THE OLD WAR ZONE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20628, 29 July 1930, Page 6

THE OLD WAR ZONE

FOURTEEN YEAJJS AFTER,

BAILLEUL AND ESTAIRES.

BY J. 0. HOLMES, LATE N.Z.M.O. AND R.B,

DIVISIONAL BATHS AND THEATRE

No. 111. Into Armentieres run roads from Bail, leul and Estaires. They were main lines of communication in 1916-17. Thousands of New Zealanders have marched along both of them, passing supply depots ammunition dumps, horse transport lines motor transport parks, light railway construction camps. Near to Armentieres ' on the Bailleul Road, was a much-shelled old stone bridge spanning the Lys. Pont do Nieppe is now a very new bridge, swung from white stono arches. But close to it there is still standing the shattered shell of what was once a brewery. It 3 vats were the tubs of divisional baths in 1916.. Of all the once extensive outbuild, ings and offices thero is now scarcely any trace. The fabric of the textile factory along the little lane near by, where women and a few men were still working in 1916, has been restored, but in this instance thero is no sign or sound of renewed industry.

The load from l'ont do Nieppe to Nieppe used to be almost an unbroken line of houses. To-day it appears to be much tho same, only the dwellings are cleaner and neater. Then one notices that all these little red brick cottages and larger houses are new. Nieppe is wholly new, a very spruce little township. A new church has risen where the ruins of the old one stood, but ono looks in vain for tho' Salle St. Joseph, where so many soldiers gladly forgot the war for a few hours at the first theatre improvised by the divisional entertainers.

Relic of War as Memorial. Bailleul, in 1916 and 1917, was well hehind the line. An opportunity to visit it promised some degree of peacetime comfort again, a good meal, and possibly a liot bath. Only occasionally bombs from the air would disturb (he peace of Bailleul in those days. Its ordeal by shell fire began soon after Messines. In 191-3 the war at last completely engulfed it. To-day there is scarcely a vestige of the Bailleul New Zealanders knew. A corner fragment of one of the old buildings bears a very beautiful war memorial. A ■winged figure in bronze, symbolising Peace, bears a wreath of laurel for the new town to cherish. A new town hail is being built in grey stone by the Grande Place. It has a plain, sturdy tower like the old one, but is memory playing false •when the whole building seeuis a much reduced copy of the old one ? Bailleul is very quiet this Sunday afternoon in early spring, a sleepy country town once more. Est a ires was another town behind the lines in which many New Zealanders enjoyed short spells of rest and comparative comfort in 1916. The war had come very close to it in 1914. French cavalry had fought an outpost action on its bridge. Iri 1916 few of us thought that Estaires would experience anything more of llio war beyond the continued passage of troops, the distant rumble of guns, and possibly an occasional long range shell. But toward the end of 1917 it, too, was being claimed again for sacrifice, and in 1918 the tide of battle swept over it, leaving only a heap of ruins in which had disappeared, with thousands of homes, a fine old town hall the .Spaniards had built when they ruled in Flanders, and a stately church beside it.

Familiar Shops and Cafes. Estaires lias risen again ■ from that brickfield. The same old road leads over a new bridge from La Gorguo station to the Grande Place. There a new town ball reaft in red brick, a modern travesty of a sixteenth century tower. Behind it a new church, impressive by its size and promising graceful proportions, is still under construction. Old streets are one's guide in this new town, as they are in Armentieres. •• Thev lead as before to Sailly, Lo Doulieu, Laventie, and Merville.. There is an astonishing continuity with the past in the houses, shops, and cafes that again line them, in their appearance and their location. It was in towns such as Estaires and Bailleul that the soldier in 1916 had some brief opportunities of entering the home life of the civilians. By a little seeking, a little monetary persuasion, and some discretion, there were biliets to be had with private families. Returning after 14 years, and after so violent an uprooting of the entire population before the end of the war, there can be little chance of finding again townsfolk one had known as a brief sojourner in khaki. But one passes a shop very much like that in which a room and the comfort of a bed had been found in 1916. It is worth while turning back to inquire who lives there now. A young man is at the door. There is a welcoming smile of recognition on his face. He lias remembered, aud is now remembered. In 1916' he was a lad of 13 or 14 years. Now ho wears a moustache and is eager to introduce a wife and baby son. Madame of old times is also tnere, growing elderly, but still the strong ruler of the entire household. Monsieur quietly plying his old craft, seems not to have changed at all. Fewer Children.

The children of 1916 sjieak the passage of tho years. There was another boy of 15 or 16 years. He is now in Lille, married, too, with a family. He has served his term of military service, like his younger brother. Charles was at Constantinople in 1920. and a large coloured panorama of that city is on a wall of the sitting room. Abel was on the Rhino three or four years ago. A littlo girl, who was six or seven in 1916, is now a m'meselle. Sh? is going nut on some excursion this Saturday afternoon. One slyly asks m'sieu if it is for a rendezvous with some young man of her M'sieu replies seriously that she has no* such thoughts. Thero are many young women of tho new generation like her. There is less marrying, for there are fewer men. At a first communion (he other dav there were not many more than a score of children. In tho years gone by he had seen upwards of a hundred. Madame is thinking of the war years, and is very near to tears. Yet thero is a genuine gladness in the welcome offered to one of tho Zelandais, whose peaked hats wero once so familiar in Estaires, and who, in strange French, told stranger tales of a far-off country around tho tables of Estaires folk. Tho old fare is pressed upon the visitor—wine and beer, coffee and cognac, thick slko.s of bread, and white Flemish butter. Madame tells of what befoll her family in 1918 —the heavy bombardments, the refugo in the cellar, the sudden warning to leave the town, tho flight to Paris, the return in 1919, to find a shattered homo and shop, life for many months in a temporary hut on the Grande Place, then the new home, somewhat smaller than the old one, because the street has been widened.. One recollection leads to another, lho memory becomes crowded with the doing of a few weeks 14 years ago. , J 1 " panions are recalled. There is much jest about, for those were days ot res aud relaxation from the line. !i S ' however, at times aro very near to tli surface of our laughter. Fourteen veai have passed, and one thinks ot those v 1 have not grown old with us, whom ag cannot weary nor the years condemnIn an old French billet, 14 years 3". the peace of to-day appears as sonietnin» more precious, something to be more ear • fully guarded; yet one realisej that war, though pitiful and terrible, was n all horror and beastliness. 1 here is m the memory can gladly cherish, an , New Zealander finds in Estaires, as eis where in tho old war zone, l-hat Ms comrades aro well and very kindly