Now, God be Thanked

by John Masters

  His wife patted her grey hair absent-mindedly, and looked him straight in the eye, thoughtfully, measuringly. She said, ‘You could be as good a Member as Mr Ellis, there’s no doubt. Better. You’d have to spend more time in London than I think you’d like.’

  ‘We are all going to have to put up with some inconvenience, indeed sacrifice, for the country’s sake,’ Harry said.

  She nodded, ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘I want to help the country in whatever way I can. My first responsibility is to make more and better motor cars for the army, if we get the orders … by the way, Ellis hinted that he was doing his best to see that we did … but if the Prime Minister believes I can be of use as an MP, in addition, then I do not think that I would be justified in refusing for purely selfish reasons.’

  ‘What do you think, Alice?’ his wife said. ‘You know your father at least as well as I do.’

  Alice looked up, a half-smile on her broad face. ‘I think father’s already made up his mind.’

  He pretended to glower at her. ‘What are you saying, Dormouse? That I am wasting your time?’

  ‘You want to accept. I don’t see any reason why you should not, if mother doesn’t.’

  His wife nodded. ‘I think you should accept. Perhaps you can knock some sense into their heads about Ireland. The Irish are volunteering in thousands for the war, Harry, tens of thousands! Now’s the time for generosity, for England to make a big gesture. The Irish are very sentimental people, and such a gesture now would mean more than any formal measures later.’

  Harry said, ‘That’s just about the only reason why I would not want to go into parliament, to become involved in the Irish question. I’m a manufacturer, my dear, I don’t have the patience for that sort of thing.’

  She said, ‘You’ll have to. And at least you can tell Mr Asquith what I think. Meanwhile, tell him you’ll accept.’

  ‘All right,’ Harry said suddenly, ‘very good. I will write to Ellis tomorrow morning.’ He finished his port and looked round, breathing deeply with satisfaction. The tall curtains were drawn back to let the summer air breathe in off the garden, heavy with the scent of Kentish roses. It was very quiet, no sound from the town. No more quiet than usual on a Sunday evening, perhaps, he thought, but … He said, ‘Quentin may be fighting for his life at this instant, barely a hundred miles away. He may already be wounded … or dead.’

  ‘The battle you told us about when you came in?’

  ‘Yes. And Tom’s ship may already have been sunk by one of those beastly German submarines. Treacherous swine! You saw Richard today, did you not, Alice?’

  ‘Yes, father. I had lunch with them. He’s found a big warehouse in North Hedlington that he thinks can be converted into a factory. It’s not perfect, but can serve to start with, he says.’

  ‘Has he succeeded in obtaining the capital?’

  ‘He had an encouraging answer to a cable he sent to Mr Merritt in New York, but Mr Merritt will have to consult his board of directors, and the war situation will have to be considered.’

  ‘Clearly,’ Harry said. He changed the subject abruptly. ‘I see that Guy did not do well against Yorkshire yesterday. Two for seventy-two is not very encouraging.’

  ‘He did not seem to be depressed when I spoke to him last night on the telephone. But it’s a shame that no one from the family was there to watch – except Virginia, of course.’

  ‘Everyone had other things to do,’ Harry said shortly. ‘I’m tired, Rose. I think we should retire now.’

  ‘Very well, my dear.’

  Daily Telegraph, Wednesday, August 26, 1914

  BRITISH ARMY AT THE BATTLE OF MONS

  A Splendid Story

  Paris, Monday (received per Courier, Tuesday) Graphic stories of how the British troops at Mons fought during the two days in which they bore the brunt of the main German advance reached Paris in the early hours of this morning when officers arriving from the front reported at the War Office and, in subsequent conversation with their closest personal friends, told of the wonderful coolness and daring of our men … The shooting of our infantry on the firing line, they said, was wonderful … The firing was not the usual firing of nervous men, shooting without aiming and sometimes without rhyme or reason, as is so often the case in warfare. It was rather the calm, calculated riflemanship of the men one sees on the Stickle-down range … There was no excitement, no nervousness; just cool methodical efficiency. If the British lost heavily heaven only knows what the Germans must have lost because, as one of their wounded officers (whom the British took prisoner) remarked, ‘We had never expected anything like it; it was staggering.’

  Cate read to the end of the report with pulse beating fast. So it had come, and Britannia had no cause to hang her head. Field-Marshal French could not yet give the exact number of casualties, still less any names, but he estimated that the army had suffered about two thousand … two thousand, in two days! That fitted with Lord Kitchener’s first speech in the House of Lords, reported on the same page where, among other things, K had said, ‘European fighting causes greater casualties than the campaigns in which we are generally engaged in other parts of the world. The only saving grace of the situation was that no war could last for long at such a scale. People had been talking about the war being over in a few weeks; and he had not believed them; but perhaps they were right, not from foolish optimism, but from a better understanding than he of the destructiveness of modern war. He read on:

  Fight for Civilization

  Paris, Wednesday (1.25 a.m.) An official communique issued at midnight says: ‘Our army, calm and resolute, will continue today its magnificent effort. It knows the reward of this effort. It is fighting for civilization and the whole of France is watching. She also is calm and strong, knowing that her sons, with the heroic Belgian army, and with the vigorous British army, support the burden of a conflict unprecedented both as to the joint bloodshed and its duration. The Russians are marching on the roads of Eastern Prussia, and Germany is invaded.’

  – REUTER.

  A tear fell from Cate’s eye, and fell on the page, followed soon by another.

  11 Le Cateau, France: Wednesday, August 26, 1914

  Two o’clock in the morning, and the candles guttering low. General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, commanding II Corps of the British Expeditionary Force, turned to Major-General Hamilton, commanding the 3rd Infantry Division. ‘How soon can your troops move off?’

  ‘To continue the retreat, sir?’

  Smith-Dorrien nodded.

  ‘Not before nine a.m. at the earliest,’ Hamilton answered emphatically. ‘They’ve been marching all night. We could cover the movement of the other divisions from our present positions, perhaps.’

  Smith-Dorrien shook his head. ‘The 4th Division is even more scattered than yours. Also it is part of III Corps, as you know … though whether General Snow has any contact with his Corps headquarters, I have no notion.’ He turned to the bull-like figure of Allenby, commanding the BEF’s Cavalry Division. ‘What is your situation?’

  ‘We’re all tired, sir. Men and horses. The Germans are very close. In my opinion, unless we can break clean now,’ he emphasized the word, repeating it – ‘now, we shall be forced to fight at daylight. What is the situation of I Corps, sir?’

  ‘Apparently they were attacked yesterday at Landrecies, and are continuing the retreat …’

  ‘You have no contact with them?’

  ‘No. I’ve sent signals and dispatch riders, in the hope that I can persuade General Haig to co-operate with me, and he may do so yet, but it is possible that a gap is developing between the two Corps … which would make it still more imperative that we continue our retreat, as the Chief has ordered.’

  No one said anything. A candle flared momentarily, lighting up Smith-Dorrien’s long, pensive face as he leaned over the farmhouse table, looking down at the spread map. After two minutes he stood upright. ‘Allenby, will you take orders from me, and act as part of this c
orps?’

  Allenby said, ‘Yes, sir.’

  Smith-Dorrien said, ‘Very well, gentlemen, we will fight and I will ask General Snow to act under me as well.’

  The officers in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. After seventy-two hours with its backs to the enemy, the BEF would now turn, at bay.

  Quentin Rowland plodded wearily on down the gravelled road, its surface gleaming faintly white under the starlight, the young moon long since set. The night was full of sounds – the creak and thud of his men’s boots behind him, the same from battalion headquarters in front, the sigh of the wind in the hedgerows and through the heavy branches of the poplars, reaching up on either side to cut shapes out of the sky. It was not the regular swing of British infantry on parade but a more staccato beat, for A Company, 1st Battalion, the Weald Light Infantry was not keeping step as well as on a Minden Day parade. Nor were they marching with the Light Infantry crack and snap, but trudging, under heavy packs, full ammunition pouches, rifles, bayonets, all the paraphernalia of field service marching order. The last time Company Sergeant Major Pierce had got reports from the platoon commanders, the company strength had been 84 out of the 126 of all ranks who, three days earlier, had scrabbled for cover in the smoking slag heaps south of the Mons-Condé canal, and there played their part in holding up the advance of three German divisions.

  How far had they marched since then? Fifty miles, sixty? Quentin tried to remember: the 23rd – fighting – no rations: night of the 23rd – marching all night: 24th – marching most of the day: night of the 24th – outpost duty, no rations: 25th – rear party of the division … A long way, a long time, always the field grey masses following, relentless. His men were falling asleep on their feet, stumbling along in their ranks, being supported by comrades, cursed by corporals as weary as they, some falling over unnoticed, to lie in a dead sleep at the dark verge of the road. When morning came, those men would find themselves staring down the muzzles of German rifles, to spend the rest of the war in prisoner-of-war camps. How long would that be? There seemed to be an incredibly large number of Germans. They had marched down to the Mons canal like a football crowd, and like a football crowd had melted away under the concentrated rapid fire of the British riflemen. But half an hour later, another such mass had followed, their field guns whip-cracking fire over the makeshift British trenches. The second mass had withered away, like the first … and the third, which had tried to advance by creeping and crawling through the piled corpses of their predecessors … and again … and again. In one advance platoon of his company, the wooden stocks of half the men’s rifles had charred from the heat of the barrels beneath. One of the battalion’s two machine-guns placed in his company’s area, had seized up, the water in its water jacket boiled away, so that it became useless. In its place they had used an East Surreys’ gun, found in an angle of the canal bank, its crew dead around it.

  If only they could turn and face the enemy … just for a day, perhaps. The men were not yet downhearted, but their mood was more sullen than Quentin liked. He knew he was not a brilliant officer, and had no thought that he would ever reach any command higher than that of a battalion of his regiment. But that was all he wanted, and he wanted it because he understood the cockneys and Men of Kent and Kentish Men who formed it. Irish, too, for a large proportion of the British Infantry line had always been composed of Irishmen, especially since the potato famines of the mid-nineteenth century. He felt for the soldiers, and with them, by processes deeper than thinking or imagining; and they understood him. He understood them and loved them the way a man was supposed to love and understand his wife … in his own case, much better. Fiona was quite incomprehensible to him.

  His feet were sore and he had worn huge holes in both his socks. His batman had repaired them with cobbling work that made him feel he was marching barefoot on a coarse rope mesh. His pipe, that he had been smoking off and on all through the night’s march, was burned out and tasted bitter on his tongue. He wondered what his brother John was doing now. Well, that was a stupid thought, for at 4 a.m. John would be asleep in his double bed, Louise lying beside him. John had no more imagination than he himself had, yet he seemed to have made a success of his marriage. Perhaps John and Louise were no longer passionate lovers – if they ever had been – but he was sure they still shared an intimate personal life; whereas his own …

  ‘ ’Ere, ’ere! Roko ! Turn kaun ho?’ His Company Sergeant-Major darted forward in the gloom, shouting Hindustani imprecations. Most regular soldiers had served many years in India, and believed that anyone who wasn’t British must be a native, and therefore would understand Hindustani. A voice answered in French, shouting something coarse, in which Quentin could only understand the word ‘Merde’ – shit! Horses loomed huge ahead, crossing from left to right. Quentin saw that they had reached a crossroads. He said to the men beside him, ‘Halt here,’ and went forward, ash plant swinging.

  Peering up against the stars, he made out the long lances, horsehair plumes, and brass helmets of French dragoons, and called up ‘Qui êtes vous?’

  ‘Va te foutre,’ a gruff voice answered.

  ‘Je suis un commandant anglais. Combien êtes vous?’

  Another voice answered him, ‘Deux cents, mon commandant. Nous passerons vite.’

  He leaned wearily on his stick. Two hundred dragoons, he thought, crossing their line of march in the dusty, pre-dawn hour, and cutting in between his own battalion headquarters and the rest of the battalion. The CO would not be pleased. Still, there was nothing to be done about it until they had passed, and that wouldn’t be long.

  He called, ‘Sar’nt Major! Put out four men, with a sergeant, to block this crossroads, both sides, when the French have passed, until the rest of the battalion can get past. Then they can catch up.’

  ‘Sir!’

  The CSM bustled off, calling out. Men stumbled forward, fixing bayonets. The last of the dragoons disappeared into the dark and the British column trudged on again. The soldiers at the head of A Company’s leading platoon were talking. ‘Where did those Froggies come from?’

  ‘God knows, Ginger.’

  ‘Where were they going?’

  ‘Not even God knows that, mate.’

  A chuckle. A voice said, ‘They’re going to ’ave tea with von Fuck.’

  ‘Or wipe the snow off the focking Roosians’ boots what was supposed to be in this foight with us.’

  The platoon officer said, ‘Mind the language there, Murphy.’

  ‘Sorry, sorr.’

  Quentin nodded in agreement and felt a little better. Hedges was right not to permit foul language in his hearing; but the fact that the men were joking was a good sign.

  A soldier spoke to the subaltern, ‘Is it true that von Fu – von Kluck called us a “contemptible little army”, sir? Even after, wot we did to them at Mons?’

  Hedges said, ‘I don’t think it was von Kluck, Wickilam.’

  Quentin turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. ‘It was the Kaiser, in a general order to von Kluck. And it was before Mons.’

  The CSM said, ‘Someone ’alted ahead, sir.’

  The group of figures took dim shape. The earliest light was beginning to tinge the eastern darkness to their left, as they marched almost due south. A voice spoke harshly. ‘Who’s there?’

  Quentin recognized his CO’s voice and said, ‘A Company, sir.’

  ‘Rowland? Where in the name of God have you been? We’ve been waiting here ten minutes.’

  ‘French cavalry cut across us, sir.’

  The colonel swore under his breath. ‘Those …! They’ve done it twenty times if they’ve done it once, wandering about the countryside like lost baboons … Pull your company off into that field there, Quentin. The rest of the battalion will follow you. The men can have an hour’s nap where they lie. As soon as they’re in the field, you come back here for orders. We’re going to stand and fight.’

  ‘Fight, sir?’ Quentin’s stolid determina
tion was lit by a flare of enthusiasm.

  ‘Yes, fight.’ Behind him Quentin heard the word repeated down the ranks as the company trudged past into the field … fight … fight … we’re going to fight. A ragged cheer rose, quickly suppressed by CSM Pierce’s acid – ‘First, sleep! You lot couldn’t fight a girls’ school now.’

  ‘Where are we, sir?’ Quentin asked.

  ‘There’s a little town to our right front called Le Cateau. The Corps is going to fight on a generally east-west line through it. Our brigade headquarters has lost touch with the East Surreys, and our job is to hold this flank until touch is regained with them, and then we will all rejoin the rest of the brigade south-west of Le Cateau.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’ll tell you more when I give out orders. Oh, one more thing you can tell your men later – do you know what today is, Quentin?’

  Quentin wrinkled his brow and thought again of the days and nights that had passed. ‘I think it’s the 26th,’ he said aloud.

  ‘Quite right,’ Colonel Pitchford said with a touch of impatience. ‘The anniversary of Crecy. The 568th anniversary, to be exact. And we are going to make the anniversary just as glorious as the bowmen did that day.’

  ‘I’m sure we will, sir,’ Quentin said stolidly. Lieutenant-Colonel Pitchford was a good soldier, he thought, but somewhat unpredictable.

  ‘You have no imagination,’ Pitchford said, but he was smiling in the faintness of a misty dawn.

  ‘Nearly six o’clock, sir,’ CSM Pierce said, ‘and we’ve brewed some char.’ He handed over a mug of hot tea. Smoke rose from the corner of a building at the edge of Le Cateau, where Quentin’s own batman, and that of his second-in-command, Captain Irwin, were burning pieces of old lumber to make a fire. The mist was rising from the valley of the Selle, the stream that flowed northwards through Le Cateau. Behind them the land rose, already clear of mist, to low rolling hills.