by John Masters
‘’Fraid of another mutiny if the news gets out,’ Fred said laconically. ‘Or a revolution.’
A battalion runner poked his head round the blanket covering the door of the cellar – ‘Signal from battalion for Mr Stratton, sir.’
Fred put out his hand. Now what? Old Rowley telling him to keep the men’s hair shorter? Another warning about clap in some of the red lamp houses? He read the message:
Lieutenant F. Stratton is posted to 8 W.L.I. with immediate effect. Lieutenant Stratton will report to W.L.I. Depot Hedlington as soon as possible. Report to Bn Orderly Room for transportation and documents immediately.
‘Where in heaven is the 8th Battalion?’ he asked the runner.
‘Search me, sir,’ the man answered cheerfully. ‘Down by Arras, perhaps.’
‘It’s in India, the principal jewel in the British Crown,’ Wylie said with equal cheerfulness. ‘But God knows where, exactly. Anyway, it’s better than a blighty for you, Strat. All they do out there is lie on their beds and get natives to clean their equipment and bring them tea in the morning. And you’ll be a pukka sahib!’
‘India!’ Fred said wonderingly. When he joined the regiment back in ’14 there’d been a number of old regulars still serving, both officers and Other Ranks. They all used a great deal of Hindustani, and to him, then, service in India had been the hallmark of the old Army; and, concerning officers, proof that they were real officers – sahibs, as they said: not temporary gentlemen, such as himself. One of the most commonly used Hindustani words was pukka, and he’d soon learned that it meant ‘real’ as against ‘false,’ ‘permanent’ as against ‘temporary.’ And now, by God, he himself was going there, to be anointed as a pukka sahib.
Betty Merrit opened her desk drawer, took out a slim red bound volume and turned to the title page where it read – At the Lip. Poems from France, by Fletcher … but on the facing page there was a printed dedication:
For my love
When he came home she would make him write those words out in his own hand, add a comma or dash, then the single word – ‘Betty’ – and sign it.
She turned the pages slowly … At the lip … terrible but beautiful … as mystical as Blake … Death passed, tragic at first, then inexplicably lighter, almost happy … My mate and I; just the other way round, light at the beginning, with a powerful bite at the end … Where are the guns that shout all night?
The door handle turned and she quickly, guiltily stuffed the book back and closed the drawer. Ginger Keble-Palmer came in, stooped as usual, and said, ‘Richard says we have to find some less-complicated way to hold and release the bombs. This – ’ he tapped the drawing in his hand – ‘will work, he says, but it will be slow and expensive to produce.’
She sighed, and took the drawing. The design had been hers in the first place, and now she would have to start all over again. Damn the bombs! The day would come when the Hedlington Buffalo would be flying to Berlin, but with passengers instead of bombs … and to Rome, Athens, Vienna. She sat back, while Ginger went to the tall draughtsman’s desk and leaned over it, studying the diagrams pinned to it.
He spoke now, without turning round – ‘Someone told me you were the person to whom that new book of war poems by Fletcher is dedicated.’
She looked across, at first upset – what business was it of his? Of anyone’s? It was a secret between her and Fletcher, like the mysteries of each other’s bodies, shared in Deal that winter night. Ginger had not looked round. She softened. Of course, he had always been fond of her, loved her even; but she had never been able to see him in that way. She said gently, ‘It’s true, Ginger.’
‘Lucky man,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It’s none of my business … one of the girls knew you’d been seeing Fletcher Gorse while he was at the Depot here … I hope you’ll be happy.’
‘We will,’ she said confidently. ‘I love him.’
‘I love you,’ Keble-Palmer said gloomily, ‘but that doesn’t mean we’d be happy. I would …’
She said, ‘You’re sweet … but really, we’ll be all right. We agreed that we mustn’t get married until we have found out that we have more in common than …’ she blushed, ‘well, being in love.’
Ginger said, ‘He’s a very good poet … awfully English, like his grandfather, that old poacher down at Walstone … wild … a sort of child of nature …’
‘And I’m American, and tamed, and like everything hygienic and clean and artificial … Is that what you mean?’
Ginger swung round, ‘I’m jealous, Betty. I can’t help it … but even if I wasn’t, I would worry. There is such an incredible difference in your backgrounds. He can hardly write …’
‘He can write this!’ she snapped, banging the desk under which the poems lay hidden in the drawer. Again, she controlled herself, and continued, ‘You really are sweet, Ginger, to worry about me. But it’ll be all right. I know it will! Everything will be all right when he comes home.’
Ginger said nothing; and Betty thought, he’s thinking, as I’m thinking, as everyone must think in these ghastly times – if he comes home.
She said, ‘Ginger, let’s go up to London, to the Cat & Mouse … tonight.’
He looked astonished, and she went over to the tall desk and put a hand over his, ‘Ginger, I don’t love you, but I like you, very much. And I’m frightened – for him. And lonely… loneliness is like a cold heavy clammy blanket on me whenever I’m not here with you all, working. I understand now why women do such awful things when their men are in France … Until you get a girl of your own, will you help look after me? Help me look after myself?’
Ginger muttered, ‘Of course, Betty … And I won’t bother you again. I’ll try and think of you as my sister.’
She squeezed his elbow – ‘Thanks, Ginger … I simply must find the right girl for you. You deserve the best.’
‘But I’m not going to get her,’ he said with a wan smile.
Bert Gorse trudged round the exercise yard at Hedlington Gaol, his boots slipping and sliding in the slushy and dirty snow. Visitors today. He wondered who would come to see him. Rachel had come once, two days after the beaks had slammed him in again – fourth time now, wasn’t it? And all because he had punched up a big navvy who was heckling Rachel at one of her No-Conscription Fellowship meetings … that was a laugh, if you could see it that way, because he didn’t belong to the Fellowship himself any more; and Rachel didn’t belong to him! She hadn’t actually gone off with Bentley – or perhaps she had, since he’d been put in gaol – but he was sure she would, sooner or later, probably sooner … Old John Rowland might come, but Christ, he’d changed since his son was killed … shrunk inside his clothes, turned twenty years older in a month. And he’d be busy at the farm … seemed like another world they lived in down there, in Walstone and Cantley and Taversham – village greens, cows plodding along the lanes dropping sploshy pats, men touching their forelock to such as John Rowland, Cate, Swanwick …
An elbow jabbed back into his stomach and the edge of a hard hand smashed against the side of his head. He reeled dizzily and two boots stamped down on his feet, the heels grinding in. He doubled over and another elbow jerked up under his nose, which spouted blood. The foot where he had shot himself always hurt, and was now shrieking in silent agony.
The prison warder shouted, ‘Keep moving, you there … number 9876!’ He started forward, drawing his truncheon.
Bert reeled on. Bastards … the warder had seen the blokes set on him, although he pretended he hadn’t. The man behind him muttered through closed lips, ‘’Ow d’you like your exercise, conchie?’
Bert muttered, ‘It’s your lives they’re trying to save …’
‘Fucking conchie.’
The warder shouted, ‘Stop talking, there, 9876!’ then turned his back. Blows descended on Bert till he fell out, kneeling, retching.
‘Get up!’ the warder shouted, turning back. ‘You, 43 … 72 … pick ’im up. See that he gets ’is exercise.’
Bert gazed at his two visitors through swollen eyelids. His lips and nose were puffed and his face bruised, but none of that hurt as much as his wounded foot.
Wilfred Bentley said, ‘It’s a disgrace … bestial treatment. I’ll see that this is brought to the attention of the House of Commons. I know two members well.’
‘It won’t do no good,’ Bert said. ‘I’ll just get banged up some more … What’s the news?’
Rachel said, ‘Nothing really … but now that Russia’s out of the war, and has become a real socialist republic, Mr Russell thinks the allies will realize that they must come to terms with Germany before they – the Germans – can attack in the West next spring. So now’s the moment for us to redouble our efforts in the No-Conscription Fellowship.’
Bert said briefly, ‘You’re farting against thunder, Rachel.’
No one spoke for a time, then Wilfred Bentley said, ‘I’ve asked Rachel to marry me. She has said yes.’
‘In a church and all?’
Rachel said, ‘Wilfred insisted, and, well, I don’t mind.’
Bentley said, ‘We must be friends, and work together.’
After a while Bert said, ‘All right … can’t shake hands here.’
Wilfred said, ‘Thank you, Bert … We’ll see that your house is in good order when you come out, all neat and clean and swept and ready for you. Rachel will still be in it, as we’re not getting married till the new year.’
John Merritt, wearing long greatcoat, and wool gloves and campaign hat with the red cords of the Field Artillery, stood at the upper deck rail of the liner, looking down on the massed soldiery on the foredeck below. A match flared from among the other officers standing behind and to each side of him. Officers and men were smoking on the crowded decks still, for the ship was gliding almost noiselessly down Upper New York Bay, past the Statue of Liberty, dim green under a quarter moon, out into the Upper Bay. The beat of the propellers quickened as the ship gathered speed, heading for the Narrows.
‘On our way, at last,’ Rudy Anspach said. Rudy was a friend from Harvard days; by chance a fellow student at the School of Fire; their fates, now still more closely intertwined when they were both posted to Battery D of the 137th Regiment, Field Artillery. Five days after they had reported to the regiment, it entrained for Hoboken. On December 24,1917, it sailed for France, with the rest of the division, in six ships.
‘We’re on our way,’ John repeated after his friend. For him, it would be a return. But this time he’d be seeing France, and the war, with other Americans, as part of his own country’s effort, not a spectator, or a guest, of someone else’s.
‘Think we’ll be thrown straight into action?’ Rudy asked.
John said, ‘I doubt it … unless the Germans attack and we have to go in to help … but that’s very unlikely in mid-winter.’
‘What’ll we do then?’
‘We’ll be held in general reserve, training, until we can take over a sector of the line.’
Anspach nodded. John had found that his short spell in France with the regulars of the U.S. 16th Infantry had endowed him, in the eyes of his classmates at Fort Sill, even of the instructors, with what amounted to universal knowledge of trench warfare. His opinion was always asked, and deferred to.
He had thought about advising Captain Hodder, the battery commander, about his need for leave to go and see his wife as soon as they reached Europe; but had decided to say nothing until they were actually there, and settled in. He wished he could be with Stella for Christmas, but here it was Christmas Eve, and he three thousand miles away, at sea, blacked out, wearing a life preserver.
Heroin … it was disloyal of him even to think of the word, let alone the idea that his wife might have been using it … but the word, at least, would not be dismissed for long from his mind, ever since Lieutenant Aquila had mentioned it at Jean Burress’s cocktail party. Thank heavens he had never had to see her again … heroin: produced from the juice of unripe seed capsules of the opium poppy, papaver somniferum – C21 H23 N 05 – an acetyl derivative of opium – legitimate medical uses for treatment of severe pain, diarrhoea, cough … used to achieve euphoria; as an escape; as a substitute for aggressive and sexual drives; for rebellion … high potential for psychological dependence, tolerance, and physical dependence … long-term effects: constipation, loss of appetite and weight, temporary impotence or sterility; painful and unpleasant withdrawal symptoms …
The ship entered the Narrows, the loom of Staten Island to the right, the low Brooklyn shore to the left, the Sandy Hook lightship flashing ahead. The ship’s siren boomed tremendously, three times. On the foredeck the sergeants barked, ‘Out cigarettes, pipes, cigars! Take emergency stations … move your butts there!’
A destroyer appeared out of the night, a white bone in its teeth, no flag flying from its lean black silhouette. John and Anspach parted, each to his emergency station on the boat deck. The men shuffled silently to their places. All doors were closed, above and below decks. The beat of the engines increased to full speed. Sandy Hook light sank into the sea astern, the half moon shone more brightly. John waited, his back to the lifeboat, facing the ranked Enlisted Men, all swaying in unison to the new roll of the ship.
Stella … He remembered the time he had come in late from work and found her drunk. Betty had warned him. Now he had left her for nine months, more lonely than ever …as an escape... When this war was over, he’d never leave her again. He’d find a little house. Where? Was he going back to Fairfax, Gottlieb as his father expected him to? It would be hard, after all that he had seen and done, the independence he had enjoyed since 1914 – three years! A little house perhaps, say in Westchester, looking across the great river at his father’s house … why, he could have a big mast put in the front lawn, and he and Dad could signal to each other, with naval flags – ‘Come over for dinner tomorrow’ … ‘Cocktails being served …’ Inside the house – just the two of them, husband and wife… well, a baby or two or three … temporary sterility …
He shivered. Captain Hodder came round – ‘Stand down from emergency stations. All ranks below decks by midnight.’
The soldiers dispersed, mostly heading for the foredeck. Someone lit a cigarette, to be greeted by a furious bellow from First Sergeant Jesus Montoya, and a dull thud as of something hard being struck against a body. The cigarette went out.
A voice beside John said, ‘There sinks our innocence, with the Sandy Hook light.’
John recognized the voice and shape of Lieutenant Walden, a strange lank man of about thirty from somewhere in the Middle West.
John said, ‘You think the French girls will corrupt our men?’
‘That, of course,’ Walden said, ‘but much more … There’s a deep, universal corruption over there that they won’t recognize, because it looks like a mediaeval castle, or an ’08 Clos Vougeot, or a beguiling countess … beautiful, subtle, full of hidden decay … and it will corrupt them – you and me, too, of course … When America comes back home after this war, it will never be the same again. Over there, it will eat of the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Farewell, barefoot boy with cheek of tan!’
He wandered off along the deck. John thought, Walden’s a little crazy. But not very: for he himself had already eaten some of that fruit.
The six ships turned in concert, four points to starboard, beginning the irregular zig zag course they would follow all the way to St Nazaire. The destroyers on either bow leaned over to reach new positions farther on the flank: The destroyer astern hunted across the wakes, shuddering and heaving and shaking to the increasing thrust of the waves. Ice began to form on stanchions and bollards and railings, and on the decks. The fast troop convoy raced for France.
Guy Rowland pulled the stick gently back toward his stomach and the Sopwith began to climb, passing through six thousand feet over Ypres, heading east. The remaining aircraft of the flight followed their leader’s course, in stepped-up echelon behind and above hi
m. The desolate battlefields of Flanders slid back under the wing. He stole a glance down. During the long Ypres offensive God only knew how often he’d flown over here, when the weather permitted, and sometimes when it hadn’t. The shattered ruins of Broodseinde, Passchendaele, Poelcapelle, Nollehoek, Zonnebeke and a dozen others had grown sickeningly familiar to him, like ulcers in the bloodsoaked mud-stained corpse of the land.
He looked up and round. His job was to search for enemy planes up here, not try to imagine how his father was surviving down there … and he couldn’t imagine if he tried, even though he had several times visited the trenches. It was still impossible to imagine the reality.
He waggled his wings and heaved the Camel over in a gentle turn. But she could turn tight and sharp if she had to, and that was what made her a great scout … and a menace to the unwary. The Three Threes’ pilots had complained long and loud when their S.E. 5 As were taken away, and it became known that they were to be re-equipped with Sopwith Camels. They wanted Triplanes, instead – steady, manoeuvreable, predictable, easy to fly and a good sturdy fighter in battle. Guy had had his doubts, too, for the Camel came with an ominous reputation, of pilots killed, crashes for no apparent cause – especially on landing – spins when all seemed well – but a few days in the cockpit, and above all a dogfight with von Rackow’s Jasta 16, when Guy had shot down two Fokker Dr. I Triplanes in his new Camel, and damaged a third – those had convinced him that the same qualities which made it a tricky plane to fly made it an almost ideal machine for battle – the light touch on the controls, the instant reaction or even over-reaction, its nervous, darting mannerisms in flight. These qualities had saved his life, when one of von Rackow’s pilots had got on his tail while he was shooting down his second victim. He had only escaped by a climbing turn that stood the Camel on its tail, whence it slid down tail first two hundred feet, apparently out of control, before he eased it into a gentle spin, and a moment later, started climbing back to the fight …