Mud and Khaki: Sketches From Flanders and France

Part 1

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MUD AND KHAKI

MUD AND KHAKI

SKETCHES FROM FLANDERS AND FRANCE

VERNON BARTLETT

SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD., 4 STATIONERS' HALL COURT : : LONDON, E.C.

Copyright First published April 1917

R.V.K.C.

AND MY OTHER FRIENDS

IN THE REGIMENT

APOLOGIA

There has been so much written about the trenches, there are so many war photographs, so many cinema films, that one might well hesitate before even mentioning the war--to try to write a book about it is, I fear, to incur the censure of the many who are tired of hearing about bombs and bullets, and who prefer to read of peace, and games, and flirtations.

But, for that very reason, I venture to think that even so indifferent a war book as mine will not come entirely amiss. When the Lean Years are over, when the rifle becomes rusty, and the khaki is pushed away in some remote cupboard, there is great danger that the hardships of the men in the trenches will too soon be forgotten. If, to a minute extent, anything in these pages should help to bring home to people what war really is, and to remind them of their debt of gratitude, then these little sketches will have justified their existence.

Besides, I am not entirely responsible for this little book. Not long ago, I met a man--fit, single, and young--who began to grumble to me of the hardships of his "funkhole" in England, and, incidentally, to belittle the hardships of the man at the front. After I had told him exactly what I thought of him, I was still so indignant that I came home and began to write a book about the trenches. Hence Mud and Khaki. To him, then, the blame for this minor horror of war. I wash my hands of it.

And I try to push the blame off on to him, for I realise that I have undertaken an impossible task--the most practised pen cannot convey a real notion of the life at the front, as the words to describe war do not exist. Even you who have lost your husbands and brothers, your fathers and sons, can have but the vaguest impression of the cruel, thirsty claws that claimed them as victims. First must you see the shattered cottages of France and Belgium, the way in which the women clung to their homes in burning Ypres, the long streams of refugees wheeling their poor little lares et penates, their meagre treasures, on trucks and handcarts; first must you listen to the cheery joke that the Angel of Death finds on the lips of the soldier, to the songs that encourage you in the dogged marches through the dark and the mud, to the talk during the long nights when the men collect round the brazier fire and think of their wives and kiddies at home, of murky streets in the East End, of quiet country inns where the farmers gather of an evening.

No words, then, can give an exact picture of these things, but they may help to give colour to your impressions. Heaven forbid that, by telling the horrors of war, the writers of books should make pessimists of those at home! Heaven forbid that they should belittle the dangers and hardships, and so take away some of the glory due to "Tommy" for all he has suffered for the Motherland! There is a happy mean--the men at the front have found it; they know that death is near, but they can still laugh and sing.

In these sketches and stories I have tried, with but little success, to keep that happy mean in view. If the pictures are very feeble in design when compared to the many other, and far better, works on the same subject, remember, reader, that the intention is good, and accept this apology for wasting your time.

A few of these sketches and articles have already appeared elsewhere. My best thanks are due to the Editors of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror for their kind permission to include several sketches which appeared, in condensed forms, in their papers. I am also grateful to the Editor of Cassell's Storyteller for his permission to reproduce "The Knut," which first saw print in that periodical.

VERNON BARTLETT.

CONTENTS

PAGE APOLOGIA 11

I. IN HOSPITAL 19

II. A RECIPE FOR GENERALS 31

III. MUD 37

IV. THE SURPRISE ATTACK 43

V. "PONGO" SIMPSON ON BOMBS 51

VI. THE SCHOOLMASTER OF PONT SAVERNE 57

VII. THE ODD JOBS 67

Part 2

VIII. THE "KNUT" 71

IX. SHOPPING 79

X. THE LIAR 87

XI. THE CITY OF TRAGEDY 93

XII. "PONGO" SIMPSON ON GRUMBLER 105

XIII. THE CONVERT 110

XIV. DAVID AND JONATHAN 114

XV. THE RUM JAR 122

XVI. THE TEA SHOP 128

XVII. "HERE COMES THE GENERAL" 133

XVIII. THE RASCAL IN WAR 137

XIX. "PONGO" SIMPSON ON OFFICERS 141

XX. THE HAND OF SHADOW 146

XXI. THE VETERAN 152

XXII. THE SING-SONG 156

XXIII. THE "STRAFE" THAT FAILED 161

XXIV. THE NIGHTLY ROUND 166

XXV. JOHN WILLIAMS, TRAMP AND SOLDIER 171

XXVI. THE CLEARING HOUSE 178

MUD AND KHAKI

IN HOSPITAL

Close behind the trenches on the Ypres salient stands part of "Chapel Farm"--the rest of it has long been trampled down into the mud by the many hundreds of men who have passed by there. Enough of the ruin still stands for you to trace out the original plan of the place--a house and two barns running round three sides of the farmyard that is foetid and foul and horrible.

It is an uninviting spot, for, close by, are the remains of a dead cow, superficially buried long ago by some working party that was in a hurry to get home; but the farm is notable for the fact that passing round the north side of the building you are out of view, and safe, and that passing round the south side you can be seen by the enemy, and are certain to be sniped.

If you must be sniped, however, you might choose a worse place, for the bullets generally fly low there, and there is a cellar to which you can be carried--a filthy spot, abounding in rats, and damp straw, and stained rags, for the place once acted as a dressing-station. But still, it is under cover, and intact, with six little steps leading up into the farmyard.

And one day, as I led a party of men down to the "dumping ground" to fetch ammunition, I was astonished to hear the familiar strains of "Gilbert the Filbert" coming from this desolate ruin. The singer had a fine voice, and he gave forth his chant as happily as though he were safe at home in England, with no cares or troubles in the world. With a sergeant, I set out to explore; as our boots clattered on the cobble-stones of the farmyard, there was a noise in the cellar, a head poked up in the entrance, and I was greeted with a cheery "Good morning, sir."

We crawled down the steps into the hovel to learn the singer's story. He was a man from another regiment, who had come down from his support dug-out to "nose around after a spud or two." The German sniper had "bagged" him in the ankle and he had crawled into the cellar--still with his sandbag of "spuds"--to wait until someone came by. "I 'adn't got nothing to do but wait," he concluded, "and if I'd got to wait, I might jest as well play at bein' a bloomin' canary as 'owl like a kid what's 'ad it put acrost 'im."

We got a little water from the creaky old pump and took off his "first field dressing" that he had wound anyhow round his leg. To my surprise--for he was so cheerful that I thought he had only a scratch--I found that his ankle was badly smashed, and that part of his boot and sock had been driven right into the wound.

"Yes, it did 'urt a bit when I tried to walk," he said, as I expressed surprise. "That's jest the best part of it. I don't care if it 'urts like 'ell, for it's sure to mean 'Blighty' and comfort for me."

Part 3

And that is just the spirit of the hospitals--the joy of comfort and rest overbalances the pain and the operation. To think that there are still people who imagine that hospitals are of necessity sad and depressing! Why, even the children's wards of the London Hospital are not that, for, as you look down the rows of beds, you see surprise and happiness on the poor little pinched faces--surprise that everything is clean and white, and that they are lying between proper sheets; happiness that they are treated kindly, and that there are no harsh words. As for a military hospital, while war lays waste the world, there is no place where there is more peace and contentment.

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