Geoffrey H. Malins

The Enemy Destroy Everything as They Go—Clearing Away the DÉbris of the Battlefield—And Repairing the Damage Done by the Huns—An Enormous Mine Crater—A Reception by French Peasants—"Les Anglais! Les Anglais!" Stuck on the Road to Bovincourt.

To keep in touch with all the happenings on that section of the front for which I was responsible, and to obtain a comprehensive record of events, it was necessary to keep very wide awake. Movements, definite and indefinite, were taking place in scores of different places at the same moment. To keep in touch with the enemy, to work with our forward patrols, to enter upon the heels of our advance guard into the evacuated villages—and, if possible, to get there first and film their triumphal entry, film our advance infantry and guns taking up new positions, the engineers at work remaking the roads, building new bridges over the Somme, laying down new railways and repairing old ones—the hundred and one different organisations that were working and straining every muscle and nerve for the common cause. Only the favoured few have the remotest idea of the enormous amount of work to be done under such conditions.

The road (which was No Man's Land yesterday morning) to the village of Villers-Carbonel was now swarming with men clearing away the accumulated dÉbris of the battlefield. Tree trunks were moved off the road, shell-holes were being filled up with bricks and branches, trenches, which crossed the road, were being filled in, a Tank trap at the entrance to the village, the shape of a broad, deep ditch, about thirty by twenty feet wide by fifteen feet deep, was being loaded with tree trunks and earth. I filmed these scenes; then hurried as fast as possible in the direction of Brie to cover the advanced work on the Somme, and then to cross to the other side and get in touch with our cavalry patrols.

What an extraordinary change in the place! Yesterday a ghostly silence reigned; now men and material and transport were swarming everywhere. I reached the river. The engineers had thrown up light, temporary bridges—six in all. Huge iron girders had arrived from back behind; they had been made in readiness for "The Day." Our H.Q. had known that the Germans in their inevitable retreat would destroy the bridges, so, to save time, duplicates were built in sections, ready to throw across the gap.

I managed to arrive in time to film several squadrons of the Duke of Lancaster's cavalry hurrying forward to harass the enemy. Cyclist patrols were making their way over. I hurried as fast as possible through the ruins of Brie and on to the ridge beyond. In the distance I watched our cavalry deploying in extended order and advance towards a wood to clear it of the enemy rearguards. Motor-cyclists, with their machine-guns, were dashing up the hill anxious to get into contact with the flying enemy. I filmed many scenes in this section.

I looked along the road which was the main one into St. Quentin; it stretched away as far as the eye could see. The condition is certainly excellent, I thought. There would be a greater possibility of obtaining exciting scenes if it were possible to proceed in my car; the only question was whether the temporary bridges across the Somme were capable of sustaining the weight. The possibility of getting into villages just evacuated by the Germans spurred me on, so retracing my steps, I reached the river again.

"Do you think the bridge will take the weight of my car?" I asked an officer in charge of engineers.

"What is it?"

"Daimler," I replied.

"Well," he said, "there is a risk, of course, but our G.S. wagons have been across and also the artillery, so they may take your bus—if you don't bounce her in crossing."

"Right-o!" I said. "I will get it down." Hurrying across I had just reached the last bridge when, with a sudden snap, one of the main beams gave way. All traffic was, of course, stopped, and engineers quickly got to work replacing the broken girder.

"It will be at least another hour, sir," said a sergeant in answer to my enquiry. So there was nothing for it but to curb my impatience and wait, and I stood my apparatus down and watched the proceedings.

At that moment a car came to a standstill alongside me.

"What's wrong?" called out one of the occupants.

"Broken bridge," I said. "I'm waiting to cross with my car to get films of the villages and the occupants."

"That's good," said the speaker, a captain. "I am going up to them as well. Intelligence I heard from our airmen this morning that they saw civilians in one or two villages a few miles out—so I'm off to investigate. Would you care to come? We shall be the first there."

"Yes, rather," I replied. "It will be a fine scoop for me to film the first meeting of British troops in the liberated villages. I will follow in my car."

The bridge was again complete, so, dumping my camera aboard, I followed in the wake of the captain. Up the hill we dashed and spun along the road at the top, passing beyond the outskirts of Brie. We were now beyond the extreme limit of the shelling which we had subjected the Germans to during their months of occupation.

I was now beginning to see the sights and view the atrocious system and regularity of wilful destruction which had obviously been planned months before by the Huns to carry out Hindenburg's orders and make the whole land a desert. Not a tree was standing; whole orchards were hewn down; every fruit tree and bush was destroyed; hedges were cut at the base as if with a razor; even those surrounding cemeteries were treated in the same way. Agricultural implements were smashed. Mons en ChaussÉe was the first village we entered; every house was a blackened smoking ruin, and where the fiends had not done their work with fire they had brought dynamite to their aid; whole blocks of buildings had been blown into the air; there was not sufficient cover for a dog.

The car suddenly came to a standstill; my driver jammed on his brake and I hurried forward. There, at the middle of the village cross-roads was another enormous mine-crater—one hundred feet across by about sixty feet deep. It was quite impassable, but the sight which astounded me was to see about twenty old women and children running up the road the other side of the crater shouting and waving their arms with joy. "Les Anglais! Les Anglais!" they yelled. I got my camera into position and filmed the captain and his companions as they clambered round the jagged lip of the crater and were embraced by the excited people. For the first time since their captivity by the Germans they had seen "les Anglais." Liberators and captives met!

Several scenes I filmed of the enormous crater and of the cut-down fruit trees. Not a single tree, old or young, was left standing. To blow up roads, and hew down telegraph poles was war, and such measures are justified; but to destroy every tree or bush that could possibly bear fruit, wilfully to smash up agricultural implements; to shoot a dog and tie a label to its poor body written in English:

To crucify a cat upon a door and stick a cigar in its mouth, to blow up and poison wells, to desecrate graves, to smash open vaults and rob the corpses which lay there, and then to kick the bones in all directions and use the coffins as cess-pools—these things I have seen with my own eyes. Is this war? It is the work of savages, ghouls, fiends.

I wondered where these people had come from and where they had been as the whole village was burnt out. I enquired and found that the Germans, two days before, had cleared the village of its population and distributed them in villages further back, and had then set fire to the place, leaving nothing but a desert behind, and taking with them all the men who could work and many girls in their teens to what fate one may guess.

These few villagers had wandered back during the day to gaze upon the wreckage of their homes and arrived just in time to meet us at the crater.

"We will get along," said my companion. "I want to visit Bovincourt and Vraignes before nightfall, though I am afraid we shall not do it. By making a detour round these ruins I believe we shall strike the main road further down."

I followed him through the ruins and, after bouncing over innumerable bricks and beams, we reached the main road. We passed through EstrÉes-en-ChaussÉe. One large barn was only standing; everything was as quiet as the grave; columns of smoke were still rising from the ruins.

Another jamming on of brakes brought us to a standstill at a cross-roads; another huge mine-crater was in front of us and it was most difficult to see until we were well upon it. There was nothing to do but to take to the fields—our road was at right angles to the one we were traversing.

I examined the ground, it was very soft, and the newly scattered earth and clay from the mine made it much worse.

"If we get stuck," I thought, "there is nobody about to help us out." The captain tried and got over.

I yelled out that I would follow; they disappeared in the direction of Bovincourt. Backing my car to get a good start I let it go over the edge of the road into the field. It was like going through pudding. The near wheels roared round without gripping. Then it happened! We were stuck! A fine predicament, I thought, with prowling enemy patrols about and no rifle.

"All shoulders to the wheel," I said. By digging, and jamming wood, sacking and straw under the wheels we managed, after three-quarters of an hour, to get it out. Jove! what a time it was! And so on the road again.

"We will get into Bovincourt," I said. "Let her go; I may meet the others."

The feeling was uncanny and my position strange, for all I knew Bosches were all around me (and later on this proved to be the case).

Night was falling, and ere I reached the village it was quite impossible to take any scenes.

At the entrance to the village I ran into several people who crowded round the car, crying and laughing in their relief at seeing the British arrive. Old men and women who could barely move hobbled forward to shake hands, with tears in their eyes. They clambered in and around the car, and it was only by making them understand that I would return on the following day that they allowed the car to proceed. The sight was wonderful and I wish I were able to describe it better.

I could not find the other car, so, assuming it had gone back, I decided to return as far as Brie and stay the night. As I was leaving the village a burst of machine-gun fire rang out close by followed by violent rifle-shots.

"Let her go," I said to my chauffeur. "I am not at all anxious to get pipped out here. My films must not fall into enemy hands."

The car shot up the road like a streak; the mine-crater was ahead and the possibility of getting stuck again whilst crossing made me feel anything but easy. Full tilt, I told my driver, we must trust to speed to get across. On went the lower gear; a right-hand twist of the wheel and we were on the field; the speed gradually grew less, the back wheels buzzed round but still gripped a little.

"Keep her going at all costs," I yelled, "if the car sticks here it will have to be left." To lighten her a little I jumped out and pushed up behind for all I was worth. Mud was flying in all directions; we were nearly across; another twenty yards. With a final roll and screech she bounded off on to the road. I jumped aboard again and up the road we shot towards Mons. If the Hun patrols had been anywhere near they must have thought a battalion of Tanks were on their track, for the noise my old "bus" made getting across that field was positively deafening. On I went through Mons, into the ruins of its houses, still glowing red and, in some places, flames were licking around the poor skeletons of its once prosperous farms.

One more mine-crater to negotiate; then all would be plain sailing. It was now quite dark. I dared not use lights, not, even side lamps, and going was decidedly slow and risky in consequence. I sat in the bonnet of the car and, peering ahead, called out the direction. Shortly a lightish mass loomed up only a few yards distant.

"Stop!" I yelled.

On went the brakes, and only just in time. We came to a standstill on the outer lip of a huge crater. Another two yards and I should have been trying to emulate the antics of a "tank" in sliding down a crater and crawling up the other side. In my case the sliding down would have been all right, but coming up the other side would have been on the lap of the gods. A hundred men with ropes and myself—well, but that's another story.

"Back the car to give it a good run," I said, "and let us lighten it as much as possible," and soon all was ready.

"I will go ahead and put my handkerchief over my electric light; we must risk being seen—you head direct for the glow."

I went into the muddy fields.

"Let her go," I shouted. With a whir and a grind I could tell it had started. I stood still. It was coming nearer. Ye gods! what a row. Then, suddenly, the engines stopped and dead silence reigned.

"It's stuck, sir," came a voice from the darkness.

I went to the car and switched my lamp on to the near wheels. The car was stuck right up to the axle.

"We shall never get out of this unaided," I said. "Put all the stuff back inside and get the hood up; we shall have to sleep here to-night."

Then, to add to the discomfiture of the situation, it began to rain, and rain like fury, and in a few minutes I was wet through to the skin. The hood leaked badly and had convenient holes in alignment to one's body, whether you were sitting lengthways or otherwise inside. I had resigned myself for a dismal night out. Two hours had passed when I heard the clatter of hoofs coming towards me in the distance and, by the direction of the sound, I could tell they were our men. I tumbled out and ran as fast as possible to the other side of the crater and reached there just as the horsemen arrived.

"Hullo!" I shouted.

"Hulloa!" came the reply, "who is it?"

"I am badly stuck, or rather my car is—in the mud in the field here. Can you hitch two or three of your horses on and help me out on to the road?"

"Certainly, if we can, sir."

"I will guide you with my lamp—by the way, where are you going?" I said.

"We are trying to get into touch with the Bosche."

"I have been in Bovincourt," I said, "but there are none there, though I heard a lot of rifle-fire just outside the village."

We arrived at the car and, quickly hitching on a rope, the engine was started up and, with a heave and a screech, it moved forward and was eventually dragged on to the road.

"Thank Heaven," I thought. Then, thanking the men, and warning them of the other delightful mine crater further down, I started off again, sitting on the bonnet.

As I neared Brie I switched on my lamp as a headlight and got held up by two sentries with their bayonets at the ready. They did not understand why a motor-car should be coming back apparently from the German lines, and their attitude was decidedly unfriendly till I assured them I was not a German, but only the Official Kinematographer out for pictures.