How Dear Is Life

by Henry Williamson

  They were willing and ready to help the newcomers. With joy Phillip heard they were Grenadiers. That was Cranmer’s lot—Cranmer, his old pal of Boy Scout days, the old Bloodhounds. Might he not still be with them perhaps? He dared not ask, for fear of seeming foolish. After all, he had not heard from Cranmer for nearly a year—since football days, in fact.

  While they waited, he fell into reverie, thinking of those who had been his friends: Percy Pickering, Tommy Turney (that skellum who had stolen his birds’ eggs), Peter Wallace, Desmond Neville, Eugene, Gerry and Bertie Cakebread, and Cranmer. Funny how people changed as they grew up. Gerry had once been his favourite cousin; then, at Bailleul, he and Bertie had suddenly become thick; yet Cranmer was, in a sense, all what his other friends were. With Cranmer everything always happened just right. Oh, it had been fun, in the old Bloodhound days! The thought was like one of those little glowing braziers.

  “Have you a chap called Cranmer with you?”

  “Yes, mate.”

  Almost ethereal were the rising white lines of light, the wavering, pulsating magnesium flares casting shadows of tree-trunks and men all ways in the forest.

  “Horace Cranmer?”

  “That’s right. ’E’s dahn in the trench.”

  *

  “Lead on! Pass it down! No talking!”

  There was a stir of men, a clink of accoutrements, as the whisper went down the muddy path. As they came to the edge of the wood he could see the flares rising out of what looked to be an open field in front of the wood.

  “Pass it down, lead on at five paces interval! If a flare falls near you, stand quite still.”

  Whispered words passed from green-faced man to green-faced man, before each one moved, in a pallor of aloneness, into naked emptiness beyond the shelter of trees. With a kind of wonder Phillip saw that many dead men were lying about. The light seemed to powder them as with dry cement.

  “Mind the stiffies, mate!”

  Into the shining pool of the dead he began to walk, following the hazy figure in front. He felt his arm touched.

  “Step down, three steps, chum.”

  As he slid into the trench, he saw a face in the half-blindness, and he heard himself saying, in a wonder, “Aren’t you Cranmer? I’m Phillip, remember?”

  “Blime, the ole Blood’ounds!”

  “They said in the wood I’d find you here.”

  “Strike me pink! Cor, what a bit o’ luck!”

  *

  It was four hours later.

  “You don’t ’ave to fret no more about that gas-pipe o’ your’n, Phil. There’s bags o’ short rifles lying abaht in Noman’s Land.”

  “How can I get one?”

  “We’ll crawl aht! Arst to go on listenin’ patrol, see?”

  “I’d like a Mauser rifle, too, if I could get it.”

  “Bags of ’m!”

  Trained-soldier Cranmer and Private Maddison volunteered for listening patrol.

  “Pass it down, patrol going out!”

  “Pass it down, patrol——”

  “Pass it down——”

  They climbed out of the trench, and crawled slowly forward, picking their way round shell-holes and figures of the dead. Phillip coveted a German leather belt, with the brass Gott mit uns buckle. He wanted also a set of leather pouches with Spandau clips in them; a pickelhaube; a small automatic pistol; and if possible, a pair of Zeiss field-glasses. These last two objects would be very useful for shooting rabbits and watching birds respectively, when he returned home.

  The German trenches were a good distance away, but snipers were well out in front, possibly this side of the barbed-wire fence, said Cranmer. So they must go slow, take a good dekko, and keep their ears washed out.

  They got to the fence, which had strands of wire stapled to wooden posts. Cranmer knew a gap, under which they crawled on hands and knees. Phillip enjoyed it. With old Horace beside him, it did not feel to be dangerous; but it was an eerie feeling to be so near dead Germans. They were so still, fixed, wooden in unmovingness of face and boot and many-button’d tunic. All so still: spiked helmet, pickelhaube covered with khaki cloth, long boots of leather wrinkled at ankle and ending half-way to the knee. If you moved among them slowly, you felt almost one of them, except that they seemed thick, thighs tight over trousers, hands and fingers thick too.

  They had been stiffies five days, Cranmer whispered. Fifteen rounds rapid did it, every time. Each one ’it in the ’ead. That was the Bill Browns!

  “If we’d had proper rifles on Messines, they wouldn’t have got through our lines, Horace.”

  “Not likely, Phil! Up the ole Blood’ounds!”

  He wanted to remain out among the cement-grey faces; he felt clear, away from the battalion. In the wavering white light he could see that all the pockets of the jackets and trousers of the German dead had been cut open; so had the pockets of the British dead in khaki, among them.

  “Rob all my comrades,” Cranmer whispered, “that’s the ticket ’ere.”

  In the trench once more, Phillip loaded and fired his new short rifle, covered with wood to the piling-ring below the muzzle. The Mauser, too, was pleasing. It had a stiff, wooden feel, but after a few more shots he got into the way of working the bolt. They had not come across any field-glasses; but since returning Cranmer had got hold of a pair, with Zeiss, Jena, marked in white on them. He felt happy for the first time since leaving England. He felt that he could not be killed. This was the life!

  *

  The feeling of happiness, even enjoyment of the ‘picnic’, remained during the first night in the trenches. The weather was fine. Sergeant Furrow gave him permission to exchange places with another man in the platoon, to be next to his “Bill Brown friend”. One territorial was spaced between two regulars.

  Groups of three shared sentry duty, one hour on and two off, throughout the night. As far as Phillip could see, as he gazed around during his spells of peering and watching, the flares extended continuously from north to south; small and very low up the line, getting taller and brighter until opposite him, and then diminishing again until they disappeared in the distance.

  While he stood there, smoking, and swinging his arms cabby-like for warmth, he remembered it was Guy Fawkes night. Would the street boys have their guys in soap-boxes on wheels, or would it be stopped now owing to the war? Fireworks would probably be forbidden.

  The German parachute flares were really more beautiful than the Thursday night displays from the Crystal Palace, seen from the Hill. They were so pure, so lonely-looking; somehow part of romance. A strange, mysterious world; he was glad he had not missed it. How long would it last? The Russian steamroller was going on towards Berlin, so the war might be over by Christmas. Captain Ogilby said that the Germans were staking all on a last throw before Kitchener’s reinforcements arrived from England. And hearing Cranmer’s snores in the straw-lined snug little cubby-hole under the parapet, Phillip looked over the parapet, feeling that at last he was a real soldier.

  His balaclava was rolled on his head; his scarlet chest protector under shirt and vest, that had come in a parcel from home. He hoped he would soon become lousy, like the regulars. Itchy-koo they called it, after the ragtime song Hitchy-Koo.

  He loaded the Mauser rifle. It had a wooden feel about it, but the Spandau clip sank down into the magazine as smoothly as silk, and released the clip at a press of the thumb. He would take it home, and have it converted into a shot gun. And prowl the North Downs, and the Blackwater estuary, at week-ends’.

  At the end of his hour, he went to rouse No. 3 in another straw-laid cave under the parapet. No. 3 refused to move. He got him out only after much tapping, prodding, and finally arm-pulling, while apologising to the old sweat for having to do it. After all, he was a hero of Mons, and like Cranmer had been in the line ever since the Retreat.

  With wonder Phillip watched the hero of Mons fit a burnt matchstick into the outside edges of each eye-lid, little props to keep the eyes open. It wa
s the only way to keep his pushin’ peepers open, he said.

  *

  An hour before dawn all ranks were roused for the stand-to. The flares still rose on lily-white stalks, to bloom at the top of their curves and float down slowly; but only an occasional rifle-shot sounded flatly in the flat land of luminous mist and low shadows. Crawling out of holes, the men yawned, scratched, stamped feet; swung arms and mitten’d hands; coughed, spat. They examined rifles, worked bolts with cut-outs closed; laid them, bayonets fixed, on the parapet.

  “Ere’s ve ens’n, now fer’r rum,” muttered Cranmer, as a young officer moved down the trench, preceded by a big red-faced sergeant carrying mess-tin and spoon. Each man, as they stopped before him, sprang with great energy to attention. Then, standing easy, he received a spoonful of the brown warming liquid. The ensign spoke in a quiet voice. Phillip observed that the men always replied with the word “Sir!”; so when he came to him, and said, “Good morning,” Phillip replied “Sir!”, and sprang to attention, before opening his mouth. He wanted to be a credit to Cranmer.

  The rum was a spluttering firework in throat and guts: but when its effects wore off, the stand-to became dreary.

  The last flare hissed up; grey light revealed the reality of the scene—rough trench, splintered trees, dirty faces, grimy hot hands and fingernails, the stubble field in front with many figures in grey lying still, visible for a long way as the field was smooth and sloped down to a lake of mist, out of which a thread of road wandered up to a village on the skyline with a church steeple prominent over red-tiled roofs.

  “That’s Zandvoorde,” said Cranmer.

  Soon the order to stand-down was given; and Cranmer said they could get into the wood and fry-up together over a fire.

  “Like in the ole Blood’ound days, Phil. Cor, we ’ad some sport!”

  “We damn well did! I say, what made you join the Army, Horace?”

  “Well, me bruvver went for a so’jer, see, when there was no work at ve docks, then I was stood off being carter at the tannin’ yards in l’il ole Berm’nsey, so I goes to ve dee-po at Caterham and signs on for seven wiv’r colours and five wiv’r reserve.”

  “Pretty hard life, isn’t it, in peacetime?”

  “Square bashin’ by day an’ square-pushin’ by night, that’s a Bill Brahn’s life in peacetime.”

  “What’s square-pushin’, Horace?”

  “Well, you know, Phil—wiv a tart.”

  “I see. Where’s your brother now?”

  “Pushin’ up daisies on the banks of the Petty Morin.”

  “I’m sorry about that. When was he killed?”

  “In September, on the Marne. You’ll be interested to hear there was roach in the Petty Morin, Phil, like there was in the Randisbourne. Billo, mate! ’Ere’s the coal-boxes arrivin’! Git yer napper dahn, boy! Into my cubby-’ole, and tuck yer tootsies in!”

  Having seen Phillip well into the cubby-hole, Cranmer crouched over him, to protect him.

  Chapter 26

  THE BROWN WOOD LINE—continued

  THE far sky had revolted in many places; almost immediately the stomach-liquifying down-curving and fat buzzings of 5·9 howitzer shells descended upon the wood. It looked as though an attack was coming, since the German guns had started up along the whole line, with great rolling thunder quaking the earth, beginning with a salvo upon their section of the Brown Wood Line. The sentries, one man in eight, continued to stand at the parapet, looking out; the others were ordered by a fierce, red-faced black-moustached sergeant passing down the trench to the cubby-holes under the parapet, their feet to be drawn up after them to avoid shrapnel balls.

  “Where’s your cubby-hole, my lad?” he demanded sharply of Cranmer. “I’ll put you on a charge when we gits out!”

  Phillip had already realised how terribly strict the Guards discipline was. Men on sentry were so afraid of falling asleep that they pushed open their eyes with their thumbs, and sometimes put sharpened sticks in their greatcoat collars to jab them when their heads dropped down or sideways. They hit their own faces, they struck their heads to keep awake. Some put half a matchstick to prop open their lids, so that if they did go hazy with sleep for a moment, they might still see, and recover. Cranmer said he counted bluebells, and thought of the old Bloodhound days, “second by second like”, to keep himself from getting drowsy. If you did drop asleep, and were caught—the firing squad!

  Most of the shrapnel seemed to be cracking down upon the wood behind, to stop supports from coming up to the front line. Phillip was indifferent to the thin little screaming rush and crack of these air-bursting shells, with their sudden ghostly blots of black smoke; even the whooping swoop of 4.2 howitzer shells was bearable; but what made him flinch and quiver, time and time again, was the coarse downward rushing droning of the Coal Boxes or Johnsons, which seemed to lift the entire earth a moment before rending apart the very air with their stupendous black brutality.

  It went on and on and on; and it rang in the ears and head when it ended as abruptly as it had begun; and he was glassily aware of legs passing and someone saying, Stand to! He waited awhile before crawling out, to see men already lining the parapet.

  When he looked over the parapet he had a shock.

  Emerging from the low mist, hundreds, thousands, multitude upon multitude of dark figures could be seen, moving very slowly forward. Trembling, telling himself to be calm, he seized his rifle resting on the parapet, and fitted it to his left shoulder.

  “Steady, lad,” cried a gruff voice behind him. “Wait for it!”

  He looked round, and saw the big red-faced sergeant standing beside the young Grenadier ensign, who was peering through binoculars.

  The feeling of confidence they gave out calmed him. He pulled the snap-button of his pouches to open them, and waited, with fascinated fear in his loins.

  “Hold your fire!” barked the voice of the sergeant. “Pass it down—no man to fire until the order!”

  *

  Phillip was not left-handed, but owing to a defective, what was called lazy right eye he had, from Bisley days with miniature .22 rifle in the school team, improvised a manner of firing from his left shoulder. When reloading he threw over the rifle at a slant and caught the knobof the bolt and jerked it back between crooked little finger and palm of his left hand, thus ejecting the empty cartridge; and in the return motion closed the bolt with thrust by base of hand, as a bad boxer hits at close quarters with open glove; and, all in the same movement, the sights were aligned and the trigger pressed—a poked shot.

  Still no order to fire. The lines of little figures came on slowly, their arms and legs becoming distinct. He began to feel the calmness of the officer behind him; and greatly daring, took the Zeiss binoculars out of his haversack, focus’d them and saw, in the distance behind the extended lines, many more troops coming down the wandering, threadlike road from Zandvoorde on the sky-line.

  “Hold your fire, men!” cried the sergeant.

  As minute after minute passed, and no order to fire was given, Phillip began to feel agitated. The leading lines this side of the mist were now visible in his glasses as men in grey with pickel-hauben and greatcoats rolled around their packs. Then an amazing thing happened. The attack halted, before the row of posts marking the barbed-wire fence. He could see their moustaches under the Pickelhauben covered with khaki cloth, as they stood still, as though on parade.

  “Hold your fire, men,” repeated the voice of the sergeant.

  With drying mouth, Phillip watched a group of Germans coming forward, led by a very tall soldier. By his height and bearing, and because he wore gloves, he seemed to be an officer.

  (Later, this incident was much remarked, for two things. One, that no scouts had been sent out, before dawn, to examine the wire; the other, that, except for the officer, no one seemed to have any wire-cutters. It was unusual, too, to see an officer in front of the rank and file, for they kept well in the rear, to drive the men on, it was said.)

 
The officer, wearing gloves, came to the wire and began to clip it. When he had cut all the strands the soldiers with him started to pull them sideways, to the next post. The officer then went beyond to a farther post, to clip there, while the men pulled up the post he had missed out. When the gap was about sixty yards wide, and the officer was about to clip once more, Phillip heard the ensign say to the sergeant, “Let him have it, Sergeant.” The sergeant said “Sir!”, and there was a single rifle shot.

  As Phillip watched, fascinated, the German officer leaned forward, as though to look at the post from the other side. From him came a hoarse cry, then a prolonged scream, followed by another not so long but wavering and dying away. His helmet dropped off, and he remained leaning over the wire, gloved hands on arms hanging down, when all the others who had rushed together to the gap had been shot, and the only movements among the heaps of hundreds of bodies was from the ground upwards, as the wounded lay there, some kicking and twisting.

  Phillip, still transfixed as by memory, his ears singing, became aware of a smell of fatty, burning wood. The cover of his rifle was faintly smoking, over the hot steel of the barrel. He leaned against the back of the trench, sharing the shaking feeling of relief, of comradeship, of jubilation, with the others. Men lit cigarettes. One began to sing. A captain came down the trench, his arm in a sling stained with brown, dried blood.

  “Well done, men!” he said, again and again, as he went along.

  As Phillip leaned against the earthen bank he saw a scared brown hen about a yard beyond the parapet appear suddenly before his eyes with skwarking open beak and jerking head, as she half-ran, parallel to the parapet, among the empty bully tins thrown there. She looked at the heads in the trench anxiously, stopping now and again. He wanted to call out to the others not to shoot her, she looked so thin and lost; but when he tried to speak, he found he had no voice, his throat was a stinging rash.

  He leaned against the trench, aware of the weakness of his knees, of his hands shaking, of sweat saturating his shirt. As he rested there, he saw Cranmer, with several others, jerking V-shaped fingers up and down towards the German lines, and Cranmer’s mouth grinning wide showing decaying teeth.