True Stories of the Great War, Volume 4 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 4 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Have you ever stood by the gate to the trains and watched the men come
up to go back to the front? Some come slowly, slouching along in their
stiff boots under the weight of their heavy knapsacks and equipment,
tired-eyed but determined. Others come running up in twos and threes,
cheerful and carefree. Others come with their wives and children, their
mothers, their sweethearts; and these do not talk, unless it be the
tiny tots, too small to know what it is all about. Nor do they weep.
They just walk up to the gate, kiss him good-by and stand aside, and
look as long as their eyes can follow him. Sometimes he turns back,
but not often. I watched a while, then I too went through, showing my
papers to several inquisitive officials in succession.
Everything was quite like ordinary times until we passed E----, where
we lost the last of the civilians on the train except myself. My
compartment was quite empty, and as I stuck my head into the corridor
it seemed as if the rest of the car were also empty. But no, there was
a turkey gobbler in a wooden cage and in a moment a French officer
bending over him with a cup of water. It seemed the gobbler, poor
innocent bird, was on his way to make gay an officer's mess.
Soon we came to what still remains one of the most impressive sights
of my trip, the miles of English reserve camp. Sand dunes, setting sun
and distant sea, and tents, and barracks and tent, and men in khaki
never ending! These bright, happy, healthy faces! Why, as the train
crawled through them, so close I could shake hands out of the window, I
fairly thrilled with the conviction that they could never be beaten. I
wanted to shout at them: "Boys, I'm from over the water too, God bless
you all!" But it choked in my throat, for they came from Canada and
Australia and New Zealand to give their lives for a principle, while
I came from the land "too proud to fight." (To-day, Aug., 1917, thank
God, proudest of all to fight.)
There were the shooting ranges and the bayonet targets, burlaps the
size of a man's torso stuffed with straw, hanging on a clothesline in a
row. The boys stand off a hundred yards and with fixed bayonets charge
the bursting burlap. But now, at sunset, they are sitting around in
groups or playing games, waiting for their evening meal. They have not
faced fire yet, but their turn is coming and they are keen for it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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