An Onlooker in France 1917-1919Orpen, William, Sir
History
An Onlooker in France 1917-1919
Orpen, William, Sir
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives; World War, 1914-1918 -- Pictorial works
He was one of the best-looking young men I ever saw, tall, clean-cut
and smart-looking. The next day Maude found out that most of his tears
were due to the fact that he was very badly diseased, and of course,
without any treatment, was getting worse daily. Maude could not stand
this, so he sent him to the hospital for treatment, from which the
youth promptly escaped, and was not found again for ten days. They
knew some one must have been hiding him, probably a woman; which
proved right. In ten days he was found, plus forty pounds, which the
lady had given him.
Maude gave him one more twenty-four hours' chance in the belfry; but
it was no good, only more lies. So he was sent to Le Havre, where I
believe no deserter has ever lasted more than forty-eight hours
without telling the truth and nothing but the truth. I presumed that
after that he was shot. The only thing I learnt for certain, was that
he was a Colonial private. Some time later I used to go very often to
a little restaurant in Paris, and became friends with one of the head
waiters. He said a customer had come in, giving the name of Lord
X----, and had engaged a table for dinner. He evidently had some
doubt about Lord X----, and asked me if I would know him if I saw (p. 048)
him. I said, "Certainly," as the name given was that of the son of
one of the best-known Earls in England. In he came for dinner, a very
good-looking man, wearing the Legion d'Honneur. Lord X----, the
deserter of the belfry!
The great mine at La Boisselle was a wonderful sight. One morning I
was wandering about the old battlefield, and I came across a great
wilderness of white chalk--not a tuft of grass, not a flower, nothing
but blazing chalk; apparently a hill of chalk dotted thickly all over
with bits of shrapnel. I walked up it, and suddenly found myself on
the lip of the crater. I felt myself in another world. This enormous
hole, 320 yards round at the top, with sides so steep one could not
climb down them, was the vast, terrific work of man. Imagine burrowing
all that way down in the belly of the earth, with Hell going on
overhead, burrowing and listening till they got right under the German
trenches--hundreds and hundreds of yards of burrowing. And here
remained the result of their work, on the earth at least, if not on
humanity. The latter had disappeared; but the great chasm, with one
mound in the centre at the bottom, and one skull placed on top of it,
remained. They had cut little steps down one of its sides, and had
cleared up all the human remains and buried them in this mound. That
one mound, with the little skull on the top, at the bottom of this
enormous chasm, was the greatest monument I have ever seen to the
handiwork of man.
There was another fairly large mine here, just by the Bapaume Road,
and there was a large mine at Beaumont-Hamel, and also the
"Cough-drop" at High Wood. These were wonderful, but they could not
compare in dignity and grandeur with the great mine of La Boisselle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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