I do not know if Asser was sustained by any religious belief. In the short time I knew him he was always cheerful, modest, unassuming—how fast and how trippingly the cliches come tumbling out. The currency is so debased that the very language of love, like the word ‘love’ itself, can hardly be used in the presence of the thing itself. Aitches and Asser; both dead. They cannot really have been so different. ‘And I, only, am left alone to tell thee’.
One or two regular army officers showed an instinctive fear of the future. One I knew was desperate to achieve a decoration which might serve as a life-belt in the stormy seas of peace looming ahead. The outcome for those who could guess at the future must have been black indeed. The prospects for the end of the war were, however, so extremely slight that I do not think that any of us seriously entertained conscious fears or hopes.
I had to take a section into action on a place called Tara Hill; the orders were based on a fiction that the hill was occupied by the enemy. I did not see any of our own or enemy troops, but it was evident that enemy gunners were still in action and had a good view of the hill which supposedly we were about to capture. After a time I decided, in view of the accuracy of the gunfire, that it was best to assume we had captured the position. This left me free to initiate an activity which I called ‘patrolling the enemy position’, and this in turn enabled me to shelter two tanks out of direct fire and make the third travel up and down without any crew. Since I was sure there were no infantry present I did not have the horrors of the Happy Valley action. The only danger lay in driving the tank till it was time to swing it round to go in the opposite direction. Luckily the gunners got it before anyone was hurt.
In due course the battle was deemed to be over and with one tank less but all my men intact I was free to write my report. This I was doing somewhat light-heartedly when I suddenly remembered Lord Watchett’s warning about ‘two rows of ribbons’ and restrained myself. The regular officer who hoped himself to be decorated if he could paint the warlike feats of his troops in sufficiently glowing colours was still at large. The reality of the danger had been brought home to me by my being awarded the Legion of Honour for the action on August 8th. The citation had a curiously plausible resemblance to the ‘facts’, yet I could not believe that the battle 1 had experienced and the one cited were the same. I liked the ribbon—bright red—and it went well with the DSO, but I found it difficult to make an appropriate response to congratulations. The first such occasion arose when our Brigadier, a distinguished soldier and a very likeable man, wanting to congratulate me, waggishly invited me to draw aside my trench coat and expose the ribbon. As it was some weeks after the award had appeared in Orders he was not pleased that I was not wearing the ribbon. He must have felt, as I did, that this was a gratuitous display of mock modesty. I had not in fact been able to obtain the ribbon but, equally, I had not tried very hard.
My report on Tara Hill led to nothing worse than being detailed for the job of OC Company in charge of base details while the other officers had a turn at action. I had long ceased to mind being left out of battle. I would not have liked to admit any deterioration but I did not want to be reminded that once I had protested at Ypres at being excluded. Nor did I want to stress too much that I would hate to be wanted for the action on August 22nd. It was with relief that I found myself turning in for a night’s sleep with two other officers sharing the tent, both juniors whom I did not know. Hauser was ‘up the line’ to take his turn in command of his section in action.
41
I MUST have gone to sleep at once for we all knew better now than to waste time awake if we had a chance of sleep—day or night. It was with sinking feelings that I was awoken by someone stumbling clumsily amidst our tent guide-ropes. I felt sure he was looking for the opening flap; I felt sure it would mean that he was looking for me. After a time he gave up looking and started to shout.
“Is Captain Bion here please?”
I pulled my blankets over my head and for a second or two pretended not to hear. Of course nobody wanted an officer in the middle of the night for any pleasant reason. Again he shouted, more urgently. At last I asked him what he wanted.
“You’re wanted up the line sir, at once. It’s urgent.”
I pulled on my boots and staggered out into the bright cold night with my equipment. My three crews had been alerted and were waiting silently by their tanks. The messenger, whom I knew, was one on whom I could rely; checking the map reference to our destination I told him to get on and lead us there, the tanks following closely in line.
Even at that miserable hour it was very welcome to hear some infantry shout out as we passed, “Good old Tanks”, and “Good luck”. I was met by the second in command who told me the infantry were held up at a village called Sequehart. No great difficulty was expected but we must have the village.
The ground conditions were perfect as they had been since August 8th. The village dominated the far slope of a small valley. In the centre of it and easily visible was the church. Our infantry had penetrated the village but we did not know where the front line was. Therefore we must be careful not to open fire till we were really sure we were not firing on our own. I hardly needed to tell our men that, but it was bad news that we had to fight in such confused conditions. With the poor visibility from tanks, it made it particularly awkward if we had to exercise great care in selecting our targets. I arranged with our tank commanders as I went that I would try to be at various rallying points at particular times—if wanted. In fact I thought it nonsense because I would be far more likely to see that a tank was in trouble than they could spare anyone to come and look for me. Still, it sounded as if it provided a kind of programme.
The second in command gave us his blessing; I dismissed the tank commanders as it was time for them to shut themselves in and set off in low gear at their one mile an hour crawl to their starting points. These terms belonged, as did our tanks, to the rigid conditions of static trench warfare. We were engaged now in something so close to open warfare that neither training nor equipment was adequate; what was required was a capacity for improvisation and initiative. In my days of infantry training I thought I had both. Either I was mistaken or it had been beaten out of me by the sombre misery of Ypres and the sheer attrition of war on someone unsuited to fighting. I was too tired to think; I suffered a vague sense of grievance which was made worse by the feeling that I could think of nothing about which to have cause to be aggrieved. Sergeant O’Toole had had a grievance. I felt I shared it but I did not share the hideous foundation on which he had to build his structure of patriotism and discipline. I at least had some reason to believe that England represented a way of life for which one could be expected to fight.
It was past our supposed zero hour. I walked slowly in the direction in which the tanks had disappeared. As the sky grew pale I began to disinguish the church of Sequehart. At the time I thought its spire looked magnificent. I remembered having been told that spires were intended to remind men of the God who dwelt in the heavens above and watched over the affairs of men and women on earth. Then the sun rose blood red behind the church; soon the dramatic spectacle gave way to the light of day, the commonplace village, the machine-guns and the individual shots of rifle fire.
Those who were not fighting could and did say the enemy were defeated, the war won. This was not true or relevant for any of us there that morning.
In the valley, still shadowed by the ground rising gently up to Sequehart, was one of my tanks. As the light grew I realized it was not moving. It looked as if nothing was wrong. But when I came nearer I found it had had a direct hit. The shell had burst on the track, flung it back over the tail and effectively put it out of action as it could no longer move. But the fact of its hitting the track had saved the crew; no one was injured and Reid had formed the orthodox and useless strong point disposed in front and to the left.
It was then that I discovered another tank farther to the right and also immobile.
This had been knocked out by a direct hit from a gas shell. As the explosive charge was only enough to release the gas no one was hurt and the officer and one man had even escaped being gassed. I made them join Reid’s strong point as there was nothing for them to do and no reason for withdrawing from action. Afterwards I felt I had been wrong. I do not remember making any decision in action which I did not soon regret, but this was peculiar in that my feeling of guilt about my last battle in the war grew steadily for many years after.
I was able to compare the full account that I wrote at the time with the impression I had years later when the details had disappeared from my memory; the feelings seemed to have remained and even grown in intensity. Thus, looking back I had an almost overwhelming sense of failure, in this wise:
There were four men all badly gassed. With help they could be made to walk. I felt it essential to get them away from the tank which I was sure would be hit again, this time with high explosive. The enemy were using three parts high explosive to one part poison gas in their bombardment. I laid out the men some ten yards or more away from and behind the tank. I then tried to get the men behind the track marked on the map, as was the track on August 8th, and therefore subject to fire. I managed the first two by making them walk while I bore their weight on my shoulders around which their arms were looped. As we went the enemy gunners opened concentrated fire on the track. At the latter stage we had to crawl, I doing most of the heavy dragging work. When I thought they were out of danger I told them to get back to casualty station while I returned for the last two.
They were much worse off and unable to help themselves. I saw our infantry retiring on the right of the village; I hesitated, not sure what to do. Two infantry men ran towards us shouting “Tanks!” They asked me to take the tank up to help beat back the enemy. I said I could not as the tank crew were out of action; they ran back with the message. Then I realized that if only I had not sent the officer and one man to join Reid we might have restarted the engine—I had forgotten that the three of us had in fact tried to start the engine. But perhaps because of the gas taken into the engine air intake we could not shift it with our combined strength; it was an inert mass of steel. Had they been there could we, with the aid of the two infantry, have restarted the tank and five of us have taken it into action?
Confused and exhausted I removed vital parts of the guns and, stuffing my equipment with these, managed to get the last two back to safety in two more journeys across the shelled road.
The crew were now all safe but I was left confused and a prey to guilt which was more intense when later that evening I tried to explain to our company commander how one of my tanks was reported as abandoned by the crew while still in full fighting order. The simple but unwelcome answer would be that the crew had had enough of it. Still more unwelcome was the idea that / had had enough of it and retained sufficient sense of reality to know that I had only to go on fighting and I would surely be killed—if the enemy went on fighting likewise.
The debate in my mind and the debate between the Company Commander and myself—if a few desultory questions could be described as a debate—were markedly bad tempered. I felt hostile, anxious and glad to pick a quarrel. I angered the Company Commander by calling him a bloody fool. I angered myself by immediately regretting it. I was startled and surprised when Carter told me quietly that if he had been the Company Commander he would have put me under arrest; I was disconcerted to find that I agreed with Carter. In fact it was surprising that though angered, the Company Commander had summoned up enough tolerance to pass over something which was extremely rude even if one did not consider the military impropriety. I felt tired, blast them! I was frightened too. There had been a time when I would not have dared to say “blast them”—not without apologizing at once. Wouldn’t dare! What, a great big boy like you with a DSO?
How I hated these interior dialogues—still do. No, damn it, no; I don’t want the DSO. I don’t want to be a big boy. Oh my, I don’t want to die! I want to go home.’
I remembered the matron at my prep school. “What? A great big boy like you putting your father to all that expense for an X-ray and nothing the matter with you? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” I was. I had burned with shame when my father had taken me to a London clinic because my foot pained me and made me limp. It was X-rayed. Then the almoner spoke with my father while I stood by. I could not understand the conversation but I did catch some words of it.
“But”, she said to my father who had been speaking low so I could not hear properly, “your boy is wearing a college cap.” That damned cap—I had forgotten it started so early. “If you can afford to send him to school you can surely afford to pay for an X-ray7”
My father seemed guilty. I think he blushed; I blushed for him. He was getting out a note case. It was awful. Never, never again would I have a painful foot. Still, I couldn’t help limping. That fiendish matron—never, never again would I limp, pain or no pain.
But… I had not reckoned with cowardice. I still felt just as ridiculous. The DSO, the tank itself, were very inadequate protection. Even after Cambrai when my crew were told, I felt they looked at me as if to say, “What you? Recommended for a VC?” After Sequehart, as after Cambrai, I felt I might with equal relevance have been recommended for a Court Martial. It depended on the direction which one took when one ran away.
42
AFTER a month of rest and refitment the Colonel called together the senior officers. He and our Company Commander were both men I liked and respected—regular soldiers, efficient, quiet, unspectacular. I think we must have become veterans; Cambrai had finished off the enthusiastic amateurs.
The air was more wholesome for the disappearance of Aitches and Homfray. Of Aitches it could be said that the misfortune was a tragedy personal to him and to those under him who were expected by force of circumstances to invest him with an importance he did not have. The tragedy was repeated in the next war on a far larger scale when not only Chamberlain but the nation itself was called upon to bear an importance, loaded by history and the conditions of a present and a future, which it could not carry. Churchill himself added to the tragedy by seeming to embody the qualities which were required by the past, envied and outdated by the present, and insupportable and unsupported by the future.
In the insignificant physical and moral space occupied by myself in the First War even such trivial responsibilities as I had to carry were far beyond my capacity, my training and upbringing. To that extent I too shared the tragedy which was Aitches’. He, in so far as he can be distinguished from his environment, probably had not the personality required; the environment of great wealth, ruthless amorality, third-rate admiration, probably played its part in producing the feeble personality and would finally have destroyed it. Wealth, admiration, honour may mark already existing achievements but are poison when used as a substitute for the qualities which they are supposed to mark. They are similarly harmful when they are withheld until they mark nothing that is not already known. The individual who will not accept such marks of recognition, the society that will not extend them, is already in a bad way and becoming worse.
Homfray with his affectation of worthlessness was striving to disguise worthlessness which was the only genuine thing about him. He was the criminal pleading guilty to avoid investigation; he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He was known as Tape, a name conferred on him on account of his long, slender appearance by Yates, an officer of the original 5th Battalion in England. But any name would be a disguise for yet another disguise. He was nothing disguised as an enigma disguised as a fascinating problem concealed as an ordinary person concealed as the excretion he was. He stank, but luckily for him he enjoyed the odour.
I have allowed myself in the exercise of this description the experience of a certain group of feelings; now I allow myself the further exercise of naming the group of feelings; I borrow from religion the term ‘enthusiasm’. Indeed, I would think it legitimate to employ this term to
the totality of the experience of writing this book. I do so because I want a term to summarize and identify an element of the total emotional experience described up to the participation in the battle at Ypres.
The characteristic that dominates the part of that experience of which I was aware—emotion and the dominant aspect of that emotion—is ‘enthusiasm’. The change which took place in the battalion after action at Ypres, and between that date and the termination of the battle of Amiens, I would describe as decreasing ‘enthusiasm’. The dates are arbitrary, an artificial boundary in time. Similarly the locale—in so far as I have attributed it to a particular group of people, the battalion or a section or sub-group of the battalion—is equally arbitrary. It is merely an attempt to simplify a problem, the problem of an individual, myself, and the reality of one individual’s emotional life. For an approximation to the reality of the emotional experience of the battalion it would be necessary to have an account of that experience of which each participant was aware. Obviously, therefore, this account cannot be taken as bearing anything but a severely limited approximation to what it purports to describe. Its value lies in its contribution to a whole which does not and may never exist.
The Colonel explained that we were to go up to the Line. Where was it? Well, he was not yet sure. The line was moving now and he advised us not to think too much of The Line.
“If I were you I shouldn’t even think too much of advancing or retreating either. I keep on having orders as if the whole British Army were moving forward in one piece. That means that if the Boches hold on, or try to disengage, or counter-attack, everyone always thinks their titchy bit of battle is the whole army falling back or defeated or winning. All I can tell you is—we are supposed to be going to Mons.”
The Long Week-End 1897-1919 Page 31