exactly he did not knowâsomething to do with stomach and cloth. Did they too wear belly-bands, or cholera belts? No wonder everyone in the billet was lousy.
âAu revoir,â he said aloud; but under his breath he gave them the soldierâs farewell.
Chapter 4
A BICYCLE RIDE
I N the estaminet he warmed and greased his boots by the stove, put them on again, with cleaned puttees, and sat down to an omelette, with white wine, having remembered that Lance-corporal Mortimore of Bleak Hill days had said this was the right drink. After café and cognac, it was time to think of getting back, before he was missed.
Arriving at the root-clamp, he decided not to put on the bowler hat; he was worrying a little lest his absence had been noticed. However, anyone could ride a bike.
He was thinking of hiding it somewhere in the grounds of the Red Château, for possible use another time, when a passing soldier told him that everyone was out in No Man’s Land, talking to the Alleymans.
“There’s bloody hundreds on’m, Jock!”
This extraordinary news sent Phillip off at once; and cycling on past the Château, he saw what at first sight looked like a crowd on a football field during the interval of a match. With mixed feelings of trepidation, eagerness, apprehension and bewilderment, he pedalled on past the trees and arrived, with the most extraordinary feeling of loneliness and self-exposure, at the front line trench, at the sandbag barricade across the road.It was like seeing it all in a dream, to be standing up in that strange daylit place. How small the barricade looked, how thin and puny, seen from beside it; how narrow the road, and how clean-looking, unused, with the grass growing on it. He saw too, almost with a start, the large brick building of the Hôspice, where the German machine-guns fired from, a couple of hundred yards on the right of the road in front. How large it looked now, though the bottom part of it was still hidden by the rise in the ground. This side of it another barricade stood across the road—the German front line.
All this Phillip perceived in a dream-like glance as, leaning the bicycle against the British barricade, he walked into No Man’s Land and found himself face to face with living Germans, men in grey uniforms and leather knee-boots—a fact which was as yet almost unbelievable. Moreover, the Germans were actually, some of them, smiling as they talked in English. He hurried to be among them, and saw one writing his name and home address, to exchange it with an English name and address. They had agreed to write to one another after the war.
Most of the Germans were small men, rather pale of face. Many wore spectacles, and had thin little goatee beards. He did not see a pickelhaube. They were either bare-headed, or had on small grey porkpie hats, with red bands, each with two metal buttons, ringed with white, black, and red, rather like tiny archery targets.
“They are Saxons,” a bearded soldier told him. “They watched some of the London ’Ighlanders—your lot, mate—putting up a fence last night, but they wouldn’t fire, he told me, even if they was ordered to. Or if they was forced to, like, they said they’d fire ’igh.”
“I saw the Christmas tree they put up, after singing carols.”
“Not a bad lot o’ bleeders, if you arst me, mate.”
Among the smaller Saxons were tall, sturdy men, taking no part in the talking, but moving about singly, regarding the general scene with detachment. They were red-faced men, and Phillip noticed that their tunics and trousers above the leather knee-boots showed dried mud-marks.
Looking in the direction of the mass of Germans, Phillip could see, judging by the rows of figures standing there, at least three positions or trench-lines behind their front line, at intervals of about two hundred yards.
“It only shows,” he said to Glass, one of his friends of the new draft, “what a lot of men they have, compared to ourselves.
âAu revoir,â he said aloud; but under his breath he gave them the soldierâs farewell.
Chapter 4
A BICYCLE RIDE
I N the estaminet he warmed and greased his boots by the stove, put them on again, with cleaned puttees, and sat down to an omelette, with white wine, having remembered that Lance-corporal Mortimore of Bleak Hill days had said this was the right drink. After café and cognac, it was time to think of getting back, before he was missed.
Arriving at the root-clamp, he decided not to put on the bowler hat; he was worrying a little lest his absence had been noticed. However, anyone could ride a bike.
He was thinking of hiding it somewhere in the grounds of the Red Château, for possible use another time, when a passing soldier told him that everyone was out in No Man’s Land, talking to the Alleymans.
“There’s bloody hundreds on’m, Jock!”
This extraordinary news sent Phillip off at once; and cycling on past the Château, he saw what at first sight looked like a crowd on a football field during the interval of a match. With mixed feelings of trepidation, eagerness, apprehension and bewilderment, he pedalled on past the trees and arrived, with the most extraordinary feeling of loneliness and self-exposure, at the front line trench, at the sandbag barricade across the road.It was like seeing it all in a dream, to be standing up in that strange daylit place. How small the barricade looked, how thin and puny, seen from beside it; how narrow the road, and how clean-looking, unused, with the grass growing on it. He saw too, almost with a start, the large brick building of the Hôspice, where the German machine-guns fired from, a couple of hundred yards on the right of the road in front. How large it looked now, though the bottom part of it was still hidden by the rise in the ground. This side of it another barricade stood across the road—the German front line.
All this Phillip perceived in a dream-like glance as, leaning the bicycle against the British barricade, he walked into No Man’s Land and found himself face to face with living Germans, men in grey uniforms and leather knee-boots—a fact which was as yet almost unbelievable. Moreover, the Germans were actually, some of them, smiling as they talked in English. He hurried to be among them, and saw one writing his name and home address, to exchange it with an English name and address. They had agreed to write to one another after the war.
Most of the Germans were small men, rather pale of face. Many wore spectacles, and had thin little goatee beards. He did not see a pickelhaube. They were either bare-headed, or had on small grey porkpie hats, with red bands, each with two metal buttons, ringed with white, black, and red, rather like tiny archery targets.
“They are Saxons,” a bearded soldier told him. “They watched some of the London ’Ighlanders—your lot, mate—putting up a fence last night, but they wouldn’t fire, he told me, even if they was ordered to. Or if they was forced to, like, they said they’d fire ’igh.”
“I saw the Christmas tree they put up, after singing carols.”
“Not a bad lot o’ bleeders, if you arst me, mate.”
Among the smaller Saxons were tall, sturdy men, taking no part in the talking, but moving about singly, regarding the general scene with detachment. They were red-faced men, and Phillip noticed that their tunics and trousers above the leather knee-boots showed dried mud-marks.
Looking in the direction of the mass of Germans, Phillip could see, judging by the rows of figures standing there, at least three positions or trench-lines behind their front line, at intervals of about two hundred yards.
“It only shows,” he said to Glass, one of his friends of the new draft, “what a lot of men they have, compared to ourselves.
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