No Hero-This

by Warwick Deeping

  I slept on a stretcher in the corner of a barn, and woke to find a solitary Finch squatting beside me with a cup of tea and a plate of bacon.

  “What about a little breakfast, sir, and then I’ll shave you.”

  “I’m damned if you will, Finch. It is not as bad as all that. Had a sleep yourself?”

  “Champion, sir.”

  The barn is empty, and if my head is a bit muzzy, my stomach is in order. I wolf bacon and bread, and gulp hot tea. I see Finch sitting on an empty bucket, and stuffing himself with an air of unction.

  “Where’s everybody, Finch?”

  “Gone, sir.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yes, had orders to move and begin the old game all over again. Colonel Fairfax told me to let you ’ave your sleep out, sir. He’s left a Ford ambulance behind.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Gone to a place called Hang-hard, sir. Cheerful sort of name.”

  “Any news?”

  “Well, I listened round the corner to the C.O. and Colonel Rankin. Seems there’s an eight-mile gap in the line with no ruddy troops to put in it.”

  “Cheerful news, Finch.”

  “Well, I dare say old Jerry is as done up as we are. It ’asn’t been all jam for him. Besides, the Frenchies are coming up.”

  “Thank God for that! Any civies left here?”

  “Not a soul, sir. I ’ad a scout round.”

  I can guess whom Finch went to try and find, the lady of the red slippers. But I am feeling my tail in curl after ten hours’ sleep and this hot food. Finch manages to produce some warm water; I believe it comes from the Ford’s radiator, and I shave. A clean chin increases my morale. I lace on my field-boots, put on my steel hat, and we embark in the Ford ambulance for Hangard.

  * * *

  It is a day of wind and of sunlight, not one of those charnel days when northern man feels that he must either go out and howl like a dervish or commit adultery, it does not matter much which, so long as the fierce ennui in him either rebukes sin or commits it. Great poplars are flashing against a blue sky. There is a strange, goblin beauty in these deserted French villages. They are like etchings in black and white, with blue-grey or red smudges for roofs. Hangard lies in a deep valley with its great wood visible on the sky line. The road runs in the trough of the valley, and poplars flicker overhead.

  I don’t know why, but my mood is set for adventure. Fairfax and Headquarters are established in a farmhouse. Gibbs is in the next village, Demuin, and I ask Fairfax if I may go and join Gibbs.

  “What for, Steevie?”

  “Oh, I just feel like it. It must be the spring in my blood.”

  I go alone, and at the Demuin cross-roads, where a hollow way comes rushing down the hill to meet the valley road, I fall in with Colonel Rankin. Great poplars are singing overhead, and brushing the white clouds with their branches. Rankin is looking worried, tired and worried, and my heart goes out to him.

  “Brent, the very man I want.”

  “What can I do, sir?”

  He is looking along the deep, sunlit valley between the hills.

  “I can’t see any wounded coming down.”

  Does he want wounded? After a week of anguishing responsibility has he become obsessed with visions of wounded left unsuccoured?

  “I wish you would explore, Brent. I don’t like to send ambulances forward unnecessarily. Gibbs has to stay up there in the village. I am going back to lunch with Fairfax.”

  “Right, sir. I will go on and scout round.”

  He smiles at me gratefully.

  “Don’t get lost.”

  I take a country walk, leaving the road, and following the open fields on the northern slope of the valley. It is the most strange and peaceful of walks. I do not meet or see a living soul. The white road down below is empty, with a river running beside it. Where is the war? I am full of a boyish curiosity. Coming to a ridge that ribs the slope I see a solitary figure on a horse like an equestrian statue silhouetted against a green-grey hill. As I approach the figure I recognize our Brigadier, a lean, laconic person with a little red moustache.

  I go and salute him.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “What are you doing here, Brent?”

  “Looking for wounded, sir. Can you tell me anything about the situation?”

  He gives me an almost whimsical look.

  “I can tell you nothing, Brent, for there happens to be nothing up there.”

  “Nothing at all, sir?”

  “Except our dear friend, the Boche, though just how near he is, I don’t know. One should put a certain restraint upon one’s curiosity.”

  I understand him. He has ridden forward alone to assure himself of the absence of anything in khaki. There is no line, nothing before us but open country and the Germans, who may be over the hill, resting and eating, before pouring forward again in their advance upon Amiens.

  “Then it is not much use my going any further, sir?”

  He gives me a nod and a quizzical smile.

  “No, I don’t think I should go any further, Brent. In fact, I’m turning back myself. One feels a little isolated up here.”

  I walk back beside his horse to the bridge at the bottom of Demuin village. He rides on up the village street, and I, seeing two of our men standing in the doorway of a house, go in and find Gibbs. Carless is with him, and I hear Carless strumming on a piano that badly needs tuning.

  Gibbs seems surprised to see me.

  “What the devil are you doing here, Steevie? Thought you were still asleep.”

  “I felt I wanted a walk.”

  “Nice country ramble, what!”

  “Yes, I went up the valley, and found the Brigadier all alone on a horse.”

  “No troops? Damn that ruddy piano!”

  “There doesn’t appear to be a single rifle between us and the Boche, at least, not on that side of the river.”

  “Cheerful prospect! Then, what the devil are we doing here?”

  “Ask the gods. But I’d put a reliable man out to scout up above there. Jerry could come down on the hill on us in three minutes.”

  “I will.”

  This deserted village fascinates me. It has a beauty of its own as it climbs the hill from the river, with high woods on the rolling slopes above. The poor French must have left it in a panic. Some doors are open, others shut. The shutters have not been closed. I hear pigs grunting, and see chickens scratching in a yard. I explore a house that is somewhat larger than the others. The remains of a meal have been left on the table in the little salon. Through open doors I see bedrooms in disorder. The lower drawer of a chest of drawers is open, and in it I see a clean, bright uniform in blue and gold and claret, half covered with tissue paper. The thing touches me. Perhaps some woman had wished to take that uniform with her. Or had she opened the drawer to look at it before going? There are family photos on the walls, one of them, that of a man, has a scarf of black crape draped round it, and I conclude that he was killed earlier in the war, and that the uniform in the drawer had been his. This clean, pleasant little house saddens me. I can share the bitter feelings of the woman who has had to abandon it and all her particular treasures and household goods, knowing that she will never see them again. How this waste must hurt the thrifty French! I go out, carefully closing the street door on the silent house, and as I close it other sounds break the stillness of the deserted village.

  Shells. I hear one burst on the roof of a house higher up the street. But this is only a little fellow. The solid, savage stuff is crashing down there in the valley. Standing in the doorway I can see the hollow of the valley, and the winding road and those shell-bursts shambling along it. They advance in long, deliberate strides until they reach the cross-roads by the bridge and there they remain like giant feet pounding the earth and sending up columns of smoke and soil. I see the top of a poplar come down with a crash. The death anguish of this empty village has begun.

  Presently, the storm
passes. I can see the shell-burst going on towards Hangard. And suddenly the empty street is full of men, a fierce, unshaven, sweating remnant who are retiring. They do not belong to our division. Here and there I see a tunic stained with blood. Two stretcher squads come along, with bloody bodies on the stretchers.

  Work for us at last. I go down to the bridge with this little crowd, but hardly have we begun to deal with these cases when the house is hit, and for the moment all is dust, debris and confusion.

  Gibbs is the man for such an occasion. It is madness to stay here in this doomed village so close to the cross-roads. Two of our men have been knocked out. We clear up the mess and bundle over the bridge and along the road to Hangard. Gibbs has one of our men on his back. The retreating infantry are lining the road, and I notice one boy with a bloody head getting his Lewis gun into position on a bank. I hear Gibbs shouting to me.

  “We want an ambulance, Steevie.”

  “I’ll go on and bring one back.”

  The last incident I remember is seeing Carless standing under a tree, and carefully examining his beloved breeches. There is a considerable tear in the left section. Lucky for Carless that it was only his breeches.

  * * *

  We have had to evacuate Hangard. It was being shelled to blazes, and even the oddments of infantry avoided it, and chose to try and hold the marshy poplar groves in the valley and the hills above. We move back for a few hours to a place called Domart, but when the house across the way disappears in smoke we change our quarters. I shall always remember this particular little house for the neatness of its garden, and a pear tree that was coming into flower, and for the hundreds and hundreds of neat logs piled in an outhouse.

  * * *

  Night. Headquarters have gone back to Thienne. Gibbs and I are in a place called Bertaucourt. For the first time since the retreat we are minus rations, and our dinner consists of biscuits and chocolate. There is no food to be found in any of these deserted villages. They have been scrounged to the bone. Gibbs and I are very tired, and we decide to sleep, though it may be dangerous to sleep. Damn the Boche! We put our men into one house, and choose another for ourselves, a house built of chalk blocks, and standing at a corner. We have found a candle-end, and I have some matches. There are two bedrooms in this single-storied house. Both are in utter disorder, bedclothes thrown back, the contents of drawers and cupboards scattered over the floor. Gibbs takes the inner bedroom; I, the outer one. We pull the clothes up over the beds and lie down as we are, with our boots on. My bed seems to smell of its French owner, but I am too tired to care.

  * * *

  I wake early. Some sound has disturbed me. I hear footsteps outside the house. The street door creaks, and suddenly I jump to the conclusion that the Germans are in the village. I lie quite still. The footsteps come into the house. I see two steel helmets and faces in the doorway. They are the blue helmets of the French. The poilus stare at me, and I at them. They disappear without a word.

  * * *

  I get up and wake Gibbs. We have no water to shave in, and nothing to eat. It is a sunny morning, and we go out into the street, and discuss the crisis. I decide to send Finch back to headquarters to see if they can supply us with rations. Gibbs is looking yellow. He says there was a disgusting smell in his bedroom, and that it has made him feel sick.

  I hear the quick marching step of troops. A platoon of men in blue swings past the corner of the house in the roadway, and halts. The French! chasseurs à pied, clean, smart, stocky-looking men. A red-headed and fierce-looking sergeant is in charge. He sees Gibbs and myself, and says something to his men. I shall never forget the scorn on his hot, proud face, the insolence of his cocked head. To these Frenchmen we are nothing but a couple of dirty, unshaven, fugitive English. They are feeling bitter against us.

  The sergeant snaps out an order, and the chasseurs march on up the street. As they pass I can see them looking at us with contempt and hostility. The thing hurts me. The swagger and the scorn of their pride! They seem so clean and efficient and confident, but why should they despise us? This debacle is not the fault of our fighting men.

  I glance at Gibbs.

  “Our allies are not loving us.”

  “Fierce fellow that sergeant. Shock troops. To tell you the truth, Stephen, I am damned glad to see them. Something has got to stop the Boche, and we don’t seem able to do it.”

  As to rations, Headquarters are in as bad a case as we are. Finch has managed to scrounge a chunk of stale bread, and he has routed out a solitary egg from some hen-house. He insists on Gibbs and I eating the egg, and we boil it hard and cut it in half with meticulous fairness.

  My temper is getting short, but this starvation has clarified one’s consciousness.

  Browning’s tag haunts me, “Oh, to be in England now that April’s there,” and for the first time in my life I realize that Browning was a sentimentalist, and that though April may, on three days in the month, fool us with the sensuous softness of a young girl, on the other twenty-seven days she is a grim and painted hag with ice and mockery in her shrivelled bosom.

  * * *

  Headquarters have been shelled out of Thienne, one man, a sergeant, wounded, and two horses killed.

  Fairfax has retreated to a place called Castel on the other side of the river. We have orders to join him there. This is a delightful little village, swarming up a steepish hill. It has been unshelled as yet, and Bond has managed to draw rations. We will eat and sleep. Good business!

  * * *

  Our cavalry are here. I see quite a number of stout Frenchmen walking coolly and conversationally in the wrong direction. They look at us sulkily. Is it that they feel that we have let them in for a dirty job, and that they are shrugging the shoulders and abandoning the war?

  * * *

  A French doctor in uniform comes to us to plead for dressings. We supply him, and provide him with a drink, and he becomes friendly. He is a dark, dramatic little man who speaks good English, and apparently he is the M.O. of the chasseurs I saw in Bertaucourt.

  He says, “We fight him from tree to tree and house to house, and at night we go into the villages and kill him.”

  I hope they do. Those chasseurs should be fierce fellows with the bayonet, but I want to ask our French friend about those other Frenchmen whom I have seen strolling away from the battle, but the Entente might suffer if I did.

  * * *

  The illusion of a peaceful night is shattered. We are about to turn in when Fairfax receives a somewhat curt order from Rankin. Probably, Rankin is feeling as short-tempered as I am. He tells us that we are on the wrong side of the river, and in the French area, and orders us to recross the bridge, and open a station at Bertaucourt!

  Fairfax is very worried. He has heard that the bridge is to be blown up, and I volunteer to go and reconnoitre. I find the bridge intact, though a young R.E. officer is sitting on the parapet, awaiting events.

  It is dark now. We march down out of Castel, cross the bridge, and turn north. I am to discover later that this little bridge has become famous in history. By it General Seely and his Canadian cavalry crossed next day to make that desperate and dramatic charge which held up the Boches and helped to save us all from disaster. Great men, those Canadians.

  But this night march is a queer business. On our left we have the river, on our right the black and silent country. It is eerily and horribly quiet, which suggests that no troops of ours are left in front of us, and that the Boches may be close upon us in the darkness.

  What shall we find in Bertaucourt?

  Fairfax and I go on ahead. It is more than possible that the Germans are in the village. We may be shot down or taken prisoners. We reach the first houses and pause to listen. Complete silence. Fairfax has a torch with him. He flashes it on the houses. We see open, empty doors. The place is deserted. But how long will it remain so?

  Carless is the only officer who sleeps that night. His capacity for sleep seems insatiable. We feel that it is too dangerou
s to sleep, and I spend most of the night walking up and down the empty village, listening for any suspicious sound. My last pair of socks are like clammy bits of board, and my tummy a tense drum.

  There is some redness in the sky at dawn. The wind has changed, and one can smell rain coming.

  But there is another and more savoury smell, that of bacon being fried, and my hunger exults. We breakfast in an empty house. Our transport is parked beside the road, and ready to move off at a minute’s notice.

  * * *

  Two officers from the 203 F.A. join us.

  A few wounded are coming in, French among them. Some sort of skeleton force seems to have been pushed forward in an attempt to hold the line. What is going to be the end of it all?

  I feel lazy and irresponsible, and I take myself off to a field at the back of and above the village. I am interested in what is happening, and I am growing a wise and wary bird. The morning gives me my first picture of war as one imagines it in one’s youth. I see a deep valley full of sunlight, and great poplars, and water, and above it a spacious sky all blue and white. Some French 75s have tucked themselves under a grass bank and are firing steadily. I see some of our cavalry riding two by two along the bottom of the valley with little pennons fluttering on their lances.

  A burst of rifle fire comes from the east. The French gun-teams appear; their guns are to be pulled out. I hurry back to the village up a narrow path between two gardens.

  Fairfax has just received an order to retire.

  We are in a strange little town called Boves, and on the march we have seen masses of French transport parked beside the road. Boves seems to be a sump into which has trickled all the oddments and ooze of a broken army. We find the two other ambulances here, and Potter, looking like a perambulatory skeleton. Harker has gone sick. We hear that Potter has done great work. He may have the exterior of a Verdant Green, but he is one of those mild idealists who can be serenely fearless in a crisis.