Damn Ching! And yet—poor Ching. That dreadful home, a palsied fat father, and mother with settled anxious face.
What to say to his own mother? What could he say to her, when he could only express what he really felt; and by doing so, only reveal to her that he was further and further alienated from what she used to think she knew of him? Neither Mother nor Father had ever wanted his idea of truth; it was quite beyond their narrow world. Hush, Phillip, hush my son, you must not say such things. Fear, fear, fear! Fear of Father, fear of her son being himself, or trying to be. He had started a score of letters to both parents; come to an inevitable petering-out in each; and torn the letters up.
Should he go; or stay? He dreaded being conspicuous, so he remained on his knees, until all were gone, and the padre only was left. It was too late to go, then. He must say something. He got up and said, “May I thank you for a beautiful service, padre. This is a wonderful place. I’m just on my way to rejoin my unit after fifteen hours in the train. Do forgive me if I seem a bit odd, it’s because I’ve drunk a bottle of wine.”
“I’d think it odd if you hadn’t drunk a bottle of wine after fifteen hours in an army train! Some of you chaps who come here have had considerably more than a modest bottle of wine! Capacity, I assure you, is no qualification, or disqualification! We welcome all and sundry, publicans, sinners, and the righteous alike. Our intentions are good, but sometimes go the way of all good intentions! As an instance: Last week we had several, shall I say slightly unsteady, boys from the London Irish here, and so I asked them to make a rule to limit themselves to two pints of beer a day. They were very young, scarcely nineteen. One of them later sent a message from the guardroom of the Provost Marshal’s office, asking if I would go and see him. He was very much frightened, poor boy, because he had been found drunk, and taken in. I asked him why he ‘had the drink taken’. What do you think he replied?” asked the padre, touching the top button of Phillip’s tunic. “‘Well, Padre, I’ve always been a teetotaller, but I did what you asked, took two pints, and here I am’.” The padre, a short, sturdy man, threw back his head and roared with laughter. “However, all was well! I reported myself to the boy’s Commanding Officer, as an agent provocateur, and was let off with a caution! No case against the boy was brought, I need hardly say. Now, may I be of help in any way to you?”
“You have, sir. Very much. This is my second visit, as a matter of fact. I came here with ‘Spectre’ West—I think you know him?”
“Yes, indeed. One of my best friends. What are you doing now?”
“I’ve been on a course, and was wondering if he was still about.”
“Oh yes, he comes here now and again. Your name is?—Maddison. I’ll remember it, and tell him I’ve seen you.”
“Thank you, sir. Well, I mustn’t keep you. And thank you again for making this oasis for all of us.”
*
When Phillip met Pinnegar he asked him if he had spoken to Colonel Wilmott about the possible withdrawal of the German guns from behind the Gheluvelt plateau.
“He said it was elementary tactics to place a battery so that it could fire in enfilade whenever possible, and that every depression behind the high ground was probably stiff with Boche batteries. I got the impression that he rather thought I’d got a bit of a nerve to query whether the staffs of the Division and Corps know their jobs or not.”
*
The sun had gone down when the company, followed by wheeled limbers, moved through the grey emptiness of Ypres. The day had been bright and clear, but clouds had closed upon the sunset. Sandbag strips muffled the grind of iron wheel-hoops upon sett-stones. Phillip was on foot: the minimum of transport noise was ordered. Marching men broke step, no smoking was permitted.
Having left the town, the ambling sections followed the Brigade sign-posted track, as rehearsed in the back area. Pack animals had another track; wheeled transport only was allowed on the roads.
For three weeks the Plum had had ripening weather, thought Phillip. Then, as darkness fell, it began to drizzle. By the time he got back to the picket line it was raining steadily, and he was wet to the skin. There seemed to be a curse on the entire offensive, for so far it had rained on every night before an attack.
*
At 11 p.m. in Lovie Château, Fifth Army Headquarters in the woods three miles north of Poperinghe, General Gough telephoned to General Plumer on Cassel Hill, suggesting that the attack be postponed. The senior General replied that he would consult ‘Meteor’, as well as his Corps, and some Divisional commanders.
‘Meteor’ having stated that there was a risk of thunderstorms, otherwise fair weather might be expected; and Corps, “that the ground was go-able”, Plum informed Fox that the attack should proceed.
*
At three o’clock in the morning Phillip was standing, in heavy wet tunic, breeches, and boots, in his tent. In one hand was his tooth-mug, in the other a whiskey bottle. Having half-filled the enamel mug, he drank most of it neat; then choked, spluttered, and for awhile could hardly breathe. Then, as warmth uprose in him, he wound up the gramophone and put on The Garden of Sleep. The light tenor voice, so sensitive and tender, brought him to his knees, as he held his face close to the concave nickel-plated amplifier, and closed his eyes.
O Life of my life, on the cliffs by the sea,
By the graves in the grass, I am waiting for thee.
Sleep! Sleep!
In the dews by the Deep,
Sleep my Poppy Land, sleep.
Sitting on a copy of the Daily Trident spread on the camp bed to keep the wet away, he had a party with the candle, gramophone, and whiskey bottle. But soon thoughts of the imminent battle possessed him, with fears of disaster and death. If the rain kept on the infantry wouldn’t have a chance, despite the supports and reserves close up behind them. Damn! Damn!! Damn!!! Why did the rain always fall on Y/Z night? He touched the canvas, to see if any drops would come through. The tip of his finger glistened, and lifting the candle, stuck to the top volume of Thompson’s poems, he let the flame dodge about with its black smoke around the place he had touched, to dry it up, and perhaps seal it with a film of wax. No drop bulged; he was pleased with himself.
Rain, rain, rain. The infantry would be held up again by mud. All the five barrages would be of no avail. Each one of the five moving curtains of fire was planned to bite into and rip up everything that lay or moved within its limits of two hundred yards. The first was a creeping barrage of shrapnel by 18-pounders; the second was a combing barrage of H.E. from 18-pounders and 4.5 hows, with instantaneous or “burst-on-graze”, as well as delay-action, fuses. The third was by 240 Vickers guns, to keep German local-attack reserves in their shelters; the fourth was a neutralising barrage by 6-inch howitzers to fall among the German field-batteries; the fifth was by 60-pounders and heavy hows up to 15-inch, to fall upon the known Eingreif assembly places.
In front of the first assault the creeping barrage was to lift 50 yards every 2 minutes, then it was to slow down to 100 yards every 6 minutes to enable the successive leap-frogging waves to keep close behind it.
Six hours of rain at this rate would mean three inches falling before 5.40 a.m. The infantry would be shot down as they staggered knee-deep in mud.
At one o’clock it stopped raining. Crawling out of the tent, he saw stars. He was still in his wet clothes. If the fellows in the line were wet, he would be wet, too. Now he could have some shut-eye. Morris would wake him at half-past five in time for the show.
The candle guttered, the wick sank, and went out. He was aware of himself in a slough of sleep, Morris shaking his shoulder: instantly aware of everything, despite deep reluctance to move again, to be.
“Blime, you’re still wet, sir. Here’s a nice hot muggerchar, sir.”
“No sugar.”
“No sugar, sir. Like you like it, not strong.”
“What’s the weather doing?”
“’Olding off, sir, and misty, like. There was a lot of Jerry’s guns
strafing away at half-past four, looked like up the Menin road, on the Australians.”
Phillip looked at his watch. “Five minutes to go, Morris.”
“That’s right, sir.” Morris left the tent. “Blime, sir, what’s this ’ere ticket? I never sin like it before.”
Phillip went out. Four bright lights were as though stationary in the far distance.
“They’re parachute flares! I saw one just like them dropped over London by a Zeppelin!”
Scissor-like flashes leapt upwards, well to the north and south of the four hanging flares. So the German batteries had been withdrawn from the Gheluvelt plateau! They were firing from the end of the sleeves of Prince Rupprecht’s golden scarecrow. God help the men on the tape-lines under that storm of shells!
“It looks as though they knew the time of our attack, Morris.”
“That’s right sir,” replied Morris, as he went away for his own mug of tea.
The German counter-barrage was now in full flash and rumble. The minutes to 5.40 a.m. passed slowly: then the four gold studs in the sky were lost in the roaring light of two thousand furnace doors opening.
After that there was a vain attempt to sleep against the imminence of a possible call to go up the line, so he went outside to dry off. The guns were quiet. It looked as though the attack had gone through.
No cavalry appeared: squadrons would have to come past the station.
After breakfast he visited a battery in the city, behind the prison. There he learned that nearly all objectives had been taken by 7 a.m., after local counter-attacks had been smashed. Liaison with the R.F.C. was good, reports of eingreif divisions on the way were coming in. This time they would have to come within range of the 18-pounders. Good old Plumer, he bit off just so much as he could chew up.
In the afternoon he rode over to Brigade, where the staff-captain, or chief clerk as he called himself, had remained when the Brigadier and his major had gone up to their battle headquarters. The staff-captain confirmed the success: all along the Second Army front the advance had gone forward to final objectives. Half the north-west slopes of the Gheluvelt plateau had been taken. Over two thousand prisoners were in the cages. The barrage had been such that German machine-gunners in some pill-boxes had been so dazed that they were found sitting beside unfired guns. Fifth Army had had some trouble on the left, otherwise the advance was going like clockwork, the support waves leap-frogging through the first waves, and the reserves well up.
Leaving the staff-captain’s office, he cantered back to the lines, telling Nolan to deal with any messages that might come in. “I don’t think it’s likely that they’ll want any supplies taken up until this evening. I’m just going to Vlamertinghe, will be back soon.”
There was a Casualty Clearing Station in the boarded mill beside the road, and he wanted to ask questions. Inside the lower rooms white sheets hung on the walls, and across the ceilings. Two R.A.M.C. surgeons, in white aprons, smoked unconcernedly outside. They had been at work on case after case all day. A convoy of motor ambulances was arriving. Lightly wounded men, more or less content, having had their wounds dressed, were sitting in the shade of elms lining the road, smoking and talking as they awaited transport to the trains. Their faces were almost carved in earth by dried sweat-runs through grime. He got into conversation with an officer with a bullet through his shoulder; and at first did not recognise him as Douglas of the London Highlanders, whom he had last seen at Loos, two years before.
Douglas said they were well forward of their outpost line when the German barrage followed the four parachute SOS flares. He spoke at intervals, and at times disjointedly; but what he said, in effect, was:
“The mist helped us. Our barrage was overwhelming, except on some pill-boxes. It kicked up a lot of dust. We had some trouble with the pill-boxes at Potsdam House, but managed to clear them with rifle grenades and phosphorus bombs, by the time the barrage was due to creep forward just after seven o’clock. We got to our final objective. I’ve never seen so many flies when the sun was well up. But what I remember most was a feeling of amazement that I was free to stand up and look back at Ypres in broad daylight. I’d never seen it before. It was like being in a new world. I realised that I was looking at it as the Germans had seen it for years, every detail clear in the low morning sun behind me. I’m by way of being an amateur landscape painter, I’ve spent several holidays in North Norfolk, where it’s flat and sandy, with spruce and fir plantations, not unlike what the Salient must have been before the war. Yes, it was a wonderful sight, the cluster of Ypres ruins, quite small, grey-white, the colour of wood ash. I wish I’d had my paint-box and sketch book with me, I could have made some priceless wash-sketches for an oil-painting when I get home. It was a priceless opportunity, and I’ve missed it now. Turner relied on his imagination, but I can’t.” He looked bleakly at Phillip. “I realised that I had no talent.”
“Well, I should say you had no paint-box, Douglas.”
He wondered if Douglas were shell-shocked: not so much because of what he said, but because his eyes had a fixed shine in them, which might have been pain and shock, together with puzzlement, because the unrealisable had happened before it could be realised. But there was also dislike, very nearly resentment, in his eyes; and Phillip knew it.
*
Captain Douglas, attached to the Royal Scots, had had mixed feelings about Phillip since the early days in the same tent at Crowborough in Sussex. Five years older than Phillip, raised with care and affection, the modest and dutiful child had early gone to one of the finest schools in England—Christ’s Hospital. There he had been good at both games and work, and had developed in a spirit that was an extension of a thrifty and dutiful home: unquestioned duty, accepting life as it was because the spirit of parents, friends, and teachers affirmed his own. He was a Scot, proud of his clan, without pretensions; he had grown in surety of himself, his parents, relations. Before the war he had worked in the foreign department of a City bank, and played rugger for the Harlequins.
He had never questioned the existence of God; he prayed regularly. And an hour before he was hit on that morning of 20 September he had gone forward alone under heavy machine-gun fire, scrambling from dry shell-hole to shell-hole, and finally rushing up to a square concrete hideosity with a three-inch splayed opening low on the ground, flung himself down and then, working forward to the very issue of death, thrown in a phosphorous bomb, which bursting amidst coils of choking white smoke set on fire woodwork and uniform material, thus forcing surrender of the garrison. After that, Captain Douglas, a bullet through one shoulder, led his company forward to the final objective, although enfiladed from Bremen redoubt on the left flank, where he captured more machine guns and prisoners. There he had looked back at the grey mortar, stone, and brick heaps of a mediaeval city, and felt a sense of unreality in the sight, mingled with regret, almost a sense of failure, that he had not his sketch book and water-colour box with him.
That night, in his diary, Captain Douglas wrote
I am glad, for the sake of my two dear, anxious parents at home, that I have come through; and glad for the sake of my wife; but regret that I am no longer with the dear fellows who had come to look to me, for some things, at least.
Feeling, as on all previous occasions, that Douglas secretly disapproved of him because he knew he was at base a coward, Phillip moved away among wounded soldiers, offering cigarettes, asking, “How did you get on?”, and “How was it going in your sector?” There were the inevitable stories of disaster: the footslogger’s war was seldom wider than fifty yards, sometimes horizontal maximum of six feet—if he was lucky. Advancing waves had been shot in the back from pill-boxes and dug-outs not mopped up. Dug-outs? In the Salient? He heard in the accents of Lancashire about a line of shelters connected by a concrete tunnel a quarter of a mile long. Near Schuler Farm it was, below the Gravenstafel rise, on ground sloping slightly away from the Haanbeek. He was asking questions when a figure with gaunt and bloodless face
under a grime of dust and smoke thrust itself forward and in a high, overwrought voice cried, “What the hell d’you want to know for? You bloody f—g cavalry bastard!”
“I’m not in the cavalry, I’m in the Machine Gun Corps, major.”
“Anyway, I don’t like your face, whoever you are! And who the hell asked you who you were, anyway? And in any case, you look to me just like a bloody f—g war correspondent! Don’t you look at me! F—off back to your bloody machine guns, you inquisitive bastard!”
Then, seeing the two wound stripes, he said, “You ought to know better, blast your eyes!”
“Quite right! Sorry!” He left.
*
Sunshine warmed the alienated Flemish land. Cannon fire swelled and died in prolonged node and anti-node of deepest bass notes as the sturmtruppen of the Eingreif divisionen moved down into the outermost curtain of flame and flying steel. Some, but not all, were seen by the men who were connecting shell-holes for defence, using German shovels, and ungalvanised barbed wire of a gauge thicker than the British galvanised wire—the ugly, rusty, murderous, sullen wire of the Hun, as it seemed to many, cumbered physically, constricted in spirit, restricted in body, foul and filthy with the servitude of their living. But not always servitude: there were moments of fun, even of joy—some smoked German cigars as they worked, and took swigs of German brandy. The stuff to give the troops! The body in motion soon lost the terrors of immobility.
The consolidations were done, wherever possible, on reverse slopes behind the outpost lines in shell-holes, to be out of direct observation.
High in the air dog-fights faintly rattled and groaned, as squadrons of scouts, lost to formation, dived and zoomed, went round in tight circles, side-slipped and fell spinning, rolled and dropped in falling leaf stunts—a sight so common above the brown and blasted battlefield, where even the worms were dead in the crater-to-crater areas, that few bothered to look up.
Love and the Loveless Page 33