Great Britain at war

EAT BRITAIN
AT WAR

JEFFERY FARNOL

Presented to the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY

1980

GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

BY JEFFERY FARNOL

THE BROAD HIGHWAY

THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN.

THE HONOURABLE MR. TAWNISH

BELTANE THE SMITH

THE DEFINITE OBJECT

GREAT BRITAIN;
AT WAR

BY

JEFFERY FARNOL

V • - " - '

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1918

BY THE Ri

THE UNITED STATES AND
BRITAIN.

Vpyright, 1917,
BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY.

Copyright, 1917,
THE TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION.

Copyright, 1918,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

All rights reserved

Published, March, 1918

Worfcoooti $rt0>

Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

Co

ALL MY
AMERICAN FRIENDS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER FACE

I FOREWORD ....... i

II CARTRIDGES 6

III RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS .... 12

IV CLYDEBANK 24

V SHIPS IN MAKING 33

VI THE BATTLE CRUISERS .... 40

VII A HOSPITAL 58

VIII THE GUNS . . . - . . . .69

IX A TRAINING CAMP 88

X ARRAS 103

XI THE BATTLEFIELDS 115

XII FLYING MEN 125

XIII YPRES 144

XIV WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE . . . .156

vii

GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

FOREWORD

IN publishing these collected articles in
book form (the result of my visits to Flan-
ders, the battlefields of France and divers
of the great munition centres), some of
which have already appeared in the press
both in England and America, I do so with
a certain amount of diffidence, because of
their so many imperfections and of their
inadequacy of expression. But what man,
especially in these days, may hope to treat
a theme so vast, a tragedy so awful, without
a sure knowledge that all he can say must
fall so infinitely far below the daily hap-
penings which are, on the one hand, raising
Humanity to a godlike altitude or depress-
ing it lower than the brutes. But, be-

2 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

cause these articles are a simple record of
what I have seen and what I have heard,
they may perhaps be of use in bringing out
of the shadow — that awful shadow of
"usualness" into which they have fallen —
many incidents that would, before the
war, have roused the world to wonder, to
pity and to infinite awe.

Since the greater number of these articles
was written, America has thrown her might
into the scale against merciless Barbarism
and Autocracy ; at her entry into the drama
there was joy in English and French hearts,
but, I venture to think, a much greater
joy in the hearts of all true Americans.
I happened to be in Paris on the memorable'
day America declared war, and I shall never
forget the deep-souled enthusiasm of the
many Americans it was my privilege to
know there. America, the greatest de-
mocracy in the world, had at last taken her
stand on the side of Freedom, Justice and
Humanity.

As an Englishman, I love and am proud
of my country, and, in the years I spent in

FOREWORD 3

America, I saw with pain and deep regret
the misunderstanding that existed between
these two great nations. In America I
beheld a people young, ardent, indomitable,
full of the unconquerable spirit of Youth,
and I thought of that older country across
the seas, so little understanding and so
little understood.

And often I thought if it were only pos-
sible to work a miracle, if it were only
possible for the mists of jealousy and ill-
feeling, or rivalry and misconception to be
swept away once and for all — if only
these two great nations could be bonded
together by a common ideal, heart to heart
and hand to hand, for the good of Hu-
manity, what earthly power should ever
be able to withstand their united strength.
In my soul I knew that the false teaching
of history — that great obstacle to the
progress of the world — was one of the
underlying causes of the misunderstanding,
but it was an American Ambassador who
put this into words. If, said he, America
did not understand the aims and hopes of

4 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

Great Britain, it was due to the textbooks of
history used in American schools.

To-day, America, through her righting
youth and manhood, will see Englishmen
as they are, and not as they have been rep-
resented. Surely the time has come when
we should try and appreciate each other at
our true worth.

These are tragic times, sorrowful times,
yet great and noble times, for these are
days of fiery ordeal whereby mean and
petty things are forgotten and the dross
of unworthy things burned away. To-
day the two great Anglo-Saxon peoples
stand united in a noble comradeship for
the good of the world and for those gen-
erations that are yet to be, a comradeship
which I, for one, do most sincerely hope
and pray may develop into a veritable
brotherhood. One in blood are we, in
speech, and in ideals, and though sundered
by generations of misunderstanding and
false teaching, to-day we stand, brothers-
in-arms, fronting the brute for the freedom
of Humanity.

FOREWORD 5

Americans will die as Britons have died
for this noble cause; Americans will bleed
as Britons have bled ; American women
will mourn as British women have mourned
these last terrible years ; yet, in these
deaths, in this noble blood, in these tears
of agony and bereavement, surely the
souls of these two great nations will draw
near, each to each, and understand at last.

Here in a word is the fulfilment of the
dream; that, by the united effort, by the
blood, by the suffering, by the heartbreak
endured of these two great English-speaking
races, wars shall be made to cease in all
the world ; that peace and happiness,
truth and justice shall be established among
us for all generations, and that the united
powers of the Anglo-Saxon races shall be a
bulwark behind which Mankind may hence-
forth rest secure.

Now, in the name of Humanity, I ap-
peal to American and to Briton to work
for, strive, think and pray for this great
and glorious consummation.

II

CARTRIDGES

AT an uncomfortable hour I arrived at
a certain bleak railway platform and in
due season, stepping into a train, was
whirled away northwards. And as I jour-
neyed, hearkening to the talk of my com-
panions, men much travelled and of many
nationalities, my mind was agog for the
marvels and wonders I was to see in the
workshops of Great Britain. Marvels and
wonders I was prepared for, and yet for
once how far short of fact were all my
fancies !

Britain has done great things in the past ;
she will, I pray, do even greater in the
future; but surely never have mortal eyes
looked on an effort so stupendous and de-
termined as she is sustaining, and will
sustain, until this most bloody of wars
is ended.

6

CARTRIDGES 7

The deathless glory of our troops, their
blood and agony and scorn of death have
been made pegs on which to hang much
indifferent writing and more bad verse -
there have been letters also, sheaves of
them, in many of which effusions one may
discover a wondering surprise that our
men can actually and really fight, that
Britain is still the Britain of Drake and
Frobisher and Grenville, of Nelson and
Blake and Cochrane, and that the same
deathless spirit of heroic determination
animates her still.

To-night, as I pen these lines, our armies
are locked in desperate battle, our guns are
thundering on many fronts, but like an
echo to their roar, from mile upon mile of
workshops and factories and shipyards is
rising the answering roar of machinery,
the thunderous crash of titanic hammers,
the hellish rattle of riveters, the whining,
droning, shrieking of a myriad wheels
where another vast army is engaged night
and day, as indomitable, as fierce of purpose
as the army beyond the narrow seas.

8 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

I have beheld miles of workshops that
stand where grass grew two short years
ago, wherein are bright-eyed English girls,
Irish colleens and Scots lassies by the ten
thousand, whose dexterous fingers flash
nimbly to and fro, slender fingers, yet fin-
gers contriving death. I have wandered
through a wilderness of whirring driving-
belts and humming wheels where men and
women, with the same feverish activity,
bend above machines whose very hum
sang to me of death, while I have watched
a cartridge grow from a disc of metal to
the hellish contrivance it is.

And as I watched the busy scene it
seemed an unnatural and awful thing that
women's hands should be busied thus,
fashioning means for the maiming and de-
struction of life — until, in a remote corner,
I paused to watch a woman whose dexterous
fingers were fitting finished cartridges into
clips with wonderful celerity. A middle-
aged woman, this, tall and white-haired,
who, at my remark, looked up with a bright
smile, but with eyes sombre and weary.

CARTRIDGES 9

"Yes, sir," she answered above the roar
of machinery, "I had two boys at the
front, but — they're a-laying out there
somewhere, killed by the same shell. I've
got a photo of their graves — very neat
they look, though bare, and I'll never be
able to go and tend 'em, y'see — nor lay
a few flowers on 'em. So I'm doin' this
instead — to help the other lads. Yes,
sir, my boys did their bit, and now they're
gone their mother's tryin' to do hers."

Thus I stood and talked with this sad-
eyed, white-haired woman who had cast
off selfish grief to aid the Empire, and in
her I saluted the spirit of noble mother-
hood ere I turned and went my way.

But now I woke to the fact that my
companions had vanished utterly; lost,
but nothing abashed, I rambled on between
long alleys of clattering machines, which
in their many functions seemed in them-
selves almost human, pausing now and
then to watch and wonder and exchange a
word with one or other of the many workers,
until a kindly works-manager found me

io GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

and led me unerringly through that riotous
jungle of machinery.

He brought me by devious ways to a
place he called "holy ground" -long, low
outbuildings approached by narrow, wooden
causeways, swept and re-swept by men
shod in felt — a place this, where no dust
or grit might be, for here was the maga-
zine, with the filling sheds beyond. And
within these long sheds, each seated be-
hind a screen, were women who handled
and cut deadly cordite into needful lengths
as if it had been so much ribbon, and al-
ways and qgerywhere the same dexterous
speed.

He led me, this soft-voiced, keen-eyed
works-manager, through well-fitted wards
and dispensaries, redolent of clean, druggy
smells and the pervading odour of iodo-
form ; he ushered me through dining halls
long and wide and lofty and lighted by
many windows, where countless dinners
were served at a trifling cost per head ;
and so at last out upon a pleasant green,
beyond which rose the great gates where

CARTRIDGES n

stood the cars that were to bear my com-
panions and myself upon our way.

"They seem to work very hard!" said
I, turning to glance back whence we had
come, "they seem very much in earnest."

"Yes," said my companion, "every week
we are turning out — " here he named very
many millions — "of cartridges."

"To be sure they are earning good
money!" said I thoughtfully.

"More than many of them ever dreamed
of earning," answered the works-manager.
"And yet — I don't know, but I don't
think it is altogether the monjy, somehow."

" I'm glad to hear you say that — very
glad!" said I, "because it is a great thing
to feel that they are working for the Britain
that is, and is to be."

Ill

RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS

A DRIVE through a stately street where
were shops which might rival Bond Street,
the Rue de la Paix, or Fifth Avenue for
the richness and variety of their con-
tents ; a street whose pavements were
thronged with well-dressed pedestrians and
whose roadway was filled with motor cars
— vehicles, these, scornful of the petrol
tax and such-like mundane and vulgar
restrictions — in fine, the street of a rich
and thriving city.

But suddenly the stately thoroughfare
had given place to a meaner street, its
princely shops had degenerated into blank
walls or grimy yards, on either hand rose
tall chimney stacks belching smoke ; in-
stead of dashing motor cars, heavy wains

12

RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 13

and cumbrous wagons jogged by; in place
of the well-dressed throng were figures
rough-clad and grimy that hurried along
the narrow sidewalks — but these rough-
clad people walked fast and purposefully.
So we hummed along streets wide or nar-
row but always grimy, until we were halted
at a tall barrier by divers policemen, who,
having inspected our credentials, per-
.mitted us to pass on to the factory, or
series of factories, that stretched them-
selves before us, building on building —
block on block — a very town.

Here we were introduced to various man-
agers and heads of departments, among
whom was one in the uniform of a Captain
of Engineers, under whose capable wing
I had the good fortune to come, for he, it
seemed, had lived among engines and
machinery, had thought out and contrived
lethal weapons from his youth up, and
therewith retained so kindly and genial a
personality as drew me irresistibly. Where-
fore I gave myself to his guidance, and he,
chatting of books and literature and the

like trivialities, led me along corridors
and passage-ways to see the wonder of
the guns. And as we went, in the air
about us was a stir, a hum that grew and
ever grew, until, passing a massive swing
door, there burst upon us a rumble, a roar,
a clashing din.

We stood in a place of gloom lit by many
fires, a vast place whose roof was hid by
blue vapour; all about us rose the dim
forms of huge stamps, whose thunderous
stroke beat out a deep diapason to the ring
of countless hand-hammers. And, lighted
by the sudden glare of furnace fires were
figures, bare-armed, smoke-grimed, wild of
aspect, figures that whirled heavy sledges
or worked the levers of the giant steam-
hammers, while here and there bars of
iron new-glowing from the furnace winked
and twinkled in the gloom where those wild,
half-naked men-shapes flitted to and fro un-
heard amid the thunderous din. Awed and
half stunned, I stood viewing that never-
to-be-forgotten scene until I grew aware
that the Captain was roaring in my ear.

RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 15

"Forge . . . rifle barrels . . . come and
see and mind where you tread!"

Treading as seemingly silent as those
wild human shapes, that straightened
brawny backs to view me as I passed, that
grinned in the fire-glow and spoke one to
another, words lost to my stunned hear-
ing, ere they bent to their labour again,
obediently I followed the Captain's dim
form until I was come where, bare-armed,
leathern-aproned and be-spectacled, stood
one who seemed of some account among
these salamanders, who, nodding to certain
words addressed to him by the Captain,
seized a pair of tongs, swung open a furnace
door, and plucking thence a glowing
brand, whirled it with practised ease, and
setting it upon the dies beneath a huge
steam-hammer, nodded his head. In-
stantly that mighty engine fell to work,
thumping and banging with mighty strokes,
and with each stroke that glowing steel
bar changed and changed, grew round,
grew thin, hunched a shoulder here, showed
a flat there, until, lo ! before my eyes was

16 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

the shape of a rifle minus the stock ! Here-
upon the be-spectacled salamander nodded
again, the giant hammer became immedi-
ately immobile, the glowing forging was
set among hundreds of others and a voice
roared in my ear :

"Two minutes . . . this way."

A door opens, closes, and we are in sun-
shine again, and the Captain is smilingly
reminiscent of books.

"This is greater than books," said I.

"Why, that depends," says he, "there
are books and books . . . this way!"

Up a flight of stairs, through a doorway,
and I am in a shop where huge machines
grow small in perspective. And here I
see the rough forging pass through the many
stages of trimming, milling, turning, bor-
ing, rifling until comes the assembling, and
I take up the finished rifle ready for its
final process — testing. So downstairs we
go to the testing sheds, wherefrom as we
approach comes the sound of dire battle,
continuous reports, now in volleys, now in
single sniping shots, or in rapid succession.

RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 17

Inside, I breathe an air charged with
burnt powder and behold in a long row,
many rifles mounted upon crutches, their
muzzles levelled at so many targets. Be-
side each rifle stand two men, one to sight
and correct, and one to fire and watch
the effect of the shot by means of a tele-
scope fixed to hand.

With the nearest of these men I incon-
tinent fell into talk — a chatty fellow this,
who, busied with pliers adjusting the back-
sight of a rifle, talked to me of lines of
sight and angles of deflection, his remarks
sharply punctuated by rifle-shots, that
came now slowly, now in twos and threes
and now in rapid volleys.

" Yes, sir," said he, busy pliers never
still, "guns and rifles is very like us — you
and me, say. Some is just naturally good
and some is worse than bad — load up,
George ! A new rifle's like a kid — pretty
sure to fire a bit wide at first — not being
used to it — we was all kids once, sir,
remember ! But a bit of correction here
an' there'll put that right as a rule. On

1 8 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

the other hand there's rifles as Old Nick
himself nor nobody else could make shoot
straight — ready, George ? And it's just
the same with kids ! Now, if you'll stick
your eyes to that glass, and watch the
target, you'll see how near she'll come this
time — all right, George ! " As he speaks
the rifle speaks also, and observing the
hit on the target, I sing out :

"Three o'clock!"

Ensues more work with the pliers ;
George loads and fires and with one eye still
at the telescope I give him :

"Five o'clock!"

Another moment of adjusting, again the
rifle cracks and this time I announce :

"A bull!"

Hereupon my companion squints through
the glass and nods: "Right-oh, George!"
says he, then, while George the silent
stacks the tested rifle with many others,
he turns to me and nods, "Got 'im that
time, sir — pity it weren't a bloomin'
Hun!"

Here the patient Captain suggests we

19

had better go, and unwillingly I follow
him out into the open and the sounds of
battle die away behind us.

And now, as we walked, I learned some
particulars of that terrible device the Lewis
gun ; how that it could spout bullets at the
rate of six hundred per minute; how, by
varying pressures of the trigger, it could be
fired by single rounds or pour forth its en-
tire magazine in a continuous, shattering
volley and how it weighed no more than
twenty-six pounds.

"And here," said the Captain, opening
a door and speaking in his pleasant voice,
much as though he were showing me some
rare flowers, "here is where they grow by
the hundred, every week."

And truly in hundreds they were, long
rows of them standing very neatly in
racks, their walnut stocks heel by heel,
their grim, blue muzzles in long, serried
ranks, very orderly and precise ; and some-
thing in their very orderliness endowed
them with a certain individuality as it
were. It almost seemed to me that they

20 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

were waiting, mustered and ready, for that
hour of ferocious roar and tumult when
their voice should be the voice of swift
and terrible death. Now as I gazed upon
them, filled with these scarcely definable
thoughts, I was startled by a sudden shat-
tering crash near by, a sound made up of
many individual reports, and swinging
about, I espied a man seated upon a stool ;
a plump, middle-aged, family sort of man,
who sat upon his low stool, his aproned
knees set wide, as plump, middle-aged
family men often do. As I watched,
Paterfamilias squinted along the sights of
one of these guns and once again came that
shivering crash that is like nothing else
I ever heard. Him I approached and
humbly ventured an awed question or so,
whereon he graciously beckoned me nearer,
vacated his stool, and motioning me to sit
there, suggested I might try a shot at the
target, a far disc lighted by shaded electric
bulbs.

"She's fixed dead on!" he said, "and
she's true — you can't miss. A quick

RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 21

pull for single shots and a steady pressure
for a volley."

Hereupon I pressed the trigger, the gun
stirred gently in its clamps, the air
throbbed, and a stream of ten bullets
(the testing number) plunged into the
bull's-eye and all in the space of a mo-
ment.

"There ain't a un'oly 'un of 'em all
could say 'Hoch the Kaiser' with them in
his stomach," said Paterfamilias thought-
fully, laying a hand upon the respectable
stomach beneath his apron, "it's a gun,
that is !" And a gun it most assuredly is.

I would have tarried longer with Pater-
familias, for in his own way, he was as
arresting as this terrible weapon — or nearly
so — but the Captain, gentle-voiced and
serene as ever, suggested that my com-
panions had a train to catch, wherefore I
reluctantly turned away. But as I went,
needs must I glance back at Paterfamilias,
as comfortable as ever where he sat, but
with pudgy fingers on trigger grimly at
work again, and from him] to the long,

22 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

orderly rows of guns mustered in their
orderly ranks, awaiting their hour.

We walked through shops where belts
and pulleys and wheels and cogs flapped
and whirled and ground in ceaseless con-
cert, shops where files rasped and hammers
rang, shops again where all seemed riot
and confusion at the first glance, but at a
second showed itself ordered confusion, as
it were. And as we went, my Captain spoke
of the hospital bay, of wards and dispen-
sary (lately enlarged), of sister and nurses
and the grand work they were doing
among the employees other than attend-
ing to their bodily ills ; and talking thus,
he brought me to the place, a place of
exquisite order and tidiness, yet where
nurses, blue-uniformed, in their white caps,
cuffs and aprons, seemed to me the neatest
of all. And here I was introduced to Sis-
ter, capable, strong, gentle-eyed, who told
me something of her work — how many
came to her with, wounds of soul as well as
body ; of griefs endured and wrongs suf-
fered by reason of pitiful lack of knowledge ;

RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 23

of how she was teaching them care and
cleanliness of minds as well as bodies,
which is surely the most blessed heritage
the unborn generations may inherit. She
told me of the patient bravery of the
women, the chivalry of grimy men, whose
hurts may wait that others may be treated
first. So she talked and I listened until,
perceiving the Captain somewhat osten-
tatiously consulting his watch, I presently
left that quiet haven with its soft-treading
ministering attendants.

So we had tea and cigarettes, and when
I eventually shook hands with my Cap-
tain, I felt that I was parting with a friend.

"And what struck you most particularly
this afternoon?" enquired, one of my com-
panions.

"Well," said I, "it was either the Lewis
gun or Paterfamilias the grim."

IV

CLYDEBANK

HENCEFORTH the word "Clydebank"
will be associated in my mind with the
ceaseless ring and din of riveting-hammers,
where, day by day, hour by hour, a new
fleet is growing, destroyers and torpedo
boats alongside monstrous submarines —
yonder looms the grim bulk of Super-dread-
nought or battle cruiser or the slender
shape of some huge liner.

And with these vast shapes about me,
what wonder that I stood awed and silent
at the stupendous sight. But, to my
companion, a shortish, thick-set man, with
a masterful air and a bowler hat very much
over one eye, these marvels were an every-
day affair; and now, ducking under a
steel hawser, he led me on, dodging moving

24

CLYDEBANK 25

trucks, stepping unconcernedly across the
buffers of puffing engines, past titanic
cranes that swung giant arms high in the
air; on we went, stepping over chain
cables, wire ropes, pulley-blocks and a
thousand and one other obstructions, on
which I stumbled occasionally since my
awed gaze was turned upwards. And as
we walked amid these awsome shapes, he
talked, I remember, of such futile things
as — books.

I beheld great ships well-nigh ready for
launching ; I stared up at huge structures
towering aloft, a wild complexity of steel
joists and girders, yet, in whose seeming
confusion, the eye could detect something
of the mighty shape of the leviathan that
was to be ; even as I looked, six feet or so
of steel plating swung through the air,
sank into place, and immediately I was
deafened by the hellish racket of the rivet-
ing-hammers.

"... nothing like a good book and a
pipe to go with it!" said my companion
between two bursts of hammering.

26 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"This is a huge ship !" said I, staring
upward still.

"H'm — fairish!" nodded my com-
panion, scratching his square jaw and
letting his knowledgeful eyes rove to and
fro over the vast bulk that loomed above
us.

"Have you built them much bigger,
then?" I enquired.

My companion nodded and proceeded
to tell me certain amazing facts which
the riotous riveting-hammers promptly
censored in the following remarkable
fashion.

"You should have seen the rat-tat-tat.
We built her in exactly nineteen months
instead of two years and a half ! Biggest
battleship afloat — two hundred feet longer
than the rat-tat-tat — launched her last
rat-tat-tat — gone to rat-tat-tat-tat for her
guns."

"What size guns?" I shouted above the
hammers.

"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-inch!" he said,
smiling grimly.

CLYDEBANK 27

"How much?" I yelled.

"She has four rat-tat-tat-tat inch and
twelve rattle-tattle inch besides rat-tat-tat-
tat!" he answered, nodding.

"Really!" I roared, "if those guns are
half as big as I think, the Germans — "

;'The Germans — !" said he, and blew
his nose.

"How long did you say she was?" I
hastened to ask as the hammers died down
a little.

"Well, over all she measured exactly
rat-tat feet. She was so big that we had
to pull down a corner of the building there,
as you can see."

"And what's her name?"

"The rat-tat-tat, and she's the rattle-
tattle of her class."

"Are these hammers always quite so
noisy, do you suppose?" I enquired, a little
hopelessly.

"Oh, off and on!" he nodded. "Kick
up a bit of a racket, don't they, but you
get used to it in time ; I could hear a pin
drop. Look ! since we've stood here

28 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

they've got four more plates fixed — there
goes the fifth. This way!"

Past the towering bows of future battle-
ships he led me, over and under more steel
cables, until he paused to point towards
an empty slip near by.

"That's where we built the Lusitania!"
said he. "We thought she was pretty big
then — but now — !" he settled his hat a
little further over one eye with a knock
on the crown.

"Poor old Lusitania!" said I, "she'll
never be forgotten."

"Not while ships sail!" he answered,
squaring his square jaw, "no, she'll never
be forgotten, nor the murderers who ended
her!"

"And they've struck a medal in com-
memoration," said I.

"Medal!" said he, and blew his nose
louder than before. "I fancy they'll wish
they could swallow that damn medal, one
day. Poor old Lusitania! You lose any
one aboard ?"

"I had some American friends aboard,

CLYDEBANK 29

but they escaped, thank God — others
weren't so fortunate."

"No," he answered, turning away, "but
America got quite angry - - wrote a note,
remember ? Over there's one of the latest
submarines. Germany can't touch her for
speed and size, and better than that, she's
got rat-tat — "

"I beg pardon?" I wailed, for the ham-
mers were riotous again, "what has she?"

"She's got rat-tat forward and rat-tat
aft, surface speed rat-tat-tat knots, sub-
merged rat-tat-tat, and then best of all
she's rattle-tattle-tattle. Yes, hammers are
a bit noisy ! This way. A destroyer yon-
der— new class — rat-tat feet longer than
ordinary. We expect her to do rat-tat-tat
knots and she'll mount rat-tat guns. There
are two of them in the basin yonder having
their engines fitted, turbines to give rat-
tat-tat horse power. But come on, we'd
better be going or we shall lose the others
of your party."

"I should like to stay here a week,"
said I, tripping over a steel hawser.

30 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"Say a month," he added, steadying me
deftly. "You might begin to see all we've
been doing in a month. We've built
twenty-nine ships of different classes since
the war began in this one yard, and we're
going on building till the war's over — and
after that too. And this place is only one
of many. Which reminds me you're to
go to another yard this afternoon — we'd
better hurry after the rest of your party or
they'll be waiting for you."

"I'm afraid they generally are !" I sighed,
as I turned and followed my conductor
through yawning doorways (built to admit
a giant, it seemed) into vast workshops
whose lofty roofs were lost in haze. Here
I saw huge turbines and engines of mon-
strous shape in course of construction ;
I beheld mighty propellers, with boilers
and furnaces big as houses, whose propor-
tions were eloquent of the colossal ships
that were to be. But here indeed, all
things were on a gigantic scale ; ponderous
lathes were turning, mighty planing ma-
chines swung unceasing back and forth,

CLYDEBANK 31

while other monsters bored and cut through
steel plate as it had been so much card-
board.

"Good machines, these!" said my com-
panion, patting one of these monsters with
familiar hand, "all made in Britain!"

"Like the men!" I suggested.

"The men," said he. "Humph! They
haven't been giving much trouble lately
— touch wood !"

"Perhaps they know Britain just now
needs every man that is a man," I sug-
gested, "and some one has said that a man
can fight as hard at home here with a ham-
mer as in France with a rifle."

"Well, there's a lot of fighting going on
here," nodded my companion, "we're fight-
ing night and day and we're fighting damned
hard. And now we'd better hurry; your
party will be cursing you in chorus."

"I'm afraid it has before now!" said I.

So we hurried on, past shops whence
came the roar of machinery, past great
basins wherein floated destroyers and tor-
pedo boats, past craft of many kinds and

32 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

fashions, ships built and building; on I
hastened, tripping over more cables, dodg-
ing from the buffers of snorting engines and
deafened again by the fearsome din of the
riveting-hammers, until I found my travel-
ling companions assembled and ready to
depart. Scrambling hastily into the near-
est motor car I shook hands with this
shortish, broad-shouldered, square-jawed
man and bared my head, for, so far as these
great works were concerned, he was in very
truth a superman. Thus I left him to
oversee the building of these mighty ships,
which have been and will ever be the might
of these small islands.

But, even as I went speeding through
dark streets, in my ears, rising high above
the hum of our engine was the unceasing
din, the remorseless ring and clash of the
riveting-hammers.

V

SHIPS IN MAKING

Build me straight, O worthy Master !

Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle !

— Longfellow.

HE was an old man with that indefinable
courtliness of bearing that is of a past
generation ; tall and spare he was, his
white head bowed a little by weight of
years, but almost with my first glance I
seemed to recognise him instinctively for
that "worthy Master Builder of goodly
vessels staunch and strong !" So the Mas-
ter Builder I will call him.

He stood beside me at the window with
one in the uniform of a naval captain, and
we looked, all three of us, at that which
few might behold unmoved.

33

34 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"She's a beauty!" said the Captain.
"She's all speed and grace from cutwater to
sternpost."

"I've been building ships for sixty-odd
years and we never launched a better!"
said the Master Builder.

As for me I was dumb.

She lay within a stone's throw, a mighty
vessel, huge of beam and length, her super-
structure towering proudly aloft, her
massive armoured sides sweeping up in
noble curves, a Super-rDreadnought com-
plete from trucks to keelson. Yacht-like
she sat the water all buoyant grace from
lofty prow to tapering counter, and to me
there was something sublime in the grim
and latent power, the strength and beauty
of her.

"But she's not so very — big, is she?"
enquired a voice behind me.

The Captain stared ; the Master Builder
smiled.

"Fairly!" he nodded. "Why do you
ask?"

"Well, I usually reckon the size of a

SHIPS IN MAKING 35

ship from the number of her funnels,
and—"

"Ha !" exclaimed the Captain explosively.

"Humph!" said the Master Builder
gently. "After luncheon you shall meas-
ure her if you like, but now I think we
will go and eat."

During a most excellent luncheon the
talk ranged from ships and books and guns
to submarines and seaplanes, with stories
of battle and sudden death, tales of risk
and hardship, of noble courage and heroic
deeds, so that I almost forgot to eat and
was sorry when at last we rose from table.

Once outside I had the good fortune to
find myself between the Captain and the
venerable figure of the Master Builder, in
whose company I spent a never-to-be-
forgotten afternoon. With them I stood
alongside this noble ship which, seen thus
near, seemed mightier than ever.

"Will she be fast?" I enquired.

"Very fast — for a Dreadnought!" said
the Captain.

"And at top speed she'll show no bow

36 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

wave to speak of," added the veteran.
"See how fine her lines are fore and aft."

"And her gun power will be enormous !"
said the Captain.

Hard by I espied a solitary being, who
stood, chin in hand, lost in contemplation
of this large vessel.

"Funnels or not, she's bigger than you
thought?" I enquired of him.

He glanced at me, shook his head,
sighed, and took himself by the chin again.

"Holy smoke !" said he.

"And you have been building ships for
sixty years?" I asked of the venerable
figure beside me.

"And more!" he answered; "and my
father built ships hereabouts so long ago
as 1820, and his grandfather before him."

"Back to the times of Nelson and Rod-
ney and Anson," said I, "great seamen all,
who fought great ships ! What would they
think of this one, I wonder?"

"That she was a worthy successor,"
replied the Master Builder, letting his
eyes, so old and wise in ships, wander up

SHIPS IN MAKING 37

and over the mighty fabric before us.
"Yes," he nodded decisively, "she's worthy
— like the men who will fight her one of
these days."

"But our enemies and some of our friends
rather thought we had degenerated these
latter days," I suggested.

"Ah, well!" said he very quietly, "they
know better now, don't you think?"

"Yes," said I, and again, "Yes."

"Slow starters always," continued he
musingly; "but the nation that can match
us in staying power has yet to be born!"

So walking between these two I listened
and looked and asked questions, and of
what I heard, and of what I saw I could
write much ; but for the censor I might
tell of armour-belts of enormous thickness,
of guns of stupendous calibre, of new
methods of defence against sneaking sub-
marine and torpedo attack, and of devices
new and strange ; but of these I may neither
write nor speak, because of the aforesaid
censor. Suffice it that as the sun sank,
we came, all three, to a jetty whereto a

38 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

steamboat lay moored, on whose limited
deck were numerous figures, divers of whom
beckoned me on.

So with hearty farewells, I stepped aboard
the steamboat, whereupon she snorted and
fell suddenly a-quiver as she nosed out
into the broad stream while I stood to wave
my hat in farewell.

Side by side they stood, the Captain tall
and broad and sailor-like in his blue and
gold — a man of action, bold of eye, hearty
of voice, free of gesture ; the other, his
silver hair agleam in the setting sun, a
man wise with years, gentle and calm-eyed,
my Master Builder. Thus, as the distance
lengthened, I stood watching until presently
they turned, side by side, and so were gone.

Slowly we steamed down the river, a drab,
unlovely waterway, but a wonderful river
none the less, whose banks teem with
workers where ships are building — ships
by the mile, by the league ; ships of all
shapes and of all sizes, ships of all sorts
and for many different purposes. Here
are great cargo boats growing hour by hour

SHIPS IN MAKING 39

with liners great and small ; here I saw
mile on mile of battleships, cruisers, de-
stroyers and submarines of strange design
with torpedo boats of uncanny shape ;
tramp steamers, windjammers, squat col-
liers and squatter tugs, these last surely
the ugliest craft that ever wallowed in
water. Mine layers were here with mine
sweepers and hospital ships — a hetero-
geneous collection of well-nigh every kind
of ship that floats.

Some lay finished and ready for launch-
ing, others, just begun, were only a sketch
— a hint of what soon would be a ship.

On our right were ships, on our left were
ships and more ships, a long perspective ;
ships by the million tons — until my eyes
grew a-weary of ships and I went below.

Truly a wonderful river, this, surely in
its way the most wonderful river eyes may
see, a sight I shall never forget, a sight I
shall always associate with the stalwart
figure of the Captain and the white hair
and venerable form of the Master Builder
as they stood side by side to wave adieu.

VI

THE BATTLE CRUISERS

BENEATH the shadow of a mighty bridge
I stepped into a very smart launch manned
by sailors in overalls somewhat grimy,
and, rising and falling to the surge of the
broad river, we held away for a destroyer
that lay grey and phantom-like, low, rakish,
and with speed in every line of her. As
we drew near, her narrow deck looked to
my untutored eye a confused litter of
guns, torpedo tubes, guy ropes, cables and
windlasses. Howbeit, I clambered aboard,
and ducking under a guy rope and avoid-
ing sundry other obstructions, shook hands
with her commander, young, clear-eyed
and cheery of mien, who presently led
me past a stumpy smokestack and up a
perpendicular ladder to the bridge where,

40

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 41

beneath a somewhat flimsy-looking struc-
ture, was the wheel, brass-bound and
highly be-polished like all else about this
crowded craft as, notably, the binnacle
and certain brass-bound dials, on the faces
whereof one might read such words as :
Ahead, Astern, Fast, Slow, etc. Forward
of this was a platform, none too roomy,
where was a gun most carefully wrapped
and swaddled in divers cloths, tarpaulins,
etc. — wrapped up with as much tender
care as if it had been a baby, and delicate
at that. But, as the commander casually
informed me, they had been out patrolling
all night and "it had blown a little" —
wherefore I surmised the cloths and tar-
paulins aforesaid.

"I should think," I ventured, observing
her sharp lines and slender build, "I should
think she would roll rather frightfully when
it does blow a little?"

"Well, she does a bit," he admitted, "but
not so much — Starboard!" said he, over
his shoulder, to the bearded mariner at
the wheel. "Take us round by the Tiger.19

42 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"Aye, aye, sir!" retorted the bearded
one as we began to slide through the water.

''Yes, she's apt to roll a bit, perhaps,
but she's not so bad," he continued ;
"besides, you get used to it."

Here he fell to scanning the haze ahead
through a pair of binoculars, a haze through
which, as we gathered speed, ghostly shapes
began to loom, portentous shapes that
grew and grew upon the sight, turret,
superstructure and embattled mast; here
a mighty battle cruiser, yonder a super-
destroyer, one after another, quiet-seem-
ing on this autumn morning, and yet whose
grim hulks held latent potentialities of
destruction and death, as many of them
have proved but lately.

As we passed those silent, monstrous
shapes, the Commander named them in
turn, names which had been flashed round
the earth not so long ago, names which
shall yet figure in the histories to come
with Grenville's Revenge, Drake's Golden
Hind, Blake's Triumph, Anson's Centurion,
Nelson's Victory and a score of other

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 43

deathless names — glorious names that make
one proud to be of the race that manned
and fought them.

Peacefully they rode at their moorings,
the water lapping gently at their steel
sides, but, as we steamed past, on more
than one of them, and especially the grim
Tiger, I saw the marks of the Jutland battle
in dinted plate, scarred funnel and super-
structure, taken when for hours on end the
dauntless six withstood the might of the
German fleet.

So, as we advanced past these battle-
scarred ships, I felt a sense of awe, that in-
definable uplift of soul one is conscious of
when treading with soft and reverent foot
the dim aisles of some cathedral hallowed
by time and the dust of our noble dead.

;'This afternoon," said the Commander,
offering me his cigarette case, "they're
going to show you over the Warspite —
the German Navy have sunk her so re-
peatedly, you know. There," he con-
tinued, nodding towards a fleet of squat-
looking vessels with stumpy masts, "those

44 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

are the auxiliaries — coal and oil and that
sort of thing — ugly beggars, but useful.
How about a whisky and soda ?"

Following him down the perpendicular
ladder, he brought me aft to a hole in the
deck, a small hole, a round hole into which
he proceeded to insert himself, first his
long legs, then his broad shoulders, evi-
dently by an artifice learned of much prac-
tice. Finally his jauntily be-capped head
vanished, and thereafter from the deeps
below his cheery voice reached me.

"I have whisky, sherry and rum —
mind your head and take your choice!"

I descended into a narrow chamber di-
vided by a longish table and flanked by
berths with a chest of drawers beneath
each. At the further end of this somewhat
small and dim apartment and northeasterly
of the table was a small be-polished stove
wherein a fire burned ; in a rack against
a bulkhead were some half-dozen rifles,
above our head was a rack for cutlasses,
and upon the table was a decanter of
whisky he had unearthed from some mys-

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 45

terious recess, and he was very full of
apologies because the soda had run out.

So we sat awhile and quaffed and talked,
during which he showed me a favourite
rifle, small of bore but of high power and
exquisite balance, at sight of which I
straightway broke the tenth command-
ment. He also showed me a portrait of
his wife (which I likewise admired), a pic-
ture taken by himself and by him developed
in some dark nook aboard.

After this, our whisky being duly de-
spatched, we crawled into the air again, to
find we were approaching a certain jetty.
And now, in the delicate manoeuvre of
bringing to and' making fast, my com-
panions, rmyself and all else were utterly
forgotten, as with voice and hand he issued
order on order until, gently as a nesting
bird, the destroyer came to her berth and
was made fast. Hereupon, having shaken
hands all round, he handed us over to other
naval men as cheery as he, who in due
season brought us to the depot ship, where
luncheon awaited us.

46 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

I have dined in many places and have
eaten with many different folk, but never
have I enjoyed a meal more than this,
perhaps because of the padre who pre-
sided at my end of the table. A manly
cleric this, bright-eyed, resolute of jaw
but humorous of mouth, whose white
choker did but seem to offset the virility
of him. A man, I judged, who preached
little and did much — a sailor's padre in
very truth.

He told me how, but for an accident, he
would have sailed with Admiral Cradock
on his last, ill-fated cruise, where so many
died that Right and Justice might endure.

"Poor chaps!" said I.

"Yes," said he, gently, "and yet it is
surely a noble thing to — die greatly!"

And surely, surely for all those who in
cause so just have met Death unflinching
and unafraid, who have taken hold upon
that which we call Life and carried it through
and beyond the portals of Death into a
sphere of nobler and greater living — surely
to such as these strong souls the Empire

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 47

they served so nobly and loved so truly
will one day enshrine them, their memory
and deeds, on the brightest, most glorious
page of her history, which shall be a
monument more enduring than brass or
stone, a monument that shall never pass
away.

So we talked of ships and the sea and of
men until, aware that the company had
risen, we rose also, and donning hats and
coats, set forth, talking still. Together we
paced beside docks and along piers that
stretched away by the mile, massive struc-
tures of granite and concrete, which had
only come into being, so he told me, since
the war.

Side by side we ascended the broad
gangway, and side by side we set foot
upon that battle-scarred deck whose tim-
bers, here and there, showed the whiter
patches of newer wood. Here he turned
to give me his hand, after first writing down
name and address, and, with mutual wishes
of meeting again, went to his duties and
left me to the wonders of this great ship.

48 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

Crossing the broad deck, more spacious
it seemed than an ocean liner, I came
where my travelling companions were
grouped about a grim memorial of the
Jutland battle, a huge projectile that had
struck one of the after turrets, in the
doing of which it had transformed itself
into a great, convoluted disc, and was now
mounted as a memento of that tremendous
day.

And here it was I became acquainted
with my Midshipmite, who looked like an
angel of sixteen, bore himself like a veteran,
and spoke (when his shyness had worn
off a little) like a British righting man.

To him I preferred the request that he
would pilot me over this great vessel, which
he (blushing a little) very readily agreed
to do. Thereafter, in his wake, I as-
cended stairways, climbed ladders, wriggled
through narrow spaces, writhed round awk-
ward corners, up and ever up.

"It's rather awkward, I'm afraid, sir,"
said he in his gentle voice, hanging from an
iron ladder with one hand and a foot, the

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 49

better to address me. "You see, we never
bring visitors this way as a rule — "

"Good!" said I, crushing my hat on
firmer. "The unbeaten track for me —
lead on!"

Onward and upward he led until all at
once we reached a narrow platform, railed
round and hung about with plaited rope
screens which he called splinter-mats, over
which I had a view of land and water, of
ships and basins, of miles of causeways and
piers, none of which had been in exist-
ence before the war. And immediately
below me, far, far down, was the broad
white sweep of deck, with the forward
turrets where were housed the great guns
whose grim muzzles stared patiently up-
wards, nuzzling the air almost as though
scenting another battle.

And standing in this coign of vantage, in
my mind's eye I saw this mighty vessel as
she had been, the heave of the fathomless
sea below, the whirling battle-smoke about
her, the air full of the crashing thunder of
her guns as she quivered 'neath their dis-

50 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

charge. I heard the humming drone of
shells coming from afar, a hum that grew
to a wail — a shriek — and the sickening
crash as they smote her or threw up great
waterspouts high as her lofty fighting-
tops ; I seemed to hear through it all the
ring of electric bells from the various fire-
controls, and voices calm and all unshaken
by the hellish din uttering commands down
the many speaking-tubes.

"And you," said I, turning to the youth-
ful figure beside me, "you were in the
battle?"

He blushingly admitted that he was.

"And how did you feel?"

He wrinkled his smooth brow and laughed
a little shyly.

"Really I — I hardly know, sir."

I asked him if at such times one was
not inclined to feel a trifle shaken, a little
nervous, or, might one say, afraid ?

"Yes, sir," he agreed politely, "I sup-
pose so — only, you see, we were all too
jolly busy to think about it !"

"Oh!" said I, taking out a cigarette,

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 51

"too busy ! Of course ! I see ! And where
is the Captain during action, as a rule?"

"As a matter of fact he stood — just
where you are, sir. Stood there the whole
six hours it was hottest."

"Here!" I exclaimed. "But it is quite
exposed."

My Midshipmite, being a hardy veteran
in world-shaking naval battles, permitted
himself to smile.

"But, you see, sir," he gently explained,
"it's really far safer out here than being
shut up in a gun-turret or — or down be-
low, on account of er — er — you under-
stand, sir?"

"Oh, quite!" said I, and thereafter
thought awhile, and, receiving his ready
permission, lighted my cigarette. "I
think," said I, as we prepared to descend
from our lofty perch, "I'm sure it's just
— er — that kind of thing that brought
one Francis Drake out of so very many
tight corners. By the way — do you
smoke ?"

My Midshipmite blushingly confessed

52 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

he did, and helped himself from my case
with self-conscious fingers.

Reaching the main deck in due season, I
found I had contrived to miss the Chief
Gunner's lecture on the great guns, where-
upon who so agitated and bitterly apolo-
getic as my Midshipmite, who there and
then ushered me hastily down more awk-
ward stairs and through narrow openings
into a place of glistening, gleaming polish
and furbishment where, beside the shining
breech of a monster gun, muscular arm
negligently leaning thereon, stood a round-
headed, broad-shouldered man, he the pre-
siding genius of this (as I afterwards found)
most sacred place.

His lecture was ended and he was ad-
dressing a few well-chosen closing remarks
in slightly bored fashion (he had showed
off his ponderous playthings to divers
kings, potentates and bigwigs at home and
abroad, I learned) when I, though properly
awed by the gun but more especially by
the gunner, ventured to suggest that a gun
that had been through three engagements

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 53

and had been fired so frequently must
necessarily show some signs of wear. The
gunner glanced at me, and I shall never
forget that look. With his eyes on mine,
he touched a lever in negligent fashion,
whereon silently the great breech slipped
away with a hiss and whistle of air, and with
his gaze always fixed he suggested I might
glance down the bore.

Obediently I stooped, whereon he spake
on this wise :

"If you cast your heyes to the right
abaft the breech you'll observe slight dark-
ening of riflin's. Now glancin' t'left of
piece you'll per-ceive slight darkening of
riflin's. Now casting your heyes right
forrard you'll re-mark slight roughening of
riflin's towards muzzle of piece and —
there y'are, sir. One hundred and twenty-
seven times she's been fired by my
'and and good for as many more — both
of us. Arternoon, gentlemen, and — thank
ye!"

Saying which he touched a lever in the
same negligent fashion, the mighty breech

54 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

block slid back into place, and I walked
forth humbly into the outer air.

Here I took leave of my Midshipmite,
who stood among a crowd of his fellows to
watch me down the gangplank, and I fol-
lowed whither I was led very full of thought,
as well I might be, until rousing, I found
myself on the deck of that famous Warspite,
which our foes are so comfortably certain
lies a shattered wreck off Jutland. Here I
presently fell into discourse with a tall
lieutenant, with whom I went alow and
aloft ; he showed me cockpit, infirmary
and engine-room ; he showed me the won-
der of her steering apparatus, and pointed
to the small hand-wheel in the bowels of
this huge ship wrhereby she had been steered
limping into port. He directed my gaze
also to divers vast shell holes and rents in
her steel sides, now very neatly mended by
steel plates held in place by many large
bolts. Wherever we went were sailors,
by the hundred it seemed, and yet I was
struck by the size and airy spaciousness
between decks.

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 55

"The strange thing about the Hun,"
said my companion, as we mounted up-
ward again, "is that he is so amazingly ac-
curate with his big guns. Anyway, as
we steamed into range he registered direct
hits time after time, and his misses were
so close the spray was flying all over us.
Yes, Fritz is wonderfully accurate, but"
— here my companion paused to flick
some dust from his braided cuff — "but
when we began to knock him about a bit
it was funny how it rattled him — quite
funny, you know. His shots got wider
and wider, until they were falling pretty
well a mile wide — very funny!" and the
lieutenant smiled dreamily. "Fritz will
shoot magnificently if you only won't
shoot back. But really I don't blame him
for thinking he'd sunk us ; you see, there
were six of 'em potting away at us at one
time — couldn't see us for spray — "

"And how did you feel just then?" I
enquired.

"Oh, rotten! You see I'd jammed my
finger in some tackle for one thing, and

56 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

just then the light failed us. We'd have
bagged the lot if the light had held a little
longer. But next time — who knows ?
Care for a cup of tea ?"

"Thanks!" I answered. "But where
are the others ?"

"Oh, by Jove! I fancy your party's
gone — I'll see !"

This proving indeed the case, I perforce
took my leave, and with a midshipman to
guide me, presently stepped aboard a boat
which bore us back beneath the shadow of
that mighty bridge stark against the eve-
ning sky.

Riding citywards through the deepen-
ing twilight I bethought me of the Mid-
shipmite who, amid the roar and tumult
of grim battle, had been "too busy" to be
afraid ; of the round-headed gunner who,
like his gun, was ready and eager for more,
and of the tall lieutenant who, with death
in many awful shapes shrieking and crash-
ing about him, felt "rotten" by reason
of a bruised finger and failing light.

And hereupon I felt proud that I, too,

THE BATTLE CRUISERS 57

was a Briton, of the same breed as these
mighty ships and the splendid fellows
who man them — these Keepers of the
Seas, who in battle as in tempest do their
duty unseen, unheard, because it is their
duty.

Therefore, all- who are so blest as to live
within these isles take comfort and courage
from this — that despite raging tempest
and desperate battle, we, trusting in the
justice of our cause, in these iron men and
mighty ships, may rest secure, since truly
worthy are these, both ships and men, of
the glorious traditions of the world's most
glorious navy.

But, as they do their duty by Britain
and the Empire, let it be our inestimable
privilege as fellow Britons to do our duty
as nobly both to the Empire and — to
them.

VII

A HOSPITAL

THE departure platform of a great sta-
tion (for such as have eyes to see) is always
a sad place, but nowadays it is a place
of tragedy.

He was tall and thin — a boyish figure
— and his khaki-clad arm was close about
her slender form. The hour was early and
their corner bleak and deserted, thus few
were by to heed his stiff-lipped, agonised
smile and the passionate clasp of her hands,
or to hear her heartbreaking sobs and his
brave words of comfort ; and I, shivering
in the early morning wind, hasted on,
awed by a grief that made the grey world
greyer.

Very soon London was behind us, and

we were whirling through a countryside,

58

A HOSPITAL 59

wreathed in mist wherein I seemed to see
a girl's tear-wet cheeks and a boy's lips
that smiled so valiantly for all their
pitiful quiver; thus I answered my com-
panion somewhat at random and the
waiter's proffer of breakfast was an insult.
And, as I stared out at misty trees and
hedgerow I began as it were to sense a
grimness in the very air — the million-
sided tragedy of war; behind me the
weeping girl, before me and looming nearer
with every mile, the Somme battle-front.

At a table hard by a group of clear-eyed
subalterns were chatting and laughing over
breakfast, and in their merriment I, too,
rejoiced. Yet the grimness was with me
still as we rocked and swayed through the
wreathing mist.

But trains, even on a foggy morning,
have a way of getting there at last, so, in
due season, were docks and more docks,
with the funnels of ships, and beyond these
misty shapes upon a misty sea, the gaunt
outlines of destroyers that were to convoy
us Francewards. Hereupon my companion,

60 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

K., a hardened traveller, inured to customs,
passports and the like noxious things, led
me through a jostling throng, his long
legs striding rapidly when they found oc-
casion, past rank upon rank of soldiers
returning to duty, very neat and orderly,
and looking, I thought, a little grim.

Presently the warps were cast off and
very soon we were in the lift and roll of the
Channel ; the white cliffs slowly faded,
the wind freshened, and I, observing that
every one had donned life belts, forthwith
girded on one of the clumsy contrivances
also.

In mid-channel it blew hard and the
destroyers seemed to be making heavy
weather of it, now lost in spray, now show-
ing a glistening height of freeboard, and,
as I watched, remembering why they
were there, my cumbrous life belt grew
suddenly very comfortable.

Came a growing density on the horizon,
a blue streak that slowly and little by little
grew into roofs, chimneys, docks and ship-
ping, and France was before us, and it

A HOSPITAL 61

was with almost reverent hands that I
laid aside my clumsy cork jacket and was
presently on French soil. And yet, except
for a few chattering porters, the air rang
with good English voices hailing each other
in cheery greetings, and khaki was every-
where. But now, as I followed my com-
panion's long legs past these serried, dun-
coloured ranks, it seemed to me that they
held themselves straighter and Ioo4ked a
little more grim even than they had done
in England.

I stood, lost in the busy scene before me,
when, hearing K.'s voice, I turned to be
introduced to Captain R., tall, bright-
eyed, immaculate, and very much master
of himself and circumstances it seemed,
for, despite crowded customs office, he
whisked us through and thence before
sundry officials, who glared at me and my
passport, signed, stamped, returned it and
permitted me to go.

After luncheon we drove to a great base
hospital where I was introduced to the
Colonel-Surgeon in charge, a quiet man,

62 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

who took us readily under his able guid-
ance. And indeed a huge place was this,
a place for me of awe and wonder, the
more so as I learned that the greater part
of it had come into being within one short
year.

It lies beside the sea, this hospital, where
clean winds blow, its neat roadways are
bordered by green lawns and flanked by
long, low buildings that reach away in far
perspective, buildings of corrugated iron,
of wood and asbestos, a very city, but one
where there is no riot and rush of traffic,
truly a city of peace and brooding quietude.

And as I looked upon this silent city,
my awe grew, for the Colonel, in his gentle
voice, spoke of death and wounds, of shell-
shock, nerve-wrack and insanity; but he
told also of wonderful cures, of miracles
performed on those that should have died,
and of reason and sanity won back.

"And you ?" I questioned, "have you
done many such wonders ? "

"Few!" he answered, and sighed. "You
see, my duties now are chiefly adminis-

A HOSPITAL 63

trative," and he seemed gently grieved that
it should be so.

He brought us into wards, long, airy and
many-windowed, places of exquisite neat-
ness and order, where calm-faced sisters
were busied, and smart, soft-treading or-
derlies came and went. Here in white
cots lay many bandaged forms, some who,
propped on pillows, watched us bright-
eyed and nodded in cheery greeting;
others who lay so ominously still.

But as I passed between the long rows of
cots, I was struck with the look of utter
peace and content on so many of the faces
and wondered, until, remembering the hell
whence they had so lately come, I thought
I understood. Thus, bethinking me of
how these dire hurts had been come by, I
took off my hat, and trod between these
beds of silent suffering as softly as I could,
for these men had surely come "out of
great tribulation."

In another ward I saw numbers of Ger-
man wounded, most of them bearded ;
many there were who seemed weakly and

64 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

undersized, and among them were many
grey heads, a very motley company. These,
the Colonel informed us, received precisely
the same treatment as our own wounded,
even to tobacco and cigarettes.

We followed our soft- voiced conductor
through many other wards where he showed
us strange and wondrous devices in splints ;
he halted us by hanging beds of weird shape
and cots that swung on pulleys ; he des-
canted on wounds to flesh and bone and
brain, of lives snatched from the grip of
Death by the marvels of up-to-date sur-
gery, and as I listened to his pleasant
voice I sensed much of the grim wonders
he left untold. We visited X-ray rooms
and operating theatre against whose walls
were glass cases filled with a multitudinous
array of instruments for the saving of life,
and here it was I learned that in certain
cases, a chisel, properly handled, was a
far more delicate tool than the finest
saw.

"A wonderful place," said I for the
hundredth time as we stepped out upon a

A HOSPITAL 65

trim, green lawn. The Colonel-Surgeon
smiled.

"It took some planning," he admitted, "a
little while ago it was a sandy wilderness."

"But these lawns?" I demurred.

"Came to me of their own accord," he
answered. "At least, the seed did, washed
ashore from a wreck, so I had it planted
and it has done rather well. Now, what
else can I show you ? It would take all
the afternoon to visit every ward, and they
are all much alike — but there is the mad
ward if you'd care to see that ? This way."

A strange place, this, divided into com-
partments or cubicles where were many
patients in the familiar blue overalls, most
of whom rose and stood at attention as we en-
tered. Tall, soldierly figures they seemed,
and yet with an indefinable something in
their looks — a vagueness of gaze, a loose-
lipped, too-ready smile, a vacancy of ex-
pression. Some there were who scowled
sullenly enough, others who sat crouched
apart, solitary souls, who, I learned, felt
themselves outcast ; others again crouched

66 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

in corners haunted by the dread of a pur-
suing vengeance always at hand.

One such the Colonel accosted, asking
what was wrong. The man looked up,
looked down and muttered unintelligibly,
whereupon the Sister spoke.

"He believes that every one thinks him
a spy," she explained, and touched the
man's bowed head with a hand as gentle
as her voice.

"Shell-shock is a strange thing," said the
Colonel-Surgeon, "and affects men in many
extraordinary ways, but seldom perma-
nently."

"You mean that those poor fellows will
recover?" I asked.

"Quite ninety per cent," he answered in
his quiet, assured voice.

I was shown over laundries complete in
every detail ; I walked through clothing
stores where, in a single day, six hundred
men had been equipped from head to foot ;
I beheld large machines for the sterilisation
of garments foul with the grime of battle
and other things.

A HOSPITAL 67

Truly, here, within the hospital that had
grown, mushroom-like, within the wild,
was everything for the alleviation of hurts
and suffering more awful than our fight-
ing ancestors ever had to endure. Pres-
ently I left this place, but now, although a
clean, fresh wind blew and the setting sun
peeped out, the world somehow seemed a
grimmer place than ever.

In the Dark Ages, humanity endured
much of sin and shame and suffering, but
never such as in this age of Reason and
Culture. This same earth has known evils
of every kind, has heard the screams of
outraged innocence, the groan of tortured
flesh, and has reddened beneath the heel
of Tyranny; this same sun has seen the
smoke and ravishment of cities and been
darkened by the hateful mists of war —
but never such a war as this of cultured
barbarity with all its new devilishness.
Shell-shock and insanity, poison gas and
slow strangulation, liquid fire and poison
shells. Rape, Murder, Robbery, Piracy,
Slavery — each and every crime is here —

68 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

never has humanity endured all these
horrors together until now.

But remembering by whose will these
evils have been loosed upon the world,
remembering the innocent blood, the bit-
ter tears, the agony of soul and heartbreak,
I am persuaded that Retribution must
follow as sure as to-morrow's dawn. The
evil that men do lives after them and lives
on for ever.

Should they, who have worked for and
planned this misery, escape the ephemeral
justice of man, there is yet the inexorable
tribunal of the Hereafter, which no trans-
gressor, small or great, humble or mighty,
may in any wise escape.

VIII

THE GUNS

A FINE, brisk morning; a long, tree-
bordered road dappled with fugitive sun-
beams, making a glory of puddles that leapt
in shimmering spray beneath our flying
wheels. A long, straight road that ran on
and on unswerving, uphill and down, be-
neath tall, straight trees that flitted past in
never-ending procession, and beyond these
a rolling, desolate countryside of blue hills
and dusky woods ; and in the air from
beyond this wide horizon a sound that rose
above the wind gusts and the noise of our
going, a faint whisper that seemed in the
air close about us and yet to be of the vague
distances, a whisper of sound, a stammer-
ing murmur, now rising, now falling, but
never quite lost.

69

70 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

In rain-sodden fields to right and left were
many figures bent in diligent labour, men
in weatherworn, grey-blue uniforms and
knee-boots, while on the roadside were men
who lounged, or sat smoking cigarettes,
rifle across knees and wicked-looking bay-
onets agleam, wherefore these many German
prisoners toiled with the unremitting dili-
gence aforesaid.

The road surface improving somewhat
we went at speed and, as we lurched and
swayed, the long, straight road grew less
deserted. Here and there transport lorries
by ones and twos, then whole convoys
drawn up beside the road, often axle deep
in mud, or lumbering heavily onwards ;
and ever as we went that ominous, stammer-
ing murmur beyond the horizon grew
louder and more distinct.

On we went, through scattered villages
alive with khaki-clad figures with morions
cocked at every conceivable angle, past
leafy lanes bright with the wink of long
bayonets ; through country towns, whose
wide squares and narrow, old-world streets

THE GUNS 71

rang with the ordered tramp of feet, the
stamp of horses and rumble of gun wheels,
where ruddy English faces turned to stare
and broad khaki backs swung easily be-
neath their many accoutrements. And in
street and square and by-street, always and
ever was that murmurous stammer of
sound more ominous and threatening, yet
which nobody seemed to heed — not even
K., my companion, who puffed his cigarette
and "was glad it had stopped raining."

So, picking our way through streets
athrong with British faces, dodging guns
and limbers, wagons and carts of all de-
scriptions, we came out upon the open
road again. And now, there being no
surface at all to speak of, we perforce went
slow, and I watched where, just in front, a
string of lorries lumbered heavily along,
pitching and rolling very much like boats
in a choppy sea.

Presently we halted to let a column go
by, officers a-horse and a-foot with the long
files behind, but all alike splashed and
spattered with mud. Men, these, who

72 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

carried their rifles anyhow, who tramped
along, rank upon rank, weary men, who
showed among them here and there grim
evidence of battle — rain-sodden men with
hair that clung to muddy brows beneath
the sloping brims of muddy helmets ; men
who tramped ankle-deep in mud and who
sang and whistled blithe as birds. So they
splashed wearily through the mud, up-
borne in their fatigue by that indomitable
spirit that has always made the Briton the
fighting man he is.

At second speed we toiled along again
behind the lorries who were making as bad
weather of it as ever, when all at once I
caught my breath, hearkening to the far,
faint skirling of Highland bagpipes, and,
leaning from the car, saw before us a com-
pany of Highlanders, their mud-splashed
knees a-swing together, their khaki kilts
swaying in rhythm, their long bayonets
a-twinkle, while down the wind came the
regular tramp of their feet and the wild,
frenzied wailing of their pipes. Soon we
were up with them, bronzed, stalwart

THE GUNS 73

figures, grim fighters from muddy spatter-
dashes to steel helmets, beneath which eyes
turned to stare at us — eyes blue and merry,
eyes dark and sombre — as they swung
along to the lilting music of the pipes.

At the rear the stretcher-bearers marched,
the rolled-up stretchers upon their shoul-
ders ; but even so, by various dark stains
and marks upon that dingy canvas, I knew
that here was a company that had done and
endured much. Close by me was a man
whose hairy knee was black with dried
blood — to him I tentatively proffered my
cigarette case.

"Wull ye hae one the noo?" I ques-
tioned. For a moment he eyed me a trifle
dour and askance, then he smiled (a grave
Scots sm^e).

"Thank ye, I wull that!" said he, and
extracted the cigarette with muddy fingers.

"Ye'll hae a sore leg, I'm thinking!"
said I.

"Ou aye," he admitted with the same
grave smile, "but it's no sae muckle as a*
that — juist a wee bit skelpit I — "

74 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

Our car moved forward, gathered speed,
and we bumped and swayed on our way;
the bagpipes shrieked and wailed, grew
plaintively soft, and were drowned and
lost in that other sound which was a murmur
no longer, but a rolling, distant thunder,
with occasional moments of silence.

"Ah, the guns at last!" said I.

"Yes," nodded K., lighting another
cigarette, "I've been listening to them for
the last hour."

Here my friend F., who happened to be
the Intelligence Officer in charge, leaned
forward to say :

"I'm afraid we can't get into Beaumont
Hamel, the Boches are strafing it rather,
this morning, but we'll go as near as we
can get, and then on to what was La Boiselle.
We shall leave the car soon, so better get
into your tin hats." Forthwith I buckled
on one of the morions we had brought for
the purpose and very uncomfortable I
found it. Having made it fairly secure, I
turned, grinning furtively, to behold K.'s
classic features crowned with his outlandish-

THE GUNS 75

seeming headgear, and presently caught him
grinning furtively at mine.

"They're not so heavy as I expected,"
said I.

"About half a pound," he suggested.

Pulling up at a shell-shattered village we
left the car and trudged along a shell-torn
road, along a battered and rusty railway
line, and presently struck into a desolate
waste intersected by sparse hedgerows
and with here and there desolate, leafless
trees, many of which, in shattered trunk
and broken bough, showed grim traces of
what had been ; and ever as we advanced
these ugly scars grew more frequent, and
we were continually dodging sullen pools
that were the work of bursting shells.
And then it began to rain again.

On we went, splashing through puddles,
slipping in mud, and ever as we went my
boots and my uncomfortable helmet grew
heavier and heavier, while in the heaven
above, in the earth below and in the air
about us was the quiver and thunder of
unseen guns. As we stumbled through the

76 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

muddy desolation I beheld wretched hovels
wherein khaki-clad forms moved, and from
one of these damp and dismal structures a
merry whistling issued, with hoarse laughter.

On we tramped, through rain and mud,
which, like my helmet, seemed to grow
momentarily heavier.

" K.," said I, as he floundered into a shell
hole, "about how heavy did you say these
helmets were?"

"About a pound!" said he, fierce-eyed.
"Confound the mud!"

Away to our left and high in air a puff
of smoke appeared, a pearl-grey, fleecy
cloud, and as I, unsuspecting, watched it
writhe into fantastic shapes, my ears were
smitten with a deafening report, and in-
stinctively I ducked.

"Shrapnel!" said F., waving his hand
in airy introduction. "They're searching
the road yonder I expect — ah, there goes
another! Yes, they're trying the road
yonder — but here's the trench — in with
you!"

I am free to confess that I entered that

THE GUNS 77

trench precipitately — so hurriedly, in fact,
that my helmet fell off, and, as I replaced
it, I was not sorry to see that this trench
was very deep and narrow. As we pro-
gressed, very slowly by reason of clinging
mud, F. informed us that this trench had
been our old front line before we took
Beaumont Hamel ; and I noticed many
things, as, clips of cartridges, unexploded
bombs, Lewis-gun magazines, parts of a
broken machine gun, and various odds and
ends of accoutrements. In some places
this trench had fallen in because of rain and
other things and was almost impassable,
wherefore, after much floundering and
splashing, F. suggested we should climb
out again, which we did forthwith, very
moist and muddy.

And thus at last I looked at that wide
stretch of country across which our men
had advanced unshaken and undismayed,
through a hell the like of which the world
had never known before ; and, as I stood
there, I could almost see those long, ad-
vancing waves of khaki-clad figures, their

78 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

ranks swept by the fire of countless rifles
and machine guns, pounded by high ex-
plosives, blasted by withering shrapnel, lost
in the swirling death-mist of poison gas —
heroic ranks which, rent asunder, shattered,
torn, yet swung steadily on through smoke
and flame, unflinching and unafraid. As
if to make the picture more real, came the
thunderous crash of a shell behind us, but
this time I forgot to duck.

Far in front of us I saw a huge puff of
smoke, and as it thinned out beheld clouds
of earth and broken beams that seemed to
hang suspended a moment ere they fell and
vanished. After a moment came another
puff of smoke further to our right, and be-
yond this another, and again, beyond this,
another.

"A battery of heavies," said F.

Even as he spoke the four puffs burst
forth again and upon exactly the same
ground.

At this juncture a head appeared over
the parapet behind us and after some talk
with F., came one who tendered us a pair

THE GUNS 79

of binoculars, by whose aid I made out the
British new line of trenches which had once
been German. So I stood, dry-mouthed,
to watch the burst of those huge shells
exploding upon our British line. Fasci-
nated, I stared until F.'s hand on my arm
aroused me, and returning the glasses with
a hazy word of thanks I followed my com-
panions, though often turning to watch the
shooting which now I thought much too
good.

And now we were traversing the great
battlefield where, not long since, so many
of our bravest had fallen that Britain might
still be Britain. Even yet, upon its torn
and trampled surface I could read some-
thing of the fight — here a broken shoulder
belt, there a cartridge pouch, yonder a
stained and tattered coat, while every-
where lay bombs, English and German.

"If you want to see La Boiselle properly
we must hurry!" said F., and off he went
at the double with K.'s long legs striding
beside him, but, as for me, I must needs
turn for one last look where those deadly

8o GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

smoke puffs came and went with such
awful regularity.

The rain had stopped, but it was three
damp and mud-spattered wretches who
clambered back into the waiting car.

"K.," said I, as we removed our cum-
brous headgear, "about how much do you
suppose these things weigh?"

"Fully a ton!" he answered, jerking his
cap over his eyes and scowlingly accepting
a cigarette.

Very soon the shattered village was far
behind and we were threading a devious
course between huge steam-tractors, guns,
motor-lorries and more guns. We passed
soldiers a-horse and a-foot and long strings
of ambulance cars ; to right and left of the
road were artillery parks and great camps,
that stretched away into the distance.
Here also were vast numbers of the ubiqui-
tous motor-lorry with many three-wheeled
tractors for the big guns. We sped past
hundreds of horses picketed in long lines ;
past countless tents smeared crazily in
various coloured paints ; past huts little

THE GUNS 81

and huts big; past swamps knee-deep in
mud where muddy men were taking down
or setting up other tents. On we sped
through all the confused order of a mighty
army, until, chancing to raise my eyes
aloft, I beheld a huge balloon, which, as I
watched, mounted up and up into the air.

"One of our sausages !" said F., gloved
hand waving. "Plenty of 'em round here;
see, there's another in that cloud, and
beyond it another."

So for a while I rode with my eyes turned
upwards, and thus I presently saw far
ahead many aeroplanes that flew in strange,
zigzag fashion, now swooping low, now
climbing high, now twisting and turning
gkldily.

"Some of our 'planes under fire!" said
F., "you can see the shrapnel bursting all
around 'em — there's the smoke — we call
'em woolly bears. Won't see any Boche
'planes, though — rather not ! "

Amidst all these wonders and marvels
our fleet car sped on, jolting and lurching
violently over ruts, pot-holes and the like

82 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

until we came to a part of the road where
many men were engaged with pick and
shovel ; and here, on either side of the
highway, I noticed many grim-looking heaps
and mounds — ugly, shapeless dumps, de-
pressing in their very hideousness. Beside
one such unlovely dump our car pulled up,
and F., gloved finger pointing, announced :

"The Church of La Boiselle. That heap
you see yonder was once the Mairie, and
beyond, the schoolhouse. The others were
houses and cottages. Oh, La Boiselle was
quite a pretty place once. We get out
here to visit the guns — this way."

Obediently I followed whither he led,
nothing speaking, for surely here was
matter beyond words. Leaving the road,
we floundered over what seemed like ash
heaps, but which had once been German
trenches faced and reinforced by concrete
and steel plates. Many of these last lay
here and there, awfully bent and twisted,
but of trenches I saw none save a few yards
here and there half filled with indescribable
debris. It was, indeed, a place of horror —

THE GUNS 83

a frightful desolation beyond all words.
Everywhere about us were signs of dreadful
death — they came to one in the very air,
in lowering heaven and tortured earth.
Far as the eye could reach the ground was
pitted with great shell holes, so close that
they broke into one another and formed
horrid pools full of shapeless things within
the slime.

Across this hellish waste I went cau-
tiously by reason of torn and twisted tangles
of German barbed wire, of hand grenades
and huge shells, of broken and rusty iron
and steel that once were deadly machine
guns. As I picked my way among all this
flotsam, I turned to take up a bayonet,
slipped in the slime and sank to my waist
in a shell hole — even then I didn't touch
bottom, but scrambled out, all grey mud
from waist down — but I had the bayonet.

It was in this woeful state that I shook
hands with the Major of the battery. And
as we stood upon that awful waste, he
chattered, I remember, of books. Then,

side by side, we came to the battery — four

J

84 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

> mighty howitzers, that crashed and roared
and shook the very earth with each dis-
charge, and whose shells roared through the
air with the rush of a dozen express trains.

Following the Major's directing finger, I
fixed my gaze some distance above the
muzzle of the nearest gun and, marvel of
marvels, beheld that dire messenger of
death and destruction rush forth, soaring,
upon its way, up and up, until it was lost
in cloud. Time after time I saw the huge
shells leap skywards and vanish on their
long journey, and stood thus lost in wonder,
and as I watched I could not but remark
on the speed and dexterity with which the
crews handled these monstrous engines.

"Yes," nodded the Major, "strange thing
is that a year ago they weren't, you know —
guns weren't in existence and the men
weren't gunners — clerks an' all that sort
of thing, you know — civilians, what?"

"They're pretty good gunners now —
judging by effect ! " said I, nodding towards
the abomination of desolation that had
once been a village.

THE GUNS 85

"Rather!" nodded the Major, cheerily,
"used to think it took three long years to
make a gunner once — do it in six short
months now ! Pretty good going for old
England, what ? How about a cup of tea
in my dugout ?"

But evening was approaching, and having
far to go we had perforce to refuse his hos-
pitality and bid him a reluctant good-by.

"Don't forget to take a peep at the mine
craters, ' said he, and waving a cheery adieu,
vanished into his dugout.

Ten minutes' walk, along the road, and
before us rose a jagged mount, and beyond
it another, uncanny hills, seared and cracked
and sinister, up whose steep slopes I
scrambled and into whose yawning depths
I gazed in awestruck wonder; so deep, so
wide and huge of circumference, it seemed
rather the result of some titanic convulsion
of nature than the handiwork of man.

I could imagine the cataclysmic roar of
the explosion, the smoke and flame of the
mighty upheaval and war found for me
yet another horror as I turned and de-

86 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

scended the precipitous slope. Now, as I
went, I stumbled over a small mound, then
halted all at once, for at one end of this was
a very small cross, rudely constructed and
painted white, and tacked to this a strip of
lettered tin, bearing a name and number,
and beneath these the words, "One of the
best." So I took off my hat and stood
awhile beside that lonely mound of muddy
earth ere I went my way.

Slowly our car lurched onward through
the waste, and presently on either side the
way I saw other such mounds and crosses,
by twos and threes, by fifties, by hundreds,
in long rows beyond count. And looking
around me on this dreary desolation I
knew that one day (since nothing dies)
upon this place of horror grass would grow
and flowers bloom again ; along this now
desolate and deserted road people would
come by the thousand ; these humble
crosses and mounds of muddy earth would
become to all Britons a holy place where so
many of our best and bravest lie, who, un-
dismayed, have passed through the portals

THE GUNS 87

of Death into the fuller, greater, nobler
living.

Full of such thoughts I turned for one
last look, and then I saw that the setting
sun had turned each one of these humble
little crosses into things of shining glory.

IX

A TRAINING CAMP

THE great training camp lay, a rain-
lashed wilderness of windy levels and
bleak, sandy hills, range upon range, far
as the eye could see, with never a living
thing to break the monotony. But pres-
ently, as our car lurched and splashed upon
its way, there rose a sound that grew and
grew, the awesome sound of countless
marching feet.

On they came, these marching men,
until we could see them by the hundred,
by the thousand, their serried ranks stretch-
ing away and away until they were lost
in distance. Scots were here, Lowland and
Highland ; English and Irish were here,
with bronzed New Zealanders, adventurous
Canadians and hardy Australians ; men,
these, who had come joyfully across half

88

A TRAINING CAMP 89

the world to fight, and, if need be, die for
those ideals which have made the Empire
assuredly the greatest and mightiest this
world has ever known. And as I listened
to the rhythmic tramp of these countless
feet, it seemed like the voice of this vast
Empire proclaiming to the world that
Wrong and Injustice must cease among
the nations ; that man, after all, despite
all the 'tFrightfulness" that warped in-
telligence may conceive, is yet faithful to
the highest in him, faithful to that death-
less, purposeful determination that Right
shall endure, the abiding belief of which
has brought him through the dark ages,
through blood and misery and shame, on
his progress ever upward.

So, while these men of the Empire
tramped past through blinding rain and
wind, our car stopped before a row of
low-lying wooden buildings, whence pres-
ently issued a tall man in rain-sodden trench
cap and burberry, who looked at me with
a pair of very dark, bright eyes and gripped
my hand in hearty clasp.

90 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

He was apologetic because of the rain,
since, as he informed us, he had just or-
dered all men to their quarters, and thus
I should see nothing doing in the training
line ; nevertheless he cheerfully offered
to show us over the camp, despite mud
and wind and rain, and to explain things
as fully as he could ; whereupon we as
cheerfully accepted.

The wind whistled about us, the rain
pelted us, but the Major heeded it nothing
— neither did I — while K. loudly con-
gratulated himself on having come in
waders and waterproof hat, as, through
mud and mire, through puddles and clog-
ging sand, we followed the Major's long
boots, crossing bare plateaux, climbing
precipitous slopes, leaping trenches, slip-
ping and stumbling, while ever the Major
talked, wherefore I heeded not wind or
rain, for the Major talked well.

He descanted on the new and horribly
vicious methods of bayonet fighting —
the quick thrust and lightning recovery;
struggling with me upon a sandy, rain-

A TRAINING CAMP 91

swept height, he showed me how, in wrest-
ling for your opponent's rifle, the bayonet
is the thing. He halted us before devilish
contrivances of barbed wire, each different
from the other, but each just as ugly. He
made us peep through loopholes, each and
every different from the other, yet each and
every skilfully hidden from an enemy's obser-
vation. We stood beside trenches of every
shape and kind while he pointed out their
good and bad points ; he brought us to a
place where dummy figures had been set up,
their rags a-flutter, forlorn objects in the rain.
"Here," said he, "is where we teach
'em to throw live bombs — you can see
where they've been exploding ; dummies
look a bit off-colour, don't they?" And
he pointed to the ragged scarecrows with
his whip. "You know, I suppose," he
continued, "that a Mills' bomb is quite
safe until you take out the pin, and then it
is quite safe as long as you hold it, but the
moment it is loosed the lever flies off,
which releases the firing lever and in a
few seconds it explodes. It is surprising

92 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

how men vary ; some are born bombers,
some soon learn, but some couldn't be
bombers if they tried — not that they're
cowards, it's just a case of mentality.
I've seen men take hold of a bomb, pull
out the pin, and then stand with the thing
clutched in their fingers, absolutely unable
to move ! And there they'd stand till
Lord knows when if the Sergeant didn't
take it from them. I remember a queer
case once. We were saving the pins to
rig up dummy bombs, and the order was :
'Take the bomb in your right hand, remove
the pin, put the pin in your pocket, and
at the word of command, throw the bomb.'
Well, this particular fellow was so wrought
up that he threw away the pin and put
the bomb in his pocket!"

"Was he killed?" I asked.

"No. The sergeant just had time to
dig the thing out of the man's pocket and
throw it away. Bomb exploded in the
air and knocked 'em both flat."

"Did the sergeant get the V.C. or M.C.
or anything?" I enquired.

A TRAINING CAMP 93

The Major smiled and shook his head.

"I have a good many sergeants here
and they can't all have 'em ! Now come
and see my lecture theatres."

Presently, looming through the rain, I
saw huge circular structures that I could
make nothing of, until, entering the larger
of the two, I stopped in surprise, for I
looked down into a huge, circular amphi-
theatre, |vith circular rows of seats descend-
ing tier below tier to a circular floor of
sand, very firm and hard.

"All made out of empty oil cans !" said
the Major, tapping the nearest can with
his whip. "I have 'em filled with sand
and stacked as you see ! — good many
thousands of 'em here. Find it good for
sound too — shout and try ! This place
holds about five thousand men — "

"Whose wonderful idea was this ?"

"Oh, just a little wheeze of my own.
Now, how about the poison gas ; feel like
going through it?"

I glanced at K., K. glanced at me. I
nodded, so did K.

94 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"Certainly!" said I. Wherefore the
Major led us over sandy hills and along
sandy valleys and so to a dingy and weather-
worn hut, in whose dingy interior we found
a bright-faced subaltern in dingy uniform
and surrounded by many dingy boxes and
a heterogeneous collection of things. The
subaltern was busy at work on a bomb with
a penknife, while at his elbow stood a
sergeant grasping a screwdriver, who, per-
ceiving the Major, came to attention, while
the cheery sub. rose, beaming.

"Can you give us some gas?" enquired
the Major, after we had been introduced,
and had shaken hands.

"Certainly, sir!" nodded the cheerful
sub. "Delighted!"

"You might explain something about
it, if you will," suggested the Major.
"Bombs and gas is your line, you know."

The sub. beamed, and giving certain di-
rections to his sergeant, spake something
on this wise.

"Well, 'Frightful Fritz'--! mean the
Boches, y'know, started bein' frightful some

A TRAINING CAMP 95

time ago, y'know — playin' their little
tricks with gas an' tear-shells an' liquid
fire an' that, and we left 'em to it. Y'see,
it wasn't cricket — wasn't playin' the game
— what ! But Fritz kept at it and was
happy as a bird, till one day we woke up
an' started bein' frightful too, only when
we did begin we were frightfuller than ever
Fritz thought of bein' — yes, rather ! Our
gas is more deadly, our lachrymatory shells
are more lachrymose an' our liquid fire's
quite top hole — won't go out till it burns
out — rather not ! So Frightful Fritz is
licked at his own dirty game. I've tried
his and I've tried ours, an' I know."

Here the sergeant murmured deferentially
into the sub.'s ear, whereupon he beamed
again and nodded.

"Everything's quite ready!" he an-
nounced, "so if you're on?"

Here, after a momentary hesitation, I
signified I was, whereupon our sub. grew im-
mensely busy testing sundry ugly, grey flan-
nel gas helmets, fitted with staring eye-pieces
of talc and with a hideous snout in front.

96 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

Having duly fitted on these clumsy things
and buttoned them well under our coat
collars, having shown us how we must
breathe out through the mouthpiece which
acts as a kind of exhaust, our sub. donned
his own headpiece, through which his
cheery voice reached me in muffled tones :

"You'll feel a kind of ticklin' feelin' in
the throat at first, but that's all O.K. —
only the chemical the flannel's saturated
with. Now follow me, please, an' would
you mind runnin', the rain's apt to weaken
the solution. This way!"

Dutifully we hasted after him, plough-
ing through the wet sand, until we came to
a heavily timbered doorway that seemingly
opened into the hillside, and, beyond this
yawning doorway I saw a thick, greenish-
yellow mist, a fog exactly the colour of
strong absinthe ; and then we were in it.
K.'s tall figure grew blurred, indistinct,
faded utterly away, and I was alone amid
that awful, swirling vapour that held death
in such agonising form.

I will confess I was not happy, my throat

A TRAINING CAMP 97

was tickling provokingly, I began to cough
and my windpipe felt too small. I has-
tened forward, but, even as I went, the light
grew dimmer and the swirling fog more
dense. I groped blindly, began to run,
stumbled, and in that moment my hand
came in contact with an unseen rope. On
I went into gloom, into blackness, until I
was presently aware of my companions in
front and mightily glad of it. In a while,
still following this invisible rope, we turned
a corner, the fog grew less opaque, thinned
away to a green mist, and we were out in
the daylight again, and thankful was I to
whip off my stifling helmet and feel the clean
wind in my hair and the beat of rain upon
my face.

"Notice the ticklin' feelin'?" enquired
our sub., as he took our helmets and put
them carefully by. "Bit tryin' at first,
but you soon get used to it — yes, rather.
Some of the men funk tryin' at first —
and some hold their breath until they fairly
well burst, an' some won't go in at all, so
we carry 'em in. That gas you've tried is

98 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

about twenty times stronger than we get
it in the open, but these helmets are a
rippin' dodge till the chemical evaporates,
then, of course, they're no earthly. This
is the latest device — quite a tophole
scheme!" And he showed us a box-like
contrivance which, when in use, is slung
round the neck.

"Are you often in the gas ?" I enquired.

" Every day - - yes, rather ! "

"For how long?"

"Well, I stayed in once for five hours
on end — "

"Five hours!" I exclaimed, aghast.

"Y'see, I was experimentin ' !"

"And didn't you feel any bad effects?"

"Yes, rather! I was simply dyin' for a
smoke. Like to try a lachrymatory?" he
enquired, reaching up to a certain dingy
box.

"Yes," said I, glancing at K. "Oh,
yes, if—"

"Only smart for the time bein'," our
sub. assured me. "Make you weep a
bit!" Here from the dingy box he fished

A TRAINING CAMP 99

a particularly vicious-looking bomb and
fell to poking at it with a screwdriver. I
immediately stepped back. So did K.
The Major pulled his moustache and flicked
a chunk of mud from his boot with his
whip.

"Er — I suppose that thing's all right ?"
he enquired.

"Oh, yes, quite all right, sir, quite all
right," nodded the sub., using the screw-
driver as a hammer. "Only wants a little
fixin'."

As I watched that deadly thing, for the
second time I felt distinctly unhappy ;
however, the refractory pin, or whatever
it was, being fixed to his satisfaction, our
sub. led the way out of the dingy hut and
going some few paces ahead, paused.

"I'm goin' to give you a liquid-fire
bomb first!" said he. "Watch!"

He drew back his hand and hurled the
bomb. Almost immediately there was a
shattering report and the air was full of
thick, grey smoke and yellow flame, smoke
that rolled heavily along the ground to-

Jt*", -4

*^v . . i1 T*

tv%« *

ioo GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

wards us, flame that burned ever fiercer,
fiery yellow tongues that leapt from the
sand here and there, that writhed in the
wind-gusts, but never diminished.

"Stoop down!" cried the sub., suiting
the action to word, "stoop down and get
a mouthful of that smoke — makes you
jolly sick and unconscious in no time if
you get enough of it. Top-hole bomb,
that — what!"

Then he brought us where those yellow
flames leapt and hissed ; some of these he
covered with wet sand, and lo ! they had
ceased to be ; but the moment the sand
was kicked away up they leapt again
fiercer than ever.

"We use 'em for bombing Boche dug-
outs now!" said he; and remembering the
dugouts I had seen, I could picture the
awful fate of those within, the choking
fumes, the fire-scorched bodies ! Truly the
exponents of Frightfulness have felt the
recoil of their own vile methods.

"This is a lachrymatory!" said the
sub., whisking another bomb from hit

A TRAINING CAMP 101

pocket. "When it pops, run forward and
get in the smoke. It'll sting a bit, but
don't rub the tears away --let 'em flow.
Don't touch your eyes, it'll only inflame
'em --just weep! Ready? One, two,
three!" A second explosion louder than
the first, a puff of blue smoke into which
I presently ran and then uttered a cry.
So sharp, so excruciating was the pain,
that instinctively I raised hand to eyes
but checked myself, and with tears gush-
ing over my cheeks, blind and agonised, I
stumbled away from that hellish vapour.
Very soon the pain diminished, was gone,
and looking up through streaming tears
I beheld the sub. nodding and beaming
approval.

"Useful things, eh?" he remarked. "A
man can't shed tears and shoot straight,
an' he can't weep and fight well, both at
the same time — what ? Fritz can be very
frightful, but we can be more so when we
want — yes, rather. The Boches have
learned that there's no monopoly in Fright-
fulness."

102 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

In due season we shook hands with our
cheery sub., and left him beaming after us
from the threshold of the dingy hut.

Britain has been called slow, old-
fashioned, and behind the times, but to-day
she is awake and at work to such mighty
purpose that her once small army is now
numbered by the million, an army second
to none in equipment or hardy and daunt-
less manhood.

From her Home Counties, from her Em-
pire beyond the Seas, her millions have
arisen, brothers in arms henceforth, bonded
together by a spirit of noble self-sacrifice
— men grimly determined to suffer wounds
and hardship and death itself, that for
those who come after them, the world may
be a better place and humanity may never
again be called upon to endure all the
agony and heartbreak of this generation.

X

ARRAS

IT was raining, and a chilly wind blew
as we passed beneath a battered arch into
the tragic desolation of Arras.

I have seen villages pounded by gun-fire
into hideous mounds of dust and rubble,
their very semblance blasted utterly away ;
but Arras, shell-torn, scarred, disfigured for
all time, is a city still — a City of Deso-
lation. Her streets lie empty and silent,
her once pleasant squares are a dreary deso-
lation, her noble buildings, monuments of
her ancient splendour, are ruined beyond
repair. Arras is a dead city, whose mourn-
ful silence is broken only by the intermit-
tent thunder of the guns.

Thus, as I paced these deserted streets
where none moved save myself (for my com-

103

io4 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

panions had hastened on), as I gazed on
ruined buildings that echoed mournfully
to my tread, what wonder that my thoughts
were gloomy as the day itself ? I paused in
a street of fair, tall houses, from whose
broken windows curtains of lace, of plush,
and tapestry flapped mournfully in the
chill November wind like rags upon a
corpse, while from some dim interior came
the hollow rattle of a door, and, in every
gust, a swinging shutter groaned despair-
ingly on rusty hinge.

And as I stood in this narrow street,
littered with the brick and masonry of
desolate homes, and listened to these mourn-
ful sounds, I wondered vaguely what had
become of all those for whom this door
had been wont to open, where now were
the eyes that had looked down from these
windows many and many a time — would
they ever behold again this quiet, narrow
street, would these scarred walls echo
again to those same voices and ring with
joy of life and familiar laughter ?

And now this desolate city became as it

ARRAS 105

were peopled with the souls of these exiles ;
they flitted ghostlike in the dimness be-
hind flapping curtains, they peered down
through closed jalousies — wraiths of the
men and women and children who had
lived and loved and played here before
the curse of the barbarian had driven them
away.

And, as if to help this illusion, I saw many
things that were eloquent of these vanished
people — glimpses through shattered win-
dows and beyond demolished house-fronts ;
here a table set for dinner, with plates
and tarnished cutlery on a dingy cloth
that stirred damp and lazily in the wind,
yonder a grand piano, open and with
sodden music drooping from its rest; here
again chairs drawn cosily together.

Wherever I looked were evidences of
arrested life, of action suddenly stayed ;
in one bedroom a trunk open, with a pile
of articles beside it in the act of being
packed ; in another, a great bed, its sheets
and blankets tossed askew by hands wild
with haste; while in a room lined with

io6 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

bookcases a deep armchair was drawn up
to the hearth, with a small table whereon
stood a decanter and a half-emptied glass,
and an open book whose damp leaves stirred
in the wind, now and then, as if touched by
phantom fingers. Indeed, more than once
I marvelled to see how, amid the awful
wreckage of broken floors and tumbled
ceilings, delicate vases and chinaware had
miraculously escaped destruction. Upon
one cracked wall a large mirror reflected
the ruin of a massive carved sideboard,
while in another house, hard by, a mag-
nificent ivory and ebony crucifix yet hung
above an awful twisted thing that had been
a brass bedstead.

Here and there, on either side this nar-
row street, ugly gaps showed where houses
had once stood, comfortable homes, now
only unsightly heaps of rubbish, a con-
fusion of broken beams and rafters, amid
which divers familiar objects obtruded them-
selves, broken chairs and tables, a grand-
father clock, and a shattered piano whose
melody was silenced for ever.

ARRAS 107

Through all these gloomy relics of a
vanished people I went slow-footed and
heedless of direction, until by chance* I
came out into the wide Place and saw be-
fore me all that remained of the stately
building which for centuries had been the
Hotel de Ville, now nothing but a crum-
bling ruin of noble arch and massive tower ;
even so, in shattered facade and mullioned
window one might yet see something of
that beauty which had made it famous.

Oblivious of driving rain I stood be-
thinking me of this ancient city : how in
the dark ages it had endured the horrors
of battle and siege, had fronted the cata-
pults of Rome, heard the fierce shouts
of barbarian assailants, known the merci-
less savagery of religious wars, and re-
mained a city still only for the cultured
barbarian of to-day to make of it a desola-
tion.

Very full of thought I turned away, but,
as I crossed the desolate square, I was
aroused by a voice that hailed me, seem-
ingly from beneath my feet, a voice that

io8 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

echoed eerily in that silent Place. Glancing
about I beheld a beshawled head that rose
above the littered pavement, and, as I
stared, the head, nodded and smiling wanly,
accosted me again.

Coming thither I looked into a square
opening with a flight of steps leading
down into a subterranean chamber, and
upon these steps a woman sat knitting
busily. She enquired if I wished to view
the catacombs, and pointed where a lamp
burned above another opening and other
steps descended lower yet, seemingly into
the very bowels of the earth. To her I
explained that my time was limited and
all I wished to see lay above ground, and
from her I learned that some few people
yet remained in ruined Arras, who, even
as she, lived underground, since every
day at irregular intervals the enemy fired
into the town haphazard. Only that very
morning, she told me, another shell had
struck the poor Hotel de Ville, and she
pointed to a new, white scar upon the
shapeless tower. She also showed me an

ARRAS 109

ugly rent upon a certain wall near by,
made by the shell which had killed her
husband. Yes, she lived all alone now,
she told me, waiting for that good day
when the Boches should be driven beyond
the Rhine, waiting until the townsfolk
should come back and Arras wake to life
again : meantime she knitted.

Presently I saluted this solitary woman,
and, turning away, left her amid the deso-
late ruin of that once busy square, her
beshawled head bowed above feverishly
busy fingers, left her as I had found her —
waiting.

And now as I traversed those deserted
streets it seemed that this seemingly dead
city did but swoon after all, despite its
many grievous wounds, for here was life
even as the woman had said ; evidences of
which I saw here and there, in battered
stovepipes that had writhed themselves
snake-like through rusty cellar gratings
and holes in wall or pavement, miserable
contrivances at best, whose fumes black-
ened the walls whereto they clung. Still,

no GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

nowhere was there sound or sight of folk
save in one small back street, where, in a
shop that apparently sold everything, from
pickles to picture postcards, two British
soldiers were buying a pair of braces from
a smiling, haggard-eyed woman, and being
extremely polite about it in cryptic Anglo-
French ; and here I foregathered with my
companions. Our way led us through the
railway station, a much-battered ruin, its
clock tower half gone, its platforms cracked
and splintered, the iron girders of its great,
domed roof bent and twisted, and with
never a sheet of glass anywhere. Be-
tween the rusty tracks grass and weeds
grew and flourished, and the few waybills
and excursion placards which still showed
here and there looked unutterably forlorn.
In the booking office was a confusion of
broken desks, stools and overthrown chairs,
the floor littered with sodden books and
ledgers, but the racks still held thousands
of tickets, bearing so many names they
might have taken any one anywhere
throughout fair France once, but now, it

ARRAS in

seemed, would never take any one any-
where.

All at once, through the battered swing
doors, marched a company of soldiers, the
tramp of their feet and the lilt of their
voices filling the place with strange echoes,
for, being wet and weary and British,
they sang cheerily. Packs a-swing, rifles
on shoulder, they tramped through shell-
torn waiting room and booking hall and
out again into wind and wet, and I re-
member the burden of their chanting was :
"Smile! Smile! Smile!"

In a little while I stood amid the ruins
of the great cathedral ; its mighty pillars,
chipped and scarred, yet rose high in air,
but its long aisles were choked with rubble
and fallen masonry, while through the
gaping rents of its lofty roof the rain fell,
wetting the shattered heap of particoloured
marble that had been the high altar once.
Here and there, half buried in the debris
at my feet, I saw fragments of memorial
tablets, a battered corona, the twisted
remains of a great candelabrum, and over

ii2 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

and through this mournful ruin a cold
and rising wind moaned fitfully. Silently
we clambered back over the mountain of
debris and hurried on, heedless of the devas-
tation around, heartsick with the gross
barbarity of it all.

They tell me that churches and cathe-
drals must of necessity be destroyed since
they generally serve as observation posts.
But I have seen many ruined churches —
usually beautified by Time and hallowed
by tradition — that by reason of site and
position could never have been so mis-
used — and then there is the beautiful
Chateau d'Eau !

Evening was falling, and as the shadows
stole upon this silent city, a gloom unre-
lieved by any homely twinkle of light,
these dreadful streets, these stricken homes
took on an aspect more sinister and for-
bidding in the half-light. Behind those
flapping curtains were pits of gloom full of
unimagined terrors whence came unearthly
sounds, stealthy rustlings, groans and sighs
and sobbing voices. If ghosts did flit

ARRAS 113

behind those crumbling walls, surely they
were very sad and woeful ghosts.

"Damn this rain !" murmured K. gently.

"And the wind!" said F., pulling up his
collar. "Listen to it! It's going to play
the very deuce with these broken roofs and
things if it blows hard. Going to be a
beastly night, and a forty-mile drive in
front of us. Listen to that wind ! Come
on — let's get away !"

Very soon, buried in warm rugs, we sped
across dim squares, past wind-swept ruins,
under battered arch, and the dismal city
was behind us, but, for a while, her ghosts
seemed all about us still.

As we plunged on through the gather-
ing dark, past rows of trees that leapt at
us and were gone, it seemed to me that the
soul of Arras was typified in that patient,
solitary woman who sat amid desolate
ruin — waiting for the great Day ; and
surely her patience cannot go unrewarded.
For since science has proved that nothing
can be utterly destroyed, since I for one
am convinced that the soul of man through

ii4 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

death is but translated into a fuller and
more infinite living, so do I think that one
day the woes of Arras shall be done away,
and she shall rise again, a City greater
perhaps and fairer than she was.

XI

THE BATTLEFIELDS

To all who sit immune, far removed from
war and all its horrors, to those to whom
when Death comes, he comes in shape as
gentle as he may — to all such I dedicate
these tales of the front.

How many stories of battlefields have
been written of late, written to be scanned
hastily over the breakfast table or com-
fortably lounged over in an easy-chair,
stories warranted not to shock or disgust,
wherein the reader may learn of the glorious
achievements of our armies, of heroic deeds
and noble self-sacrifice, so that frequently
I have heard it said that war, since it pro-
duces heroes, is a goodly thing, a necessary
thing.

Can the average reader know or even

ii6 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

faintly imagine the other side of the picture ?
Surely not, for no clean human mind can
compass all the horror, all the brutal, gro-
tesque obscenity of a modern battlefield.
Therefore I propose to write plainly, briefly,
of that which I saw on my last visit to the
British front; for since in blood-sodden
France men are dying even as I pen these
lines, it seems only just that those of us for
whom they are giving their lives should at
least know something of the manner of their
dying. To this end I visited four great
battlefields and I would that all such as
cry up war, its necessity, its inevitability,
might have gone beside me. Though I
have sometimes written of war, yet I am
one that hates war, one to whom the sight
of suffering and bloodshed causes physical
pain, yet I forced myself to tread those
awful fields of death and agony, to look upon
the ghastly aftermath of modern battle,
that, if it be possible, I might by my testi-
mony in some small way help those who
know as little of war as I did once, to realise
the horror of it, that loathing it for the

THE BATTLEFIELDS 117

hellish thing it is, they may, one and all,
set their faces against war henceforth, with
an unshakeable determination that never
again shall it be permitted to maim, to de-
stroy and blast out of being the noblest
works of God.

What I write here I set down deliber-
ately, with no idea of phrase-making, of
literary values or rounded periods ; this is
and shall be a plain, trite statement of fact.

And now, one and all, come with me in
spirit, lend me your mind's eyes, and see
for yourselves something of what modern
war really is.

Behold then a stretch of country — a
sea of mud far as the eye can reach, a grim
desolate expanse, its surface ploughed and
churned by thousands of high-explosive
shells into ugly holes and tortured heaps like
muddy waves struck motionless upon this
muddy sea. The guns are silent, the cheers
and frenzied shouts, the screams and groans
have long died away, and no sound is heard
save the noise of my own going.

The sun shone palely and a fitful wind

ii8 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

swept across the waste, a noxious wind,
cold and dank, that chilled me with a
sudden dread even while the sweat ran from
me. I walked amid shell craters, some-
times knee-deep in mud ; I stumbled over
rifles half buried in the slime, on muddy
knapsacks, over muddy bags half full of
rusty bombs, and so upon the body of a
dead German soldier. With arms wide-
flung and writhen legs grotesquely twisted
he lay there beneath my boot, his head
half buried in the mud, even so I could see
that the maggots had been busy, though
the . . . .* had killed them where they clung.
So there he lay, this dead Boche, skull
gleaming under shrunken scalp, an awful,
eyeless thing, that seemed to start, to stir
and shiver as the cold wind stirred his
muddy clothing. Then nausea and a deadly
faintness seized me, but I shook it off, and
shivering, sweating, forced myself to stoop
and touch that awful thing, and, with the
touch, horror and faintness passed, and in
their place I felt a deep and passionate pity,
1 Deleted by censor. J. F.

THE BATTLEFIELDS 119

for all he was a Boche, and with pity in my
heart I turned and went my way.

But now, wherever I looked were other
shapes, that lay in attitudes frightfully
contorted, grotesque and awful. Here the
battle had raged desperately. I stood in a
very charnel-house of dead. From a mound
of earth upflung by a bursting shell a
clenched fist, weather-bleached and pallid,
seemed to threaten me ; from another
emerged a pair of crossed legs with knees
up-drawn, very like the legs of one who
dozes gently on a hot day. Hard by, a
pair of German knee-boots topped a shell
crater, and drawing near, I saw the grey-
green breeches, belt and pouches, and be-
yond — nothing but unspeakable corrup-
tion. I started back in horror and stepped
on something that yielded underfoot —
glanced down and saw a bloated, discoloured
face, that, even as I looked, vanished be-
neath my boot and left a bare and grinning
skull.

Once again the faintness seized me, and
lifting my head I stared round about me

120 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

and across the desolation of this hellish
waste. Far in the distance was the road
where men moved to and fro, busy with
picks and shovels, and some sang and some
whistled and never sound more welcome.
Here and there across these innumerable
shell holes, solitary figures moved, men,
these, who walked heedfully and with heads
down-bent. And presently I moved on,
but now, like these distant figures, I kept
my gaze upon that awful mud lest again I
should trample heedlessly on something
that had once lived and loved and laughed.
And they lay everywhere, here stark and
stiff, with no pitiful earth to hide their awful
corruption — here again, half buried in
slimy mud ; more than once my nailed
boot uncovered mouldering tunic or things
more awful. And as I trod this grisly place
my pity grew, and with pity a profound
wonder that the world with its so many
millions of reasoning minds should permit
such things to be, until I remembered that
few, even the most imaginative, could realise
the true frightfulness of modern men-

THE BATTLEFIELDS 121

butchering machinery, and my wonder
changed to a passionate desire that such
things should be recorded and known, if
only in some small measure, wherefore it is
I write these things.

I wandered on past shell holes, some deep
in slime, that held nameless ghastly messes,
some a-brim with bloody water, until I
came where three men lay side by side,
their hands upon their levelled rifles. For
a moment I had the foolish thought that
these men were weary and slept, until,
coming near, I saw that these had died by
the same shell-burst. Near them lay yet
another shape, a mangled heap, one muddy
hand yet grasping muddy rifle, while, be-
neath the other lay the fragment of a sodden
letter — probably the last thing those dying
eyes had looked upon.

Death in horrible shape was all about me.
I saw the work wrought by shrapnel, by
gas, and the mangled red havoc of high
explosive. I only seemed unreal, like one
that walked in a nightmare. Here and
there upon this sea of mud rose the twisted

122 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

wreckage of aeroplanes, and from where I
stood I counted five, but as I tramped on
and on these five grew to nine. One of these
lying upon my way I turned aside to glance
at, and stared through a tangle of wires
into a pallid thing that had been a face once
comely and youthful ; the leather jacket
had been opened at the neck for the identity
disc, as I suppose, and glancing lower, I saw
that this leather jacket was discoloured,
singed, burnt — and below this, a charred
and unrecognisable mass.

Is there a man in the world to-day who,
beholding such horrors, would not strive
with all his strength to so order things that
the hell of war should be made impossible
henceforth ? Therefore, I have recorded
in some part what I have seen of war.

So now, all of you who read, I summon
you in the name of our common humanity,
let us be up and doing. Americans -
Anglo-Saxons, let our common blood be a
bond of brotherhood between us hence-
forth, a bond indissoluble. As you have
now entered the war, as you are now our

THE BATTLEFIELDS 123

allies in deed as in spirit, let this alliance
endure hereafter. Already there is talk of
some such League, which, in its might and
unity, shall secure humanity against any
recurrence of the evils the world now groans
under. Here is a noble purpose, and I
conceive it the duty of each one of us, for
the sake of those who shall come after, that
we should do something to further that
which was once looked upon as only an
Utopian dream — the universal Brother-
hood of Man.

" The flowers o' the forest are a' faded away."

Far and wide they lie, struck down in the
flush of manhood, full of the joyous, un-
conquerable spirit of youth. Who knows
what noble ambitions once were theirs,
what splendid works they might not have
wrought ? Now they lie, each poor, shat-
tered body a mass of loathsome corruption.
Yet that diviner part, that no bullet may
slay, no steel rend or mar, has surely entered
into the fuller living, for Death is but the
gateway into Life and infinite possibilities.

I24 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

But, upon all who sit immune, upon all
whom as yet this bitter war has left un-
touched, is the blood of these that died in
the cause of humanity, the cause of Free-
dom for us and the generations to come, this
blood is upon each one of us — consecrating
us to the task they have died to achieve,
and it is our solemn duty to see that the
wounds they suffered, the deaths they died,
have not been, and shall not be, in vain.

XII

FLYING MEN

A FEW short years ago flying was in its
experimental stage; to-day, though man's
conquest of the air is yet a dream unrealised,
it has developed enormously and to an
amazing degree; to-day, flying is one of
the chief factors of this world war, both
on sea and land. Upon the Western front
alone there are thousands upon thousands
of aeroplanes — monoplanes and biplanes
— of hundreds of different makes and de-
signs, of varying shapes and many sizes.
I have seen giants armed with batteries of
swivel guns and others mounting veritable
cannon. Here are huge bomb-dropping
machines with a vast wing spread ; solid,
steady-flying machines for photographic
work, and the light, swift-climbing, double-

126 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

gunned battle-planes, capable of mounting
two thousand feet a minute and attaining
a speed of two hundred kilometres. Of
these last they are building scores a week
at a certain factory I visited just outside
Paris, and this factory is but one of many.
But the men (or rather, youths) who fly
these aerial marvels — it is of these rather
than the machines that I would tell, since
of the machines I can describe little even
if I would ; but I have watched them hover-
ing unconcernedly (and quite contemptu-
ous of the barking attention of "Archie")
above white shrapnel bursts — fleecy, in-
nocent-seeming puffs of smoke that go by
the name of "woolly bears." I have seen
them turn and hover and swoop, swift and
graceful as great eagles. I have watched
master pilots of both armies, English and
French, perform soul-shaking gyrations high
in air, feats quite impossible hitherto and
never attempted until lately. There is now
a course of aerial gymnastics which every
flier must pass successfully before he may
call himself a "chasing" pilot; and, from

FLYING MEN 127

what I have observed, it would seem that
to become a pilot one must be either all
nerve or possess no nerve at all.

Conceive a biplane, thousands of feet
aloft, suddenly flinging its nose up and be-
ginning to climb vertically as if intending
to loop the loop ; conceive of its pausing
suddenly and remaining, for perhaps a full
minute, poised thus upon its tail — abso-
lutely perpendicular. Then, the engines
switched off, conceive of it falling helplessly,
tail first, reversing suddenly and plunging
earthwards, spinning giddily round and
round very like the helpless flutter of a
falling leaf. Then suddenly, the engine
roars again, the twisting, fluttering, dead
thing becomes instinct with life, rights it-
self majestically on flashing pinions, swoops
down in swift and headlong course, and
turning, mounts the wind and soars up and
up as light, as graceful, as any bird.

Other nerve-shattering things they do,
these soaring young demigods of the air,
feats so marvellous to such earth-bound
ones as myself — feats indeed so wildly

128 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

daring it would seem no ordinary human
could ever hope to attain unto. But in
and around Paris and at the front, I have
talked with, dined with, and known many
of these bird-men, both English, French
and American, and have generally found
them very human indeed, often shy, gen-
erally simple and unaffected, and always
modest of their achievements and full of
admiration for seamen and soldiers, and
heartily glad that their lives are not
jeopardised aboard ships, or submarines, or
in muddy trenches ; which sentiment I
have heard fervently expressed — not once,
but many times. Surely the mentality of
the flier is beyond poor ordinary under-
standing !

It was with some such thought in my
mind that with my friend N., a well-known
American correspondent, I visited one of
our flying squadrons at the front. The
day was dull and cloudy, and N., deep
versed and experienced in flying and matters
pertaining thereto, shook doubtful head.

"We shan't see much to-day," he opined,

FLYING MEN 129

"low visibility — plafond only about a
thousand!" Which cryptic sentence, by
dint of pertinacious questioning, I found to
mean that the clouds were about a thousand
feet from earth and that it was misty.
"Plafond", by the way, is aeronautic for
cloud strata. Thus I stood with my gaze
lifted heavenward until the Intelligence
Officer joined us with a youthful flight-
captain, who, having shaken hands, looked
up also and stroked a small and very young
moustache. And presently he spoke as
nearly as I remember on this wise :

"About twelve hundred ! Rather rotten
weather for our business — expecting some
new machines over, too."

"Has your squadron been out lately?"
I enquired (I have the gift of enquiry largely
developed).

"Rather ! Lost four of our chaps yester-
day — ' Archie ' got 'em. Rotten bad luck ! "

"Are they — hurt ?" I asked.

"Well, we know two are all right, and
one we think is, but the other — rather a
pal of mine. — "

130 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"Do you often lose fellows ?"

"Off and on — you see, we're a fighting
squadron — must take a bit of risk now
and then — it's the game, y'know !"

He brought me where stood biplanes and
monoplanes of all sizes and designs, and
paused beside a two-seater, gunned fore
and aft, and with ponderous, wide-flung
wings.

"This," he explained, "is an old battle-
plane, quite a veteran too --jolly old bus
in its way, but too slow ; it's a l pusher', you
see, and 'tractors' are all the go. We're
having some over to-day — tophole ma-
chines." Here ensued much technical dis-
cussion between him and N. as to the
relative merits of traction and propulsion.

"Have you had many air duels?" I
enquired at last, as we wandered on through
a maze of wheels and wings and propellers.

"Oh, yes, one or two," he admitted,
"though nothing very much !" he hastened
to add. "Some of our chaps are pretty
hot stuff, though. There's B. now; B.'s
got nine so far."

FLYING MEN 131

"An air fight must be rather terrible?"
said I.

"Oh, I don't know!" he demurred.
"Gets a bit lively sometimes. C., one of
our chaps, had a near go coming home
yesterday — attacked by five Boche ma-
chines, well over their own territory, of
course. They swooped down on him out
of a cloud. C. got one right away, but the
others got him — nearly. They shot his
gear all to pieces and put his bally gun out
of commission — bullet clean through the
tray. Rotten bad luck ! So, being at
their mercy, C. pretended they'd got him —
did a turn-over and nose-dived through the
clouds very nearly on two more Boche
machines that were waiting for him. So,
thinking it was all up with him, C. dived
straight for the nearest, meaning to take a
Boche down with him, but Hans didn't
think that was playing the game, and
promptly hooked it. The other fellow had
been blazing away and was getting a new
drum fixed, when he saw C. was on his tail
making tremendous business with his use-

132 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

less gun, so Fritz immediately dived away
out of range, and C. got home with about
fifty bullet holes in his wings and his gun
crocked, and — oh, here he is !"

Flight-Lieutenant C. appeared, rather
younger than his Captain, a long, slender
youth, with serious brow and thoughtful
eyes, whom I forthwith questioned as
diplomatically as might be.

"Oh, yes!" he answered, in response to
my various queries, "it was exciting for a
minute or so, but I expect the Captain has
been pulling your leg no end. Yes, they
smashed my gun. Yes, they hit pretty
well everything except me and my mascot
— they didn't get that, by good luck. No.
I don't think a fellow would mind 'getting
it' in the ordinary way — a bullet, say.
But it's the damned petrol catching alight
and burning one's legs." Here the speaker
bent to survey his long legs with serious
eyes. "Burning isn't a very nice finish
somehow. They generally manage to
chuck themselves out — when they can.
Hello — here comes one of our new machines

FLYING MEN 133

— engine sounds nice and smooth!" said
he, cocking an ear. Sure enough, came a
faint purr that grew to a hum, to an ever-
loudening drone, and out from the clouds
an aeroplane appeared, which, wheeling in
graceful spirals, sank lower and lower,
touched earth, rose, touched again, and so,
engine roaring, slid smoothly toward us
over the grass. Then appeared men in
blue overalls, who seized the gleaming
monster in unawed, accustomed hands,
steadied it, swung it round, and halted it
within speaking distance.

Hereupon its leather-clad pilot climbed
stiffly out, vituperated the weather and lit
a cigarette.

"How is she?" enquired the Captain.

"A lamb! A witch! Absolutely top-
hole when you get used to her." The top-
hole lamb and witch was a smallish biplane
with no great wing spread, but powerfully
engined, whose points N. explained to me
as — her speed, her climbing angle, her
wonderful stability, etc., "while the Captain
and Lieutenant hastened off to find the

134 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

Major, who, appearing in due course, proved
to be slender, merry-eyed and more youth-
ful-looking than the Lieutenant. Indeed,
so young seeming was he that upon better
acquaintance I ventured to enquire his age,
and he somewhat unwillingly owned to
twenty-three.

"But," said he, "I'm afraid we can't show
you very much, the weather's so perfectly
rotten for flying."

"Oh, I don't know," said the Captain,
glancing towards the witch-lamb, "I
rather thought I'd like to try this new
machine — if you don't mind, sir."

"Same here," murmured the Lieutenant.

"But you've never flown a Nieuport
before, have you, eh?" enquired the
Major.

" No, sir, but— "

" Nor you either, C. ?"

"No, sir, still—"

"Then I'll try her myself," said the
Major, regarding the witch-lamb joyous-
eyed.

"But," demurred the Captain, "I was

FLYING MEN 135

rather under the impression you'd never
flown one either."

"I haven't — yet," laughed the Major,
and hasted away for his coat and helmet.

"Can you beat that?" exclaimed the
Lieutenant.

The Captain sighed and went to aid the
Major into his leathern armour. Lightly
and joyously the youthful Major climbed
into the machine and sat awhile to examine
and remark upon its unfamiliar features,
while a sturdy mechanic stood at the pro-
peller ready to start the engine.

"By the way," said he, turning to address
me. :' You're staying to luncheon, of
course ?"

"I'm afraid we can't," answered our In-
telligence Officer.

"Oh, but you must — I've ordered soup !
Right-oh!" he called to his mechanician;
the engine hummed, thundered, and roar-
ing, cast back upon us. a very gale of wind ;
the witch-lamb moved, slid forward over the
grass, and gathering speed, lifted six inches,
a yard, ten yards — and was in flight.

136 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"Can you beat that?" exclaimed the
Captain enthusiastically, "lifted her clean
away !"

"I rather fancy he's about as good as
they're made!" observed the Lieutenant.
Meanwhile, the witch-lamb soared up and
up straight as an arrow; up she climbed,
growing rapidly less until she was a gnat
against a background of fleecy cloud and the
roar of the engine had diminished to a whine ;
up and up until she was a speck — until
the clouds had swallowed her altogether.

"Pity it isn't clear!" said the Captain.
"I rather fancy you'd have seen some real
flying. By the way, they're going to prac-
tise at the targets — might interest you.
Care to see ?"

The targets were about a yard square and,
as I watched, an aeroplane rose, wheeling
high above them. All at once the hum of
the engine was lost in the sharp, fierce
rattle of a machine gun ; and ever as the
biplane banked and wheeled the machine
gun crackled. From every angle and from
every point of the compass these bullets

FLYING MEN 137

were aimed, and examining the targets
afterwards I was amazed to see how many
hits had been registered.

After this they brought me to the work-
shops where many mechanics were busied ;
they showed me, among other grim relics,
C.'s broken machine gun and perforated
cartridge tray. They told me many stories
of daring deeds performed by other members
of the squadron, but when I asked them to
describe their own experiences, I found them
diffident and monosyllabic.

"Hallo!" exclaimed C., as we stepped
out into the air, "here comes the Major.
He's in that cloud — know the sound of his
engine." Sure enough, out from a low-
lying cloud-bank he came, wheeling in short
spirals, plunging earthward.

Down sank the aeroplane, the roaring
engine fell silent, roared again, and she sped
towards us, her wheels within a foot or so
of earth. Finally they touched, the engine
stopped and the witch-lamb pulled up
within a few feet of us. Hereupon the
Major waved a gauntleted hand to us.

138 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

"Must stop to lunch," he cried, "I've
ordered soup, you know."

But this being impossible, we perforce
said good-by to these warm-hearted, simple-
souled fighting men, a truly regrettable
farewell so far as I was concerned. They
escorted us to the car, and there parted
from us with many frank expressions of
regard and stood side by side to watch us
out of sight.

"Yesterday there was much aerial ac-
tivity on our front.

"Depots were successfully bombed and
five enemy machines were forced to descend,
three of them in flames. Four of ours did
not return."

I shall never read these oft recurring
lines in the communiques without thinking
of those three youthful figures, so full of
life and the joy of life, who watched us de-
part that dull and cloudy morning.

Here is just one other story dealing with
three seasoned air-fighters, veterans of many
deadly combats high above the clouds, each
of whom has more than one victory to his

FLYING MEN 139

credit, and whose combined ages total up
to sixty or thereabouts. We will call them
X., Y. and Z. Now X. is an American, Y.
is an Englishman, whose peach-like coun-
tenance yet bears the newly healed scar of a
bullet wound, and Z. is an Afrikander.
Here begins the story :

Upon a certain day of wind, rain and
cloud, news came that the Boches were
massing behind their lines for an attack,
whereupon X., Y. and Z. were ordered to go
up and verify this. Gaily enough they
started despite unfavourable weather con-
ditions. The clouds were low, very low,
but they must fly lower, so, at an altitude
varying from fifteen hundred to a bare
thousand feet, they crossed the German
lines, Y. and Z. flying wing and wing be-
hind X.'s tail. All at once "Archie" spoke,
a whole battery of anti-aircraft guns filled
the air with smoke and whistling bullets —
away went X.'s propeller and his machine
was hurled upside down ; immediately Y.
and Z. rose. By marvellous pilotage X.
managed to right his crippled machine and

140 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

began, of course, to fall ; promptly Y. and
Z. descended. It is, I believe, an unwritten
law in the Air Service never to desert a
comrade until he is seen to be completely
"done for" — hence Y. and Z.'s hawk-
like swoop from the clouds to draw the fire
of the battery from their stricken com-
panion. Down they plunged through the
battery smoke, firing their machine guns
point-blank as they came ; and so, wheeling
in long spirals, their guns crackling vi-
ciously, they mounted again and soared
cloudward together, but, there among the
clouds and in comparative safety, Z. de-
veloped engine trouble. Their ruse had
served, however, and X. had contrived to
bring his shattered biplane to earth safely
behind the British lines. Meanwhile Y.
and Z. continued on toward their objective,
but Z.'s engine trouble becoming chronic,
he fell behind more and more, and finally,
leaving Y. to carry on alone, was forced to
turn back. And now it was that, in the
mists ahead, he beheld another machine
which, coming swiftly down upon him,

FLYING MEN 141

proved to be a German, who, mounting
above him, promptly opened fire. Z.,
struggling with his baulking engine, had his
hands pretty full ; moreover his opponent,
owing to greater speed, could attack him
from precisely what angle he chose. So
they wheeled and flew, Z. endeavouring to
bring his gun to bear, the German keeping
skilfully out of range, now above him, now
below, but ever and always behind. Thus
the Boche flying on Z.'s tail had him at his
mercy; a bullet ripped his sleeve, another
smashed his speedometer, yet another broke
his gauge — slowly and by degrees nearly
all Z.'s gear is either smashed or carried
away by bullets. All this time it is to be
supposed that Z., thus defenceless, is wheel-
ing and turning as well as his crippled con-
dition will allow, endeavouring to get a
shot at his elusive foe ; but (as he told me)
he felt it was his finish, so he determined if
possible to ram his opponent and crash
down with him through the clouds. There-
fore, waiting until the Boche was aiming
at him from directly below, he threw his

142 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

machine into a sudden dive. Thus for one
moment Z. had him in range, for a moment
only, but the range was close and deadly,
and Z. fired off half his tray as he swooped
headlong down upon his astonished foe.
All at once the German waved an arm and
sagged over sideways, his great battle-
plane wavering uncertainly, and, as it be-
gan to fall, Z. avoided the intended collision
by inches. Down went the German ma-
chine, down and down, and, watching, Z,
saw it plunge through the clouds wrapped
in flame.

Then Z. turned and made for home as
fast as his baulking engine would allow.

These are but two stories among dozens
I have heard, yet these, I think, will suffice
to show something of the spirit animating
these young paladins. The Spirit of Youth
is surely a godlike spirit, unconquerable,
care-free, undying. It is a spirit to whom
fear and defeat are things to smile and
wonder at, to whom risks and dangers are
joyous episodes, and Death himself, whose
face their youthful eyes have so often

FLYING MEN 143

looked into, a friend familiar by close ac-
quaintanceship.

Upon a time I mentioned some such
thought to an American aviator, who
nodded youthful head and answered in
this manner :

"The best fellows generally go first, and
such a lot are gone now that there'll be a
whole bunch of them waiting to say 'Hello,
old sport ! ' so — what's it matter, any-
way ?"

XIII

YPRES

MUCH has been written concerning
Ypres, but more, much more, remains to
be written. Some day, in years to come,
when the roar of guns has been long for-
gotten, and Time, that great and benef-
icent consoler, has dried the eyes that are
now wet with the bitter tears of bereave-
ment and comforted the agony of stricken
hearts, at such a time some one will set
down the story of Ypres in imperishable
words ; for round about this ancient town
lie many of the best and bravest of Brit-
ain's heroic army. Thick, thick, they lie
together, Englishman, Scot and Irishman,
Australian, New Zealander, Canadian and
Indian, linked close in the comradeship of
death as they were in life ; but the glory of

144

YPRES 145

their invincible courage, their noble self-
sacrifice and endurance against overwhelm-
ing odds shall never fade. Surely, surely
while English is spoken the story of
"Wipers" will live on for ever and, through
the coming years, will be an inspiration
to those for whom these thousands went,
cheering and undismayed, to meet and
conquer Death.

Ypres, as all the world knows, forms a
sharp salient in the British line, and is,
therefore, open to attack on three sides ;
and on these three sides it has been furiously
attacked over and over again, so very often
that the mere repetition would grow weari-
some. And these attacks were day-long,
week and sometimes month-long battles,
but Britain's army stood firm.

In these bad, dark days, outnumbered
and out-gunned, they never wavered.
Raked by flanking fire they met and
broke the charges of dense-packed foemen
on their front ; rank upon rank and elbow
to elbow the Germans charged, their bayo-
nets a sea of flashing steel, their thunderous

146 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

shouts drowning the roar of guns, and
rank on rank they reeled back from British
steel and swinging rifle-butt, and German
shouts died and were lost in British cheers.
So, day after day, week after week, month
after month they endured still ; swept by
rifle and machine-gun fire, blown up by
mines, buried alive by mortar bombs,
their very trenches smitten flat by high ex-
plosives — yet they endured and held on.
They died all day and every day, but their
places were filled by men just as fiercely
determined. And ever as the countless
German batteries fell silent, their troops
in dense grey waves hurled themselves
upon shattered British trench and dug-
out, and found there wild men in tunics
torn and bloody and mud-bespattered,
who, shouting in fierce joy, leapt to meet
them bayonet to bayonet. With clubbed
rifle and darting steel they fought, these
men of the Empire, heedless of wounds
and death, smiting and cheering, thrusting
and shouting, until those long, close-ranked
columns broke, wavered and melted away.

YPRES 147

Then, panting, they cast themselves back
into wrecked trench and blood-spattered
shell hole while the enemy's guns roared
and thundered anew, and waited patiently
but yearningly for another chance to "really
fight." So they held this deadly salient.

Days came and went, whole regiments
were wiped out, but they held on. The
noble town behind them crumbled into
ruin beneath the shrieking avalanche of
shells, but they held on. German and
British dead lay thick from British para-
pet to Boche wire, and over this awful
litter fresh attacks were launched daily,
but still they held on, and would have
held and will hold, until the crack of doom
if need be — because Britain and the Em-
pire expect it of them.

But to-day the dark and evil time is
passed. To-day for every German shell
that crashes into the salient, four British
shells burst along the enemy's position,
and it was with their thunder in my ears
that I traversed that historic, battle- torn
road which leads into Ypres, that road

148 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

over which so many young and stalwart
feet have tramped that never more may
come marching back. And looking along
this road, lined with scarred and broken
trees, my friend N. took off his hat and I
did the like.

"It's generally pretty lively here," said
our Intelligence Officer, as I leaned for-
ward to pass him the matches. "We're
going to speed up a bit — road's a bit
bumpy, so hold on." Guns were roaring
near and far, and in the air above was the
long, sighing drone of shells as we raced
forward, bumping and swaying over the
uneven surface faster and faster, until,
skidding round a rather awkward corner,
we saw before us a low-lying, jagged out-
line of broken walls, shattered towers and
a tangle of broken roof-beams — all that
remains of the famous old town of Ypres.
And over this devastation shells moaned
distressfully, and all around unseen guns
barked and roared. So, amidst this pan-
demonium our car lurched into shattered
"Wipers", past the dismantled water-tower,

YPRES 149

uprooted from its foundations and leaning
at a more acute angle than will ever the
celebrated tower of Pisa, past ugly heaps
of brick and rubble — the ruins of once
fair buildings, on and on until we pulled
up suddenly before a huge something, shat-
tered and formless, a long facade of broken
arches and columns, great roof gone, mighty
walls splintered, cracked and rent — all
that "Kultur" has left of the ancient and
once beautiful Cloth Hall.

"Roof's gone since I was here last,"
said the Intelligence Officer, "come this
way. You'll see it better from over here."
So we followed him and stood to look upon
the indescribable ruin.

"There are no words to describe — that,"
said N. at last, gloomily.

"No," I answered. "Arras was bad
enough, but this — !"

"Arras?" he repeated. "Arras is only
a ruined town. Ypres is a rubbish dump.
And its Cloth Hall is — a bad dream."
And he turned away. Our Intelligence
Officer led us over mounds of fallen masonry

150 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

and debris of all sorts, and presently halted
us amid a ruin of splintered columns,
groined arch and massive walls, and
pointed to a heap of rubbish he said was
the altar.

"This is the Church St. Jean," he ex-
plained, "begun, I think, in the eleventh
or twelfth century and completed some-
where about 1320 —

"And," said N., "finally finished and
completely done for by 'Kultur' in the
twentieth century, otherwise I guess it
would have lasted until the 22Oth century
— look at the thickness of the walls."
1 "And after all these years of civilisation,"
said I.

"Civilisation," he snorted, turning over
a fragment of exquisitely carved moulding
with the toe of his muddy boot, "civilisa-
tion has done a whole lot, don't forget —
changed the system of plumbing and taught
us how to make high explosives and poison
gas."

Gloomily enough we wandered on to-
gether over rubbish piles and mountains of

YPRES 151

fallen brickwork, through shattered walls,
past unlovely stumps of mason-work that
had been stately tower or belfry once,
beneath splintered arches that led but
from one scene of ruin to another, and
ever our gloom deepened, for it seemed
that Ypres, the old Ypres, with all its
monuments of mediaeval splendour, its
noble traditions of hard-won freedom, its
beauty and glory, was passed away and
gone for ever.

"I don't know how all this affects you,"
said N., his big chin jutted grimly, "but
I hate it worse than a battlefield. Let's
get on over to the Major's office."

We went by silent streets, empty except
for a few soldierly figures in hard-worn
khaki, desolate thoroughfares that led be-
tween piles and huge unsightly mounds of
fallen masonry and shattered brickwork,
fallen beams, broken rafters and twisted
ironwork, across a desolate square shut
in by the ruin of the great Cloth Hall and
other once stately buildings, and so to a
grim, battle-scarred edifice, its roof half

152 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

blown away, its walls cracked and agape
with ugly holes, its doorway reinforced
by many sandbags cunningly disposed,
through which we passed into the dingy
office of the Town Major.

As we stood in that gloomy chamber,
dim-lighted by a solitary oil lamp, floor
and walls shook and quivered to the con-
cussion of a shell — not very near, it is
true, but quite near enough.

The Major was a big man, with a dreamy
eye, a gentle voice and a passion for archae-
ology. In his company I climbed to the
top of a high building, whence he pointed
out, through a convenient shell hole, where
the old walls had stood long ago, where
Vauban's star-shaped bastions were, and the
general conformation of what had been
present-day Ypres ; but I saw only a
dusty chaos of shattered arch and tower
and walls, with huge, unsightly mounds
of rubble and brick — a rubbish dump in
very truth. Therefore I turned to the
quiet-voiced Major and asked him of his
experiences, whereupon he talked to me

YPRES 153

most interestingly and very learnedly of
Roman tile, of mediaeval rubble-work, of
herringbone and Flemish bond. He as-
sured me also that (Deo volente) he pro-
posed to write a monograph on the various
epochs of this wonderful old town's history
as depicted by its various styles of mason-
work and construction.

"I could show you a nearly perfect
aqueduct if you have time," said he.

"I'm afraid we ought to be starting
now," said the Intelligence Officer; "over
eighty miles to do yet, you see, Major."

"Do you have many casualties still?"
I enquired.

"Pretty well," he answered. "The
mediaeval wall was superimposed upon
the Roman, you'll understand."

"And is it," said I as we walked on to-
gether, "is it always as noisy as this?"

"Oh, yes — especially when there's a
'Hate' on."

"Can you sleep ?"

"Oh, yes, one gets used to anything, you
know. Though, strangely enough, I was

154 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

disturbed last night — two of my juniors
had to camp over my head, their quarters
were blown up rather yesterday after-
noon, and believe me, the young beggars
talked and chattered so that I couldn't
get a wink of sleep — had to send and order
them to shut up."

"You seem to have been getting it pretty
hot since I was here last," said the Intel-
ligence Officer, waving a hand round the
crumbling ruin about us.

"Fairly so," nodded the Major.

"One would wonder the enemy wastes
any more shells on Ypres," said I, "there's
nothing left to destroy, is there?"

"Well, there's us, you know!" said the
Major gently, "and then the Boche is
rather a revengeful beggar anyhow — you
see, he wasted quite a number of army corps
trying to take Ypres. And he hasn't
got it yet."

"Nor ever will," said I.

The Major smiled and held out his hand.

"It's a pity you hadn't time to see that
aqueduct," he sighed. "However, I shall

YPRES 155

take some flashlight photos of it — if my
luck holds. Good-by." So saying, he
raised a hand to his weather-beaten trench
cap and strode back into his dim-lit, dingy
office.

The one-time glory of Ypres has vanished
in ruin but thereby she has found a glory
everlasting. For over the wreck of noble
edifice and fallen tower is another glory
that shall never fade but rather grow
with coming years — an imperishable glory.
As pilgrims sought it once to tread its
quaint streets and behold its old-time
beauty, so in days to come other pilgrims
will come with reverent feet and with
eyes that shall see in these shattered ruins
a monument to the deathless valour of
that brave host that met death unflinching
and unafraid for the sake of a great ideal
and the welfare of unborn generations.

And thus in her ruin Ypres has found
the Glory Everlasting.

XIV

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE

THE struggle of Democracy and Reason
against Autocracy and Brute Force, on
land and in the air, upon the sea and
under the sea, is reaching its climax.
With each succeeding month the ignoble
foe has smirched himself with new atrocities
which yet in the end bring their own ter-
rible retribution.

Three of the bloodiest years in the world's
history lie behind us ; but these years of
agony and self-sacrifice, of heroic achieve-
ments, of indomitable purpose and un-
swerving loyalty to an ideal, are surely
three of the most tremendous in the annals
of the British Empire.

I am to tell something of what Britain
has accomplished during these awful three

156

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 157

years, of the mighty changes she has
wrought in this short time, of how, with
her every thought and effort bent in the
one direction, she has armed and equipped
herself and many of her allies ; of the
armies she has raised, the vast sums she
has expended and the munitions and arma-
ments she has amassed.

To this end it is my privilege to lay be-
fore the reader certain facts and figures,
so I propose to set them forth as clearly
and briefly as may be, leaving them to
speak for themselves.

For truly Britain has given and is giving
much — her men and women, her money,
her very self; the soul of Britain and her
Empire is in this conflict, a soul that
grows but the more steadfast and deter-
mined as the struggle waxes more deadly
and grim. Faint hearts and fanatics there
are, of course, who, regardless of the
future, would fain make peace with the foe
unbeaten, a foe lost to all shame and hon-
ourable dealing, but the heart of the Em-
pire beats true to the old war-cry of " Free-

158 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

dom or Death." In proof of which, if
proof be needed, let us to our figures and
facts.

Take first her fighting men : in three
short years her little army has grown until
to-day seven million of her sons are under
arms, and of these (most glorious fact !)
nearly five million were volunteers. Surely
since first this world was cursed by
war, never did such a host march forth
voluntarily to face its blasting horrors.
They are fighting on many battle-fronts,
these citizen-soldiers, in France, Macedonia,
Mesopotamia, Palestine, Western Egypt
and German East Africa, and behind them,
here in the homeland, are the women,
working as their men fight, with a grim and
tireless determination. To-day the land
hums with munition factories and huge
works whose countless wheels whirr day
and night, factories that have sprung up
where the grass grew so lately. The ter-
rible, yet glorious, days of Mons and the
retreat, when her little army, out-gunned
and out-manned, held up the rushing

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 159

might of the German advance so long as
life and ammunition lasted, that black
time is past, for now in France and Flanders
our countless guns crash in ceaseless con-
cert, so that here in England one may hear
their ominous muttering all day long and
through the hush of night ; and hearkening
to that continuous stammering murmur
one thanks God for the women of Britain.

Two years ago, in June, 1915, the Min-
istry of Munitions was formed under Mr.
David Lloyd George ; as to its achievements,
here are figures which shall speak plainer
than any words.

In the time of Mons the army was
equipped and supplied by three Govern-
ment factories and a very few auxiliary
firms ; to-day gigantic national factories,
with miles of railroads to serve them, are
in full swing, beside which, thousands of
private factories are controlled by the
Government. As a result the output of
explosives in March, 1917, was over four
times that of March, 1916, and twenty-eight
times that of March, 1915, and so enor-

i6o GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

mous has been the production of shells
that in the first nine weeks of the summer
offensive of 1917 the stock decreased by
only seven per cent, despite the appalling
quantity used.

The making of machine guns to-day as
compared with 1915 has increased twenty-
fold^ while the supply of small-arm ammuni-
tion has become so abundant that the neces-
sity for importation has ceased altogether.
In one Government factory alone the
making of rifles has increased ten-fold, and
the employees at Woolwich Arsenal have
increased from a little less than eleven
thousand to nearly seventy-four thousand,
of whom twenty-five thousand are women.

Production of steel, before the war, was
roughly seven million tons ; it is now ten
million tons and still increasing, so much
so that it is expected the pre-war output
will be doubled by the end of 1918; while
the cost of steel plates here is now less
than half the cost in the U.S.A. Since
May, 1917, the output of aeroplanes has
been quadrupled and is rapidly increasing;

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 161

an enormous programme of construction
has been laid down and plans drawn up
for its complete realisation.

With this vast increase in the production
of munitions the cost of each article has
been substantially reduced by systematic
examination of actual cost, resulting in a
saving of £43,000,000 over the previous
year's prices.

Figures are a dry subject in themselves,
and yet such figures as these are, I venture
to think, of interest, among other reasons
for the difficulty the human brain has to
appreciate their full meaning. Thus : the
number of articles handled weekly by the
Stores Departments is several hundreds
of thousands above fifty million : or again,
I read that the munition workers them-
selves have contributed £40,187,381 to-
wards various war loans. It is all very
easy to write, but who can form any just
idea of such uncountable numbers ?

And now, writing of the sums of money
Britain has already expended, I for one am
immediately lost, out of my depth and

162 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

plunged ten thousand fathoms deep, for
now I come upon the following :

"The total national expenditure for the
three years to August 4th, 1917, is ap-
proximately £5,150,000,000, of which
£1,250,000,000 is already provided for
by taxation and £1,171,000,000 has been
lent to our colonies and allies, which may
be regarded as an investment." Having
written which I lay down my pen to think,
and, giving it up, hasten to record the next
fact.

"The normal pre-war taxation amounted
to approximately £200,000,000, but for
the current financial year (1917-1918) a
revenue of £638,000,000 has been budg-
eted for, but this is expected to produce
between £650,000,000 and £700,000,000."
Now, remembering that the cost of neces-
saries has risen to an unprecedented extent,
these figures of the extra taxation and the
amounts raised by the various war loans
speak louder and more eloquently than any
words how manfully Britain has shoul-
dered her burden and of her determination

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 163,

to see this great struggle through to the
only possible conclusion — the end, for all
time, of autocratic government.

I have before me so many documents
and so much data bearing on this vast
subject that I might set down very much
more ; I might descant on marvels of en-
terprise and organisation and of almost
insuperable difficulties overcome. But, lest
I weary the reader, and since I would have
these lines read, I will hasten on to the
last of my facts and figures.

As regards ships, Britain has already
placed six hundred vessels at the disposal
of France and four hundred have been lent
to Italy, the combined tonnage of these
thousand ships being estimated at two
million.

Then, despite her drafts to Army and
Navy she has still a million men employed
in her coal mines and is supplying coal to
Italy, France and Russia. Moreover, she is
sending to France one quarter of her total
production of steel, munitions of all kinds
to Russia and guns and gunners to Italy.

164 GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

As for her Navy — the German battle
squadrons lie inactive, while in one single
month the vessels of the British Navy
steamed over one million miles ; German
trading ships have been swept from the
seas and the U-boat menace is but a menace
still. Meantime, British shipyards are busy
night and day; a million tons of craft
for the Navy alone were launched during
the first year of the war, and the programme
of new naval construction for 1917 runs
into hundreds of thousands of tons. In
peace time the building of new merchant
ships was just under 2,000,000 tons yearly,
and despite the shortage of labour and
difficulty of obtaining materials, 1,100,000
tons will be built by the end of 1917, and
4,000,000 tons in 1918.

The British Mercantile Marine (to whom
be all honour !) has transported during the
war, the following : —

13,000,000 men,

25,000,000 tons of war material,
1,000,000 sick and wounded,

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 165

51,000,000 tons of coal and oil fuel,

2,000,000 horses and mules,
100,000,000 hundredweights of wheat,

7,000,000 tons of iron ore,
and, beyond this, has exported goods to
the value of £500,000,000.

Here ends my list of figures and here
this chapter should end also ; but, before
I close, I would give, very briefly and in
plain language, three examples of the
spirit animating this Empire that to-day
is greater and more worthy by reason of
these last three blood-smirched years.

No. I

There came from Australia at his own
expense, one Thomas Harper, an old man
of seventy-four, to help in a British muni-
tion factory. He laboured hard, doing
the work of two men, and more than once
fainted with fatigue, but refused to go
home because he "couldn't rest while he
thought his country needed shells."

No. II

There is a certain small fishing village
whose men were nearly all employed in
fishing for mines. But there dawned a
black day when news came that forty of
their number had perished together and
in the same hour. Now surely one would
think that this little village, plunged in
grief for the loss of its young manhood,
had done its duty to the uttermost for
Britain and their fellows ! But these heroic
fisher-folk thought otherwise, for im-
mediately fifty of the remaining seventy-
five men (all over military age) volunteered
and sailed away to fill the places of their
dead sons and brothers.

No. Ill

Glancing idly through a local magazine
some days since, my eye was arrested by this :

"In proud and loving memory of our
loved and loving son . . . who fell in
France . . . with his only brother, 'On
Higher Service.' There is no death."

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 167

Thus then I conclude my list of facts
and figures, a record of achievement such
as this world has never known before, a
record to be proud of, because it is the
outward and visible sign of a people strong,
virile, abounding in energy, but above all,
a people clean of soul to whom Right and
Justice are worth fighting for, suffering
for, labouring for. It is the sign of a
people which is willing to endure much
for its ideals that the world may be a
better world, wherein those who shall
come hereafter may reap, in peace and
contentment, the harvest this generation
has sowed in sorrow, anguish and great
travail.

THE END

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