“What was all that about his brother?”
“Well, apparently he thought he was a great hero and he got done in at Gheluvelt. He’s been sore about it ever since.”
Harrison came up just then, pink, bony-faced and upturned nose. He saluted me and said, “Sorry about all that fuss the other day sir. I was upset.”
“You upset us. Never mind—try upsetting the German army next time. Those were unarmed prisoners you know.”
He looked downcast and examined his boots. “All right—off you go—but don’t do it again.” The sound of my voice impressed and reassured me.
I felt no such assurance about that battle, but according to the press a few days later we had made big gains in guns and taken three thousand prisoners. Well, that was a comfort at least. Not so my discovery that, as I suspected, I was a coward and that there was no chance of running away—while observed. But what if there was no one to see? Then no one could say you were lying. Oh shut up! My conscience was dying, but like the Dead it would not lie down.
I did not realize that fear was an irrelevance; there is no question of being able to ‘run away’ in so far as such an expression is related to muscular activity. That there are other expressions of fear was brought home to me by one ludicrous and painful event.
Cohen, Quainton and I had had some talk of religion and prayer. Both of them were religious, even fervent as I had been until the powerful effect of school services and those conducted by our parson ate deep into my soul. But after our talk I decided to make a public affirmation of my faith. About half a dozen of us slept in one officers’ marquee. Cohen and Quainton used to kneel publicly with the support of Gatehouse our company commander who was huge, an ex-boxing champion of Sandhurst and used to bending his powerful frame in devotion. I was not so lucky and the ritual was something of a strain. Still, down I flopped. The absolute lack of comment or ribaldry left a gap which was immediately filled with an emotion which might have been solid. I found I had nothing whatever to say to My Saviour who, I felt, shared in the general stupefaction. There were some surprises to which even the Almighty should not be subject.
How to get up? Obviously I could not stay there on my knees all night. I could not pretend I had been doing up my boots because I had no boots on. I got up. Never, never again, I vowed, would I make such an utter fool of myself. My fellows would not even believe I had ‘wind up’ at the prospect of fighting, for despite my preoccupations I was not usually regarded as that kind of person.
The previous night the Prince of Wales had dined with the Major, Gatehouse, and Gull the adjutant of the battalion who introduced him as an old friend of his. The Colonel also had been present. Gull was an intelligent man, but liable to talk with a peculiar nasal bleat when mentioning Royalty. He wore very shiny boots and well-cut breeches.
This evening the mess, separated from the main tent by a canvas partition, was the scene of an altercation. Gull was speaking; then the Major; Gull again; and then the angry voice of Gatehouse. “If you say the Prince’s name again I shall thrash you.” We pricked up our ears and I at least regretted that I could not see beyond the screen. Again Gull’s voice, still somewhat nasal; something about “an old and dear friend of my Oxford days”. “Damn Oxford!”—this was Gatehouse—”and all the rest of your arse-licking sycophants!” Then the Major’s oily voice; the quarrel stopped at once, but the Major’s voice had not sounded emollient, however oily.
Gull diminished now that there were no battalion parades and no call for shiny boots; the Colonel too seemed redundant for much the same reason. But God? I thought that most people would assume that my precipitate raid on religion had been a flight from fear. In fact fear, real fear, seemed to diminish the God, in whom I sincerely thought I believed, to colonel-size vestments, rituals, like tossing up for innings before a cricket match—impressive to the elite who knew the importance of shiny boots.
The time for heart-searchings, religious and others, was suddenly cut short by strong rumours that the battalion was to go into action. By the afternoon the rumour was certainty. I vowed that this time not even the Angel of Mons in person would cause me to clear out of the battlefield. I would keep my mouth shut and use my judgement about forming strong points, retreating, returning to HQ.
We had drawn new tanks the previous day. Mine appeared to have something wrong with it so the crew sweated feverishly and continuously to get it into perfect condition. The 6-pounders were overhauled; the Lewis guns cleaned and oiled till the whole shone like sombre jewellery. Every scrap of ammunition was sized, that is, dropped into the barrel to see that it fitted and rejected if it did not. Short of firing there was nothing more we could do to be sure we had none of the defective American ammunition.
As we slaved and sweated I wondered if this battle would be for another invisible hill made of mud, or whether the staff had found a dry patch somewhere. At last all the chores were done. As near perfect as maybe but for one thing—the tank would not go. The engine would start perfectly and would move the tank for a hundred yards, though with a seeming lack of zest. Then, backfires, overheating, stop. Obviously a timing defect, so we retimed it. The Major turned up and watched our feverish efforts. Had I not by this time learned better I would have assumed that he was captivated by the spectacle of our enthusiasm. Then he drew me aside.
“You are not preparing for action are you?” I admitted, somewhat surprised, that we were. “Oh my dear fellow—quite right of course, ready for action at any time and any place, quite right—but er… you don’t mean this show?”
I was furious; as relieved as hell and furious to find I was so relieved.
“You see, your lot have already been in action, so Bagshaw’s and Clifford’s sections will be in reserve. Of course that means you won’t be called on for action.”
It was like a tug-of-war when the opponents suddenly let go; there I was—on my bottom. When I had recovered we went on fooling with the engine. Then I boiled up and went to see the Major to protest at being left out of the action. It was, in its way, nearly as bad as saying my prayers. My keenness was terrific; the Major’s appreciation of my keenness was also terrific. When I finally left I felt as if I had been taking part in a little dramatic dialogue. “You know that I know that you know that I know the whole thing is a lot of damned humbug.” Perhaps there was a shade of a shadow of doubt in the Major’s mind. Was it possible that the extreme youth and stupidity of one of his junior officers was reducing him to enthusiasm? If he had any such disturbing doubt he soon recovered. Not so myself. I had resolved to do or die and felt as if the tombstone had been suddenly withdrawn from under me—a most undignified posture in which to find oneself.
The rest of the battalion went into action; same mud, same nonexistent objectives, same victory, but a different lot of names. Their name liveth for evermore. “If I should die, think only this of me…” wrote Rupert Brooke. “You did and we don’t”, ran the postscript of the second war on the heroes of the first.
12
THE conditions for the further employment of tanks at Ypres were demonstrably so unsuitable that we began to feel we should not be used there again. The last battalion attacks had hardly been able to flounder into danger. Our casualties in men turned out to be slight. Nevertheless I had one more jaunt, a reconnaissance of the Poelkappelle-Pashendaele front. By that time I was sufficiently angry and fed up to condemn in plain English the bit of the project on which it was my business to report.
And now officially-originated rumours began to circulate; we were to prepare for a new battle on ground ‘suitable for tanks’. We were given special maps of our area printed without names. We were to rehearse on land similar to that on which we were to fight; we were not to know our accompanying troops till the rehearsal; above all we were not to talk. The last injunction has by this time become a grim joke with reference to the Royal Navy as the Silent Service. Certain actions co-ordinated with the Royal Navy had become, first, topics for fascinated and fascinati
ng women to discuss in luxurious hotels and clubs, and next, matters of serious concern to the German secret service and staff. For these the Army paid in blood. “If tea is the price of Admiralty, Lord God, we’ll pay in blood.”
The section and tank commanders of the battalion were taken by car to some country of chalk downland. We waited at a cross-roads at the bottom of a declivity; on higher ground was a small group of officers including Gull and the Colonel “wearing a French letter”, as someone said about his transparent raincoat. He was as usual immaculate. Sometimes such dress is an expression of the personality; sometimes a substitute for a personality that is not there. There are times when it is imperative to know which is which. I think most of us would have endorsed the views of Yates: in England it seemed to matter; now, seeing the group on the crest the old aura still clung, but it was diminished. The ‘fine’ face, the handsome regular features, the clipped military moustache, the haughty demeanour and studied negligence of his pose were not sufficiently often displayed; yet too often to be safe from revisions of estimate. Later that day he was to lecture the division’s officers on tanks and tank warfare. Of this he knew less than our Major; he lacked the tough ruthlessness of our alcoholic. There was, when I went to the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham for my gunnery course, a story of a destroyer captain, one of the Dover Patrol, who was reputed to be in a state of permanent alcoholic stupor. The harbour entrance was notoriously dangerous and difficult to enter or leave. It was made more difficult because the war meant that ships had to leave without warning, without fail, at any hour of day or night and without regard to the weather. The naval men said the captain was the only officer who could enter or leave without any possibility of error. Having done this immediate chore no one would dream of asking him to do anything more—he would return to his stupor. Our Major had a similar gift.
This morning he was present, jolly, rubicund, at peace with himself and the world. The fresh November morning seemed an incongruous setting for him. Yet he had a Bacchus-like quality. He exuded an aroma of old port which civilized the rude rusticity of the scene, pervaded it rather than subdued it.
“Hullo Quainton dear boy”, he said affectionately, like the Duchess when she met Alice in her ‘and-the-moral-of-r/iaMs…’ mood. “Do I hear something?” His eyes twinkled.
“Sounds like bagpipes to me sir.”
“It is bagpipes”, he said archly, putting his finger to his lips. “Listen!”
It was faint but clear, the skirl of pipes coming nearer. Over the crest there presently appeared the first files of marching men, battalion after battalion of kilted troops.
We watched the rhythmical sway of the kilts as the battalions went by. Nothing was said, for we all knew who they were. In that war the 51st Division, Highland Territorials, had won a reputation second only to the Guards. In their own opinion, and many could be found to share it—even amongst the enemy—they ranked even higher. For steadiness and reliability the Guards, as we ourselves were soon to see, could not be matched. But the virtue that was their strength also led to the defect of rigidity in some situations where the flexibility of the 51st would have been more valuable.
The music of the pipers was extremely moving. Whatever gibes can be levelled at the pipes no one as near to action as we were could possibly deny their heartwarming power. We had already learned in our very slight and brief experience that our lives depended on the stout hearts of the infantry who were in action with us. The coming battle was to bring this home to the Commander-in-Chief himself. We watched in silent relief the troops who would be in action with us. The 51st Division? Someone meant business—at last!
We rehearsed. Our part was to provide small flag parties to represent tanks. At the end of the day officers and NCO’s of the division, with some sixty officers of our battalion, assembled in a long hut for our Colonel’s lecture.
As always he looked the part. We, his battalion officers, must have changed since our days in Bovington. The magic of his uniform had lost its potency; we listened with attention diverted from his looks to the content of what he said. But after the revelation, at the start, that he did not know what guns a tank carried, we listened no more. We were consoled by the thought that in action the Colonel had nothing to do.
Afterwards he picked out Quainton, a favourite of his, to speak—ostensibly to display his soldierly comradeship, but I who stood near felt he was looking for reassurance. Quainton seemed embarrassed; I shared his feeling.
The day was over. Exhilarated and expectant we returned to our gloomy, muddy camp. We could not and did not say, even to each other, what we had learned on our day’s outing.
I routed out O’Toole. How about the tank? Was the trouble sorted out? O’Toole was gloomy. It was as bad as ever. Alarmed and disappointed I said, “But Sergeant, it is obvious that the timing is the trouble.” He went over the symptoms in detail. “It cannot possibly be anything else!” “I know sir. We have checked it up completely; at least six times. It came out the same each time. After a hundred yards it would be red-hot, back-firing. No life in the engine at all—and then—stop! The crew are tired out.”
The next morning confirmed his report. Allen the driver and I went through it all. There was nothing more we could do. Orders came through that we were to entrain that night for our unknown destination. In desperation I told O’Toole to ask the workshop officer to come. Luckily for once he had no other job and came round immediately after lunch.
Williams was a wiry, wizened man, no soldier, but an engineer to his finger tips. He was cheerful and reassuring.
“Well old man, what’s the trouble?” He listened intently as I told him the story in detail, missing nothing. “Well, thank God! I thought it was something serious. It’s obvious—the timing’s wrong.” I told him about the timing.
“I’m sorry old boy, it’s obvious. You’ve just made a balls-up of it.” He spoke with the pitying superiority and confidence of the engineer talking to the usual amateur bunch of boobies. But I wasn’t going to let him go.
“Would you mind checking up on it yourself?” He was a good sort.
“Well, I haven’t anything to do for once. Give me a spanner”, and he set to work while we stood round and acted as assistants.
To my secret relief he found no obvious mistake in our work. He seemed a bit less assured when he had finished. “Now—give her another try.”
At that moment the order came to entrain. “Never mind; I’ll come with you and we can check it as we go.”
It was about a mile to the railhead, but I remember little of the journey. I spent it watching the engine anxiously. Its behaviour was an exact repetition of its previous performance. It had no guts, it became hot, backfired and after about a hundred yards we dared not drive further and switched off. Williams looked anxious. “Never mind. Get it onto the train and we will see to it at the other end.”
It was touch and go whether we could reach the train before it had to steam off. We did—because we were so late we were out of order and drove up the ramp onto the last truck. It was just as well for otherwise we should have had to drive almost the length of the train and though it was easy I always hated the sensation of driving on an unstable platform of flat trucks marshalled end to end, just wide enough for the tanks and their tracks, but often with an inch of the latter overhanging.
It was still light when the train left. Any reconnaissance plane—and there were plenty at the Salient—could and probably did see us. But in the hour before night fell they would not be able to find out any more about our destination than we on the ground could. White puffs of anti-aircraft shell bursts showed we were as usual being observed. Our last taste of the Salient was the flash of wings and bursts of machine-gun fire from a ‘dog fight’ high over our heads in the fading light.
13
WE stopped after an hour. The officers of our company were to go along the rail track to the Major’s coach, a dilapidated first-class compartment. Officers must travel first class
I remembered, though it was an age since we had known any luxury other than the snout of the tank looming above us as we lay on the boards of the tank trucks. A shaded hand torch was our illumination as we strained to catch a glimpse of the map in the circle of light. We knew it by heart anyway—except for one word clearly visible—CAMBRAI. Where the hell’s that?
That was where there was a great railway junction, a nerve centre of the German army communications which, when we had broken through… Not again surely—all through those beautiful green fields? Ouderdom, Vlamertinghe, St Jean—one bit of mud is very like another whatever the name—had destroyed military fairy stories. And we were not to know that the secret operation could be discontinued at any time since there were no reserves available. Just as well perhaps—one tank was worry enough for us.
There was no port. As no one had ever suggested that the Major was a secret drinker—that was a fault of which the old rascal was incapable—we were agreed that things must be pretty serious. We dispersed to our trucks after one parting injunction.
“Remember; between the time we detrain, in about an hour I should think, and half an hour before dawn, say six o’clock, every tank must have disappeared so the enemy can see nothing, nothing, between rail-head and Harringcourt Wood.” Another blasted wood. I hoped it didn’t look like men walking.
As we were last on we came off the train first when we arrived at our rail-head. Williams was there. “It may be carboned up; if so, with a bit of luck it will burn itself clear as it goes. I’ll give it a proper doing when you get to the wood.”
There was no luck. We had five miles to go and in the best conditions we were unlikely to make more than five miles an hour. Certainly the ground was dry and chalky—was that what the intelligent fool called cretaceous? I hoped I was not going to see it change to the alluvial—but after that the conditions were not the best. We were utterly tired out.
The Long Week-End 1897-1919 Page 17