END OF FIGHTING

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16412, 4 January 1919, Page 9

END OF FIGHTING

JOY-RIDING IN" THE SKIES. (From tho "Daily Chronicle'' Special Correspondent, Phillip Gibbs.) "WAR CORRESPONDENTS' HEADQUARTERS, November 12. Last night, for tho first timo sinco August' in the first year of the war, there was no light of gunfiro in tho sky, no sudden stabs of flame through the darkness, no long spreading glow abovo the black trees, whore for four years or nights human beings were being smashed' to death. , . , ... It was silent, all along tho front, with the beautiful silence of nights of peace. We did not stand listening to the dull rumbling .of jirt'.Lory lit work, which lias be«n tlie undertone of all closer sounds for 1500 nights, nor have sudden heartbeats at explosions shaking earth air, nor sf.v in a- whisper to oneself, "Curso those guns." At eleven a.m. the order had gone to all batteries to cease fire. No more men woro to be killed, no more to mangled, no more to be blinded. _ The last boyhood of the world was reprieved. Oil the way back from Mans I listened to this silence, which followed tho going down of the sun. and heard the rustling of the' russet leaves, and tho -httlo sounds of night in peueo, and it seemed as though God gave a benediction to tho wounded soul of tho world. SOUNDS OF REVELRY. Other sounds rose from the towns and fields in tho yellowing twilight, and in tho deepening shadow world of the day of armistice. They were sounds ol human joy. Men were singing somewhere on "tlio roads, and their voices rang out gladly. Bands were playing, as ail day on the way to Mons I heard their music aboad tlio iuarcliiug columns. Bugles were blowing. In the villages from which the enemy had gono out that morning round about Mons, crowds of figures surged in tlio narrow streets, and English laughter rose above the silvery chatter of women and children. British soldiers were still on the march with their guns and their transport and their old field cookers, and all along tlioir linos I heard these men talking to each otlior gaily, as though something had loosened their tongues and made them garrulous. Motor-cars streaked through the Belgian streets, dodging traffic and now and then, when night fell, rr.ckots woro fired from them, and there wero gusts of laughter from young officcrsj'shooting off Verey pistols into the darkness, to celebrate the end of hostilities by this symbol of rising stars, which did not soar so high as their spirits. From dark towns like Tournai and Lille these rockets rose and burned a little while with white light. Our aviators flew like bats in the dusk, nkiinming tree-tops and gables, doing Pucklike gambols above the tawny sunset, looping and spiraling and falling in steep aives which looked like death for them until they flattened out and rose again; and they, too—these boys who have been reprieved from' tlio menace which was close to them on every .light —fired flares' and rockets, which dropped down to the crowds of French andi Flemish people waving to them from bolow. TOASTS OF VICTORY. Late into tho night there were sounds of singing and laughter from open windows in towns which had been all_ shuttered, with people hiding in their cellars, a week ago or less, and British officers sat down to French pianos, nndl romped about the keys, and crashed out chords, and led tho chorus of men who wanted to sing any old song. In tho officers' clubs glasses were raised and someono called a toast, and no one heard more than the name of England, Scotland, France, with victory as the loudest word, for men had risen from all the tables, and' boys, were standing on tlioir chairs, and there was the beginning of cheers which lasted five minutes —ten minutes —longer than that. And some of those who cheered had moist eyes, and were not ashamed of that because of memories in their hearts for old pals who had gone missing on fphe night of armistice. Porhaps the old pals heard these cheers and joined in the toast, for tho noise of all this gladness of living men rose into the night sky along the length and breadth of all our armies. And in tho midst of all this sound of exultation men had siidden silences, thinking back to the things which have ■ passed. Yesterday, ooming back from Mons, I had no time to write moro than a fow words describing the best day but one, 'when our victory shall be sealed ,by oeace. I had dodged a hundred mine craters, blown up, by the enoiny, along all the roads to Hons, and had become entangled in t'des of traffic and travelled far through the liberated country. ( But I had determined to get to Mons, and, on the day of "cease fire," to go to that town which, by a happy miracle, was taken in the liist battle, so that the war ended for us where it began when the "Old Contemptibles" withstood the first shock of German nrms. It was worth going to Mons yesterday with this memory in one's mind, itnd anyhow beeauso of wonderful scenes all along the roads. I have already told how I stopped at brigade headquarters on the way, and an officer there said: "Hostilities will coase at 11 o'clock this morning, and thank God for that." With this news I went on, and saw 1 that everywhere the news had- _ gono ahead of me. Soldiers, assembled in the fields for morning parade, were flinging their steel helmots up and cheering. As they marched through the villages they shouted out to civilians: "Guerre finil Guerre fini. Bocho napoo!" and women and children came running to ' them with autumn flowers, mostly red ■ and white chrysanthemums, and tbey put them in their tunics, and in tho straps of tlioir steel helmets. Thousands of flaps appeared suddenly in the villages where no French or Belgian fla<; could be shown without fines and imprisonment until that very when liberty had come again, and evorv Tommy in the ranks had a •bit of colour at the end of his rifle or stuck through his belt, and every gun team had a banner floating above tneir limbers or on their guns, and their horses had flowers in their harness.

PAGEANT PASSES PAGEANT. For miles there was a pageant on the Toads, and as thore moved one way endloss tides of British infantry and cavalry and artillery and transport, with all that flutter of . flags above them, with the great banners of Belgium and Franco like flames , above them, another tide movedtho opposite way, .and that had its flags a-nd its banners. It was a pitiful, iieroic tide of life, made up of thousands of civilian people who that morning had come back through tho German lines. They were the men, from 15 to CO, who had been taken away from Cambrai and Courtrai. Lille, and ltoubaix, and Tourcoing, Tournai, and Valenciennes, and hundreds of towns and villages in the wake of the encmy'B retreat, because to the very ond the German Command had conscripted this manhood to forced labour and to prevent them from serving their own armies. Then at the last, yesterday, seeing that their own doom had come, they said to these people in Brussels and other towns behind their lines: "You can go. We want no more of vou." So vast numbers of men and boys ■wlio had been forccd from their homes by German bayonets, and with tiiem thousands of women, were making their way homo yesterday on all roads through Moris and Ath. It was from a child in Mons that I heard the full story of the last battle for the town. She was not more than seven, and stood on tho step of my car, a little, eJfin crcaturc, and in lior high metallic voice very gravely described what had happened a few hours before. -"Over there, monsieur, were the Ger-

man machino-guns, and they had fieU guns in the garden. Your men had come up to tho line of the canal. They wore Canadians and your English cavalry, as I know, bocauso 1 kissed their hands this morning, and said: 'Will you toll me who you are?' "There was a great noise of firing, and the machine-guns frightened mo bocauso of their tapping. Some Germans were killed. 1 think there were many dead, though I have only seen two or three dead men, who arc lying over there." Sho pointed to some place down by tho canal. She 6poke like an old woman —this child of scvon in the town of Mons. I met many people tlioro who remembered tho hrst battle of Mons as though it were yesterday, and in the square, where thousands of people were gathered, among our English Lancers and Canadian troops little groups stood round telling of those days, and pointing out places where our mon had fought in the streets, before they made their line outside and fell back in retreat before overwhelming forccs. Ot7R HEROIC WARRIORS. In my heart I saluted the "Old Contemptibles." Some of them were there yesterday among our sth Lanccrs, chosen for that purposo bv General Currie, commanding tho Canadian Corps. And now tho world in its heart must salute all our soldiers, who, through those four years and more of war, have fought for this victory by groat heroism, through years of horror and tragedy, with enormous sacrifice. I saw only two figures in this war now that hostilities havo i ceased. One is tho figure of tho regimental officer, frQin subaltern to battalion commander, tho boys and their older brothers, who went over tho top at dawn and led their men, gallantly hiding any fear ot death they had, and who, in dirty ditches and dugouts, in mud and swamps, in fields under fire, in rums that wore death-traps, in all the filth and misery of this war, held fast to tho prido of nlanhood, and jn the worst hours did not weaken, and for their country's sake and the game they pluy offered up their life, and all that life moans to youth, as a froo, cheap Ejft. And tho other figure is Tommy. Poor old Tommy. You havo had a rough time, and you hated it, but by tho living God you havo boon patient and longsuffering, and full of grim and silent courage, not swanking about things you havo done, not caring a jot for glory, not getting much—but now you have dono your job, and it is well done.