We were all heartily pleased when we heard that we were at last to be taken out; and we celebrated our departure from Orainville by a tremendous beer-drinking in the huge barn. On the 4th February ’15 we were relieved by a Saxon regiment and marched to Bazancourt.
That month, the hardest of the whole war for me, was a good schooling all the same. It made me thoroughly familiar with the whole round of trench duties and fatigues in their severest form. This experience stood me in good stead later, when without it I might as an officer have demanded the impossible of my men.
From Bazancourt to Hattonchâtel
At Bazancourt, a dreary little town in Champagne, the company was quartered in the school, which, owing to the really surprising feeling for order shown by the regiment, very soon had the appearance of a peacetime barracks. There was an orderly sergeant to turn us out in the morning, hut fatigue and roll-call by sections at night. Every morning we marched out for a few hours’ drill on the waste and untilled fields round about. After a few days I left this busy scene of military duties and exercises. I was detailed to attend an O.T.C. course at Recouvrence.
Recouvrence was a remote little village hidden among delightful chalk hills. A certain number of the more youthful of us were sent there from the division to receive a thorough military training from a staff of officers and N.C.O.s detailed by each regiment. Those of us who came from the 73rd had good reason, in connection with this course, to be grateful to Lieutenant Hoppe, an extremely capable officer, who, unfortunately, was killed soon after.
Life in this secluded spot was a strange mixture of the rigours of military training and the freedom of a university. During the day we were licked into military shape in accordance with all the rules of the art of war. At night we gathered together with our instructors, and in quite as radical a manner emptied enormous barrels of beer furnished by the canteen at Montcornet. When in the early morning hours we streamed out from our various messes, the village street had the unusual appearance of a students’ Walpurgis night. Our C.O., a captain, had, however, the very educational habit of taking in hand the duties of the day following with redoubled energy.
Once we were actually kept at it for forty-eight hours at a stretch. The reason was this: It was our respectful custom to offer the captain a safe-conduct to his billet at the close of a carousal. One evening a godlessly tipsy fellow, a true Simplicius Academicus, who always reminded me of Magister Lankard, was entrusted with this important duty. He was soon back to announce with beams of joy that instead of taking the “old ’un” to bed he had accommodated him with a stall in a byre.
Punishment was not long delayed. We had scarcely reached our quarters in hopes of a brief repose when the alarm sounded. With curses we strapped on our equipment and ran to the place appointed. There stood the old ’un waiting for us in as evil a temper as can be imagined and displaying an unusual energy.
He greeted us with the shout, “Fire alarm! The guardroom’s on fire!”
Before the eyes of the astonished inhabitants the fire-engine was trundled out of its shed and the hose screwed on, and the guardroom was then deluged with a magnificent stream of water. The old ’un stood on some stone steps like a grim Jupiter Pluvius and took charge of the proceedings, urging us on from above to unstinted exertions. Sometimes his thunder broke over the head of some soldier or civilian who peculiarly aroused his anger and he gave the order for him to be instantly removed. The unfortunate was hurried with all speed behind the nearest house and so removed from his sight. When morning dawned we still stood with sinking knees at the pump. At last we were dismissed to get ready to go on parade.
When we got to the parade-ground the old ’un was there before us, brisk and spruce, and ready to devote himself with peculiar ardour to our instruction.
We treated the little episode for what it was—a cheerful interlude between two acts of war.
Our intercourse with each other was very free and easy, for we all came from the same social class. Three or four of us used to live and mess together. I still have a grateful memory of the scrambled eggs and fried potatoes for supper. On Sundays we had a rabbit or a fowl. As I was mess secretary, our landlady laid before me a number of chits she had had from requisitioning soldiers. The substance of most of them was that Fusilier So-and-So had kissed the daughter of the house and in return requisitioned twelve eggs. Unfortunately this amusing bouquet, culled from the fields of folk-humour, is too obscene to quote from.
The inhabitants were surprised that common soldiers like us all spoke French more or less fluently. Sometimes a comic situation arose from it. I was sitting one morning in the village barber’s, with a friend called Clement. There were several villagers waiting, and one of them said to the barber, who was just setting to work on Clement with his razor: “Eh, coupez la gorge avec!” at the same time drawing his hand across his throat. To his consternation Clement replied quietly: “Quant à moi, j’aimerais
