76
The Ypres Times.
what was, for an army, a terrific pace, (c) We could not follow them. As they retreated
they made it impossible every railroad was torn up every canal lock was smashed,
and the water was beginning to pour all over the country every railway bridge was lying
in chaos on the road below itevery river-bridge was in fragments at the bottom of the
stream, which it blocked every building utilisable as quarters was razed every food
or munition store was blazing and every main road was mined.
Nothing impressed me more as I followed the trail of the Boche iij a G.H.Q. car than
the recurrent imperturbable Tommies who would stop us with the phlegmatic statement
Road mined, sirhave to go round by the fieldsexpecting it to go up every minute
and it did! It was an exhilarating ride.
How could an army follow them Our Engineers did marvelsI heard, but have
forgotten, how many miles of light railways the}' laid down in a day, but it could not have
been half as many as those of the German retreat the day before. How could we follow
The Boche had his munitions with him, or picked them up as he went from carefully
prepared magazines—we had not only to take them with us from the base, but to build
the railways along which to carry them, and re-make the roads themselves for the troops,
the guns, the ammunition, the hospital outfits, the food. It could not be done. How
often one arrived at nightfall in a Mess of cheery and hospitable fellows to be greeted with
the remark Got any food with you We've only got a few tinned thingsjust heard
that our munition train has been blown out, on the other side of Somethingcourt." I
retain a warm feeling of love for an Army Service Corps detachment when I rolled up at
Menin, late in the night of the day the Boche had leftone would have thought they had
been there for weeks mopping up." Their red-hot stove was a joy to two poor wretches
without a dry rag on them, and things were enlivened by a huge ammunition dump blazing
and bursting about two hundred yards away. The Tommies warmed their rations in
tins thrust into the ashes on the outskirts of the dumps, and the process was like a night
mare game of snap-dragon. The other poor wretch was an American journalist with
a tendency to panic. I tried to persuade him that the stories of danger" were a
canard such as Bompard served out to the immortal Tartarin in the Alpsbut
a cheery one-pipper having told him that the farmhouse (what there was of it) was
mined, his bowels were turned to water as the Persians say. When my companion
went out to see that our car was not in the moonlight, and so a potential target for bombs,
our friend said to me It's all right I thinkwe found the fuse outside and disconnected
itbut I fancy our stove may try it a bit high!
How could we follow them aThe country would not have stood it. By that time
women had arrived at having a voice in matters, and they had had enough
of sending their husbands and sons, and brothers out to be killed. It was
bad enough when they were wanted to keep the Boche at bay, but when he held up
his hands and said Kamerad! it was too much-to expect of them, especially as (h) we
had not got the right men any more. The one object of the men in training in the last
months of the War was not to go out and fight, and they cordially supported the public
opinion which said Why should we go on sacrificing our men to punish an enemy
which has given in and will give us any terms we like to dictate
In a wordd' We were sick of it," as Marshal Marmont says to L'Aiglon in
Rostand's play, a speech which elicited the splendid outburst of the Sergeant who sets-
forth the soldier's view of the matter.
It is time that these things were brought home to, and rubbed into, the Colonel
(H.D., O.B.E., etc.) who spoke to his reluctant audience
The War Office was fooled. Sir! We ought to have gone on and smashed them
We ought to have made a job of itWe ought to have marched to Berlin—and sacked it.'"
Oh there are pregnant monosyllables, adapted to the argument.
M.i.7b.
