The Path Through the Trees

by Christopher Milne

  So why didn’t I rejoice tonight? Why did I suddenly feel afraid? I had never felt afraid before. Why now?

  Was it because the officer who was to be in charge was himself afraid and his fear was catching? Or was it instinct, the instinct one has that thunder is in the air, that a storm is about to burst. One did seem to develop a sort of subconscious barometer that warned of danger. Mine had been high for so long. Now it was suddenly falling. . . .

  It had always seemed the natural thing to accompany my lorries to the bridge site, even though there was so little for me to do when I got there. I suppose that if something had gone wrong it might have been useful to have had an extra officer around. But normally there wasn’t anything that one of my corporals couldn’t do equally well. So if I went, I went because I wanted to not because I had to. I wanted to see what was happening and I wanted to be with my men. After all that was my rule: an officer’s place is where the work is most exciting. So what good reason was there for not going tonight? None.

  But equally there was no good reason why I should go; and I began to produce arguments for staying behind. I had always been in charge in the past: well, why shouldn’t someone else be in charge for a change. Why shouldn’t Corporal Quick take the lorries up? He could do it equally well. And the experience and responsibility would be good for him. There was nothing special about this particular bridge, no reason really for supposing that it would be any different from all the others. So why should I have to spend a boring, wearying night doing nothing when I might just as well be in bed.

  I went to Quick and gave him his orders. And then, to show how little I had been persuaded by my own reasoning, I told him not to wait until all the lorries had been unloaded so that they could return in convoy – as we had always done in the past – but to send them back one at a time as soon as they were ready to leave. ‘Don’t hang around up there,’ I said. ‘They can easily find their own way back.’

  Thus I hoped I had covered myself whatever happened. My conscience could now rest easy.

  Away they went, and I retired to my tent and lay on my bed and tried to convince myself that I had not been a total coward, that the night would be peaceful and all would be well. I lay awake listening. Yes, as I thought, not a sound to be heard. They had already been gone some time and the first empty lorry would be due back any minute. The minutes dragged by but no lorry came. The hours crept slowly towards midnight, then even more slowly onwards, onwards towards another day. Did I sleep? I doubt it. What time did they get back? I can’t remember. What happened? What I knew would happen, only worse. They had been shelled continuously; a number of Sappers had been killed; Quick had been wounded; there were two dead bodies in one of the lorries; the bridge had been abandoned.

  Pathetically, I tried to sound surprised. . . .

  Fear of what might happen: that was one sort. Fear when it was actually happening: that was another.

  There were many varieties of bang, some more unpleasant than others. An approaching shell is a little like an approaching dog. One dog in a thousand may bite, one in a hundred may growl, the rest wag their tails. If you’ve met the dog before, then however uncertain its temper and even if it growls a little, you’ll have learned how to treat it and you’ll probably not get bitten. If it’s a stranger, you are rather more apprehensive. ‘Good doggie, good doggie,’ you say hoping to convince it that it is one of the well behaved nine hundred; and if it then growls, you fear the worst. So it was with shells. Very few actually did any harm. Most would approach with a not unpleasant singing sound wagging their tails in a friendly way, and once we were used to them they were not particularly frightening. A few came tearing at us like an express train and were much more alarming. And a few were fitted with ingenious devices. After all, if a shell isn’t going to hurt you, it is at least something if it scares you. Better a dog that barks than one that wags its tail where burglars are concerned. So there were the ‘moaning minnies’, fired from mortars in batches of ten, and which, as they approached us, sobbed crocodile tears at the havoc they were about to create. And there were the air bursts – shells that exploded in mid air, and, whether or not they were more lethal, certainly both sounded and looked much more menacing. But even those that sang could on occasion bite, and so we searched for additional reassurance. ‘Good shell, good shell,’ we said. ‘It’s not us you’re after, is it? It’s those poor devils over there.’ And we could thus feel ourselves to be, not intended victims, but spectators, which was much less frightening. And if an accidental one came close and made us duck, we could tell ourselves it was a mistake, not meant for us at all, and we could almost forgive it.

  When one was up and about it was never too bad. For it was not expected that we should work when a storm was raging. The infantry could make a dash for it and risk getting wet. Tanks had their armour to keep them dry. But Sappers worked in the open, slowly, carefully, often in quite large groups, and with nothing to protect them. So when a storm broke we took cover and waited until it was over. After all, the German guns only had a limited number of shells. Even if they could see us they could never afford to fire at us all the time. There were other more important targets.

  But in bed at night it was very different. ‘I would it were bedtime, Hal. . . .’ Yes, indeed, but only if all were well. It usually was. Nights were usually quiet – but not quite always; and then bed could be the most miserable of places, with nothing to distract one, nothing to do but lie awake and a-tremble waiting wretchedly for the next explosion. And oh, how close and menacing they always seemed on these occasions. No chance now of persuading myself that they were being aimed at someone else: they were being aimed at me and I knew it! If I could have got up and gone out and looked around, I might have convinced myself that this was not so; but it needed more determination than I possessed. And so I lay there waiting and waiting for the nightmare to come to an end. . . .

  Thus our encounters with fear passed through three stages. In the first, we barely noticed it: war was an adventure and excitement dominated our emotions. In the second stage the excitement had worn off, fear was present but we were able to control it. In the third stage the strain began to tell. War was now no longer a game, nor could we fool ourselves that it was a party. It was just thoroughly stupid and thoroughly bloody. At the start, filled with confidence, we had walked upright, chin up, chest out, like soldiers on parade. Later we had developed a permanent stoop. We walked with knees bent, eyes to the ground, measuring the distance to the nearest hollow, ready for an instant spring. In the end we didn’t bother. It wasn’t worth it. If you’re going to hit me, do it now, for Heavens sake, and get it over. . . .

  It was October, 1944. We were down in the Lombardy Plain. We had fought our way from bloody ridge to bloody ridge, up and down, up and down, with always another one ahead of us. And then at last we had fought our way through to the Promised Land, only to find it no Promised Land at all but another, even nastier battlefield.

  We were down in the Plain of Lombardy and my Platoon was in a farmhouse and just outside was a field of aubergines. We were preparing our midday meal, cooking it in a German Field Kitchen. This Field Kitchen didn’t really belong to us. We had taken it over from a Platoon of a Field Company in 78 Division, back at Taranto four months previously. They were leaving Italy for the Middle East. We had just arrived back; and so we were inheriting all their vehicles and equipment. But the Field Kitchen was a little different: they had captured it and so it was their very own and only lent to us on the understanding that they could reclaim it on their return. They were now back, and a message had just come that their Platoon Commander was at Company HQ all eager to bear it away.

  I went round, feeling thoroughly cross and uncooperative.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘it’s in use at the moment. It’s got my men’s dinner inside it and I’m not handing it over until they’ve finished with it.’

  ‘But I’ve got to get it back at once,’ said the subaltern. ‘I must hav
e it right away.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You can’t. You’ll just have to wait – or come another day.’

  Three officers, standing in a group, arguing irritably, all a little on their dignity: a nice target. A ranging shell landed nearby.

  When dogs are on their dignity nothing less than a direct hit with a bucket of water will break up the argument. So it was with us. In my case, it was partly the argument, partly that the honour of the Division demanded that I didn’t make the first move, and partly that I was past caring anyway; and I expect it was much the same with the others. ‘Wounded’ and ‘Killed in Action’: familiar words in those days, and to those who saw them day after day in the newspapers recalling perhaps those pictures of battles in which men are firing guns at each other at point blank range, horses are rearing, swords are flashing and it seems unlikely that there will be a single survivor. How different is modern war! At times how unglamorous! One might be wounded charging the enemy with a tommy gun, but one was just as likely to be struck down while sitting on the latrine. Indeed, in our case, more likely. For it was the odd and the unexpected shell catching us when we were least expecting it that so often did the damage. Nearly all my Platoon’s casualties occurred in circumstances that were far from glorious, and I was no exception.

  The other shells had landed with a crash. The one that finally settled our argument made, so it seemed to me, no sound but a puff, a sort of buffet somewhere behind my head. I scarcely heard it. I never saw it. And, luckily, I never even felt it.

  His lips curling in a cynical smile, the god Mars distributes his rewards. For some they are appropriate – for after all he must retain the respect in which men hold him, retain his authority over their lives. And so for some it is the well-earned medal or the hero’s death in action. But for others. . . . One by one we come before him and hopefully we hold out our hand.

  When my turn came he saw before him someone who, for all his attempts to look like a soldier, yet remained a faintly ludicrous figure. And so, being in one of his kindlier moods, he gave me what I wanted just when I wanted it. He took me gently and he pressed his thumb into the back of my head, not too hard to hurt, not too deep to leave more than a small but permanent dent.

  A few days later my parents learned that I had been wounded and placed on the ‘seriously ill list’. But by that time I was feeling nothing but a deep sense of happiness and pride.

  10. War – The Fruits

  In the old days you plundered the towns and raped the women. Loot and sex were the fruits of war. And to some extent – sanctified by history though fortunately greatly modified – these were two of the fruits of our war in Italy. There were brothels in Naples and elsewhere (though I was too young and innocent to know anything about them), and if we didn’t exactly loot, we certainly ‘liberated’, which was much the same thing.

  But there were other fruits as well. I have already mentioned some of the differences between the Italian Campaign and the First World War. Another difference is that, while our fathers were fighting in a country whose utter destruction had reduced it to a lunatic’s nightmare, we were advancing through changing landscapes some of which were among the world’s finest and were quite untouched by the fighting. Even at its most battered and depressing Italy would still have seemed a paradise compared with Flanders mud. The apples we picked from the trees, the bunches of grapes we picked from the vine: yes, these were among the fruits of our war. But so too was the apple orchard. So too the view from the vineyard.

  Most of us – even, had he been there, that recruit who had described Barton Stacey as a god-forsaken hole – must have felt that Italy was a pleasant country to fight in. To someone who loved the countryside as much as I did, it was more than just that. And to me personally, it was more than just more: it was something else besides.

  What happened at Montefiore will illustrate what I mean.

  We captured Montefiore on September 3rd, 1944, and with its capture our hopes for a quick breakthrough to the Po, to Venice, indeed to Vienna, reached their height. The following evening a small and select column of vehicles formed up along the narrow road that led to the town, and among them was a detachment of Engineers under my command consisting of a bulldozer, a scout car with a sergeant and three or four men, and my jeep with its driver.

  Our object – wildly optimistic as it turned out – was to force our way quickly through and past the German defences where they appeared weakest and make a dash towards San Marino. Looked at in cold blood it was an alarming prospect. Had we known just how strong these defences were, the prospect would have seemed even more alarming. But we didn’t know and our blood was still hot; and I was both delighted and excited to be taking part.

  I have already mentioned the importance of a little confusion, and the confusion with which this enterprise started most certainly helped to make it much less frightening. On the other side of Montefiore was the river Conca. The river was crossed by a bridge and the bridge – naturally enough – had been demolished. Here then was the first obstacle that my bulldozer and Sappers would have to negotiate before the column could proceed. We ought, therefore, to have been at the head of the column. Alas, we were near the tail, and the road we were moving along was extremely narrow. How, in the rapidly waning light of day, does one get a bulldozer past a troop of field guns jammed nose to tail? That was my first problem. Slowly, with many apologies and much backing and bumping, jeep and bulldozer made their way up the line, and, as darkness descended, entered Montefiore.

  Montefiore was like the setting for the second act of a Verdi opera, dark, mysterious and intensely dramatic; its paved streets barely wide enough to accommodate my bulldozer; its buildings rising sheer on either side; no light, no sound, no sign of life. Was the town deserted? Were its inhabitants all a-bed? Or were they up and alert, watching anxiously from behind barred windows? Slowly we creaked our way through, ours the only noise in the surrounding silence. . . . And then, round a corner ahead of us, entirely blocking the way, as solid, as lifeless and seeming almost as large as the buildings it was wedged between, was a vast Churchill tank. It was just what I needed and I laughed aloud, then clambered up it and knocked politely on its roof. . . .

  Night had fully come when at last we reached the river. The Brigadier was waiting for us and he was in a hurry. I was given no time to reconnoitre: I was told where I was to make my crossing and so I set my bulldozer to work cutting a ramp down to the water’s edge, while impatient staff officers paced up and down. I was not happy about it: there was too much soft earth and not enough hard rock. Vehicles were going to get stuck. I’d seen this happen so often before. However, I had no choice and we did the best we could and it certainly looked all right; and then the Brigadier was back again. Montefiore on its hill lay behind us; ahead was a plain, and through this plain ran our road. But over on the left was a great ridge and on its highest point perched the village of Gemmano. The village and the ridge looked down on us, silent, brooding, powerful, watching us – so it seemed – as we scratched away at its feet. ‘That ridge,’ he said, ‘is Boche-held. I must be past it by first light.’ So my bulldozer and I had to leave the river and hurry along the road to look for the next obstacle.

  We were now ahead of the column. I was riding on the bulldozer beside the driver and the open road lay before us, faintly silvered as the beginnings of light began to creep back into our world, and utterly deserted. In the dust of its surface I could just detect a single set of track marks: someone had been here ahead of us, perhaps one of our carriers. But of him there was no sign. There was no sign of life anywhere, just the two of us racketing down the road, while above us loomed Gemmano ridge. The night air was cool and fresh and invigorating; it was the first time I had ever ridden on a bulldozer; and I wanted to shout and sing, I was so happy.

  Of course you can say that it must have been exciting to be out in front of an advancing army, leading the way, and that so long as there was no shooting there was no reason to feel af
raid. On the other hand you must concede that my bulldozer was a large, vulnerable, and – if not visible in the darkness – at least a very audible target; that there were certainly German guns in the hills, quite possibly a German tank waiting at the far end of the road, to say nothing of German mines. Was it just excitement that made me so completely unafraid and happy? Or was it something else?

  Let me just finish the story first. Some way down the road we came to another blown bridge, a small one, crossing what was little more than a ditch, and we set to work to cut a diversion round it. But before we had finished, a despatch rider came up with an order that we were to return: vehicles were getting stuck and we were needed to tow them clear. So back we went, and it was just as I had feared: the ground was far too soft; and while the bulldozer got working with its winch, I walked up and down the river to see if I could find a better place. But by now bright patches were coming in the sky. It was too late. The guns were turning round and going back. We were all going back, dispersing, getting under cover. For if daylight came to find us still lined up on the road to the river there would indeed be a massacre.

  So, through the failure of my ford, the operation had to be abandoned. And as it turned out, this was just as well. Gemmano was indeed ‘Boche-held’ and just how strongly we were now – at a staggering price – to find out. From an olive grove I watched the first attack, in battalion strength, go in . . . and fail. For the second attack – in brigade strength – they needed my olive grove for their machine gunners. So we were ordered to withdraw behind Montefiore, and – giving us the merest sip from the tankard that others were now about to drain – our progress was speeded by a shell that killed one of my corporals and two of my Sappers.