War Classics

by Flora Johnston

  A padre, entering at one of the stations, provided the requisite excuse. As padres do, he began to talk to us at once and I forgot my customary code that padres were all ‘duds’ and told him of our difficulty. ‘I’ll get the tickets for you,’ he said, ‘at Eu.’ But of course he got the wrong ones – ‘civils’ – which made us pay four times as much as if he’d used the RTO’s movement order. Padres are duds – I lost this one as soon as we got to Amiens.

  It was at Abbeville that we first struck the Somme, and as I leant out of the window, I wondered to see how sluggish and placid was its flow. By its banks, on either side, lay trees hewn to the ground. They had blocked no path, they had done no harm, but there they lay. ‘The Boche did that,’ said a quiet-looking man in civilian clothes. We were going very slowly now – so slowly that he did a thing I had only read of in fiction before. He got out of the train and collected two shell cases, one for the Hut Lady and one for me and came in again – all without the train stopping.

  It was late in the afternoon when at last – beyond my expectation – we pulled up at Amiens. The station was crowded, mostly with French and English soldiers, and I made a beeline for the sortie marked ‘for English army only’. Amiens lay before us and the mud on her streets was much the same as the mud at our Base. We were rather exhausted with our long journey – about twelve hours now – and sadly in need of a drink, but I knew we must find the RTO before we did anything. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and we did not know a soul in Amiens – we had nowhere to go to, and we had not even permission to re-enter the station. Happily the RTO was not far off and I managed actually to see him.

  He was in a little wooden room with three other officers when I went in. I must say it was the padre who had found him for me and who had insisted that my one chance of success lay in seeing the RTO himself.

  The great man was rather amused – fortunately for me. I knew I wasn’t looking wholly unpresentable because my uniform was always smart, and whilst the padre had been burrowing about for the office, I had taken the precaution of smoothing my hair and powdering my nose. Once inside the little wooden room, I found myself deserted. The padre vanished, and the Hut Lady, true to her promise, stood outside with the suitcases. I was alone with four strange officers and nearly all of them with coloured tabs.

  ‘Well, and what can I do for you?’ began the RTO as if he were talking to a pet dog.

  ‘Oh, just ever so much’ I answered warmly, ‘if you’ll only be so kind.’

  He laughed. ‘I suppose I’ve got to be so kind now,’ he murmured. ‘Well, out with it.’ I told him. ‘Devastated areas,’ he echoed, with some astonishment. ‘I can’t think whatever you want to go there for.’

  ‘We’ve only got four days’ leave,’ I pleaded. ‘It won’t take long.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go if you paid me,’ he said. ‘It’s much nicer here.’

  At this point I was very near using the final weapon in my armoury, which was that I was kith and kin with the 51st Division. And who had a better right to see the ground they’d won? It would be ill on his part to refuse me.1 But I thought better of using this dramatic weapon. I looked helpless instead. I could do that very nicely by this time.

  A tall officer, lounging in a corner, now spoke up. ‘Oh, let her go. It’ll be rather fun to hear what she thinks of it.’

  The RTO looked at me through his eyeglasses. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘if I’m to be so kind, you’ll have to be so good.’ Not knowing what he was driving at, I thought it better to promise.

  ‘D’you know anything about the way?’ said the tall officer.

  ‘No,’ I answered, forlornly helpless again.

  He drew a sketch plan. ‘There,’ he said, ‘take this with you. These are some of the places you will pass.’

  Relieved and thanking them all, I prepared to go. The RTO stopped me. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘Where are you stopping tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said cheerily, too happy at having got permission to care where I stayed. ‘I suppose we’ll try some of the Hotels.’

  He sat up. ‘You jolly well won’t,’ he said.

  ‘You can’t go to the Hotels,’ explained the tall officer quietly. Where were we to go then? Was it to be the station platform and the Hut Lady’s clean pillowslips after all?

  ‘There’s a YMCA Ladies’ Hostel,’ said the RTO briefly, writing out the address for me. ‘It’s just five minutes’ walk from here. You go to it.’

  My heart sank into my boots. Four days’ leave and to spend them in a YMCA Ladies’ Hostel! How boring it sounded! But I thanked him sweetly and departed.

  The Hut Lady was waiting and I told her what had happened. We trudged down in the mud to the hostel – lugging our suitcases – heavy with our provisions. After a long time a ‘bonne’ came to the door. No – there was no room in the Hostel, nor wouldn’t be – it sounded like England at its worst – no – we couldn’t sleep on the hall floor – there wasn’t a hall anyway. The door banged. ‘I can’t go another inch,’ said the Hut Lady dejectedly. ‘I’m dead beat!’ and she sat down on her suitcase in the street.

  I was tired myself, but we had to get somewhere to go to. I spied a military policeman at the corner of the street. ‘You wait here,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and speak to him.’ He was affable and encouraging. There was an Officers’ Leave Club right in the middle of town – badly shelled, it had been – but when there was room it sometimes took in VADs. Yes, we could get a cab there. He hailed one. I flew to the Hut Lady. Our luck had turned. ‘Other ranks when you’re in a corner,’ I said to myself. The French cab rumbled down the Grande Rue, past one huge gaping shell hole that had been a bazaar, until we came face to face with the cathedral, sandbagged from top to bottom. We turned sharply off to the left, through any number of small winding streets until I began to despair of ever finding my way back to the station.

  At last the cabby pulled up before a gloomy building like a prison. ‘It’s in there,’ he told us quite amiably. We paid him and walked into the courtyard – ankle deep in mud. After a bit we saw a flight of steps leading to what seemed a door in the wall. The windows were few and very high up. Not a person was about in the great courtyard, though there were tracks of recent motors in the mud. We climbed the steps and knocked at the door. To our joy, an English orderly answered promptly. He looked surprised, but delighted to see us. There was a Church Army lady in charge, he told us. We must see her. I was ready to see anybody by this time, but had very slight hopes of the Church Army lady showing favour to us. After all, we had no call on her – as they say at home. She was tall and gracious as she came forward to survey us. ‘I have no food,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Oh, we have plenty,’ I put in eagerly. ‘It’s only if we could get beds, or if you’d let us sleep on the floor. The RTO said we mustn’t go to hotels.’

  She brightened at the mention of his name. ‘Did the RTO send you here?’ she enquired.

  ‘No,’ I said rapidly, and as I hoped tactfully, ‘he sent us to the nearer place – the YMCA – but there was no room for us there.’

  She sniffed. ‘There never is.’ Then she made up her mind. ‘I will take you in,’ she said.

  I don’t think I have ever been more thankful in my life. The place looked like a barracks, but had originally been some kind of a huge store. It had no light and no water, both having been cut off by the shells. She was leading the way upstairs through a large loft which had been made into a most charming sitting room, into a long dark corridor. A row of small rooms opened off it, separated from each other by wooden partitions. She looked at her list. ‘I will give you rooms with doors,’ she told us, ‘the only two that have doors.’ The others, it appeared, had sacking roughly nailed up.

  In my room stood a bed – and my heart leapt at the sight – with a couple of army blankets and a pillow on it, a table with an enamel basin and ewer on it, a minute looking-glass on the wall and a candlestick. I was overjoyed, and plumped down on m
y heavy suitcase.

  The Church Army lady surveyed me critically. ‘You look tired,’ she said at length. ‘I can’t give you any dinner, but if you like, the orderly will give you tea and bread and jam. We have plenty of those.’

  Could anything be nicer? When she had gone I climbed on to the bed and simply sat and did nothing. In a minute or so my Hut Lady tapped at the door. ‘There aren’t any sheets, have you noticed?’ she said, in horrified tones. ‘And there isn’t a chair in the place.’

  I laughed. ‘No,’ I said, ‘isn’t it jolly? It isn’t like England a bit.’

  ‘Not a little bit,’ she said ruefully.

  There was another tap at the door. ‘Come in,’ I said in surprise, without getting off the bed. The orderly stood at the door with a steaming tin can in his hands.

  ‘I thort as ’ow yer’d like some ’ot water ter wash, Miss,’ he said, dumping down the can. ‘An’ yer tea’ll be ready in about five minutes.’

  ‘Not like England a little bit, is it?’ I said softly, when he had gone. We unpacked our provisions and took some of the sandwiches in with us. Tea was set in a small hall – the table-cloth was red-and-white French patterned – but the bread was English Army, white and real; so was the sugar – as the Church Army lady had said, there was heaps of it; the milk was our own, condensed, but never having tasted real milk in France, I had begun to like ‘Carnation’ best of all; there were scones, home-baked, loads of jam, a brown teapot and flowers on the table. A warm stove purred at my side and there was a soft red cushion in the wicker chair behind my back. Every detail seemed a miracle after the prospect of the streets and the station platform.

  After tea the Hut Lady spoke. ‘You haven’t got any paper from the RTO, have you?’ she enquired. ‘I don’t think they’ll let us in to the station without that.’

  But I had plenty of courage now. ‘I’ll go back to him,’ I said firmly. ‘We don’t know the time of the train anyway.’

  So we strolled back through the little side streets into the Grande Rue. The light was beginning to fade when we went into the cathderal. There were sandbags everywhere and wooden scaffolding to protect the windows. It was all very different from the peacetime cathedral. But through the prevailing grey and dun there shot one streak of splendour. The flag of France, in sudden bursts of scarlet, flamed down either side of the aisle in long array, and behind the high altar two hung crossed with the flags of all the Allies massed round them. The effect of the tricolour flaring out from the sombre background wherever one chanced to look, reminded me of nothing so much as of France with her back to the wall.

  It was dark when we came out, but a few lights were glimmering from the blackness of the streets. The shops in the Grande Rue interested me – the few, that is, that were open. It was possible to buy coffee and the tiniest kind of little cakes – no sweets, naturally, or chocolate of any kind. Penny bazaars, or what seemed to correspond to them, were there – only the prices were far above a penny. At length, after a good twenty minutes’ walk, we found ourselves near the station again and the RTO’s office. The little wooden room was locked, so I presented myself at the wicket in front.

  ‘Well, little girl, and what is it?’ a pleasant-toned voice from the heights greeted me after a minute or two. I must explain that this mode of address was really habitual with strangers. It was the natural thing to call me, for I am small and helpless-looking, and few, if any of them, knew my name. When I looked up, I found what ought to have been Captain Bairnsfather’s Old Bill surveying me with a placid and expressionless stare.2 It was the quaintest face, with an odd Spanish look about the eyes. It went, too, with the frank unconventionality of address – though I had learnt alas! that went with most things.

  ‘It’s about the trains,’ I ventured. ‘The RTO said we could go up the line.’

  ‘Where?’ he questioned.

  ‘To Cambrai,’ I said boldly, mentioning the extreme point to which the railway then went.

  ‘There’s nothing to see there,’ he pointed out blandly. ‘Who said you might go?’

  ‘A man with blue tabs,’ I said in desperation, ‘blue all over.’ He seemed puzzled. ‘He was a big man,’ I explained, with patience, ‘with the blue here – ’ I pointed to my shoulders, ‘– and blue there, and lots of blue and red …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he interrupted hastily. ‘But you’d much better go to Roisel, you know. There’s nothing to see at Cambrai.’ I looked blank. ‘There are two officers going to Roisel tomorrow by the 8 a.m. train,’ he said with determination. ‘I’ll tell them to look after you. Corporal, make out two passes for these ladies to Roisel.’

  ‘Oh thank you,’ I murmured through the wicket, ‘and what do we see there?’

  ‘Devastation – lots of it,’ he replied tersely. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  Old Bill’s eyes met mine – his were blank and fathomless. I returned his gaze. ‘That’s what I want,’ I said gravely, after a minute.

  In the darkening, down the long Grande Rue and through the twisting side streets, we made our way back to the officers’ hostel. The officers were at dinner. In the empty sitting room, I studied the map on the wall – it was the first one I had been able to see in France as the shops were forbidden to sell maps of war areas. Yes – tomorrow we would penetrate deep into the heart of the devastated zone. I turned away with a sigh – bed seemed very good. The orderly, with perspiring brow and an array of plates, was bustling through the sitting room. He stopped by me. ‘If you gives me your ’ot water bottle, Miss, – I sees it in yer room – I could give you some ’ot water when it comes to washin’ up.’

  ‘Oh, could you really?’ I said in relieved surprise. ‘I’m going to bed straight away, you know.’ I felt too sleepy to stand. Never before had I thought it would be possible for me to sleep without a bottle. This indeed was bliss.

  ‘That’s all right, Miss,’ he went on. ‘I’ll knock at the door and leave it, when it’s ready.’

  The window in my little room was so high up that I could see nothing but a few chimneys and the sky. But I looked longingly at the warm grey Army blankets – that were minus sheets. The clean white English pillowcase daintily laid over the ample pillow, reminded me of my country even more effectively than her orderly did. And tomorrow, oh! tomorrow, I thought, as I laid my tired body with rapture on my bed, tomorrow I shall see where my brothers have been and all the things they’ve never told me of these weary years.

  There was a sharp rap at the door, and I had my bottle. I remember thinking, as I fell asleep, that sheets were a mistake.

  Notes

  1. The 51st (Highland) Division served with distinction in the major battles of the Somme, Arras and Cambrai. Many Caithness men served as part of this division, particularly in the 5th Seaforth Highlanders, the territorial battalion of Caithness and Sutherland. No doubt Christina had particular friends and relatives from home in mind. Her brothers were not part of the 51st (Highland) Division – Barrogill was in the Scottish Rifles, William in the Navy, and Edward was too young to serve.

  2. Captain Bairnsfather (1887–1959), a British cartoonist, created the character of ‘Old Bill’, a British soldier in the trenches. The cartoons were published in the popular weekly magazine The Bystander.

  10

  The forward areas and Cambrai

  It was quite dark next morning when I became aware of a persistent and violent knocking at my door. The orderly was used to rousing officers of the British Army, and with the patience acquired in that art, was proceeding to arouse me. After a minute or so, I realised what he was saying. ‘Six o’clock, Miss, an’ ’ere’s your ’ot water,’ and then he began again. I felt that I should associate him with hot water and with six o’clock till my dying day – but it was effective. I got up and cheerfully told him so – otherwise, though he would not have come in, he would have continued to chant.

  Once up I began to feel excited. This was the Day. But, first I had to dress. All went well till it came
to doing my hair. Then, I stood on my suitcase and endeavoured to get my head within range of the small, square glass. But then the candle would not shine on the glass. And it is impossible to do one’s hair with one hand and hold the candle with the other. So I gave it up and using both hands I did my hair, as the children say, from memory. Then I collected our provisions – eggs and chocolates and bread – which were to do us for the day – and went down to breakfast.

  ‘Did you sleep at all?’ said the Hut Lady plaintively. ‘I couldn’t – not without sheets.’

  ‘Like a top,’ I said firmly. ‘Oh, what a nice breakfast.’ It was being served by candlelight at a plain wooden table. There was more white bread – English and lots of it – jam and butter, and bacon and a real brown teapot. So English was it all that I looked involuntarily for someone with a newspaper on the opposite side. And sure enough, behind the Daily Mail, there sat an officer calmly and stolidly partaking of his breakfast. He lowered the Mail, however, at our approach – a tribute which France never failed to wring from the British Army.

  The Hut Lady poured out her tea. ‘Really, Tiny,’ she said unexpectedly, ‘you do your hair very much better when there’s no glass than when there is.’ I shall not add here the Army brother’s remarks about its condition ‘when there is’.

  The officer was not very communicative, but when we rose to go he turned to me. ‘Going up the line, aren’t you?’ he said, as if he knew all about it. ‘I will see you on the train.’