by None
‘I should say the war is ending.’
Baron was amazed and annoyed by this remark.
‘Don’t talk such nonsense! Why, we’re scarcely in Belgium yet, and we’ve got to get to Berlin. The old Boche will make a stand at every river, especially the Rhine. We’re miles ahead of our transport and most of the artillery. You know we’re tired out – ought to have been relieved days ago. The colonel says we’re going so fast the relieving division can’t overtake us. A regular staff yarn…’
The motor despatch-rider had turned his machine and chugged off into the gloom. Ellerton sighed at Baron’s eloquent complaints. He more than half shared his pessimism about the duration of the war, though the Boches certainly were retreating in undisguised panic, and had made no attempt at a real stand for days. Still, you never knew with the old Boche. He had blown bridges, culverts, crossroads, with exemplary military destructiveness. Every railway they passed had each alternative rail most neatly blown about six inches – the maximum of destructiveness with the minimum of effort. The whole railway would have to be re-laid. They must be forty to sixty miles from rail-head. It certainly was impossible to fight even one more big battle at present… Ellerton sighed again.
‘I suppose you’re right. Probably they don’t want us to overrun our objective and get involved in a premature action. I’ll go myself and tell Warburton to bring his platoon back.’
‘All right. I’d better go and see the colonel again. He told me we were to continue the pursuit at dawn – I expect he’s changed his mind, too!’
And the agitated little man, still occasionally pushing up his helmet, plodded off irritatedly.
Ellerton found Warburton, a round-faced, yellow-haired young man, with a perpetual frown of perplexity giving verbose orders to a couple of sections.
‘Hullo, Ellerton. I say, there must be a Boche machine-gun post somewhere to our front. I sent out a couple of patrols, and Corporal Eliot was killed – damn nuisance, one of our best NCOs. I’m going out with a couple of sections to try and snaffle the post after dark.’
‘No, you’re not! There’s an order from Division just arrived – we’re to retire behind the Mons–Maubeuge road.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘God knows. But that’s the order.’
Warburton swore copiously.
‘And my best corporal’s killed!’
C Company officers bivouacked that night in a cold empty cottage, which however had the luxury of a roof and of an undamaged board floor to sleep on. Iron rations. Baron denounced the lack of organization in the ASC, with several pointed hints to Warburton, the Company Mess President. The night was very cold, and they shivered as they lay on the floor in their trench coats. Gusts of raw, damp air flowed into the room each time one of the sleeping officers was roused to relieve his predecessor on duty.
Ellerton took the two-to-four watch, after nearly four hours’ sleep. Seated on the only available chair, in front of a biscuit-box table with a guttering candle stuck in a bottle, the conscientious Baron was drearily bowed asleep over masses of Situation Reports, Ration Indents, Casualty Reports, and letters from and to relatives of men killed. Baron’s kindliness and paper fever involved him in long carefully docketed correspondence with the relatives of the dead; once, five minutes before zero hour,4 Ellerton had found him in a dugout agitatedly explaining by letter to an indignant parent why the pocket-knife was missing from the effects of a man killed two months before.
‘Why don’t you lie down, Baron? You’re worn out, old man, and you’re only nodding asleep there. Chuck that silly bumph, and go to sleep.’
Baron sat up with a jerk.
‘Wha’s time?’
‘Two o’clock.’
‘Tch, tch! And I must get all this done before dawn!’
Ellerton knew it was useless to argue further, and slowly got into his equipment. As he shut the door, he saw Baron was already beginning to nod again.
And Baron was not the only one who was tired. The whole battalion was tired, tired to a mortal indifference. The last newspapers they had seen, dating from the end of October, informed them they had won splendid victories. It was, of course, interesting to get news about this big war which was going on, but they were too much absorbed in their own job, and far too tired to give much attention to it.
The cold wind smote Ellerton’s cheek as he stumbled wearily along, with a weary, silent runner behind him. Overhead a wasted-looking moon sagged westwards, encumbered by heavy clouds. Ellerton was leg-weary, body-weary, mind-weary, heart-weary, so sick of the war that he had ceased to think about it, and simply plodded on, resigned to an eternity of trench duty, hopeless about the infernal thing ever ending. Even the sudden return to open warfare, even the large map outside Divisional Headquarters, almost daily marked with new bulging advances in blue pencil, failed to alter him. Shut inside the blinkers of duty as an infantry officer, his intelligence was dead or somnolent – he almost believed Baron’s imbecility about having to get to Berlin, which was only Baron’s conscientious feeling that the routine even of war must be carried out to the end predetermined by ‘the authorities’. Who the devil are ‘the authorities’, though, Ellerton reflected as he stumbled along? God knows. Anyhow it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Not a button. And talking of buttons, I must tell that idiot, Fen-church, that he forgot again to sew that fly-button on my slacks…
He came to the first of the three sentry positions, established about fifty yards from the main road. Damn funny, not having any trenches; so awkward and unprotected. The sentries, too, felt awkward without the customary fire-step and parapet… You never knew what might happen with the old Boche. Yet it was very quiet, unbelievably quiet. But for an occasional Very light and a little artillery fire to the left they might have been on night ops. in England.
‘Anything to report, Corporal?’
‘No, sir, all quiet, sir.’
‘Let the men rest as much as you can.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘You know we’re being relieved to-morrow?’
‘’Eard that tale before, sir.’
‘Well, there’s another division bivouacked just behind us. Captain Baron saw one of their officers at Battalion HQ. I think we’ve earned a few days’ rest.’
‘Men are worn out, sir, and them iron rations…’
‘I know, I know, but they’ll get hot food to-morrow, or the QM shall perish…’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Good-night, Corporal.’
‘Good-night, sir.’
Undoubtedly it was amazingly quiet. Ellerton peered through the dim air – not a light, not a bullet, not a shell, not a sound from the German army. A surprise attack pending? Or had they retreated faster than ever, and fallen back on another prepared line? True, their Siegfried line5 had proved a wash-out, a mere rough trench with scarcely any wire. But still, you never knew. He went back to Number I post, and warned the corporal to keep a good watch, and instantly report anything unusual. He repeated this order to the other posts.
How still it was! How slowly the time went! Only twenty minutes gone. The runner stumbled heavily and nearly fell. Poor devil, tired out.
‘Tired, Hogbin?’
‘Yessir, a bit, sir.’
‘All right, go and sleep. It’s so quiet I shan’t need you.’
‘Very good, sir, thank y’ very much, sir.’
He listened to the sound of the man’s heavy hobnailed boots on the cobbled side road. How awkward-animal a man is when he’s tired out. Good to be alone, though. Ellerton established a sort of beat for himself, more to keep awake than for any other reason. Quiet and cold. Nothing to report. The moon suddenly jumped into clear sky from behind a heavy cloud. He gazed eagerly in the direction of the enemy. Nothing but dim fields and the vague forms of trees. To the right was a sort of round valley, half-filled with very white mist, so level that it looked like cream in a large brown bowl…
He continued his beat.
>
An hour after dawn next morning, Ellerton was marching with Warburton at the head of Number 1 platoon on their way back to rest billets. Baron came jolting along on the Company Rosinante,6 which his prudent sedentary spirit preferred to the more sprightly animals offered by the transport officer. Ellerton fell out of the ranks to speak to him.
‘Just going along to Batt. HQ,’ explained Baron. ‘I’m taking those reports – whoa! you brute!’– (the horse had tossed its head) –‘the runners are so careless.’
He patted his buttoned pocket, which was bulging with documents.
‘And, by the bye, Ellerton, I ought to strafe you. In the casualty report for the last action, you didn’t mark how the men were hit. Don’t you remember there’s an order that casualties are to be marked “G” for gas, “S” for shell, “B” for bullet, and so on?’
Ellerton laughed.
‘Rot! How the hell are we to know? We can’t stay behind to discover how each casualty happens. If Whitehall are so keen on statistics, why the hell don’t they come and collect ’em themselves?’
‘All very well, old man, but an order’s an order.’
‘So long, old man, get us a good billet.’
‘So long.’
Baron bobbed off uneasily ahead, and Ellerton rejoined the first platoon. The men were singing one of the worst of their drawling songs:
‘ It’s a long, loong traiiil a-wiiinding,
Into the laaand of my dreeeeams,
Where the niiightingaaales are siiinging…’
Suddenly, round a bend in the road, appeared a staff officer on a chestnut, as handsome and fiery as Baron’s Rosinante was ugly and tame. Ellerton hastily called the men to attention, but before they could unsling their rifles for the salute the staff officer waved his hand and shouted:
‘Armistice was signed at six this morning, and comes into force at eleven. The war’s over.’
A languid cheer came from the platoon.
‘’Oo-ray.’
And then, as the staff man rode on, they at once continued:
‘ It’s a long, looong traiiil a-wiiinding…’
Ellerton was amazed at their phlegm. He turned his head aside so that Warburton should not see his emotion. So it was over, really over, incredibly over! In a flash a dozen scenes of the war leaped into his mind, a dozen occasions when death had seemed inevitable, memories of the interminable months when it had seemed impossible that the war could ever end… It was like the gift of another life! It was another life. Instead of living from minute to minute with the menace perpetually staring at you, instead of getting up and lying down with death… Incredible.
He would not be killed. Warburton and Baron and Hogbin would not be killed. No one else in the battalion would be killed. Incredible. A thrill of almost painful exultation went through him, as if the first rush of returning hope and vitality were a hurt like blood flowing back into a crushed limb. Then with a worse, almost unendurable pang, he thought of the millions of men of many nations who would never feel that ecstasy, who were gone for ever, rotting in desolate battlefields and graveyards all over the world. He turned his head further from Warburton to hide the tears which, to his amazement, came into his eyes. Would they dare to ‘maffick’7 in London and Paris? Probably. Well, let them. A lot of cheering idiots in an unlimited cemetery would make a good emblem for the first quarter of the twentieth century. Perhaps the men’s quietness and lack of demonstration meant that they too felt this – they were extraordinarily quick now in refusing to be taken in by humbug. Ellerton (like them) was indeed quietly and deeply grateful that the long torture was over, but neither he nor they could join with the Captains and the Kings in shouting for the Victory. The only victory that had resulted was in fact the victory of death over life, of stupidity over intelligence, of hatred over humanity. It must never happen again, never, never. It was the duty of the survivors to the dead so to warn the world that this abomination never occurred again. Even the dullest of them would see that and help. He turned to Warburton:
‘Well, what are you thinking about it all?’
From the more than ever perplexed frown on Warburton’s babyish face, Ellerton expected some revelation of deep emotion, perhaps a solemn pledge to labour for the abolition of war. What Warburton said, however, was:
‘I’m wondering if Baron’d lend me the horse. If I could ride over to the Divisional Canteen I might be able to get some better grub for us.’
ANNE PERRY
HEROES
Nights were always the worst, and in winter they lasted from dusk at about four o’clock until dawn again towards eight the following morning. Sometimes star shells lit the sky, showing the black zigzags of the trenches stretching as far as the eye could see to left and right. Apparently now they went right across France and Belgium all the way from the Alps to the Channel. But Joseph was only concerned with this short stretch of the Ypres Salient.
In the gloom near him someone coughed, a deep, hacking sound coming from down in the chest. They were in the support line, farthest from the front, the most complex of the three rows of trenches. Here were the kitchens, the latrines and the stores and mortar positions. Fifteen-foot shafts led to caves about five paces wide and high enough for most men to stand upright. Joseph made his way in the half-dark now, the slippery wood under his boots and his hands feeling the mud walls, held up by timber and wire. There was an awful lot of water. One of the sumps must be blocked.
There was a glow of light ahead and a moment later he was in the comparative warmth of the dugout. There were two candles burning and the brazier gave off heat and a sharp smell of soot. The air was blue with tobacco smoke, and a pile of boots and greatcoats steamed a little. Two officers sat on canvas chairs talking together. One of them recited a joke – gallows humour, and they both laughed. A gramophone sat silent on a camp table, and a small pile of records of the latest music-hall songs was carefully protected in a tin box.
‘Hello, Chaplain,’ one of them said cheerfully. ‘How’s God these days?’
‘Gone home on sick leave,’ the other answered quickly, before Joseph could reply. There was disgust in his voice, but no intended irreverence. Death was too close here for men to mock faith.
‘Have a seat,’ the first offered, waving towards a third chair. ‘Morris got it today. Killed outright. That bloody sniper again.’
‘He’s somewhere out there, just about opposite us,’ the second said grimly. ‘One of those blighters the other day claimed he’d got forty-three for sure.’
‘I can believe it,’ Joseph answered, accepting the seat. He knew better than most what the casualties were. It was his job to comfort the terrified, the dying, to carry stretchers, often to write letters to the bereaved. Sometimes he thought it was harder than actually fighting, but he refused to stay back in the comparative safety of the field hospitals and depots. This was where he was most needed.
‘Thought about setting up a trench raid,’ the major said slowly, weighing his words and looking at Joseph. ‘Good for morale. Make it seem as if we were actually doing something. But our chances of getting the blighter are pretty small. Only lose a lot of men for nothing. Feel even worse afterwards.’
The captain did not add anything. They all knew morale was sinking. Losses were high, the news bad. Word of terrible slaughter seeped through from the Somme and Verdun and all along the line right to the sea. Physical hardship took its toll, the dirt, the cold, and the alternation between boredom and terror. The winter of 1916 lay ahead.
‘Cigarette?’ The major held out his pack to Joseph.
‘No thanks,’ Joseph declined with a smile. ‘Got any tea going?’
They poured him a mugful, strong and bitter, but hot. He drank it, and half an hour later made his way forward to the open air again and the travel trench. A star shell exploded high and bright. Automatically he ducked, keeping his head below the rim. They were about four feet deep, and in order not to provide a target, a man had to move in a half-crou
ch. There was a rattle of machine-gun fire out ahead and, closer to, a thud as a rat was dislodged and fell into the mud beside the duckboards.
Other men were moving about close to him. The normal order of things was reversed here. Nothing much happened during the day. Trench repair work was done, munitions shifted, weapons cleaned, a little rest taken. Most of the activity was at night, most of the death.
‘’Lo, Chaplain,’ a voice whispered in the dark. ‘Say a prayer we get that bloody sniper, will you?’
‘Maybe God’s a Jerry?’ someone suggested in the dark.
‘Don’t be stupid!’ a third retorted derisively. ‘Everyone knows God’s an Englishman!1 Didn’t they teach you nothing at school?’
There was a burst of laughter. Joseph joined in. He promised to offer up the appropriate prayers and moved on forward. He had known many of the men all his life. They came from the same Northumbrian town as he did, or the surrounding villages. They had gone to school together, nicked apples from the same trees, fished in the same rivers, and walked the same lanes.
It was a little after six when he reached the firing trench beyond whose sandbag parapet lay no man’s land with its four or five hundred yards of mud, barbed wire, and shell holes. Half a dozen burned tree stumps looked in the sudden flares like men. Those grey wraiths could be fog, or gas.
Funny that in summer this blood- and horror-soaked soil could still bloom with honeysuckle, forget-me-nots, and wild larkspur, and most of all with poppies. You would think nothing would ever grow there again.
More star shells went up, lighting the ground, the jagged scars of the trenches black, the men on the fire steps with rifles on their shoulders illuminated for a few, blinding moments. Sniper shots rang out.
Joseph stood still. He knew the terror of the night watch out beyond the parapet, crawling around in the mud. Some of them would be at the head of saps out from the trench, most would be in shell holes, surrounded by heavy barricades of wire. Their purpose was to check enemy patrols for unusual movement, any signs of increased activity, as if there might be an attack planned.