A Test to Destruction

by Henry Williamson

  “Bring ’em with us. They can carry a stretcher.” God in heaven, everything depended on him.

  With relief he remembered the Grenadiers holding their fire in the Brown Wood Line in November 1914, until the Prussian Garde du Corps was right up to the wire. He waited, resisting panic thoughts to urge everyone to get back to the wood, his mind opaque as the fog dulling the world of wet grass and a few ghostly thorns along the sunken track. Seven headquarters details and the two prisoners were waiting near him, hanging on his orders, his feelings. “How far away is the wood? About a mile away, would you say, Sergeant-major?”

  “That’s about it, sir.” He didn’t know, either.

  They waited. At last an irregular line appeared, men in groups, others lagging behind. Some were puffing fags. There was nothing to worry about, really. What was to be, would be. Until then, to hell with worry.

  “Lead on. Hold all fire until further orders. Pass it down. Quietly does it.”

  “Aye aye, sir!” The reply came from a ramshackle bareheaded figure among them, long scarf round neck, ends hanging low and loose. Tremendously cheering sight!

  “Good God, where’ve you sprung from, you old devil?”

  “Hunland, old boy.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, old boy, I was given such a bloody awful breakfast,” the voice drawled casually, “that I decided not to stay.” The manner reverted to that of the battalion k’nut. “I ask you, old boy! Acorn coffee! Black bread! Sausage made of old boots! Cor, you ought to see their cavalry on cab horses! And their tanks! Towing Randy Ruperts! Fact, old boy! Bloody balloons towed on a cable stretched between two tin pantechnicons! What hopes they have of seeing anything in this fog, God only knows, and he won’t split! Where’s the Old Man?”

  “‘Spectre’? He’s commanding the Brigade.”

  “Who’s in command, Pluggy?”

  “Pluggy copped it yesterday morning. I’m temporarily in charge of things. Not so loud, if you don’t mind.”

  “Right-ho, old boy. What am I supposed to do? Return to Home Establishment, as an escaped prisoner of war?”

  “D’you want to?”

  “Not in these trousers, old boy. Where’re we making for?”

  “Edge of Gurlu wood. Here, on the map. Will you look after the right flank, Bill? I’ll stay here and look after this end. By the way, no firing until I give the order.”

  “Righty-ho, old boy.” Kidd disappeared along the line.

  Phillip walked on, Allen holding the compass. Sooner than expected a dark shade in the mist. Thank God, right direction! Coils of concertina wire, trees beyond. Where could they get through? He felt alarm. Damn, he should have sent scouts ahead, to find out. “We’ll have to get over as best we can. It’s only one coil.” It wasn’t easy, it was terrifying, spikes against cloth. A sergeant hurried up, “Gap over there, sir!”

  “Oh, good! See the men through, will you?” He must stand there, be the last through. He took out pipe and pouch, filled the bowl; waited, imagining sudden figures, shouts … stop being windy! Now think: Germans advancing at, say, two miles an hour. Mile in thirty minutes; thirtieth of a mile in one minute. Roughly fifty yards a minute. Four hundred yards away when reported to be crossing the Green Line. Eight minutes’ grace.

  “Get a move on there, my lads!” The red-faced sergeant had a stubby fair moustache with waxed spikes.

  “Have you seen the Regimental Sergeant-major?”

  “’E went off wi’ Captain Kidd, sir. I think that’s about the lot through, sir.”

  Why had Tonks gone with Kidd? Of course, he was responsible for ammunition. Would Brigade have a dump? Where was Moggers? They should have brought their ammo, boxes with them. God, he’d left them behind! Through the wire, he resisted panic feelings to run the last few yards. Be calm. Loosen the jaw. As they entered the wood a pheasant crowed, flapped, flew away east. God damn the bird, giving them away! Men lying down. Keep calm, calm, calm. He went down the edge of the wood, telling men on no account to fire until the Germans were at the wire, which was forty yards out in the field, just visible. He leaned against an oak dripping with splashes, and heard himself repeating to a nameless subaltern what the R.S.M. of the Coldstream had said on nth November 1914 when dishing out ammunition in the wood off the Menin Road, “It’ll be a good thing when all this is over, and we can get back to real soldiering.” A blank face looked at him. Of course, his remark must seem stupid, pointless.

  “Anyhow, this fog will make Jerry blind. They don’t know we’re here. Keep your men quiet.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  He walked under the dripping trees, hearing a Gaultshire voice saying as he passed, “That’s Lampo. You know, the one ’oo bounced old Moggers.”

  More confident, he trod on the wet brown and buff leaves half hidden by new green growths of dog’s mercury and bluebell plant, to the end of the line, less than three hundred yards. To Allen, following, he said, “Send out two runners to try to find who is on our left flank. If they see no one after a quarter of a mile, to return and say so. Meanwhile get a Lewis gun posted here, to cover the gap in the wire. According to this map, the wood is wired for about a mile. But where we are along it, God knows. No, wait a moment. Tell Tabor to post the louie gun to form a defensive flank. I want you to act as adjutant.”

  Allen went away, to return and say, “Captain Kidd has the Lewis gun team, just inside the wire, sir.”

  “He’s mad,” muttered Phillip, as they went back to the right flanking company.

  They sat on a fallen tree.

  After some minutes a hare came lolloping over the field towards the wood. It sat up, ears erect, just inside by the first trees. It crouched in shapeless fear; sprang up and rushed away into the wood. He tried to light his pipe. The tobacco was packed too tight. He pulled out the mouthpiece, and as though with great care fitted vulcanite and bowl into the blue velvet spaces of the case. He must do it properly, before drawing the Parabellum from its holster. When this was done, his mouth now being dry, he stood up, conscious of sweat drops under his arm-pit. Then with a flash of hare-fear he saw figures moving towards the line of barbed wire. Faces turned to where he stood beside an oak trunk. The line of dim figures stopped. German voices. They had found the gap.

  “Vörwarts——”

  “Rapid fire!” His voice sounded weak and reedy.

  Rifle reports rang in the ear. Dim figures were jumping sideways. He heard the Lewis gun rattling. There were shouts, screams, a slow dissolving of movement. It was over.

  “Pass word down, patrol going out! Quietly does it, men,” for they were jubilant. “Pass the word down, patrol is going out!” He didn’t want to be shot by Kidd. They waited. Then a voice in front said, “Shut up, you bastards! No bloody kamerade stuff to Bill Kidd!”

  Phillip went out with Allen to the wire. Wounded Germans were lying on the ground, some twisting about. “Shoot the bastards,” he heard Kidd’s voice saying.

  “No! Leave them! D’you hear?”

  “Keep your wool on, old boy! I’m not wasting ammo. on Huns, although they did bayonet some of my wounded in the Bird Cage,” came the drawl from the other side of the wire.

  “What about identification?”

  “I’ve got it taped, old boy. Sergeant, cut off a couple of those shoulder straps, and give them to Captain Maddison.”

  While Phillip wrote a report small fires were being started to boil canteens. Smoke was hanging in the mist when the hare rushed back again. Shots were heard and the thuds of stick-bombs to the left. The flanking Lewis gun opened up. The sergeant with the waxed points on his moustache ran up, red-faced. “They’re coming, sir! They’re in the wood on the left!”

  *

  Later that morning, south-west of where Phillip and his men were retreating, the Commander-in-Chief motored in his black Rolls-Royce flying Union Jack pennant on bonnet to see Sir Hubert Gough, over whose château at Villers Bretonneux hung the banner of the Red
Fox. There he learned to his surprise that the troops of the Fifth Army were already behind the line of the Somme river.

  That night the Field-Marshal wrote in his diary,

  Men very tired after two days’ fighting and the long march back. On the first day they had to wear gas-masks which is very fatiguing, but I cannot make out why the Fifth Army has gone so far back without making some kind of a stand.

  From Villers Brettoneux the Commander-in-Chief went on to his Advanced Headquarters at Dury, a few miles south of Amiens.

  General Pétain arrived about 4 p.m. In reply to my request to concentrate a large French force (20 divisions) before Amiens, P. said he was most anxious to do all he can to support me, but he expected that the enemy is about to attack him in Champagne. Still, he will do his utmost to keep the two Armies in touch. If this is lost and the enemy comes between us, then probably the British will be rounded up and driven into the sea! This must be prevented even at the cost of drawing back the North flank to the sea.

  From Dury he returned to G.H.Q. at Montreuil, whither the Commander of the Second Army had been invited to meet him.

  I arranged with Plumer to thin down his front; when he has done this I shall be glad to see the Divisions thus set free near the Somme. It is most satisfactory to have a Commander of Plumer’s temperament at a time of crisis like the present.

  Chief of Staff of General Sir Herbert Plumer also wrote a description of this meeting between Haig and the Commander of the Second Army. He was Major-General ‘Tim’ Harington.

  The situation was serious. Here was the great wedge we had heard about trying to force itself between the French and British forces. I accompanied my Chief to the Field-Marshal’s headquarters at Montreuil. We guessed why we had been summoned. I think the most interesting study I know is to watch a Commander in a crisis. I have watched many. Some get worried, some get cross, some are quite calm, some just breathe confidence amongst those around them. In the great Commander all that is best comes out. He rises head and shoulders above all around him, for it is then he realises that his Subordinate Commanders are there to help him, and with their loyal help he can face any situation. I was, though a junior officer, to be a witness of just such a scene. We knew what terrible responsibility must be resting on Sir Douglas Haig and what he must be feeling as we entered the room. He greeted us exactly as if nothing had happened. He was calm, cheerful and courageous. I marvelled as he took us over to his big map and unfolded to us the latest situation. It was a heartrending story as one thought of our poor Divisions fighting for their lives to stem the tide of overwhelming numbers of Germans. He told us the story in as calm and clear a manner as if he had been describing a situation in a war game. When he finished he said: “Well, Plumer, what can you and your Second Army do for me?” I was now to witness a scene between two great men in a crisis. First of all my Chief, with 14 divisions holding 33 miles of front including the Passchendaele Salient, without a moment’s hesitation said: “I’ll give you eight Divisions at once.” The Field-Marshal then said, “That means you must give up Passchendaele.” “Not I!” answered the stout-hearted Commander of the Second Army in a tone I shall never forget. It was a wonderful moment. These two great men with their arms linked in front of that map—the one faced with awful responsibility and with the heart of a lion, the other just offering to give his Chief everything he had and more, but with a fixed determination not to give up one inch of ground to the Germans in the process.

  Within a few minutes of that scene we were on our way back to Cassel full of hope and courage. I have visions of railway time tables by day and night. Division after Division left us for days. We did not stop at eight. Of our original 14 divisions which we found on our return from Italy, all but two left us, and in their places we got the tired and sad survivors of the Divisions from the 3rd and 5th Armies—the troops on whom the weight of the German advance had fallen. Poor fellows. They had indeed had a hard time and had earned a rest. Alas, they were not to get it. Our line was very thin; as an instance, the Messines-Wytschaete ridge, instead of being held by four strong Australian Divisions, was held by three weak and tired British Brigades from the South. By this time we were receiving information of a probable German offensive in the North …

  “Listen to this!” said Richard sitting in his armchair of green Russian leather. It was a bitterly cold night; his coke fire, halved by extra fire-bricks, burned dully. It was his last free evening before resuming duty with the Special Constabulary. “Can Prussian effrontery go further? Here in the evening paper is a copy of the Kaiser’s telegram to the Kaiserin, Hetty!

  “Please to be able to tell you that by the Grace of God the battles of Mouilly, Cambrai, St. Quentin, and La Fere have been won. The Lord had gloriously aided. May he further help.

  “Wilhelm.

  “He makes no mention of Peronne, you will be glad to hear. Still, we must hope for the best, old girl. According to the map in the paper, the whole line is going back to the positions held before the Somme battles.” He put the paper before his face, suddenly overcome by the thought of the ‘wild boy’, who——

  “I’m just going out for a little while,” he heard her saying.

  *

  That Saturday night in the officers’ mess of the 3rd or Militia (reserve) battalion of the Gaultshire Regiment at Landguard Camp, sixty miles north of London, songs were roared out around the piano. A long list of officers to report for overseas at Victoria station the next morning, without leave, was pinned on the green baize board. These had already departed; the singers were those who now awaited with tremendous zest and excitement tomorrow’s list. Already 800 other ranks had left, most of them half-trained boys of 18½ years, sent overseas under emergency powers granted by parliament to the War Cabinet.

  Over there, over there, send the word, send the word over there!

  The Yanks are coming!

  The Yanks are coming!

  The drums rum-tumming everywhere!

  Hetty had not gone next door to play her nightly game of cards with her father—that selfish old man, in the thoughts of Richard, who invariably kept his distance by addressing his father-in-law as ‘Mr. Turney’. Dreading what Dickie would say if she had told him where she was going, Hetty had dared to go down to the High Street, to pray in the Roman Catholic church, to burn three candles for Phillip, her brother Charlie’s boy Tommy, and her younger daughter’s friend Robert Willoughby, all somewhere in France.

  Chapter 7

  FOUR DAYS—OR YEARS

  The escape of the 2nd Gaultshires from the Bois de Gurlu was ragged as it was hurried. Germans were advancing through the centre of the wood. As they got through to open space a machine-gun began to fire blindly into the thinning mist. The bullets passed over their heads. There was no attempt to give covering fire; they fled, to be met with rifle fire from unseen troops lining a road in front of them. They went prone, the firing ceased, and Bill Kidd’s voice was heard shouting through the mist, “Don’t be such bloody twotts! Come on, you crab wallahs.” They went on, to see Kidd talking to a major of Pioneers, who with “an assortment of semi-noncombatants”, as Kidd said later, had come up from the Canal. “That’s where we’re due, old boy. I’ve got all the dope from ‘Spectre’, and was on my way to tell you.”

  He and Phillip examined a map. “About there.” Bullets were now buzzing past. “We ought to get a move on, old boy. If the fog lifts, we’ll be in full view of Jerry, as the ground slopes up from here.”

  “Where’s ‘Spectre’?”

  “Over there, across the Canal, just this side of the river. Christ, that sounds like the bridge being blown!” An echoing rumble had come from the west. “We’ll have to swim for it, old boy!”

  “How far is it?”

  “Couple of miles or so. We ought to get cracking.”

  “Well done, Bill.”

  They had gone about a mile, in artillery formation, when a Staff officer ordered them to extend north of a village on the crest of the
slope. Then he galloped away west. They rested, while Phillip saw with alarm that the mist was thinning. Scouts reported that the brigade on the left was withdrawing, so he gave the order to go back.

  They crossed over the railway and came to the Canal, which had deep concreted sides. Below lay stagnant water. To Phillip the Canal looked to be unfinished, like its section farther north, which passed through the old Hindenburg Line of 1917. Which way? Where was the bridge? Then above the mist thinning overhead two Fokker biplanes roared, firing down at them. When they were gone a small bright light was left hanging in the sky.

  “Get over as fast as you can, men!”

  Troops of other battalions were coming up to the bank. He heard the voices of Yorkshire and Northumberland. Some slid down the concrete and started to wade, holding rifles above helmets. Shouts for help came, the water was too deep.

  There was a bridge lower down, a breathless scout reported, by the village. They turned about, coming to rubble heaps, and beyond was the bridge. Woolly bears were now bursting above where they had left. They crossed over with indifference.

  A couple of hundred yards beyond the bridge stood ‘Spectre’, with the Brigade-major, who was giving directions to the mixed-up men of various battalions. He told Phillip to go on to the river Tortille, get across it, deploy a couple of hundred yards west of it, and dig in. “Any troops coming back may try to pass through you. Take command of them.”

  When they got there, the bridge across was down. “Those twotts of Sappers again,” remarked Kidd. Some of the poplars beside the bridge had been tipped over by the blast; upon these they crawled above scummy water. When they came to the new line they flopped down, exhausted.

  “Get some head-cover up, men. Jerry will have light machine-guns.” Phillip told the wing company commanders to form defensive flanks before going back to his post a hundred yards behind the new line—the remains of a mangold clamp. Could the cooks boil up some sort of soup, to kill the taste of bully beef? There were no dixies. He spent the night going among the men in their shallow scooped-out cubby holes.