by John Masters
She wiped her eyes. Thursday next, at 10 p.m., at Waterloo Station, Platform 9, his five days’ leave would be up; and by midnight she’d be wondering when she’d next see Mr Protheroe or Mr Chambers.
Ethel and Niccolo had not moved. The others went, so they stayed. Ethel was still crying, but not passionately. Now it was more like summer dew filling her eyes. She stroked her husband’s head where he lay on the grass beside her, face down, a handkerchief pressed to his nose.
She said, ‘You don’t mean it, Niccolo. Tell me you don’t mean it.’
‘I do,’ he said sullenly, the words muffled and distorted by the handkerchief and the swollen nose.
‘What shall I do?’
‘Go home to your mother and father. They never liked me, because I’m an Italian … because I was an Italian,’ he corrected himself.
‘But I love you. I want to give you a baby. But … please see a doctor, Niccolo.’
He rolled over and appeared to be thinking, rubbing the black stubble on his chin with his hand. He said suddenly, ‘You will tell me you have made love with Giorgio, my friend. And I will say, go home to your mother and father, I don’t want you. And I will start to divorce you. And if you don’t say what I tell you, that you have fucked with Giorgio, then I shall hit you, every night, until you do.’
Ethel kept on crying, softly, helplessly.
Bill and Ruth Hoggin sat in the depths of a wood. It was not cool, but it was cooler than almost anywhere else on the Heath that afternoon. Bill had his back against an elm, his shirt collar loose, a bottle of warm beer halt empty in his hand. Ruth sat opposite, her knees tucked under her, her blouse unbuttoned, feeding Launcelot. Launcelot grunted and snorted and kneaded her swollen breast, milk spilling out from the corners of his mouth and running down his chin on to her breast below the nipple. She had a folded handkerchief pressed on to the other nipple, which was also dripping profusely.
‘Cooeee, cooeee,’ Bill said, offering the baby a fat finger.
Launcelot took no notice. Bill said, ‘Wheee wheee! ’Ere, ’andsome, ’ave some of this!’ He poured a little beer on to his finger and held it out. Launcelot pounded away at the breast.
‘’Ere, I’m your dad,’ Bill said, leaning forward. ‘Take some bloody notice when I speaks to yer.’
‘He’s busy,’ Ruth said lovingly. ‘He’s strong … Oh, he almost hurts sometimes, but it’s like … the other thing, too … I feel warm inside, all the way.’
‘ ’Ere, Launcelot … Launcelot! I can’t say it! It’s a bloody silly name! What in ’ell made you so bloody keen on that?’
‘I like it,’ she said, ‘it’s the name of King Arthur’s best knight.’
‘If I’d ’a been called Launcelot in Southwark when I was a nipper, I’d never ’a grown up, I can tell yer.’ He broke into a falsetto. ‘’Ere Lancie Lottie! Wot the ’ell can we call ’im for short?’
‘Nothing. His name is Launcelot and we’ll call him that.’
‘Launcelot Hoggin … Well, ’e’s not going to grow up in Southwark, so p’raps it won’t matter. P’raps ’e’ll be a real knight when ’e grows up. There’s worse things ’appen at sea.’
He lolled back, finished his beer and threw the bottle into the bushes. ‘That Anne is looking real rosy today. Frank’s doing right by ’er, now that ’e’s ’ome, I can tell. All she’s seeing is the ceiling.’
‘Don’t be coarse, Bill. They are in love with each other, still.’
‘P’raps. But she’s in love with the prick, too. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with that. I love you, but I wouldn’t give a tinker’s curse for you if you didn’t ’ave a cunt, now would I? … You ’adn’t ’eard about your dad?’
‘No, and I don’t believe a word of it,’ Ruth said energetically. Bill was right about almost everything, always: except about her family. There, she had to stand up to him.
Bill said, ‘Well, the bloke ’oo told me is a bloody liar ’alf the time, but ’e did say the old man plays round with bloody little frippets.’
‘It’s a lie.’
Bill said sagely, ‘You’re probably right, Ruthie. On the other ’and, don’t believe it couldn’t be so just because ’e’s an ’igh and mighty Stratton. I reckon even the ’igh and mighty Rowlands wouldn’t be no different, if we could look under their blankets the way we do each others’.’
Ruth looked down lovingly at her baby, and said, ‘Bill, you must learn to speak nice. I’m not going to have Launcelot ashamed of his dad, when he grows up. And what are the other boys at Eton College going to think, when they hear you?’
Bill said nothing for a while and she looked up at him, surprised; she had expected an outburst. He said, ‘P’raps you’re right, Ruthie. Not because of Launcelot or the fucking little lords at Eton … but I’m meeting an ’igher class of people in my business, now that I’m making big money. They don’t want to ask me to their restaurants, or clubs, or even their favourite pubs … and that means some other bastard makes the money I might ’ave. But ’ow –?’
‘An elocution teacher,’ Ruth said firmly. ‘Miss Joan Plummer. An hour every Saturday and an hour every Sunday, when you’re at home.’
‘Thought it all out, ’aven’t you? An’ fixed the fee an’ all, I dare say?’ Ruth nodded, and Bill cried, ‘’Ere, that little bugger’s going to burst if you let ’im ’ave any more!’
They were walking up the path towards the south entrance and Heath Street, on their way to the tube, and home. Niccolo was on duty in the dining-room of the Savoy in three hours’ time; Ruth wanted to be back in Hedlington when Launcelot was due for his next feed; and Anne was anxious to take her children off her parents’ hands. Launcelot was asleep, flopped like a sack over Ruth’s shoulder. Frank had offered to carry him, but Ruth didn’t want to let him go. Niccolo was sobering up, which made him surly and silent.
A dense crowd filled the slope of the heath just inside the gate. Half a dozen policemen watched, sweating visibly inside their high-collared tunics. Someone was speaking from an improvised platform, where several placards proclaimed HORATIO BOTTOMLEY, THE PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE.
‘Here, let’s stop a minute,’ Frank said. ‘I want to hear what Burnley has to say.’
‘Not for long, I can’t’ Niccolo said.
‘Only a couple of minutes. All the blokes read John Bull and some write to the Tommy & Jack column. Mr Charles said it was against orders, but the blokes do it, and sometimes Burnley gets things done that the colonel and the Regimental haven’t been able to. And he sends out packets to the trenches, with Woodbines and chocolate and mouth organs, and pays for it all himself.’
‘Garn!’ Hoggin said. ‘The makers give ’im the stuff, in return for ’is mentioning their names in the paper.’
They had stopped and were listening. Mr Bottomley was in his mid-fifties, heavily built with a considerable paunch and an ingratiatingly direct manner: ‘It is you who pay,’ he boomed in an echoing voice, with silvery aftertones, ‘you, the people! Our leaders fumble and fidget – Mr Wait and See waits, but doesn’t see …’ (pause for titters) ‘Who pays for the mistakes? You, the people! England needs new blood, new leaders … leaders dedicated to serve the people, not their own ambitions. Service is my motto, my aim, my life! As I have repeatedly said in John Bull we need a government of businessmen, who will carry the war not only to Germany in Germany, but to the enemy within our gates.’
He raised his fist to heaven and boomed, ‘All German property must be confiscated. I mean the property of those Germhuns who are still, to our shame, living amongst us … All Germhuns must be locked up. Those swine cunning enough to have taken out British naturalization papers must be made to wear a distinctive badge … perhaps a picture of a bayoneted baby would be appropriate. They must be indoors by dark … their children must not be allowed to attend any school, public or private!’
Frank muttered, ‘He’s coming it a bit steep. The Germans are good soldiers, and brave men, I’ll tell you that.’
‘That’s why I’m going back to France,’ Frank said.
Bottomley continued: ‘The ending of the war – as it assuredly will end – in a smashing victory for us and our noble Allies, will not end the degradations we shall impose on the Huns. If by chance you should discover one day in a restaurant that you are being served by a German waiter, you will throw the soup in his foul face. If you find yourself sitting at the side of a German clerk, you will spill the inkpot over his vile head. If …’
‘Come on,’ Frank said, ‘Tommy & Jack or no, he’s making me feel sick.’
‘Old ’ard,’ Hoggin said, raising one hand. A thick voice, the owner obviously drunk, was shouting from the crowd – Wot abaht con – con – conscription?’
Bottomley raised a plump hand. ‘I am against it … the people’s rights must not be infringed … An Englishman’s home is his castle. How can we fight German militarism if we are introducing it at home?’
‘Thassastuff to give ’em,’ the voice cried. ‘No bloody conscription!’
A ragged cheer rose. Frank said, ‘Let’s get on.’ He walked away, frowning. Hoggin said, ‘If Burnley’s against conscription, I’m for Burnley. What the ’ell would I do in France? Or Niccolo ’ere?’
Frank said shortly, ‘Everyone ought to serve, equal like. But there’s no room for everyone in France, even if you wanted to come. But I’m telling you, there’s something there that isn’t here. When this is all over, there’ll be two Englands, and it won’t be the rich and the poor, or the upper classes and the lower classes, it’ll be those who were in the trenches, and those who weren’t, like these ruddy striking tramway men. And they won’t have anything to say to each other, ’cos they won’t speak the same language any more.’
‘Take a Union Jack, mister … Take a Union Jack, join our brave boys in France.’
The flag girls were wilted now but still trying hard, their red, white, and blue sashes soiled and their hair falling down. Lipstick was smeared all round their mouths; they appeared to have been selling kisses in return for promises to enlist; and somewhere during the day they had acquired a box of white chicken’s feathers.
Niccolo’s Union Jack was still pinned to his shirt. The girls turned on Hogign. ‘Take a Union Jack, sir. Join our boys …’
‘Fuck off!’ Hoggin said.
The girls stepped close, and one took a white feather out of the box and pushed it through the top buttonhole of Hoggin’s sweat-stained shirt. ‘That’s your badge,’ she said scornfully, ‘the badge of a bleeding coward! You oughter be ashamed of yerself!’
‘I am!’ Hoggin shouted. ‘Oh dear, I am … but…’ he burst into loud song:
‘I don’t want to join the army,
I don’t want to go to war,
I’d rather hang around Piccadilly Underground,
Living on the earnings of an ’ighborn lady.
I don’t want a bayonet up my arse’ole,
I don’t want my bollocks shot away,
I’d rather live in England, in Merry Merry England,
And Roger All My Bloody Life Away!’
‘Hey!’ Frank said, grinning in spite of himself, ‘we sing that in the regiment, over there.’
Hoggin poked him in the chest. ‘Yus, Frankie boy, I bet you do. The difference is I fucking mean every word of it. You don’t want to be anywhere else but in the army, in France. And that’s the God’s truth, ain’t it?’
Daily Telegraph, Monday, May 24, 1915
STRIKERS AND THE ARMY
LCC’s Surprise Move
On Saturday the London County Council issued the following notice:
LCC Tramways – Notice
All men on strike who are eligible for military or naval service are instructed to forthwith return their uniforms and badges to the tramway depots. The London County Council are inviting men above military age to make application at once for positions as motor-men and conductors for the period of the war.
(Signed) A. L. C. FELL CHIEF OFFICER, LCC TRAMWAYS.
Asked his opinion of the London County Council’s notice … a (strikers’) representative said, ‘There is nothing in it. It is just a bit of bluff to try and stampede the men. Possibly a hundred have gone back. But they make no difference. The great body of the men stand firm. There are fully 6000 men out on strike.’
The tramwaymen had advertised a mass meeting to be held in Trafalgar Square yesterday afternoon… The crowd was far from sympathetic, and suggested to recruiting sergeants present that they should mount the platform and invite those of military age to enlist.
Cate put the paper away without a word. Summer was upon him and he had much to do. And so, when they were scything the hay in his fields, German forces in south-west Africa surrendered to Botha, Mackensen advanced northwards between the Bug and the Vistula, and British troops occupied Kut-el-Amara, on the Tigris. As the wheat was harvested, the Germans stormed Warsaw, the Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi was sunk by an Austrian submarine, and forty French aeroplanes bombarded Saarbrucken; and as the cockney hop pickers, nearly all women and girls now, came down from London, singing in their special trains, Bulgaria mobilized to join the German side, the French mounted an offensive in Champagne and the British another, further north, near Loos.
The forcing of the Dardanelles was as far from accomplishment as ever. Russia was knocked back on her heels. The Mesopotamian campaign was bogging down, as was the Italian campaign along their northern, alpine border. A massive German thrust against Serbia was almost ready. The autumn rains began to fall.
29 Near Loos, France: Saturday, September 25, 1915
General Sir Douglas Haig, commanding the British First Army, stood in front of the map spread on the wall of the château’s main dining-room, now converted into his headquarters operations room. The air rumbled and the thick walls shook with the reverberations of the continuous artillery fire. Brigadier General Butler, Haig’s Chief of Staff, conferred in a corner with an artillery colonel. Charteris, the Chief of Intelligence, stood a few paces to one side, talking in a low voice to a massive figure in civilian clothes – the 17th Earl of Derby. Haig stood alone, his magnificent leonine head bent forward, studying. A red-tabbed young officer passed quickly in front of the army commander with a muttered apology and started sticking coloured flags on pins into the map, and moving others. Outside, it was mid-morning, with light rain falling.
Lord Derby inclined his bullet head downward the better to hear what Charteris was saying. ‘Things are going very well, so far, on most of the front, which is 8000 yards wide. The wind changed on the extrene left and blew our own gas back on the 2nd Division. That flank is held up … We didn’t want to fight this battle at all, but were forced to do so.’
Derby said, ‘Kitchener told me it was imperative that we and the French do something to take pressure off the Russians, or there’d be a total collapse over there. He said we must accept very heavy losses to prevent that.’
‘That’s true,’ Charteris said grudgingly. ‘General Haig agreed that we do have to mount a major offensive. But we didn’t want to do it here – the Aubers Ridge, further north, would be a much better strategic and tactical objective.’
‘Then why …?’
‘Because Joffre and the French insisted that our attack should be practically shoulder to shoulder with theirs. So we’ve been forced to attack here – this Lens-Loos-La Bassée area … terrible country; ruined miners’ houses, pitheads, mine works, all made into fortified redoubts and bristling with machine-guns. Still, it looks as though General Haig’s plan will achieve success at relatively moderate cost. There was heavy and accurate artillery preparation, as you know. Then we went in with all six divisions of I and IV Corps up … they are in the process now of breaking through to the Germans’ second line of defence. Then the General will throw in the reserves to complete the break-through – and break out.’
Derby asked, ‘What reserves does he have
?’
Charteris hesitated, then said, ‘He doesn’t have any, under his own hand, at the moment. But the Chief – Sir John French – has promised to release XI Corps – three divisions – to him the moment the attack is launched … and behind them are the two Cavalry Corps, the Indian and British.’
‘XI Corps is New Army, isn’t it?’ Derby said, fixing his little eyes on Charteris, ‘all raw troops, and dug-out former battalion commanders and brigadiers?’
Charteris again hesitated, then said, ‘It is … but it’s what we have been given … Whatever the issue of the battle the casualty list will be huge. That is the sad part of it.’
Derby lowered his voice, ‘Do you know what I heard this morning? That the German troops have been shouting across No Man’s Land “We’ll mow you down on the 25th” … and they’ve been doing that for the past three or four days. They must have known all about the attack, somehow.’
Charteris muttered, ‘It’s the French. GQG is like a sieve.’
They both looked up as Haig raised his voice, speaking to the young staff officer, ‘Wait a minute – is that confirmed – the 15th Division on Hill 70?’
‘On the slopes, sir.’
‘And the 1st Division into Chalk Pit?’
‘Near it, sir … I’ve marked them three hundred yards short.’
Butler and Charteris went forward and stood at Haig’s shoulder. Butler said, ‘We’ve already had confirmation that 47 Division is in Loos Cemetery – very hard hand-to-hand fighting there … And the left brigade of 1st Division is in Hulluch. They are being heavily shelled … and so is 1st Corps Headquarters.’
‘It’s that damned Tower Bridge,’ Charteris said. ‘You can see it from here. From the forward brigades, it must seem to be standing right over you.’
‘How high is it?’ Haig asked.