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Keith Henderson - Letters to Helen

K >> Keith Henderson >> Letters to Helen



LETTERS TO HELEN




[Illustration: CRUCIFIX CORNER
Between MONTAUBAN & HIGH WOOD
One of the hands was shot away, and the figure hangs there suspended
from the other.]




LETTERS TO HELEN

Impressions of an Artist
on the Western Front

By KEITH HENDERSON

Illustrated

LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS

MCMXVII




PREFACE


These letters were never intended for publication.

But when the pictures were brought back from France it was suggested
that they should be reproduced, and a book evolved.

Then a certain person (who shall be nameless) conceived the dastardly
idea of exposing private correspondence to the public eye. He proved
wilful in the matter, and this book came into the world.




ILLUSTRATIONS

CRUCIFIX CORNER _Frontispiece_
A CONFERENCE IN THE CHATEAU _To face page_ 6
BAILLEUL 10
LE MONT DES CATS 18
FRICOURT CEMETERY 32
TRENCHES BETWEEN FRICOURT AND LA BOISELLE 48
GIRD TRENCH 54
A HOUSE IN GEUDECOURT 60
A WOUNDED TANK 66
EXPLOSION OF AN AMMUNITION DUMP 78
THE BUTTE DE WARLENCOURT 92
PERONNE 106




LETTERS TO HELEN


_June 6, 1916._

Well, here we are in the slowest train that ever limped, and I've been
to sleep for seven hours. The first good sleep since leaving England.
And now, as we've got twenty-eight hours to go still, there's time to
write a letter. The last three days' postcards have been scrappy and
unintelligible, but we departed without warning and with the most
Sherlock Holmes secrecy. Not a word about which ports we were sailing
from or to.

However, I'll tell you what I can without disclosing any names of
places.

After moving off at midnight from among the Hampshire pine-trees, we
eventually reached our port of departure. Great fun detraining the
horses and getting them on board. The men were in the highest spirits.
But how disgusting those cold rank smells of a dock are.

We sailed the following evening. Hideously rough, and it took seventeen
and a half hours. The men very quiet indeed and packed like sardines.
It was wonderful to think of all those eager souls in all those ships
making for France together over the black deep water. Some had gone
before, and some came after. But the majority went over that night. I
felt decidedly ill. And it was nervous work going round seeing after the
horses and men when a "crisis" might have occurred at any moment!
Luckily, however, dignity was preserved. Land at last "hove in sight" as
the grey morning grew paler and clearer. What busy-looking quays! More
clatter of disembarkation. No time to think or look about.

Then, all being ready, we mounted and trekked off to a so-called "rest
camp" near the town, most uneasy and hectic. But food late that evening
restored our hilarity. A few hours' sleep and we moved off once more
into the night, the horses' feet sounding loud and harsh on the unending
French cobbles. By 8 a.m. we were all packed into this train. Now we are
passing by lovely, almost English, wooded hills. Here a well-known town
with its cathedral looks most enticing. I long to explore. Such singing
from the men's carriages! Being farmers mostly, they are interested in
the unhedged fields and the acres of cloches. They go into hysterics of
laughter when the French people assail them with smiles, broken
English-French, and long loaves of bread. They think the long loaves
_very_ humorous! There are Y.M.C.A. canteens at most stations, so we are
well fed. The horses are miserable, of course. They were unhappy on
board ship. A horse can't be sick, you know, even if he wants to. And
now they are wretched in their trucks, Rinaldo and Swallow are, of
course, terrified, while Jezebel, having rapidly thought out the
situation, takes it all very quietly. She has just eaten an enormous
lunch. Poor Rinaldo wouldn't touch his, and Swallow only ate a very
little.

[Sidenote: FRANCE AT LAST]

In this carriage Jorrocks is snoring like thunder. Edward is eating
chocolate. Sir John is trying to plough through one of "these Frenchy
newspapers--damned nonsense, you know! they don't know what it all means
themselves." And Julian is scrutinizing a map of our area.

Everyone is so glad to be going up right into it now. That pottering
about at home was most irritating. Just spit and polish, spit and polish
all the time since August, 1914.

We are all getting cramp, and have to stand up occasionally. Toby has
smoked his fourteenth pipe.

Oh, look! What a lovely rainbow! Treble. And under it a village with an
estaminet, a dozen slate-roofed houses, and a very new chateau, hideous
with scarlet bricks and chocolate draw-bridge and pepper-pot turrets.
Poplars and more poplars. Still we rumble along through symmetrical
France.


_June 7._

We are in one of the most lovely old French chateaux I have ever
imagined. Half chateau, half farm, fifteen miles behind the line. We
remain here for two or three days. Arrived late last night, tired and
grubby. But, O ye gods, when dawn began to reveal this old courtyard
with its hens and chickens and pigeons! On one side the old house with
its faded shutters. On the other side the old gateway with a square
tower and a pigeon-cote above. Along the other sides old barns. The
country round we have hardly seen, but it looks exquisite. There are
several most attractive foals in a field close by.

And inside the chateau funny old-fashioned things--old beds with frowsty
canopies, and old wall-papers with large designs in ferns and
cornucopias. Imitation marble in the hall. Gilded tassels. Alas! my kit
has not yet arrived. It's awful. And the anxiety to draw these things is
feverish. We go so soon.

When you look out of the rooms into the courtyard, you see our waggons
and draft-horses, and the men eating bully-beef like wolves. Some of
them (including Sergeant Cart) are shaving and washing stripped to the
waist. The others just tear at the bread and beef and munch without
speaking. Corporal Nutley and Corporal Field are pointing with their
tea-mugs to the old gateway and the ducks and things. They all evidently
love it. They sleep in the barns amongst the hay. The sun is warm and
sleepy.


_June 8._

[Sidenote: THE CHATEAU-FARM]

Still at this lovely chateau-farm, and Life seems to have gone into a
trance. I wake up and look out into the courtyard and the sunlight, on
geese, Muscovy ducks, pigs, and pigeons, and it all feels like a
half-forgotten story. There are traces of the Huns, but all that seems
unreal. You hear the boom! boom! boom! of the guns all day, and more so
at night; but nothing can disturb the extraordinary remote peace of this
chateau. The very stones in the courtyard look more friendly and more
countrified than ordinary stones, as if some ancient fairy lived here.
There's no doubt at all that the men feel it. Several of them have said
how they like the place. They think it's a little bit like ----shire. I
think I know what they mean.

After the war perhaps we may visit the place together: I should love
showing it to you. I'm not at all sure that it's really very beautiful.
The architecture isn't good when you consider it. But somehow....


_June 10._

The same chateau. We are living a simple and brainless life. No
field-days, of course, and for this relief much thanks. We don't know in
the least what is happening. Troops come and troops go, and guns go by
during the night, and Red Cross waggons go hither and thither, and the
old turkey gobbles.

Yesterday I was out with my troop, quite uninteresting. But what do you
think? Something exploded not 100 yards away from Rinaldo. I was much
farther off, dismounted. He didn't turn a hair, but only looked round
and watched the smoke. Whereas, as you know, a little bit of paper blown
across the road sends him into paroxysms of terror.


[Illustration: A CONFERENCE IN THE CHATEAU DE FEBVIN-PALFART
There are many of these old chateaux-farms in Northern France. The beds
are under great frowsy canopies and all the curtains are looped up with
heavy tassels.]


_June 11._

I went into an old church in a large town ten miles from here to-day
with Sergeant Hodge. There were the usual tinsel things and red baize
and sham flowers. Sergeant Hodge much impressed. He said after we
emerged: "You know, sir, it's very fine indeed. It puts me in mind of
a bazaar." This was in all good faith, and was intended as a great
compliment to the church! We are having lots of rain, which is bad for
the horses, who are picketed in the open. And thunder. It's often
extremely difficult to tell whether, when the thunder is far away, it is
thunder or guns. Quite a novel experience, and quite pleasant after the
long period of make-believe in England. Discipline. So salutary and so
irksome. Now for the battle. I own I long to get into the thick of it
soon. We see infantry returning and going up, and we feel sick, somehow,
to be still safe.

This country is very charming, but a bit monotonous. Every road and
every field exactly like every other.


_June 13._

[Sidenote: A SERVICE FOR KITCHENER]

A service to-day for Kitchener. And we had to ride fifteen miles there
in pouring rain. Then we stood in deep mud for about an hour, the rain
gradually trickling down our necks.

To-day delicious rumours of a German defeat at Verdun. Lots of
prisoners, including the Crown Prince!

Goodness me, such rain. Jezebel bit Swallow above the eye merely to show
what her feelings were. He now has one eye enormously swollen and
almost closed up. It is dressed with iodine, so he looks most
remarkable. His beauty much damaged. But it will only be temporary.

Hunt tells me that Swallow is so frightened of Jezebel he daren't lie
down at night. But then, Hunt thinks Jezebel a sort of Bucephalus, and
the more horses she kicks or bites the more pride he takes in her. He
has no love for Swallow, unfortunately.

There's a distant cannonade going on to-day. We all eye each other.


_June 17._

In the small-hours of to-night we leave this wonderful place. Why we
were ever sent here or why moved away is one of those mysteries only
known to a few staff officials.

But how we have loved it. At least I have. Some of the others--Jorrocks
for instance--have been bored. But, then, they couldn't draw, poor
dears. Do you know I have done three pictures. That's a lot in this
military life. One of the courtyard, with cocks and hens and things, and
in the distance men cleaning their saddles. Another of the vestibule,
with Julian and Edward consulting over some map or other at a table.
Another of a "fosse" or coal-pit about a mile away. A coal-pit sounds
repulsive, but not so in Northern France. They are away from all houses
and surrounded by corn-fields. The coal refuse is the curious part of
it. Up it comes from the main shaft and is piled up into a series of
large pyramids, visible for miles around. Many of the famous "redoubts"
are coal-refuse pyramids really. And such nice little chimneys.
Rinaldo--gone! Isn't it heartbreaking! An important person comes nosing
round, and asks for him. Sir John doesn't like to refuse. I am
powerless. Adieu, dear Rinaldo! One gets awfully fond of a horse.
Rinaldo was very naughty sometimes, but I loved him all the more for it.
And now his good looks have been disastrous. Oh that he had been uglier.
Isn't it maddening. Such a leaper, so fast, and such courage. Well,
perhaps I shall see him again.


_June 19._

[Sidenote: FEBVIN TO BAILLEUL]

At the last moment an order that we are not to go. Then late last night
an order to send on an advanced party of one officer and one sergeant
and two men immediately. So off I go with Sergeant Dobbin and Hunt and
Noad. We had to find billets and bivouacs for the squadron at a place
far from here. This we did, and the squadron has just arrived, and we
have had lunch and are feeling very fat indeed. We have just seen a
pretty aeroplane show. Six of them flew over our heads towards the
Boche, and presently puff, puff! went the little dark clouds of smoke
all amongst them. They then got too high and too far off for us to see,
but we still saw the Archie shells following them. First a flash in the
sky, then a very dark spot; then the spot grows larger and fluffier, and
becomes a dusky little cloud. So you see some flashes, some dark spots,
and some larger fluffy clouds--all on the wretched aeroplane's track.

Only two returned, alas! but they told us they had brought down three
Aviatiks.

We're moving with great rapidity up into colder climes. More anon.


_June 22._

I wrote a p.c. early this morning, as I thought I might get no other
chance. Things are all merry and bright. We have moved up like oiled
lightning from ---- to a rather famous place. Hedges and hop-fields.
Very interesting church--not hurt at all. We are suffering so (at least,
the poor men are) from thirst. There's no water anywhere. I long to gulp
down green pond water. However, that will be remedied shortly, I hope. I
went into the big town and bought a barrel of beer for the men. Tempting
Providence. But there's nothing else. The water isn't good even when
boiled. However, all will be well soon.


[Illustration: BAILLEUL
A peaceful place behind the battle.]


_June 23._

[Sidenote: MANY SMELLS AND NO WATER]

The most extraordinary things are happening. All very quiet and humdrum
on the surface. Only the aeroplanes are busy, and if the sun is between
you and them there are always the little black high Archie clouds
following them, like vultures appearing from nowhere.

Our quick bolt up here has had several pleasant results. First, the
country is very beautiful, more hilly in this immediate neighbourhood,
with great plains stretching away on all sides. The low hills all have
woods round them, and a windmill or a church on the top. Second, B
Squadron have already arrived, and our old Brigade-Major and lots of
other old friends. It was most joyous meeting them all again. We came
trotting down one road, covered with dust, and they came trotting down
another road even more covered with dust, having trekked all day.

Isn't it funny. One gets so quickly used to things that already we have
ceased to notice the smells, which at first made us wield bottles of
disinfectant wherever we went. But now, when the farms and outhouses and
other places where we live smell, we merely laugh, and "fatigues" are
all at work automatically before nightfall, and by next morning--well,
the smells have not gone, but the general feeling is that a good start
has been made.

The water problem is still unsolved, and we get very thirsty; but thirst
is a small fleabite, after all. "Which would you rather have," I asked a
discontented lance-corporal, "a bit of a thirst or a dentist drilling a
hole down a pet nerve?" And he owned he'd rather have a thirst. You
know, it's most awkward. They come to you when there's any difficulty
and seem to think you can put things right always. For instance, a man
came up the other day: "Please, sir, I've lost my haversack." "When did
you miss it first?" "Between ---- and ----, sir." "Now what do you want
me to do?" "I don't know, sir." "Do you want me to go back to ---- and
search the whole of the twenty odd miles to ---- on the off chance of
finding it?" "No, sir." "Do you want to do so yourself?" "No, sir." "And
even if I ordered you to go, do you think that, with so many troops
about, you would be likely to find it still there?" "No, sir."

The result is, of course, that I have to buy one for the unfortunate lad
in the nearest town. One must eat. And our haversacks are our larders.
Haversacks are supplied by the army, but it takes such a time to get
anything, that, if the matter is urgent, it has to be done without the
army. We (the bloomin' orficers) have a "mess-cart" for all our absurd
wines and tinned peaches and things, but the men often have nothing but
the contents of their haversacks.


_June 25._

[Sidenote: READY FOR THE PUSH]

We are in a funny state of waiting for something to happen. Rumours
flying about all the time. We live on them--a bite off one, a slice off
another, a merry-thought off another. And so we learn the news of the
world. Papers when we get a chance of going into some town, and then
only two days old, or else French, which are very scrappy. Often we get
no news at all for three or four days, except what some passing
ambulance will vouchsafe. And usually they don't really know much. So
when there's an extra heavy strafing or an extra quiet lull we learn
that the entire German staff has been captured, or Rheims evacuated, or
Holland sunk, or something else equally strange. The M.G.'s were
hammering away furiously last night, and the whole line was lovely with
star shells hanging like arc lights in the air, and then dropping slowly
to earth. They light up everything like immense moons.


_June 28._

Starting from the farm where the horses are hidden at nine o'clock last
night (twenty-one, as we call it out here), after a hot meal, we
marched through Bedfordshire-like country, along ascending paths, to the
bottom of a wooded hill where a motor lorry with picks and shovels met
us. Thence along a narrow muddy path through a wood. The path circles
round the hill. The east side of the hill faces the Boche front line. It
was still quite light. The undergrowth thick and dank. Our fellows very
merry. The Boches know this path, which is pitted with shell holes. They
shell the place by day, oddly enough, but hardly ever by night.

It was raining gently. Turtle-doves continually crossed our way. I felt
much intrigued. A very weird wood. The guns crashed lethargically,
intermittently.

When we got round to the east side of the hill, the R.E.'s, who were
acting as guides, comforters, and friends, showed us what we were to do:
to dig a line of trench 6 feet deep, and as narrow as might be, for some
cables that were to lead into a very important set of dug-outs for
certain pink and gold people.

The dug-outs are deep in the side of the hill. It's what is called an
advanced H.Q.--_i.e._, when the Push begins, the gilded ones will crawl
in and rap out messages to the various commanders, and watch the battle.

The R.E. officers showed us what was wanted, and each man put in his
pick or shovel to mark the line. This is the procedure: each pick or
shovel about 2 yards apart, and each man delves on that spot till he is
6 feet down. If it were not done like this, then (when it became too
dark to see) the line would be lost. This only applies fully, of course,
when you are in woods or other cover. Digging isn't really a cavalry
job. But what of that?

[Sidenote: TRENCH DIGGING]

Well, now we've started. It's about ten o'clock, and getting very dim.
Drizzle, drizzle, drizzle. Humphry and I creep up (neglectful of duty)
to the top of the hill. A tiny tower there, smashed to pieces, but
beautiful in the twilight. We creep about amongst shell craters.
Presently a strange sweet odour. Flowers? Impossible. We stare into the
dusk. An exquisite faint scent all around us. Surely, surely, thyme?
Yes, sweet-williams, thyme. Evidently there has been a cottage here, but
now only a mass of rubble and beams and glass to show where once it was.
Sweet-williams, thyme, and later some Canterbury bells. Another
dream-place, like that old chateau-farm.

What a view from here of the German lines and ours! As it gets darker,
the flashes of the guns and the Very lights' solemn brilliance
illuminate the whole show like a map. That tragic ruin of a town on our
left is being shelled as usual. Jim is there. In front of us the German
salient. All comparatively quiet. How lovely it is! The sounds of our
men digging in the wet soil mingle now with other small noises. Voices
underground. Listen. And a mouth-organ's cheery bray coming from the
bowels of the earth. It is pitch-dark. We stand up like Generals
surveying the battle-field. No danger. The Boche does not waste
ammunition.

The rain is very heavy. I have got a tuft of sweet-william to smell.

We return to the men. They are wet through, but quite happy and content.
Not a bullet, not a scrap of anything that goes pop. They work in a
warm, wet peace. That is one of the odd things you learn--that only
certain places are dangerous, and usually only at certain times.

The rain is coming down with tropical intensity. I am in a misty dream.
It's all so mysterious. Suddenly I fall over something--plonk into the
middle of some excavated earth, which the rain has made into semolina
pudding. Tiresome to be absent-minded. How it pours! Midnight.

The roots of the trees make it very difficult to dig tidily, but the men
use their "billucks" with the unerring skill of farmers, and their
spades and picks as you or I would use a pencil. Time goes on. The
trench must be done before 2.30 a.m. We have to be gone before dawn. It
is nearly done now. Half-past twelve. The rain is stopping. One o'clock.
No, it isn't. It's coming down again. Half-past one. The trench is
finished. We must cover up all signs of it with branches, lest the wily
Taube should see, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

A quarter to two.

[Sidenote: A STRAFE]

Suddenly crash! bang! clash! boom! bang! We almost jump out of our
skins. Where the deuce were all those guns hidden? From all about us,
and far away behind and on either flank, our guns have begun strafing.
The most hideous and deafening din.

The ground seems to shake. Then an order comes that we are to clear out
at once. We do so. The Boches haven't answered yet, but they will. The
whole thing seems quite unreal. The men vastly entertained. I honestly
felt as if I were at some exciting melodrama. The least cessation of the
guns, and I found myself saying: "Don't stop! don't stop!" I shouted
into Corporal Nutley's car: "Can you hear what I'm saying?" and he
answered: "No, sir."

At last we got out into the little path, and had to double along through
the mud. Humphry was last man out, and he saw the one and only shell
the Boches sent over, exploding quite close to the aforementioned
dug-out.

Isn't it funny. The Boches don't apparently know of this dug-out, or of
the cable trenches, or they would, of course, smash it to pieces. And,
for some reason that I haven't yet grasped, they never reply to our guns
immediately. They wait for perhaps ten minutes, and _then_ they don't
always reply to the same spot we spoke from. As, for example, this wood.
Our guns were all in and round about the wood. The Boches apparently
strafed back at an unoffending village on the west side of the hill.

So, with our guns still behaving like things delirious, we eventually
reached the horses. Jezebel was quietly gorging herself with long
luscious grass beside the hedge. She told me she hadn't noticed anything
unusual. Poor Swallow was standing quite still, with his nostrils wide
open, breathing hard and trembling all over. A good many horses were
trembling, but the majority agreed with Jezebel: "It's only some silly
nonsense on the part of those Human Beings again. Don't listen."

Then we saddled up and rode back to a place well behind, where we could
exercise the beasties. They had been given no exercise for three days.
And so home again to this farm. The horses are all in a field surrounded
by trees, and couldn't be seen from above at all. I have seen lots
of other horse-lines of other units, though, much closer to the front
than this is--quite open to view. The fact is, I think, that Hun
aircraft very seldom indeed gets across into our preserves.


[Illustration: LE MONT DES CATS
Near YPRES
In the early days of the war spies used to signal from the monastery on
the top of this hill. The country round about is quite flat and
water-logged.]


_July 6._

[Sidenote: THE ROADS NEAR DRANONTRE]

Overnight it appears in orders that the roads from ---- to ---- via ----
are to be reported on with reference to their suitability for heavy
transport, guns, cavalry, infantry, etc.

So after an early breakfast Hunt comes round, with Swallow for me and
Jezebel for himself, haversack rations for us both, and feeds for the
horses. I feel very much on the qui-vive, as I haven't seen that
particular part before.

A grey warm day. Some miles to go due south before we get near our
destination. As we approach it we find, as usual, roads and railways
being made, and fatigue-parties repainting tents with blotches and
stripes. Then come notices, "No traffic along this road," or, "This road
liable to be shelled," with signboards at every corner, "To ----" or
some other place in the trenches. Sometimes the notices say
"Something-or-other Avenue" or "Burlington Arcade," etc.--nicknames, but
recognized officially. And all the time we are passing endless lorries
and Red Cross waggons and troops and dug-out camps. As we get closer the
signs of shelling get worse, and children are seen no longer. Old men,
though, occasionally observed working in a field quite unperturbed.
Rarely a French soldier or an interpreter with his sphinx badges. All
this quite lost on Hunt, who has "quite got used to abroad, thank you,
sir." He is eating chocolate or something, half a horse-length (the
correct distance) behind me.

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