A Fox Under My Cloak

by Henry Williamson

  The wind was now from the south, and very slight. What if it were south on Z morning?

  He went into an overgrown trench, part of an old system where mouldy pieces of French uniform and equipment, an occasional bone or red fez could be found, and set up a mark in the side of the trench directly opposite him, about eight yards away. He took aim and fired; and to his surprise the bullet returned by his head, almost hitting him. It must have bounced back almost exactly along the line of flight. What an escape! That was the fourth time he had been lucky, including the Spandau bullet in 1914 that had cut across his greatcoat. He decided to practice no more, and never again to fire directly at a solid object.

  *

  The R.E. major paid the section a visit in their billets at Mazingarbe. Afterwards, as the Major was about to climb into his car, Phillip asked him how long the detachment job was likely to last.

  “Ah, I expect you are keen to get back to your regiment,” remarked the old soldier, genially. “Well, I can tell you that you will be required only for the morning of the assault, as far as I can foresee at present. Then you will, I suppose, be returned to your regiment.”

  Ominous words. Saluting the major, Phillip fought the feelings twisting within himself.

  At twilight the wind was moving, almost imperceptibly, from S.E., and E.S.E. It was moving, where it moved at all, up the lines of trenches, and, in places, aslant from the German lines.

  *

  The strange silence of the German batteries was still being maintained on the afternoon before the attack. No rifle fire from the unseen trenches came across the dry yellow grasses, with their occasional patches of wildered cabbage plants. At twilight Phillip left with his section, carrying the two kinds of spanners, one to tighten the nuts of the jet tube, the other to turn on the gas. There was a time-table for each infantry unit taking part in the assault: when to leave billets, when to enter a named UP communication trench, when to be in a further named assembly-or jumping-off trench. Nearby a quarter of a million British and French infantrymen of twenty-six divisions were on the move under the dull rainy sky of Artois, moving along narrow roads and lanes, and tracks of chalky mud gleaming with the dilating pallor of the sky: British infantrymen, in khaki, French in the new bleu invisible, replacing the red trousers worn in earlier battles to serve as aiming-marks of their own field-gunners; while south of this minor battlefield, in the Champagne Pouilleuse, a further three hundred thousand men of thirty-six French divisions were moving into their positions for the major attack.

  Chapter 19

  Y/Z NIGHT

  PHILLIP and his section struggled through the new and unrevetted UP communication trench, in places up to their knees in white pug, and eventually reached their positions; and then, trying to loosen the domes of the cylinders, which was to have been done at the railway-siding until the general stopped it, found that neither of the two kinds of spanners “dished out” to them would shift the nuts. What should he do? He was in a state of fear and acute anxiety, afraid to telephone to brigade lest he be reprimanded; afraid to go back to the R.E. dump, lest he be reported absent from his post.

  Shortly afterwards, to his relief, Captain West’s company filed into the forward trench, covered with wet chalk from the UP communication trench.

  “I’m awfully sorry to bother you, Captain West, but have you a large screw-wrench, by any chance?”

  “What the hell d’you think I am, a damned ironmonger?” shouted Captain West in sudden rage. “Are you so bloody inefficient that you, with damn-all to do for the last few days, have to depend on the poor bloody infantry to provide you with the tools of your poisonous trade?”

  Phillip saw in the light of the candle stuck on the table of piled ration boxes in the shelter that Captain West’s pale, high forehead had beads of sweat on it, while the line of his jaw was ferociously set.

  “I can’t help it, the spanners dished out to me——”

  “If you don’t bloody well shut up, I’ll put a bullet through you!” retorted the other, now whispering tense. “How dare you, one of the original nineteen fourteen army, and more-over a soldier of the Gaultshires, how in hell dare you stand there and talk to me as though you had not already sized up the whole bloody war, the real war, the only war, which is between the infantry and the staff, who sit on their bottoms and collect all the gongs with their hampers from Fortnum and Mason’s before issuing reams and reams of bumff—orders and counter-orders—modifications and alterations—thus making a complete balls-up of every battle since you fellows’ marvellous defence of Ypres against the flower of the German Army! Then Sir John French left the work of fighting, which is their job, to local commanders—God’s teeth, don’t you look at me like that, young Phillip, or I’ll have you reduced to the ranks! I would probably make a worse balls-up of things if I were on the staff! Help yourself to a spot of old man whiskey, for Christ’s sake—and stop talking!”

  Captain West grabbed a pile of paper memoranda and threw it up into the air, then took an enamel mug off its hook—a bayonet thrust into the chalk wall—and pushed it, with the bottle, across to Phillip. “Help yourself. Knock it back! Then pass me the mug.”

  Phillip swallowed, making a wry face; he returned the mug. Captain West poured a stiff peg, and tipped it down his throat; then to Phillip’s amazement, he helped himself to more.

  “It isn’t my fault, Captain West——” began Phillip.

  “Call me Westy,” said the other, staring intently across the table. “And most certainly it is your fault, Phillip. What if the general did tell you to leave well alone, it was still up to you to see that you had the right spanners! You were in command, not the general! Anyway, ‘Never explain, never apologise’—that’s the only attitude. You’ve heard of Jacky Fisher? You haven’t? Where were you educated?” Phillip lowered his eyes; and Captain West, seeing this, said immediately, “Well, the Services’ world is a narrow one, of course. Jacky Fisher practically made the navy what it is today, and all the way he was up against people like that general who said Nay to a better man’s Yea at rail-head. Have you read Nietzsche? The most misunderstood and misquoted philosopher of our time? Anyway, I hope I have now made myself clear, you blue-eyed wonder, in the matter of personal responsibility?”

  “I think I see what you mean, Westy.”

  “You think you do, do you? Well, that is something. The next step from thinking is doing. Now, I’ll answer your question. No, we haven’t got a screw-wrench, as you call a monkey-spanner. But if you don’t want a court-martial, I’d advise you to get hold of the right spanners. Don’t ask me how. It’s your job to find out. I’m not your blasted bear-leader, even if you were at First Ypres!”

  While Captain West was speaking, Phillip had thought at first that he was joking; then, seeing the sweat on his forehead, as though forced through the skin by the violence of thought, he had felt over-awed. This was followed by the fearful thought that, if the cylinders in his fourteen emplacements could not be unscrewed, causing untold losses, he would be court-martialled … and perhaps suffer the death-penalty.

  There was no time to be lost. He hurried through the damp gas-blanket of the shelter, and sent his runner, waiting outside, to bring the senior sergeant, a regular of the Royal Engineers, to him. The old soldier was reassuring.

  “I’ve already sent a corporal to borrow some from the next sector, sir. ’E’s gone over the bags, it’s ’opeless to try and get along the communication trenches now. ’E knows where to go, and said ’e can find Mr. White’s dugout with ’is eyes shut. Lieutenant White had the same trouble, sir, but ’e won some adjustable spanners from the A.S.C. as soon as ’e saw as ’ow the ones dished out wouldn’t fit.”

  “But they were only issued yesterday, sergeant.”

  “True enough, sir, but Mr. White come up ’isself and made sure, ’aving observed as ’ow the spanner they give us in the railway siding was different to both the issue spanners. The ones they give us yesterday are for to connect the stiff
jet pipes and the armoured copper flexibles, sir.”

  “What shall we do if the corporal can’t find Mr. White in all this muck-up?”

  Phillip had to shout, for sudden flights of shells were now racing overhead, following almost continuous double-cracks of sixty-pounder batteries behind the ruined corons of Le Rutoire. “It’s that general’s fault—I wonder who he was?”

  “Someone from corps—black-and-red brassard, sir.”

  Phillip felt panic, remembering that he had orders to report at brigade headquarters, a little over half a mile behind the front line, at ten o’clock; and it was now 8 p.m.

  “Well, carry on, Sergeant.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  He hurried back to Captain West’s shelter, and peering round the blanket, asked if he might come in, to be greeted by the inevitable, “Just in time for a spot of old man whiskey.”

  He was too agitated to think of drinking. Captain West reassured him.

  “The wind is so slight that in all probability you won’t have to let off your beastly gas. We, the infantry, have a double set of orders—one for use with gas, the other without gas—if one excepts, I need hardly add, the inevitable hot air, itself a kind of poison gas, from the staff. Anyway, you can’t help by worrying. Your corporal has gone to get long spanners. Help yourself.” He pushed over the bottle. “Wait here until my subalterns, who are seeing that the men have their hot soup, come here in”—he looked at his watch—“half an hour’s time, at eight-thirty pip emma. What about your men’s rations? Have you thought of that, blast your eyes? God damn it, am I your bear-leader?”

  “They’ve got haversack rations, for tonight and tomorrow, in addition to their iron rations, Captain West.”

  “I told you to call me Westy! God’s teeth, don’t you ever obey an order?”

  “Now and then,” said Phillip, feeling sudden elation.

  “To you, as a 1914 soldier, I am ‘Westy’. Go steady with old man whiskey, for you’ve got to see the brigadier tonight. Everything will come all right, which means that nothing ever goes according to plan. God’s teeth, what’s that blasted row on top? The bloody rats are getting as big as elephants! They’re fat as cats, after feeding all the summer on the French stiffies lying out in front since last May.”

  The bumping about on the chalk-bags above the corrugated iron roof ended with the thud of someone jumping; then a face looked in past the blanket, and a broad Scottish voice asked if anyone knew where the adjutant of the 7th King’s Own Scottish Borderers was. The face was invited in, and became the captain of a company which had been lost on the way up. The visitor explained that the marching column had been split, two files on either side of the road, to allow wheeled transport to pass in the middle; and when the Hun had started strafing, they had left the road. The big, dark-haired Scotsman was too anxious to accept a drink. He belonged to the fifteenth division, to the New Kitchener’s Army. The guide had hopelessly lost direction; they had come across many communication and assembly trenches. His men were waiting.

  “You’re on the right of us,” said Captain West. He opened a map, and spread it. “There’s your divisional boundary, two hundred yards from the crossing of the tracks to Lone Tree and this one into Loos. There’s a gap in the line here”—he pointed—“and the left flank of your division rests on this other track, also to Loos, approximately five hundred yards due south. It’s less than three hundred yards from the Old Hun, so don’t let your hearties start singing Roamin’ in the Gloamin’, or you’ll start the whole Brock’s Benefit prematurely, and our blue-eyed boy here hasn’t got his little spanner yet. Now for a wee Doch an’ Dorris!” He got up, handed the newcomer his mug, said “Knock that back,” went to the blanket, called out, “Runner!”, returned, and said, “I can give you a guide—he comes from Dunstable, and knows this kind of chalk country; besides, I get my liquor at night the way I am going to send you, so you should have no difficulty in following the winding tracks of myself and porters. Here’s your guide. Au revoir, and the very best to you and your bonny lads. Good night!” and rising, with grave courtesy, the pale captain opened the curtain for the other to leave. The K.O.S.B. captain, new of uniform and equipment, his eyes constantly returning to the ribbon on the other’s tunic, was equally formal in his thanks.

  “Where would we be,” said Captain West, when the kilted figure had gone, “if we hadn’t got a navy?” He helped himself to half a mugful of whiskey.

  *

  Phillip saw another aspect of what he thought of as the most extraordinary men he had ever met during the candle-lit dinner in the shelter. Captain West had told him that he was a schoolmaster at a preparatory school before the war, what he called an usher. “It was there that I earned the loathed appellation of ‘Spectre’.” He had been up at Oxford with the Prince of Wales, whom he spoke of as the “Pragger Wagger”. Captain West at mess-dinner was quiet and friendly; he ranted no more about the staff; the coming attack was not mentioned. He talked of cricket, in the Duke’s Deer Park, in the early months of the war; of partridge drives over the Duke’s property, with more than a hundred beaters, and all the game going to the county hospital, for wounded soldiers; and how the Duke made it his business to visit every man of the Gaultshires back from the front, in that hospital; how he had provided money for the wives and dependents of men called up at the outbreak of war, entirely out of his own purse. How in those early days he himself had been sent, senior subaltern of the third or militia battalion at the depöt, to command a company of one of the new service battalions encamped in the Duke’s park; how the Duke provided most of the food for the entire battalion—grouse, beef, mutton, venison —and made it his business to know the name of every officer and man under him, and details of his family, too. One day there was what the Duke called a grand charge of the entire battalion of companies in line, led by the Duke on his famous Arab stallion (which before the war was sent to serve one approved mare for every officer of the Gaultshire Yeomanry)—the Duke, sword flashing aloft, crying in a loud voice, “Men of the Gaultshires! Let loose the dogs of war!” and, said Captain West, sitting back with a mock grin look, “Every one of the camp dogs gave tongue exactly a moment afterwards, and led the charge! They knew his Grace’s ways as well as anyone!”

  Before they left for France, he went on to say, every officer was presented with a pair of field-glasses. The Duchess, too, made it her job to go round and visit the wives of the rank and file, in their cottages, to see that they lacked nothing.

  “And that!” said Captain West, holding his mug of whiskey at arm’s length, and regarding the solitary candle through half-closed lids, “is Good Eggery. That is the minimum that one expects from an Englishman with responsibilities going with high station. Gentlemen,” he said, half-standing up, “I give you the King, coupled with the Pragger Wagger!”

  They drank; then Captain West said, after a glance at his wristlet watch, “The Duke, coupled with the name of his lady wife, the Duchess.”

  Phillip saw the sweat on the pale domed brow glinting once more; noticed the clenched muscles of the jaw locked tight. The servant cleared the enamel plates; then put upon the table a cubic foot of black cloth, which, on being opened, revealed the nickel-plated enclosed horn of a Decca trench gramophone. “Not now, Boon,” Phillip heard Westy mutter, his jaw muscles setting and unsetting. Immediately he changed his mind. “Put on the duet from Tonight’s the Night.” Then in the momentary silence in the shelter before the needle was put on the disc he said, “My word, the French are going it down south! Listen!”

  The air was shaking; Phillip could feel a trembling under his feet, and through the chalk walls of the shelter. Gunfire beat in muffled waves upon the hanging door-blanket; the two candle-flames were quivering nervously. Upon this undertone of the earth’s rumbling the sweet and tinny voices of the gay London night came from the open lid, heard by the heads held towards it.

  And when I tell them, and I’m certainly going to tell them

 
; That you’re the girl whose boy one day I’ll be,

  They’ll never believe me, they’ll never believe me

  That from this great big world you’ve chosen me!

  Smoke came from pipe and cigarette, hot tinned café-au-lait from the primus stove next door was poured steaming into mugs by the attentive Boon. The record ended; was put on again.

  “I’ve got the corks done, sir,” Phillip heard him say to his master.

  Captain West was looking at his wristlet watch when the blanket parted, and a sentry said, “Corporal asking for Mr. Maddison, sir.” Phillip went out into the night. “Sergeant Butler says he’s got the right spanners, sir, and the domes are being removed according to plan.”

  “Oh, good! Tell Sergeant Butler I’ll come and see him, and inspect all emplacements with him in half an hour. And give him my thanks. Have a bit of chocolate. Have you had your grub?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “Have some of mine. Half a mo’, I’ll get it.”

  “That’s all right, sir. I’ve got my haversack ration intact, sir.”

  Feeling quivery as the multiple play of light upon the sky beyond Nôtre Dame de Lorette, Phillip went back into the shelter. It was now empty except for “Spectre” West putting on his webbing equipment. A transformation had come over the tall figure: his face, recently so pale, was now black. Burnt corks lay on the table. A sergeant of the Gaultshires, similarly darkened, stood beside him.

  “Stop that blasted record!” cried Captain West, as he took up a knobkerry and said tersely to Phillip, “I’m going out to look at the Hun wire. It is now nine pip emma. Since you seem to have about as much initiative as a chick just out of the egg, all wet, I will exceed my duties as a mere company commander of footsloggers to tell you that you will leave this trench at nine-thirty pip emma, to be in plenty of time to report to brigade at ten pip emma. You know where brigade is, don’t you? In one of the cellars of Le Rutoire farm. Give ‘Nosey’ my compliments, and tell him that I look forward to dining with him in Lille tomorrow night.”