ON THE SOMME

Taranaki Daily News, 1 September 1933, Page 11

ON THE SOMME

battlefields to-day A SOLDIER’S PILGRIMAGE RELICS OF THE WAR. Seventeen years ago, and I was seventeen at the time, a fledgling soldier upon the Somme, a single unit among a million others. Now I find myself back there again as a post-war tourist. But my visit is no tour; “pilgrimage” is a better word, writes Derek McCullouch in the London Daily Telegraph. I had always determined to return to the battle area.. I wanted to satisfy myself that what I had been told was true—that the scars were nearly all healed. There is a saying that history repeats itself—it does, up to a point—and here am I, journeying along one of the interminable French roads that lead from Arras to Beaumont Hamel. The blazing sun is here, the blue sky and the dusty white road, and the larks flutter- and twitter about their heavenly. comings and goings. Just such a July day as a certain grim one of seventeen years ago. But now there is no acrid smell of exploded shells upon the air, no uneven tread of tired, plodding, footsore infantry, moving up to the communication trenches to be held in readiness, as yet another sop to the monstrous appetite of the Giant War.

As we drive along I hold a war map in my lap and search in vain for the old familiar landmarks. We are as yet too far from the old lines. An approaching car’s cloud of dust once might have been an overladen ambulance lurching its cruel way to Doullens Clearing Station. We slacken to glance at a signpost, and something seems to jerk to life inside me—“Mailly-Maillet 9 Kms.” STILL CHEATED. Then it is not a dream after all. That is no imaginary name. I am on my way back again. Hereabouts I should be able to recognise a landmark, but there is none. We slacken speed again, and I become conscious of a lovely green grass verge. The French countryside looks almost drab by comparison. Beyond a low stone wall a stooping figure tends flowering plants, but it straightens upon hearing our brakes, and a man comes towards us, smiling and lifting his sun hat—an English gardener, the guardian of this ground. This, then, is one of the many hundreds of cemeteries that are the result of the magnificent efforts of the Imperial War Graves Commission. I enter , and stand spellbound. Just beyond the gateway, and in full view of the road, there stands a stone cross, and embedded in it the Sword of Victory. At. its foot upon a plain slab there is inscribed: “Their Name Liveth for Evermore.” Like smooth green velvet are the grass paths and walks, while here sloping gradually upwards into the near distance, lie row upon row of simple graves. Simple indeed, yet very beautiful, for each litle plot of ground is fragrant with its roses in full bloom, Standing there in the bright sunlight, while the white butterflies gently move from flower to flower, I become conscious of a feling of infinite peace. WAR-TIME BILLET. We enter a village, and in a flash I realise that I am now upon familiar ground. The shape is the same, though many of the houses and buildings are new and glaringly red. Here and there remains an old farmstead or outhouse, and I experienced a curiously joyful sensation as we pull up before the door of my one-time billet. It is just the same save for the stalwart young peasant lounging in the doorway, and I have to make a halting explanation before he condescends to call out to the old man, who emerges from the dim interior. We clasp hands, and a smile of recognition lights up his bearded face as I impress upon him an almost forgotten incident that brings back to him recollections. We go inside, and together explore the walls for the same old shell gapes and gashes that have been but roughly patched. I ask for news of the old dame, and though he turns quickly away I could swear, that there are tears in his eyes. We look at the family album together—and that is, indeed, a great honour—and on parting he presses upon me a postcard that leaves a pathetic gap in a well-thumbed page. Now I am living again those July days of 1916. Two more kilometres and we must park the car, for roads will not be of much help in finding old bearings and landmarks. I am very eager, and roughly plot a point on a triangle— Auchonvillers, Mailly-Maillet, Beaumont Hamel. From a mound I survey the countryside. Ripening corn hides most of the lines of the old trenches; the cornflowers remind me of the blue of the poilu, and there are the scarlet poppies. Something strikes me as being very odd about this perspective. Of course! I am, for the first time, seeing the battlefield from a proper angle, and not from a furtive, chin-high glimpse. THE ONE PLACE. I stumble over furrowed ground that is treacherous to the feet—it was far more treacherous seventeen years ago. I look at my watch. It is exactly twelve noon. At this very hour I was lying badly wounded within twenty yards of the Boche front line. The sky is blue, and the sun is blazing down just as it did seventeen years ago. Next I am talking to a farmer. He, too, fought and fell wounded near this spot. He is interested, and so friendly. He understands why I have come back. Now for the test. Can I find the place? I ask, “Are there two big holes hereabouts?” Pause. Yes, there are. He points the direction. They are full of slime and water. Good! I am on the track of the two craters. But wait, ■ These ma." be any two big holes. ; “Is there a belt of chalk just near ' the craters?” (I guess that the chalk : gaps have been well dynamited and filled > in.) There is! Somehow I feel terribly glad. I know that this is tne place. I walk forward and he follows, as keen as I am. I take a compass, but there is no

need, for I can plainly see the tracing of the German line. I have found the place—within a yard or so. Something rusty lies at my feet and half embedded in the soil, where the ground has been roughly ploughed.' I stoop and pick it up. It is a British wire-cutter, the type that fitted beneath the bayonet on one’s rifle, and did its work so inadequately. I carried one when I went into action.

My farmer says nothing, but turns back to his horse a-/I ploughing. He knows that I want to be alone. I take a pace forward, and catch my foot in a strand of rusted barbed wire. A few yards away is a mound of rubbish, but newly ploughed over and heaped up for clearing away. I examine it like any rag picker. There is a steel hat with an ugly gash clean through it; a German soldier’s billycan and a British water-bottle-rusty but unmistakable—linked together With a bit of wire; several spent nosecaps, and the twisted barrel of a rifle; pieces of rotten webbing equipment; a bullet pouch and half a boot. Remnants ol war that have been gathered up after seventeen years.