A Fox Under My Cloak

by Henry Williamson

  “Are you serious, Westy?”

  “God’s teeth, am I ever anything else? Now pay attention. Each battalion going over tomorrow has orders to get as far as it can into the blue. The limit is the Haute Deule Canal, where we shall stand and await the cavalry going through the gap and on to the plain of Flanders and the Scheldt.”

  Phillip felt excited. Again he remembered that Gran’pa Turney had said the very same thing.

  “‘Nosey’, is that his real name? I can’t very well ask for ‘Nosey’.”

  “What is good enough for the regiment,” said Captain West, “is good enough for a brigade-major. Now sling your hook and go and look at your emplacements, and next time don’t rely on bicycle spanners. Come and see me when you get back from brigade, you blue-eyed wonder! Boon!” to his servant, “why the hell have you stopped the gramophone? Put on They’d Never Believe Me.”

  Taking the tall ash-plant he had cut from a thicket at Helfaut, Phillip followed the guide through long grass, around shell-holes, and over wooden bridges laid across trenches, to the ruins of Le Rutoire village. There was enough light from the gun-flashes to see ahead. A mild wind came from the west with occasional spots of rain. Troops were moving everywhere. From the two roads in front, leading from Vermelles, came the prolonged grind of wheels. Buzzing salvoes of howitzer shells passed overhead, to burst with red-black splashes upon the German lines. There were no German shells coming over. He passed waiting men in groups—individuals revealed suddenly by the little glow of cigarette held in hand-palm, so that a stealthy draw glowed upon cheek and chin. He bumped into an aiming post, painted white, by a hidden lamp: with a start realising that he was in front of a battery of field-guns.

  “Who are yer?”

  “Officer in charge of special emplacements, R.E.”

  “Pass, sir.”

  Broken, lonely walls were discernible along a narrow cobbled road forlorn with watery craters. The guide said they were at Le Rutoire farm. Here were many figures, the phut of motor-cycles, the rattle of bits, the roll of wheels. Stretcher-bearers passed, breathing heavily; there was an aid post, lit by a hurricane lamp, in what looked like a cellar, the door covered by a gas-blanket, and within, walls covered by white sheets. Perhaps it was an operating theatre. “This way, sir,” said the guide, leading him down some sandbagged steps behind the ruin-heaps facing away from the lines. He went down a dozen steps, saw many telephone wires, and tables. At one sat hatless clerks and two officers with red tabs, also bare-headed. He saluted the grey-moustached officer with gold on his tabs, and a blue brassard, who looked up a moment and went on writing at another table. He had crossed swords on his shoulder straps: the brigadier. The third table had a large map pinned on it.

  “What is it?” said a captain with a thickly mended bridge to his nose, and a D.S.O. riband, sitting at the other end of the table, beside a telephone. Obviously this was ‘Nosey’. Having confirmed from a clerk that he was the brigade major, Phillip gave in his written report, that all his emplacements were in order. It was quiet in his sector. They had had no casualties.

  “You are to wait here until you are given the time of zero hour, which will come later from division, and then you will be responsible for taking it to the adjutant of the battalion on the left section of your front, the Gaultshires. Do you know where the commanding officer’s battle headquarters are?”

  “No, sir.”

  A frown came from the brigade major. These temporary officers of the New Army! He said evenly, “Don’t you know your sector?”

  “Yes, sir, as far as my fourteen emplacements are concerned.” He remembered what Westy had said about never explaining. “I’ll find it, sir. My guide belongs to the battalion.”

  “Good,” sighed the brigade major. He looked very tired. He sat back in his chair, and stretched his elbows behind the blades of his shoulders. He belched slightly, as though he had eaten bully beef. “Is it raining?”

  “Slight drizzle now and again, sir.”

  “What effect has rain on your gas?”

  “It dissolves it, sir, partly in relation to the volume of rainfall.”

  “What will it do in fog or mist—apart from the smoke of the candles? Hang about?”

  “Yes, sir. Chlorine is heavier than air, and so tends to flow to the lowest level.”

  “I see.” The brigade major looked thoughtful. “You will, of course, remain in close touch with the adjutant of the Gaultshires. Here’s the weather report. Look at it later. You know, there is an alternative plan for the assault at zero plus forty minutes for the infantry, should it be impracticable to employ the gas discharge. Unless you hear from me, or from someone else here at brigade, that no discharge is to be made, you will carry on according to the time-table you will receive later. Is that clear? Then repeat your instructions.”

  “Yes, sir. Unless I hear from brigade to the contrary, my cylinders will be turned on according to time-table.”

  The brigade major took a hand-made Goldflake cigarette from the yellow tin on the table, and pushed the tin to Phillip. “Help yourself. You were with the London Highlanders at First Ypres, ‘Spectre’ West tells me. Stout fellows, all of ’em. They’re on your left, along the road outside. How did you leave ‘Spectre’? Fulminating against all with gorget patches?”

  “He was just going out on patrol, sir, with blackened face, to look at the Hun wire, opposite the Lone Tree.”

  “He should have sent one of his subalterns. But ‘Spectre’s’ a chap who won’t ask subordinates to do anything he isn’t prepared to do himself. He’ll have plenty of chance to get moving tomorrow, when we get over the La Bassée-Lens road, into their unwired and unoccupied second position, and so into open country.”

  “By the way, sir, he asked me to say: ‘Give my compliments—there was a nickname, sir, but I’m not sure what it was—and will you dine with him in Lille tomorrow night’.”

  “The deuce he did. He said the same thing before Neuve Chapelle, and again at Aubers Ridge—— Well, you’ll have to hang about until I can give you zero hour.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  He was dismissed, but with a feeling of exhilaration that he had been spoken to as an equal. He was proud of being in the Gaultshire Regiment. This pride awoke a keener interest in what was taking place. He leaned against a wall by the telephone exchange board, listening to the cryptic replies of the operator. The operator seemed to be taking calls and plugging lines all the time. Likewise orderlies were coming and going, handing envelopes for signature to the clerks, while two sergeants were also writing out messages, taking them either to the staff captain or brigade major for signature, and then, tearing out the top-copies, taking them to a compartment separated by a hanging blanket where two signallers at morse-buzzers were sitting on the floor, each with a diaphragm fixed to one ear. It reminded him of the cigar-box telephone he had once made and fixed between his bedroom and mother’s; and he began to see what a lot of work there was behind the lines. Those telephone wires by the roadsides on blue and white R.E. poles, scores of them, must link up battalions, batteries, and other units with each other, through the little spider-webs of brigades, and farther back, through divisions and corps headquarters, to Sir John French himself in his château somewhere.

  It was hot in the cellar. He went outside, after telling a sergeant that he was going to relieve himself, should he be wanted. He wore the mackintosh under his webbing, with haversack, P.H. helmet, revolver in holster, and ammunition outside. It was not cold in the night air, but fresh. Followed by his guide, he tapped his way along the road which, said the guide, led to the Chapel of the Consolation, on the Vermelles to Hulluch road.

  “Who are you?” It sounded like an officer’s voice.

  “Special Section, R.E.”

  “Advance, and prove yourself.”

  Phillip went up to a dim group of figures, with strange head-gear, he could just see.

  “I’m the officer in charge of a special section of the R.E.”


  “What is your rank? And your name?” the authoritative voice demanded.

  “Second-lieutenant Maddison.”

  “What is your Christian name, and where were you born?”

  Phillip gave the particulars, and was about to ask why, when the voice said, “Does the name Bleak Hill mean anything to you?”

  “Yes, I was there in August 1914 with the London Highlanders.”

  “Do you remember me? My name is Douglas.”

  “Good lord, Sergeant Douglas! I heard you were gazetted to the Highlanders. But what is the idea—you scared me at first.”

  “We were warned that spies were about, masquerading in British staff officers’ uniform,” replied Douglas. “One was reported this afternoon on a bicycle near Verquin, asking various troops who they were. So we were warned to keep a look-out.”

  Douglas shone a torch on Phillip for a moment, and then asked what the brassard was for. Phillip told him, after which he and Douglas enquired about mutual acquaintances, and how they had fared. Mr. Thorverton, the old platoon officer, had gone home sick, and was now a district recruiting officer in the West Country. “Fiery” Forbes commanded the battalion, which was in an assembly trench as far as the cross-roads, to advance, after the first waves had gone over, to the front lines, and fill the gap between the division’s right flank and the left flank of the Scottish division. With another battalion, it was known as the Detached Force. Then Phillip mentioned the draft he had brought over, including Kirk of their old tent party.

  “He’s in my company,” said Douglas. “In fact, he’s my runner. Kirk, are you there?”

  “Here, sir. Hullo, Phillip.”

  They shook hands. Phillip asked what were they wearing on their heads, and learned that the turban-like effect was due to the rolled gas-helmets sitting upon the tam-o’-shanters, ready to be pulled down.

  He told them about the gas and smoke, and feeling optimistic, said that no German in the trenches opposite would survive the double effect of shell and gas bombardment. “Well, we’ll all be dining in Lille tomorrow night! Au revoir, you chaps—I’ve got to see the general in the basement of Le Rutoire farm—so long, and the best of luck!”

  When he returned to Brigade H.Q,. he saw that the brigade major was reading a message held in one hand, while he picked his teeth with a gold pick concealed in the other. Then he got up and spoke to the general. Together they looked at the map on the third table. Phillip could see the crenellations of the German trenches marked in red, line behind line along the contour marks opposite the blue trenches of the British, for the table was only a yard away from him.

  The brigade major was saying, “From this point, General, two hundred yards north of Lone Tree, to a further three hundred yards south of the track——” The brigadier said wearily, “Why can’t the gunners observe their own shoots effectively? Ring up division, and ask if they can arrange for the corps heavies—better still, get on to the B.G.R.A. corps himself—I’ll speak to him. No, wait a moment.” The brigade major waited. Phillip pretended to be examining his field service message book, while he listened. “I’ll speak to division myself.” He turned to the telephone operator, a pale-faced lance-corporal with oil-smoothed hair and spectacles, and said, “G.S.O. One, division.”

  *

  The night dragged on. The three other gas-officers waiting for the information of zero hour had long exhausted all topics of talk. They wanted to sleep; they were new to the war; they kept on their feet, hoping that the next moment would be the moment of call to the cellar.

  The fourth gas-officer, Phillip, had found a brazier inside a shelter, from where the headquarter guard was mounted; he dozed beside it, while his runner waited, with orders to exchange with him every hour. On one of his “rests” he walked to the front of the farm, seeing the battlefield in fancy as a skeleton ribbed with phosphoric lights: a skeleton which would sink to invisibility at daybreak, issue its poisonous breath upon the day, dart forth its eyes in hundreds of thousands of bullets every minute, its body of nothingness break into thousands of burning sores. The dogs of war would lick this Lazarus turned Sisyphus, rolling backwards and forwards, in attack and counter-attack; and all in vain, for the German mutter was the British mother, the German Gott was the British God, German Freiheit the British Freedom. He yawned wearily, his tongue sharp with nicotine.

  He returned to the cellar, and peered in. It was nearly 2 a.m. He heard the brigadier say, “Well, ‘Nosey’, you’d better turn in for a couple of hours, it will probably be your last chance for several days.”

  The night was quiet, with the least movement of damp air. Going to the front of the ruinous buildings he stood and let the wise-like feeling between his legs possess him, and so to a sense of detachment from life, the feeling of loneliness that was, deep within, strangely satisfying. He waited, detached, sunk in stillness, while an occasional shell passed with chromatic whine into the vaporous hollow before him, to burst redly, seeming sullen by distance; while away in the south the sky was filled with a multitudinous play of light under distant clouds. What did it all mean, what was it all for, why had it come about? Both sides, along the vast front from the North Sea to the Alps, were waiting, with the same hopes and fears. And yet there was something wonderful about it all, despite the truth that people at home could never know.

  An hour seeped away. Exhaustion thinned him. There was no wonder left; the war was really one great horror, a nothingness, everything that had ever been becoming nothing, in pain and fear. Well, he had nothing now to live for: the dream of Helena Rolls was ended, and Nature was gone from his life. What could he do, in the broken nothingness all around? The old black depression had fixed itself upon Phillip.

  Chapter 20

  Y/Z NIGHT—continued

  EVERY hour during Y/Z night meteorological reports had been coming in to First Army Headquarters from observers in the army area. At midnight, the speed of the wind, from between south-west and west, five feet above ground, was variable from two to four miles an hour; by midnight it had fallen to a calm.

  In the early hours of the morning reports from London gave details of wind-speeds at different places in the British Isles. When at 3 a.m. the meteorological expert saw General Haig and his chief general staff officer, he said that conditions were still favourable for a south-west wind in the morning, but a change back to south might occur.

  “At what time is the wind likely to be most favourable?” the general asked.

  “The wind usually begins to increase after sunrise, sir, and goes on increasing in the forenoon; and in the case of wind from the south-west, the increase of speed is accompanied by a change of direction towards west.”

  “Towards the west, Captain Gold, did you say?” asked the C.G.S.O., as General Haig stiffened.

  “The term applies to the direction whence the wind is blowing, sir. The south-west wind tends to veer, to come from the west. I must add, sir, that owing to the general changes I have mentioned, it would be unsafe to rely on the wind increasing at all.”

  “When, in your opinion, will be the most favourable time?” the general asked again.

  “As soon as possible, sir.”

  Sir Douglas Haig considered this for some moments, then he asked again if the possibility existed that the wind might increase with the rising of the sun; and on being told yes, turned to his C.G.S.O. and said that zero hour would be at sunrise, 5.50 a.m., for the releasing of the gas, the infantry assault to follow forty minutes afterwards at 6.30 a.m.

  *

  Phillip was watching the staff captain as he listened on the telephone. The staff captain was glancing at the chronometer on the table with its black and almost-heart-beating second hand moving round the large face, and checking with his wristlet watch laid beside it. The large chronometer and minute gold watch reminded Phillip of the picture on Father’s bedroom wall of a very large and a very small dog in the same kennel, called Dignity and Impudence. He heard the staff captain say, Thank you, colo
nel, I’ll give the brigadier your message, before the receiver was replaced. Then he wrote something upon a message pad; and beckoned the four subalterns who had been waiting for the past six hours.

  “Gentlemen, zero hour is at five-fifty ack emma. I repeat the time of zero. It is at ten minutes to six this morning. You will take this information immediately to your commanding officers, by word of mouth. Here is the time-table of gas and smoke discharge. There is a copy for each emplacement, with extra copies for yourselves. Will you now synchronise your watches.” When this was done, he repeated once more that zero hour was at 5.50 a.m. They all saluted, and went up the steps, and after “Cheerios” and “All the best” went their ways in the darkness.

  A guide led Phillip to the battle headquarters of the first battalion, the Gaultshire Regiment, nicknamed “The Mediators”.

  *

  The commanding officer of “The Mediators” came of a family of professional soldiers. He was a temporary lieutenant-colonel with the substantive rank of captain in the first battalion. Lieutenant-Colonel Mowbray wore the D.S.O., and silver rosette of a bar to that decoration, awarded for leadership and selfless devotion to duty as a company commander in the retreat from Mons in August 1914, and again during the battle of Ypres. He was a heavily-built man, with a manner of great courtesy that went with his simplicity. Now a widower, he had been happily married, with the peace of mind that a matched marriage had given him, even as a happy childhood had given him peace in his soul. It was said by some of his brother officers in the regiment that Colonel Mowbray had suffered a great tragedy in his life when, a junior captain, serving in India, he had returned to his house after a week’s absence on manœuvres and watched from the bottom of the stairs his wife, running to greet him, trip and lose balance and fall; and when he picked her up her neck was broken so that she died. The grief of Captain Mowbray had been deep; but his faith was deeper. He maintained his faith with prayer as regular as his other habits in both his private and professional life. Thus he kept his spirit free; thus the habit of courtesy, which, beginning as an imitation of his father’s manner towards subordinates, had since youth been part of his personality. The stress of war had not shaken his integrity, for Colonel Mowbray within was as Colonel Mowbray without. For him there was only one tragedy in life: to fail in duty towards others.