After reading a third of the paper Richard took out his half-hunter gold watch and compared its time with that of the clock on the marble shelf above the fire-place. “Eight o’clock, Hetty. Time for you to forsake me, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I’ve just remembered, how silly of me to forget! Might I see the thing about Bonar Law——?”
“But surely your father read it to you?”
“Oh no, Dickie! Papa came in to talk over an advertisement for a housekeeper.”
“H’m,” said Richard, remembering the circumstances of the last housekeeper’s sudden departure. “You’d better be careful——” His sense of good taste prevented him from saying what he thought.
“Oh yes, of course, naturally! But perhaps when the better weather comes——” She, too, stopped her words, lest he think the worse of her father, should it mean Aunt Marian’s departure.
“Here you are,” he said, offering the evening paper, which had remained beside him on the table. “You worry yourself needlessly. Why didn’t you say you wanted it before?”
Knowing that he liked to read bits from the paper, she asked him to tell her what it was, and got the reply, “Better read it for yourself, then there can be no mistake about the need for a compromise peace with that old woman Asquith kowtowing to Prussian militarists!” And feeling better, Richard dropped the match-box on the floor for Zippy to try to hook open. Soon the box was skating all over the linoleum, the cat playing happily while knowing that sooner or later the box would be opened by Dickie, a name it knew as well as its own.
I may tell the House that this attack has been launched on the very part of our line which we were informed would be attacked by the enemy if an attack were undertaken at all. Only three days ago we received information at the Cabinet from G.H.Q. in France that they had definitely come to the conclusion that an attack was going to be launched immediately. I do not feel justified in saying that it has not come as a surprise, and those responsible for our forces have foreseen, and have throughout believed that if such an attack came, we should well be able to meet it. Nothing that has happened gives us in this country any cause whatever for additional anxiety.
She could not understand what Bonar Law, the Leader of the House of Commons, meant by these words, except in the last two lines, which relieved her feelings; and with some cheerfulness, which Richard did not fail to notice, she went out of the room and by the back way into her father’s house to play piquet.
*
As Phillip made his way from shell-hole to shell-hole bullets were coming from all directions. He passed a howitzer being pulled on to the road by a caterpillar tractor. Wounded men were lying about. He spoke to many, saying, ‘Help is coming’, while wondering what he could do to keep his promise. Very lights were white-blurring through the mist to his left front as he hastened, sometimes lying down at the imminent shriek of a shell, on the way to the Quarry. There he delivered ‘Spectre’s’ letter, and gave what information he could to the Brigadier, including the fact that the Germans appeared to be behind the right flank. Then he went across to the Aid Post, where the M.O. and his orderlies were obviously overworked. He returned to Brigade headquarters, and after a drink of hot sweet tea said he must be getting back. The Brigade-major told him to take it easy, and stand by for the time being.
At 8.30 p.m. the Brigadier discussed with his Brigade-major a message which had been brought by despatch-rider, The Battle Zone will be held to the last man.
“Sir——” began Phillip, but the Brigadier impatiently flipped away words with his hand.
“Sorry, sir.” He went outside the sand-bagged shelter, and suddenly felt very cold. Mogger’s arrival was cheering, until Moggers said that ‘Pluggy’ Marsden had been killed by a shell that morning.
“I am sure that we ought to retire, Moggers——”
“Now don’t try and do ‘Aig’s job for ’im, Lampo.”
He left Moggers. At 9.14 p.m. Allen appeared. He reported that the Germans were in the right flank redoubt. The Aviary was under heavy m.g. and mortar fire from two sides. He was sent back with the Brigadier’s order to hold on.
“Can’t I go, too?” Phillip asked the Brigade-major.
“Not at the moment, Maddison.”
Deep depression overcame Phillip. He passed a cold night in the Quarry, wondering off and on if ‘Spectre’s’ letter to the Brigadier contained an adverse report.
At dawn mist lay thickly, hiding all objects beyond forty yards. The Brigade-major snowed him a message from Division, signed by Brendon, saying that every opportunity should be taken to counter-attack the enemy probably assembling under cover of fog. “Can’t you see old Shotbags picking his teeth after breakfast, while wondering if his effort to win the war will get him a gong, Maddison?”
Phillip said ‘Huh’, while thinking: What is happening to Westy? It was senseless to allow them all to be killed. That was what the Germans wanted. He recalled a newspaper phrase—‘the anvil of Verdun’.
Shortly after 11.0 a.m. a motorcycle despatch rider appeared through the salvoes of five-nines and shrapnel now regularly plastering the road. It was a Fifth Army Order ‘to all commands’. The B-m. showed it to Phillip.
In the event of serious hostile attack all troops will fight rear-guard actions back to forward line of Rear Zone (Green line) stop Most important that all battalions should keep in touch with each other and carry out retirement in complete co-operation with each other message ends.
“That’s what we’ve been waiting for, Maddison. Will you get it through to ‘Spectre’?”
Papers were being brought out for burning. Phillip was slinging bandoliers of S.A.A. over his shoulders when a grey-faced subaltern, accompanied by three other walking wounded came into the Quarry and incoherently, through chattering teeth, managed to get out that a German machine-gun was covering the exit from the Belvedere. With the Brigade-major’s permission Phillip set off with Sergeant Tonks carrying one of the two Lewis guns which had been set up above the Quarry to cover the road. He took a canvas pannier, with spare drums and a couple of Mills bombs. Some time later, after nipping from shell-hole to shell-hole, they heard, shockingly near in the mist, the shattering reports of a German gun.
Writhing over the grass in the direction of the noise, they saw it mounted on its sled on the edge of a crater. Tonks sited and fired a drum right into the back of the team. Pushing himself forward, all teeth and sweat and fixed staring eyes, Phillip flung himself into a shell-hole and pulling out the pin of a Mills bomb stood up to throw it after counting off three seconds. After the explosion he looked up and saw a large dog twisting round and round. It seemed to be biting itself near two Germans holding up their hands. Wrenching free his revolver he went forward, beating out with his teeth the tune of the blonde who came from Eden by way of Sweden. Then he was looking down at the knocked-out gun, its barrel ragged and steaming beside Germans writhing or still. He became aware of two sets of held-up arms, and from him came a hysterical cry Mein prächtige kerls!
Tonks came up. The two prisoners were young and small, with oversize coal-scuttle helmets. Tonks said, lifting back his tin hat, “Would you believe it, sir, that’s what’s been pushing our boys around!”
The dog was tearing at its own intestines, its muzzle was bloody, it was yelping. Then he saw a wounded German turning over to draw a pistol. He shot him in the head, then took a pot shot at the dog’s head. He missed, felt wretched because the bullet had broken the lower jaw. Its screams were unnerving; he shot it from two feet, it rolled about, and went limp. “Message dog,” said Tonks. “Poor sod,” as he took the pistol from the dead German. “I’ll have that,” said Phillip. It was a Parabellum, with a leather wallet of ammunition. He gave his Webley to Tonks. Meanwhile men were beginning to scramble out of the end of the communication trench and coming towards them in the mist. He placed some in an arc around the exit to give covering fire if necessary.
All had happened so quickly and easily that it seemed scarc
ely to be over. But a salvo of whizzbangs scattering chalk brought back the need to hustle.
“Quick, you fellows!”
They were the survivors of three battalions, from both Bird Cage and Aviary.
“You take charge, corporal! To the Quarry! Now you! You! You! Back you go. Keep together under the senior N.C.O. Sort yourselves out later on. Now you! You! You!” He waited for the last men to come out. To his immense relief, ‘Spectre’ was among them.
“Divide these men into groups and put each group under an officer or senior N.C.O. and tell them to make their own way back to the Quarry.”
“I have already done so, sir.”
When they got to the Quarry, the Brigade staff had left. Then down the road appeared a German squad, marching at ease.
“Do we want them, sir?” asked Tonks.
“No,” said ‘Spectre’.
Tonks fired from his hip, the figures scattered into the fog.
*
It was growing dark when they reached the Green Line. There they stopped short, to see a position marked by up-turned sods with occasional notice-boards. So much for the bloody dago slackers of the White City! Having cursed them, ‘Spectre’ ordered pits to be scraped out with entrenching tools. There was some relief when Moggers brought up a hot meal. “The Boche is through down south.” By this time, 10 p.m., stragglers from other units had been embodied in the battalion, while patrols had been sent out to get in touch with units on the flanks. The right-wing patrol came back to report “No-one within a mile,” so the two remaining Lewis guns were posted to form a defensive flank facing south.
It was curiously silent in the mist. Where was Brigade? An officer patrol had failed to find the new headquarters.
“The trouble with us,” said ‘Spectre’ to Phillip, as supper was being prepared, “is that our tactics of defence are out-of-date. We were ordered to form a defensive flank to cover the ground left open by the retirement of the Irish on our right. This in effect meant a narrowing of The Aviary, because we had to draw in Bill Kidd’s company. So the gap was widened, allowing more Boche to get past. We were held in by that Boche machine gun at the Belevedere. It was fortunate that you came up at the right moment.”
“I brought the order to withdraw, after the Brigadier had sent up Allen telling you to hold fast.”
“I anticipated it. There is no point in allowing one’s forces to be neutralised.”
“You know, sir, I couldn’t help thinking when you told me in the Bird Cage——” He stopped. The thought had gone, with his vitality. He felt cold and dispirited.
Boon put out two enamel mugs of tea thick with condensed milk. With the glow of the drink came optimism, to ‘Spectre’ as well as himself apparently, for he said, “What were you going to say, Phillip?”
“The idea has always been ‘to stand fast and kill Germans’. But surely if we had a planned retreat, it would put the Alley-man at a disadvantage? I remember when we got through the Hindenburg Line at Cambrai the Germans drove into the flanks of the salient we’d made in their line, and cut off a lot of our troops. Therefore, if we went back a long way now, wouldn’t we be in a position to do the same to them on a big scale?”
“That’s the classic movement, Phillip, that every Commander dreams of. But the question now is, how much ground can we afford to give up, before the limited railway supply system comes under range of the Boche guns?”
“Back to the line of July the First?”
“Yes, but no farther. Amiens, and its railway junctions, is the vital town. By the way, I want to talk to your two prisoners, when they’ve had their grub.”
After a good dose of rum in their tea, the two were ready to talk. ‘Spectre’ spoke to them in German.
“Vogelkäfig! Nein, die Schlachthofe, Herr Oberst!”
“Ja! Ein Uberschwemmung von Englishes, Herr Oberst!”
After the interrogation ‘Spectre’ said, “They say, in effect, Phillip, that the Bird Cage is misnamed. It should have been Slaughterhouse. The other man’s description is more picturesque, ‘the Flood-breaker’. I should call it a temporary dam, that got washed away! Apparently they lost a lot of men, but prisoners treated well usually try to please. They belong to the 440th Reserve Regiment, you may note. Not the leading Stosstruppem, but the second-rate followers-up. They say their transport is largely civilian carts and farm waggons. Even dogs are used to draw ammunition in those little Belgian trolley carts. They’ll have some fun presently, if we go back behind the Somme battlefield, and they have to cross it. Water, too, should be quite a problem.”
Tonks, acting R.S.M., was given the pass word for the sentry groups. Men were lying about, sleeping, when Phillip accompanied ‘Spectre’ round the posts, to be challenged in unfamiliar dialects.
“Oo are yer?”
“‘Stag’.”
“Commanding officer.”
“Pass, Stags.”
“’Alt, thar!”
“The voice of Nottingham,” said ‘Spectre’. “Are you the the Foresters?”
“Yaas, sa’.”
“A fine regiment,” said ‘Spectre’, moving on.
“Oo be ’ee?”
“Stag.”
“Aw, you’m a-right.”
“Almost we might be in a Dartmoor fog with Sherlock Holmes,” said ‘Spectre’. “No need to tell me that you come from Devonshire!”
“Aye aye, zur, zurenuff!”
“One of the best of the line regiments,” he remarked to Phillip, who was admiring the way ‘Spectre’ aroused interest in these unknown men.
At 1 a.m. when they returned he told Phillip, “I’m going to lie down for an hour. Wake me if anything comes in.”
There was a challenge, a light held low. A party approached.
The senior Colonel said he had taken over when the Brigadier had been wounded in the Quarry. Maps were opened. While they were talking Phillip prepared to sign and detach the casualty and other returns, already written out by Tonks in a Field Message book, and to hand them over to the staff-captain accompanying Colonel Calvert. It was only when the party had gone on that he remembered the two prisoners who were now sleeping curled up together.
Battalion H.Q. was chosen, two hundred yards behind the Green Line, in a sunken farm-track four feet or so below the level of the surrounding arable fields.
“What is our strength?”
“Five officers and one hundred and eighty-six other ranks, Colonel. I had no details of casualties, so I returned the total of eighteen officers and four hundred and thirty-three other ranks as missing.”
Remotely behind their position, from the south, flares were rising so far away as to belong almost to another war. At 3 a.m. a despatch rider thudded up with written particulars of a new line to be occupied ‘in the event of an ordered withdrawal’. With it was a rough cyclostyled map, marking the line in blue, west of the Canal du Nord. Phillip acknowledged the message, and decided to let ‘Spectre’ sleep on. Should he send out scouts to find the position of the new line? But could they do so in the fog? Everything was so silent—the calm before the storm. The acting Brigadier had said that fresh German divisions had been put into the line.
Just before 6 a.m. the first low-flying Fokker biplanes were heard above the mist. ‘Spectre’ said, “I don’t want any of these aircraft to be fired at, and tell all company commanders to withdraw their men two hundred paces to the rear. This position is certain to be marked on their gunners’ maps.”
They had hardly got back when shells began to drone down. They lay in extended order across a grass field. Behind them, according to the map, was the Bois de Gurlu, the new position. Mist dissolved everything beyond thirty yards.
“The Kaiser must think that God sent this weather especially for him. Hardly a ‘place in the sun’, is it? There’s one consolation, if we can’t see the Boche, he can’t see us.”
A motorcycle was approaching.
“Sounds like a twin-cylinder J.A.P., sir. One of ours.”
A sidecar was attached to the motorcycle. The driver delivered two envelopes. While Phillip was signing for them ‘Spectre’ opened one. “We’re to fight a rear-guard action to the new line, which is wired. Have you got a compass?”
“Not on me, sir.”
“Then why not say ‘No’?” replied ‘Spectre’ sharply. He opened the second envelope, while Allen put his compass on the grass in front of Phillip. The needle trembled as it settled to the north.
‘Spectre’ folded the second message.
“I have to leave you,” he said quietly. “Colonel Calvert has been killed. Phillip, you will take over command of the battalion.”
Before he left ‘Spectre’ said, “Treat a battalion as one large company, divided into four. You may feel at first that everything depends on you alone, but your company commanders will support you.” Then he said, “Keep touch, in so far as you can, with the battalions on your flanks. We are in for a long and trying rear-guard action. Remember that the enemy will know no more and no less about you than you do about him. Probably he will be a damned sight more confused!” He said, “Don’t forget that negative information is often as valuable as positive. I’ll keep you informed as often as I can, and I expect the same in return, from you.”
They shook hands, then the side-car was gone in the mist. The clatter of the engine had hardly ceased when a scout came out of the fog across the grass to say breathlessly that the Germans were approaching the Green Line.
“I saw machine-gunners in front, carrying the guns, sir!”
Phillip swallowed to get rid of the dryness in his throat; and breathing deep for calmness, said after a few blank moments, “Allen, we’re for the Cork lightship! Send runners to the companies with orders to get back, keeping line as far as possible, until they come to the wood. Then get inside and line the edge and await my order to fire. Come with me, Sergeant-major!”
“What about these two Jerries, sir?”
A Test to Destruction Page 11