CROWDED YEARS

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 65, 19 March 1919, Page 8

CROWDED YEARS

WANDERINGS IN FRANCE MOTOR AND RED CROSS WORK

(By F. W. Haybittle.)

Home again, after nearly five crowded years, years in which history has been made, Empires and dynasties have fallen, and the whole world breathless and exhausted after the greatest devastation, the fiercest ordeal by war, in the history of man.

Little did I think in early 1914, when journeying to the Old Country on a tour of a few months' pleasure, that I was to be caught in the great cataclysm and carried almost to the rim of the vortex. I will not, in these fragmentary sentences, attempt any description of the war itself ; the details are so fresh in the memory of all and have been so ably portrayed by such masters of the craft as Philip G-ibbs, Percival Phillips, Beach Thomas, Malcolm Ross, and others, who saw events as they happened, and took their lives in both hands to vividly tell the story.

It is my intention to give just a short account; more of a personal character, of what I can remember of a sojourn of nearly four years on the Flanders and Picardy battle area. August, 1914, found me at Cheltenham, at which pretty city I had touched on a motor tour through Somerset, Gloucester, and Oxfordshire. There I saw the departure of the Gloucester regiments which formed part oi French's little army, destined five weeks later to fight those glorious rearguard actions from ever-remembered Mons, Soissons, Le Cateau, and Landrecies to Tpres, Armentieres, La Bassee, Plaegsteert, and Bethune, a line which held, through all the stress and overwhelming odds of 1914 to 1917. After several months spent principally in London, I felt the call to do what I could to help in some small way, and early 191b found me in Boulogne with my motor-car, under the banner of the British Red Cross Society -as a voluntary driver. From this base I drifted here and there, sometimes as an ambulance driver, at other times utilising my own car. My area extended from St. Omer, Boulogne, Et&ples, Montreuil (General Headquarters), St. Pol, to Abbeville attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps, with my base at Etaples.

This place had been converted from a rather uncleanly little fishing village oti the banks of the. River C-anche into a great British military and hospital base, about thirty miles as the crow flies from the1 frontal lines. Here were established British, American, Canadian, and Aus traliau hospitals, with a total cot capacity of over 27,000 (the greatest in France), together with a reinforcement and instruction camp to accommodate 80,000 fighting men. RED CROSS WORK. The Red Cross work at the base was very onerous, and our convoy, to feed tlie hospitals consisted of over 160 ambulances. Much useful work was done by the honorary drivers and chauffeurs, who met the hospital trains day and night in the heat of summer and depth of winter, and we were indeed a happy band, collected from all parts of the earth; there I met drivers from Great Britain, Canada, from far-away Kimberley, Rhodesia, the Argentine, Australia, and New Zealand, the latter including such well-known names as Kebbell, of Wellington, Strung, of Palmerston North, Rutherford, of .'Amuri, and Turnbull, of Timaru. ; All I are now scattered far and wide, but the memory of those two years' hard work and camaraderie will ever linger. One interesting member of our convoy was Rennerley Rumford, husband of Clara Butt, the soul of our entertainment committee, and a real good pal. Often 1 would be deputed to run up the line in my little Vinot car with medical officers en route to a casualty clearing station or advanced dressing post, and in this way was privileged to wander into towns and villages before their destruction. Thus I (saw Armentieres, Arras, Bethune, Bailicul, Merville, La Bassee, Estaires, and other places, and was enabled to compare them with what I witnessed in 1918, when each and all, if not a mass of rubble and ruin, were so destroyed as to be utterly valueless for rebuilding from the eld material. Ypres was practically smashed up bofore I was able to contemplate the ruins of the famous Cloth Hall and , adjacent Cathedral. ' Early 1918 found me doing special motor work amongst the Red Cross convoys and stores "planted" all along the British front from Dunkirk on the sea coast to abreast of Amiens, an irregular line of close upon 100 miles. At intervals of 15 or 20 kilometres, stores containing from £3000 to £5000 value of medical comforts were erected, and each served by IS or 20 ambulances would deliver to casualty clearing stations and advanced dressing posts within the prescribed area such requisites as medical stoTes, books, gramophones, clothing, and boots. Very often many a colonel or major of a fighting force stationed near by would "blow in" and appeal to the Red Cross O.C. for "gifts," and seldom, would they depart empty handed, consequently, members of the B.R.C.S. were always welcome and popular visitors at any of the combatant messes at any part of the line. At the great retreat of March, 1918, the Red Cross units, in common with others, did a rapid rear movement, the Royal Engineers setting firo to thousands and thousands of pounds' worth of stores aud petrol which were-abandoned. At this time I was connected with a convoy in the Albert-Somme-Ba.paume area, which I did not revisit until Marshal Foch's turning movement of September again gave us this much disputed ground. A relief from duty afforded me the the opportunity in October of following up [ the advance whicli effected the evacuation of Lille, Douai, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Roubaix, and culminated in the glorious entry of the Canadians into Mons. on the day of the armistice, 11th November. WHERE WORDS FAIL. And what of those .line towns, pretty villages, and hamlets which met the full fury of Hun fn'ghtfulness ? One can hardly speak or write of them without emotion.

_ From Ypres at the north end of the lina we are confronted with desolation complete, and names made glorious for generations rise in the memory; who will ever forget the associations surrounding ruined Ghcluvolt, Givenchy, Cuinchy, Menin, Bailleul, Armantieres, Lens, Loos, Beth'uiie, La Bassee, Souches, Vimy, Arras, Bapaume, Albert, Veronne, Cambrai,. the villages of the Somme battlefield, and the tragic memories surrounding them 1 I traversed the celebrated Drocmirt Queant switch line {the I area dividing Arras and Douai), and amid the welter of barbed wire, trenches, and concrete reodubts marvelled that the Canadians from Vimy broke through.' Throughout the Western front the roads are invariably "pave," now broken and smashed into holes by exploding shells, making locomotion a matter of great difficulty, with danger to motor springs and chassis. To macadamise a rond in this area is difficult enough, but when millions of stones have to be taken up and replaced by hand, an idea of the onormity iind. extent, of the work of repair can be realised, and therefore it is somewhat premature for the organisation battlefield tourist parties. Apart from transport difficulty (the battle urea cannot adequately oes entered for by railway), there is not an kjQ&cl *3

within 40 or 50 miles of any part that would accommodate more than a dozen guests. I feel confident that a long period must elapse ere the battlefields are available for ordinary tourist traffic, and by that time tjie present ■ grimness will be obliterated by the kindly hand of time; however, the ruined cities will always remain intense monuments of interest, especially if the French Government decide (as I understand they intend), to allow them to remain in their present broken condition. THE FALLEN AND BBAVE. And what of these brave men, who brought the Empire to final. victory, and now lie quietly on the Western front; their reward, a little wooden cross, but their names enshrined in the heart of the | nation. Irresistibly we find ourselves recalling the beautiful "Commemoration" I beginning : "Let us now praise famous | men," and dying away in the solemnly pathetic conclusion "And some tbere be who have perished as though they had never been." . . . "Their seed shall remain for. ever, and their glory shall not be blotted out." "Their bodies are buried in peace, but their name liveth for evermore."

These mortals in dying put on immortality; being silent they speak; and leaving behind them an imperishable memory, theyuaeed no memorial.