A Cellist Soldier

by Robert J. Fanshawe

  They were ready for bed but the man in pyjamas looked at Cello who was dressed in stained underwear having removed his apron and his uniform. “I got a bluey from where Q left ’em at the door, didn’t you see ‘em?“

  “Oh no I didn’t.”

  “You better get there or theys all be gone.” He pronounced ‘gone’, in a Worcester way, ‘gorrn’, which reminded Cello of John Thomas Wall. He had been a Worcester man, a Worcester countryman. Perhaps this man was a Worcester countryman. Perhaps he knew the Sergeant. But Cello did not have the confidence to ask.

  Cello staggered out from between beds nearly tripping over the Lewis, discarded on the floor among a mass of equipment littering the amazingly well polished boards. He looked towards the door where a small table stood, like a sentry for another world, clean and intact and in order, as if messages and notices should be left there undisturbed.

  There were some blue papers on the table. As Cello approached, the door opened and Ben, his colleague from another life came through. Had he wanted to write a letter as well and didn’t have any blue forms in his room?

  The ‘bluey’, called as such because of its colour, was a mass-produced letter form. Words went on one side, the address on the other. It was folded along some dotted lines and then it was handed in un-licked so that the words could be read and approved by whoever did that and without the requirement for a stamp, they were sent to wherever the address directed.

  “Well Cello you got yourself sorted out then,” said Ben.

  “Yes I got a bed here… You?”

  “I’m next door, great place ain’t it. It’s like being in a hotel.”

  “Yes we might have a good night’s sleep at last.”

  “Until parade in the morning.”

  “Yes I’ve not got anything for that parade.”

  “Anything?”

  “Equipment, nothing,” said Cello.

  “You can get yourself kitted out,” said Ben looking regretful. He was wearing braces over a shirt and trousers without puttees; having finally removed them.

  “I hope so… I need to write a letter first. I need to get my cello.” His eyes dropped to the table. “Did you come for a letter?”

  “No… I came to look for you.”

  “Me!”

  “Without jack, y’know.” Ben looked down at the floor.

  “Yes, he’s a bit…”

  They were hesitant, as if they had something new to explore. Without weapons or uniform they were different people. But they couldn’t forget where they were. With John Thomas Wall, Cello had been able to forget, for some hours.

  Here they couldn’t. They merely turned away from each other. Turned away from what might have been in their minds.

  “But you are back and in one piece.”

  “Yes I’m in one piece…” Cello wanted to talk about the ‘deserter,’ label and whether Ben agreed with it. But they didn’t manage to reach that level of communication. So they turned to their tasks. Cello to the scattered ‘blueys’, on the table. He picked one up and waved it towards Ben. “I need to write my letter.”

  “Yes you need to…” Ben looked a little sheepish. He had nothing to do himself, so he left.

  Cello stopped for a moment considering the meeting, his head down, with hair falling over his face. It hadn’t been washed yet but the rain which had taken out some of the mud had dried and left it a little limp. His deep dark eyes were a little clearer. But he turned to a more pressing task. A letter had to be written. He might get a pencil from someone.

  Dear Mother

  Mother I need my cello. I know you are anxious to keep it safe but I find myself yearning to play something in the times that I have to myself. I know it will draw attention and it is not a soldier’s thing to do. But as at now my playing is something I need that will take my mind off being a soldier.

  I’m sorry that you have not received a letter for some days and will probably be wondering about me. I am really alright here. We are behind the lines at present in a school which is very comfortable. But the comfortable things cannot last for long and soon we will return no doubt to the front.

  I hope you are well and father of course. Please pass my best wishes to him and for his work. I hope all is well.

  England is so far away from here. It is a world away. But we hope that this cannot last for ever. All I can do for now is hang onto my music and the thought that I will return to it. It is the most important thing in my life.

  Your ever loving, Marcus.

  He could not write any more, the blue paper was completely full of words and they were closely written ones. He did not put Xs on the paper as most soldiers did. They displayed the emotion that they didn’t speak about to their fellow soldiers. They had wives and many had children already, waiting patiently, not really understanding why their fathers should be away.

  Letters, if they weren’t for wives and fiancées, were for mothers, or at least someone, generally a woman, who might send socks. But a cello. Who would send that, who would look after the parcel containing it?

  Cello the player, the musician, who understood the emotions that the cello induced, but did not write a kiss to his mother, fell asleep on his bare but clean mattress, already becoming infested with lice from a discarded uniform and from his army blanket just covering his body.

  Early in the morning the letters were taken by the Company Quartermaster Sergeant, the Colour Sergeant who brought up the food and the fresh uniforms and the weapons and the ammunition and the rum and took away the written letters. He was the link with humanity. Except that the Old Man had been above him in that respect. The Old Man was a very different human. Some wondered whether the new RSM was human.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  An awaited meeting

  A parade had become part of the new RSMs routine. Those at the front hardly ever saw him in the trenches but the parade was how he re-exerted himself, giving the impression that all the while he had been at the headquarters organising something important for the Battalion. Which was strange to contemplate as the Battalion Commander did come to the front line quite often, either on his own or with his radio operator and a batman soldier, or with another officer, perhaps the Battalion Second in Command who took notes about such things as the need for more leather jerkins.

  The more discerning of the soldiers noticed that the Colonel had become less relaxed since the death the Old Man. He mourned with them, but death was so regular that mourning could not be indulged upon or change the course of the next day’s mission. And if a congratulatory message about the performance of the Battalion on that mission came from on high, deaths and mourning could be conveniently laid aside. Yet still the Colonel didn’t lose the cloud above him.

  Was it all worth it after all, his face seemed to say?

  Humanity must be continued; or an excuse for it.

  Some men, voiced it. There were always voices on parades, undervoices, undertones, as they were forming up; like the voices of football players that could not be heard by spectators. “That Old Man was humane, but I don’t know about this fucker.” He pronounced the ‘e’.

  “Do you mean humane or human?”

  “The same ain’t it?”

  “No it’s not the same.” More voices were raised in the section. On a point of education voices were always raised, with one wanting to show more knowledge than another.

  “But I make you right,” pointed out one wiseman. “Coz I think you meant human and I got a feeling that this one ain’t human.”

  The original speaker stood mouth open. “Yea,” he said uncertainly.

  “You mean no.”

  “Yea, he ain’t human absolutely.”

  “But the Old Man was humane as well, and there ain’t too many of those people around here in this war.”

  They formed into platoons, loosely. Though the RSM’s screeched version of the word “BATTALION,” as if a chicken was being strangled, made them sharpen up their three-rank dressing.


  He had their attention. He was rather gleeful and hardly concealed this. “Something exciting for us today, you’ ll see. Come on, come on. Sar majors lets be having your reports please.”

  The normal parade routine was that platoons form up into companies and then march into a position on the designated parade ground, indicated by man markers placed out before, whether it is a village square of mud or a road junction or a farm field. RSMs did not usually present themselves for this but kept a discreet distance. As officers did, usually in whatever house had been designated as the Officers’ Mess. So the men were the full responsibility of the designated senior non-commissioned officers until the time came for them to be handed upwards, to the RSM, thence to officers.

  But this RSM always made his presence felt. He was there watching, gloating at some misdemeanour of formation. This caused the Company Sergeant-Majors to bawl some poor unfortunate soldier out all the louder.

  The RSM could hardly wait. The Sargeant-Majors reported to him one after the other; “Alpha, twenty casualties SIR!”

  “Bravo fifteen casualties and three reported sick this morning SIR!”

  “BRAVO YOUR CASUALTY LIST GROWS WITH SICKNESS LET ME SEE SICK BAY RECORDS AFTER THIS PARADE. I WANT REASONS, NOT EXCUSES.”

  “Very well sir,” replied the Sergeant-Major in question, somewhat weakly.

  Other sub-units on parade, the rifle companies and elements of headquarters and support, reported and shuffled into stillness and expectation. Despite the universal dislike of the RSM there was a fascination for what he might do next and the announcement of ‘something exciting’, brought expectation.

  He didn’t keep the parade waiting. “Now that we are all assembled I want to bring one man to your attention. He is… was, a soldier. But he has chosen a different road… It is a member of Alpha. HE IS HERE IS HE NOT SAR-MAJOR?”

  “YES, SIR.”

  “GOOD GOOD, NOT ON THE SICK LIST… NOT BECOME A SUDDEN CASUALTY. BUT HE WILL BE IN A WORSE CONDITION SOON… BECAUSE HE IS A DESERTER.”

  He put a sudden spitting emphasis on the word. It was a disgusting word for him. Or he made it seem such. Though no one knew what was in the RSM’s mind. How much was, for him, a display or a play for his audience. He needed an audience. No one knew how he was when on his own.

  But after the pause, Cello was to find out.

  “So let’s be having you then… Private Harris, lets be having you right out here, in front of the whole battalion. You’re famous… Ain’t you? Don’t suppose they’ve ever seen a real… deserter. We don’t see many of them; thankfully.”

  There was a movement in the ranks of Alpha and eventually Cello did appear. He appeared not like a soldier on parade with polished boots and stamping them, but with some slow movements. He was without a rifle unlike all the others. He was dressed in a fresh uniform and looked alert. He had a cap on so there was no way of telling whether his hair was clean. But they had all had baths, such were the facilities of the school where they had found billets.

  He did march forward towards the RSM. That was where the private meeting took place. Cello was not afraid and that would impress the hearts of some men, the lack of fear, the lack of shaking. It was a dignified lack of shaking.

  The RSM’s quiet voice had a menace about it. But Cello somehow drew and neutralised it. The watchers did not witness any penetration of the words into his body.

  But there was to come a summary punishment which the RSM conceived to humiliate.

  “You have disgraced the uniform you are wearing. Clearly you don’t want it any more. Go to the side of the parade and remove it… Dismiss.”

  It was a simple instruction. One that was heard by some but not all. But all watched as Cello did turn right, pause and march off. The pause did not include a salute as there was no officer on parade and there was no emphasis on parade ground moves again.

  They watched as he proceeded to the edge of the parade and removed his uniform in a simple manner as if about to get into bed. White underwear and the keen breeze, though there was no rain, would have made him cold and his skin would begin to pimple. But after placing his uniform on the ground he stood back to attention, loosely, some would have thought insolently; looking up and out, way beyond the RSM, showing that he was still not afraid.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Due process

  The Military Police were the agents of the RSM; a sort of secret police who worked under his command. No one else seemed to control them, not at battalion level. They often came from a higher formation supposedly, not commanded by the RSM, but they always reacted to his word as they reacted to the word of any officer, the senior they were the more emphasis was placed on that reaction. The red top puppets, as the soldiers saw them because of their red caps, headed by the RSM, seemed to have an assumed chain of command but no visible puppeteer.

  The Commanding Officer was the figurehead to whom due deference was given, or usually over-given, especially in the case of the RSM. But there was a higher ideal that existed and everybody in authority gave it the nod. If anybody asked what it was, they would be told that it was ‘due process’, and it had to be followed. Authority nodded, of course; ‘due process’ was necessary.

  The MPs came and removed Cello’s uniform and after the parade during which not an instant of attention was paid to him, he was marched away, barefooted.

  Soldiers do not control their own lives. So they have to accept what happens to others. Just as the German soldiers had accepted the fate of their comrade tied to the gate, which Cello and Sergeant Wall had encountered. The men of Alpha Company marched off the parade to their routine. They wanted an easy two days before they had to return. Training and resupply of equipment and whatever else had to be done would be fitted around sleeping and eating and perhaps time to play cards, write and receive letters and parcels from home. These were what the soldiers anticipated. They would do anything to preserve those things. They would certainly forget Cello.

  Ostensibly at least.

  The sections regathered in their billets after the parade. They smoked and lounged on beds while doing so. Breakfast had been taken and the next thing was to be some training before the midday meal at which there might be rum.

  The navy took their issue of rum before the midday or lunch meal, at sea. This did not always make for a safe afternoon shift for those men who had managed to procure an extra tot or two; taken, sometimes, in fact usually, in a ‘oner’. Young sailors under twenty were not supposed to take the tot. That rule was hardly ever enforced.

  Of course the army followed the tradition when rum became available to them which was not every day as for the navy, but in the trenches it did manage to get forward most days, often at the expense of other supplies which some might have deemed more essential.

  To Jack the rum was essential. It had become more so since the arrival of the new RSM.

  Ben his friend and accomplice in almost everything, also needed rum. But he had broken free from Jack to visit Cello the night before and he had watched fleetingly as he had stood at the side of the parade, standing out like a white feather on the back of a crow. His white underwear looking clean from a distance.

  “Down it then mate, down the hatch,” urged Jack. They sat at the side of the hall that had been the school’s dining room. Now it was the soldiers’ canteen, the centre of their world. A grey smoke haze hung above the heads of the congregation of soldiers who hummed and droned steadily, sometimes intercepted by high-pitched shouts of mirth or vulgar laughter. There was a rumour spreading among the tables and benches where soldier’s boots brought the knee into semi-rest for the elbow; that one of the French girls who had lately worked at the school was still there helping, somewhere in the kitchen.

  “Those bastards in HQ Coy will have the drop on us there. Ain’t that a fact, Ben?”

  Ben had nearly finished his tot. “What d’you think’s gonna happen to Cello?” he interrupted the flow of conversation.

  “Due pro
cess it’s called; COs orderly room, remanded for Court Martial…”

  “Then?”

  “Well this Regiment has got a bit of a reputation.”

  “For what?”

  “Shooting soldiers…”

  “Soldiers?”

  “Our soldiers.” He leered, as if this was the same subject as the French girl.

  The leer hit Ben a bit, though he continued to go along with his friend. He hadn’t told Jack about meeting up with Cello the night before.

  “Yes I had heard about that.” He hadn’t really heard the detail.

  “Five in one day, can you imagine that; from the same battalion. Five men shot for desertion or cowardice. Five men lined up and shot… Don’t know if they used the same firing squad for all of them. What do you reckon? Like being on the range.” He placed his mug of rum on the bench then held up two arms and feigned taking pot shots at five different targets lined up alongside each other.

  Someone close by burst out laughing. Jack joined in. “Like at a fairground.” It wasn’t really like the range. When shooting at a target, although they might move down towards it, they shoot at the same target, anything else is unsafe.

  “They wouldn’t have done that would they?” Ben suddenly felt repulsion. He felt it had been building and suddenly had to admit it, at least to himself.

  Jack continued with his play-act. He enjoyed the whole episode.

  It was another Battalion in the Regiment and had happened two years before. It did echo through the ranks occasionally. No doubt the RSM knew of it well.

  It gave Ben a strange feeling. Everything they did was about killing the enemy and preserving yourself. So why would you create more casualties among your own men. It seemed ridiculous.

  Ben looked at himself for the first time; but not in a mirror of which there were none in the theatre of war.