Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western FrontHornung, E. W. (Ernest William)
History
Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front
Hornung, E. W. (Ernest William)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives; World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Young Men's Christian Associations
I could not thank him; nor can I here. How can a man speak for the
mother of an only child, whose grave he was to see with her eyes as well
as with his own, so that one day he might tell her all? Without a car,
in fine, the thing was impossible. There are no thanks for actions such
as this: none that words do not belittle. A day was fixed, ten days
ahead; this gave me time to write to the boy's mother, and gave her time
to send direct to Ypres all the bulbs and plants that she could get, to
make her child's bed as gay that spring as he himself had been all the
days they were together.
And yet--and yet--_was_ it his grave that had been found? _Was_ the
evidence as good as it seemed? I was going all the way to Ypres on the
strength of that local evidence only. If I could but have taken one or
other of those two men who were there when it happened in 1915! But one
of them was away on leave, his three weeks not nearly up; the other, the
bandsman who knew most of all, might or might not be with the Battalion;
but the Battalion itself was still away. I found that out for certain on
the morning of the day before I was to start. They were still resting
many kilometres back. I had no means of getting to them, even if I had
had the right sort of desire; but the fact was that everything had come
about so beautifully without one move of mine, that I was quite
consciously content to drift in the current of an unfathomable
influence.
That afternoon there came to my hut, for no particular reason that he
ever told me, a man I had not met before. He was the Senior Chaplain of
the boy's Division. We made friends, by what steps I cannot remember,
but I must have told him where I was going next day. He was interested.
I told him the whole thing. He said: 'But surely there must be somebody
in the Battalion that you could take with you, to identify the place?' I
told him there was such a man, a bandsman, but the Battalion was away
resting and I was not sure but that the man himself was on leave. Said
the Chaplain: 'I can find out. I know where they are. I can get them on
the telephone. If you don't hear from me again, go round their way in
the morning when you get the car. It's ten kilometres in the wrong
direction, but it may be worth your while.'
Worth my while! I did not hear from him again; not a word all that
anxious evening to spoil the prospect he had opened up; and in the
morning came the car, a powerful limousine, mine for the next two days!
My pass from the A.P.M. was for Ypres only, but I did not think of that.
In less than an hour we had found those rest-billets among ploughed
fields at peace in the spring sunshine; and at the right regimental
headquarters, a young Corporal ready waiting in his field overcoat. It
_was_ the bandsman: he who had been nearest to the boy at the very last,
to whose special care his dear body had been committed. The living man
who had most to tell me!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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