by William Boyd
The German trenches were a thousand yards away at Lombartzyde, in the direction of Ostend. Between us lay pleasant dunes and strong barbed wire entanglements. It was a quiet sector; so quiet as to be almost inert. In fact this northern end of the Western Front was, strictly speaking, the responsibility of the Belgian Army, but for some reason we had been sent here as replacements for one of their units. The fact was no one really knew what to do with the 13th (Public School) Service Battalion of the Duke of Clarence’s Own South Oxfordshire Light Infantry.
At the outbreak of the war a Universities and Public School Brigade had been raised, entirely of volunteers. The four battalions became the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th battalions of the Royal Fusiliers. However, keenness to enlist was such that the Army Council allowed other regiments to create privately funded service battalions similarly composed. The Middlesex Regiment, for example, had a battalion of ex-public-school boys—the 16th. And so too did the Duke of Clarence’s Own South Oxfordshire Light Infantry. Its 13th Battalion was made up at the outbreak of war by boys from public schools in and around the Thames Valley—Eton, Marlborough, Radley, St. Edward’s—and overflow from the Public School Brigade. However, as the war advanced and as the casualty rates of officers soon outstripped supply, the ordinary rank and file of the battalion found themselves, as Peter Hobhouse had told me, in great demand as potential officer material. By 1916 there were few battalions left and those were very understrength as the initial flood of recruits died away. Back in England there were depot companies that went through the motion of recruiting, but in reality the day of the public school battalions was over. Indeed, I think my intake was among the last. After that, any spirited public-school boy could find a place in an established regiment without much difficulty.
A further problem was the constant poaching of our numbers. Our officers were the first to go, then the NCOs and finally any moderately capable private found himself being offered a commission. The remainder found themselves obliged to occupy the roles of those who had left. Consequently our level of ability—as soldiers—remained consistently low. By the time I joined we were a depleted bunch of unintelligent, initiativeless misfits, and all from minor public schools (the old school tie operated in the army too: connections were everything). We were not much in demand as soldiers.
I myself was graded as almost educationally subnormal. Minto Academy’s bizarre curriculum let me down again. I lied about my age (nineteen) and had no qualifications. I saw the ferrety sergeant at the recruiting office write “NOM” on my form. Not Officer Material. In fact, it took some convincing for this loathsome man to accept that Minto Academy was even a public school. After he had searched vainly in the Public Schools Yearbook I managed to persuade him that there was a separate Scottish edition in which the Academy was sure to be found.
I was ideal material for the 13th Battalion as it was now composed. Minto refused to allow a corps at the school and so I did not even possess the most rudimentary military skills. Moreover, my mood at the time was extremely depressed and I was generally sullen and unresponsive. It was only through Peter’s recommendation to Colonel O’Dell that I was passed through basic training.
I do not remember much about our camp. That it was near Oswestry is all I can bring to mind. It was a dismal featureless place where, along with a thousand other recruits, I learned to drill, fire a rifle, use a bayonet and gas mask. We spent many days simulating platoon attacks on trenches and strongpoints while instructors threw thunderflashes and shouted at us. I made no great efforts, or friendships, at that stage. I wanted merely to get through and get away, while I nursed my private griefs and shame.
It is hard for me to recall those dreadful hours after Donald Verulam told me the true explanation of those references in my mother’s letters. At such moments of intense despair the brain does not function normally. Just as it is for the benefit of the organism as a whole that our bodies cannot remember physical pains as we have endured, so it is similarly blessed on occasions of grievous mental torment. We can summon up some old griefs, some shames, some envies—but not all. It would be too much to bear. There was nothing about those feverish, crawling, sweaty sensations I underwent then that I would ever want to retain. I became suddenly dull, that day, blandly smiling, making noncommittal remarks when required, while I furiously rejigged my perceptions of myself, rejecting fanciful romance for humdrum disappointing reality. Donald and I walked on, he troubled and concerned, I supplying false, unconvincing reassurances. Somehow I got through the evening. The night was devoted to ruthless self-castigation. The next morning I announced I was going back to Edinburgh. I packed, made my farewells and got on a train to London. I disembarked at Oxford, caught another train to Marlborough, where I presented myself at the recruiting office. Some days later, at Oswestry, I wrote and told everyone where I was and about the change of plan.
My father, my true father, seemed not too perturbed. He wrote to me: “It is not a course of action I would have advised, but if you feel called to serve your country I will not stand in your way. There was no need to flee the Academy to achieve this. You might at least have thought to confide your plans to me. But let us put all this behind us. At the root of this unfortunate business it seems your motives are essentially fine.…” And so on, much in the same vein. I heard nothing from Donald Verulam or Aunt Faye.
Of the batch of new recruits that left Oswestry bound for the 13th (Public School) Service Battalion of the SOLI, three of us found ourselves in the same platoon. We were notionally in the bombing section, 2nd Platoon, D Company. Prior to an attack this section would be issued with a supply of Mills bombs and we would find ourselves in the vanguard of any assault on the enemy lines. None of us was particularly skilled at bomb throwing. At Oswestry we had practiced with potatoes. We had little specialized training apart from that. As I remember, we spent most of our time fitting detonators into Mills bombs.
Our progress to the front was slow. At first the battalion was attached to a Naval Division regiment guarding Dunkirk, where we acted as fatigue parties. Then, after two months, we were marched up the coast to Coxyde-Bains where our fatigue duties continued, this time for the siege batteries of the Royal Marine artillery at La Panne. It was here that we were sent from time to time into the trenches at Nieuport. It was not testing or dangerous. The war here was an affair of long-range artillery duels. We heard the guns and sometimes saw the explosions—distant puffs of smoke—but it took place far above our heads. After a day or two the guns were no more alarming than distant thunder in another country: rain was falling on somebody else.
The 13th was considerably understrength. There were nine of us in the so-called bombing section and at Dunkirk and at Coxyde-Bains we all slept in the same large bell tent. The three new recruits to the bombers were myself, Julian Teague and Howard Pawsey. The fellow bombers we encountered were, clockwise round the tent (we three were on groundsheets near the entrance flap), on my left, Leo Druce, Tim Somerville-Start, Noel Kite, the Honorable Maitland Bookbinder and two others whose names I have forgotten. They made no impression on me. I remember one, I think, a dim fellow, always reading—Floyd, I think. Our company commander was an older man, a lieutenant, called Louis McNiece. He was gray-haired and worried looking and known to everyone as Louise. Louise had had a commission as a major in the Mashonaland Light Horse. He had sailed promptly back from Africa to England at the outbreak of war, but the best position he could obtain was this company commandership in the 13th, with a commensurate drop in rank. He had no hopes of promotion and was maniacally fearful of getting into trouble. His authority over his company was minimal, but he was looked on charitably by Colonel O’Dell, who regarded him, however erroneously, as a regular soldier, as was the colonel himself.
Indeed the battalion owed its very existence to O’Dell and to Noel Kite’s father, Findlay. Both were rich men (Kite had made his fortune in dye) and in 1914 they had paid for the formation and upkeep of the battalion (food, uniforms, transp
ort, pay) out of their own pockets for several months, until the Army Council recognized it officially as a New Army service battalion. Our first uniforms—navy-blue serge—were made up at Selfridge’s. We even had our own pipe band.
Findlay Kite felt strongly that every battalion should have a band and had recruited and paid eight youths from Glasgow to join the battalion. The Army Council refused to take on this expense and it was still borne by the Kite family—much to Noel Kite’s irritation. The pipers were fully cognizant of their privileged position and refused any other duties. They lived apart from the rest of us in well-tended billets (they received an extra allowance for food and clothing when overseas). The sight of the pipers lounging around their braziers in shirtsleeve order was the only thing that seemed to rile Noel, normally placid to the point of inertia. “Work-shy peasants!” he used to call them and regularly wrote to his father encouraging the band’s dissolution. But his father and Colonel O’Dell always vetoed it. They liked the idea of an English battalion with a Scottish band. It gave the 13th a ready-made gloss of tradition, O’Dell argued.
A few days after my arrival at Dunkirk an orderly runner told me that I was wanted by the colonel. I went to battalion HQ worried that my father had changed his mind and was going to demand my return. But not at all. O’Dell was a bald cheerful man with a frizzy blond moustache.
“Welcome aboard, Todd. Peter Hobhouse’s cousin, yes? He wrote to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Todd … Todd … You must have been in Fetter’s, then. George Armitage’s house.”
“Sorry, sir?”
“No, no. Got it now. Gallway’s. Never forget a face. Grand you’re here. Could do with a few more Stanburians, I can tell you.”
I did not correct him.
“Remember the motto? Plutôt fort que piquant. That’s the spirit.”
“Yes, sir.”
At Dunkirk, apart from doing the Naval Division’s fatigues, we were sent on route marches with Louise around the warm and dusty countryside. “Route strolls,” as Maitland Bookbinder referred to them. We were relieved to march up to Coxyde-Bains to take over the end of the Belgian line. The skirling music of the pipes led us through battered Belgian villages, gazed upon by the incurious eyes of the few inhabitants who turned out to watch us pass. There was a discernible quickening of our spirits as we approached these hamlets. Our plod became a swagger; our caps were set at extravagant angles. Louise, on a bicycle, would ride by and implore us to throw away our cigarettes. “Nao ciggies, chips,” he would say in his South African accent. “Unsoldierly. Come on, please, fags out.” We puffed on regardless. Louise gave up quickly. He had not been to public school—not that we cared—and I think he felt socially uneasy with us. It was strange, but every time we passed through a village we seemed to pick up an escort of four or five dogs that scampered alongside for a mile or so, sniffing and tails wagging, before abandoning us.
The line at Nieuport is where I really date the start of my military career. At Dunkirk we had been little more than servants and laborers in our working-party duties for the disdainful Naval Division. At Coxyde in reserve, or in the trenches at Nieuport, at least we felt more like soldiers. We were facing the enemy after all, albeit under reasonably pleasant circumstances. Here too I began to shed the integument of gloom and self-loathing that had enfolded me since that black weekend at Charlbury. I began to emerge. A fragile self-confidence established itself. I started to correspond with Hamish and learned something of the events subsequent to my departure from school.
Our plan had worked well. I was not discovered absent until the next day. Angus was dispatched to Galashiels Station and then traveled up and down the line searching for traces of me. Hamish’s role was discovered swiftly and he was duly flogged. He wrote: “It was as bad as everyone had said. I do not think I have ever experienced such pain before. Still, it was a useful experience. Now I know what it is like to be mercilessly beaten. (Minto is quite batty, I am sure.) It all adds to one’s store of knowledge.” He sounded almost grateful, as if I had opened a locked door in his life. But it made me feel guilty.
Our routine at Nieuport was straightforward. Two companies held the line for a week and were relieved by the other two. The resting companies occupied battalion reserve (an orchard) at Coxyde-Bains and occasionally supplied fatigue parties for the Royal Marine siege gunners. After each company had spent a total of a month in the line, we returned to brigade reserve at Wormstroedt, some distance away, behind the British sector of the Western Front. Life at Coxyde-Bains was pleasant, if boring. The town was out of bounds to us, but not to Belgian troops. There was a sizable detachment garrisoned here as King Albert had his HQ at nearby La Panne. There was a small closer village, St. Idesbaldle, which we were allowed to visit, with two cafés—one for officers, one for other ranks—but it did not offer much in terms of diversion. Our time was taken up with prettifying the reserve lines (creating ash-clinker paths with whitewashed stone borders, allotments, building a clay tennis court for the officers’ mess), route marches, close-order drill, musketry practice and endless sessions of battalion sports of every type. About two miles away, near St. Idesbalde, was a large Belgian field hospital. Once or twice we passed this, either marching or on a cross-country run, and we saw the off-duty nurses with red crosses on their starched aprons and what I took to be an order of Belgian nuns with headdresses like stiff white-linen sombreros, the vast brims complicatedly folded. This view excited some of our more sensual types—Leo Druce and Noel Kite in particular—who instantly planned to strike up acquaintances. Little was achieved beyond vain shouts of introduction as we jogged past—much to Louise’s irritation.
My main pleasure at Coxyde-Bains—when I had the chance—was to walk on the beach. If one left the orchard and walked down a lane past a farm, one soon came to the dunes. They evoked for me memories of Scotland and, when the tide was out, the huge flat beach recalled the West Sands at St. Andrews in Fife. Sometimes I would walk west towards Dunkirk. On other occasions I would walk east towards Nieuport and the front line. I would stop when I could just see the revetments and sandbags at the mouth of the Yser River at Nieuport, which marked the position I so often occupied as l’homme de l’extrême gauche. At low tide the furthest extension of the wire was often exposed and I was often obscurely tempted to walk on and wade round the double entanglements, then traverse the mile of no-man’s-land and perhaps bypass the German line too. There I might meet my German counterpart: a young private, a little unhappy, uncertain of his future, whiling away his off-duty hours with a morose stroll on the sands at Ostende-Bains. Perhaps we would simply nod “Good morning” and saunter on? Perhaps I might ask him for a light: Hast du Feuer? It was a pleasing fantasy.…
One day, I went down to the beach in just such a mood of contemplation. Hands in my pockets, collar up against the wind.
Then I saw, slightly distorted by the reflections on the wet gleamy sand, what I took to be a man running along the water’s edge. Absurdly, spontaneously, I thought: was this my German doppelgänger come to meet me?… I peered at the distorted black shape, trying to separate bouncing solid from bouncing reflection. A man? A small man? He was certainly moving in a curious gait. I seemed to see a cripple, terribly bent over, hunched, traveling along in a fast lolloping limp.
Then as I looked the enigma resolved itself. A dog, rather large, bounding along in a kind of easy half gallop, pausing occasionally to sniff at seaweed or a piece of tide wrack before starting off again. I watched it approach. Then it saw me and changed course. The loose-limbed canter became a pelting, ears-back gallop. I felt uneasy, then fearful. Bloody hell, I thought crazily, what if this is some sort of Hun secret weapon? Killer dogs loosed behind the lines? Mad … rabid.
I looked down at my heavy boots. I’ll kick it in the throat, I said to myself, none too confidently. The dog was three hundred yards away and approaching fast. I threw away my cigarette, turned and ran for the dunes. I was seriously impeded by
my greatcoat and heavy boots. I flashed a glance over my shoulder. Christ! It was coming at me like a cheetah—head down, tail out. I could hear the skittering thump of its feet on the sand.
“Help!” I bellowed aimlessly at the tranquil dunes. “Bastaaaaaard!”
The dog was on me as I lumbered vainly along. Jumping up and down, barging into me, tongue lolling, darting forward and back, crouching down like a pseudo-beast of prey in that irritating manner dogs have when they want some fun. I stopped, threw my head back and gulped air, hands on my hips.
The dog, I saw, was quite big, with untidy gray fur and a blunt stupid face. It looked like a cross of Irish wolfhound, setter and bull terrier. It came up to me, tail wagging, and stuck its nose in my crotch.
“Get off! Dirty bugger!”
I slapped its face away. I felt hot, angry and itchy from my hectic run. I wiped sweat from my eyebrows and upper lip. My peaceful, contemplative stroll had been ruined by this idiot hound, which was now, as far as I could see, eating sand.
I trudged back through the dunes towards the company lines, the dog following. I spoke violently to it (it is strange how we address dumb animals so, is it not?).
“If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll go back to camp get my rifle and shoot you.”
The dog was adopted by the bombers as section mascot. Bookbinder and Pawsey made a great fuss of it giving it tins of MacConnachie stew several times a day. A name was chosen by lottery (I did not participate) and the dog became known as Ralph—Tim Somerville-Start’s choice. I wanted nothing to do with the beast. In fact I was rather superstitious of it—it had come from the direction of the German lines, after all. I refused to call it Ralph, never petted it and every time it shat in the tent, pissed on someone’s shoes, knocked over stands of rifles, coffeepots and mess tins, my voice was loudly raised urging its peremptory execution. But the animal never left me alone. It came to me, it sat by me, it slept as near to me as it was allowed. This provoked considerable jealousy among the others.