The Very White of Love

by S C Worrall

  At the foot of the hill is a line of Belgian anti-tank defences: x-shaped steel rails, embedded in concrete, about ten feet high, known as Cointet Gates, with concrete block houses at intervals between them. This 45-kilometre network of steel and concrete was supposed to defend the southern approaches to Brussels against a German invasion from France. But the invasion has come from the opposite direction.

  Martin can see the German lines on the other side of the Cointet Gates. Batteries of field guns and mortars. A line of light tanks. In the distance, he can just make out the position of the battalion’s sister regiment, the Oxfords. To the right, the 2nd Glosters are already dug in. Their job is to cover the gap between them.

  ‘How’s it look, sir?’ Cripps crawls up beside Martin.

  ‘Not great. We have to cover a gap in the defences about 1,000 yards long on the other side of this ridge.’ Martin passes Cripps the binos. ‘See those farm tracks?’

  Cripps adjusts the sights, nods.

  ‘Normally, they would carry farm carts and livestock. Now, they offer the Germans a perfect break in the defences.’ He points to the German lines. ‘And those tanks? They’re backed by field guns, mortars and infantry.’

  Cripps points down the slope. ‘Why not hold the top of the hill? The slope is totally exposed.’

  ‘Why not, indeed?’ Martin sighs. ‘Perhaps BB didn’t have the right maps?’

  At 1 p.m. precisely, that same Lieutenant Colonel Burnett-Brown MC, the commanding officer, whom Martin and the rest of the battalion are rapidly losing confidence in, calls the officers to lunch at an estaminet in a place called Six Maisons, where the battalion has set up its HQ. They are only a few hundred yards from the forward lines. Shells are raining down all around. But standards have to be maintained.

  BB, ‘The Little King’, sits at the top of the table, a crisp white napkin tucked into his khaki shirt, as though he is at dinner at the Café Royal in Piccadilly. Next to him, in order of rank, sit Heyworth and the rest of the officers. In the distance, howitzer fire rumbles like thunder.

  The absurdity of the situation isn’t lost on Martin. His hands are blistered from digging, his back aches. It was hard work, digging trenches on a downward slope, and they had not managed to cover the whole 1,000 yards. Several times, they had had to throw themselves into the freshly dug trenches, to avoid incoming shells. Stukas strafed the hillside. In the late afternoon, Moroccan tirailleurs in bloodied fezzes and torn greatcoats retreated through the British lines, a rabble of downcast and dejected men, broken by combat. Now, he is in a restaurant, eating lapin à la cocotte, washed down with a glass of red Bordeaux.

  ‘What’s the first thing they learn in the French Army?’ says Heyworth, knocking back a glass of brandy. The other officers shrug. ‘How to say “I surrender” in German.’

  A ripple of laughter goes round the room.

  ‘What’s the shortest book ever written?’ It’s Hugh’s turn. ‘The Book of French War Heroes.’

  More laughter. Heyworth turns to Martin. ‘Your turn, Martin. You’re the translator, after all.’

  Martin knits his brows, blushes. He and Nancy love France and the French.

  ‘Come on, man!’ Heyworth goads him. ‘Spit it out!’

  Martin looks around the table. ‘What’s the difference between the French Army and a slice of toast?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the other officers parrot. ‘What is the difference between the French army and a slice of toast?’

  ‘You can make soldiers out of toast.’

  There’s a moment’s pause as the joke sinks in. Then the room erupts into raucous laughter.

  A howitzer shell lands in the garden, blowing out one of the windows at the back of the dining room. A cloud of dust floats towards the table. With a perfect, stiff upper lip, BB turns to Heyworth and says: ‘This rabbit is excellent. I must get the recipe for Mrs B.’

  Martin wishes he could write to Nancy, tell her about this absurd piece of theatre. The slovenly waiter carrying piles of plates on his shoulder as shells explode outside. The smell of cooking mixing with the reek of cordite. The bottles of wine shaking on the table. The cement dust in BB’s hair. The schoolboy jokes and stiff upper lips. The fields of Waterloo stretching away in the distance. The total, utter British madness of it all.

  Back at their position on the front, with the trench finished, there is nothing to do but listen and wait. Since six o’clock, when a group of enemy bombers attacked their position, it has been quiet. The food trucks have even managed to do their rounds, bringing congealed stew, stale bread and tea up to the trenches. There is one uneaten ration: the battalion’s first casualty has been recorded – Private Hammond, a twenty-two-year-old printer from Aylesbury, killed by shrapnel when a bomb exploded next to the trench he was manning.

  He’s in a different platoon, so Martin does not know him, but the lives of all the soldiers in the battalion are linked by work or marriage. And as the men stand under the birch trees, spooning stew from their mess tins, this first death makes them sombre and quiet, the meal all the more tasteless.

  An eerie silence has descended over the battlefield. The only sound is the hooting of an owl in the copse behind them. Martin spends the rest of the evening trying to keep the men focused, intervening in petty disputes that flare up over cigarettes or cards, seeing that no one absconds in the dark, scanning the German lines with his binoculars for any sign of activity. Nothing.

  His eyes are starting to close when a loud crump shatters the silence, then another. Suddenly, dozens of guns are blazing away from the German lines, the ripple of flashes punctuates the darkness. There is a strange beauty to the scene. Like lightning in a thunderstorm. ‘Looks like they are targeting the retreating troops and support units,’ he says.

  Cripps shakes his head. ‘Poor buggers, those Moroccans have already had a terrible pasting.’

  The enemy batteries continue firing for four hours, sending hundreds of shells whistling overhead. It’s the first time Martin and his men have come under sustained fire and the constant crump of the German howitzers, the eerie whistle of the shells, like a tea kettle boiling, make the men nervous. They react in different ways. Some curse as the shells land, others jeer at the Germans’ bad gunnery. Some simply sit, sullen and afraid, their helmets pulled down over their eyes, their knees drawn up to their chests, smoking.

  Martin’s own reaction is a constant fluttering in his stomach, as though his skin is bare and a cold wind is playing over it, and an instinctive animal desire to flee. But he knows that he has to be strong for his men, set them an example, so, as they doze off, he remains awake and alert, occasionally walking up and down the trench, doling out cigarettes here, sharing a joke and a memory of home there.

  Then, as the first rays of light start to creep across the German lines, a runner appears.

  ‘New orders, sir.’ The runner salutes. ‘Companies are ordered to withdraw, and be clear to move by 0800 hours.’

  Martin acknowledges the salute. ‘We just spent a day digging in!’ Martin stares at the runner, dumbfounded.

  ‘Those are the orders, sir. Direct from the adjutant.’

  Martin shakes his head. The runner salutes and heads back up the hill. Martin calls to the men: ‘Company ordered to withdraw! Be clear by 0800 hours!’ A groan goes up, interspersed with obscenities. ‘I’m sorry, lads. I’m as frustrated as you are.’ Martin picks up his rifle, points to the trenches. ‘I don’t want anything left behind. Tools, weapons, your tea mugs, everything! So let’s get cracking!’

  ‘What a waste of effing time,’ Topper grumbles, shouldering an ammunition box.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of other opportunities.’ Martin points at a bag in the bottom of the trench. ‘And don’t forget the cement.’

  Jenkins swings the crank handle and the Panopticon judders into life. Martin hops into the cab, settling by the window. Cripps takes his place at the front, next to Jenkins. Martin looks up anxiously into the sky. T
he sun bathes the fields in summer light. Not a cloud. The wind blowing at less than 20 mph. Perfect weather for the Luftwaffe.

  ‘There’s a rumour going round that the Belgians are about to surrender.’ Cripps drinks from his canteen.

  ‘Like bloody ninepins, innit?’ Jenkins mutters, putting the Panopticon into gear.

  The whole division is moving out, thousands of men with their equipment and transport. In military jargon it is known as a Crash Move, but the column makes painfully slow progress. Orders are given from above and countermanded without explanation. Even officers, like Martin, have little idea of the bigger picture. The regimental sergeant major strides up and down the column of marching men, bellowing orders. ‘Move it, you lazy bastards! If you don’t want to have Jerry up your arses!’

  As they wait at a crossroads, Topper leaps down from the lorry and runs into a farm barn, returning moments later with a handful of eggs. He waves them over his head, like a trophy. But as they approach the southern outskirts of Brussels the mood grows sombre. A cart lies overturned, the horse dead in its traces, blood seeping onto the cobblestones from a gaping hole in its flank. Abandoned cars line the side of the road, their windshields riddled with bullet holes. A Belgian soldier lies dead on the ground, in a cloud of flies. Belgian neutrality ended six days ago, when the Wehrmacht swept through the Ardennes. Now, they are paying for it. Dogfights rage in the skies over Brussels. The Belgian Army is close to collapse.

  The sun climbs higher, illuminating the tide of terrified humanity fleeing west towards France in anything they can lay their hands on: cars, horse-drawn carts, handcarts, wheelbarrows, all piled with their possessions. At a roadside shrine, an old woman in threadbare slippers and a blue housecoat kneels before a statue of Notre Dame des Douleurs. At the sight of the Panoptican, she hauls herself to her feet.

  ‘Pourquoi vous nous abandonnez, monsieur?’ She clutches at Martin’s arm through the open window, her bony hand like the claw of a bird. ‘Why are you abandoning us?’

  Her dust-caked face is lined with tears, like cracks in a dried-out riverbed. ‘Three days!’ She sticks three knobbly fingers in Martin’s face. ‘And already you are running away?’ she cries. ‘I thought you British had more guts!’

  Martin digs his nails into the palm of his hand, pained by his inability to protect these refugees. ‘Je . . . Nous . . . ’

  The rumble of gunfire rolls in from the west, like thunder. The Panopticon moves off with a jerk. ‘Monsieur! Pour l’amour de Dieu. Ne nous abandonnez pas!’ the old woman screams after it.

  The old woman’s cries for help ring in Martin’s ears as they slog towards their next stop: the village of Drumeiron. The men have had little sleep and slump down on the ground as soon as the column halts, glug from water bottles, light cigarettes to dull the tiredness and hunger. Their feet are blistered, their uniforms are caked in sweat and mud. But the sight of the food lorry doling out hot meals lifts their spirits. They queue up with their mess tins for a ladle of watery stew and a hunk of bread.

  Martin takes his mess tin and sits against the trunk of an apple tree. White blossom hangs from the branches. A wood pigeon coos in the distance. The evening air is warm against his cheek. Between the rows of trees there are clumps of blue cornflowers. The colour of her eyes.

  His head sinks into his chest. He is so tired he could sleep for a week. But he forces himself to eat a few spoonfuls of stew and some stale bread, then leans back against the tree and slides his hand into the inside pocket of his tunic. Pulls out a letter. It’s the last one he received, the only one he saved from the fire. He takes it out of the envelope: four thin, blue airmail sheets, dated 17 April, Blythe Cottage. He lifts the paper to his face, searching for any remaining trace of her perfume. But the letter smells of sweat and tobacco smoke. The scent of war.

  My darling Martin,

  I hope the books and newspaper cuttings arrived safely. We have not heard anything from you since 4 April. Are you still in that gloomy village with no name? Or have your prospects improved with the arrival of spring? Wherever you are, you know that my love goes with you, like a coat you can wrap around your shoulders. I saw Aunt Dorothy the other day. She invited me over for tea at Whichert House with Roseen. Everyone is well. Aunt D. busy in the garden, promising strawberries by June! If the rain holds off, that is. After tea, Roseen and I walked up to Penn. The hedgerows are thick with flowers now and the trees are almost all in leaf. Roseen talked about her plans with Andrew. She is so in love! It’s wonderful, isn’t it?! Soon the four of us will be together. Everyone says this awful war will not last for long . . .

  It is as though she is sitting next to him, talking. The mention of his family – Aunt D., Roseen – and much loved places like Whichert House makes him horribly homesick. Normally, he pushes them out of his mind, to concentrate on the job at hand. But, as he sits with his back against the tree, he closes his eyes and lets his imagination drift back to that magical day on the Isis as they drifted down the river, Nancy lying in the prow, her head resting on a blue velvet cushion. The comedy with the lost oar. The feel of her lips on his as they lay in the clover.

  He is roused from his memory by shouts from across the road. Two soldiers are leading a black and white goat along by a rope. The goat tugs at the rope, bleats. The soldiers try to make it stand still. But it keeps pulling away, tossing its head, trying to butt them with its horns. Then, as one of the soldiers holds the rope, the other kneels by the goat. There’s a flash of something metal. For a moment, Martin thinks they are going to kill it. Then the hands of the kneeling man start to rhythmically move up and down as he milks the goat into a tin shaving bowl.

  Martin smiles. The more time he has come to spend with them, the more he has come to love them: their silliness and irrepressible humour; their pranks and toughness. If anything wins the war, it will be that: British sense of humour, an innate respect for fairness, and our sheer, bloody-mindedness.

  As the last light drains from the sky, Martin and the rest of the officers are called to orders at their camp in Drumeiron. The officers sit in a circle of chairs inside a tent, their faces partly in shadow from the light of paraffin lamps. BB sits on a canvas chair in the centre. There’s a different mood this evening. An undercurrent of fear and frustration. Some of them stare blankly at the ground or tug nervously at cigarettes.

  ‘Ah-hem.’ BB clears his throat, his shining leather breeches kicked out in front of him. When he leans forward into the lamplight, twizzling the ends of his moustache, he has the face of a man who has just seen a ghost. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes are sunken, his breathing is laboured. ‘Thank you all for attending.’ He tries to smile. ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you very exact information.’ A groan goes up. ‘As an officer on the Somme once remarked: “If you think you know what’s going on, you haven’t been paying attention.”’ There’s a ripple of laughter and a few groans. He looks across at Stebbings, who is scribbling notes for the war diary, the battalion’s official record, then continues. ‘I want to say a few words about the situation we find ourselves in . . . ’ BB clears his throat again. ‘And the situation we find ourselves in is somewhat . . . ’ he looks around the tent, searching for the right word. ‘Awkward.’ Several officers shake their heads in dismay. BB takes out a large white handkerchief and blows his nose, like an elephant trumpeting. ‘Our French allies on the right flank have given way.’

  An angry murmur goes round the room, mutterings about French cowardice. BB raises his hand. Several of the officers ignore him and continue muttering. ‘Which has left us rather . . . in the merde.’ He pulls a face. ‘As a result, the enemy is now bearing down on us.’ He indicates Stebbings, the intelligence officer. ‘Latest intel suggests they are now only ten or so miles behind us.’

  Martin watches the reaction on the faces of the other officers. Some are visibly dismayed. Others smile knowingly, as though it is just what they were expecting of the French anyway. From the chair next to BB’s there’s a clickin
g sound as the second-in-command, Brian Heyworth, bites on the stem of his pipe.

  BB continues. ‘As a result, we have been ordered to make a rapid withdrawal.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir.’ Captain Rupert Barry, one of the most colourful and outspoken members of the battalion, raises his hand. ‘Aren’t we meant to be fighting the Germans – not running away from them!’

  The tent erupts into mocking laughter and shouts of ‘Hear, hear!’ BB holds up his hand. The officers ignore him, and continue laughing.

  The adjutant leaps to his feet. ‘Your commanding officer is addressing you!’ He glares round the tent, until the hubbub dies down.

  ‘Thank you, James.’ BB pulls a wan smile. The grass beyond the open tent flap shines silver in the moonlight. BB looks round the tent, as though he doesn’t know where he is. ‘As I was saying – before I was so rudely interrupted . . .’ He kneads his handkerchief, helplessly. ‘Where was I?’

  Ritchie leaps to his feet again. ‘We have been ordered to make a rapid withdrawal, sir.’

  BB is overcome by a violent fit of hacking that makes his body shake. He takes the white silk handkerchief from his pocket and trumpets into it again. The officers watch him, in silence, waiting for more instructions. But none are forthcoming. An orderly brings BB a glass of brandy, helps him to his feet. His face is crimson. He salutes and, supported by the orderly, walks unsteadily out of the tent.

  Martin follows him with his eyes. It’s clear to everyone the old colonel can’t go on any longer. He has lost the respect of the battalion and he’s simply too sick, and too feeble, to continue. Now, we don’t even have a commanding officer, thinks Martin. We really are in the merde.

  Martin and his platoon have only just settled down for the night when a new order comes in: they are to move off again, towards the village of Enghien. The men are fractious and angry. Why are they retreating, when they have not even fought the Germans? Where are they headed now? The fog of war swirls around them, thick and impenetrable, as they join a ragged column of soldiers from all different units and set off, heads bowed, grumbling.