The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston 3 - Sherston's Progress

by Siegfried Sassoon

  Domvast is a straggling village lying low among orchards with the forest of Crécy a mile away to the west. I went up there this morning in the rain. Endless avenues and vistas of green – very comforting when compared with Kantara.

  I feel rather ghost-like, returning to the familiar country and happenings. Buying eggs and butter from Madame in the billets. The servants in the kitchen stammering Expeditionary Force French to the girls. The men in barns still rather pleased with their new surroundings. All the queer Arcadian business of settling down in a village still unspoilt by continuous billeting and a good 30 or 40 miles from the War.

  May 14. Sitting in the Company Mess on a fine breezy afternoon copying out and assimilating a lecture on Consolidation of Captured Trenches, which I shall spout to the Company as though it came out of my head, though it is all from the recently issued Manual for the training and employment of Platoons which I spent yesterday evening in studying. I now feel rather ‘on my toes’ about being in France, and am resolved to make a good job of it this time. The manual (a 32 page pamphlet) is a masterpiece of common sense, clearness, and condensation, and entirely supersedes the academic old Infantry Training 1914 which was based on Boer War experience and caused me much mystification. Having just evolved an alliterative axiom – ‘clear commands create complete control’ – I sit at the window watching soldiers going up and down the lane; now and then a lorry passes, or a peasant with a grey horse. On the opposite side of the road is a fine hawthorn hedge and an orchard containing two brown cows munching lush grass. A little way off, the church bell begins tolling. I tell myself that I simply must become an efficient company commander. It is the only way I can do the men any good, and they are such a decent well-behaved lot that it is a pleasure to work with them and do what one can for their comfort.

  This morning we went up to the Forest and did a little training under the beech trees. ‘It’s like being at home again, sir,’ one of the sergeants said to me.

  It was nice to watch the groups of men under the green branches, although they were doing ‘gas-drill’ and bayonet fighting – loathsome exercises. Nice also, to walk home a breezy mile or two with the column – the men chattering gaily and cloud shadows floating aross the spacious landscape. In the hornbeam hedge on the edge of the forest a blackcap was singing, and a crow sat watching me from the young wheat.

  Along that ridge, 572 years ago, the Battle of Crécy was fought!

  May 15. Another golden day, fine and warm. In the afternoon we listened to the famous lecture on ‘The Spirit of the Bayonet’. The brawny Scotchman, now a Colonel, addressed two Battalions from a farm-wagon in a bright green field. His lecture is the same as it was two years ago, but for me it fell rather flat. His bloodthirsty jokes went down well with the men, but his too-frequent references to the achievements with the bayonet of the Colonial troops were a mistake. Anyhow his preaching of the offensive spirit will have to be repeated ad nauseam by me in my company training perorations. Such is life!

  I have just been out for a stroll in the warm dusk along twilight lanes, past farms with a few yellow-lit windows, and the glooming trees towering overhead. Nightingales were singing beautifully. Beyond the village I could see the dark masses of the copses on the hill, and the stars were showing among a few thin clouds. But the sky winked and glowed with swift flashes of the distant bombardments at Amiens and Albert, and there was a faint rumbling, low and menacing. And still the nightingales sang on. O world God made!

  May 17. Took 180 men to Brigade Baths, at Nouvions. Beautiful weather, but much too far; and baths very inadequate. It was 2½ hours’ march to get there, and Brigade had told us to go in full marching-order, as the Brigadier wanted the men to do plenty of route-marching. Quite a useful way of sending them to get a clean shirt! I made a row with the Adjutant and got this cancelled, which made all the difference for the troops, who quite enjoyed their outing. But their feet got soft during the journey from Egypt and the hardening process is painful!

  May 18. Have just been down the lane to see the Company Sergeant-Major about the armourer inspecting rifles. I feel very paternal when I watch the men sitting about outside their barn – gobbling stew out of canteen-lids, scribbling letters, chattering and smoking or lying asleep in the long grass under the apple-trees, while blankets are spread out everywhere to dry and old shirts and socks hung on currant bushes after being washed. The two company cooks, begrimed and busy with the ‘cooker’, and the orderly sergeant making a list of something on a packing-case. (The Quartermaster’s stores are in our yard.)

  Some of them look up as I pick my way among them. I think they begin to realize that I am doing my best for them.

  I am now ‘censoring’ some of their letters, so I will transcribe a few typical extracts.

  1. ‘Well, lad, this is a top-hole country, some difference to Palestine. It gives a chap a new inside to see some fields and hedges again. Just like old Blighty!…There is great talk of leave just now. In fact a party goes to-morrow. Time-expired men first. I’m a duration man. What hopes! Never mind, Cheer-oh!’

  2. ‘Well dear I dont sea any sighn of my leave but if we dont get it soon it will be a grate disapointment to us all for we all expected to get one when we came to England.’

  3. ‘The weather has been lovely since I came here: we are nowhere near the line yet. I’ve been going to the doctor these last few days, sore feet, so all I do now is going round these farms buying eggs for myself, so you see I’m not doing so bad.’

  Sunday. May 19. People send me the weekly reviews from England, but reading political journalism doesn’t make much impression on my mind. Life is conditioned by the effort of campaigning, and I can see no further than the moment when I have got this Company back from its first ‘show’ on the Western Front. All my efforts are centred on that, and I have, for the time being, escaped from my own individuality (except when I am writing my diary!). This is not a bad state to arrive at. War has its compensations – for the conscientious officer!…

  Written as I lie on my bed after lunch. Mice trickling about among the kit strewn on the dusty floor of this ramshackle room with its musty old cupboards, in which the mice live among old black dresses and other rubbish. Handsome Howitt asleep on the floor, with his moody sensual face and large limbs. (As usual he looks as if he were dead.) He is a shy, simple, rather uncouth boy – brave and reliable, I foresee.

  ‘Stiffy’ Roberts, the other 19-year-old officer, is stocky and self-possessed and full of fun. Both are inclined to indolence, but very good lads. The other platoon commander is Harry Jones; nearly 40, clean-shaven and saturnine and fluent with jokes and stories. Has knocked about the world, in East Africa and Cardiff. Result – a ruined digestion and a lot of good sense. A knowing old bird. Am not sure how much he can be trusted. Our fourth officer is on leave. (Promoted from the ranks and not very promising.)

  Later. It is now 5.30 and I have left them all scribbling down the notes on training which I’ve given them. The sun blazes from a clear sky; in the orchard where I am sitting the trees begin to lengthen their shadows on the green and gold and white floor of grass, buttercups, and daisies. Aeroplanes drone overhead; but the late afternoon is full of tranquillity and beauty. No one can take this loveliness from my heart.

  May 20. This afternoon we marched over to Cauchy, a couple of miles away; hot sun; green wheat, and barley and clover; occasional whiffs of hawthorn smell along the narrow lanes; two red may trees over a wall, and the hawthorn whitening the landscape everywhere.

  Our Brigade formed a hollow square on the green hillside above the red-roofed village snug among its trees. The Brigadier stalked on to the scene, followed by the modest Major-General who received the salute of a small forest of flashing bayonets. The General, speaking loud and distinct but rather fast, told us that he’d never been more honoured, proud, and pleased than to-day when he had come to do honour to one of the most gallant men he’d ever known. He felt sure we were all equally proud and honoured. (Th
e men had come along using awful language owing to their having been turned out for this show before they’d finished their midday meal.) He then read out the exploits which had won Corporal Whiteway the V.C. Nothing was finer in the whole history of the British Army. The Corporal had captured a machine-gun post single-handed, shot and bayonetted the whole team (who were Turks) and redeemed the situation on his Battalion front. The General then called for Corporal Whiteway (of the Shropshire Light Infantry) and a clumsily-built squat figure in a round steel helmet doubled out of the front rank of his Company, halted, and saluted. The General then pinned something on his breast (after dropping the pin, which the Brigade-Major adroitly recovered from the long grass). He then, in a loud voice, wished Whiteway a long and happy life in which to wear his decoration, and wrung him by the hand. The little Corporal turned about and was hurriedly escaping to the shelter of the bayonet-forest, but was called back to stand beside the General who called for the General Salute – ‘to do honour to Whiteway’. Three cheers were then given, and that was, officially, the end of the Turkish machine-gun team till the Day of Judgment.

  No doubt the deed was magnificent, but the spectacle wasn’t impressive.

  One felt it was all done to raise the morale of the troops. The Army is kept together by such stunts…. There is a ‘General Routine Order’ which reads as follows: ‘It has been ruled by the Army Council that the act of voluntarily supplying blood for transfusion to a comrade, although exemplifying self-sacrifice and devotion, does not fall within the qualification “Acts of gallantry or distinguished conduct”.’ In other words, blood must be spilt, not transfused. But I am bound to admit that the bayonet fighting lecture and this V.C. parade have had a stimulating effect on the troops. Good weather, rations, and billets have been even better aids to morale, however!

  I sometimes wonder whether this diary is worth writing. But there can’t be any harm in the truth, can there? And my diary is the only person I can talk to quite openly.

  May 21. Another cloudless day. In the morning I lectured the Company for fifteen minutes on ‘Morale and Offensive Spirit’. Couldn’t help thinking how amused Rivers would have been if he’d been there. What wouldn’t I give for an hour with him now! (But the test is that I’ve got to get through it all without him.) After tea I gave the senior N.C.O.s a forty-minute talk under the apple-trees, and really felt as if I were quite a good instructor. The feeling that they like and trust me ‘gives me a new inside’. And I have this advantage, that my predecessor was dead-stale and not at all active-minded. So these splendid N.C.O.s respond to what I try to tell them and are really keen. After lunch we did two hours (full marching order) in the forest. Very pleasant in there among the green glory of the beeches with sunshine filtering through. Prolonged wearing of gas-masks in company training rather trying. It is now 10.30 on a moonlight night with hawthorn scents and glimmerings and nightingale songs. The Boches are overhead, dropping bombs on neighbouring villages. Shattering din and organ-drone of planes going on now. They have been hammering Abbeville heavily lately. Sleeping badly lately, but nothing matters except the Company.

  May 22. Cloudless weather again. Quiet day’s training. Yesterday I began to read Duhamel’s Vie des Martyres (a grand book well translated). I expect he felt he was in a groove while he wrote it – patiently studying the little world of his hospital with such immense compassion. While reading I suddenly realized the narrowness of the life a soldier leads on active service.

  The better the soldier, the more limited is his outlook.

  I am learning to understand soldiers and their ideas; intelligent instruction of them teaches me a lot. But I find them very difficult to put on paper. And in these days of hawthorn blossom and young leaves they seem like a part of the passing of the year. Autumn will bring many of them to oblivion. ‘It is written that you should suffer without purpose and without hope. But I will not let all your sufferings be lost in the abyss,’ wrote Duhamel. That is how I feel too; but all I can do for them is to try and obtain them fresh vegetables with my own money, and teach them how to consolidate shell-holes, and tell them that ‘the soul of defence lies in offence’!

  To-morrow morning we leave Domvast. Somewhere between Arras and St. Pol will be our area for ‘intensive training’.

  Magnicourt. May 24. ‘Yesterday’ began at 2.30 a.m. and ended at 11 p.m. when the Company were safely settled down in billets after 20 miles’ marching and 5 hours in the train. (Covered trucks.) We marched away from Domvast at 5 a.m. A warm, still morning with a quiet sunrise glinting behind us beyond the trees and the village. Crossing the Abbeville–St. Omer road, we went through Crécy Forest for about 8 miles. There had been some rain in the night and the air smelt of damp leaves and dust.

  Entrained at Rue, one o’clock, and reached St. Pol about 6.30. Marched 5 miles to billets. Strong breeze; much colder. It has rained all to-day and the men have been resting (the whole Company in one huge lofty barn, with nice clean straw). I have got a room up a lane, with churchyard view (!) and a clock ticking peacefully on a shelf. Have just received orders to move again to-morrow.

  Sitting here I glance over my right shoulder at the little row of books, red and green and blue, which stand waiting for my hand, offering their accumulated riches. I think of the years that may be in store for me, and of all the pages I may turn. Then I look out at the falling rain and the grey evening beyond the churchyard wall and wonder if anything awaits me that will be more truly human than my sense of satisfaction yesterday at Rue railway station. What did I do to gain that feeling?…There were five of my men who had come too late to get any tea. Disconsolately they stood at the empty dixy – tired out by the long march and herded into a dirty van to be carried a bit nearer to hell. But I managed to get some hot tea for them. Alone I did it. Without me they would have got none. And for the moment the War seemed worth while!…That sort of thing reminds me of my servant and the numberless small worries and exasperations which he has saved me from in the past ten weeks. Nothing could be better than the way he does things, quiet and untiring. He is simple, humble, patient, and brave. He is reticent yet humorous. How many of us can claim to possess these qualities and ask no reward but a smile? It might have been of him that Duhamel wrote – ‘he waged his own war with the divine patience of a man who had waged the great world-war, and who knows that victory will not come right away.’ His name is 355642 Pte. John Bond. I write it here in case I am killed.

  Little ginger-haired Clements, our shy Company clerk, who works so hard, goes home for a month’s leave to-morrow. Funny to think that some of us may be dead when he comes back to his documents and ‘returns’. About 150 strong and healthy men, all wondering how soon they’ll get killed and hoping it will be someone else. Obvious, I suppose, but a peculiar notion to have in one’s head!

  May 25. Habarcq. (12 k. from Arras.) We left Magnicourt at 9 a.m. Warm day. Beastly march of ten miles; very slow, owing to congestion of troops. This is a large village but very much overcrowded with troops.

  A girl watching us pass through a village to-day cried out in astonishment – ‘Ne pas des anciens!’ We certainly are a fine body of men.

  One of our platoons is billeted close to a burial ground, which they refer to as ‘the rest camp’. ‘No reveilles and route-marches there!’ remarked a tall, tired-looking man with a walrus moustache. Getting near the line is working me up into the same old feeling of confidence and freedom from looking far ahead. Is it self-defensive, or what?

  Sunday, May 26. Very tired to-night. Guns making a noise eight miles away. I am alone in a large room in the Château – a barrack of a place. Small things have conspired to exasperate me to-day. But I will read Lamb’s Letters and then go to sleep. My window looks out on tree-tops and a large cedar. (I am on the third storey.)

  May 28. Too tired to read or think after two days’ hard work with the Company. Devilish noise last night when the next village was being bombed and anti-aircraft guns firing. They are over again to-nig
ht.

  May 29. Inspection by Divisional General. He made a very pleasant impression, and talked very nicely to the men. No complaints about my Company, anyhow!…Letters from England seem to come from another world. Aunt Evelyn wants to know when I shall be coming home on leave. Damn leave; I don’t want it. And I don’t want to be wounded and wangle a job at home. I want the next six weeks, and success. Do I want death? I don’t know yet. Anyhow the War is outside of life, and I’m in the War. ‘Those we loved were merely happy shadows.’ (Duhamel again.)

  Sunday, June 2. Cloudless weather continues. On Friday I took the Company to fire on the range; eight miles each way; out 7.30 to 6. Fired five rounds myself; a bull’s-eye, two inners, and a magpie were duly signalled. My private opinion is that I never hit the target at all, and I rather think the Sergeant-Major winked at me when handing me the rifle!

  Yesterday we paraded at 6 a.m. and went seven miles to take part in a Brigade Field Day. Back at 4.30. The men’s feet are very much knocked about and boots getting bad. I keep on worrying the Quartermaster about it, but he can do nothing except ‘indent’ for boots which never arrive. Morale of Company very good, in spite of being put through it so intensively. Only three have gone on leave since we got to France. One goes next week; and the rest are hoping.