AT THE FRONT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 293, 9 December 1914, Page 7

AT THE FRONT.

THE LONDON BUS DRIVER.

A NEW TYPE OF HERO.

When you have read this, go out in the streets and take off your hat to tire first motor-’lnis driver you meet (writes the Daily Mail’s Paris correspondent). You may have often abused him for the cheery nonchalance with which ho splashes you on a muddy day. You may often have mentally resolved to “write to the company” when he airily ignores your frantic signals to stop. But write that all off and doff your hat when he passes. He is a hero. Just as he is a new type* in the London streets, so has his classcreated a new type of hero in war. The man of the moment at the front is the London ’bus-driver. At home he may be just a driver with a police badge and a reckless way with the brakes. At the front he is a private in the Array Service Corps, driver ol one of the splendid fleet of motor-lor-ries which has made the British Army transport the envy of the Continent, serving in a corps whose services are one of the noblest features of the British. Army’s splendid record in the present war.

As a class he cannot shoot. He probably does not know the first elements of drill. But he can drive an omnibus. Whether he has to drive it down the Strand on a wet night “with the theatres coming out” or along a shell-swept road ip France is all alike to him. He is quite content to leave strategy to Sir John French and the care of the immediate future to. his officer. “Go ahead!” are the only orders he wants to hear. Such intervening circumstances as shells or parties of Germans wishing for nothing better than to kill him and seize his lorry are of little consequence to him as long as the engine runs nicely. When it stops, according to his rough-and-ready philosophy, it will bo quite time enough to turn to the unfamiliar weapon by his side. He does not bother his head much about gallantry, so he is often a hero unawares.

JUBILANT GERMAN OFFICER. This happened on the retreat from Mens. A lieutenant of the Army Motor Transport found himself with a group of twenty motor-lorries confronted by a large party of Germans. At the wheel of every single one of those motor-vans sat a London ’busdriver, stolidly awaiting events. Along the straight white road, flanked with its tall poplars, the German officer advanced jubilantly to receive the submission of the Englishmen. He triumphantly stepped up to the first of the long string of lorries bearing the names of firms all over the United Kingdom, from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End. The British lieutenant sitting beside the ’bus-man on tin driving seat silently awaited the German.

‘•‘Of course, you will surrender,” said the German officer. “Surrender!” was the Englishman’? reply. “Certainly not!” And a rip pie of laughter ran along the line c motor-lorries, for your London ’bus driver has a delicate sense of humor. The German officer looked first per plexed, then worried. He turned round nervously ami noticed that h was quite alone and some way from hi own men.

“At least you will grant me th courtesy of fifty paces!” he said, how ing. to the Englishman. “Certainly, sir,” replied the English lieutenant with a salute. The German saluted in his turn am’ walked hack to his men straggling right across the road. Then the British officer stood up in his seat. He turned round so that he faced the long line of vans and shouted: “Now, then, hoys, let’s make r dash for it!” MOTOR LORRY CHARGE. Not a man flinched. There was nc hesitation. Every lorry moved for ward behind the first, and the whole line dashed straight on and througl the Germans, who, taken completely by surprise, scattered on all sides. There were a few minutes of wild shooting, but the Britishers all gol through in safety with the exception. I believe, of one lorry, which fell into German hands. The British officer confessed afterwards that ho had hat a momentary qualm as to whether hi ’busmen would respond to his call But the ’busmen were all right. Nov he swears hy them.

The Army Motor Transport Service is the joy of the high road in France The monotony of the endless, straight routes nationales is delightfully broken hy an encounter with one of these trains of motor-lorries, the merits of somebody’s pickles, somebody elsc’s steam laundry, and somebody else’?soiip flaunting from their dust-staine* sides. “Oh! the hitter irony of life!” a weary interpreter said to me the other day, “to meet on a hot and dusty march a motor-van advertising someone’s delicious rustic ales!” What a merry lot of fellows are with these motor transport trains! Here is a covered van hearing the inscription, “Harry Tate’s Knoek-ahout Troupe,” with a bevy of grinning faces i under the cover. On one lorry I fell in with both the driver at the hack—a kind of military van-hoy—were wear. ; ing German helmets, front to hack, and shouting “Pardon! Pardon!” (a familiar German cry during the Germans’ recent successful backward ad- 1 vance from the Marne) to everybody they met. • . | LOVED BY THE PEASANTS. j The French peasants love the Army Motor Transports. They have fairly taken them to their hearts. "When the army motor-lorries are on the move the villager? wait all day long in front of

their houses with baskets oi' apples and pears and loaves of bread and bottles of wine and cigarettes. The children dance round the vans as they rumble through the winding village street, and the driver mostly slows down so as to allow himself and his pals to give a hand to the youngsters —“makes one feel a bit homelike,” he would probably say.

Xot all the drivers are ’bus-men, of course. Many are the original drivers of these private commercial vans. On the outbreak of war they drove the vans to army headquarters for requisitioning and enlisted themselves, something like the Arab and his steed offering themselves for service. Rain or shine, they are all indomitably cheerful, with flowers in their caps and snatches of French on their lips. 1 heard of a large detachment of the Army Motor Transport which arrived at 1U o’clock the other night at a vilage and found they had to camp in the open, their muddleheaded officer bavin gomitted to send on in advance to secure billets in the houses winch, with an hour’s notice, the villagers would have been delighted to have placed at the free disposal of the. men. With very little grainbing they cooked their bits of meat and boiled their tea in petrol cans, then Jijy down composedly to pass the night in the open. A frosty dawn found them cheery and joking as usual, just as if they were starting out from the London busyards after a good night’s rest. The frost was on their tunics and their eyes were red and weary, but they never lost heart.