by John Masters
‘Three hundred feet, sir. And strongly built. We’ve tried shelling it, even having the RFC drop bombs on it, but to no effect, as you know.’ Haig glanced at a group of aerial photographs covering another wall of the great room. The centre photo clearly showed the monstrous two-tiered iron structure, connected with the mining works of the area, which stood half-way between La Bassée and the Vimy ridge. Its main platform gave perfect observation over all the extensive battlefield to German artillery observers, snipers, and machine-gunners. It vaguely resembled Tower Bridge in London, and had been so named by the British soldiers.
Butler said, ‘2nd Division reports they’re having a very difficult time by Fosse 8. All the houses have cellars, and the Germans have had a long time to dig them deeper, even fortify them. They’re fighting in the ruins of the miners’ houses, and the slag heaps.’
‘Like Mons,’ Charteris said, but said no more. DH – as he always thought of his chief – had not been at Mons, which had been fought by his rival Smith-Dorrien, since manoeuvred out of his command and sent to East Africa.
Haig said. ‘Any news “rom the French?’
Butler said ‘They report progress of between one and four kilometres in this section – between Auberive and Ville-sur-Tourbes.’ He went forward to a smaller scale map. pointing – ‘Particularly north of Souvain towards Tahure.’
‘Good … Has the Chief given me XI Corps yet? Or moved the cavalry?’
‘No, sir.’
‘They ought to be moving,’ Haig said. ‘If we obtain success, it will be soon, and troops must be ready to exploit it.’
The young staff officer came again and moved another flag and Butler cried exuitantly, ‘1st Division has cleared HuLuch, sir … and it’s still raining. The Germans can’t have been able to see very well trom Tower Br dge.
Haig said, ‘W’re through the German first line, then, and through the second line in places. Now’s the time to exploit our success, to hit harder still … here.’ He reached out with a leather-covered cane and touched the map. ‘Eastward, from Lens through Hill 70 and Huiluch. I must have XI Corps at once. Get me the Commander-in-Chief on the telephone, please.’
Boy Rowland, the white-purple-white ribbon of the Military Cross already faded on his tunic, sat in the tiny cellar of the house in Noeux-les-Mines which he shared with Beldring, now a full ieutenant. They had only arrived the previous dawn after marching down by night from the Ypres Salient, in great secrecy with the rest of the division. Obviously a big push was being readied – but when, where, and what would be their part in it, they had not then known. Now they knew, at least that the attack would be in the Loos area, for shelling had been heavy all day there. Here, three miles behind what had been the front lines, they had been receiving occasional salwoes of heavy artillery fire as the Germans sought out gun positions and reserves. For the rest – rumour, counter rumour, a tremendous unceasing noise, the unsleeping eyes on Tower Bridge peering at them across the low humps and hills and slag heaps a continuous stream of wounded men, walking or being carried to fill the ambulances that came this far forward.
Boy did not want to talk about the coming battle. They’d be in it soon enough. He would not normally have liked to discuss women either, particularly with Beldring, whose ideas were different from his; but it was better than discussing the rumours, looking out into the dark at the staggering bandaged men, listening to the groans inside the ambulances, that were never quite drowned by the roar of their engines.
Beldring said, ‘Why should a man go to a tart, pay money, and risk getting clap or pox, when perfectly nice ordinary girls will do it for nothing?’
‘I don’t think they will,’ Boy said. He poured some red wine out of the bottle on the table into a cracked teacup, that was part of the ‘furniture’ in the abandoned house. ‘If they will, they can’t be nice, can they?’ He lifted the cup, noticing that his hand trembled slightly. The last few weeks in the Salient had been pretty unpleasant – patrols, wiring, bayonet fights on raids, continuous harassing fire at night; but that was no excuse. He must take a pull at himself.
Beldring drank, too; Boy thought he was already tipsy. Beldring waved a hand expansively. ‘But that’s not true, Boy! Women have just the same desires as we do … stands to reason, otherwise there wouldn’t be any children born … I mean, we’re all animals, and the female animal is just as strongly sexed as the male. In most animals, more so. It’s not the male that announces he wants to fornicate – it’s the female. And women are no different.’
‘We’re not animals,’ Boy said. ‘At least, we have to suppress all that is beastly and animal in us.’
‘What about this war, then? Don’t tell me we’re suppressing our animal nature here!’
‘That’s different. We’re talking about ladies.’
‘I’m talking about women! And I think that ladies are just the same as other women … The colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skin.’
Boy said, ‘I don’t believe they are. Ladies have been taught to control their emotions and desires – lusts – even if they have them the same as men do, which I do not believe, whatever you say.’
‘I had a couple of ladies while I was on leave in April. No trouble at all … one married, one a virgin. Women are beginning to show that they have the same desires as men. Mind, they’ve always felt like that, but now they’re not going to pretend they don’t.’
‘That’s the war,’ Boy said, ‘but it’s our duty, as gentlemen, to protect women in every way … from their own weaknesses and improper desires, if they have any. How do you think that married woman felt, when your leave was up, having betrayed her husband and her children, just for a momentary pleasure … or perhaps only because she was sorry for you, having to serve in the trenches?’
‘She felt well poked,’ Beldring said, with a self-satisfied leer. ‘Five times, to be precise. She hadn’t seen her husband since he joined up, in September, 1914.’
Boy thought I’d like to go on eave again, but feeling fit next time, not convalescing from gas poisoning. But women hardly entered his thoughts as he put his longings into mental pictures … the hunting field, himself in a pink coat and top hat; no, he’d be in uniform, on Dasher, if Dad still had him … at Twickenham, cheering for England in the Calcutta Cup … at the County Ground, a lazy summer afternoon, watching Colin Blythe apologetically spin out a side … walking the North Downs, Viking at heel, the Weald stretching away to the south, the Thames estuary and Isle of Sheppey dim in the haze to the north-east …
‘Mr Rowland … Mr Rowland, sir?’
Boy said, ‘Here. Come down.’
A private clattered down the steps and saluted. ‘Colonel’s compliments, sir, and please report to him at once. Bring your kit, sir. I’ve told your batman, sir.’
Boy got up. ‘You can finish the wine for me, Beldring.’
‘With pleasure.’
Boy followed the runner down the battered village street. Shells whistled and shrieked above, flying in both directions, in almost total darkness. Every few seconds there was a crash of falling masonry, the dull thump of a shell bursting deep in the black soil, or into the side of a slag heap. Eastward, where full dark had cloaked the uneven horizon, it looked like the day of judgement. Star shells soared and burst high, casting an eerie light over the houses and mine cages and towers. Vivid flashes lit the whole horizon, with irregular orange and yellow glares reflected in the low cloud base above. Rain hissed down in the night. The tremendous noise redoubled itself by bouncing back and forth between the ground and the cloud layer.
The runner said, ‘Here, sir,’ and Boy went in through the unhinged door of what had once been a rural post office. Blankets were drawn over the glassless windows, where his uncle, now Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Rowland, commanding officer of the 1st Bn the Weald Light Infantry, was sitting astride a backless wooden chair. Boy saluted and Quentin said, ‘Sit down, Boy.’ He waved a hand at another chair. ‘Major Nesbitt was r
un over by an ammunition lorry half an hour ago. Killed instantly. I don’t know whose fault it was … don’t have time to find out … but I’ve put Burke-Greve to command his company. You’ll take over as adjutant.’
Boy felt stunned. Transferring from the 2nd Battalion to the 1st last Christmas had been shock enough: but moving from the intimacy of a company living in your own little world, of your own platoon, to battalion headquarters, was worse. He said, ‘Sir, I’d rather not leave my platoon.’
‘I daresay you wouldn’t,’ Quentin said wearily, ‘but you must. The new officers are good in the field, but they haven’t had time to learn anything about administration, and they don’t know how to write orders. Read the messages on that board there, then you’ll be up to date … Have some wine.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Boy said automatically. Quentin handed him a tin mug full of red wine, which tasted sharp and acid as he drank some. He read the messages – all from brigade headquarters. All battalions were to rest in billets, but prepared to move at thirty minutes’ notice. That was timed 9.47 this morning. Be prepared to move – 12.34 … ah! that was the false alarm, cancelled a quarter of an hour later, but meanwhile the men had been awakened from their sleep and had had a hard time getting back to rest, the first edge taken off their march-weariness, and the noise of the battle growing louder to the eastward … Issue of maps to take place at 4 p.m. at Noeux-les-Mines School. That must have been done, but the new maps hadn’t reached the platoons yet. He asked. ‘Have the maps gone out to companies yet, sir?’
‘Yes, an hour ago. Look, there’s a spare set.’
Boy read on. Message about artillery observers – 5.09 p.m. Information about the advance of the forward divisions … they seemed to be going well. Perhaps there’d be a breakthrough at last. Message about … Good God, the Quartermaster had sworn blind that he’d get that damned thing killed, once and for all, but here it was – Lieutenant C. J. C. Rowland, the lost pakhals. and the demand for 64 rupees 14 annas 4 pies.
‘What are you swearing about Boy?’ his uncle asked.
‘Nothing, sir,’ he said, taking the message off the file and putting it in his pocket.
‘Well, sit down. Heard anything from home?’
‘Daddy and Mummy are well, sir. Naomi’s in the Women’s Volunteer Motor Drivers, and …’
‘I know.’
‘… but she wants to get out to France, and the only way she can get here is to transfer to the FANYS – if they’d have her … and even then our army won’t use them, so she’d be working with the French or Belgians.’
‘Wouldn’t let any daughter of mine work with them, I can tell you,’ Quentin growled. ‘Wouldn’t let any Englishwomen come to France at all. This is no place for them.’ His angry wave embraced the murderous night, the howling skies, the shattered house in which they sat. Boy said nothing, thinking privately that women like his sister Naomi were capable of doing much more than cook and sew, and should be encouraged and helped to do so.
His uncle said, ‘Your Aunt Fiona’s well, as far as I know … Guy’s in the Upper Ten this term – it’s his last. You know that he got his pilot’s licence in the summer holidays? And learned to be his own mechanic. Now he says he’s going to learn wireless engineering or mechanics or whatever it’s called. Virginia swears she’s not going back to Cheltenham next year, whatever we say. I’ve written her a strong letter, telling her that her mother and I know what’s best for her.’
Boy said cautiously, ‘I think it’s very difficult for boys and girls, nowadays, to live as their parents did, or even as I did, when the world is like this – ’ he made the same all-inclusive gesture as his uncle had. ‘I talked to Virginia, Guy, Laurence, Stella, Naomi – all of them, while I was convalescing, and they were all, well, unsettled – even Guy, in his own way.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Quentin said grudgingly, ‘but we can’t have Virginia running round the streets by herself at her age, can we?’ He drank from his mug and wiped his toothbrush moustache. ‘Your grandfather will be an MP any time now. It’s been an open secret that he’s been nursing the constituency until Ellis was ready to retire.’
‘I heard that when I was on leave, sir.’
‘Well, Ellis is retiring next month. The election will be in November – they haven’t fixed a date yet but there’ll be no opposition … unless a Labour fellow stands, and he won’t have a chance.’
‘Any news of Aunt Margaret, sir?’
Quentin shook his head. Boy said, ‘I suppose she thinks Ireland’s more important than, well, family.’
‘Nothing is,’ Quentin said heavily, ‘and don’t you forget it, Boy … I’d like to be back in Hedlington. I can’t imagine what it’s like now. Alice writes and tells me what’s been happening, how Mother and the Governor are … where they’ve put up more tents, about women marching up and down High Street in khaki uniforms … pubs closed all afternoon … Richard’s factory turning out twenty lorries a day, already … that fellow Hoggin who married Ruth Stratton, fellow without an H to his name, on the way to being a millionaire –’ he pointed to a shelf where, among tins of condensed milk and bully beef, one tin was labelled HOGGIN’S, and in small letters Plum Jam … ‘The men use Hoggin’s as the name of any jam, like Maconochie for any meat. No, Hedlington isn’t real. This is real, this …’ Unable to find the words, he again substituted the wide, repelled gesture.
‘Message from brigade, sir.’
Boy recalled with a start that he was the adjutant. He took the message from the runner at the door and read it aloud – ‘All battalions prepare to move immediately. COs to Brigade HQ 8.10 pip emma for orders.’ He looked at his wrist watch. ‘It’s 7.45, sir. I’ll send out the message to the companies. Whom do you take for orders? I’m afraid I don’t know.’
‘Adjutant, Quartermaster, or RQMS, depending on who’s up, signals sergeant, two battalion runners … Send for Major Wylie, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Lance-Corporal Frank Stratton plodded steadily eastward down a narrow country road at the rear of the twelve men of the battalion’s Pioneer Section. He had not wanted to leave Mr Charles four months ago, and he still felt somehow guilty about it; but to tell the truth this was a more interesting job for a skilled man. Being a batman, you heard some gup before the other fellows did, and you got to see the brigadier-general now and then – even, once, at a distance, the divisional commander; but that wasn’t much; whereas here he could use his hands. It was only a little welding, a little carpentry, improving the colonel’s dugout, putting a roof on the doctor’s emergency room at the billets, things like that – but it was something, something different from firing your rifle. The rifle was the soldier’s best friend, the sergeant kept telling you, and he supposed it was. At all events, he kept his own bright clean and slightly oiled at all times, whatever the circumstances: his bayonet sharp as a razor, the blade well blackened so as not to reflect light: all his ammunition clean, and no cartridge the least bit bent or damaged in the clips: the magazine spring clean and slightly oiled … but after all this, which was no more than any workman should do for his tools, he didn’t like the weapon. It was too simple, too direct. With that in your hands, and aimed, you realized you were going to kill, not ‘someone’, but that man, that one with the short legs, moustache and open mouth. That didn’t feel good.
The column stopped, and a few moments later Frank found himself pushed aside by men coming back the other way. ‘Here, here, what’s this?’ he said.
‘York and Lancs,’ a voice answered curtly, ‘going into reserve.’
‘We’re Wealds, coming up from reserve.’
The two columns became hopelessly entangled in the lane, men cursing, grunting, and gasping to pass, the loads on their backs making them bulkier than pregnant women. A heavy shell burst in the fields a hundred yards to the right, its brilliant momentary flash of light searing the pale unshaven faces, the gas masks hung on their chests, here and there the shining inverted b
owls of the new steel helmets.
On at last … halt an hour, perhaps a mile: then stop again. The pioneer sergeant came back and said, ‘Stratton? You there?’
‘I’m here, sergeant.’
‘Any men dropped out?’
‘None of the Pioneers. Don’t know about the rest of the battalion. There’s been people going every which way.’
‘I’ve seen better at Epsom on Derby Day,’ the sergeant said. ‘This is worse than the retreat from Mons. The only people who kept running into us then was Frog cavalry and who the hell can keep them where they’re supposed to be? These are ours.’
‘What’s up now?’
‘Damned if I know, but the RSM says it’s a division coming down from Bethune, what’s crossing our road.’
Frank said nothing. Organizing an army was a difficult job, stood to reason, when you had to move a hundred thousand men, or more, left and right and up and down, and the enemy shelling, wounded coming back, ammunition going up, and not too many roads to do it on; but there’d been wars a long time, and this was the army’s job, its profession, like. Mr Harry would have someone’s scalp if anything like this happened at Rowland’s; and from what he’d heard about Mr Richard’s new factory, everything went like clockwork there. Here, the more mistakes the high-ups made, the more they got promoted … and the ordinary blokes paid for it. Some regiments would have been getting sullen by now, and maybe worse, but this was the Wealds, and they were a good push, any way you looked at them. They grumbled, but they’d do what had to be done, whoever made a balls of his part.
A column of infantry passed, some limping, some with bandaged heads dimly seen in the light of the star shells, some with arms in improvised slings, some dripping blood from their hands, some with gas masks slung, some still wearing them. ‘Look oot for gas, mates,’ one cried in the darkness, in a strong Scots accent. ‘Oors!’
‘Our gas?’ Frank exclaimed. ‘What do you mean, Jock?’
‘Mean? I mean oor bluidy artillery fired gas shells in front of us, but the wind was blowing from the Gairrmans to us, see? The Jerries were laughing their heads off, while we … we was choking to death.’ He ended in a spasm of coughing. Frank settled his pack on his back, and trudged on, shoulders bowed. Another balls-up. It began to rain again.