from the War Diary of Arnold Bennett
Friday, December 4th 1914 - Patriotic concert last night in
village schoolroom. All the toffs of the village were there. Rev. Mathews and
wife dine with us before it. Most of the programme was given by soldiers,
except one pro. It was far more amusing than one could have expected. Corporal
Snell, with a really fine bass voice, sang two very patriotic, sentimental
songs, sound in sentiment but extremely bad in expression. They would have been
excruciating in an ordinary voice, but he was thrilling in them. Our Lieutenant
Michaelis was there, after missing the roads, together with a number of his
men. The great joke which appealed to parsons and everyone else was of a fat
lady sitting on a man’s hat in a bus. ‘Madam, do you know what you’re sitting
on?’ ‘I ought to, I’ve been sitting on it for 54 years.’
Tuesday, December 22nd 1914 – Today I heard firing at sea
which seemed to be like a battle and not like firing practice. The first time I
have had this impression since the war began, though we have heard firing
scores of times.
This is the most gruesome item I have seen
in any newspaper. It is from an account of life in Brussels in Daily Telegraph, December 15th:
Since the fatal attacks on Ypres and the Yser a new recreation has been created
for the Bruxellois, namely the trains of the dead. These pass through the
suburb of Laeken, and go by way of Louvain and Liège to Germany, to be burned
in the blast furnaces. The dead are stripped, tied together like bunches of
asparagus, and stacked upright on their feet, sometimes bound together with
cords, but for the most part with iron wire. Two to three thousand pass with
each train, sometimes in closed meat-trucks, sometimes in open trucks, just as
it happens. The mighty organisation will not suffer a truck to go back empty; a
dead man has no further interest for them.’
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