J. H. Morgan - Leaves from a Field Note Book

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LEAVES FROM A FIELD NOTE-BOOK

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

LEAVES FROM A FIELD NOTE-BOOK

BY

J.H. MORGAN

LATE HOME OFFICE COMMISSIONER WITH THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

"And my delights were with the sons of men."

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1916

TO

LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR C.F.N. MACREADY, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL TO THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

PREFACE

This book is an unofficial outcome of the writer's experiences during
the five months he was attached to the General Headquarters Staff as
Home Office Commissioner with the British Expeditionary Force. His
official duties during that period involved daily visits to the
headquarters of almost every Corps, Division, and Brigade in the Field,
and took him on one or two occasions to the batteries and into the
trenches. They necessarily involved a familiar and domestic acquaintance
with the work of two of the great departments of the Staff at G.H.Q. So
much of these experiences of the work of the Staff and of the life of
the Army in the field as it appears discreet to record is here set down.
The writer desires to express his acknowledgments to his friends, Major
E.A. Wallinger, Major F.C.T. Ewald, D.S.O., and Captain W.A. Wallinger,
for their kindness in reading the proofs of some one or more of the
chapters in this book. Nor would his acknowledgments be complete
without some word of thanks to that brilliant soldier, Colonel E.D.
Swinton, D.S.O., with whom he was closely associated during the
discharge of the official duties at G.H.Q. of which this book is the
unofficial outcome. Most of these chapters originally appeared in the
pages of the _Nineteenth Century and After_, under the title to which
the book owes its name, and the writer desires to express his
obligations to the Editor, Mr. Wray Skilbeck, for his kind permission to
republish them. Similar acknowledgments are due to the Editor of
_Blackwood's Magazine_ for permission to reprint the short story,
"Stokes's Act," and to the Editor of the _Westminster Gazette_ in whose
hospitable pages some of the shorter sketches appeared--sometimes
anonymously.

The reader will observe that many of these sketches appear in the form
of what, to borrow a French term, is called the _conte_. The writer has
adopted that form of literary expression as the most efficacious way of
suppressing his own personality; the obtrusion of which, in the form of
"Reminiscences," would, he feels, be altogether disproportionate and
impertinent in view of the magnitude and poignancy of the great events
amid which it was his privilege to live and move. Moreover, his own
duties were neither spirited nor glorious. But the characters pourtrayed
and the events narrated in these pages are true in substance and in
fact. The writer has not had the will, even if he had had the power, to
"improve" the occasions; the reality was too poignant for that.
"Stokes's Act" and "The Coming of the Hun" are therefore "true"
stories--using truth in the sense of veracity not value--and the facts
came within the writer's own investigation. The investiture of fiction
has been here adopted for the obvious reason that neither of the
principal characters in these two stories would desire his name to be
known. So, too, in the other sketches, although the characters are
"real"--I can only hope that they will be half as real to the reader as
they were and are to me--the names are assumed.

It is my privilege to inscribe this little book to Lieut.-General Sir
C.F.N. Macready, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., to whose staff I was attached and to
whose friendship, encouragement, and hospitality I owe a debt which no
words can discharge.

J. H. M.

_January 1916._

CONTENTS

I

THE BASE
PAGE
I. BOBS BAHADUR 3
II. AT THE BASE DEPOT 11
III. THE WILTSHIRES 17
IV. THE BASE 26
V. A COUNCIL OF INDIA 36
VI. THE TROOP TRAIN 45

II

THE FRONT

VII. THE TWO RICHEBOURGS 59
VIII. IDOLS OF THE CAVE 65
IX. STOKES'S ACT 73
X. THE FRONT 92
XI. AT G.H.Q. 103
XII. MORT POUR LA PATRIE 119
XIII. MEAUX AND SOME BRIGANDS 128
XIV. THE CONCIERGE AT SENLIS 134

III

UNOFFICIAL INTERLUDES

XV. A "CONSEIL DE LA GUERRE" 143
XVI. PETER 154
XVII. THREE TRAVELLERS 166
XVIII. BARBARA 173
XIX. AN ARMY COUNCIL 178
XX. THE FUGITIVES 189
XXI. A "DUG-OUT" 195
XXII. CHRISTMAS EVE, 1914 202

IV

THE FRONT AGAIN

XXIII. THE COMING OF THE HUN 209
XXIV. THE HILL 226
XXV. THE DAY'S WORK 232
XXVI. FIAT JUSTITIA 244
XXVII. HIGHER EDUCATION 252
XXVIII. THE LITTLE TOWNS OF FLANDERS AND ARTOIS 259
XXIX. THE "FRONT" ONCE MORE 270
XXX. HOME AGAIN 288

I

THE BASE

I

BOBS BAHADUR

It had gone eight bells on the S.S. _G----_. The decks had been
washed down with the hosepipe and the men paraded for the morning's
inspection. The O.C. had scanned them with a roving eye, till catching
sight of an orderly two files from the left he had begged him, almost as
a personal favour, to get his hair cut. To an untutored mind the
orderly's hair was about one-eighth of an inch in length, but the O.C.
was inflexible. He was a colonel in that smartest of all medical
services, the I.M.S., whose members combine the extensive knowledge of
the general practitioner with the peculiar secrets of the Army surgeon,
and he was fastidious. Then he said "Dismiss," and they went their
appointed ways. The Indian cooks were boiling _dhal_ and rice in the
galley; the bakers were squatting on their haunches on the lower deck,
making _chupattis_--they were screened against the inclemency of the
weather by a tarpaulin--and they patted the leathery cakes with
persuasive slaps as a dairymaid pats butter. Low-caste sweepers glided
like shadows to and fro. Suddenly some one crossed the gangway and the
sentry stiffened and presented arms. The O.C. looked down from the upper
deck and saw a lithe, sinewy little figure with white moustaches and
"imperial"; the eyes were of a piercing steel-blue. The figure was clad
in a general's field-service uniform, and on his shoulder-straps were
the insignia of a field-marshal. The colonel stared for a moment, then
ran hastily down the ladder and saluted.

* * * * *

Together they passed down the companion-ladder. At the foot of it they
encountered a Bengali orderly, who made a profound obeisance.

"Shiva Lal," said the O.C., "I ordered the portholes to be kept
unfastened and the doors in the bulkheads left open. This morning I
found them shut. Why was this?"

"Sahib, at eight o'clock I found them open."

"It was at eight o'clock," said the colonel sternly, "that I found them
shut."

The Bengali spread out his hands in deprecation. "If the sahib says so
it must be so," he pleaded, adding with truly Oriental irrelevancy, "I
am a poor man and have many children." It is as useless to argue with
an Indian orderly as it is to try conclusions with a woman.

"Let it not occur again," said the colonel shortly, and with an apology
to his guest they passed on.

They paused in front of a cabin. Over the door was the legend "Pathans,
No. 1." The door was shut fast. The colonel was annoyed. He opened the
door, and four tall figures, with strongly Semitic features and bearded
like the pard, stood up and saluted. The colonel made a mental note of
the closed door; he looked at the porthole--it was also closed. The
Pathan loves a good "fug," especially in a European winter, and the
colonel had had trouble with his patients about ventilation. A kind of
guerilla warfare, conducted with much plausibility and perfect
politeness, had been going on for some days between him and the Pathans.
The Pathans complained of the cold, the colonel of the atmosphere. At
last he had met them halfway, or, to be precise, he had met them with a
concession of three inches. He had ordered the ship's carpenter to fix a
three-inch hook to the jamb and a staple to the door, the terms of the
truce being that the door should be kept three inches ajar. And now it
was shut. "Why is this?" he expostulated. For answer they pointed to the
hook. "Sahib, the hook will not fasten!"

The colonel examined it; it was upside down. The contumacious Pathans
had quietly reversed the work of the ship's carpenter, and the hook was
now useless without being ornamental. With bland ingenuous faces they
stared sadly at the hook, as if deprecating such unintelligent
craftsmanship. The Field-Marshal smiled--he knew the Pathan of old; the
colonel mentally registered a black mark against the delinquents.

"Whence come you?" said the Field-Marshal.

"From Tirah, Sahib."

"Ah! we have had some little trouble with your folk at Tirah. But all
that is now past. Serve the Emperor faithfully and it shall be well with
you."

"Ah! Sahib, but I am sorely troubled in my mind."

"And wherefore?"

"My aged father writes that a pig of a thief hath taken our cattle and
abducted our women-folk. I would fain have leave to go on furlough and
lie in a nullah at Tirah with my rifle and wait for him. Then would I
return to France."

"Patience! That can wait. How like you the War?"

"_Burra Achha Tamasha_,[1] Sahib. But we like not their big guns. We
would fain come at them with the bayonet. Why are we kept back in the
trenches, Sahib?"

"Peace! It shall come in good time."

They passed into another cabin reserved for native officers. A tall Sikh
rose to a half-sitting posture and saluted.

"What is your name?"

"H---- Sing, Sahib."

"There was a H---- Sing with me in '78," said the Field-Marshal
meditatively. "With the Kuram Field Force. He was my orderly. He served
me afterwards in Burmah and was promoted to subadar."

The aquiline features of the Sikh relaxed, his eyes of lustrous jet
gleamed. "Even so, Sahib, he was my father."

"Good! he was a man. Be worthy of him. And you too are a subadar?"

"Yea, Sahib, I have eaten the King's salt these twelve years."

"That is well. Have you children?"

"Yea, Sahib, God has been very good."

"And your lady mother, is she alive?"

"The Lord be praised, she liveth."

"And how is your 'family'?"

"She is well, Sahib."

"And how like you this War?"

"Greatly, Sahib. The _Goora-log_[2] and ourselves fight like brothers
side by side. But we would fain see the fine weather. Then there will be
some _muzza_[3] in it."

The Field-Marshal smiled and passed on.

They entered the great ward in the main hold of the ship. Here were
avenues of swinging cots, in double tiers, the enamelled iron white as
snow, and on the pillow of each cot lay a dark head, save where some
were sitting up--the Sikhs binding their hair as they fingered the
_kangha_ and the _chakar_, the comb and the quoit-shaped hair-ring,
which are of the five symbols of their freemasonry. The Field-Marshal
stopped to talk to a big _sowar_. As he did so the men in their cots
raised their heads and a sudden whisper ran round the ward. Dogras,
Rajputs, Jats, Baluchis, Garhwalis clutched at the little pulleys over
their cots, pulled themselves up with painful efforts, and saluted. In a
distant corner a Mahratta from the aboriginal plains of the Deccan, his
features dark almost to blackness, looked on uncomprehendingly; Ghurkhas
stared in silence, their broad Mongolian faces betraying little of the
agitation that held them in its spell. From the rest there arose such a
conflict of tongues as has not been heard since the Day of Pentecost.
From bed to bed passed the magic words, "It is he." Every man uttered a
benediction. Many wept tears of joy. A single thought seemed to animate
them, and they voiced it in many tongues.

"Ah, now we shall smite the _German-log_ exceedingly. We shall fight
even as tigers, for Jarj Panjam.[4] The great Sahib has come to lead us
in the field. Praised be his exalted name."

The Field-Marshal's eyes shone.

"No, no," he said, "my time is finished. I am too old."

"Nay, Sahib," said the sowar as he hung on painfully to his pulley, "the
body may be old but the brain is young."

The Field-Marshal strove to reply but could not. He suddenly turned on
his heel and rushed up the companion-ladder. When halfway up he
remembered the O.C. and retraced his steps. The tears were streaming
down his face.

"Sir," he said, in a voice the deliberate sternness of which but ill
concealed an overmastering emotion, "your hospital arrangements are
excellent. I have seen none better. I congratulate you. Good-day." The
next moment he was gone.

* * * * *

Five days later the colonel was standing on the upper deck; he gripped
the handrail tightly and looked across the harbour basin. Overhead the
Red Cross ensign was at half-mast, and at half-mast hung the Union Jack
at the stern. And so it was with every ship in port. A great silence lay
upon the harbour; even the hydraulic cranes were still, and the winches
of the trawlers had ceased their screaming. Not a sound was to be heard
save the shrill poignant cry of the gulls and the hissing of an exhaust
pipe. As the colonel looked across the still waters of the harbour basin
he saw a bier, covered with a Union Jack, being slowly carried across
the gangway of the leave-boat; a little group of officers followed it.
In a few moments the leave-boat, after a premonitory blast from the
siren which woke the sleeping echoes among the cliffs, cast off her
moorings and slowly gathered way. Soon she had cleared the harbour mouth
and was out upon the open sea. The colonel watched her with straining
eyes till she sank beneath the horizon. Then he turned and went
below.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A jolly fine show.

[2] The English soldiers.

[3] Spice.

[4] King George the Fifth.

[5] The writer can vouch for the truth of this narrative. He owes his
knowledge of what passed to the hospitality on board of his friend the
O.C. the Indian hospital ship in question.

II

AT THE BASE DEPOT

Any enunciation by officers responsible for training of principles
other than those contained in this Manual or any practice of
methods not based on those principles is forbidden.--_Infantry
Training Manual._

The officers in charge of details at No. 19 Infantry Base Depot had made
their morning inspections of the lines. They had seen that blankets were
folded and tent flies rolled up, had glanced at rifles, and had
inspected the men's kits with the pensive air of an intending purchaser.
Having done which, they proceeded to take an unsympathetic farewell of
the orderly officer whom they found in the orderly room engaged in
reading character by handwriting with the aid of the office stamp.

"I never knew there was so much individuality in the British Army," the
orderly officer dolefully exclaimed as he contemplated a pile of letters
waiting to be franked and betraying marked originality in their
penmanship.

"You're too fond of opening other people's letters," the subaltern
remarked pleasantly. "It's a bad habit and will grow on you. When you go
home you'll never be able to resist it. You'll be unfit for decent
society."

"Go away, War Baby," retorted the orderly officer, as he turned aside
from the subaltern, who has a beautiful pink and white complexion, and
was at Rugby rather less than a year ago.

The War Baby smiled wearily. "Let's go and see the men at drill," he
remarked. "We've got a corporal here who's A1 at instruction." As we
passed, the sentry brought his right hand smartly across the small of
the butt of his rifle, and, seeing the Major behind us, brought the
rifle to the present.

We came out on a field sprinkled with little groups of men in charge of
their N.C.O.'s. They were the "details." These were drafts for the
Front, and every regiment of the Division had sent a deputation. Two or
three hundred yards away a platoon was marching with a short quick trot,
carrying their rifles at the trail, and I knew them for Light Infantry,
for such are their prerogatives. Concerning Light Infantry much might be
written that is not to be found in the regimental records. As, for
example, the reason why the whole Army shouts "H.L.I." whenever the ball
is kicked into touch; also why the Oxford L.I. always put out their
tongues when they meet the Durhams. Some day some one will write the
legendary history of the British Army, its myth, custom, and folklore,
and will explain how the Welsh Fusiliers got their black "flash" (with a
digression on the natural history of antimacassars), why the 7th Hussars
are called the "White Shirts," why the old 95th will despitefully use
you if you cry, "Who stole the grog?" and what happens on Albuera day in
the mess of the Die Hards. But that is by the way.

The drafts at No. 19, having done a route march the day before, had been
turned out this morning to do a little musketry drill by way of keeping
them fit. A platoon lay flat on their stomachs in the long grass, the
burnished nails on the soles of their boots twinkling in the sun like
miniature heliographs. From all quarters of the field sharp words of
command rang out like pistol shots. "Three hundred. Five rounds. Fire."
As the men obeyed the sergeant's word of command, the air resounded with
the clicking of bolts like a chorus of grasshoppers. We pursued a
section of the Royal Fusiliers in command of a corporal until he halted
his men for bayonet exercise. He drew them up in two ranks facing each
other, and began very deliberately with an allocution on the art of the
bayonet.

"There ain't much drill about the bayonet," he said encouragingly. "What
you've got to do is to get the other fellow, and I don't care how you
get 'im as long as you knock 'im out of time. On guard!"

The men in each rank brought the butts of their rifles on to their right
hips and pointed with their left feet forward at the breasts of the men
opposite. "Rest!" The rifles were brought to earth between twelve pairs
of feet. "Point! Withdraw! On guard!" They pointed, withdrew, and were
on guard again with the precision of piston-rods.

"Now watch me, for your life may depend upon it," and the corporal
proceeded to give them the low parry which is useful when you are taking
trenches and find a _chevaux-de-frise_ of the enemy's bayonets
confronting you. Each rank knocked an imaginary bayonet aside and
pointed at invisible feet. The high parry followed. So far the men had
been merely nodding at each other across a space of some twelve yards,
and it was hot work and tedious. The sweat ran down their faces, which
glistened in the sun. "Now I'm going to give you the butt exercises";
they brightened visibly.

"I am pointing--so!--and 'ave been parried. I bring the butt round on
'is shoulder, using my weight on it. I bring my left leg behind 'is left
leg. I throw 'im over. Then I give the beggar what for. So!" The words
were hardly out of his mouth before he had thrown himself upon the
nearest private and laid him prostrate. The others smiled faintly as No.
98678 picked himself up and nonchalantly returned to his old position as
if this were a banal compliment. "Now then. First butt exercise." One
rank advanced upon the other, and the two ranks were locked in a close
embrace. They remained thus with muscles strung like bowstrings,
immobile as a group of statuary.

"That'll do. Now I'll give you the second butt exercise. You bring the
butt round on 'is jaw--so!--and then kick 'im in the guts with your
knee." Perhaps the section, which stood like a wall of masonry, looked
surprised; more probably the surprise was mine. But the corporal
explained. "Don't think you're Tottenham Hotspur in the Cup Final. Never
mind giving 'im a foul. You've got to 'urt 'im or 'e'll 'urt you. Kick
'im anywhere with your knees or your feet. Your ammunition boots will
make 'im feel it. No!"--he turned to a young private whose left hand was
grasping his rifle high up between the fore-sight and the
indicator--"You mustn't do that. Always get your 'and between the
back-sight and the breech. So! The back-sight will protect your fingers
from being cut by the other fellow. Now the third butt exercise."

As we turned away the Major thoughtfully remarked to me, "There isn't
much of that in the Infantry Manual. But the corporal knows his job.
When you're in a scrap you haven't time to think about the rules of the
game; the automatic movements come all right, but in a clinch you've got
to fight like a cat with tooth and claw, use your boots, your knee, or
anything that comes handy. Perhaps that's why your lithe little Cockney
is such a useful man with the bayonet. Now the Hun is a hefty beggar,
and he isn't hampered by any ideas of playing the game, but he's as
mechanical as a vacuum brake, and he's no good in a scrap."

We returned to the orderly room. The orderly officer had a pile of
letters on his right impressed with a red triangle, and contemplated the
completion of his labours with gloomy satisfaction. "But it's very
interesting--such a revelation of the emotions of battle and all that,"
I incautiously remarked. "Oh yes, very revealing," he yawned. "Look at
that"; and he held out a letter. It ran:

DEAR MOTHER--I'm reported fit for duty and am going back
to the Front with the new drafts. I forgot to tell you we were in a
bit of a scrap before I came here. We outed a lot of Huns. How is
old Alf?--

Your loving son, JIM.

The "bit of a scrap" was the battle of Neuve Chapelle. The British
soldier is an artist with the bayonet. But he is no great man with the
pen. Which is as it should be.

III

THE WILTSHIRES

"You talk to him, sir. He zeed a lot though he be kind o' mazed like
now; he be mortal bad, I do think. But such a cheerful chap he be. I
mind he used to say to us in the trenches: 'It bain't no use grousing.
What mun be, mun be.' Terrible strong he were, too. One of our officers
wur hit in front of the parapet and we coulden get 'n in nohow--'twere
too hot; and Hunt, he unrolled his puttees and made a girt rope of 'em
and threw 'em over the parapet and draw'd en in. Ah! that a did."

It was in one of the surgical tents of "No. 6 General" at the base. The
middle of the ward was illuminated by an oil-lamp, shaped like an
hour-glass, which shed a circle of yellow radiance upon the faces of the
nurse and the orderly officer, as they stood examining a case-sheet by
the light of its rays. Beyond the penumbra were rows of white beds, and
in the farthest corner lay the subject of our discourse. "Can I talk to
him?" I said to the nurse. "Yes, if you don't stay too long," she
replied briskly, "and don't question him too much. He's in a bad way,
his wounds are very septic."

He nodded to me as I approached. At the head of the bed hung a
case-sheet and temperature-chart, and I saw at a glance the
superscription--

Hunt, George, Private, No. 1578936 B Co. ---- Wiltshires.

I noticed that the temperature-line ran sharply upwards on the chart.

"So you're a Wiltshireman?" I said. "So am I." And I held out my hand.
He drew his own from beneath the bedclothes and held mine in an iron
grip.

"What might be your parts, sir?"

"W---- B----."

His eyes lighted up with pleasure. "Why, zur, it be nex' parish; I come
from B----. I be main pleased to zee ye, zur."

"The pleasure is mine," I said. "When did you join?"

"I jined in July last year, zur. I be a resarvist."

"You have been out a long time, then?"

"Yes, though it do seem but yesterday, and I han't seen B---- since. I
mind how parson, 'e came to me and axed, 'What! bist gwine to fight for
King and Country, Jarge?' And I zed, 'Yes, sur, that I be--for King and
Country and ould Wiltshire. I guess we Wiltshiremen be worth two Gloster
men any day though they do call us 'Moon-rakers.' Not but what the
Glosters ain't very good fellers," he added indulgently. "Parson, he be
mortal good to I; 'e gied I his blessing and 'e write and give I all the
news of the parish. He warnt much of a preacher though a did say 'Dearly
beloved' in church in a very taking way as though he were a-courting."

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