by John Masters
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Ready now? Three minutes to go.’
‘We’re ready, sir.’
He counted … a hundred seconds … a hundred and fifty … seventy … seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven. He heaved himself up on the firestep, feeling the presence of his platoon following hard on his heels, others to right and left. Count of twenty … three star shells fired by the British artillery burst overhead in blinding light. A hoarse cry rose from all round him and he began to run, his revolver out-thrust. Almost at once he was on the new German wire, cutting frantically, but A Company’s patrol had done their work well, and there were only a few thin strands left. He burst through and fell into the trench, his sergeant at his heels. Grenades whistled past, and burst over the first traverse.
He knew the trench well, every angle and hole and crumbling dugout; for it had been the British front line until the day before yesterday, and had twice been his platoon’s sector until the Germans had attacked unexpectedly on a narrow front, and taken it. The acting CO had done nothing, but when Colonel Rowland came back from England this morning he’d been very angry – ‘proper put out’, Fred’s sergeant had said – and had ordered an immediate night attack to get the hundred and fifty yards back; and Fred found himself selected for the honour of leading the attack because of his local knowledge.
The Germans seemed to be lying very low … not much fire coming his way, no grenades … Ah, the German artillery was firing now, heavy shrapnel on the trench line. They would be hitting their own men … if there were any. He gasped to his sergeant, ‘Seen any Huns?’
‘No, sir,’ the sergeant shouted back. ‘Ah, there’s some!’ In the new light of more star shells two German soldiers slid down from the new-cut firestep, which had been the British parados, their hands up. Fred saw the gleam of telephone cable leading back across No Man’s Land.
‘No one here, except a few sentries, with telephones and Very pistols,’ he shouted under the din of the shrapnel. ‘Send a runner back to the CO – we have the objective.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Cunning bastards, he thought. Now the troops who are going to man the trench will have to come in under this shrapnel … and H.E., he noted, hearing the heavy bursts of German 5.9s and feeling wet earth fountain over him.
He stumbled along the trench, disposing of his men, facing them towards the Germans across No Man’s Land, setting some to recut the old firestep and berm that had been altered during the Germans’ short occupation, and others to clear the mouth of what had been, and now was again, the communication trench from the rear, which the Germans had blocked with earth and barbed wire.
The shelling increased. His sergeant came up. ‘Nasty stuff this, sir … Can the men take cover until it slacks off, like?’
Fred hesitated. The Germans would not attack while they were shelling the trench so heavily … but his orders were definite. He said curtly, ‘No, hold the parapet.’
He stood, leaning on the muddy slope, peering into the dark. No Very lights … now, yes, three, four star shells from the German side … by their light he saw the platoon that was to relieve him struggling forward from the old second line trench, laden with wooden posts, wire, angle irons. Frank would be with that lot, with his Pioneers, to get some of this trench properly revetted and reinforced.
German machine-guns swept No Man’s Land and the rear area where the British relief was advancing. Men fell, others stumbled on. A man of Fred’s platoon jerked forward, torn into three pieces by splinters and blasted into the mud.
‘Hang on,’ Fred cried. ‘It won’t be long now.’
The relieving force slid and jumped down. Others trickled in up the communication trench, over the piled earth, through the barbed wire.
Lieutenant Beldring fell in almost on top of Fred, followed by a dozen men, then Colonel Quentin Rowland and the Adjutant, Boy Rowland. ‘Well, done,’ the colonel said to Fred. ‘You’ve become a very useful officer Take over now, Beldring. Hurry, man.’
Beldring’s men moved on, and Fred’s began to return to him. ‘The Germans meant us to retake it … and then give us hell,’ Boy muttered. A shell hit something close with a fearful clang and roar, followed by a powerful smell of human excrement.
‘Hit the shit bucket,’ Fred’s sergeant said nonchalantly. ‘We’re all covered with it … but the rain will wash it off.’
‘Oh God!’ Boy muttered. He began to light a cigarette, his hand trembling. Boy’s nerves are going, Fred thought; too thin-skinned for this stuff.
His brother Frank appeared. The colonel swung round. ‘Sergeant Stratton, is that you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ready? You know what to do?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get on with it, then.’
Frank Stratton turned to the men behind him, with the pioneers’ tools and bags of cement, and said, ‘Follow me.’ He led on down the trench.
The crowd began to thin, as Fred’s sergeant took his men back down the communication trench. Fred made ready to follow, when several 5.9s fell along the trench and in the open on both sides of it. He himself was blasted against the front wall. He picked himself up, wiped off the mud, and felt himself, but found no broken bones or bleeding flesh. The colonel, close behind him, said, ‘That was close.’
A man came slipping, sliding up the trench, his face pale and wet in the light of fading star shells. ‘Sergeant’s been hit, bad, sir.’
‘Which sergeant?’
‘Stratton, sir.’
Fred pushed through the huddled figures along the trench, suddenly conscious again of the rain, for the Germans had stopped shelling. It was quiet, except for the patter of the rain on the steel helmets. He found Frank lying in six inches of mud in the bottom of the trench, two Pioneers bent over him. He knelt and shone his flashlight down. His brother’s face was ash grey, blood seeping through his tunic at the waist and chest, the tunic torn in three or four places.
‘Can you hear me?’ he said, holding his brother’s shoulder. The rain glistened in the full sandy beard that Frank had grown since being appointed Pioneer Sergeant – Pioneer Sergeants were the only men in the army permitted to wear beards, and Frank was very proud of his privilege.
Frank did not move, but his voice was clear, though slow, and gasping, ‘I hear you … Fred, isn’t it? … They’ve got me … in the belly, Fred … but I’ll be back … You tell the CO … I’ll be back.’
Fred squeezed the shoulder gently … poor Frank … ‘a very useful officer,’ old Rowley had said … wonder if he’ll pull through … Rowley didn’t give praise readily … Frank looked bad, real bad …
Harry Rowland sat where he always sat, beyond the grate, where a small coal fire now burned. The foxhounds still chased their quarry over the mantelpiece, the Reverend Joshua Rowland still gazed down benignly from by the door, the room still smelled of cigar smoke; but the blue of Harry’s eyes was not as sharp as it used to be, not as sharp as Richard remembered it, quite distinctly, the last time he and his father had faced each other across this fireplace – a few days after the declaration of war. His father was a chastened man.
Harry said, ‘The day of the election results, Richard, you remember, I asked for a little time … I’ve had it, and I know what to do. I knew what was right even before the announcement that Field-Marshal Sir John French has retired, which means, has been dismissed. General Haig may be a more capable general, but the point is that we were all being deceived, hoodwinked. Our people deserve better than that. No wonder they are discontented – and showed it in the numbers who voted for you. The blind young soldier made me think, and …’
‘Me, too,’ Richard said quietly.
‘… Your mother did the same. I had to confess to myself that I did not know what I was doing. I did care, but that is not enough for people who seek, and acquire, positions of responsibility. I have taken up the seat I won in Parliament, as you know. But I mean to use it to think what we are doi
ng, what we should be doing. Whatever I do, however I vote, I shall always have that blind young man in mind. He didn’t say to us, stop the war. He didn’t say, victory at all costs … He only expected us to think, when we make the decisions affecting him and the millions like him, in other words, England … So … I am going to be a whole-time Member of Parliament … a Liberal, when the Liberals have thought what they are doing … a supporter of Mr Asquith’s coalition government, when Mr Asquith and the others have thought what they are doing. That will take up all my time.’
Richard waited. He knew that his father had to make some decision about the Rowland Motor Car Company; what it would be, he could not guess, and had been too involved in his own work to speculate.
Harry said, ‘I am handing over total control of Rowland’s to you. Your mother and I can look after ourselves, financially. If you can put the company back on its feet, and make it profitable, you will decide what financial arrangements to make with your brothers and sisters. But the company is yours.’
Richard’s brain began to work, smoothly. He admitted to himself that he must have been expecting this, or acknowledging it as a possibility, for he was not hesitating. He said, ‘What is the outstanding debt, Father?’
‘We owe Lloyds Bank nearly three-quarters of a million pounds. That’s all. We’ve been using that to keep the slate clean otherwise – all suppliers, subcontractors, and workmen are paid up.’
‘What orders?’
‘None from the Government. Orders for the Ruby are decreasing. People have less money to spend, and what they have, they feel they ought to put into War Loans, or the like. Of course, the company will not need to close. With this enormous expansion of war production, it is impossible to imagine that there is nothing we can do … We can convert to making shells, artillery pieces, machine-gun parts … anything. But I hope that somehow you will find a way to keep the firm what it has always been … in the business of making motor cars. I have failed, and I must beg your pardon for what I did to you in August last year. I was wrong. You were right. I was too old to envision this war and what it would call for.’
‘None of us could do that,’ Richard said.
‘If I had given you control when war broke out, heaven knows where we might be now.’
Richard’s mind was moving faster and faster: where were the drawings of the airfield protection car he had worked out with Guy last summer? A plain wooden chassis, a fixed mount for a Vickers machine-gun in the centre, a low rail all round for the crew to hang on to, racks for the machine-gun belt boxes … simple, manoeuvrable, fast, mobile … for protection of airfields close to the front line, or headquarters … the gun could be fired on the ground, or up in the air, at marauding aircraft. He’d bet his bottom dollar … he was talking like Overfeld, from long association … that he could sell that to the War Office.
He stood up, and held out his hand. ‘Thank you, Father. We are going to have to make some changes … but I don’t believe the time has come when we will have to be content with making shell cases.’
On the 20th, about the same hour of the day that Probyn had set out past the peeping neighbours on the 17th, he was heading home down the footpath along Scarrowside, from the direction of Whitmore. He’d spent an hour talking to a man there, a farm labourer and part-time poacher, but no friend. He had enlisted the man’s help in his great plan to rob pheasants from His Lordship, and even given him some details of the plan – where he would go first, and at what time. The Whitmore man was to make a diversion to attract the keepers’ attention, and his reward would be a brace of pheasants.
Probyn shuffled along fast, calculating that the information would reach Skagg’s ear in about an hour and a half, that is, well after dark. Then there’d be a great scurrying to and fro and Skagg and Dan and Amos and the three men just taken on as reinforcements would spend a long and probably chilly night on Christmas Eve – it had turned cold, with sharp frosts and clear skies – for he had whispered to the Whitmore man that he planned to make his great raid at three a.m. on Christmas morning. The keepers wouldn’t be stumbling back into their beds till six or seven on Christmas morning. Probyn hoped it would snow all that night.
He checked his step, seeing movement ahead in the twilight: then he went on. It was the squire, walking slowly towards him by the river. They met under a willow that leant over the sliding water and the trailing weeds just below the surface.
‘Evening, squire,’ Probyn said, stopping and touching his forelock.
‘I heard you’d gone to Whitmore,’ Cate said. ‘Florinda told me. She’s looking very beautiful … her clothes are in such good taste, too.’
Probyn nodded without speaking. With the squire’s wife still hiding away somewhere in Ireland, he might be hinting that he’d like Florinda to come up to the Manor again: but if he’d just seen her, they could settle that between themselves. No call for him to interfere.
Cate said, ‘Give up your plan, Probyn.’
‘ ’Tis my right,’ Probyn said.
‘Perhaps, but give it up … certainly for a couple of weeks, at least. You know Lord Swanwick has hired extra keepers. There are people in the village willing to watch your every move and tell Skagg, for a few pence. Skagg’s angry because you’ve made a fool of him before. Lord Swanwick’s told them he’ll back them to the hilt if they get into the courts for manhandling you … or worse.’
Probyn listened appraisingly. Squire was talking well tonight, full of feeling; and everything he said was true as true.
Cate continued, ‘They all carry guns, as you know. There’ll be an accident and you’ll get hurt … or killed.’
Probyn said, ‘That wouldn’t stop our men in France, would it, squire?’
‘No.’ He took Probyn’s elbow and shook it gently. ‘That’s different, and you know it is.’
Probyn said, ‘Don’t you be worrying about me, squire. I can look after myself.’ He spoke firmly and Cate gave up with a shake of his head, releasing Probyn’s arm. The two walked along side by side until, at Probyn’s cottage, Probyn turned away with another touch of his hand to his forehead. Christopher Cate walked on, thinking of Probyn; of his wife Margaret and what she was doing at this moment; of Stella, whom he was about to lose … of Johnny Merritt, a well-brought-up clean-cut young man – Stella should be very happy with him; of his son Laurence, growing every day closer to manhood, closer to the war; of Walstone, changing before his eyes, and in its spirit, as he was sure it had never changed in all the years it had been his family’s home.
Betty Merritt sat in the armchair closest to the fireplace in her brother’s sitting-room, part of the two-room suite at the South Eastern Hotel in Hedlington where he had been living for a year now. She was wearing a thick woollen dress and a topcoat, and still shivering.
‘Don’t the British ever keep anything warm?’ she asked.
‘Oh, you’ll get used to it. Wear thicker clothes.’
‘I am,’ she said indignantly, ‘and I’m still cold. Is it going to be like this down at Walstone Manor? Or have they kept the Roman hot water system, as well as the Roman tiles, that you’ve been telling us about?’
‘Put some more coal on the fire, Johnny,’ their father said, standing up and holding out his hands to the low flames. While Johnny did as he was bid, Stephen said, ‘Well, let’s have a look. You aren’t going to keep it a secret until the presentation, are you?’
Johnny put on another two lumps from the brass coal scuttle and then went to the writing desk, opened a drawer, and came back with a small dark blue jewel box, the inscription Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Company on the lid in gold. He opened it and held it out for them to look.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Betty cried. ‘Diamonds and sapphires.’
‘To match her eyes.’
‘You must have been eating bread and cheese for six months to be able to afford that,’ his father said.
‘Oh no, Dad. I just embezzled some of the company’s money. And don’t forget I�
��m getting a percentage of the profits. The JMC is doing well.’
‘So we have seen from the financial statements. The board is delighted with Mr Rowland, and very pleased with you and Overfeld and Morgan, as I told you when we arrived.’
‘Overfeld’s good, Dad.’
Stephen said, ‘He’s an excellent practical engineer.’ He changed the subject abruptly, speaking in a different tone. ‘You’ve bought this beautiful and expensive ring, Johnny. You are sure you are in love with Miss Cate, and that she is in love with you. But it’s not too late to … back off a bit. Get back from the edge of the cliff and make sure you want to jump over. Many young people go through with a project in which they have really lost enthusiasm, because they think they must … because they don’t know how to back out … because they’ve bought the ring, arranged the honeymoon … But nothing matters compared with making the right decision, finally. The ring can be sent back, the honeymoon reservations cancelled. Mr Cate does not want his daughter to be unhappy any more than I want you to be – and that is what will come about, if you are in fact making a mistake … So, before we make the formal announcement of the engagement, and fix a date, are you sure?’
‘Thanks for thinking about it, Dad, but … I’m sure. I’ve known Stella for over a year now. It’s enough. She’s an angel and I love her. I want to make the engagement official on Christmas Day, when we’re at the Manor – and give her the ring. We’ll fix a date then.’
‘Make it soon,’ Betty said from her chair. ‘Girls don’t like to wait. A girl at Smith got engaged two years ago. She still is, and when I saw her last month, she looked about forty.’