by Alec Waugh
Last night it had come, however. With shell fire sweeping every road; with every dump, every cross-road the target for artillery. It had come. There had been no question then about what to do. The guns had to be got into their place, the half-wounded could care for the badly wounded. There were stretcher bearers and dressing stations. When a man fell sick at home there was laid a responsibility on amateur capacity. In hospitals the professionals took charge.
Leaning now against the parapet, in the late afternoon while the brazen frenzy of the evening hate broke round them, he could not assemble detail by detail the disorder of that relief; the shells bursting among the limbers, the screaming of the mules; the effort to make his voice heard above the din, the hurried conferences with the officer he was relieving, the perfunctory checking of the stores, the examination of the dug-out shelter, the scrawled signature, the roll call of his men, the reappointing of the gun teams with one gun damaged beyond repair, and half its team on the way back to details. The attempt to restore confidence and good humour; to make jokes about the increased rum ration that would be due that evening; the drear-eyed waiting for the dawn.
It was an experience that he had not suspected life to hold or himself to possess the resilience to sustain. And yet to these new conditions he could adjust himself within a day in just the same way that from his experience of training in England he had adjusted himself to ordinary trench life. Different though it was, different though that had been, each in its separate way was a branch of soldiering, with the same main duties; inspection of men and kit, care for the comfort of the men, the maintenance of his prestige; the responsibility to his senior officers, the orders to be carried out, the reports to be sent in; with the same feeling that he was carrying out those orders not because there were Germans three-quarters of a mile away, but because there was a company commander at headquarters, whose visit of inspection might surprise him. Even here, it was only in external detail that his world had altered.
An advance was fixed for the following morning. The guns of the 305th company were set for a barrage of indirect fire that was to lift as the infantry advanced. Hugh’s section and Tallent’s section were in the same trench. Of their eight guns only five remained; with about two thirds of their gun teams left. They shared a small funk-hole dug-out, most of which was taken up by a table made out of empty S.A.A. boxes that was hardly large enough to hold a full-spread map. A couple of stretchers served as beds. They had decided to run their five guns as a single section for purposes of supervision and control, taking it in turns to rest: on duty together whenever there was a likelihood of danger. Tallent had been asleep when the evening barrage opened. Hugh tapped his shoulder.
“It’s started,” he said.
They both knew what they had to do. There was no likelihood of attack, anyhow of an attack that would reach as far back as their position. The trench had not been selected with a view to direct fire. There would be no targets for them. The men had instructions to take such shelter as they could, crouched under the lip of the parapet. There was nothing for them to do but wait. All that could be done lay in the hand of Hugh and Tallent. By walking up and down the trench, by joking together, by appearing unconcerned, by exchanging a cigarette with a sergeant, by swopping an anecdote with a sentry, they could do something to keep the men’s spirits up.
It was while they were strolling together up the trench, talking, creating within themselves a kind of exhilaration out of their attempts to persuade themselves that they were not frightened, that Hugh turning, saw coming across the open, alone, along a road that was little more than a path zigzagging its way through the maze of shell holes, a figure that seemed familiar.
“Heavens, but it can’t be him!”
They turned and looked. It was an officer. He was coming towards them, as straight as the deviations of the path allowed. Shells were breaking on all sides of him. He did not appear to notice them. The roll of his walk was very much like Rickman’s.
“But what on earth would he be doing here at a time like this?”
“And without a runner.”
The absence of a runner was as extraordinary as Rickman’s presence. You would never expect a visit till after dark. It was unheard of for a company commander to go round the guns alone. But it was Rickman right enough. He swung himself down into the trench.
“Well, how are you all? Sorry I couldn’t get up before. The Brigadier’s been very trying. We’ve got him to sleep at last, thank heaven. What sort of a dug-out have you? Doesn’t look as though it would do much more than keep the rain out. We’ll get you out of it as soon as possible. The show’s to-morrow, then the relief the instant it can be arranged. How are the men? I’ll just stroll down and see how they’re getting on.”
The barrage was breaking about the trench in unlessened frenzy, but Rickman sauntered past the gun teams as though he were making the most casual of kit inspections. He had a joke or so for every gun team.
“Ah, there’s Walker. I’m afraid you won’t find much telephone wire up here when you want to tie your pack on.”
The laugh that went up from Walker’s team was as light-hearted as if they were camping in bell tents in Grantham. Rickman made no attempt at an inspection. Just exchanged a word or two with each gun team, then turned back to Tallent.
“Now let’s go and have a look at your barrage charts.”
But he did not want to look at any barrage charts.
“Give me a whisky. No, no water.”
He poured it out himself: a long steady splash into the enamel mug. He swallowed it as though it were a glass of beer. He blinked, shook his head.
“There’s no need to bother about those charts. If we didn’t get them right in rest billets, we won’t get them right in reserve line dug-outs. I only wanted to see how you all were. The worst’s over. You’ve done grandly getting here. The show won’t be anything, not for us. The next thing that’ll really matter will be the relief, and the celebration dinner back in billets. I must push on and see Symes now. You’re doing splendidly, you two. Keep going.”
He scrambled out of the trench, into the open, on to the zigzagging shell-pocked road. Hugh and Tallent looked in silence at one another.
“There was no need for him to come.”
“No need at all. Just because he wanted to show the troops that he wasn’t frightened.”
“And he was frightened. Who wouldn’t be? Look at the whisky he needed to pull his nerves round.”
“He didn’t bring a runner because he wasn’t going to have another man expose himself to a risk like that on his account.”
“It’s made a big difference to the men. It put new heart into them. In a way we couldn’t do.”
“He’s a man all right.” Tallent paused. “And a crazy one at that,” he added. “His life’s too valuable to be risked like that. And walking up to the trench, in daylight, right across the open, so that every observation post behind the German lines that’s interested will know there’s something here, will be able to send our map reference to their artillery. That visit’s going to cost us more than one casualty. And yet … oh yes, it is worth it. It’s meant something to these men, they’ll not forget. It’s a grand gesture. That’s always justified.” He paused again. “Why the devil should a man who can live real poetry want to write bad verse?”
Rickman had said: “The show won’t be anything; not for us.” It shouldn’t have been. But he had counted without the Brigadier. On the last morning of the show he was summoned to Brigade Headquarters. The Brigadier was seated at a long table, on which a large-scale map was spread. It was pin-pricked with innumerable flags, pencilled in green and blue and orange. On the wall in front below the invariable dug-out decorations by Kirchner and his imitators were arranged in a row of pointed hooks, the successive reports from battalion and company commanders. He beckoned Rickman to his side. With the point of a paper knife he pointed out the line of the Brigade front.
“This is where we were las
t night before we attacked. This is where we were at eight o’clock this morning. This was our line at ten. This should be our line now. It isn’t. I think it is this. I’m not certain of that even. There’s another report to come in yet. There’ll be a counter attack, that’s certain. We must strengthen the front line with machine-guns. How many can you spare?”
Rickman glanced over the Brigadier’s shoulder. He could see six small pencilled circles. That was presumably the gun positions the Brigadier had in mind. He wanted to chalk them in blue, so that they would look pretty when the divisional general asked about his defence scheme. The Brigadier had not been over that piece of ground. Rickman had. He did not believe in sending machine guns forward. Lewis guns could do that work. Vickers guns were a kind of light artillery that should be kept slightly in reserve. But this was no time for arguing about that. Guns had to be sent to the front line. All he could do was to reduce the Brigadier’s estimate of their importance.
He opened his own map. He spread it beside the general.
“The great thing is to cover as much of the line with as few guns as possible. Now, there’s a slight valley here that a single gun could cover. It isn’t very clearly marked upon the map, but there’s a spur here and a re-entrant there.”
He talked quickly, but authoritatively. In a couple of minutes he had the Brigadier befogged in a mist of topographical detail. Another minute and the Brigadier had ceased to listen. For yet another minute Rickman talked. Then he reached over to the scarlet pencil. He marked three circles on his map.
“If we were to have one gun here, another there, a third here, we should be able to arrange a cross-fire that ought to hold any counter attack.”
The Brigadier looked pensively at Rickman’s map. Yes, those three red circles looked effective. He turned back to his own map. Rickman leant over him, the pencil in his hand.
“Here, here, and the last here.”
He drew the circles deftly. The chromatic effect was definitely pleasing. The Brigadier surveyed it, turning his head first to the one side, then the other. It looked all right.
“If you really think three guns are sufficient, Rickman?”
Rickman tapped the table.
“You can see for yourself,” he said.
It was an answer that was singularly soothing to the Brigadier. It was putting words into his mouth. That was what he would say when the general asked him about his defence scheme. He would tap the table with his pencil. “You can see for yourself,” he’d say.
“And that’s three guns saved, anyhow,” thought Rickman, as he climbed the dug-out steps. There remained the question which guns he was to send. And that question resolved into two alternatives. For two of the sections there had been arranged a complicated defensive barrage with the divisional machine gun company that could not be disturbed. Either Tallent or Hugh Balliol had to go.
Everything pointed to his sending Tallent. Two of Hugh’s guns were out of action. Tallent’s three guns were a co-ordinated easily detached unit. Tallent was the senior, the elder; had been longer with the company. By every obvious reason Tallent should have been sent. And yet the very fact that he and Tallent were on the brink of quarrel, that they disliked each other, made him hesitate to send Tallent into such obvious danger. He had seen enough of the war to know that the odds were against the survival of an officer despatched on such a mission. “I can’t send a man that I hate. But that’s absurd,” he told himself. “Are you going to allow personal feelings to influence you to such an absurd extent that you are going to sacrifice your friends for your enemies, that you’re going to reverse the process of favouritism till it would seem to be of greater use for a man to be against you than for you? Are you going to be like those fathers who when their sons work in their businesses, refuse them promotion just because they are their sons? If there were no personal feelings involved either way, you know, don’t you, it is Tallent that you’d send. Is Balliol to suffer because he’s your friend, and the other isn’t? Don’t be absurd. Come now, give the order.”
But deeper than reason was the instinct forbidding him to send into a danger that might mean death, a man that with one side of himself he hated, with another respected, and by whom he was jealous to be liked. He did not want his relations with Tallent to end here; he could not picture himself writing to Tallent’s family the condolences over a death for which he was himself responsible. Tallent’s contempt for him had struck him on his weakest point. That contempt would always rankle. If only he could force Tallent to reconsider his opinion. If only he could cancel that contempt. His desire to be reinstated in Tallent’s eyes was greater than his sense of justice.
“I can’t,” he thought. “It’s no good. It must be Balliol.”
During the brief lull of the afternoon the instructions were sent up by runner to the gun positions.
As soon as it was dark, Lt. H. S. Balliol was to take his two guns and one of the gun team from Lt. Tallent’s section and proceed to the following map references. He was to hold these positions to the last. He was himself advised to remain with the most distant gun team, keeping in touch with the other two by runner.
Hugh whistled as he read the message. He handed it across to Tallent.
“That doesn’t look as though the front gun teams were going to have a picnic.”
Tallent did his best to be optimistic.
“Except when an actual show’s on. I’m not sure the very front line isn’t the safest place. The big stuff can’t get at you.”
“There may be a counter attack.”
“A half-hearted one, most likely.”
At that actual moment it was hard to believe in any very real imminence of danger. A midsummer afternoon was wearing towards evening, with the sun’s heat lessening, and the sky a paling hyacinth. The brown stretch of shell holes with their occasional rows of broken tree stumps had a uniform carpetted appearance. The shelling was casual and intermittent. A spurt of earth would rise from a distant ridge where a battery was range-finding; an aeroplane was droning in the sky with the white puffs of the “Archies” scattering around it. The only sign of the morning’s fury was the steady trickle of wounded down the road, some limping with bandaged heads, alone; others supporting one another. Now and then a party of stretcher bearers filed by. Once a group of prisoners slouched past under the escort of a Jock.
“I wonder how many men were killed beyond that ridge between six and ten this morning,” Tallent said.
“Don’t be so cheerful.”
“Well, they’re out of it, which is more than those poor devils are, limping down there with broken shoulders.”
“They’ll be in England in a week. They are probably as pleased as Punch.”
“They may be now, they’ve got ‘blighties,’ they are out of it. But the world isn’t going to be so amusing for them when it’s all over and they’ve got to face life with a permanent limp, or their lungs so full of gas that they live in perpetual terror of a chill. There’ll be a good many times when they’ll feel envious of the friends they left there beyond this ridge. I don’t suppose that they’re the only ones who’ll feel envious of them, either.” He paused, leaning back on the improvised stretcher bed in the cool dusk of the dug-out, looking on to the hot, churned plain and the small parties of wounded winding their way towards the ambulances of the clearing station.
“Those fellows aren’t the only casualties of war. No, not by a long chalk.”
With hands crossed behind his head he looked through the dugout’s opening with an abstracted stare, as though he were seeing not so much the desolate landscape of northern France, but the future to which this landscape was the emotional and mental prelude. “It isn’t going to be what we think it is,” he said. “It’s going to be harder in ways we don’t suspect. In many ways life is very easy now. It’s been simplified. We don’t have to worry about livelihood. We are clothed and fed and housed. We are welcomed when we come back on leave; we stand for romance, adventure. It won’t
be like that when the war’s over. There’ll be a spate of new problems. These fellows aren’t going to find it so easy to earn a living, they won’t be symbols of romance to their women-folk and families. They won’t be heroes coming back from the wars with nine months’ pay to spend in a fortnight. They’ll be harassed clerks, worrying about the rent. It isn’t only conditions that’ll be different. It’s the people they’ll be entangled with. Their womenfolk particularly. Women aren’t going to be the tame creatures that they were, now that they’ve learnt independence, had money of their own to spend, seen what a man’s world is like. They’ll be a different race. They’ll be able to be themselves at last. Not just what men have wanted them to be.
“How do all these men picture the homes that they’ll be returning to or building when they return? An affectionate, docile woman waiting by a hearth, and that’s what women have been, up to now. That’s what they’ve had to be, since that’s what men wanted. Men held the power. But it wasn’t necessarily what they wanted for themselves. When a girl of twenty fell in love with a man of twenty-five without much money, she didn’t necessarily want to set up house with him and start having children. A woman of thirty might, but not a girl of twenty. It’s what she had to do, though, if she were in love with the man and wanted him. She won’t have to any more. She has learnt what it is to be independent. She’s known that she does not need to have children unless she wants them. She can earn her living, stand on her own feet. When the war’s over, men aren’t going to find waiting for them the same women that they said goodbye to, or got engaged to, in 1914. They aren’t going back to the kind of home that they expect. I’m not sure that that isn’t going to be the biggest surprise that’s waiting for the ex-soldier.”
He paused.
“I had an experience on my last leave that I must say surprised me.”
Hugh had listened to Tallent’s diatribe with attention but no particular interest. Tallent was in the habit of indulging in such outbursts. Generalizations never carried much weight with Hugh. He was only impressed by facts; by rows of figures from which a conclusion could be deduced. He became alert when Tallent spoke of a specific instance.