''Over There'' with the Australians, R. Hugh Knyvett [books for new readers .txt] 📗
- Author: R. Hugh Knyvett
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The war was to them like a catastrophe in another world, and Australians did not travel farther to fight than in their imagination did the sons of this village when they went to the trenches less than a hundred miles away. I discovered one day how deep the knife of war had cut when I spoke to a grandmother and daughter working a large farm, as with dumb, uncomprehending pain in their eyes they showed me the picture of son-in-law and husband who would never return. Rights of peoples and the things for which nations strive had no meaning to these two, but from out the dark had come a hand and dragged from them the fulness of life, leaving only its empty shell.
Our headquarters billet was in the vacated house of the village squire. He was a major in the French army, and had taken with him the young men of the village committed to his charge. His wife had gone to nurse in a hospital and they had put their children in a convent. He then left the key in his door, saying that his house and its contents were at the service of the officers of any British regiment that should come that way. This house was a baronial castle, but in its furnishing knew as little of modern conveniences as Hampden Court of William IV. We did not smile, however, at the antimacassars, wax flowers, and samplers, nor the scattered toys of the nursery, for we were guests of a kindly host who, though absent himself, had intrusted to our care his household gods and was a comrade in arms.
Houses, especially old houses, absorbed the personality of the dwellers therein, and I fancy that our host is not unknown to me. Were I to meet him I would recognize him at once, for his spirit dwelt with us in his home, and my prayer is that when he returns he will not find that temple tainted by the spirit of any alien who occupied it in his absence.
The village church slumbered in the centre of the village, and was its sluggish heart. No discord or schism of sect or creed ever disturbed its atmosphere. Unquestioned was its hold on the faith of men, women, and children. Not more quietly did the dead rest beneath the stones of the churchyard than did the worshippers who knelt before the carved wooden images of the saints, trusting in their protection and receiving from their placid immobility a benediction of peace. The cure from a neighboring town only visited the village once a quarter, and the old lady who kept the key was very reluctant to let us in; but when the maire knew of our desire, he brought us the key that we might view it at our leisure. Its pews were thick with dust, the images were chipped and broken, some saints were minus nose or arm, the vestments in the open cupboard were moth-eaten and tawdry, dried flowers lay on tombs of the village great; but its atmosphere was one of peace, and it was not difficult to realize that many had carried therein their burden of grief and unrest and left it behind them, soothed on the bosom of Mother Church, like a fretting child.
But it is not the business of soldiers to sleep, and suddenly came the awakening with the sound of the hundreds of motor-buses that were to carry us into the noise and devastation of hell! We marched up to the rim of the village, and amid the smell of gasolene, the tooting of the horns, and the roar of the engines we boarded these, thirty to a bus, and rumbled on toward the greatest noise and flame and fire that has ever torn the atmosphere asunder, outdoing any earthquake, thunderstorm, or tornado that nature has ever visited upon humanity.
On this journey we saw more of the tremendous organization needed to equip and feed an army than we had been able to visualize before. For thirty miles we were a part of a stream of motor vehicles flowing in one direction passing a never-ending stream going the other way. Through the city of Amiens we went without stopping. With longing eyes we gazed from the buses which hours of bumping and rolling on poor roads had made to us torture-chambers. How gladly would we have strolled through its streets gazing on the pretty girls and gaping at the novelty of its quaint buildings and the unusual ware in its shop-windows.
Later on I was a week in the hospital here with a sprained ankle, and I had a chance to explore this lovely city of Picardy. Its cathedral was a never-ending source of interest, and not a day passed during my stay that I did not hobble on crutches through its dim aisles and worship the beauty of its statues. There is one statue called "The Weeping Angel" which is world-famous, and I have gazed at it for hours, feeling its beauty steal over me like a psalm. There was always music stealing gently through the air, but like a blow in the face were the walls of sandbags protecting the carving on the choir-stalls and the thousands of statues on the huge doors. The grotesque hideousness of the gargoyles gave a touch of humor that was not incongruous to religion, but these sand-bags were such an eye-sore against the beauty of the carved poems that suggested what an intrusion into God's fair world is the horror of war.
Several times while I was in Amiens the German aeroplanes came over and bombed the city. Opposite the hospital a three-story house collapsed like a pack of cards, burying seventeen people in its ruins. I saw a French airman bring down one boche by a clever feat. He evidently could not aim upward to his satisfaction, so he turned upside down, and while flying thus, brought down his opponent.
Through Amiens the buses carried us within a few miles of Albert, which was within range of the German artillery. It is in Albert that the remarkable "hanging Virgin" is to be seen. The cathedral and tower have been almost practically destroyed, but still on top of the tower remains uninjured the figure of the Virgin and Child. A shell has struck its base, and over the town at right angles to the tower leans the Virgin imploringly holding the babe outstretched as though she were supplicating its protection. The French people say that the statue will fall when the war ends, but some materialistic British engineers, fearing the danger to life in its fall, have shored and braced it up.
This is similar to the miracles of the crucifixes that are found standing unharmed amid scenes of desolation. I have seen several of them without a bullet mark upon them when every building in the vicinity has been laid in ruins. I know two cases in which there is not one stone remaining of the church, yet the crucifix that was inside stands in untouched security. There are always those who see in these things a supernatural agency as some saw "angels at Mons," and as for me I do not seek to explain them, knowing that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.
I am reluctant to leave this chapter with its peaceful memories, for it is the antechamber of hell. There is little here that hints of the brimstone and fire just through the door. But our path lies that way and we must pass on.
The battle of the Somme lasted eight months, and never since the days of chaos and darkness has a portion of the earth been under the sway of such forces of destruction. Not even the Flood itself so completely destroyed the habitations of man. Flourishing towns were powdered into brick-dust, thousands of acres of forest were reduced to a few blackened stumps, and every foot of ground was blasted and churned and battered again, while every yard was sown thick with bullets more malignant than the seeds planted by Jason. To-day nature is busy trying to hide the evidence of the hate of man, and long grass and poppies cover the blackened soil and grow in the shell-holes, until only in the memory of the men who strove nakedly in its desolation and death will the knowledge of that area as it was for those eight long months remain. If he visits it again the poppies and the grass will fade, and it will appear to him once more as the ploughed land of demons, and grinning at him in every yard will be the skulls of the countless unburied that there lie. The other birds will shun it, for there are no trees, but the lark will still sing on, as this brave-hearted bird continues to do even when the guns are booming.
Australian blood has sanctified much of that soil, and Australian bravery has monopolized some of its names. As surely as Gallipoli will Pozières and Thiepval and Bapaume be associated with the name and achievement of Australians in the minds of readers of the history of the great war. These are places that will ever be names of honor and glory in the thought of the Australian people as will be Flers to New Zealand and Delville Wood to South Africa.
At Pozières the First and Second Divisions demonstrated that the abandon and tenacity against odds that secured a footing on the Gallipoli Peninsula was still the special prerogative of the care-free lads from these South Sea nations. Our own artillery was unable effectively to silence the fire of the German batteries, and wave after wave melted like snow in the sun, yet the unconquerable spirit drove the remainder on until the positions were taken and held. There were wounded men who dragged themselves, not back to their own lines for attention, but forward toward the enemy so that they might be able to strike at least one blow ere they died. There were others that had their wounds dressed and then returned to the fighting. No one left the line that day who could help it, or his name would have been remembered as an outstanding exception among the many who, wounded again and again, and faint from loss of blood, still fought on. This engagement carved a line in my own heart, for therein died three comrades who enlisted with me, and our souls were grappled together by many common dangers shared and mutual sacrifices cheerfully made. There is no life in the world that tries out friendship like a soldier's in active service, and when it has endured that, it is stronger than the love of twin for twin, like the love of David and Jonathan, of Damon and Pythias, a love that passeth knowledge.
The Germans had one ally on the Somme that wrought us more havoc than all his armament. How we cursed that mud! We cursed it sleeping, we cursed it waking, we cursed it riding, we cursed it walking. We ate it and cursed; we drank it and cursed; we swallowed it and spat it; we snuffed it and wept it; it filled our nails and our ears; it caked and lined our clothing; we wallowed in it, we waded through it, we swam in it, and splashed it about—it stuck our helmets to our hair, it plastered our wounds, and there were men drowned in it. Oh, mud, thou daughter of the devil, thou offspring of evil, back to your infernal regions, and invade the lowest circle of the inferno that you may make a fit abiding-place for the slacker and pacifist! I take back all I said about the sand of Egypt. It was a mere
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