Phillip raised his head to the parapet weeds and looked down a valley to the German lines about a mile away. He saw, on ground ascending to the south, the belts of 1917 German wire streaking with rusty brown the withered grasses of the valley side. In the distance lay green meadows, in which a glint was the St. Quentin Canal. Through field-glasses, freckles of red turned out to be the broken roofs of a village seeming to float on the midday mist.
To the right, the skyline of the old French position was slightly roughened by the remains of a village blown up, said the Verderers adjutant, in the retreat to the Hindenburg Line a year before.
“When last I had a platoon, some years ago now, the front line trenches were held fairly strongly,” said Phillip.
“You had wonderful targets, I believe,” replied the other, glancing at the riband of the 1914 Star on Phillip’s breast.
They moved on to an outpost. The Verderers C.O. asked the platoon commander questions.
“What are your duties in the event of an attack?”
“Each of my posts has orders to withdraw separately to the main line of defence in rear, sir.”
“You mean to The Aviary?”
“No, sir. To the main defence line of the forward zone.”
“Where is that in relation to the battalion defence zone?”
“It lies in front of the support line, sir.”
“You mean the Bird Cage?”
“No, sir. The Bird Cage lies behind the support line.”
“Do your section commanders know their lines of withdrawal in the event of an attack in force?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve rehearsed them in the dark, wearing gasmasks.”
“How many times?”
“Twice, sir.”
“What is your name?”
“Longmire, sir.”
The colonel of the Verderers turned to his adjutant. “See that every other platoon east of the main defensive line practises withdrawal wearing gas-masks once every night at staggered times, will you?”
They went back. ‘Spectre’ again refused whiskey, asking for soda-water with lime-juice. The Verderer’s Colonel, who had a slight Midlands accent and wore waxed moustaches, urged him to have some whiskey instead; and when ‘Spectre’ said he never drank it, remarked, “Go on? I should have thought”—with a glance at his guest’s gongs—“that a Band of Hope tipple wasn’t much in your line.”
“I find it keeps me in good shape, Colonel,” replied ‘Spectre’ equably.
On the way back he looked suddenly tired, thought Phillip. The two sat down in a passing-place for stretcher-bearers. The sun was now warm, the air buoyant. “Well, Phillip, what did you think of the defensive measures?”
“May I speak my mind, Colonel? Well, to tell the truth, I was rather surprised to see so few dug-outs, but then I understand that there has been no time so far to make them.”
“What else occurred to you?”
“I thought that some of the keeps sheltering company headquarters wouldn’t stand a direct hit by a four-two, let alone a five-nine. Then, the machine gun emplacements, although camouflaged, are cruder than in 1916. I expected pill-boxes with at least two feet of ferro-concrete head-cover. Those I saw had only corrugated iron sheets over them, held down by sandbags. Others in The Aviary are still only sites marked by notice boards.”
“What do you deduce from that?”
“I couldn’t help thinking that it was a poor copy of the German redoubt system on the Somme, less the deep dug-outs, less the concrete, less the ten-foot trenches with fire-steps, less the trench-sides revetted with willow hurdles.”
‘Spectre’ was silent, then he murmured, “I will tell you in confidence that in the Fifth Army there are only eleven divisions holding a forty-two mile front. There is one division in reserve. As you know, Haig has been systematically starved of drafts from home. In spite of having to break up one battalion in nearly every infantry brigade, all divisions are far below strength.”
Phillip recalled that ‘Spectre’ had had a Staff billet at G.H.Q. until three months previously. It all seemed pretty bad. “What about the Yanks? Couldn’t one of their battalions be put in with every British brigade, as we Terriers were in 1914? We’d have been lost without the regulars to nurse us at First Ypres.”
“I heard that Haig suggested that to General Pershing, without result. You can’t put an old head on young shoulders. No, the trouble with reinforcements is that Haig has many enemies, who think he’s a fool because he won’t compete with the glib tongues of the arriviste politicians, or play off one against another in the Frocks’ game. So here we are, short of men to complete our defences. Even barbed wire is hard to get, and at a time when it is known in Whitehall that the Germans have brought up more than forty assault divisions, including those in support, opposite Gough’s eleven depleted and tired divisions holding forty-two miles of front. Five fresh Germans against one tired man in the army of what you call the Mud-balled Fox.”
“I heard General Mowbray tell Lord Satchville that, just before I came out.” In momentary panic he thought, It’s going to be another ‘red little, dead little army’. Should he go sick, and get away in time? But it was no good in England any more. God, he was still windy.
“What a thing it is,” went on ‘Spectre’, “for a Commander-in-Chief to have a positive enemy in front of him and a negative enemy behind his back! They say that the onlooker sees most of the game. He does; but unless he has experience of playing the game, he will not understand what the antagonists are going through. But that is the classic pattern of human life in all known literature. Well, we’ll have to make a fight of it where we are now, and so allow Gough to withdraw his main forces behind the line of the Somme. Yes, I said behind the Somme: for it’s no good holding the banks of canals and rivers, they merely provide easy targets for enemy gunners. Open warfare does not necessarily mean disastrous warfare. On the contrary.”
He tried to get rid of flatulence, while Phillip stared at a lark in the sky. “I didn’t want that lime-juice, but if one refuses a drink some of these new colonels take it as an offence.”
“Sir, did you say Gough’s main forces?”
‘Spectre’ laughed drily. “Yes. His main forces consist of one division in reserve—perhaps eight thousand bayonets—against the stosstruppen of perhaps twenty divisionen making the original assault, and reinforced by twenty more in support. Yes, Fifth Army has one division in reserve. But there are G.H.Q. divisions in further reserve, no doubt.”
“Then it may be a good thing if we have to retire some distance, because then Haig will be able to counter-attack, as the Germans did at Cambrai, into the base-angles of the re-entrant?”
“Precisely. Open warfare is necessary for victory.”
Peace came upon Phillip. He sat at ease in the warm sun. All would be well while ‘Spectre’ was with them. Gossamers were now crossing the tops of the communication trench. Pictures of faraway springtimes appeared and faded in his mind, while into the air arose the sounds of pick and shovel, men talking, a tenor voice singing Roses of Picardy. He saw that Westy’s face looked paler than usual, and wondered if he were like Moggers, tired to his very bones—an eye out, a hand gone; shell splinters through left thigh, calf, and ankle; bullet through top of lung. He had been with ‘Spectre’ when he had copped that lot; what the earlier wounds, at Festubert, and then at Hooge, were he did not know. Could it be that he had been emasculated? Was that why he had been in hopeless love with Frances, and later on, apparently unable to do anything with Sasha, the free-for-all girl at Flossie Flowers’ hotel? Since that New Year’s Eve party, when Westy had come into his bedroom and found Sasha there, and had walked out of the hotel, Westy had been, not exactly distant, but aloof. The fact that he was incapacitated would not alter his longing to be loved, only his power, or potence they called it, to be natural. Was that his secret, the ‘grievous wound’ of King Arthur before the sword Excalibur was lost forever?
“Do you know what th
is war is about, Phillip?”
“Well, I don’t believe what the newspapers say, Westy.”
“It is caused by the vindictive self-will in France, in England, and above all in Germany.”
“Why above all in Germany?”
“Because of their geographical position, and large tracts of sandy soil which will not grow wheat. Hence the Germanic migrations of the Middle Ages.”
A gossamer touched Phillip’s forehead. He looked across the bay to where Westy, his eye closed, sat with uncovered head a little forward, and wrists crossed on lap. The still figure was to windward of the gossamers, and in fancy he held to the thread across his forehead as coming from Westy. He remembered the myriad gossamers making tunnels to the sun on the stubble fields around Billericay in Essex, where he had gone to the funeral of the Zeppelin crew burned to death with their craft so long ago. Poor Westy, he thought, closing his eyes against stinging moisture; he was worn out, but with a mind still as clear as glass, and as rare as unbroken glass upon the battlefields. As adjutant, he must take care of the old fellow.
Had gossamer thought passed between them? For the pale blue eye opened. “Surely you were boarded B2 until the middle of March, Phillip?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“So you applied for another board, did you?”
Phillip hesitated, then told the truth. “I put down my own name on the ‘A’ list.”
“Why?”
“Well, sir, you know how it is.”
“I do know how it is. But do you know, I wonder?”
He did not know what to think, much less what to say, at the peremptory tone.
“I—I think so, sir.”
“I told you before that you call me ‘colonel’ unless we are on parade. I will be frank. You were in a position of trust, and you took advantage of that position in the orderly room at Landguard to send in a false return?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Did you connect your action with the fact that, while living with your people in London, you gave the address of your next-of-kin to be in Gaultshire? Now think of the question! Have you connected those two actions of yours? There is no objection, in so far as the Regiment is concerned, why you shouldn’t choose to come from the county. There may be good reasons for it—feelings of consideration, for example, in order to avoid the direct impact of possible bad news.”
When there was no reply to this question he went on, “It is my affair to ask about this, as your Colonel, Phillip. For what a Commanding Officer has to determine above all is, how far are his officers to be relied upon.”
The spectre of his own weakness, dismissed from his mind innumerable times, with accompanying uneasy thought that one day he would be found out to be bogus, possessed Phillip. Now it had happened: he was seen for what he really was, a liar and ashamed of his parents and his birth-place.
“You’ve met my parents, haven’t you, Phillip?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Oh, drop the ‘colonel’ when we are alone. I am Westy to you. As you know, my people keep a pub in the City. My father, before that, was a soldier in the ranks. He joined the Army because he could not find work. His three sons went in due course to the Board School. One of his sons, through scholarships, reached the University. There he met other men belonging to a class above his own. One day this diffident undergraduate overheard, by accident, one of those young gentlemen say to another, ‘One cannot possibly ask West to join us, he isn’t a gentleman.’ Now I’d like to ask you this: Would you say that remark was snobbish?”
“No, Westy, because it was based on the facts of living as they were then.”
“In what way?”
“Different classes have different interests, and different perspectives. Just as the ordinary soldier in the ranks can’t really enter into the world of the regimental officer, or the ordinary regimental officer enter the world of the staff, anyway at Corps or Army level.”
“Good! Did you think that out for yourself?”
“No, Westy. You told me when we were walking up to Broodseinde last October!”
“Good! Now the true Phillip is speaking. Tell me, do you think that remark I overheard about my not being a gentleman had any affect on my home life?”
“No, I don’t think it would have had any effect on you.”
“Well, it did. From that moment I became conscious of myself as others saw me. I watched myself. I tried to listen to my voice. Once I even went to have a gramophone record made of it, privately, but funked it when I got to the place. I became critically conscious of my parents, in my mind at least. But I loved them, and so would not have had them different from what they were. Do you understand?”
Phillip nodded, unable to face the other man. He dismissed a thought to look piteous, or contrite. If he was going to be sent to a company, as a platoon commander, well, that was that. If he were killed, he was killed. But he wasn’t ashamed of Father, really; only of his ways, and his——. He could not face his thoughts, which were beyond the thought of death.
“Fear,” said ‘Spectre’, “can take many forms. Imposture, including braggart bravery on occasion. Then there is fear of not being good enough, which leads to hybris, the building up of a false self-showing. The war was brought about, one might almost say, by the massed falseness of the European nations. The truth, of course, is that of Christ. ‘Thy neighbour as thyself’, not to be scorned for one’s own faults showing in him, but to be helped, through one’s self-understanding, which is love, or God.”
Phillip still sat with averted head. ‘Spectre’ knew what he was feeling.
“Don’t look so unhappy, Phillip. The fact that you have adopted Gaultshire is in itself an indication that you felt more at home there in the formative years of your childhood.”
Phillip looked up gratefully. “It was a wonderful place, Westy! Like a story book. The country, I mean, and the brook, and the Duke’s moors. My Mother, too, was so happy there. She came from the county,” he added.
“Phillip, I’ve been damnably clumsy, do forgive me. I think I ‘see Shelley plain’. That is all I wanted to see, only I approached with a boss shot.” He crossed the trench to put a hand upon the younger man’s shoulder. “Now tell me, how do you feel about being with the infantry, after your long spell as a transport officer?”
“I think I shall be all right, Colonel Westy!”
“I’m scared stiff sometimes, I don’t mind telling you, Phil. It’s only the thought of the men that keeps one going.” He sat down and clasped his hands under his chin, shutting his eyes as though praying.
The tenor voice had ceased its plaintive singing of Roses of Picardy, to ‘Spectre’ an ironic longing for a land of myth: did the singer realise that he was in Picardy? Gossamers were now glinting red and blue as they twisted and drew out.
“Hundreds of thousands of money spiders crossing the Bird Cage, Phillip, all trying to get their money out while the going is good.”
He remembered his father telling them as children, on one of the Sunday walks to Cutler’s Pond, about the gossamer spider, which he called Linyphia. Father had used Latin names for butterflies, too, which he had collected as a young man. He saw himself on a chair taking Father’s butterflies from their wooden boxes. What an awful boy he had been to poor old Father. Father telling them on that Sunday walk how each Linyphia rose up on a silken kite, first having climbed to the top of a grass bent or dead thistle, and the warm air took him up, up, up, away, away, hundreds of feet up in the silent singing wind from the south, now drifting across Picardy and Artois into Flanders and away, away, to the chalk cliffs of the coast, and over the sea to England. But millions would die on the journey. How strange everything was when you thought about it, strange and almost terrifying; but if one could only see it glass-clear, one could also sense beyond the gossamers, to the spirit of eternal beauty.
“I never thanked you for what you did for me on the Passchendaele crest last October, Phillip.”
They s
at peacefully in the warm sun, three yards of intensely white chalk between them. How quiet it was, no sound of gunfire. The last day of winter, tomorrow it would be Spring, the twenty-first of March, the sun climbing higher every day, and giving everything a smaller shadow until noon: and ‘the first minute after noon is night’. Who wrote that? It was startling; it was like the stroke of death. Had he read it in The Oxford Book? Ah—
Love is a full glowing and constant light
But his first minute after noon is night.
Uncle Hugh used to say that everything had its shadow, and your shadow went everywhere with you; it stayed with you, it foreshortened when you were asleep, it arose with you, but when you were dead it did not last long, but broke up with you. Yes, it remained your shadow until leaving you it was given back to the earth of your genesis, and then your earth-bound self drifted on like a gossamer, beyond the wooden crosses of the dead.
*
When they got back to the quarry ‘Spectre’ said, ‘Will you put yourself in Part Two Orders tonight to be adjutant with the rank of acting Captain, Phillip.”
Mar. 20. Wed. Moggers today had steam-roller painted black and yellow stripes, with Gaults. badge on front. Chinks poshing up camp. Brigadier and others to dinner, including Moggers and M.O. I put up my third pip!
That was the last entry Phillip made in his personal diary while he remained in France. The Brigadier brought one of his new colonels, recently sent up from the Pool, who seemed very anxious to hear every word spoken by so experienced a soldier as ‘Spectre’ West. It was his first battalion command. Also among the guests was the colonel commander of the brigade of 18-pounder field-guns which covered the right flank of the Bird Cage, and the Brigade padre who, since he wore the riband of the Military Medal, had served in the ranks. Towards i o p.m., as they were playing bridge, the clerk on duty in the adjoining office came in with a message marked Urgent. Phillip, asking to be excused, unfolded it while the other three at his table put down the cards. His heart raced as he stared at the single code-word RAINBOW. Should he interrupt the game, now that Prepare for Attack had come over the wire? Better wait. He took up his cards, hardly knowing what he was playing. The game came to an end without his revoking.
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