by John Masters
He wrenched his mind back to the problem which had brought him to France: the military direction of Britain’s war effort. He had not seen or spoken to any general, of any rank, who believed that Haig should be replaced; or that the main British effort on the Western Front should be defensive; or that the main British war effort should be elsewhere than on the Western Front. A lieutenant colonel of Charteris’ staff had been with him all the time, and a major each with Craddock and Mackenzie. They had taken him as far forward as divisions’ headquarters – he’d visited six divisions in the six days – and from there he had looked forward through binoculars. The binoculars were like a peephole on a different world – mud, ruins, cratered and destroyed earth, no human beings visible, for they were all underground or crawling through the slime. The incessant thunder of artillery had reminded him of his visit to the Somme battlefield the year before. There had been noise there, and obvious signs of slaughter in the streams of ambulances, the rows of wounded in the hospitals he had visited; but the land, though mangled and torn, was still earth, something that would bear your weight; and the skies were blue, with white clouds, and a summer sun. Here, before Ypres, there was no earth, only mud; no sun, only clouds; the dull diffused gloom of late autumn, sunless; and rain.
He finished dressing and was about to go downstairs when he heard a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ he called.
It was Craddock, with Mackenzie at his heels, Harry’s allotted soldier servant hovering anxiously in the background. Craddock said, ‘We thought we’d like to have a chat before we go down to dinner, Rowland … just the three of us.’
Harry understood and said to the soldier, ‘See that we are not disturbed, Harrington. Thank you.’ The M.P.s entered and Harry closed and locked the door behind them.
Mackenzie produced a flat half-bottle of whisky from his coat pocket and planked it down on the dressing table. ‘D’ye have a glass, sir?’
Harry found glasses and Mackenzie poured, a stiff three fingers each. The others took a little water from the china jug, Mackenzie took his neat.
The other two sat down on the bed, and Harry in the chair by the dressing table. Craddock said, ‘We’re going home tomorrow. We thought we’d better discuss our impressions … decide if there’s anything more we ought to do … see … other questions we should ask.’
‘General Charteris is coming to dinner tonight,’ Harry said.
‘Quite … Do you have the feeling that we have been led about by the nose?’
Harry said slowly, ‘To a certain extent. I suppose they are justified in refusing to let us go forward of divisional headquarters. They are responsible for us after all.’
Mackenzie fumed – ‘How can we tell what the condition of the battlefield really is, unless we see it?’
‘I saw quite a lot, through binoculars,’ Harry said.
‘So did I,’ Craddock added, ‘and it looked very bad. Which only confirms what everyone has told us. The generals have never denied that.’
‘They’ve been using the rain and mud as an excuse, or a reason – for their failure.’
Mackenzie growled. ‘They never use the word failure. They say “We’re wearing the Germans down, and we have to go on doing it, because of the French.” Assuming that’s true, the question is, is Haig using the right tactics, doing the job in the best possible way?’
All three were silent. Here were the horns of the dilemma. Where did the truth lie? The blinded young soldier appeared again before Harry’s mind’s eye, in his hospital blue, dark glasses hiding his seared eyes, his cane tap tap tapping: Do you know what you’re doing? Do you?
And there was this universal feeling against the staff. That – should not be – all soldiers should be working together, to win the war. But who was responsible, both for the efficiency of the staff, and for the way in which the staff and the fighting troops cooperated? Why, the commander-in-chief – Haig.
Craddock said, ‘I don’t mind not being allowed up the line so much. But I think we’ve been steered … guided, as to what and whom we see, where we go. And with one or two hesitations … which were equivalent, in the circumstances, since the G.H.Q. major was standing right beside me, of an outright accusal of Haig … everybody backs him. They also hint that any attempt to replace him would be regarded as a loss of our will to win the war.’
‘That’s what I found,’ Mackenzie said. ‘And yet … yet …’
Harry said, ‘I have an uneasy feeling … I can find no logical basis for it … that the Prime Minister ought to make a change. Yet the consequences could be so serious, that I can not bring myself to recommend it, unless somewhere, somehow, I do find sound reasons to back it up.’
There was a knock on the door, and Harry called, ‘Who is it?’
‘Colonel Ray, sir … General Charteris has arrived.’
‘Thank you. We’ll be down soon.’
He waited till the sound of footsteps had receded down the château’s stone floor and then said, ‘So we are agreed? That when we return, we must tell the Prime Minister that we can find no reason for removing Haig?’
After a minute the other two, saying nothing, nodded. Then Mackenzie said, ‘God help us, I hope we’re right … and I suppose Charteris might reveal something new?’
‘Not a chance,’ Craddock said emphatically. ‘He’ll talk about the Americans … how great Pershing is … how they’re adopting our – his – Intelligence methods … all will be well as soon as their main armies come … meanwhile, attack, attack, attack, to wear the Germans down.’
‘And after dinner he’s going to take us to see Haig, Colonel Ray told me this afternoon. I suppose we might learn something from him … how he’s taking the strain, at least.’
Craddock said, ‘He’s taking it very well. He won’t crack before the last of his men has been killed, or drowned.’
‘And that’s what we want?’ Mackenzie said.
‘Apparently, that’s what we must have.’
David Lloyd George was not in a good temper. Though Harry was twenty years older than the Prime Minister he felt as though he were a small boy facing the wrath of Dr Wickham, Master of Wellington … worse, for Dr Wickham’s ‘anger’ never amounted to more than a mild disappointment that anyone should have transgressed his gentle and proper Wykehamist code: while here Harry faced a bubbling Celtic explosion – ‘The three of you were in conspiracy with the damned generals,’ the Prime Minister snarled, banging the table in his office in the House.
‘We reached our conclusion quite independently, Prime Minister,’ Harry said. ‘And, as I have just explained to you, it was not without serious misgivings. It is just that we can see no alternative to Field Marshal Haig.’
Lloyd George growled. ‘So you swallowed all the flattery, took all the soft soap … gave me no help at all … and you still expect me to give a peerage to that butcher of yours, Hoggin?’
‘Hoggin is in no way a protégé of mine,’ Harry said stiffly. ‘Whether he receives a peerage is entirely up to you, in consideration of whatever services he may have performed for you … or the country … if any.’
Lloyd George looked up, suddenly smiling. He jumped to his feet, clapped Harry on the shoulder, and said, ‘He’s a real hog, isn’t he? But we need people like that… those H.U.S.L. shops are providing cheaper food, and making a lot of money. He did a very good job for us in America … it takes a cockney barrow boy to keep ahead of Yankee commodity traders. And there are some jobs that only people like him can do … dirty jobs, but necessary for the survival of the country … or at least, of politicians.’ He chuckled. ‘Thank you for going to France for me. I hope you saw some of your family out there … the grandson who’s the flying ace? the one in the infantry … no it’s a son and two grandsons, isn’t it? … Good, good I didn’t really expect you to bring back any different answer. If Churchill, Curzon, Wilson, and I can’t find a handle to get rid of Haig, how can honest men like you hope to do so?’
The telephone rang
and he picked it up with a curt, ‘Prime Minister.’
He listened, expressions chasing each other across his face like sunshine and storm over his Welsh mountains. Finally he said, ‘All right. In fifteen minutes at Number Ten.’ He put the instrument down and looked up – ‘That was Bonar Law. The Italians have broken near Caporetto. They’re in full flight on a front of a hundred miles. The Austrians – with half a dozen German divisions as the spearhead – have taken 200,000 prisoners … or that number of Italian soldiers have deserted.’
‘Good heavens,’ Harry gasped. ‘What a terrible disaster!’
Lloyd George’s eyes gleamed fiercely, as again he seized Harry’s shoulder. ‘Disaster!’ he hissed theatrically. ‘It’s the best news of the war! Now we’re going to have to send reinforcements there to keep Italy in the war. And they must come from the Western Front! Haig will have to stop his attacks at Passchendaele and Nollehoek!’
I wonder, Harry thought, remembering the determination and perfect confidence in his own rightness that he had felt emanating from the Field Marshal in the big room at G.H.Q. so few hours ago.
Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, November 6, 1917
TWO PREMIERS’ JOURNEY
From Our Own Correspondent, Paris,
Monday Night.
I am now allowed to announce that General Foch and Sir William Robertson, the Chiefs of the French and British Staffs, went to the Italian front last week. I may add that General Foch two months ago was in Italy, and drew up complete military plans with General Cadorna. These were ready down to the smallest detail. Thus is explained the swiftness with which Anglo-French help has reached the Italians, and which has already been a surprise to the enemy.
The meeting of Mr Lloyd George, M. Painlevé, Signor Orlando, General Robertson, General Foch, and General Smuts in Rome, where the King of Italy will also see the representatives of France and England, has much political as well as military importance. Mr Lloyd George and M. Painlevé go to Italy to bring encouragement, sound advice, and, I may say, warning to the Italian Government. It is no secret now that the Second Italian Army on the Isonzo broke because it was undermined by the enemy propaganda, both Socialist and Catholic. It is no secret also that the Austro-Germans expected, and still expect, to clinch matters now after the Italian reverse by alternate threats and sops to Italian public opinion. Luckily the Italian people has pulled itself together completely. Its confidence will now be completely restored by the present visit of the political and military chiefs of Italy’s Allies. That is the raison d’être of Mr Lloyd George’s and M. Painlevé’s mission to Rome.
Really, Cate thought, one’s allies are sometimes more trouble than they seem to be worth. Now British and French troops would be, or were being, sent to prevent an Italian collapse. The Russians were in just as bad a state, but nothing could be done about them. One could only hope that the American power would develop before it was too late. The battle in Flanders was grinding relentlessly on, but now surely Haig would have to halt it, what with the winter upon them, and the loss of troops he’d have to send to Italy. It would be an anxious winter, and Christmas … better not think about it, until it was here. It might not be a bit merry.
He put down the paper. This morning he must go and tell Mayhew that he was going to sell his land, and that the new landlord would not renew his lease when the war was over – as he intended to build houses on it. He wished to God it could be avoided, if only on financial grounds: he’d get a much better price for those 124 acres after the war; but he could not wait: the tax collectors were at the door … to pay for the war. It was hard to imagine the swelling land of Upper Bohun, now covered with the marching ranks of hop poles, divided up into ‘gentlemen’s estates’ of two acres or so each, plus a large house, probably pseudo-Tudor in design, with stuccoed walls and false half timbering, standing up behind newly planted hedges … What would happen to the oast houses? Perhaps a way could be found to convert them into guest houses or garages … odd they’d look, but so would Walstone. What would happen to the village with such an influx? Mrs Warren would do a roaring trade at her shop; Miss Macaulay the postmistress would have much more exciting postcards to read and gossip to dispense … people who’d buy houses like that would probably have two cars, and their children would go driving round very fast and running over chickens and children … Mr Woodruff would do well, with more cars to mend, and sell petrol and oil for. The pub keepers wouldn’t benefit much – that sort drank in their houses, or went to supper clubs in London. Old Mr Kirby would have opportunities for delivering some real blood-and-thunder sermons … but they wouldn’t listen. They’d go to church on Sundays, because they’d know that that was part of being an English country gentleman. But their souls would be in London and they’d have no idea who was sitting in the pews opposite or behind or in front. The words ‘country gentleman’ themselves would soon be meaningless: the country – turned into a dormitory for stockbrokers: and the gentlemen – taxed out of existence.
Oh well, must put the best face on it one can. Mayhew was the one to be comforted, now. And when he’d given Mayhew the bad news he must visit Stella. The poor girl didn’t look well, and seemed to be withdrawing into herself. Losing the baby must have been a blow – it had been to him, so how much more for her? – but she must try to forget. She was young. Johnny would come home again to her one day, and … Dear God, Johnny might not come home again.
It was no use worrying about that. Every wife and son, every father and mother, all over Europe and America were facing that. If it came, it must be taken with courage, and self-respect. Meantime, there were closer, lesser wounds to be bound.
32
Belgian Flanders: Monday, November 5, 1917
Lieutenant Fred Stratton sat in the front seat of the ambulance, beside the driver, lurching and sliding toward the smoking wreck of Ypres. A khaki bandage round his left hand covered the scar, still raw, where a German bullet had grazed the back of the hand, severing a tendon. It hurt, sometimes with a dull ache, sometimes with sharp stabs; and he had no strength in the middle finger of that hand. The R.A.M.C. captain at the C.C.S. had been willing to send him farther to the rear, to a base hospital, for a few more days’ rest, and to allow the wound to heal, but Fred asked to go back to his battalion, and, with a shrug, as much as to say, ‘Well, I tried to help you,’ the doctor had marked him ‘Fit for General Duty.’
There was a big push coming, another in the series that had started on the last day of July. It would be bloody horrible, like the rest of them. He was a fucking idiot not to have let the doctor send him back. He’d catch a packet this time, for sure. The hand wound hadn’t been enough for a Blighty; if it had been, nothing would have made him come back until he’d wrung every last minute he could out of the doctors. If he got any sort of a real wound he’d fake it worse than it really was … but that would depend on what sort of a packet he caught. There wasn’t much leads winging you could do if you’d really got six machine-gun bullets through the belly, or a shell splinter had taken one of your lungs out.
The guns were talking loudly now. Far away, they’d sounded from the C.C.S., but now he was getting closer, and their voices, like hounds baying threateningly at intruders beyond the town, made him wish he could stop his ears with cotton wool. The sodden fields, glazed in the shade of the woods with frost, were becoming more and more marked with rutted roads leading to barbed wire enclosures … To the right, there was half a square mile of shells, mostly heavies; to the left, parked motor lorries of the Army Service Corps; beyond, rows and rows of wooden crates of rations, stacked high; more shells; deep dugouts, sentries at the entrance.
On to battle. They had skirted Ypres and were heading north-east, through Potijze. They were level with the guns now, seen near and far, in the woodland patches, at the edges of the copses, the barrels pointing skyward, jerking suddenly, the heavy wheels momentarily leaving the ground with the force of the recoil, thudding down again, the gunners trundling the next
shell forward into the cradle. If the guns could reach the Boche from here, the Boche could …
A shell burst beside the road, a hundred yards off in a field. The ambulance driver said, ‘Only another quarter of a mile … We’d just as lief not have to do that bit … four times a day.’
The convoy of ambulances, empty except for a few men in Fred’s position, and some soldiers returning from leave who had cadged rides, turned off into a big farmyard, at the outskirts of the shattered village of Zonnebeke. Fred got out and began to walk.
The road that had so far been passable with difficulty, for mules and men, slowly seemed to sink into the ground, and become indistinguishable from the mud. All signs of normal human life as slowly, and as steadily, vanished – no one moved above ground, there were no houses, no trees, no woods, only the undulating cratered wasteland. The trench system began, and Fred sank into it, moving slowly, with painful steps through deep, clinging mud, his hand aching, among a trickling stream of humanity, toward the front.
November the fifth. Remember, remember the fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot! Penny for the guy, mister, penny for the guy … Guy Bloody Fawkes’ Day, that’s what it was. Well, he’d see some fireworks before the day was out, he could bet his bloody life on that.
He became aware, with increasing horror, that the same process which had progressively destroyed the civilized habitations of man, from the rear forward, had now almost completed its work on its own body, the nervous and arterial systems of war. The trenches had been damaged at the rear, where he had dropped down into them: and at every yard became more so – punctured, ruptured, torn apart – just like the houses and, here, the human bodies all around; until, in the last four hundred yards, they had all but vanished. The war, having destroyed the works of man, and man himself, had here succeeded in destroying its own works: the trench system, the armour of barbed wire, no longer lived, there was now only a dead and decaying body of mud, covered with the festering pustules of shell holes, some loosely linked by veins of flowing mud, which might once themselves have been trenches.