by Will R Bird
My man! My blood boiled. Four times I had to pace backward, advance and salute that smirking monkey, a weak-chinned lieutenant, and then he dismissed me with the sharp warning to look out when I next met him. And he a Canadian, at least he wore Canadian badges!
That night I slept with the leave crowd in a big barrack-like room, and talked till midnight with men from the Second Division, lads who had been at Hill 70, who had indulged in raiding parties. The chatter was interesting. There were bitter denunciations of the folly of Passchendale, and one lad confided to me that he had a scheme he was going to work out while in Blighty. “I’m through holding bloody ditches for King George and Art Currie,” he said. “I’ll be in the States in three weeks’ time.”
Others talked of their officers and to my surprise I found myself telling what “good heads” we had in the 42nd. One surly-looking fellow of the Sixth Brigade said that he never set eyes on a good officer, he hated them all, and sergeants as well. His own words gave us his status. I thought of the officers with whom I had come in contact and decided that they were exactly the same as the men, good, bad and indifferent, with very little, if any, difference in the average. Their actions when we were out of the line declared their mentality, and in the line they had the advantage of the men. The weak-kneed ones used S.R.D. to fortify them in shaky hours, the soldier had not the opportunity. I had met our adjutant and found him a gentleman, emphatic in his praise of our draft. Everyone liked our colonel, and our regimental sergeant-major, McFarlane, was one of the finest men I met.
As a rule the average officer did not see more than a third as much of raw, undiluted war as did the men under him. The men stayed on post, six on, six off, and saw relays of officers, one at a time, doing two hours out of twenty-four, and that a hurried tour of the trench. The men carried rations, barbed wire and ammunition from dump to front line, in all weathers, under all conditions, and the officer that led them usually had the job once during that trip in the line; the soldier went each night. The men would stay on post and endure all kinds of strafing, dig out dead and wounded comrades from blown-in places, stick it and carry on, and their officer would not be seen while it lasted. During the two worst days at Passchendale I never saw an officer except Grafftey. Perhaps they were in as dangerous positions as we were. I do not know. Yet, given the same chance, many of the men, probably the majority, would do just the same as they. Officers were simply men in uniforms designed to make them look better than the privates, and they had responsibilities that we did not realize. I never envied them, hated them, nor regarded them any differently than any of the other men. Some were of much finer intellect than mine, most of them had come from finer homes – at least those in the 42nd had – and still there were some I regarded as my inferiors. The general opinion seemed that none of the “brass hats” were better than pole cats with the exception of McDonnell, Lipsett and Byng.
Victoria! Leave men thronging everywhere, hungry for a change of food, for girls who spoke their own tongue, for the welcome of their homes and a clean bed. Men straight from the trenches, lousy, mud-crusted, with the echo of guns in their ears and the smell of dugouts in their nostrils. I pushed through the milling crowd and checked my Lee-Enfield and equipment, then got into the street. Two hours later I had a complete uniform, clean underwear, soft boots, Fox puttees, Bedford cord breeches, a well-cut tunic, a Glengarry and an officer’s British warm. I found a fairly clean place on Vauxhall Bridge Road and there I had a hot bath, luxuriated in it, and put on all my clean clothes. Then, after the barber shop, I went to a good restaurant and ordered a meal I had long pictured, and ate it leisurely.
I went back to my room and got ready for bed. It had been so long since I slept on anything but hard boards, trench mud or chicken-wire bunks. Yet something urged me to go out into the murky streets, to walk down the Strand again, one look about before I retired. I refused to go. Clean sheets and a soft bed were mine and I was going to enjoy them. Even then I could not fall asleep and I made plans for the next day. After a good breakfast I would get a taxi and drive through that English part of England and see Phyllis. I remembered her smile as I had left, the last glimpse I had of her face.
When I did doze someone came thundering at my door and I heard sirens. “The Zepps are over,” the fellow shouted.
Zeppelins! After Passchendale! “Go away and leave me alone,” I said. “What’s a zeppelin.” It seemed all a joke to me, that panic over a few air ships. I watched a moment, long fingers of light in the sky, seeking the raiders, and listened to the rattling crashes of the anti-aircraft guns, then went to sleep again.
In the morning I had a delicious breakfast and heard that two Gothas had been brought down and that a number of civilians had been killed. It seemed a very minor affair to me. I was feeling like living again; there had been no dreams of a Boche on my bayonet, no others near to mutter in their sleep little sobs and moans and incoherent profanity.
I hired a car and went out along the same route that the officer had taken me more than a year before. It was not such pleasant weather and winter rain had made the country drab, but it looked lovely to my eyes. I lolled back in the seat, thinking how lucky I had been. It seemed only two hours since I had been trying to keep myself alive till the next day.
We rolled into the little village and when we reached the Inn I paid the driver and sent him back to London. I didn’t want to have any link connecting me with sordid things that seemed so remote from “The Black Boar.” The Innkeeper recognized me, and the fact was a thrill in itself. I was given my same room and then went to the little cottage where Phyllis lived. She had only written a few times and I had not let her know I was coming.
An old man opened the door, the uncle, and his wrinkled face was grooved with grief. “Come in,” he said gently. “Her said ’ee might be too late.”
“Too late!” I exclaimed, startled. “What do you mean? Where is Phyllis?”
He shook his head. “I’ll tell ’ee,” he said in his gentle way, and related how Phyllis had told him that I was coming back to England and that she would go down to London to see me. I interrupted to tell him I had not written her, but he shook his head again and said, in an almost reverent way, and said that Phyllis had “gifts,” had no need of letters, she knew by some mysterious sixth sense. I had found that out when I met her, and I grew impatient.
“Where is she at now?” I broke in. “I’ll look her up in London.”
Again the slow shake of the head. “’Ee be too late,” he said, and thrust me a crumpled paper. It was a wire from London. Phyllis had been killed by a bomb dropped by the German raiders.
Killed by a bomb! I remembered the urge I had had to go out in the streets. If I had gone I would have seen her … The old man rambled on, talking about her, her little ways that he knew so well, how she hated war, would not read the papers or listen to him talk about it. Then he startled me, chilled me. He invited me to take dinner with him – and he called me “Steve.”
The word shocked me. “I’m not Steve,” I said, sharply. “I’m his brother.”
He peered at me, and I could see that he could not grasp what I said. “Steve – that’s the name,” he muttered. “She went to meet Steve – her said it.”
We sat at his humble table, the old man and I, silent at times, now and then speaking about the war. “’Ee have been in battle?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Passchendale.”
“Aye, I have heard it were a fearful fight, he said, admiringly. “’Ee have lived a great day.”
“I don’t think so, “I said bitterly. “This war is wrong.”
“Aye, the Kaiser have something to answer for.” The old man nodded vigorous assent. “But ‘ee have a chance to do a bit for England, for England. He raised his old bent figure from his chair and pointed out the window at the countryside. “’Ee have something to store, to tell ’ee children.”
I was silent. “’Course there be parts for forgetting,” he went on, “but
the rest do make up for it. ’Ee have lived in a great day.”
We talked awhile about Phyllis, then when I was leaving he gripped my hand with his horny one and said gravely. “Lad, ’ee have much to be thankful for. Mine isn’t for complaint, but to be young now would be the nearest thing to Heaven I knows of.”
All the while he called me “Steve,” and when I got outside I was glad I had not told him different. It seemed to please him that I had come and I knew that Phyllis had never told him that my brother had been killed. But – she had gone to meet Steve!
It was a lovely afternoon and as I went by the old church I saw that people were gathering for a service, and I went in. It was unforgettable. Through the stained glass windows of the old Norman church the sun’s rays fell on altar and choir stalls, flooding the place with a riot of colour. The vicar, in white surplice and crimson stole, had an appealing voice and in his prayer seemed pleading with a God whom he actually confronted. The reverent people, the dignified service, the sunlight on the oak carvings, all touched me curiously. I felt that I was a rank outsider.
At the Inn I asked what the service was for and learned that a series of special meetings had been held for more than a month, intercessions for aid to British arms on the western front. They were asking God to make England and her Allies victorious, pleading that right should conquer, that the German and the devil be defeated. And in my haversack was a belt buckle I had taken off a dead German. Its inscription was “Gott Mitt Uns.”
I went back to London and from there took train to Retford, in Nottinghamshire. The girl I left in Canada had been born in that district and I was going to visit her people. They made me welcome and I had a wonderful time exploring the villages, especially Gainsborough and Lincoln. The old Roman wall in Lincoln, and the cathedral, were marvellous to me. When I went back to London I went down to Bramshott and saw my brother, who had been in England as a musketry instructor. Stanley, the big, broad-shouldered brother of my fiancee, was there at the depot of the 85th Highlanders. He had been seriously wounded at Vimy and was anxious to get back to France.
They asked me what it had been like at Passchendale and I said “Not too bad,” and changed the subject. That which I noticed in others had come to me. No soldier who had been in that fighting would talk about it at all.
When I went back to the battalion it was still at Bourecq and I traded my finery to the quartermaster for a regular issue. He cut a dashing figure in my British warm. A dozen times I had been saluted while up in Nottinghamshire and when other lads at Bramshott donned my rigout to have a picture taken I realized that if we all were given the same uniform many officers would be in the background
A few days after my return we moved to Lieven and relieved the 16th Battalion there. One experienced an inexplicable thrill in being back again in dark, smelly confines and frost-bound trenches where only Death was sure of his billet. We were to do carrying parties up Cow Trench, that long crooked trail known to so many Canadians. Soon we were as lousy as ever and having a hard time to keep warm. The new officer proved conscientious and when I asked that “Old Bill” be allowed my rum ration the favour was refused. We made several trips each night, laden with barbed wire, “A” frames, corrugated iron, anything the engineers could load us with, while they walked along and gave orders. Tommy got a particularly evil burden the third night, some frame work an engineer was using to build an O-pip, and he expressed himself in no uncertain terms when we reached our destination. “The front line soldier,” he orated, “does more work than any man in the labour battalions, gets less food than any soldier, does three-quarters of the engineers’ work, is used like a mule, bedded and freighted like a horse, and officered by asses.” Hughes had a hard time quieting him.
On Christmas eve a few of us were in a cellar under a ruin. Our bunks were a mass of broken wire and foul sandbags. We had no fire and the rations were very slim, and it was so cold we could not sleep. Tommy set a candle on a long board and each man produced the biggest, most active louse he could locate on his person, and we raced them, three heats, the length of the board, the winner to take all the prize, three dirty paper francs. After that sporting affair was over we shivered and huddled around until in desperation we tore down the bunks and made one common bed on the floor, piling all the bags on it. There the six of us lay as close as we could pack, our greatcoats over us, and slept, warmed by the heat of each other’s body. Shortly after day-light there were steps on the narrow stairs, then flashlight beams. We sat up, expectant. Rum or rations? It was the officer. “Merry Christmas, boys,” he chirped. “Aw, go to Germany,” said Tommy. The rest of us never spoke.
We stayed in the line, relieving the 49th. I went out with an officer of one of the other platoons, under barbed wire furred with frost, and got acquainted with the no man’s land of that sector. The next night we were in the brick cellar used by the cooks, waiting for a mug of tea, when there was a shout of “gas.” We rushed out and found that gas shells were dropping everywhere, long slim containers that simply broke as they fell. The officer wheeled. “Follow me,” he snapped, “and put on your mask, man.”
I put on my respirator and followed him as well as I could, but it was fairly dark and I could not see well through the goggles. Before we had reached the last company post he was away from me. He waited there, and said something. I pulled off my mask to hear. “Can’t you keep up with me?” he repeated. I looked at him. He had not had his mask on at all.
“Not with such a handicap, sir,” I said. “Give me equal chances and I can stay with you anywhere, anytime.” Perhaps I said it sharply. At any rate he was nettled. “Is that so?” he sneered.
“It is,” I answered. “You ordered me to put on my mask and left your own in the carrier, then expected me to follow you. That,” I said, “is unreasonable.”
“And so,” he sneered again, “you’re as good a man as I am?”
“Absolutely,” I shot back, “mentally or physically, and only too happy to prove it any way you like.”
“If you say anything more I’ll have you arrested,” he rasped, and turned away. He never talked to me again. I never understood what had made him so ugly that night. He was a good man in the line, better than ordinary, but at times he seemed to carry a grouch. If it had been some of the other company officers I would have been in trouble.
I spent New Year’s eve on a listening post, cold and hungry, watching the Very lights trace their patterns in the sky, wondering what 1918 would bring, and whether or not I would see another New Year. The battalion moved back to Souchez when relieved, into miserable huts half the regular size, with vents to admit the cold wind, without stoves. With me was Pete, a 73rd chap who had been up to Passchendale. He had been an athlete, was a splendidly-proportioned man, but had lain too long in the water and slime. He was racked with fits of coughing, was too weak to go on parades, and finally they sent him down to hospital.
On the second night in the huts Tommy and I got up. We could not sleep. We went along the old Vimy shelters and searched, over a mile away, until we were rewarded by finding a small stove and enough pipe to do. We carried it back to the hut and the rest turned out and helped us demolish a wooden shelter at the head of the camp. Then, in turn we kept the fire going and were able to sleep warmly. On parade we were told that a Christmas dinner was to be held, and Tommy and I were two of a party detailed to assist the preparations. We had to carry tables and benches from engineers’ quarters, over a mile away, and set them up in a marquee. By the time we had made the last trip the dinner was under way. Only a company could be fed at a time and we had to wait our turn, as the others went first. We had been carrying tables since seven o’clock and we did not get into the dining tent until four in the afternoon. A lump of cold pudding, a mug of cold tea and a few biscuits were shoved at me, the same kind of dinner we had had in a leaky hut at Mount St. Eloi the previous year. “Where’s the Christmas dinner?” blared Tommy. “What’s the bloody joke?”
“Tha
t’s all that’s left,” growled the cook. “What …”
Tommy drove his lump of cold duff at the fellow’s head, and his mug of cold, greasy tea followed. I got him quieted enough to get him outside and almost all our platoon followed us. “Hi,” yelled the cook from a safe vantage. “You guys can’t beat it – you’ve got to stay and help wash up these dishes.”
They had got enamel plates and mugs for the occasion and we were actually supposed to wash them, after doing all the work that was done that day and not getting any dinner. It took all my persuasion to keep Tommy sane and “Old Bill’ was ready to help him. We went up the valley to a Y.M.C.A. canteen and there got lukewarm cocoa and dry biscuits. We filled up on them, forced to do so, as we had no extra money, and “Old Bill” glared at the clerk as he eyed the tins of peaches on the shelves. We had asked for credit and of course it was not allowed. “I hope,” he growled, “that one of them heavies comes over and blows the blinkin’ ‘Y’ loose from its triangle.”
Our next trip in was to Cite St. Theodore, a place of underground passages and concrete chambers. We were in a room that the Germans had made waterproof and almost shell proof. A good stove was in it and just outside in the passage there was a store of coal. Our mail came and brought us Christmas parcels and we had a splendid time. Tommy and I roamed up the street we were on and explored. Passages crossed the street, from cellar to cellar, and other tunnels opened from strong points. The Hun had used concrete lavishly. We found a place partially destroyed that contained German blankets, ground sheets and shrapnel helmets as well as two German rifles. A passage led from it and we went along it for a considerable distance, then up steps until we were blocked by wreckage that had fallen over the stairway. It was well we stopped. After we found openings through which we could look, we saw, about ten yards in front of us, four Germans. They were leaning against a wall, smoking and talking, as if they were waiting for someone. After a time two of them went away and then the other pair called out to someone we could not see. They were answered by a voice that was almost above us. A footway ran alongside the wreckage and another German was walking along it. Had we dislodged anything, spoken, had we been smoking, we must have been discovered. We stole back softly the way we had come and in our own quarters tried to formulate some plan whereby we could capture one of the Heinies and surprise the troops.