Bapaume

“ In Bapaume and Péronne, in Roye and Nesle and Liancourt, and all these places over a wide area, German soldiers not only blew out the fronts of houses, but with picks and axes smashed mirrors and furniture and picture-frames. As a friend of mine said, a cheap-jack would not give fourpence for anything left in Péronne, and that is true, also, of Bapaume. There is nothing but filth in those two towns; family portraits have been kicked into the gutters. ”

“ That also will fade in the desert of old barbed wire and weeds. When will he see that a doom is over all his ambitions? For his dreams of victory are like those last dreams that come in deceptive deserts to dying men.
There is nothing good for him in the desert of the Somme. Bapaume is not really there, though it be marked on his maps; it is only a wilderness of slates and brick. Peronne looks like a city a long way off, but when you come near it is only the shells of houses. ”

“ Some eight miles east of Bapaume the Bois d'Havrincourt stood out noticeably. Around old Mossy-Face, as the wood was known in R.F.C. messes, were clustered many Boche aerodromes. Innumerable duels had [Pg 114] been fought in the air-country between Mossy-Face and the lines. Every fine day the dwellers in the trenches before Bapaume saw machines swerving round each other in determined effort to destroy. This region was the hunting-ground of many dead notabilities of the air, including the Fokker stars Boelcke and Immelmann, besides British pilots as brilliant but less advertised. ”

“ He fired many of his dug-outs, and left only a few snipers and a few machine-gunners in shell-holes and strong posts to hold up our patrols while the next body of rear-guard outposts fell back behind the barbed wire in front of the series of diagonal trench lines which defend the way to Bapaume. In Gommecourt our troops found only one living man, and he was half dead and quite blind. ”

“ It is probable that he is using up his reserves of ammunition in the dumps along the line of his retirement. Many of his heavy guns still remain on [41] railway mountings behind Bapaume—we are now less than a mile from that town—and they are doing double duty by quick firing. The latest village to fall into our hands is Thilloy, north of Ligny-Thilloy, and just south of Bapaume, and the enemy is now retiring to Loupart Wood, Achiet-le-Petit, and Bucquoy, strongly defended for the time being by a thick belt of wire. ”

“ The British continue to make rapid progress in the Bapaume area: they capture Biefvillers and reach the outskirts of Bapaume at Avesnes; nearer Albert they capture Thiepval and the Thiepval ridge, Pozières, Courcellette and Martinpuich; further south they capture Bray.
Aug. 25 (Sun.)
The British advance continues: the whole of the road between Albert and Bapaume is captured (with Le Sars and Warlencourt) , also Le Barque, Mametz, and other ruined villages; the prisoners captured since the battle began exceed 17,000.
[225]
Aug. 26 (Mon.)
The British offensive develops northwards ”

“ Behind the lines the German officers and men lived comfortably in French billets, and organized amusements for battalions in rest. At Bapaume they had a little theatre with painted scenery. Two of the wings were among the few things left in the rubbish-heaps of that poor destroyed town, burnt and sacked by the Germans before they left, and when I went in there with our troops some Australian soldiers propped them up against the walls of a gutted house and inscribed upon them in white chalk the name "Maison de la Co-ee," inviting their comrades to walk up and see the finest show on earth. ”

“ On these lines being shaken, the fish become frightened, and, strange as it may appear, cluster for protection around the man's feet, who is able to stoop down, and catch them with his hands, by watching his opportunity. "Bamboo labyrinths are common all along the back-water, in which a good many fish, especially eels and crabs, are captured. These labyrinths are formed of a screen of split bamboos, passing perpendicularly out of the water, and leading into a larger baited chamber. A dead cat is often employed as a bait for crabs. ”

“ Bamboo labyrinths, bamboo baskets, and even men's hands alone, are called into use.
"Persons fish for crabs in shallow brackish water, provided with baskets like those employed in Europe for catching eels, but open at both ends. The fishermen walk about in the mud, and, when they feel a fish move, endeavour to cover it with the larger end of the basket, which is forced down some distance into the mud, and the hand is then passed downward through the upper extremity, and the fish taken out. ”

“ Babbitt's moment of impassioned release came when they sat on a tiny wharf on Lake Sunasquam, awaiting the launch from the hotel. A raft had floated down the lake; between the logs and the shore, the water was transparent, thin-looking, flashing with minnows. A guide in black felt hat with trout-flies in the band, and flannel shirt of a peculiarly daring blue, sat on a log and whittled and was silent. A dog, a good country dog, black and woolly gray, a dog rich in leisure and in meditation, scratched and grunted and slept. ”

“ Babbage made some explorations on the field to the north, traversed by Eyre and Frome. He penetrated to the plains which were supposed to occupy the central portion of the horseshoe; but, more successful than his predecessors, he found permanent water in a gum creek, and saw some fair-sized sheets of water, one of which he named Blanche Water, or Lake Blanche.
Some excursions to the south-east led to the discovery of some more fresh water and well-grassed pastoral country, and the natives directed him to a crossing-place in that portion of Lake Torrens that had been sighted in 1845, by Messrs. ”

“ Nacargali—Tavargatti—little stations one after the other all the way, a station about every six miles—still through bamboo forest—I think the bamboos must be 70 to 90 feet high. Now and then we pass glades with water. At one pool little naked boys and girls are herding cattle, white and cream coloured cows, and black hairless buffaloes, whose skins reflect the blue sky. The mud banks are brown and the water yellow, and there's bright green grass between the red mud and the soft green of the bamboos. ”

“ Should one be hooked too large for the fisherman to manage, the man in the next boat comes to his assistance, and receives a quarter of the fish for his trouble. This is carried on all through the year, and the size of some of the Bagri is enormous. "Fish are shot in various ways, by a Chittagong bamboo, which is a hollow tube, down which the arrow is propelled by the marksman's mouth. This mode is sometimes very remunerative, and is followed by persons who quietly sneak along the shores, either of sluggish streams or of the backwater. ”

“ The Baboon, an animal larger than the dog, and whose body is pursed up like that of the hyæna, is exceedingly different from those we have noticed, and has a short tail: it is equally endowed with inclination and powers for mischief, and is only to be met with in the desarts of the southern parts of the old continent.
Besides these without tails, or with very short ones, (which all belong to the old continent) almost all the large ones with long tails, are peculiar to Africa. ”

“ Una’s gaiety returned to her.
“Have you forgotten the bait, Maurice? I’m sure you have. It would be like you to come for a day’s fishing without bait.”
“No, then, I haven’t. There are three large crabs in the boat, and even if there wasn’t one at all we could do nicely with limpets. There’s worse bait than a good limpet.”
“Well, and if you have the crabs I expect you’ve forgotten the sheep’s wool. What do you think, Neal? Yesterday we were fishing cuddings off the Black Rock and Maurice ran out of wool. The fish simply sucked the bait off our hooks and laughed at us. ”

“ The clown crabs had now formed a row in front of them. "Mr. Johnsing," asked one, "why is a mermaid like an automobile?"
"I don't know, Tommy Blimken," answered a big crab in the middle of the row. "WHY do you think a mermaid is like an automobile?"
"Because they both get tired," said Tommy Blimken. Then all the crabs laughed, and Tommy seemed to laugh louder than the rest.
"How do the crabs in the sea know anything 'bout automobiles?" asked Trot.
"Why, Tommy Blimken and Harry Hustle were both captured once by humans and put in an aquarium," answered the mermaid. ”

“ THE BUFFALO AND THE SKUNK When the Philippinos tell you now of the swagger of the Spaniards, which was the sorest of the sorrows that drove them into revolt, they often mention that the Spaniards called them “water buffaloes.”
“To call you geese would have been kind in comparison?”
“Oh, quite polite!”
Indeed the water buffalo known to us in Burma, also, is not smart at all. Slow, heavy and dull, amphibious in his habits, he moves like a very fat pig, with almost less agility. Slipping through the muddy slush, in the sleekness of his prime, he looks almost “like a whale?” ”

“ We pass groups of banyans; and, in the pond that they shade, a great buffalo, of which we can only see the back and the moon-curved horns, stares at us with eyes of heavy stupor. We pass lines of women going to the fields. When one laughs her mirth spreads and grows feebler on the four faces that follow, and is effaced on the fifth. At the hour when the first ray of the sun traverses the virginal air, we gain the vast and empty plain; and, leaving behind us the tortuous road, we take our way toward the mountain across the fields of rice, tobacco, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, and sugar-cane. ”

“ The water of the river covered half the floor of the cave, and upon the sandy beach at its edge rested a large glass cylinder, which was pointed at both ends and had a door in the top. Harnessed to one end of the glass tube were twenty-four strong beavers, who sat motionless beside it. "The boat in which your father and mother are still riding is far out in the ocean," said the King to the Princess; "but in this submarine boat you will be drawn by my swimming beavers so swiftly that the journey will not seem long to you." "Are we not to go with the Princess?" asked the gingerbread man. ”

“ Thou whose face appears like the edge of a rock.
The Baboon, it is said, once worked bamboos, sitting on the edge of a precipice, and the Lion stole upon him. The Baboon, however, had fixed some round, glistening, eye-like plates on the back of his head. When, therefore, the Lion crept upon him, he thought, when the Baboon was looking at him, that he sat with his back towards him, and crept with all his might upon him. When, however, the Baboon turned his back towards him, the Lion thought that he was seen, and hid himself. ”

“ The clumsy buffalo, or water-ox, is everywhere, plowing the fields, wallowing in mud, or browsing the stubble patch after the gleaners, always with a patient, statuesque, nude little brown boy on his blue-gray back, the fine, polished skins of these small herders glowing in the sun as if they were inanimate bronze figurines. ”

“ But the dead leopard, adorned with a chief's bonnet, is set up in the village, where nightly dances are held in its honour. The Baganda greatly fear the ghosts of buffaloes which they have killed, and they always appease these dangerous spirits. On no account will they bring the head of a slain buffalo into a village or into a garden of plantains: they always eat the flesh of the head in the open country. ”

“ They take life easily; paddling along over the shifting shallows and mud-banks of the Kali (river) in the same leisurely way their forbears did; conveying red tiles, bricks, and earthenware in flat-bottomed boats; or pushing along rafts of bamboo-stems, which they have felled in the wood up-stream. As they come floating down the canal, these rafts of green bamboo, with the thin tips curving upwards like tails and stings of venomous insects, have a fantastical appearance of living, writhing creatures, which the native raftsman seems to be for ever fighting with his long pole. ”

“ Led on by a woman whom thy guest the Pig had scorned, they would have followed the ancient custom of the land, and eaten the fat black stranger who came hither with these thy guests the Baboon and the Lion who is sick, thinking that no word had come from thee about the Black one. But when the Baboon and the Lion saw what they would do, they slew the woman, and slew also their servant to save him from the horror of the pot. ”

“ When thy feet reach this fish market let thine eyes look for a hag that doth sit near a dung heap taking the heads from fish. When she seeth the dogs she will curse. Then shalt thou help her drive the dogs away and she shall speak. Forget not what she saith of the marsh path, and beyond.
"When thou hast left Chorazin keep thee going until thou hath passed a peasant thrashing with the drag. Here turn aside from the road to the right and go straight until thou comest to a grove of carib trees. Now rest thy feet but use thine eyes and ears. Thou art not far from the Jordan. ”

“ During the night these Baboons hide together in holes in the rocks, whence, on the return of the morning sun, they emerge and sit warming themselves, before starting on their marauding expeditions in the cultivated fields, or in the vegetation which clothes the sides of the deep valleys, where they feed largely on the leaves of the trees. Their disposition is, among themselves, harmless. ”