The leading company halted, the young soldiers crouching down while from traversing machine-guns cracks of bullets passed a few feet over, while they listened to that strange officer, ‘Kiddo’, so near to and yet so far from them, telling them what they would do to the Boche. “The Boche never dares come near the Mediators! Shall I tell you blokes why? The Mediators never take prisoners! The Boche smells the Mediators a mile off, never forget that, you crab wallahs”; while, as though in hopeless hope, the same overlapping words came up from the lower darkness, towards the milky stain beyond the ridge.
“Pass the word up from the Sergeant-major, Mr. Gotley has been hit.”
The adjutant had been detailed, with R.S.M. Adams, to bring up the rear of the battalion. This was Major Kidd’s place, as second-in-command, but Major Kidd had placed himself in the lead when Phillip had gone forward with O’Gorman.
Phillip went down to the rear of the column. Gotley was lying on a ground-sheet beside the track. He had been hit by several ricochets off the cobble road. The ragged flight of metal had torn his webbing equipment and tunic, and some fragments had entered below the stomach. “Water—for God’s sake—water!”
“Don’t let him drink,” said Phillip quietly. “Get Mr. Gotley back to the aid-post. Where are the stretcher-bearers?”
“I have them here, sorr.”
White arm-bands gleamed. “Put two morphia tablets under Mr. Gotley’s tongue. Tell the M.O. at the Aid Post.”
“I’m so—sorry, sir.” The voice was feebler. Phillip knelt, to seek the other’s hand. It was a clenched fist.
“You’ll be all right, old chap.”
“I’m—so—sorry, sir.” Paroxysm of suppressed in-gasping sobs. A low mutter, almost a sigh. “Tell—my—mother—to—come.” Phillip opened the fist, pressed palm and fingers between his own. The fingers sought to hold his hand, clawing at the loose skin of the back, where scars of phosphorus burns were still painful. He leaned over Gotley’s face, saying steadily, “Your mother is coming.” He repeated the words, again and again, willing the twisting face to be calm, to accept the truth he himself felt in his words, beyond the chaos of the present. The hand now lay trustfully between his hands; from the open mouth dropped two white tablets. The hand lay limp, the arm allowed itself, in final duty, to be placed under the blanket of the stretcher.
“Take Mr. Gotley to the aid-post at Kruisstraat.”
In comparative quiet the battalion went on up the road to the Grand Bois. But how different, he thought, from when he had lived there with the London Highlanders in December 1914. Ahead should be the ruins of the red-brick Hospice, the local workhouse still more or less intact in those days. The leading company was passing the vanished wood on the left of the track when an increase of bullets swished over.
“Get away from the road, and lie down! Pass the word down!” They scattered, all except Bill Kidd, who remained standing in the road. Ignoring this attitude of defiance, Phillip sat down beside the leading company commander, Tabor.
“It looks as though the Germans have got past the Lochiel patrol, Tabor. Perhaps your company, and Dawes’, should deploy to the right, a yard between each man. Can you spare Naylor to act as my adjutant?” Naylor was a dark, rugger-playing youth from the 3rd battalion at Landguard.
Having been instructed what to say, Naylor was about to go back to tell Captain Dawes of No. 2 Company what was to be done, when Phillip called him back. “I think you should go down and give the order to Three and Four Companies. Just a moment, Naylor.”
The new acting adjutant waited. Phillip could not think what to say, with Kidd, now lighting a cigar, a few yards away. He must think. At last, conscious of Kidd’s unspoken scorn, he forced himself to say, “They will follow on, behind Numbers One and Two, who will be in columns of platoons. That is, the first two companies will advance in line. Then Number Three will follow, platoons in line. Number Four behind Number Three, also platoons in line.” What was he saying? He tried to concentrate. “I don’t know if that’s a text book drill, but the idea is for three lines of advance, only the first in extended order. Companies Three and Four are to reinforce the advancing line, if necessary.” What a sardonic brute Kidd was, conceited and selfish. “The company commanders will have to use their own judgment: the idea is to get to the top, ready to meet an extended advance of the Germans, and the two following companies to be ready to reinforce the front line.” He felt desperate, that he was near panicking, sending untrained troops over a terrain of old shell-holes in which coherence might be lost. Forcing away Kidd’s silent contempt, he got up and went to Kidd, and forced himself to say conversationally, “What do you think, Bill?”
“You’re the C.O., not me!”
After a further period of silence, Naylor said diffidently, “Shall I go along and ask the company commanders to see you here, sir?”
From the upright figure on the road came one word. “Christ!” followed by footfalls going towards Wytschaete.
“He’s hungry,” said Phillip to Tabor. “The Cannibal Kidd after a Boche for supper.” Then to Naylor, “Yes, ask all company commanders to come here, will you?”
“Very good, sir. After delivering my messages, shall I remain at the rear of the battalion, sir?”
“Yes, will you?”
“Very good, sir.”
The men continued to rest. Some were smoking. This was against orders—but had not Bill Kidd deliberately lit a cigar? He was a bit of a rotter, a 1917 soldier, coming out in the late spring, and after a few weeks in the trenches at Oppy Wood, getting home with phosgene gas. Obviously he played to the gallery over that gas. He was a show-off, the sort who was ostentatiously brave—just like himself—when others seemed windy. And yet, was he perhaps right in protesting silently against an unnecessary order. The machine-gun long-range fire had lasted only a minute. Supposing the delay in getting to the crest enabled the Germans to re-occupy Wytschaete?
It seemed to be taking a very long time for Adams to come up with Hedges and Whitfield. Meanwhile the Germans were massing, according to Corps Intelligence, along the Oostaverne line. That position was a couple of miles east of the road along the crest; he remembered it from going nearly there in June of the previous year, when Plumer had taken the Messines Ridge. Oostaverne—the West Tavern—was at least an hour’s march away from Wytschaete. He told Tabor this.
“I see that the German regimental commander of the troops there is called von Spee, sir.”
“Where did you get that, Tabs?”
“In ‘Comic Cuts’, sir.”
“I missed it. Von Spee, did you say?”
“Yes, Colonel. I remember it, because that was the name of the German admiral at the battles of the Falkland Islands. We had a geography lesson at the time, and were told about it.”
“When did you leave school?”
“After the summer term of ’sixteen, sir.”
“Yes, I remember that battle. Craddock’s squadron tried to engage the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, while the sun was in von Spee’s eyes. Von Spee held off until sunset, when Craddock’s ships were silhouetted against the western skyline, making clear black targets. My God, I wonder if this Oberst von Spee will try and emulate his famous relation’s idea, and attack over the crest as the sun is rising, and dazzling our chaps’ eyes? We couldn’t see a damn thing, hardly, when we went over on July the First, with the sun in our eyes! I wouldn’t mind betting that’s what’ll happen!”
Time dragged a little less; and when the company commanders came up, with the R.S.M., Phillip passed round his whiskey’d water-bottle, first offering it to Mr. Adams.
“No, thank you, sir, I never touch it.”
The company commanders refused, so Phillip did not drink.
“I’ll go briefly over what we have to do. I propose to extend from here to the south, and then move up to the ridge. The going may be a little rough. It isn’t essential to keep to extended order all the way, but try not to arrive there bunched. Half sections c
an trickle through, but don’t lose touch with your flanks. The road here is the left flank. When you get to the village with your companies, Tabor and Dawes, feel your way through the ruins to the main road east of the village. There dig in. I shall be on the left flank here, going up the road. Hedges and Whitfield will you bring up your chaps behind the leading companies? Keep in touch with one another. Is that clear, boys? Any questions? None? Righty ho, carry on!”
He waited for ten minutes to allow Dawes and Tabor to deploy, then walked slowly up the road with R.S.M. Adams. When they got to the ruins of the Hospice, Major Kidd appeared having come, apparently, from the village beyond.
“I say, old boy,” he said, controlling quick breathing, “may I have a word with you in private?”
The R.S.M. went back a few yards, with the runners, and Kidd said, “I won’t mince matters, I’m not a Shakespearean what-not, old boy. I’ll come straight to the point. I may be blunt, that’s Bill Kidd, often broke but never bent. You ought to know that by this time.” He smelt of whiskey.
“What is your point? That you’re supposed to be with the cadre at Byron Farm?”
“Does it not occur to you, old boy, that it’s my job to know where the battalion is going to hang out? Furthermore, as your number two I may have to take over at any moment?”
“My number two? You behave like Bill Kidd’s number one, number two, and all the other numbers.”
“There’s another thing, old boy. The Brigade-major’s orders to you were clear, I think. ‘Go up the road, a hundred yards between companies.’ Right? Right! But at the first whisper of a rikko you give orders to deploy, not in face of the enemy, old boy, but his arse! There are twenty Jocks holding Wytschaete, and you do a deployment that would have shamed the Dogpotter Volunteers of thirty years ago. You don’t know your job, old boy, and that’s a fact!”
“Well, I would say you don’t know yours! Why not go back to Byron Farm? I’ll send a runner to tell you where battalion headquarters are when we’ve established them. Meanwhile our job is to establish contact with the Lochiel patrol.”
“I know where they are!”
“You’ve found them? Then perhaps you’ll take me to them?”
“Why should I?”
“Do you refuse?”
“Now listen, old boy! Do you want to be taken to them, and then to say, ‘When I’ve found my little lot, I’ll bring them to you’? What sort of a crowd d’you suppose they’d think the Mediators are? The Royal Staybacks?”
“You’re boring me, Kidd.”
“What the hell d’you think you’re doing to me? Let me tell you something, old boy. You’ve sent our fellows slapbang into the two Peckham mine craters, each a hundred yards across and filled with water fifty feet deep! That’s what you’ve done, and unless our blokes are prepared to swim, the only way round will be taped by the Boche with machine-guns.”
“Did you know that, before they left?”
“Of course I did, old boy.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask me. You prefer to run the show yourself!”
“What do you suggest now?”
“That’s entirely up to you. You’re the C.O., not Bill Kidd.”
“I am asking for the opinion of my second-in-command!”
“Right, I’ll give it, old boy! It’s this. I’ll put a bullet into you if you muck up this crush!”
Phillip opened the flap of his Parabellum, and was pulling it out when Kidd said, “Now go easy, old boy! You don’t put the wind up Bill Kidd with that sort of act, you know. The Mad Son may lose his wool, but not Bill Kidd! Can’t you take a joke, old lad?”
“Yes, can you? I wasn’t serious.”
“Nor was I, old boy.”
“Let’s get this straight, Bill. I realise how you feel. You’re senior to me as a captain, I know. But after all, I am in charge of the battalion. We’re all in this together. I need your help. What do you think we should do?”
“Carry on, old boy, and to hell with the Boche!”
Phillip held out his hand; Kidd, with a hearty grip, almost crushed his fingers. “Count on me, my Mad Son! Only you must admit that it’s the funniest dam’ way of getting quickly to a position already held by blokes of another lot that I ever did hear tell of! Let’s get a move on, for Christ’s sake.”
It was 3.30 a.m. The headquarters party, led by the two senior officers, now arm in arm, reached the square of the village without incident. An anxious half hour followed, while they waited for the leading companies, tensely, for the dawn was not far off. While they waited, many streams of bullets hissed over in the passive diminuendo and crescendo of traversing fire. Obviously they were fired from the reverse slopes of the ridge.
“The Boche is chancing his arm, old boy. He’s on his last legs. ‘Spectre’ was saying last night that had old Fatty Ludendorff had the sense to keep pushing down south, he’d have won the war by now. And the Old Man knows what he’s talking about, and don’t you forget it! ‘Spectre’s’ the finest bloody infantry soldier in this war, bar none, and by rights he ought to be C.G.S. to Duggie Haig! You know he protested to Rawlinson before July the First, that the Fourth Army plan was wrongly based, don’t you?”
“Yes. I was serving under him when he was stellenbosched.”
“It was a question of the depth of the German dug-outs. Apparently the Staff didn’t know they were thirty feet deep.”
“I know. He advised that the plan of slow advance be changed to a swift assault.”
“Exactly! And what made me bloody mad with you, old boy, was for not carrying out ‘Spectre’s’ orders! Hullo, there! Mediators? Stout lads!”
As figures approached, Bill Kidd began to play his mouth-organ, to the tune of Colonel Bogey.
“Well, thanks for your help, Wilhelm mein prächtige kerl! Perhaps you ought to get back to Byron Farm now?”
“Not on your life, my Mad Son of a Gun! I’m responsible for training, you know, and this is the place to train the lads to be Boche eaters.”
Kidd waited until the other companies arrived, and then, telling No. 4 (Hedges) to remain where they were, led the others through the brick-heaps of the southern environs of the village and so to the Ypres-Messines road running north-south along the crest. Hardly had they settled into shell-holes when the scouts Phillip had sent out returned breathlessly saying that they had heard many German voices in front of them. Within a couple of minutes, as light began to filter from the east, a file of figures was seen to be approaching the road.
“Will you let me deal with them, Phil?”
“Carry on, Bill.”
“Fix bayonets.” The word was passed down from Kidd. When the figures were within fifty yards he jumped up, waving his revolver and yelling “Come on, the Mediators!”, ran forward. He was followed by a ragged line shouting in release of fear. At once the dim figures turned and made off.
“Come on you crab-wallas, do an allez!”
A light machine-gun was found on the ground. Scouts, under Kidd, went down the Oostaverne road, stopping at an old pillbox at the junction with the Messines-Ypres road.
“We should hold this as an advanced strong point, old boy. We could then outflank any attack, north or south from where we are now. What d’you think?”
“All right. I’ll get in touch with the Hadrians on our left, and tell them we’ve filled the gap between them and the Moonrakers.”
The pill-box at the road junction had been made in the cellars of the Staenyzer Kabaret, a brick-built buvette where, before the war, peak-capped peasants in sabots had clopped in to drink calvados, rhum, and café-cognac, and smoke their own brown, rank tabac. It was a two-storey pill-box, the upper portion having been made originally for an artillery observation post. Some of the original brick walling still hid the massive concrete; and through splayed slits, cased in wood, pointing east, south, and north, machine-guns could be fired only a few inches higher than the surrounding ground level.
&nbs
p; “It’s a gift,” said Kidd.
Here four Lewis guns, with the captured German gun, were set up to form ‘Kidd’s Post’, as it was called. The outpost line, in shell-holes, spread out on either side of the Kabaret, three hundred yards in front of the village.
Later in the grey morning mist as Phillip was going with Naylor along the line, he saw Kidd walking forward to look over the near-level wilderness of the old battlefield extending down to Oostaverne. While he was standing up about two hundred yards in front of the outposts a Fokker flew over low and fired at him. Instead of dodging, Kidd stood still. The biplane turned, and coming down low, opened up again. While bullets kicked up earth all around him, Kidd jerked an arm with two-finger insults at the pilot. As the Fokker flew away they heard him shouting, “Green Hun, you can’t shoot straight! Go back and tell Fatty Ludendorff to put you on a course!” Then lighting a fag he strolled back, to arrive coughing and doubled up, to say after a pause in his rusty voice, “You young Boche eaters can laugh! Wait until you cop a packet of rotten eggs!” More laughter, and cries of “Good old Kiddo!”
Greatly relieved at the unity Kidd had inspired, Phillip went back to send off the situation report: Contact made on both flanks; enemy patrol in strength from OOSTAVERNE WOOD repulsed; one light machine-gun captured; STAENYZER KABARET occupied; four (4) columns of enemy troops in vicinity of OOSTAVERNE, apparently assembling for attack; liaison established with LEMON R.F.A., MOONRAKERS, and HADRIANS; red rockets for artillery SOS barrage, green rockets to mark outpost line in position; morale good; Casualties to 8 a.m. 1 officer killed (2-Lt. Gotley), 3 o.r. wounded.
A Test to Destruction Page 19