The Topographical Section under Colonel Hedley did fine work during those troubled days before the Battle of the Marne. It was in the highest degree gratifying to find a branch, for which one found oneself suddenly after a fashion responsible, to be capable of so promptly and effectually meeting emergencies. The Expeditionary Force had taken with it generous supplies of maps portraying the regions adjacent to the Franco-Belgian frontier, where it proposed to operate; a somewhat hasty retreat to a point right away back, south-east of Paris, had formed no part of its programme. A day or two after the first clash of arms near Mons, a wire arrived demanding the instant despatch of maps of the country as far to the rear as the Seine and the Marne. Now, as all units had to be supplied on a liberal scale, this meant hundreds of copies of each of a considerable number of different large-scale sheets, besides hundreds of copies of two or three more general small-scale sheets; nevertheless, the consignment was on its way before midnight. A day or two later G.H.Q. wired for maps as far back as Orleans, a day or two later, again, for maps as far as the mouth of the Loire, and yet a day or two later, for maps down to Bordeaux-this last request representing thousands of sheets. But on each occasion the demand was met within a few hours and without the slightest hitch. It was a remarkable achievement-an achievement attributable in part to military foresight dating back to the days when Messrs. Asquith, Lloyd George, Churchill and Co., either deliberately or else as a result of sheer ignorance and ineptitude, were deceiving their countrymen as to the gravity of the German menace, an achievement attributable also in part to military administrative efficiency of a high order in a time of crisis. The Topographical Section, it should be added, was able to afford highly appreciated assistance to our French and Belgian allies in the matter of supplying them with maps of their own countries.
During the first two or three weeks after fighting started, waifs and strays who had been run over by the Boches, but who had picked themselves up somehow and had fetched up at the coast, used to turn up at the War Office and to find their way to my department. For some reason or other they always presented themselves after dinner-like the coffee. The first arrival was a young cavalry officer, knocked off his horse in the preliminary encounters by what had evidently been the detonation of a well-pitched-up high-explosive, and who was still suffering from a touch of what we now know as shell-shock. He proved to be the very embodiment of effective military training, because, although he was to the last degree vague as to how he had got back across the Channel and only seemed to know that he had had a bath at the Cavalry Club, he was able to give most useful and detailed information as to what he had noted after recovering consciousness while making his way athwart the German trains and troops in reserve as they poured along behind Von Kluck's troops in front line. One observed the same thing in the case of another cavalry officer who arrived some days later, after a prolonged succession of tramps by night from the Sambre to Ostend. "You'll sleep well to-night," I remarked when thanking him for the valuable information that he had been able to impart-and of a sudden he looked ten years older. "I couldn't sleep a wink last night at Ostend," he muttered in a bewildered sort of way, "and I don't feel as if I'd ever sleep again."
We did not wear uniform in the War Office for the first month or so, and one night about this time, on meeting a disreputable and suspicious-looking character on the stairs, garbed in the vesture affected by the foreign mechanic, I was debating whether to demand of the interloper what he was doing within the sacred precincts, when he abruptly accosted me with: "I say, d'you happen to know where in this infernal rabbit-warren a blighter called the Something of Military Operations hangs out?" His address indicated him to be a refugee officer looking for my department.
These prodigals had such interesting experiences to recount that, in a weak moment, I gave instructions for them to be brought direct to me, and about 10 P.M. one night, when there happened to be a lot of unfinished stuff to be disposed of before repairing homewards, a tarnished-looking but otherwise smart and well-set-up private soldier was let loose on me. A colloquy somewhat as follows ensued:
"What regiment?"
"The Rile Irish, sorr." (He said this as if there was no other regiment-they always do.)
"Ah! Well, and how have you got along back here?"
"Sorr, it's the truth I'm tellin' ye, sorra ilse. Sure wasn't I marchin' and fightin' and hidin' and craalin' for wakes and wakes" (the Royal Irish could only have detrained at Le Cateau about ten days before) "before I gits to that place as they calls Boulong-a gran' place, sorr, wid quays and thruck like it was the North Waal-an' a fellah takes me to the Commandant, sorr, where I seen a major-man wid red tabs an' an eye like Polly-famous. 'Sorr,' sez I to him, sez I; sez I, 'it's gittin' back to the rigimint I'd be afther,' sez I. 'Ye'll not,' sez he, 'divil a stir,' sez he; 'ye'll go to Lunnon,' sez he. 'Will I?' sez I. 'Ye will,' sez he; 'take him down to the boat at wanst, sergeant,' sez he, and the sergeant right turns me and marches me out. 'Sergeant dear,' sez I, 'sure why can't I be gittin' back to the rigimint?' sez I. 'Agh, t'hell out o' that,' sez he; 'sure didn't ye hear what the major bin and said?' sez he, an' he gin me over to a carpral-one on thim ogly Jocks, sorr-an' down we goes by the quays to the boat-a gran' boat, sorr, wid ladies an' childer an' Frinch an' Bilgians, an' all sorts, as minded me on the ould Innisfallen. D'y' iver know the ould Innisfallen, sorr, as sails from Carrk to some place as I misremember the name on, sorr?"
"Crossed over on her once from Cork to Milford."
"Ye did, yer honour-sorr, I mane? Glory be to God-to think o' that! Well, sorr, I'd a sup of tay at one on thim shtahls, sorr, an' the Jock gives me me papers an' puts me aboard, sorr. It's mostly onaisy in me inside I am, sorr, on the say, but it was beautiful calm an'--"
"Yes, yes; but look here-Where was it you left your regiment?"
"Is it me, sorr? Me lave me rigimint, sorr? Me wid three years' sarvis an' sorra intry in my shate at all, only two, wan time I was dthronk wid a cowld in me nose, sorr. Me lave me rigimint? It was the rigimint lift me, sorr. As I tell ye just now, we'd bin marchin' an' fightin' for wakes and wakes, an' it was tired I was, sorr, bate I was, an' we was havin' a halt, sorr; an' I sez to Mick Shehan from Mallow, as is in my platoon, 'Mick,' sez I. 'Tim,' sez he, wid his mouth full of shkoff. 'Mick,' sez I, 'it's gwan to have a shlape, I am,' sez I, 'an' ye'll wake me, Mick darlint, when the fall-in goes.' 'Begob an' why wouldn't I, Tim,' sez he, 'so I ain't shlapin' mysilf?' sez he. 'Ye'll no forgit, Mick,' sez I. 'Agh, shut yer mouth, why would I be the wan to forgit?' sez he. But whin I wuk up, the divil a rigimint was there at all, at all, only me, sorr; an' there was a lot of quare-lookin' chaps as I sinsed by the look on thim was Jarmins. I was concealed by a ditch,[1] an' settin' down by a bit o' whin, I was, sorr, or they seen me for sure. 'Phwat'll I do at all?' sez I to mysilf, sez I, an'-"
"Just stop a minute; where was all this?"
"Where was it? Why, in Fraance, sorr, where ilse would it be? Well, sorr, as I was just startin' to tell ye, there was a lot of quare-lookin' chaps as I sinsed by the look of thim was Jarmins, an'--"
"Yes, but good Lord, man, what was the name of the place in France where all this happened?"
"Place is it, sorr? Sure it wasn't any place at all, but one of thim kind of places as the name on has shlipped me mimry, a bog, sorr-leastways it wasn't a bog as ye'd rightly call a bog in Oireland, sorr-no turf nor there wasn't no wather. I mind now, sorr! It was what the chaps at the 'Shott calls a 'hathe,' sorr. There was trees contagious, an' whins; sure wasn't I tellin' ye just now as I was settin' down by a bit of whin, sorr--"
But it had been borne in on me that this had become a young man's job, so I succeeded, not without some difficulty, in consigning the gallant Royal Irishman-still pouring forth priceless intelligence material-into the hands of a messenger to be taken to the officer on duty. Manuals of instruction that deal with the subject of eliciting military information in time of war impress upon you that the Oriental always wants to tell you what he thinks you want him to tell you. But the Irishman tells you what he wants to tell you himself, and it isn't the least use trying to stop him.
The Intelligence Department being-directly at home and indirectly abroad-under my control, I was much sought after in the early days, was almost snowed under, indeed, with applications and recommendations for the post of "Intelligence Officer." Bigwigs within the War Office itself, when they were bothered on paper about people, simply passed the note along as it stood with "D.M.O., can you do anything for this creature?" or something of that sort, scribbled in blue pencil at the top. One was treated as if one was a sort of unemployment bureau. Qualifications for this particular class of post turned out to be of the most varied kind. One young gentleman, who was declared to be a veritable jewel, was described as a pianist, fitted out with "technique almost equal to a professional." The leading characteristic of another candidate appeared to be his liability to fits. Algy, "a dear boy and so good-looking,"...
