Blasting and Bomardiering Read online

  He nagged away at the spyhole in the ceiling, with his head stiffly bent to one side. One eye into the Ewigkeit, and there was that look as if he were listening for some response to his obstinate questions. He nagged away, with short sharp bursts of frustrated sneering. Where could he make a breach in this inexorable stability of things? Or was this in fact one of those problems set by life that was strictly insoluble, so neatly devised to checkmate the sexual instinct? And was not this instinct itself a trap for the intellect—as the intellect was undoubtedly a trap for sex, only too often upsetting its applecart?

  As Hulme would argue tirelessly about his own adventures as an animal, he would not hesitate to suggest that one should reciprocate. He would cock an eye, sneer, and throw out an inquisitive hint. But I was recalcitrant to communism. My technique on such occasions was to retreat into a Tartuffian wonderland, where he would solemnly pursue me with a charlatanesque inquisition. Chased by this clownish sophist into the cardboard fastnesses I had run up for the occasion. I would fight a homeric battle of falsewits. As a rule, honours, I think, were even.

  Hulme was not a 'master-mind', or anything of that sort. Some of his friends were far stronger-minded than he was, and he was highly influenceable. Bergson dominated him, of course, with great facility: and anything tainted with Bergsonism could not help being suspect to me. Others would act through him. He was not one of those people who when you talk to them you know that at least it is to them you are talking. You might quite well with him be talking tp somebody else.

  I think we must say that T. E. Hulme was one of the most promising intelligences produced by England since the Shaw-Wells-Bennett vintage. That he should have been killed in one of England's stupidest wars was therefore a symbolical happening- //

  I should perhaps have said that I had quarrelled with Hulme. That in no way affects my estimate of him. I should not have allowed myself to get into a dispute with him if this estimate had not been what you see it was—respectful, but no more than that.

  That I have devoted so much attention to Hulme is on the same principle as the 'Cantleman' passages I have quoted. My contacts with this contemporary is one of the best ways of reflecting myself. I am describing myself in describing him, just as in describing me he would be revealing his own peculiarities.

  I had no great liking, I mean personal liking, for Hulme's circle of friends. But Gaudier, though I knew him very little, I always liked. This little sharp-faced, black-eyed stranger amongst us, whose name was a Polish city, but who for some reason was a French subject, or had a French name, was an extremely fine artist*

  So many excellent books have been written about him (I have not read them, but the names of their authors indicate their quality) that it would be otiose to draw upon my slender knowledge of the facts, and tell you how this young sculptor lived under a railway arch, with a middle-aged Polish sister who was not a sister (so since we have learnt). From the passport point of view, he must have been a walking enigma. I cannot imagine what his passport would look like : if he was married, or Polish—single, or French; or perhaps technically a Briton and mildly incestuous; and whether really liable for French military service, or for English conscription or a little of both. All I know is that he went to France when the war started, to join the French army, but was immediately arrested when he presented himself to the military, put under lock and key, and bundled back to Great Britain. But he was determined to take up arms for a country that was not his. And I among others saw him off. Hulme and I believe Epstein were among those who did so. I remember him in the carriage window of the boat-train, with his excited eyes. We left the platform, a depressed, almost a guilty, group.

  It is easy to laugh at the exaggerated estimate 'the artist' puts upon his precious life. But when it is really an artist—and there are very few—it is at the death of something terribly alive that you are assisting. And this figure was so preternaturally alive, that I began my lesson then : a lesson of hatred for this soul-less machine, of big-wig money-government, and these masses of half-dead people, for whom personal extinction is such a tiny step, out of half-living into no-living, so what does it matter?

  Ezra Pound told me after that how Gaudier had rapidly become a sergeant in the French infantry: and very shortly after that, again, how he had been killed in action.

  Gaudier has been written about under the heading 'Savage Messiah'. There must be some claptrap about that. To be brave is not to be savage, not what the French describe as exalti— and that he certainly was—messianic. He was gentle, unselfish, and excitable, and probably struck some people as fiery, uncouth, and messianic. No artist so fine as Gaudier could be a Messiah, as a matter of fact. Messianic emotionality and Art are incompatible terms. But the stones that he carved are there to prove that Gaudier was a placid genius, of gende and rounded shapes, not a turbulent or 'savage' one at all.

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  * * *

  CHAPTER 1

  The Romance of War

  Arrival at 'the Front' for us was not unlike arrival at a big Boxing Match, or at a Blackshirt Rally at Olympia. The same sinister expectancy, but more sinister and more electric, the same restless taciturnity of stern-faced persons assembling for a sensational and bloody event, their hearts set on a knock-out. Somebody else's, of course.

  We arrived at railhead at night and a battle was in progress. For a long time, as we moved slowly fwward in our darkened coaches, the sound of guns had been getting louder and nearer. There was no moon or stars—all lights hadybeen turned down for the performance. Only the unseen orchestra thundered away, before an unseen stage. We had to imagine the actors which we knew were there, crouching in their sticky labyrinths.

  From the crowded carriage-windows, at last, sudden bursts of dull light could be discerned, and last of all an authentic flash had been visible, but still far away—angry And red, like a match struck and blown out again immediately. /

  We left the train, and finally we reached, I forget how, the fringes of this battle. We reached it unexpectedly. We were collected upon a road, I seem to think. Perhaps we were waiting for lorries to take us to billets—for we of course were not going into action then. We were not for this battle. We had no guns either. They could not be made quickly enough. We were just the personnel of a battery, with no guns, who had come to stand-by, or be parcelled out as reinforcements.

  With great suddenness—as we stood, very impressed as newcomers in the midst of this pandemonium—in a neighbouring field a battery of large howitzers began firing. After this particular picture I can remember nothing at all. It is so distinct everything in its neighbourhood is oblitereated. I can only remember that in the air full of violent sound, very suddenly there was a flash near at hand, followed by further flashes, and I could see the gunners moving about as they loaded again. They appeared to be 11-inch guns—very big. Out of their throats had sprung a dramatic flame, they had roared, they had moved back. You could see them, lighted from their mouths, as they hurled into the air their great projectile, and sank back as they did it. In the middle of the monotonous percussion, which had never slackened for a moment, the tom-toming of interminable artillery, for miles round, going on in the darkness, it was as if someone had exclaimed in your ear, or something you had supposed inanimate had come to life, when the battery whose pretence we had not suspected went into action.

  So we plunged immediately into the romance of battle. But all henceforth was romance. All this culminated of course in the scenery of the battlefields, like desolate lunar panoramas. That matched the first glimpses of the Pacific, as seen by the earliest circumnavigators.

  Need I say that there is nothing so romantic as war? If you are 'a romantic', you have not lived if you have not been present at a battle, of that I can assure you.

  I am very sorry to have to say this. Only a care for truth compels me to avow it. I am not a romantic—though I perfectly understand romance. And I do not like war. It is under compulsion that I stress the exceedingly romantic cha
racter of all the scenes I am about to describe.

  If your mind is of a romantic cast, there is nothing for it, I am afraid. The likelihood that you will get your head blown off cannot weigh with you for a moment. You must not miss a war, if one is going! You cannot afford to miss that experience.

  It is commonly remarked that 'there is no romance in modern war'. That is absurd, I am sorry to have to say.

  It has frequently been contended that Agincourt, or even Waterloo with its 'thin red line' and its Old Guard of Napoleonic veterans, was 'spectacular': whereas modern war is 'drab and unromantic'. Alas! that is nonsense. To say that is entirely to misunderstand the nature of romance. It is like saying that love can only be romantic when a figure as socially-eminent and beautiful as Helen of Troy is involved. That, of course, has nothing to do with it whatever! It is most unfortunate : but men are indifferent to physical beauty or obvious physical splendour, where their emotions are romantically stimulated. Yes, romance is the enemy of beauty. That hag, War, carries it every time over Helen of Troy.

  The truth is, of course, that it is not what you see, at all, that makes an event romantic to you, but what you feel. And in war, as you might expect, you feel with considerable intensity.

  The misunderstanding goes even deeper than that, however. Knights in armour, with plumes and lances, are not, even in the visual sense, the most romantic subject-matter for a romantic painter.

  You only have to think a moment: the dark night, with the fearful flashing of a monstrous cannonade-all the things that do not come into the picture, which are not sken, in other words, but which are suggested in its darkest shadows—what could be more technically 'romantic' than that, if it is romance that we must talk about?

  But even if the pictorial subject-matter were insignificant, it would still be the same thing. /

  Romance is partly what you see but it is/much more what you feel. I mean that you are the romance, far more than the romantic object. By definition, romance is always inside and not outside. It is, as we say, subjective. It is/the material of magic. It partakes of the action of a drug.

  Place a man upon the highest passes of the Andes, and what he sees is always what he feels. But when on joue sa vie, it is not so much the grandeur of the spectacle of destruction, or the chivalrous splendour of the appointments, as the agitation in the mental field within, of the organism marked down to be destroyed, that is impressive. It is that that produces 'the light that never was on land or sea', which we describe as 'romance'. Anything upon which that coloration falls is at once transfigured. And the source of light is within your own belly.

  Of course it would be impossible to overstate the contribution of the guns to these great romantic effects. Even in such an essentially romantic context as war, they are startlingly 'romantic' accessories, and help to heighten the effect.

  It is they who provide the orchestral accompaniment. It is they who plough up the ground till it looks literally 'like nothing on earth'. It is they who transform a smart little modern township, inside an hour, into a romantic ruin, worthy of the great Robert himself, or of Claude Lorrain. They are likewise the purveyors of 'shell-shock', that most dramatic of ailments. And lastly, they give the most romantic and spectacular wounds of all—a bullet-wound, even a dum-dum, is child's play to a wound inflicted by a shell-splinter.

  I have slept soundly through scores of full-dress bombardments. It is very few people who don't, in a war of positions, where bombardments are almost continuous. Through a long artillery preparation for an Attack—a hoped-for 'breakthrough', with the enemy retaliating at full blast—in the very thick of the hubbub, with things whizzing and roaring all round—I have slept for hours together as peacefully as if I were in a London garden suburb.

  Rapidly one ceases to notice this orchestra. But although one forgets about it, one would miss it if it were not there. These are the kettledrums of death that you are hearing. And you would soon know the difference if they stopped.

  CHAPTER II

  Howitzers

  We had been hanging about some time, when I was pasted to a battery to replace casualties. It was a 'six-inch How' battery, not far from Bailleul. My own battery disappeared : later on I joined it, in another part of the Line.

  I arrived at the battery mess and made the acquaintance of the other officers. Our 'battery position', that is>where the guns were, was only a short distance away from our sleeping quarters and the officer's Mess. There was not a great abundance of dugouts. I was given bedroom in the dugout of another junior officer. It was very small but he took me in temporarily. And it was with him that I received what would have been called in the old days of war my baptism of fire. This is/now it occurred. It happened straight away, on my first nighty

  We went to our dugout and got into our respective camp-beds. My brother officer was in a very nervous condition I thought, and he unburdened himself to me d1 the subject of a certain observation post, which was very much in his mind. Twice in the last week he had passed a couple of very unpleasant days in it, 'I dread going up to that O. Pip do you know—I dread it! It's the most bloody awful death-trap. You wait till you see it!' he told me with a commendable frankness, though I believe he could not help himself. And after he had described the sort of health-resort it was, I confess that I felt in no hurry to visit it myself. However, he was very exhausted, and soon he turned over to addresss himself to sleep.

  No sooner had he done this, than something unpleasant began to happen. There was the unmistakable sound of a shell, which I then heard for the first time, and the explosion followed, not far away outside our dugout, I took it be.

  'They've started shelling again!' he groaned in disgust, moving restlessly in his bed. 'This happens every night. They shelled us for an hour the night before last. They've spotted us, I think —they'll never let us alone now.'

  No sooner had he uttered his complaint, than a second shell came over. As he heard the sound start, of its whooping approach, his bed gave a violent creak. I watched him heel over on one side. As the shell descended—with its strange parabolic whooping onrush—an anal whistle answered it, from the neighbouring bed. This response was forced out of him, by unrestrained dismay.

  That was my first encounter with 'wind-up', as it was my first experience of shelling. In fact, it was the most perfect specimen of wind-up that it would be possible to find I think. And at each successive shell-swoop it was repeated. He raised himself slightly; and he answered the frightening onrush of the cylinder of metal with his humble gaseous discharge. He did not seem to mind at all my seeing this. I suppose he thought I would put it down to indigestion.

  After a few shells had come over, we sat up in bed, and he gave me his opinion of the architecture of our dugouts. I was glad, as it seemed to take his mind off the shells.

  'This dugout is a joke!' he told me. 'It wouldn't stop an india-rubber ball! These dugouts are washouts.'

  'Are they?' I said, glancing up with considerable uneasiness at the mud roof a foot or two away from my head.

  Like most military novices I had innocently supposed that a dugout—any dugout—was there to keep out shell-fire, and was reasonably secure. I had felt as safe as houses in this earthen igloo. But he rapidly disabused me.

  'A five-nine would go through this as if it was paper!' he assured me. 'If one of those shells happens to hit this dugout— well, it's all up with us. We should both of us be dead within a second.'

  As he spoke another shell plunged down outside, very much nearer this time. Indeed it seemed to me that it had come down a few feet off—for at first it is very difficult to judge the distance of a 'burst', from the sound, if you do not see it but only hear it.

  'That was pretty near wasn't it?' I asked.

  'No, they most of them fall in the next field. But it's quite near enough.'

  'Quite,' I said. 'Oughtn't we to go out and see what's happening?'

  'Nothing's happening,' he said. 'This goes on all the time. This might stop a splinte
r. But a direct hit! Then we're for it!'

  I saw if we went outside we should be inviting a splinter. I supposed the chances of a direct hit were so much less that he was wise to stop where he was.

  He went on instructing me in the futility of dugouts, however —especially our dugouts. They were champion death-traps for unlucky subalterns.

  'There's nothing on top here,' pointing up over his head, 'but a little loose earth. Just a few shovelsful of loose earth and a log or two.'

  'Is that all?' I muttered indignandy.

  'That's all. What's the use of that? There's a piece of corrugated iron!' I

  'Is there?' I asked, looking up with expectation. /

  'Somewhere I expect. A lot of use that is! The sandbags at the side are a foot thick if that. A shell goes through that like butter. It likes sandbags. Shells like making holes in sandbags.'

  I tossed up my head, in scandalized silence. J

  'I don't know why they take the trouble to make them. They're useless. We might just as well be sleeping in a Nissen hut. It doesn't even keep the rain out. It drips on my face when it rains.'

  'I suppose,' I said for the sake of something to say, 'there is a slight chance. The logs might interfere with the burst.'

  'Don't you believe it! It would come clean through and burst in our faces. We'd be full of splinters inside a second.'

  I found subsequently that he was quite correct. As regards the surface dugouts, of sandbags, baulks, and earth, they were useless. Later on I was given a bedchamber of my own. It was a shack of corrugated iron, without any pretentions to being a parabellum. It was even a less desirable residence than the sandbagged one, seeing that it was most conveniently placed upon the edge of a road. And whatever else is shelled or not shelled, a road is always shelled. It had a further thing to recommend it, namely its position immediately behind a battery of big heavies. These naturally attracted the enemy fire, apart from the banging that they kept up all night.