My pilgrimage to the Silent City

I HAVE always been interested in the First World War," said my guide.

"What else can you do when you are brought up in a graveyard?"

I could see his point. I had been in France for only a few hours and had already lost count of the military cemeteries I'd passed, each one full of the bodies of men whose stories would never be told. Next week marks the 80th anniversary of the end of a war which will always be synonymous with futile loss of life. It seemed an appropriate time to visit the former battlefields, and also to try to find the grave of my great-uncle, killed in France just a few weeks before the Armistice. A railway worker, he had left the family home in Herne Hill and joined the London Regiment, no doubt believing, like all the other young recruits, that "it would all be over by Christmas". And, like so many of the others, he never came back. I travelled first to Arras, a city once noted throughout the world for its fine tapestries. It is a striking place dominated by a Gothic belfry, and two large squares lined with elegant houses built in the Flemish baroque style, one of which was once home to Robe-spierre. With bustling shops, restaurants and market stalls, it looks as if it has remained unchanged for centuries. Yet none of these buildings is more than 80 years old. The city centre was virtually wiped out during the Great War and painstakingly reconstructed once the fighting was over. Underneath the square is another, secret city, a vast underground network of tunnels and caverns which sheltered around 20,000 men during the war. The tunnels had existed in some form since the 10th century, but were extended by Allied soldiers until they stretched like chalky fingers to the German front line, allowing them to explode mines undetected. Cold, dark and claustrophobic, they must still have made a more comfortable billet than a flooded trench. It is just a short journey to Vimy Ridge which was captured by the Canadians as part of the Battle of Arras in 1917. Carved on a towering white memorial are the names of 11,285 Canadians who died in France and whose bodies were never found. Add to that the 72,085 a three to to GBP 199 Sicily, included. Fernndez names of missing British and South African soldiers at Thiepval, the Somme memorial, further south, and the scale of the slaughter starts to become chillingly apparent. I walked around the former battlefield, the silence broken by children squealing as they ran among the trenches which have been neatly almost too neatly - preserved in concrete. They appeared to be playing war games. From Arras, I travelled north to the villages of Aubers and Fromelles, close to where my great-uncle lies buried. I was shocked to find that in 1916 the two front lines were, in places, only 80 metres apart. The museum at Fromelles is crammed to overflowing with weapons, bullets and shells recovered from the surrounding fields. The small personal items are the most poignant: the letters home, the half-squeezed tubes of toothpaste, a shaving brush - even a top set of false teeth. I was struck by the thought that one of these dusty, yellow exhibits might have belonged to Great Uncle Basil. An eerie feeling. Before I left Fromelles, the museum curator took me to an old German pillbox which sits in the corner of a farmer's field. Choked with weeds, it seems unremarkable. According to my guide, a young German corporal used to deliver messages here when he served in France during the Great War. His name was Adolf Hitler. Later that evening I made my way to Aubers Ridge British Cemetery where my great-uncle is buried. It is a small cemetery by First World War standards, with 718 graves, all immaculately kept. I walked among the simple white headstones until I found his final resting place. The inscription is simple: "684094 Private B Hamley, 22nd Bn London Regiment, 4th October 1918." As I look around me, I suddenly understand why Kipling called these war cemeteries "Silent Cities". And I think about Private Hamley, who was apparently killed by a sniper while going out to rescue a wounded man. My grandmother, his sister, always kept a letter which had been found in his pocket. It had a bullet hole through the middle. I feel glad that I have found him. It was only when I returned to London that I learned his name was on the war memorial at Victoria Station. It took me ages to find it. But suddenly, there it was - next to a McDonald's. I had been walking past it for years. HOLT's Battlefield Tours (01304 612248) organises three and four- day itineraries to the Western Front from GBP 279 including coach and ferry transport, half-board, museum entrance and expert guides. Battlefields of France and Flanders is a new spring tour in the 1999 brochure from Wallace Arnold Holidays (0181 686 9833). The seven-day guided coach holiday costs GBP 359. This year Arras is offered for the first time as a short-break destination by Cresta (0161 927 7000), while VFB has a selection of hotels close to the Normandy landing beaches and within driving distance of the Somme battlefields. Call 01242 240310 for its France la Carte brochure.

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