The Death of Hope

by Andrew Wareham

  Richard was impressed by her words. He had never read a line of poetry in his life and had only vaguely heard of Rupert Brooke, remembering a brief comment from Brigadier Braithwaite about him as ‘an Oxford poofter who had died without ever seeing action’.

  He did not think that he should pass Braithwaite’s opinion on to Primrose – she might well quote it in company.

  Letters Home were subject to censorship at battalion level and, in theory, Richard was obliged to offer his mail to the Adjutant to be read and edited as appropriate. In practise, he put his letters into the postbag with a quick scribble of ‘passed’ on the envelope. He took some pains not to mention names or places, showing willing in case a German spy should somehow read his offerings. The reality was that the High Command preferred that the people in England should not be told of the bad food and poor conditions the soldiers endured; it was easier to censor than to make the effort to improve things.

  ‘Jam, Primrose! Ordinary enough stuff, one might say, and we are now getting supplies through. Tasteless, too sweet and full of hard lumps! The men say the raspberry jam is swede boiled up with sugar and with red colouring and sawdust added to counterfeit the pips. I am inclined to believe them, especially as one of the new replacements worked in a confectionery and jam factory until he was eighteen and old enough to join up. The stories he tells are horrifying! Do not, under any circumstances eat shop-bought ginger cake! The strong flavour makes it possible to disguise any number of sins! The bully beef is more gristle than meat, the cans often no more than half-full and consequently rotting because of the enclosure of air. There is a stew which comes in cans – it is full of soggy lumps of unnamed vegetable and unrecognisable meat, truly awful. The only things the men do like are the cans of herrings and mackerel in red sauce which we see once or twice a month. Personally, I find them vile!’

  Richard reread his litany of complaint, debated whether he should send it, decided he must. From the sound of it, Primrose was in urgent need of honesty in her existence.

  ‘I much hope to have leave in the New Year. It is generally agreed that nothing will happen in Flanders prior to the New Army arriving, which is expected in May or June. We are to hold and make ready for the Big Push in July. It may be possible to arrange for three weeks in England when the battalion is out of the line on rest, which is hoped to become a regular rotation. I have spoken to the Brigadier and he is hopeful. I will be happy indeed when you become my wife, my love!’

  It was not easy to write endearments – neither Navy nor Army had a place for ‘soppy sentimentality’ as he remembered an officer at Dartmouth describing romance in all of its forms. Officers should be in love with their service, taking a wife in their middle years so that the breed should continue – every officer should send one, at least, of sons to follow in his footsteps. There was no other way of maintaining the proper traditions, it seemed. The officer in question had seemed rather regretful that breeding was not possible without the involvement of women in the process. The Navy would be far better off without wives in the background, he had no doubt. He had given wise advice to the class – not to marry before attaining the rank of Commander, unless the bride had a substantial income to bring to the marital home, and to choose from a Naval family so that the girl had been brought up with an understanding of duty.

  ‘Finally, gentlemen, always remember – Duty First! There can be no choice between Home and the Navy – the Service always has priority.’

  The words had been solemnly said, Richard recalled, the lieutenant commander in question, a forty years old bachelor, having no doubt of their wisdom.

  He passed them on in his letter – Primrose needed a laugh.

  The hour he set aside for himself each day had gone too quickly. He grabbed his tin hat and ducked out of his bunker.

  “Paisley, I am going up to the first line for a quick look around.”

  His batman appeared, Lee-Enfield slung, ready at his shoulder.

  “Sidearm loaded, sir?”

  The holster was empty, Richard having forgotten to take the pistol down from its hook on the wall.

  “Bugger!”

  He dived back inside, grabbed the revolver and flicked the cylinder out, checked it had five rounds, the chamber beneath the hammer empty.

  “Thank you, Paisley.”

  They set off the fifty yards along the second trench, turned into the communication trench leading the fifty yards to the front.

  “Ought to be longer, Paisley. The Germans kept their lines too close together.”

  “Makes it easier to support each other, sir. Can throw a bomb pretty near half way across from one to the other.”

  They eased around the first dogleg, a favourite aiming point for snipers, present again now that the lines had stabilised.

  “Got that sod yesterday, sir, what was sitting up over this one. Mr Michaels it was what spotted him. Up on top of one of them bunkers, he was, damned four hundred yards away. He called in the eighteen pounders to paste the bunker before he could get down and into cover.”

  “Is that what the firing was about? Must have been twenty shells to kill one sniper.”

  “Six of ours he got in the week, sir. All of them belly shot.”

  A strong chance that all would die, slowly, taking up hospital beds and using up manpower to get them to treatment.

  There was an argument for having many more snipers. The trouble was that few of the men would do the job. Sitting up in cover, waiting to fire aimed shots, deliberately killing selected targets, demanded a cold-bloodedness that most did not possess. The three snipers now in the battalion were respected, in a way, but had few close friends. Snipers were a unique breed, a bit doolally, in most soldiers’ opinion. Richard agreed with his men.

  “Best thing then, to get him.”

  He knew that Brigade would complain, would regard the expenditure of artillery rounds as unjustifiable to kill off one man. He was not inclined to care greatly what the men well distant from the firing line had to say, not any more.

  “All well Captain Caton? I hear young Michaels showed well again yesterday.”

  “Very much so, sir. That sniper was a damned nuisance. Any word on him?”

  It was a month since Richard had recommended Michaels for an MC, very well earned, in his opinion.

  “There is a backlog at HQ, it seems, Caton. They are too busy stabbing each other in the back to get on with running the Army.”

  “What’s the word there, sir?”

  “We can expect to hear that General Haig was taken over command of the BEF any day.”

  “Another cavalry man!”

  “So is Allenby, and he would do a far better job than either Haig or French. Even Smith-Dorrien would have been preferable. Neither is favoured in London, however.”

  They said no more. Richard looked through the small viewing port that had been carved in the parapet, saw no change from the morning, when he had last looked.

  “What’s that thing that submarines have, sir? For looking out when they are under the sea?”

  “Periscope, Caton – lenses and mirrors in a tube… What a very good idea! I wonder how they are made. Do you know?”

  Caton knew only that they existed.

  Richard sat down in his bunker that evening and made a formal request to Brigade that the periscope should be investigated and, if practical, made on a small scale to be installed in the trenches. He sat down to another letter to Primrose, including a drawing of what he was thinking of.

  ‘Not much of an artist, my dear love. If I was, I would draw a picture of you to put up on my wall.’

  He wondered if it was true that absence made the heart grow fonder, as they insisted. Certainly, he missed her. He suspected he was in love, which was rather strange and more than a little pleasing. He had long feared that he was a cold, heartless sort of person; it seemed that he was not.

  “Paisley, could you get me a mug of tea, please.”

  “Coming up, sir. Do you wa
nt a sandwich with it? I got hold of some Branston pickles and a can of the good ham this morning, sir. Bread is fresh today as well and I got some butter.”

  “Well done, Paisley! If it cost anything, take the money from the drawer.”

  Richard always kept a mixture of half sovereigns and francs to hand, never more than about ten pounds, topping it up when necessary. Paisley knew to use the cash if the opportunity arose for a little black-marketeering and could be trusted absolutely not to abuse the liberty – he would never do more than pick up the odd bottle of ‘vanrouge’ for himself, spending no more than sixpence once or at most twice a week.

  “No need, sir. Came in as a favour, sir. The bloke what supplied the ‘Major with the blankets came across a case of each and sent them up to him gratis, being an old friend.”

  Richard wondered what the quid pro quo had been. He also knew that it was none of his business. He would not ask, would not be told the truth if he did.

  “What’s the buzz, Paisley?”

  “General French to go next week, sir. Haig to take over. Bit of a shake up but none in our corps, sir. We go out of the line the week after, get Christmas in reserve, sir.”

  The chances were that Paisley’s information was accurate.

  “No leave this time round, sir. We gets a chance in February, one week for the men, two or three for the officers. Conscripts start coming in middle of March.”

  “We need the men, Paisley.”

  “They’ll be no problem, sir. They’ll knuckle under, see if they don’t!”

  If that was the opinion of the senior men and the sergeants, it would do for Richard. They were the ones who would have the direct work of making the unwilling bodies fit in.

  “Done it before, sir. Half the poor sods what came out to South Africa didn’t really want to but everybody else in the street was volunteering and they’d look yellow if they didn’t too. They fitted in, was just as brave as the rest.”

  Richard was much of the opinion that bravery was no more than a matter of circumstance, more often than not. He was a hero, officially, and knew how it had come about.

  “Good. That’s one less problem to worry about.”

  That left him with the unending concern, the need to nurture an offensive spirit in the men. Standing in a trench, doing nothing other than wait, was destructive of morale. The old trench raids were no longer practical. He had to do something.

  Two nights later, a bit before two in the morning, he led a party of a dozen through the wire in front of their line, using the switchback pathways left for their own use when they needed to mend or expand the apron. The gaps in the wire were wide enough for one man and meandered through a hundred yards right and left to cross the thirty yards in front of the trench. They could not be spotted and infiltrated at night other than by the luckiest of chances, offered no risk of letting the Germans through.

  They walked silently in single file, brasses blackened and all personal equipment tied tight so that they would make no noise as they walked forward, carefully out of step.

  Each man carried a bag of Mills Bombs over his shoulder.

  Richard consulted his compass and directed the men out in twos to make a line outside the German wire at its narrowest points where soft ground or a watercourse or a group of shell craters forced it back towards their defences.

  He went out last, Paisley at his shoulder, came to his own pre-selected spot, or so he hoped. He knelt, eyes fixed on the luminous dial of his watch, waiting on the slow second hand to reach the exact minute set. Observation suggested that the Germans changed sentries every two hours through the night, exactly on the even hour.

  “Now!”

  He spoke in a whisper – the men would react to the first explosion rather than to a shouted command.

  Paisley pulled the pin on the grenade he was holding and lobbed it towards the trench, taking another out of the bag in front of him. The light of the first explosion showed him an over. He tossed the next and six more in succession, landing at least two directly in the trench. A machine gun began to fire on fixed lines, close to them. They had mapped all of the machine guns they could locate, knew where to throw the next bombs.

  Richard took out his whistle, waited for the second minute of the action to come to an end, sounded the recall. He and Paisley dropped low, scurried back, bent over all the way, occasional bursts of fire passing just over their heads in the darkness.

  They had marked the exit to the pathway with a scrap of white rag, tied at ground level. The pair knelt there, counting the men in. Four pairs and one single.

  “Jones Two, sir, stood up to throw a bomb over where ‘e saw a bit of light. Machine gun got ‘im, sir. Dead, sir. Right through ‘is face and knocked the top of ‘is ‘ead off!”

  “Thank you, Private Errigo.”

  One of the sons of the many Italian immigrants to the boot and shoe factories around Bedford, Errigo was English in everything but name. He intended to become a policeman after the war, he had said. A new man in, he was already on the list for promotion, would get his first stripe in the morning. He was pleased to be recognised, to have his name remembered.

  The eleven remaining of the party gathered outside Richard’s dugout, a tot of rum in hand.

  “Well done all, a successful evening and only one man lost. Did any of you see anything of interest?”

  Ten headshakes, one hand rising.

  “Who is that, Bass, is it?”

  “Yes, sir. I did see summat over by the machine gun nest what was on the side of us…” Bass looked down at his hands still not entirely certain of left and right. He wore a wedding ring on the left hand. “To the left, so it were, sir, mebbe ten yards from the old gun. Sort of upright, so it were, sir, a gun barrel, real thick it were, as big round as me, most like. One of they mortars, so I reckons, sir, and new put in place acos of there was men a-working round it.”

  Bass was a Wiltshire man, had joined the battalion in Devizes after hearing of his younger brother’s death aboard Good Hope.

  “Right, well seen, Bass. I will put that on my map.”

  “It ain’t there no more, sir, for old Plowright and me throwin’ a couple of they bombs apiece at it. Old Plowright ‘ere, ‘e tossed one what landed right inside the barrel, sir.”

  “Well done, both of you. Anything else?”

  Nothing was offered.

  “Right! Drink up and get some sleep in. I’ll do the same, after writing up the report.”

  Richard ducked into his own space, made a show of sitting to his desk.

  “Was it worth it, Paisley? Lost one man, threw a hundred bombs, thereabouts. Damaged or destroyed a big minenwerfer and two or three machine guns. Killed a few men. Pretty much pointless, when you look at it.”

  “All the officers and most of the blokes will be wanting to go out on the next one, sir. Bit of a laugh, ain’t it, waking the Huns up with Mills Bombs about their earholes! They ain’t going to sleep easy these next few nights, that’s for sure.”

  Brigadier Braithwaite agreed. He was much in favour of demonstrating the offensive spirit, said so at some length over the telephone.

  “Thing is though, Baker, it’s not the sort of thing for you to be doing, not in person. I know there’s nothing you like better than getting into the Hun, but you are not to be risking your neck in these little affairs. Leave them to your subalterns – give them a chance to get some blood on their hands! I shall send the report up the line, give Division something to tell Corps to prove they are busy. Let Haig know that we are fighting this war. He comes in on the 15th, by the way. Day after tomorrow. Your boy Michaels has his MC at last. Took them long enough!”

  “Well deserved, sir. I have made him up, acting, as lieutenant.”

  “I’ll send through his permanence, Baker. He needs to be looked after – got the right sort of stuff in him. Getting back to you, an order, Baker! You are not to go out on any more of these bombing raids. You have done one, to see if it was possible. You have
found that it works, now don’t do it again! You are far too valuable to be killed in a minor sort of bickering. I shall need you next year when we have made the breakthrough with the New Army.”

  “Right, sir. I shall be good. It does get tedious, sir, sat here a quarter of a mile from the Hun and unable to get my hands round their necks!”

  Braithwaite responded appropriately, telling him to calm his fire eating instincts. A few months and he would get all of the blood he wanted.

  “For the while, behave yourself, and remember that pretty little girl who is waiting at home for you. She will not want to put on black for you, Baker!”

  “I hope to marry next leave, sir. Provided one comes through that is long enough.”

  “In the New Year if our plans work out. We shall see, Baker.”

  Braithwaite managed to sound mysterious, no doubt intentionally.

  As Paisley had predicted, Haig took over command of the BEF on December 15th and the battalion went into reserve that afternoon. Their attitude made it clear which was the more important.

  Richard stood at Hawkeswill’s side and listened to the queue of men at the delousing station, moaning as they stripped and threw their uniforms to the last stitch onto a heap outside the doors. They had been forewarned, had put all personal possessions and their all-important paybooks into the safekeeping provided and guarded by a pair of Provosts.

  “First time I heard of they bastards doing something useful.”

  He heard the same words a dozen times over as the men complained about standing out in the cold.

  “Bloody well ‘urry up! Freezing me knackers off out ‘ere!”

  The system was surprisingly efficient in fact, the men waiting a very short time before entering hot showers, water under pressure beating down on them as they lathered up the ‘medicated’ soap and shampoo, both reeking of carbolic, and scrubbed themselves clean. Most took advantage of the razors provided and shaved their heads to the barest stubble, clearing out the lice the easy way. A few of the vain persevered with nit combs, scraping the eggs out of their hair.