No Hero-This

by Warwick Deeping

  I see a young staff officer going from house to house, and appealing to the people in French.

  “It is very necessary that you should leave. The Germans are coming.”

  We traverse Harbonnieres and having explored its western purlieus, I choose a long, low, white farmhouse on the street, with a big courtyard, and farm buildings behind it. These buildings are built over extensive cellars. A very fat French woman is sitting knitting at a window. I salute her, and tell her that we need her place as a Dressing Station, and I warn her that in a very few hours the Germans may be in the village.

  She does not believe me. She is unfriendly and obstinate, and seems to regard us as a nuisance. In fact she tries to deny us her house and buildings.

  “I do not wish to have soldiers here. Monsieur must go elsewhere.”

  Her needles continue to click, and though I admire her phlegm, our share in the war cannot be obstructed by a stout and truculent old lady in slippers and rusty black.

  “I am sorry, madame, but it is necessary. I can assure you that it is time for you to leave.”

  During our argument a small girl has been amusing herself by throwing a ball against a wall and catching it on the rebound. I smile at the child, and ask madame if she is her daughter, a compliment that should placate the old lady, but madame rises and comes forth, still clicking her needles, and ignoring my suavity. Seeing my men carrying stretchers and equipment into the yard, she becomes actively aggressive. She places herself in the middle of the gateway and orders us off her property. She says that she has suffered sufficiently from soldiers during the war, and that though she might tolerate her own lads in blue, she will not be invaded by the English.

  I smile at her and tell the men to carry on.

  “It cannot be helped, madame.”

  “I will go and fetch Monsieur le Maire. I will have you turned out.”

  But there are other interventions. I hear a whinnying sound in the air, and the first German shell pitches into Harbonnieres. It lands on a roof not fifty yards away, and broken tiles scurry and clatter in all directions. Madame drops her knitting and puts her hands to her ears. A moment later she has clutched her small grand-daughter and hustled her into the house. I hear her screaming to someone within. An old man bustles out, and proceeds to harness a horse in the shafts of a farm-cart. Madame and another woman appear with various belongings and make haste to bundle them into the cart. Another shell arrives. I get my men under cover, and detail two of them to help the French load the cart.

  Madame talks incessantly in a high-pitched, screaming voice. She is fiercely candid in her remarks upon us as allies. She keeps repeating the words, “Le mauvais cinque armée, le mauvais cinque armée.”

  I am glad when she has gone, perched with the child and her woman on the top of a multifarious load. I go out into the street and find it full of the flying French, carts, wheelbarrows, gigs. The faces that pass me are sullen and scared and hostile.

  Our red hats are also leaving. Staff cars worm their way through the crowd of fugitives. Transport rumbles by. I am witnessing another bitter exodus, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Meanwhile, the shelling is becoming unpleasant, with roofs crashing and tiles flying about, and I go and stand at the top of the steps leading to the cellars.

  A big dog suddenly appears in the yard. For five minutes it runs round and round in strange terror, and then, as another shell crashes, it bolts out into the street.

  * * *

  We have had a few wounded, an old Frenchman among them. We dress them and send them by ambulance to La Motte.

  * * *

  An interlude. I go out to explore Harbonnieres. In one short hour it has become a dead village, utterly deserted, with the sunlight shining into its empty streets. I see no one save two weary orderlies carrying a box of papers into the Mairie. I ask them for news, and they tell me they belong to our Brigade Headquarters, and that Brigade Headquarters itself has become involved in the fighting. Cheerful news, this! How long are we to remain as a dressing-station in this place? Who knows? There is no one to tell me anything; no one to give me orders. I suppose that I must use my own judgment, and become a law unto myself.

  * * *

  Night. Another lull in the storm. But for occasional bouts of shelling this business is like two men groping for each other stealthily in the darkness. I do not like this stillness. There is terror and mystery in it, and it can be far more unnerving than actual noise. One feels helpless. One does not know what is happening. The crafty old Boche may be lapping round this place and surrounding us.

  I am beginning to feel very jumpy, and I divine the same sort of feeling in the men. I catch some of them anxiously watching my face. We have nothing to do but wait. There are no wounded, and this waiting in the baffling silence of the night becomes almost unbearable. My stomach feels like a bit of twisted wire.

  I take Finch and walk through the empty street to Brigade Headquarters. Two or three tired officers are sitting at a table with a candle burning. Their faces look haggard, and seamed with strain. I know the Brigade Major slightly, and I ask him if he can give me any information.

  “Sorry, Brent, nothing. We don’t know where the old blighter is! Our line, such as it is, is in the air. He may be all round us for all we know.”

  “I had better hang on, sir. I don’t want to lose my men.”

  He looks at me kindly.

  “Yes, I’d hang on a bit. I’ll tell you what, leave an orderly here, and if we receive bad news I’ll send him along with a warning.”

  “Thanks very much, sir.”

  I tell Finch to remain behind at the outer door. He is a stout lad but he looks at me pathetically, like a dog that is being deserted. This night in Harbonnieres has scared him badly.

  “What do I do, sir?”

  “Just keep awake here, Finch, and run like hell to us if you are given a message.”

  Feeling rather guilty I leave him there. Strange how this silent and intangible terror affects the men more than mere noisy, sensational happenings. They become so like children, scared by the darkness and the silence in this village of ghosts. But I, too, am growing more and more jumpy. I have been smoking incessantly during the night, and yet the tobacco appears to have had no effect upon me. I make my way back, keeping in the middle of the street. I am within fifty yards of our particular house when a figure detaches itself suddenly from a dark wall.

  I swerve aside like a shying horse.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Got a fag on you?”

  It is only some wretched infantryman who has lost himself and his unit.

  “Sorry. Afraid not. What do you belong to?”

  “The Lancasters, sir.”

  “Had any food?”

  “No, sir, not since yesterday morning.”

  “Come along with me. We may be able to raise you a fag, and some bully.”

  * * *

  We are all too tensely tired for sleep, and my conscious self is like the blade of a knife. I am longing for daylight, and for the black bandage of the night to be removed. The suspense becomes intolerable, and to break it I suggest that we start a sing-song, and I appoint Block, who has a voice, our choirmaster. He strikes up with “If you were the only girl in the world,” and the effect on the men is instantaneous. They were becoming like a lot of mouse-traps ready to spring off and jump at the slightest touch, and this singing gives them a chance to let off steam. We sing lustily, and feel the better for this cheerful noise.

  I go out into the yard. The sky is growing grey above the roofs. The empty windows of the house become visible. Day is breaking and I am glad.

  I go out into the street, and hear the sound of someone running. It is Finch, pounding along with his head down. He almost cannons into me, and apologizes breathlessly.

  “Sorry, sir. Major Hanson’s compliments, and it’s time to go.”

  I can hear the scattered rifle fire coming from the east of Harbonnieres, and the sound is like the c
rack of a whip. But one must not appear flurried or too much in a hurry. I stroll back, and shout down the steps:

  “Fall in. We will have a little walk before breakfast.”

  * * *

  Flat and open fields lie between Harbonnieres and the next village towards the west. Everything looks grey in the early morning light, and as we tramp along I look back like Lot’s wife, half expecting to see the grey figures of Germans moving across the fields. But the landscape is empty. One of our ’planes drones over, and near a little grove of poplars I see two field-guns preparing for action. I have other things to worry me at the moment. The two ambulances which I sent off last night with some wounded have not returned and I am wondering what the devil I shall do if the day’s fighting produces a crop of casualties. Moreover, no message has come through from Fairfax, and I am beginning to be worried about him.

  The next village is a little place built round one big farm, and it is utterly deserted. We occupy the farm buildings, and breakfast. Finch, who has been exploring, comes in to tell me that there are half a dozen cows left chained in the cowhouse. The French have fled in such haste that they have forgotten or not bothered to unchain the beasts.

  “Can anyone milk, Finch?”

  “I can, sir.”

  “Well, get busy, and then set the beasts free.”

  But I am not happy amid these farm buildings, for one can see nothing of the happenings out yonder. I can hear our two field-guns firing. Moreover, it seems to me essential that I should try and find out what has happened to the rest of the Field Ambulance and what has become of our motor ambulances. I call Corporal Block and order him to post himself on the edge of the open fields, and to run in and report at once if he should spot German infantry advancing. Also, I tell Sergeant Simpson to send Bates—our prize runner—off to La Motte to try and find Fairfax and our Headquarters, and to report the non-return of our ambulances.

  * * *

  Distant rifle and machine-gun fire. Also, there is a scrap going on in the air up above. A few shells fall near the church. Block runs in to warn me that stretcher-bearers and walking wounded are coming down the road from Harbonnieres. I send some of our bearers out to help. Two wounded officers and half a dozen Tommies are carried in, bad cases, and as we deal with them I wonder how we are going to get them away.

  One of the officers, a mere youngster with a badly smashed thigh, is frightened, poor kid. He keeps saying to me, “You won’t leave me here, doc., will you?” I reassure him, but I am feeling most damnably worried about the situation.

  Block has gone out again to watch the fields.

  I hear something drive into the yard. A lorry. Thank God! The driver tells me that he has been sent from La Motte. We load our stretcher-cases into it, and send off the walking wounded. A Boche shell bursts in the farmhouse garden.

  Block rushes in.

  “Our guns have limbered up and gone, sir. Jerry’s coming across the fields.”

  I have to make an instant decision. Ought I to stay and be captured with my men, or ought we to leg it? I am torn with doubts, but I decide to go, as we have evacuated all our wounded for the moment. We bundle up our equipment, load it on stretchers, and march out, putting the village between us and the enemy. We are about a hundred yards beyond the last cottage when a regular salvo of shells descends upon the wretched little place. The steeple of the church lurches to one side. The village appears smothered in smoke. A glow spreads over it. Some building is alight.

  Block is walking beside me. He gives me a loving grin.

  “You timed it just right, sir.”

  I wonder? Ought we to have held on?

  XXII

  I see Bates running across the fields towards us. The man is so done that hardly can he get his words out.

  “No headquarters at La Motte, sir.”

  “The whole unit gone?”

  “Yes, sir. Not a soul in the place.”

  The lad is not only exhausted, but he has been badly scared, and I can understand sudden fear seizing him in that empty village. I halt the men, tell Bates to lie down, and squatting on the grass bank beside the road, I consult my map. There are other villages lying in the valley of the Luce, but I decide to hold straight on for Villers Bretonneux. I find myself thinking of my old weaver and his wife, and the lady of the red slippers. They, too, will be homeless.

  We slog on. I can see a railway line on my left. The country is flat and hedgeless, and I cannot understand why the Germans are not using cavalry. They could mop us all up with complete ease. We approach another road running north and south, and I see forty or fifty figures in khaki lying down behind one ridiculous strand of barbed wire. An officer is walking up and down. He comes forward to meet me. He is elderly and clean, and nicely shaved, with a mild face decorated with pince-nez.

  “Excuse me, are you a formed body or stragglers?”

  I explain that we are part of a Field Ambulance and that we have had to evacuate the last village. He apologizes nicely, and explains in return that he has been posted here to stop stragglers and to consolidate a defensive line. I sum him up as an inoffensive creature attached to some back area formation whom the crisis has gathered up and thrust into the hurly-burly. Meanwhile, I become aware of the figures lying behind the strand of barbed wire becoming suddenly and stealthily active. They have seized the chance while his back is turned to get up and make off.

  “Sorry, but I’m afraid your men are doing a bunk.”

  I cannot help being amused by the astonishment on his mild face. He goes clucking in pursuit, uttering shrill protests.

  “I say, you men, you mustn’t do that. Come back, please.”

  But his fugitive flock pay not the slightest attention. They are off across country as fast as their tired legs will carry them, and we have to leave our gentle acquaintance looking profoundly shocked and helpless. The realities of this grim retreat, and its humour, are beyond his comprehension.

  Corporal Block guffaws.

  “Nice gentleman, sir, but he ’asn’t got the gift of language. He ought to have asked ’em to come back and have their hair brushed, and their bibs put on.”

  “It’s a bad business, Block.”

  “I should say so, sir. Seems to me we shall soon be paddling in the sea at Boulong or Calay.”

  * * *

  The men are getting very done, sore feet and acute fatigue exhibit themselves in a certain mental soreness, bad language and angry petulance. They are in a critical mood, so far as they are capable of criticism, and if they are feeling bitter, so am I.

  What a ghastly mess our Great Men have made of things! There is a kind of tired rage in me as I plod along. It isn’t that one doesn’t realize that this war has been out of all proportion to the past, and that these vast masses of regimented humanity had just blundered up against each other and got stuck. What one does resent is that we somewhat intelligent creatures, who have volunteered to help, should be at the mercy of people who seem to be utterly lacking in constructive imagination. Why should we be sacrificed because our professional masters are not only unoriginal, but mistrust and despise originality in others? I could forgive them their method of trial by error, but what I cannot forgive is their stubborn and cynical refusal to be educated by error. Neuve Chapelle taught them nothing, nor did Loos, nor the bloody Somme. After two years of slaughtermen’s strategy they could but repeat themselves and give us Passchendaele.

  Yes, I am feeling bitter and my feet are sore, and I am so sharpened to the crisis that I feel I shall never sleep again.

  Nearly four years of effort, and this ghastly anticlimax.

  I can see Villers Bretonneux against the sky. I glance at my watch. It is nearly four o’clock. Good God, how has the day gone?

  The men are very done, and I tell them to fall out for ten minutes, but I am too strung up to flop on the grass. I walk up and down.

  I get the men up again.

  “Sorry, you chaps. Stick it, and I’ll find you somewhere to sleep
in Villers B.”

  We crawl into the town. Like everything else it seems lost in chaos. Derelict transport is parked in the main street. I make the men lie down on the footpath, with their backs to the houses, and I go exploring. Surely the Field Ambulance must be here? My temper is growing worse and worse.

  I sight a familiar figure standing outside a gateway. It is Fairfax. He waves an arm and comes forward with a look of affection and relief.

  “Thank God, Stephen. I thought you were Boche prisoners. What became of you?”

  “I sent a runner to La Motte, sir, and you had gone.”

  “I know; we had to clear out in a hurry. The Germans were coming down from the north; but I sent a sergeant in a Ford to hunt you up.”

  “He never found us.”

  Fairfax takes me by the arm.

  “Sorry, Stephen. Come in and eat and sleep.”

  “I’ll get the men, sir. I left them up the street. They’re pretty done.”

  He gives my arm a squeeze, and the anger goes out of me. I walk back to where the men are lying on the pavement.

  “Come on, you chaps, I’ve found the Ambulance.”

  Block scrambles up with new cheerfulness.

  “That’s the stuff to give ’em, sir.”

  * * *

  If I slept that night, which I did, it was due to the dope Fairfax gave me. I was out on my feet, and in a state of hysterical bitterness, ready to rage up and down and blaspheme against authority.

  I can remember Fairfax’s shocked, but tolerant, face as I let fly.

  “They have lost the war for us. We’re done. I suppose this means another ten years of blood and muddle.”