The Shadow of War

by Stewart Binns

  The remnants of the 4th Fusiliers, who have managed to make it to the farm to secure McMahon’s forward position, try to collect their thoughts. Maurice and Harry, two lance corporals, a corporal and sixty-seven men are holding a farm a hundred yards beyond their trench of this morning. The Germans seem to have retreated, and the firing is dying down all along the line. As far as the two colour serjeants can tell from the direction of fire, it looks like the huge German offensive has been repulsed.

  ‘What should we do, ’Arry?’

  ‘How long to dark, Mo?’

  ‘Two hours.’

  ‘Then let’s post lookouts. Put some boys on the roof and make a perimeter.’

  ‘I’ll go an’ get McMahon when it’s dark and quiet.’

  ‘All right, I’ll get the boys organized. Well done today, mate –’ Harry doesn’t finish his sentence; something is bothering him. ‘You’ve got a good memory, Mo. What did old McMahon say to us at Southampton when we left Blighty?’

  ‘Funny, I was thinkin’ abaht that. He said, “A Royal Fusilier does not fear death. He is not afraid of wounds. His only fear is disgrace. I look to you not to disgrace the name of the Regiment. God speed, brave Fusiliers.” ’

  Harry bites his lip. He is nearly in tears.

  ‘Top man, McMahon …’ His eyes filling, he pauses and looks at Mo. ‘It’s not bollocks, is it, Mo?’

  ‘What’s not bollocks?’

  ‘All that regimental honour and disgrace pony?’

  ‘I hope not, ’Arry; men are dyin’ for it.’

  ‘Fuckin’ right, Mo. Thanks for lookin’ after me this mornin’.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘I went fuckin’ berserk later. Dunno what got into me. I took out abaht ten of ’em!’

  ‘You’re just a good soldier, ’Arry. A bit mazawattee, but a fuckin’ good Tommy. I’m glad you’re on my side!’

  General von Falkenhayn’s final throw of the dice at Ypres has failed. With increasing pressure on the German Army from setbacks on the Eastern Front, he knows that any attempt to crush France in the short term will never happen. He now realizes, as do most of the astute generals, that a relatively small number of well-armed, resolute defenders can hold back a far superior force of attackers. It is a grim lesson learned at a terrible cost. In the First Battle of Ypres, he has lost over 50,000 men, killed or missing, with another 84,000 wounded.

  The British Expeditionary Force has been destroyed. The statistics are horrifying. Most of the battalions that arrived in France at the end of August were composed of, on average, between 900 and 1,000 men, with an officer corps of approximately thirty. By the middle of November, the number of fit men, able to fight, averages thirty, with only one surviving officer per battalion.

  In all, in just six weeks from 14 October to 30 November, the BEF loses 58,155 men: killed, missing or wounded.

  Ominously, the end result of this mass slaughter is not victory for either side, or even the prospect of victory. The end result is stalemate along a huge meandering line from the Channel to the Alps.

  Sunday 29 November

  Belcaire, Lympne, Kent

  November has not been a good month for Winston Churchill and his family. After seeing the King at the end of October, who was kind enough to compliment Winston’s tenacious warrior spirit, his mood improved. But it darkened again shortly afterwards, largely as a result of yet more sniping from the press and another naval disaster, the first defeat in a full naval encounter for the Royal Navy for over a hundred years.

  On 1 November off the Pacific coast of Chile, at Coronel, a Royal Navy squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock, comprising the Otranto, Monmouth, Good Hope and Glasgow, engaged a German squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee. Craddock had left his battleship, the Canopus, in Montevideo to guard his coal ships and was ordered by Admiral John Fisher, First Sea Lord, not to engage von Spee’s squadron without her.

  For reasons not altogether clear – but more likely a product of his renowned bravery than wilful disobedience or stupidity – he ignored the order and attacked. He was out-gunned by the enemy, and his ageing, slower vessels were manned by inexperienced crews that consisted largely of reservists. Good Hope and Monmouth were sunk. A total of 1,570 men went to the bottom, Craddock included; he was accompanied by his dog, which he always took to sea with him. Von Spee’s squadron was unscathed.

  Although Craddock had disobeyed his orders, the circumstances of the encounter were not revealed publicly and Winston took the blame for the ignominious defeat. Thankfully, Asquith and the War Cabinet were supportive. Later, the Prime Minister suggested to Winston that the navy needed to ‘break some crockery and make a lot of noise doing it’.

  Winston and Jacky Fisher immediately ordered the battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible to sail south, despite the fact they were still undergoing repairs in Devonport Dockyard. When Winston heard that dockyard workers still needed to finish work on Inflexible, he ordered the cruiser to sail forthwith and take the men with her. Support ships were sent south to rendezvous with Invincible and Inflexible to create a powerful squadron. The orders were simple: find and destroy von Spee’s squadron.

  Only a day after news of the Coronel fiasco, Winston was further perturbed when he heard that, because of the heavy losses suffered around Ypres, the Oxfordshire Hussars, his brother Jack’s regiment, would be going into the front line. Jack was likely to be under fire very soon. His anxieties for his brother were exacerbated on 6 November, when he learned of the deaths of two close friends.

  Following the loss of his entire family fortune and the severe wounding of his twin brother, Francis, at Mons – for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross – Riversdale Grenfell was killed in action near Vendresse. Winston was very close to both men.

  Major Hugh Dawnay of the 2nd Life Guards was the same age as Winston and had been at Sandhurst with him. They served together in South Africa, where he was awarded a DSO, and in the Sudan, where they fought together at the Battle of Omdurman. Dawnay was killed in action near Harlebeke on 6 November. He left four sons. Winston cried openly when he heard the news.

  Winston received the only good news of the month on 9 November, when a letter arrived from Jack, telling him that he had been taken on to Sir John French’s staff at British Expeditionary Force HQ and would thus be coming out of the front line.

  Although it was one piece of good news, Winston’s Black Dog still snapped at his heels. Clemmie, who had been having a difficult time since the birth of their daughter Sarah, went to stay as a guest of Sir Philip Sassoon at his new house, Belcaire, at Lympne on the Kent coast. Her absence became a major factor in Winston’s depression, and even the letters between them became few and far between. He received one on 19 November that initially cheered him, but in which Clemmie mentioned that she was paying a mountain of household bills. That only served to remind him of their parlous personal finances.

  She also mentioned that it was snowing heavily on the Kent coast. This made him very morose as he thought about the terrible conditions the men were facing in the trenches in Flanders.

  During the month, Winston also crossed swords with both Lord Kitchener and Sir John French several times over his ‘Dunkirk Circus’ of armoured cars and the activities of his Royal Navy Division and Royal Marines on the French coast. They complained that he was continuing to interfere in army matters, when he should be concentrating on the navy. The Prime Minister was, on the whole, supportive. But being a consummate politician, he was prone to blow in the wind if it suited him.

  On 25 November Asquith called a meeting of the War Council. Only the most senior members of the Cabinet were there: David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, Lord Kitchener, Minister for War, and Winston, First Lord of the Admiralty. Arthur Balfour, former prime minister and now a senior member of the Conservative Opposition, was also invited as an elder statesman.
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br />   In answer to provocative probing by Balfour, Winston gave a bold and breathtaking account of Britain’s naval defences against a German invasion. After the meeting, Asquith said of him: ‘He has the glow of genius about him.’ But Winston left the War Council as disconsolate as when he arrived.

  However, waiting for him in Downing Street was his friend F. E. Smith, with a summons from Clemmie, a three-line whip insisting, regardless of naval matters or crises at the Front, that Winston must join her at Belcaire on the evening of the 29th because the next day, Monday 30 November, will be his fortieth birthday.

  Entering his forties is not a rite of passage he particularly relishes. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, fell from grace dramatically at a relatively early age and died at the age of forty-five. Winston has always firmly believed it unlikely that he will live longer than his father. Nevertheless, even if he contemplated it, FE would not permit him to decline Clemmie’s summons.

  Belcaire, Sassoon’s new house, is only just completed. It has been built in Cape Dutch style, full of avant-garde art, and is surrounded by Italian terraced gardens. The lavish paintings and decor are not to Winston’s taste; when he arrives, his mood darkens rather than lightens and he pronounces the place, ‘Vulgar!’

  To make matters worse, that morning he received a letter from his friend Valentine Fleming about conditions in Flanders. He read it in his car on the way to the Kent coast; its contents made him weep. Fleming wrote of a strip of land ten miles wide, stretching from the Channel to the Swiss border, littered with the rotting dead bodies of soldiers. He described in the most vivid terms the shapeless heaps of blackened masonry that once were farms, homes and churches, the repulsive distortion and dismemberment of horses, cattle and sheep, and the lines of men coated with mud, unshaven, hollow-eyed, unable to cope with the relentless barrage of inhuman missiles from the sky.

  While they are dressing for dinner, Winston begins to sob. Clemmie rushes to his side to console him.

  ‘Darling Pug, whatever is the matter?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Black Dog?’

  ‘Of course. They’re trying to drive me out of the Admiralty, I’ve fallen out with Kitchener and French, and I’m responsible for our first naval defeat since the war of 1812. Not only that, I’m lonely in Whitehall without you.’

  ‘I know, darling, but I had to get away with the kittens. It’s not good for them to be cooped up in Westminster with nowhere to play. Besides, I’ve been having rather a bad time of it myself.’

  ‘Yes, of course; I don’t mean to sound selfish. You were quite right to bring them down here. But listen, I’ve had a letter from Val Fleming. It’s very morbid, but may I share it with you?’

  Clemmie takes the letter and reads it with increasing dismay.

  ‘How dreadful! It’s hard to imagine.’

  ‘I know, the world has never seen anything like it before –’

  He stops himself and looks Clemmie in the eye. His boyish face looks even younger as tears stream down his cheeks.

  ‘– and warmongers like me are responsible!’

  Clemmie stiffens herself and adopts the tone of a scolding mother.

  ‘Winston, you don’t start wars, you win them. Pull yourself together!’

  Clemmie hands the letter back to him. He notices that he had scribbled a note on it in the car, a thought that had suddenly occurred to him: What would happen, I wonder, if all the armies suddenly and simultaneously went on strike and said some other method must be found of settling the dispute?

  Clemmie’s rebuke and the scribbled thought give him the stick with which to chase the Black Dog from his consciousness. He reasons that, if men like him buckle, enjoying the comfort and security of home and hearth in Britain, what chance have the poor buggers who are wet, cold and fighting in fear of their lives in Flanders.

  He wipes the tears from his eyes, tugs at his waistcoat and pulls back his shoulders.

  ‘Come on, Cat, I need a glass of champagne. I’m bloody well going to be forty tomorrow, so I’d better get on with sorting this bloody mess out. Oh, and remind me to tell Philip that my lobby porter at the Admiralty has more taste in interior design than he has!’

  Over the next thirty-six hours, within the bosom of family and friends, Winston goes some way to clearing the murky shadows from his mind. Clemmie and Philip Sassoon have produced the ideal guest list for Monday evening’s birthday celebrations.

  Jack’s wife, Goonie Churchill, is there with the children, Johnnie and Pebbin, as are F. E. Smith and his wife, Margaret. Eddie Marsh, Winston’s private secretary, is also a guest, along with Winston’s cousin Sunny, the 9th Duke of Marlborough, with his wife, the American Vanderbilt heiress, Consuelo. It turns out to be a most enjoyable evening of excellent food and wine, and even better company.

  The next morning, refreshed and reinvigorated, Winston pays his host, Philip Sassoon, an unusual compliment.

  ‘Dear boy, your taste in decor is hideous. But in every other respect, your worth is inestimable. Thank you so much.’

  Part Seven: December

  CHRISTMAS TRUCE

  Tuesday 8 December

  HMS Inflexible, Falkland Islands, South Atlantic

  Tom Crisp is leaning on the rail and looking over the port side of HMS Inflexible, staring at the bleak and rugged landscape of the Falkland Islands. It is midsummer in the South Atlantic, but the cold black sea heaving beneath him and the heavy rain clouds over the desolate islands remind him of Britain in winter. Not that he is too familiar with Britain’s coastal waters. Before he left Presteigne, at the end of August, he had never seen the sea before.

  The ordeal of his fallout with Bronwyn, when her relationship with Philip Davies was revealed, proved too much to bear. The despair he was feeling about her betrayal, and the inevitable humiliation that would follow both within his family and among his peers, made life in the small community impossible.

  He packed a few things in a canvas bag, collected his tools from his employers and left Presteigne on the same evening as the shocking encounter at Pentry between Bronwyn and Davies’s wife, Clara. He did not tell his parents what had happened, but left them a short note saying only that he had to get away and that they would soon hear why. He promised that he had not done anything wrong, that he was fit and well and would write to them when he was settled.

  Fortunately, he had his carpentry skills to fall back on and was able to find work in Hereford for a couple of weeks. He then trusted in his hunch that there would be lots of work for skilled craftsmen in and around the military establishments. He found some work at Bovington Infantry Camp, in Dorset, where he heard that the Royal Navy’s dockyard at Devonport was desperate for skilled craftsmen of all kinds.

  When he arrived there, he simply gawped at the gigantic scale of the Royal Navy’s warships. By some distance, they were the biggest objects he had ever seen. He was put to work on HMS Inflexible, a giant over 170 yards long and weighing over 17,000 tons, with 6-inch-thick armour plating. He tried to picture what her size would mean to people back home. He concluded that she would not fit into Presteigne’s narrow High Street, but could just about wedge herself in between the buildings of Broad Street. She would fill it from one end to the other and would be three times the height of the Shire Hall, its tallest building. She carried almost 1,000 officers and men, the same number as the whole of Presteigne and its surrounding parish.

  Tom watched in amazement as the dockyards’ stevedores carried aboard new provisions. He had never seen so many boxes, sacks and barrels, in addition to the armaments, hoisted aboard by cranes. There seemed to be endless numbers of cases of ammunition for her fixed machine guns and her company of Royal Marines. Then came hundreds of gigantic Lyddite shells, each one painted canary yellow with a red ring below the nose to warn that it had been filled with explosive.

  Despite her colossal weight, he was told she was capable of over 26 knots – which meant nothing to him whatsoever – but when it
was explained that this was equivalent to 30mph, he found it impossible to believe. Built by John Brown on the Clyde only seven years earlier, she was a new innovation, a ‘greyhound’, as quick as a cruiser, but armed like a battleship.

  Her hull had already been repainted in dry dock on orders from the Lord of the Admiralty himself. She was a sight to behold. Every shade of grey imaginable, from gull grey to coal black, ran across her in bizarre patterns of swirls and stripes.

  The dockyard painters said it was called ‘camouflage’ and had been designed by a chap from London who arrived in an Admiralty Rolls-Royce, complete with easel, and was dressed in a paint-stained smock. The men were distinctly unimpressed by his bohemian appearance, and especially by his name, Solomon Solomon, which caused much amusement and soon became ‘Solly Solly the Silly Sod’! However, their opinion soon changed when, in less than two days, he reproduced Inflexible in his sketches in the most wonderful detail. He won them over even more when he sketched several of the men’s portraits, signed them and gave them as gifts.

  A week later, his designs arrived; ‘battleship grey’ was a thing of the past, and the painters had to spend days mixing colours to match Solomon’s new colour palette. Four-letter expletives and the word ‘gimmick’ were much in evidence during the entire process.

  Men swarmed all over her, replacing rivets, refurbishing boilers, painting her decks and interiors. Spanners clanged, hammers thumped and the painters sang and whistled as they made her gun turrets and funnels match her variegated hull. Particular attention was paid to her gunnery, which had been stripped and was being reassembled and calibrated.