(Battlefield tour guide) John Anderson - Trapped behind enemy lines : accounts of British soldiers and their protectors in the Great War

First edition published in Great Britain in 2015 by
PEN AND SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen and Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright John Anderson and Victor Piuk 2015

ISBN: 978 1 47383 801 7
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47387 408 4
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47387 407 7
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47387 406 0

The right of John Anderson and Victor Piuk to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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We arrived in the centre of Etaples on a dull August morning, excited by the anticipation of a great hunt and the hope of finding something interesting at the towns brocante. The word does not translate exactly into English, but a brocante is a cross between an antiques fair, a flea market and a car boot sale. You can come away with anything, or nothing. This French town on the Channel coast, which had accommodated thousands of soldiers during the Great War, was today in carnival mood. The place had hosted an infamous training establishment described by Wilfred Owen as: A vast, dreadful encampment. It seemed neither France nor England, but a kind of paddock where the beasts are kept a few days before the shambles. Many thousands are here still, in the massive Commonwealth War Graves cemetery nearby, men who died of wounds or illness so close to home. Looking at the crush of stall holders and bargain hunters today there was a resemblance to a shambles, but the only terror here was the fear of a lost sale or of missing out on a long sought after collectable.

The brocante filled the town square and surrounding streets with stall after stall of old and interesting bric--brac, antiques and general second hand goods in bewildering variety. The French recycle their possessions with typical Gallic flair and enjoy explaining in great detail the provenance of anything in which one may have expressed an interest. They will happily take the first asking price with a smile, but bartering with them is a skill worth developing, even though they will make you feel as though you are taking food from the mouths of their children.

Still in darkness and with storm clouds gathering, we had dragged ourselves out of the sleeping bags in our caravan at half past four in the morning or 0430 hrs by the military clock. Whichever was used it was still a shock! I had not realized there were two half past fours on the clock until we discovered the joy of brocantes. Canny folk, the French they advertise the start time as eight, but if you get there fifteen minutes before that you are still two hours behind the dealers. However, we knew the ropes as veterans of many a brocante and so got there at six, when some of the stallholders were still setting up by torchlight.

We have a system: a quick whizz around, looking at the larger and more obvious items on offer, then a more thorough sortie as it begins to get light, checking out the contents of the many boxes and cases. It was towards the end of our first tour that my good lady Kath spoke, saying: Go and have a look at that, its got Daily Telegraph written on it. Dutifully, I threaded my way through and over the array of goods on offer and strategically placed to make it impossible to reach the object of my interest. The dealer had laid a tarpaulin on the uneven footpath and spread out his wares: china and glass collectables to the front, books and pictures at the sides on rickety folding tables, small items of furniture of an unknown vintage and the inevitable table by which the dealer stood tearing lumps from his breakfast baguette; uncovered slices of ham and cheese were being stuffed into the bread, and it was all being washed down with the first glass of ros of the day.

As he watched me precariously tiptoe my way through and around his goods he drained his glass, re-lit his cheroot and got to me just as I picked the item up. His sales pitch chattered like a Maxim gun and I picked up only a few of the words of the French he fired at me. It is very beautiful and extremely rare, he extolled, perhaps even unique. The writing was all in English and I wondered if in reality he understood what he had. It was a certificate of some sort, backed by card, and it had clearly been displayed in a frame at some time, as the old mount was still in place around it. My first impression was that it was not print but beautifully handcrafted calligraphy and decoration. I read it and asked how much. He announced his price, but I did not need to barter on this occasion as he kindly offered me a discount during the pause while I worked out how to ask for one. He was kind enough to place the item in a large plastic bin liner, and as we walked away the first few drops of rain began to fall, steadily increasing to a heavy downpour. We ducked into the nearest caf and looking back we noticed that our dealer was continuing with his breakfast, sheltering beneath a parasol and making no attempt to protect his stock from the pouring rain. It was only much later in the day, when we returned to the security of our touring van, that we fully realized what it was we had bought and how close it had come to being soaked and destroyed by the deluge.

As we read through the beautifully handwritten text we marvelled at the skill of the calligrapher and his or her careful attention to detail in the documents decoration, which included the Tricolour, the Union Flag and the regimental badge of the Scottish Rifles. The text read:

This Testimonial was presented to Madame Julie Celestine Baudhuin by the Lord Mayor of London at the Mansion House, on April 8, 1927 on behalf of a large number of readers of the Daily Telegraph who, deeply stirred by the story of the superb courage with which she succoured a British soldier at the risk of her own life in the Great War, subscribed for the purchase of an annuity as a token of the honour due from the British people to a brave Frenchwoman. Disdaining danger, Madame Baudhuin provided food and shelter for a prolonged period to a soldier cut off in the enemy lines, and suffered a cruel punishment from the invader for her courage and self-sacrifice. Wherever the wonderful story has been told it has excited the deepest and the purest emotions, and the subscribers to the annuity have been spontaneously moved to offer with their thanks and their admiration this testimonial of their earnest desire for her wellbeing and of their pride at being able to shew their appreciation of her rare magnanimity, her unflinching bravery during the years that the invader remained on her hearth, and her womanly loving-kindness to one whom her devotion saved.
Underneath this was written, 1914 The Great War 1918