by Wilbur Smith
Close up in the centre! The gaps torn in their ranks by the guns were filled by other amorphous khaki bodies.
Keep the line! Keep the line! The orders were almost drowned by the tumult of the guns.
Then in the wilderness ahead of them they saw the glint of metal through the smoke. It was a low wall of metal, interlocking scales of grey steel like those on the back of a crocodile.
The German machine-gunners had had the benefit of seven days forewarning, and as the British barrage rolled away behind them, they carried their weapons up the shafts from their dugouts to the surface and set them up on their tripods on the churned muddy lip of the ruined trenches. The Maxim machine-guns were each fitted with a steel shield to protect the crews from rifle-fire, and the guns were so closely aligned that the edges of the shields overlapped each other.
The British infantry was out in the open, walking down on a wall of machine-guns. The front ranks yelled when they saw the guns and started forward at a run, trying to reach them with the bayonet. Then they ran into the wire.
They had been assured that the barbed wire would be cut to pieces by the barrages. It was not. The high-explosive had made no impression upon it, except to tangle and twist it into an even more formidable barrier. While they floundered and struggled in the grip of the wire, the German Maxim machine-guns opened up on them.
The Maxim machine-gun has a cyclic rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute. It has the reputation of being the most reliable and rugged machine-gun ever built, and that day it added to that reputation the distinction of becoming the most lethal weapon that man had ever devised. As the plodding ranks of British infantry emerged from the fog of nitro-smoke, still attempting to maintain their rigid formation, shoulder to shoulder and four ranks deep, they made a perfect target for the Maxims. The solid sheets of fire swung back and forth, the scythe-blades of the harvesters, and the carnage surpassed anything seen before upon the battlefields of history.
The losses would certainly have been greater had not the troops, under the extreme duress of the Maxims, used their common sense and broken ranks. Instead of that ponderous, wooden-beaded advance, they had tried to creep and crawl forward in small groups, but even these had finally been beaten back by the wall of machine-guns.
Then with another grand offensive on the Western Front decimated almost as it began, the German force holding the ridges opposite Mort Homme counterattacked jubilantly.
Centaine became gradually aware of the cessation of that distant holocaust, and the strange stillness which followed it.
What has happened, Papa? The British troops have overrun the German artillery positions, the comte explained excitedly. I have a mind to ride across and view the battlefield. I want to bear witness to this turning-point in history - You will do no such idiotic thin& Anna told him brusquely.
You don't understand, woman, even as we stand here talking, our Allies are rolling forward, eating up the German lines What I understand is that the milch cow has to be fed, and the cellars have to be mucked ouC While history passes me by, the comte capitulated ungraciously, and went muttering down to the cellar.
Then the guns began again, much closer, and the windows rattled in their frames. The comte shot up the stairs and into the yard.
What is happening now, Papa? it is the death-throes of the German army, the comte explained, the last thrashings of a dying giant. But do not worry, my little one, the British will soon invest their positions. We have nothing to fear. The thunder of the guns rose to a crescendo and was heightened by the din of the British counter-barrages as they sought to destroy the German counter -attack that was massing in the front-line trenches facing the ridges.
It sounds just like last summer. Centaine stared with foreboding at the stark outline of the chalk ridges upon the horizon. They were blurring slightly before her eyes, shrouding in the haze of shell-bursts. We must do what we can for them, she told Anna.
We have to think of ourselves, Anna protested. We still have to go on living and we cannot-'Come, Anna, we are wasting time. Under Centaine's insistence they cooked up four of the huge copper kettles of soup, turnip and dried peas and potato, flavoured with ham bones. They used up their reserves of flour at a prodigious rate to bake ovenful after ovenful. of bread loaves, and then they loaded the small hand-cart and trundled it down the lane to the main road.
Centaine remembered clearly the fighting of the previous summer, but what she witnessed now shocked her afresh.
The highway was choked, filled from hedgerow to hedgerow with the tides of war, flowing in both directions, piling up and intermingling and then separating again.
Down from the ridges came the human detritus of the battle, torn and bloody, mutilated and bleeding, crowded into the slowly moving ambulances, into horse-drawn carts and drays, or limping on improvised crutches, borne on the shoulders of their stronger fellows, or clinging to the sides of the over-crowded ambulances for support as they stumbled through the deep muddy ruts.
In the opposite direction marched the reserves and reinforcements moving up to help hold the ridges against the German assault. They were in long files, already worn down under the weight of equipment they carried, not even glancing at the torn remnants of the battle which they might soon be joining. They trudged forward, watching their feet, and stopped when the way ahead was blocked, standing with bovine patience, only moving forward again when the man ahead of them started.
After the initial shock, Centaine helped Anna push the hand-cart up on to the verge, and then while Anna ladled out the thick soup, she handed the mugs, each with a thick slice of newly baked bread, to the exhausted and injured soldiers as they stumbled past.
There was not nearly enough, she could feed only one man in a hundred. Those whom she picked out as being in greatest need gulped down the soup and wolfed the bread.
Bless yer, missus, they mumbled, and then staggered on Look at their eyes, Anna, Centaine whispered as she held up the mugs to be refilled. They have already seen beyond the grave. Enough of that fanciful nonsense, Anna scolded her, you will give yourself nightmares again. No nightmare can be worse than this, Centaine answered quietly. Look at that one! His eyes had been torn out of his head by shrapnel and the empty sockets bound up with bloody rags. He followed another soldier, both of whose shattered arms were strapped across his chest. The blind man held on to his belt, and almost dragged him down when he tripped on the rough and slippery roadway.
Centaine drew them out of the stream, and she held the mug to the lips of the armless soldier.
You are a good girl, he whispered. Do you have a cigarette? I'm sorry. She shook her head and turned to rearrange the bandages over the other man's eyes. She had a glimpse of what lay beneath them, and she gagged and her hands faltered.
You sound so young and pretty- The blinded man was about the same age as Michael, he also had thick dark hair, but it was clotted with dried blood.
Yes, Fred, she's a pretty girl. His companion helped him to his feet again. We'd best be getting on again, miss.
What is happening up there? Centaine asked them.
All hell is what is happening Will the line hold? Nobody knows that, miss, and the two of them were washed away on the slowly moving river of misery.
The soup and bread were soon finished, and they wheeled the cart back to the chAteau to prepare more.
Remembering the wounded soldiers pleas, Centaine raided the cupboard in the gunroom. where the comte kept his hoard of tobacco, and when she and Anna returned to their post at the end of the lane, she was able for a short time to give that extra little comfort to some of them.
There is so little we can do, she lamented.
We are doing all we can, Anna pointed out. No sense in grieving for the impossible. They laboured on after dark, by the feeble yellow light of the storm lantern, and the stream of suffering never dried up, rather it seemed to grow ever denser, so that the pale ravaged faces in the lantern light blurred before Centaine's exhausted eyes and b
ecame indistinguishable one from the other, and the feeble words of cheer which she gave each of them were repetitive and meaningless in her own ears.
At last, well after midnight, Anna led her back to the chateau, and they slept in each other's arms, still in their muddy, bloodstained clothes, and woke in the dawn to boil up fresh kettles of soup and bake more bread.
Standing over the stove, Centaine cocked her head as she heard the distant roar of engines.
The airplanes! she cried. I forgot them! They will fly without me today, that is bad luck! Today there will be many suffering from bad luck, Anna grunted as she wrapped a blanket around one of the soup kettles to prevent it cooling too quickly, and then lugged it to the kitchen door.
Halfway down the lane Centaine straightened up from the handle of the cart. Look, Anna, over there on the edge of North Field! The fields were swarming with men. They had discarded their heavy back-packs and helmets and weapons, and they were labouring in the early summer sun, stripped to the waist or in grubby vests. What are they doing, Arma? There were thousands of them, working under the direction of their officers. They were armed with pointed shovels, tearing at the yellow earth, piling it up in long lines, sinking into it so swiftly that as they watched, many of them were already knee-deep, then waist-deep behind the rising earth parapets.
Trenches. Centaine found the answer to her own question. Trenches, Anna, they are digging new trenches."Why, why are they doing that?
Because, Centaine hesitated. She did not want to say it aloud, Because they are not going to be able to hold the ridges, she said softly, and both of them looked up to the high ground where the shellfire sullied the bright morning with its sulphurous yellow mists.
When they reached the end of the lane, they found that the roadway was clogged with traffic, the opposing streams of vehicles and men hopelessly interlocked, defying the efforts of the military police to disentangle them and get them moving again. One of the ambulances had slid off the road into the muddy ditch, adding to the confusion, and a doctor and the ambulance driver were struggling to unload the stretchers from the back of the stranded vehicle. Anna, we must help them. Anna was as strong as a man, and Centaine was as determined. Between them they seized the handles of one of the stretchers and dragged it up out of the ditch.
The doctor scrambled out of the mud.
Well done, he panted. He was bare-headed but his tunic sported the serpent and staff insignia of the medical corps at the collar, and the white armbands with the scarlet crosses.
Ah, Mademoiselle de Thiry! He recognized Centaine, over the wounded man on the stretcher between them. I should have known it was you. Doctor, of course- It was the same officer who had arrived on the motor-cycle with Lord Andrew, and who had helped the comte with the consumption of Napoleon cognac on the day that Michael crashed in North Field.
They set the stretcher down under the hedgerow and the young doctor knelt beside it, working over the still figure under the grey blanket.
He might make it, if we can get help for him soon. He jumped up. But there are others still in there. We must get them out. Between them they unloaded the other stretchers from the back of the ambulance and laid them in a row.
This one is finished. With his thumb and forefinger the doctor closed the lids of the staring eyes, and then covered the dead man's face with the flap of the blanket.
The road is blocked, it's hopeless trying to get through, and we are going to lose these others, he indicated the row of stretchers, unless we can get them under cover, where we can work on them. He was looking directly at Centaine, and for a moment she did not understand his enquiring gaze.
The cottages at Mort Homme are overfilled, and the road is blocked he repeated.
Of course, Centaine cut in quickly. You must bring them up to the chateau.
. . .
The comte met them on the staircase of the chdteau and when Centaine hastily explained their needs, he joined enthusiastically in transforming the grand salon into a hospital ward.
They pushed the furniture against the walls to clear the centre of the floor and then stripped the mattresses from the upstairs bedrooms and bundled them down the stairs. Assisted by the ambulance driver and three medical orderlies the young doctor had recruited, they laid the mattresses out on the fine woollen Aubusson carpet.
In the meantime the military police, under instructions from the doctor, were signalling the ambulances out of the stalled traffic on the main road and directing them up the lane to the chAteau. The doctor rode on the running-board of the leading vehicle, and when he saw Centaine, he jumped down and seized her arm urgently.
Mademoiselle! Is there another way to reach the field hospital at Mort Homme? I need supplies, chloroform, disinfectant, bandages, and another doctor to help me. His French was passable, but Centaine answered him in English. I can ride across the fields. You're a champion. I'll give you a note. He pulled the pad from his top pocket and scribbled a short message. Ask for Major Sinclair, he tore out the sheet of paper and folded it, the advance hospital is in the cottages. Yes, I know it. Who are you? Who must I tell them sent me? With recent practice, the English words came more readily to Centaine's lips.
Forgive me, Mademoiselle, I haven't had a chance to introduce myself before. My name is Clarke, Captain Robert Clarke, but they call me Bobby. Nuage seemed to sense from her the urgency of their mission and he flew furiously at the jumps and threw clods of mud from his hooves as he raced across the fields and down the rows of vineyards. The streets of the village were jammed with men and vehicles, and the advance hospital in the row of cottages was chaotic.
The officer she had been sent to find was a big man with arms like a bear, and thick greying curls that flopped forward on his forehead as he leaned over the soldier on whom he was operating.
Where the hell is Bobby? he demanded, without looking up at Centaine, concentrating on the neat stitches he was pulling into the deep gash across the soldiers back.
As be pulled the thread tight and knotted it the flesh rose in a peak and Centaine's gorge rose with it but she explained quickly.
All right, tell Bobby I'll send what I can, but we are running short of dressing ourselves. They lifted his patient off the table, and in his place laid a boy with his entrails hanging out of him in an untidy bunch.
I can't spare anybody to help him either. Off you go, and tell him. The soldier writhed and shrieked as the doctor began to stuff his stomach back into him.
If you give me the supplies, I will carry them back with me. Centaine stood her ground, and he glanced up at her and gave her the ghost of a smile.
You don't give up easily, he grudged. All right, speak to him. He pointed across the crowded room of the cottage with the scalpel in his right hand. Tell him I sent you, and good luck, young lady."To you also, doctor. God knows, we all need it, he agreed, and stooped once more to his work.
Centaine pressed Nuage as hard as before on the ride back and let him in his stall. As she entered the courtyard, she saw that there were three more ambulances parked Igo in the yard; the drivers unloading their cargoes of wounded and dying men. She hurried past them into the house carrying a heavy kitbag over her shoulder, and paused at the door of the salon in amazement.
All the mattresses were full, and other wounded men were lying on the bare floor, or propped against the panelled walls.
Bobby Clarke had lit every branch of the silver candelabra in the centre of the massive ormolu dinner table and was operating by candlelight.
He looked up and saw Centaine. Did you bring the chloroform? he called across to her.
For a moment she could not reply and she hesitated at the tall double doors, for the salon already stank. The cloying odour of blood mingled with the reek of the bodies and clothing of men who had come from the mud of the trenches, mud in which the dead had been buried and had decomposed to the same soupy consistency, men with the acrid sweat of fear and pain still upon them.
Did you get it? he repeat
ed impatiently, and she forced herself to go forward. They do not have anyone to help you. You'll have to do it. Here, stand on this side of me, he ordered. Now hold this.
For Centaine it all became a blur of horrors and blood and labour that exhausted her both physically and nervously.
There was no time to rest, barely time to snatch a hasty mug of coffee and one of the sandwiches which Anna turned out in the kitchen. just when she believed that she had seen and experienced so much that nothing else could shock her, then there would be something even more harrowing.
She stood beside Bobby Clarke as he cut down through Igi the muscles of a man's thigh, tying off each blood vessel as he came to it. When he exposed the white bone of the femur and took up the gleaming silver bone-saw, she thought she would faint with the sound it made, like a carpenter sawing a hard-wood plank.
Take it away! Bobby ordered, and she had to force herself to touch the disembodied limb. She exclaimed and jerked back when it twitched under her fingers.
Don't waste time, Bobby snapped, and she took it in her hands; it was still warm and surprisingly weighty.
Now there is nothing that I will not dare to do, she realized as she carried it away.
At last she reached the stage of exhaustion when even Bobby realized that she could not stay on her feet.
Go and lie down somewhere, he ordered, but instead she went to sit beside a young private on one of the mattresses. She held his hand, and he called her motherand spoke disjointedly of a day at the seaside long ago.
At the end she sat helplessly and listened to his breathing change, panting to stay alive, and his grip tightened as he felt the darkness coming on. The skin of his hand turned clammy with sweat and his eyes opened very wide and he called out, Oh Mother, save me! and then relaxed, and she wanted to cry for him, but she did not have the tears. So she closed those staring eyes as she had seen Bobby Clarke do and stood up and went to the next man.
He was a sergeant, a heavily built fellow almost her father's age, with a broad, pleasant face covered with grey stubble, and a hole in his chest through which each breath puffed in a froth of pink bubbles. She had to put her ear almost to his lips to hear his request, and then she looked round quickly and saw the silver Louis X! soup tureen on the sideboard. She brought it to him and unfastened his breeches and held the tureen for him, and he kept whispering, I'm sorry, please forgive me, a young lady like you. It isn't proper. So they worked on through the night, and when Centaine went down to find fresh candles to replace those that were guttering in the holders of the candelabra, she had just reached the kitchen floor when she was seized by sudden compelling nausea, and she stumbled to the servants toilet and knelt over the noisome bucket. She finished, pale and trembling, and went to wash her face at the kitchen tap. Anna was waiting for her.