by John Masters
God Almighty, Fred thought fearfully, this is the end.
Quentin Rowland waited in a forward shell hole, ten minutes before dawn, jammed in with scores of others ready for the attack. Shells howled and screamed overhead. The German artillery was deluging the whole area with counter-preparation fire. Like the men around him, and those huddled in the ditches just to the rear, Quentin waited, heads bowed uselessly against the storm, as though some giant steel umbrella was held over them by God, guarding them against the murderous thunder. It was raining lightly, but the drops stung cold on any exposed flesh, which was not much. The men were wearing greatcoats, and khaki scarves; the bulk of them, when full equipment, full ammunition pouches and gas mask cases had swollen them out, was enormous. Only their faces were bare, as there had been no gas alarm; and the tips of their fingers stuck out bare from the khaki mittens. The rain fell, the mud clung. Each soldier’s clothing weighed 55 pounds, from the water and mud it had sucked up, or that was stuck to the boots and caked on the puttees. His arms, equipment and ammunition weighed another 35 pounds.
Quentin thought, this is a dream recurring. I have been here before, many times – standing in this trench, dim figures around, no one speaking, all waiting, in a hell of a noise. The faces would be different, if he could see them, but he couldn’t, except now and then in the flaring descent of star shells.
He wrenched his mind away … Virginia wanted to marry a Battery Sergeant Major with only one arm. Fiona said the idea was ridiculous and of course they must not allow it. The girl was only eighteen, and would need their permission. The fellow had a D.C.M., she said … must have some guts, at least … but, a Battery Sergeant Major! He ought to see the man… Fiona should, but …
The dream returned, following its inescapable course. The whistles blew, the men climbed up as though held back by great weights, like those cinema shows where people’s movements were slowed down … up the ladders, out of the mud below onto the mud above. The first light began to spread, revealing – the same dream, the same wire, rusty, thick, writhing, torn, whole, coiling and uncoiling … humps and bumps in the mud, some moving, the perpetual rattle and tearing of canvas in the tattered darkness above, to the side, all round, ripping the night to shreds, viscous plops, at immense speed, as bullets whipped the mud into a brown froth.
‘We ought to have a success signal from D and A by now,’ he shouted to his adjutant, Archie Campbell.
‘Nothing yet, sir,’ Campbell replied. They were peering across No Man’s land, heads together on the parapet – ‘Can’t see anything out there.’
Quentin waited. Now in the dream he was scurrying across No Man’s Land, falling from one shell hole to another, crawling, waiting for a machine gun to end its traverse and start swinging back.
He said, ‘I’ll go forward and see what’s happening … Don’t want to launch B and C until we know … Kellaway, stay here, watch for the success signal … or a runner … Runners! Ready? Stay here with Captain Kellaway, Mr Dalley … Ready, Campbell?’
Up, slowly, out, trying to run, waddling, falling as a sniper got his sights on them, crack low overhead, and again – crack … slide down into a shell hole, wait a minute to catch his breath. Out again … near the German wire now. Two machine guns sweeping No Man’s Land behind them, many single shots, the duller burst of grenades close ahead … through the German wire, his British warm ripped in long gashes, down into the trench.
The shattered German trench was full of men – his Wealds – huddled together, crouching, heads bowed, many without rifles. 2nd Lieutenant Walworth struggled toward him, stepping over dead Germans, treading on their faces. His face was white, his eyes starting out of his head, ‘Sir!’ he shouted. ‘They’ve mutinied, sir … won’t move!’
‘Where’s Captain Hatch?’ Quentin snapped.
‘Killed, sir … I believe Major Donkin of A is, too.’
Quentin forced down the shallow, obstructed trench, Campbell and Walworth at his heels. This was the dream he had had a score of times, but in reality – if this was reality – it had never come to pass. In the dream he regularly faced them, their poor exhausted bodies, haggard, working faces, bulging eyes, and knew they would not, could not do more; they had reached the limit. But in the dream he drove them on. Was this a dream, then? He gritted his teeth. It must be. He must treat it as such.
The men here now were mainly A Company. ‘Where’s Major Donkin?’ he shouted at a soldier cowering against the muddy wall.
‘Dead, sir,’ the man said.
‘Any officers alive?’
‘Don’t know, sir … don’t know.’ He was shivering violently. His hands were wringing together. He had no rifle. Another figure was crouched in the mud close by, and Quentin caught the glint of stars on his shoulder … a lieutenant. He peered down, shouting, ‘Are you wounded?’ The man looked up and Quentin saw that it was Lieutenant Dale, of D Company … only been out three weeks. Dale croaked, ‘Can’t go on … done enough … hopeless.’
Quentin grabbed him by the collar and jerked him to his feet, ‘Get up, man. Get these men on their feet, now! Take rifles from the dead! We’ve only got half our objective. We’ve got to keep attacking!’
Dale stared at him dully, his mouth working, ‘Can’t do more, sir. It’s impossible.’
Quentin grabbed up a German rifle from the trench floor and held the muzzle to the young officer’s chest – ‘Get the men up, Dale! Call to them!’
The lieutenant mumbled, ‘Can’t do any more, sir … done all we can.’
Quentin pulled the trigger. The shot blasted the lieutenant against the back wall, where he slowly sagged to the ground, blood pouring from a ragged hole in the middle of his back. Quentin swung the rifle onto the other men, shouting, ‘Up … get up, you cowardly swine! Up!’ The shot still seemed to echo along the trench, a sound of a quite different quality from any of the thousands of other shots being fired or bullets passing over or slapping into the mud. Madness gleamed in the soldiers’ eyes, and they began to struggle to their feet, grabbing rifles from the mud. A few broke into wails and cries. A sergeant croaked, ‘Don’t go! Don’t go!’ Quentin swung the rifle on him and fired again, aiming at his head. The rest were on their feet, together mouthing a meaningless scream of helpless fury at him, at fate, at death. Quentin shouted, ‘Campbell, get moving! … Come on, Wealds … Wealds! Follow me!’ He scrambled and swung up out of the ditch. They followed, mouthing curses, weeping, stumbling, falling, but moving on.
Three minutes later and a hundred yards forward they fell into the second line of German trenches, almost destroyed, almost uninhabited. Grenades began to fly. German hands flew up. More Germans came out of the dugouts. Campbell appeared, shouting, ‘D’s to your left, sir. They don’t have any officers left except Walworth.’
‘Go back to them and take command.’
Quentin turned to his runners, panting behind him with bloodstained bayonets – ‘Very pistol, quick!’ One fumbled in his haversack and handed him the Very pistol. ‘Two reds!’ Quentin barked.
A moment later he fired the first red Very light straight up into the low clouds, followed at once by the second. Leaning exhausted against the front wall, propped up in a German machine-gun post, he saw men scramble out of the old trench line … B and C were coming: they’d pass through, and they’d take the heaps of rubble that marked where Nollehoek had stood.
The ragged lines of men, square shaped, wearing wet steel basins as crowns, entered Nollehoek with Boy Rowland and his C Company to the right, and Charles Kellaway with B on the left. The German machine guns had left a third of each company crumpled in the mud of the last slope. Now the survivors scrambled painfully over the rubble and killed the machine gunners in their nests, or shot them running away through the ruins. Those that escaped here were caught by their own or British shells.
‘Look in every cellar,’ Boy shouted. ‘Bomb first, then down!’
It was a long time since they had been fighting in the remains
of a village and so many of the men were so recently out from the depots and base reinforcement camps that they did not know the drill. And they weren’t the Weald Light Infantry, of Minden and Badajoz and Waterloo, except by name. They were men dredged from civilian life, of every age below fifty, men from a score of other regiments taken haphazard out of the reinforcement camps to keep the ranks of the battalions in the line as nearly up to strength as possible … which could not be done, as the myriad bodies rotting in the mud from Poelcapelle to Passchendaele, Broodseinde and Nollehoek, attested.
The bombs began to burst muffled and hollow sounding in the half-flooded cellars. Germans emerged. British soldiers began to escort them back.
‘You!’ Boy shouted. ‘What’s your name? Come here!’ He raised his revolver. They were sneaking to the rear under pretence of escorting prisoners, when they knew perfectly well that the C.S.M. would appoint men to do that any moment now … bloody fools, too, because the German artillery, not yet realizing that the British were actually into Nollehoek, were still sweeping the slope to the west. Soon, the information would get back to them, and then …
His uncle appeared, panting, and cried, ‘Well done, Boy … Many casualties?’
‘I only have about forty men left as far as I can see, sir.’
‘A and D are coming up. The Boche will counter-attack, Boy … I’ll stay here … try and get some artillery support.’
Boy said, ‘Yes, sir.’ The shelling suddenly stopped, and he called, ‘Sarn’t major, send the prisoners back now with the walking wounded – quick, before the Boche artillery opens up again!’
He hurried forward, followed by his batman. The village was riddled with cellars, broken down trenches, shattered machine-gun nests, hidden observation posts, and of course, rubble – a labyrinth. He struggled northward, shouting, ‘Captain Kellaway? Anyone know where Captain Kellaway is?’
A voice nearby mumbled, ‘He’s at the end of the village.’ Boy turned to stare a moment at his cousin Laurence Cate. Laurence was sweating, clay-faced and hardly recognizable from the mud that covered him from head to toe. He was swaying on his feet, his eyes glazed.
Boy shouted, ‘Thanks … You all right? Wounded?’
Laurence croaked, ‘No … all right.’ Boy hurried on, his mind instantly erasing what he had just seen and heard, thinking only of getting to Kellaway.
Laurence watched him go, then called, ‘Sergeant!’
His platoon sergeant, Fagioletti, rushed to his side, ‘Sir?’
‘Hold the forward edge of the village … there … there … How many men left?’
‘Thirteen, sir … two wounded, but they’re staying.’
‘Follow me!’ Laurence stumbled in the direction he had pointed. Fagioletti waved his rifle energetically at a soldier lying behind a pile of rubble and yelled, ‘Get up! Follow Mr Cate! You – up!’ He pricked his bayonet into another soldier’s buttocks.. They all rose and trudged forward. Fagioletti followed, watching Laurence. The officer was shit-scared, he thought, as bad as I was the first time I was in a push – the time I shat my trousers. The poor bugger didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing. He was scared himself, no good pretending any different, but … where could you go? What could you do? Except get angry … feel you wanted to stick your bayonet into a German the way you wanted to stick your prick into a wet hot cunt, a feeling that took hold of all of you and made you tremble and shake and think of nothing else until it was done.
The German artillery, already ranged to a yard on Nollehoek, and now sure that no German troops remained alive in it, opened a steady fire from a hundred guns, to pulverize the already powdered brick, bury the already buried dead, and wear down the already worn out British holding it.
Twenty-four hours later the German guns lifted their fire – as they had done six times during the afternoon, night and early morning. Six times the British crawled out of their dripping cellars and muddy holes to join the sentries on the makeshift parapets, facing out, rifles gripped, peering with smarting eyes into the dark for what might come. Six times, after three minutes, the German artillery had opened up again, on the same targets, causing more casualties to the men now out in the open.
‘I don’t think the swine are going to counter-attack at all, sir,’ Archie Campbell said to Quentin, sitting beside him on the steps of a cellar in the middle of Nollehoek. The cellar was headquarters for both D Company and the battalion, so it was full of men – the R.S.M., the C.S.M. of D, Father Caffin, of course – half a dozen runners.
Archie lowered his voice as much as he could and still be heard above the shelling – ‘When are we going to be relieved, sir? Or reinforced?’
‘No idea,’ Quentin said shortly. ‘I sent a runner back to Brigade in the night, to say we were on our final objectives, but were suffering heavy casualties from shelling. A message came from the Canadians – they’ve got Passchendaele. So we have the whole ridge now … but soon we won’t have enough men left to hold our end.’
‘We don’t have enough now,’ Campbell said; adding hastily, ‘But we’ll do it, sir.’
If it’s humanly possible, he thought. Perhaps even if it isn’t. Those wretched men in D and A had done the impossible yesterday morning, rousing themselves from their dreadful lethargy of despair. For a moment he’d thought they were going to go for the C.O. They’d had every right to do so, if you looked at it dispassionately. Which you couldn’t … and somehow, driven by the C.O., they’d found enough anger to strike out once more against their fate. And now they were being systematically shelled to destruction. How much longer could flesh and blood, brain and emotion stand? How much more could … ?
Quentin Rowland spoke suddenly – ‘That was a German rifle I shot those two fellows with, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Archie said.
The C.O. said, ‘Thank God!’ He faced Archie – ‘Couldn’t sleep again if I thought it was one of ours … not right for a man of the Wealds to die by a British bullet … Make sure those two are listed as “killed in action.”’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Poor fellows … poor fellows … poor – ’
Boy Rowland came through the smoking dawn rubble toward them, trying to run, falling, getting up. He fell again on the fourth step down. Campbell helped him up and he stood there, half in the open, half on the step, shouting, ‘Kellaway’s got one through the eye … shell splinter!’
Quentin said, ‘Poor chap. Is he dead? Who’s in command there now? I’d better go and see.’
‘What does it matter who’s in command?’ Boy yelled. His voice rose, ‘Kellaway’s blinded if he’s not dead! His company’s going with him, one by one. So’s mine … being torn to bits and used for manure!’ He was screaming, and Archie rose slowly to his feet, not knowing what Boy might do … draw his revolver on the C.O.? … shoot himself? … run?
Quentin jumped to his feet, his face turning purple as he shouted into his nephew’s face, ‘Do you think we like it here? Do you think I like watching my men being killed, in front of my eyes, all round me and not being able to do anything about it? Where are the reinforcements? I don’t know! Where are the orders? I don’t know! We’re going to stay here till there’s no one left … and they’ll say the Wealds couldn’t hold the position, got driven out by a counter-attack … but there won’t be anyone here to stop them, and we’ll be blamed. It’ll be in the official history, we were driven out!’
Campbell listened, appalled. The C.O. was as near breaking as Boy was … as he himself was, come to that … and all of them in the cellar, from the R.S.M. down … and all the men out in the rubble, isolated by death from each other, each enduring a private purgatory, on his way to a private hell.
Quentin slowly, obstinately, with grated teeth, recovered himself. Mustn’t let oneself go, got to keep a tight hold, the worse the conditions the more important that was. He’d been acting like a damned Frog, shouting and ranting and weeping …
Boy said tensely, ‘What
shall we do, Uncle? Shall we charge? Oh God … Oh Christ!’ He sat down suddenly, his face in his hands. They heard the stifled sobs through his clasped hands and writhing fingers. Carefully Quentin lit his pipe. When he had it drawing well, he held it in his left hand and put his arm round his nephew’s shoulders. He said, ‘We have to stick it out until reinforcements come, Boy. They can’t be long. I’ll come back to your company with you.’
Boy mumbled, ‘Sorry, sir … made a fool of myself.’ He stood up. ‘There’s no need to come with me, sir. The shelling’s bad out there.’
‘I know,’ Quentin said. ‘But I have to come. I have to see that B’s all right, without Kellaway. I hope Stratton’s all right, to take over … Mr Dalley!’
The R.S.M. called up, ‘Sir?’ from the cellar.
‘Come with me, please. I’ll want you to take over Mr Stratton’s platoon in B Company, for the time being.’
Father Caffin rose from the German ration box on which he had been sitting and made ready to accompany them.
Quentin went first to B Company, found that Lieutenant Fred Stratton had taken over command, and that Captain Kellaway had been carried to the Regimental Aid Post, set up near his own headquarters in another cellar. After leaving R.S.M. Dalley to take over Stratton’s old platoon, he went to A and D Companies, at the near end of the village, to check over their defences; then up to C to steady Boy – here Father Caffin left him, to stay with Boy. All this done, Quentin returned to his headquarters. A little later the German shelling stopped suddenly, for the seventh time. For the seventh time the men struggled out, and to their posts. No German attack came. The German artillery opened fire again, all together, a 5.9-inch high explosive shell bursting at Boy Rowland’s feet and tearing his body into three bloody pieces.