Chapter XXXVII
HELD FOR ORDERS
I remained a week with the Seventy-fifth before any further orders came. The battalion was resting after the terrible fighting at Paschendale. After dinner in the evenings we would gather before the little open coal fire in our mess: the second in command, who was a lieutenant-colonel, the doctor, the quartermaster, transport officer, and chat pleasantly. They were very friendly, though at times experiences were related; I think, for no other end than—in the language of the army—to put my “wind up.” I tried not to let them see how well they were succeeding. I found the medical officer, Dr. Hutchinson, to be the friendliest of the officers. He was an American, a young man with grey hair, whose home town was not very far from that of Irvin Cobb. The way he came to talk of Cobb was on account of one of his stories that he happened to be reading. I learned through the papers later on, that Dr. Hutchinson had won the Victoria Cross.
There was another officer in the mess with which I was quartered, who kept us all in a continual state of anxiety. He was a light-hearted, merry, boyish fellow and just a wee bit reckless. It was on account of the cane he carried. Of course, all commissioned officers in the British army are supposed to carry a cane or a hunting crop, but not the kind of cane the young officer in question carried. The cane was in reality a miniature breech-loading shot-gun which took a very small cartridge of very small shot. He had already wounded one man slightly.
One day while taking a walk out through the country from Calonne-Ricouart I saw for the first time the transport section of a battalion of the French army. It was drawn up on the roadside, all the wagons, limbers, etc., were painted a grayish-blue color. The horses were busy with their nose-bags, and the soldiers, in blue uniform, were standing in little groups about limbers taking their dinner, which consisted of cold beef, white bread and red wine. They were all small men, most of them with long black, silky beards. They chatted among themselves, and all along the village street French women and children looked out from windows; I noticed tears in the eyes of some of the women.
It was a scene that had been enacted many times in the history of France. It was very interesting to watch those blue-clad soldiers of the Old World standing in small groups in the little lane. Perhaps, I thought, in the many wars of France there have been many such halts in this tiny village.
I was walking along musing so, when for one reason or another I turned my eyes from the transport column and looked down the road. Coming towards me on horse-back was a trooper of the Canadian Light Horse. He was a large, clean-shaven man under his wide-brimmed hat. He sat with perfect ease in the saddle, and looked quietly over the French transport section as he went. There seemed to be some indefinable atmosphere about the man that made one think of great, illimitable spaces, of unrestricted freedom of movement. A few seconds previous I had been thinking of the romance of old France, but I had not been prepared for this inset. A breath, strong and clear, of my homeland came to me, and I felt proud of my countryman.
I used to say Mass every morning in the little church of the village, the pastor of which was a very delicate looking young French curé. Two black-bearded French soldier-priests said Mass before me. Then at 7:30, when the Masses were finished, the parish priest taught catechism to the children of his parish. Later, in many places where we came to rest, I saw early in the morning little children assembled in their parish churches for catechism.