe as quickly as possible.

I had gone about 500 yards when the light of a star shell revealed what seemed to be a lady standing in the middle of the road. I had to pull up. Consider my surprise, as the next star shell went up, to find no one there.

First, second, top gear, then another star shell and the lady was just in front again. I pulled up to find no lady.

Just as I approached Salvation corner, I saw, by the light of a star shell, a sentry standing at the challenge—his bayonet gleamed. I gave the customary shout “92nd Field Ambulance.” He didn’t move again. I pulled up and, to my astonishment, there was no sentry, but, immediately in front, was a shell hole large enough to bury a London bus. It took a long time to get past, but I got my patient to Poperinghe alive. Should I have done so had those apparitions not appeared?

A Field of the Dead

PERHAPS the most unique of many ghostly experiences—both personal and those of friends—was one which took place on the fateful night between August 3rd and 4th, 1914. My brother (who though strong and unimaginative is somewhat psychic) and I had sat up till about midnight, and I was amazed to hear him suddenly declare, as he shut his book and rose, that “no one could sit and read with that noise going on.” I asked what noise, and, on being bidden to listen (our house is on a quiet hill off an old Roman road going to the coast) noticed the sound of a great crowd, a confused, soft sound. “Why,” I said, “I don’t understand you—it’s no worse than any Bank Holiday. Quieter, indeed. You can well understand their being about to-night; they want to know whether it will be war or not.” He maintained that it was impossible to do anything but get quickly to bed. More and more amazed—this was so unlike him—I went to the front door with him, and there, clear and distinct, the sound of thousands of footsteps, of people shuffling, treading, moving about, but without uttering one single word, came from the road at the foot of our hill—about four houses’ distance. Nothing whatever could be seen. My brother declined absolutely to let me run down to look, or to come with me. Next day we heard that war had been declared at midnight. We live five miles out of London and it is not a place where people would gather for news. Subsequent inquiries made of a friend who lived on the road where the silent crowd had moved and passed about (remaining in the one place so far as I could judge), revealed nothing in the way of explanation. To his knowledge there had been no crowd. It was as if the ghosts of those who were to fall during those coming four years of blood had “projected” themselves, eerily, at the hour of the declaration of the Great War, upon the ancient road where Roman soldiers, long ago, must have marched. Or were they the spirits of the long-dead soldiers of the centuries, welcoming the heroes of 1914—1918?

A Mother's Vision

DURING the War my two eldest sons were serving with the Forces in Mesopotamia. One day, while occupied about my usual household duties, there suddenly came to me the following mental vision (I can call it nothing else): I saw my eldest boy in a half-reclining position, quite alone, in a wild desert sort of a place with one hand stroking his forehead in a dazed kind of a way. So vivid and clear was the vision that I could not shake it off. Again and again it repeated itself, always exactly the same.

At tea-time I spoke of it, and said I was afraid something had happened to F., but they only laughed at me and said I was getting fanciful in my old age, and so I tried to forget it.

About six weeks later (the usual time for news to get through then) I received a letter from him and, to my great surprise, it contained these words as near as I can remember them:

“I must tell you, mother, of a little incident that happened the other day. I had a fancy to take my horse and go off alone for a long-stretch gallop. When some distance from camp I suppose he must have put his foot in a hole and stumbled; anyway he threw me. I don't know how long I lay there but, on coming to, I discovered I had still got the reins tight in my hand with bridle attached but, alas, there was no horse; he had quickly made tracks for the camp, leaving me to get there the best way I could.”

I shall always think that this accident happened just at the time my vision appeared to me.

Then again, about three days or so before Christmas, 1918, I had another presentiment that something was wrong. This time it was the younger son. There suddenly came to me a vision of a hospital bed and I found myself looking down on my boy, who appeared to be very ill. I had not the remotest idea at the time that there was anything wrong with either of them. But, as before, the vivid reality of it seemed fixed on my mind. But, this time, I kept it to myself until the arrival, in a few days, of the ominous official envelope with the news that he was in hospital at Bagdad, seriously ill with dysentery. He lived to return home. He then told me that, just at the time when I had seen him in that remarkable vision, his life would not have been worth much.

Saved Husband’s Life

ONE morning, during the War, I had a most vivid dream of being chased by two Germans with fixed bayonets, and I'd almost reached safety when one of them stabbed me in the right shoulder. The shock woke me, and, on looking at the clock, I found it was about 6:45 a.m. When I got downstairs I remarked that something had happened to my husband and related my dream, only to be laughed at. I heard nothing at all from, or of, my husband for fifteen days; then I had the usual official notification, saying that he was in hospital with severe gun-shot wounds to the head and left shoulder. Some few weeks later I went to see him in hospital and found that it was his right shoulder that was in bandages, and, of course, told him my dream. He looked at me in such a queer way that I asked him what was the matter, and this is what he told me: The morning he was wounded, they were ordered to attack at 6:30, and they hadn't got very far from their trenches when he was hit in the right shoulder with a piece of shell which sent him spinning into a shell hole, where he lay unconscious for two or three hours. When he recovered consciousness he saw me standing on the edge of the shell hole, beckoning him, and, with great difficulty (for his right arm was quite useless) managed to scramble out and follow me. He was joined by two wounded Germans. When I'd gone some distance, I stopped, so did he and one of the Germans; the other one went on and was blown to bits by a shell which exploded just in front of us. Then I went on and took him safely to the dressing-station, where he collapsed. To this day he declares I saved his life.

The Shell-wrecked Church

THE experience I shall never forget happened to me while serving with the Dublin Fusiliers in France. My battalion had just come out of the trenches and we were billeted in different villages near at hand—my company in the village of Courcelles. In this village was a shell-wrecked church, and my billet was a broken-down cottage just opposite. One evening I took a stroll through this church and, to my amazement, I heard the sound of deep and heavy breathing. Thinking someone was asleep, I had a good look round but found nothing. Looking across the road I saw my chum talking to an officer and I went over and asked them to come over and listen. When they heard the noise my chum turned deathly white, and they asked me what it was or who it was. I was just as wise as they were. We searched about the church, even to moving about the stones and bricks, but found nothing. The same night, when asleep in the ruined cottage opposite, my chum woke me up with a startled cry, “Cyril, look quick, the Virgin Mary!” Looking up, I was astonished to see a white figure gliding through the room and out of the broken window across to the church and into it. We went all about the church the next morning but all was quiet. What could it have been?

Vision of Brother