A Reconnaissance From the Diary of Father Hénusse, S.J., Chaplain of the 84th Battery
November 28, 1914. This morning, our dear Captain had just begun reading the daily orders, when he suddenly exclaimed:
"Ah, no, it begins to get on one's nerves! This footbridge is a regular see-saw. We cannot go on being fooled like this!" He threw the paper down on the table and went out of the room. Something was evidently on his nerves.
I picked up the paper and read that, contrary to the aviation information received the last few days, there was a footbridge across the Yser, between the milestones 15 and 16, on a level with the petroleum tanks and opposite the "Nacelle." This was the tenth time we had been informed that this bridge existed, and just as many times we had been told that it did not exist. We were first ordered to destroy it with shells and then to stop firing there, as the objective was an imaginary one. This little game had unhinged our Captain, and this morning he was more unhinged than I had ever seen him. When he came back, I saw by his face that it was one of the days of his big decisions. He was extremely reserved, and appeared[Pg 288] to have his ideas concentrated on some subject. He did not utter a word and I said to myself, "Either our Captain is going to fulminate a 'note' or he is going to investigate that footbridge himself." I had guessed rightly. He put on his boots and gaiters, placed his Browning behind his hip and his field-glasses in his breast-pocket, took up his cap, and made his exit, without even uttering his famous: "Au revoir, my friends."
It was ten in the morning, and a regular November morning, grey, cold, and damp, but as a matter of fact no one took much notice of the weather. All day long we were inside the infamous little farm that we had nicknamed "Taboo Farm" because, in the midst of a plain ravaged by shells, it was the only building that had remained intact. Two or three "saucepans" had fallen in the farmyard, shattering all the windows, but that was all. We replaced the window-panes by planks of wood and mattresses and lived in a little cavern-like room, sitting round a cracked stove, in which we only burned wood. As to showing our faces outside, that was not good enough. In the first place there was the mud, the terrible "polder mud," slimy, deep, and clinging. After walking ten steps, one came back with enormous cakes of about twenty pounds on each foot. And then there were the petroleum tanks, the two enormous tanks over yonder in the background of the Yser. They dominated the whole region in its autumn bareness and were like two sentinels of Death. For the last month they had been riddled by the firing, and the petroleum had flamed up. Oh, the fine flames, lighting up with a glorious fire the Dixmude victory! These tanks were now full of holes like sieves. One[Pg 289] of them had given way and fallen in, but the other one was still standing and made an admirable observation-post for the enemy's artillery, so that we did not care to attract their terrible "saucepans" in the direction of "Taboo Farm."
At noon, our Chief had not returned. We waited luncheon until one o'clock and then we decided not to wait any longer. The inevitable soup, made of preserved peas, and the pneumatic-tyre beefsteak disgusted me a little more than usual. I was feeling very anxious about the Captain. I made enquiries two or three times at the battery, but the same reply came each time: "We have not seen him since this morning, when he came to give the command of the battery over to the Lieutenant."
Towards three in the afternoon, the door was opened noisily and in he walked. He looked tired out, but his eyes were feverishly bright. He was all be-starred with mud and, half joyfully, half wearily, in a way not at all like himself, he sank on to a chair.
"Well, I always said so," he remarked. "There is no footbridge, but, my boys, it came very near there being no Captain either." ... "What happened? Tell us!" we all begged, crowding round him. "Give me a beefsteak first. I am dying of hunger. And some coffee, too, for I am parched with thirst."
He then took his boots off, pitching one to the right and the other to the left, and his gaiters anywhere.
"There!" he said, at last. "I have been myself, for I had had enough of that nonsense. Lieutenant Zaeydydt, Brigadier Marteau, and I set off together. We could not stand that sort of thing any longer and I was determined to get to the bottom of it, if we had to go right there ourselves. Things went all right as far[Pg 290] as the Yser, to the milestone 16. The last of the trenches occupied by the French Territorials are there, but we could not discover anything that was of any use to us. Looking out from there, towards the north, on a level with the tanks, there was something that looked like a footbridge over the Yser, but it was not distinct enough for us to be sure about it and we decided to go on along the river.
"Just then, the French howitzers opened fire on the tanks: all the firing was from eighty to one hundred yards too far. Suddenly our good little eighty-four began to spit. You cannot imagine the pleasure it gave us to hear it quite near to its target. It was hitting a ruined house and each shot entered straight inside. It was the famous wine-shop, where we had been told there was a battery. All rubbish! There was no more a battery there than there is on my hand. All the same the firing was good.
"We left the Territorials and went on, half crawling. We made good progress along the river just below the towpath. A hundred yards farther on were two French sentinels, who wished us good luck, and then two Belgian sentinels belonging to the 2nd Chasseurs. We could see nothing b............