by John Masters
‘Thank you, sir. I will that, when I’ve done this.’
Boy Rowland sprawled back in the parlour’s only comfortable chair. At last he could relax. Stratton was on his way down the street, carrying his greatcoat. The platoon and their billets had been inspected; the men were fed and now were mostly sleeping. Later Sergeant Knapp would have a full equipment check to find out what equipment and clothing had been lost or damaged up the line, and would report to him in the evening. Mme Baret had taken off her apron and put a blue ribbon in her hair. On her feet were patent leather ankle boots, side-buttoned to the calf. He had never seen her in real shoes before – only bedroom slippers, and when she went out, the clogs over them.
Then she held open the door and formally said, ‘Monsieur est servi.’ The chicken was roasted to perfection, and she served with it a bottle of red wine, unlabelled but good, a loaf of new bread, new potatoes, and cabbage greens. At first she had stood behind him like a butler, as she did on the occasions when he and Beldring had asked her to cook their rations for them, rather than give them to the mess cook. But after a few minutes Boy put down his knife and fork and said. ‘I can’t eat with you standing there, Madame. Please be so good as to sit here.’ He patted the chair to his left – ‘and join me. This chicken is excellent.’
She sat, then, but never took her eyes off him, watching to guess what he needed, from the expression on his face, before he could say a word. Her bosom rose and fell evenly, but deeply, and from time to time a blush spread up from her neck across her face, causing her skin to glow for a minute, before it died away. They talked in desultory fashion. ‘Meester Beldring has gone on leave. He is lucky!’
‘This bread is delicious. I thought the bakery had been destroyed by shell fire.’
‘I must ’ave another cock, to kill ze rat.’
‘May I pour you some more wine, Madame?’
She drank liberally of the red wine, and when they had finished the first bottle, produced another. The flush on her face became permanent. There was no dessert. She said simply, ‘That is all, Meester Boy,’ stood up, and from behind his chair, leaned over, pressing her breasts into the back of his neck, her arms round him, reaching down towards his loins. She murmured in his ear, ‘Oh, Meester Boy, je t’aime … I love you … je t’aime!’
Boy sat appalled, stricken. Had he done anything to cause this, to lead her on? He had treated her with the strictest consideration, more so than Beldring, who had eyed her too freely once or twice … but her breasts were warm soft globs against him and in spite of himself he felt his manhood stirring. She had his hand now and was pulling. ‘Come up ze stairs, Meester Boy … to my room, je t’aime, ah, wat ben ik toch gemeen, je t’aime!’
He stood up with difficulty, turned round and took both her hands, resisting her pulling. ‘You’re lonely, Madame. You love your husband. You have told me so many times.’
‘That is true, too! I don’t know ’ow it can be … but ’e is not ’ere! I ’ave not ’eard from ’im for seex monce.’ Her English became more tangential as her excitement increased. She was not drunk, Boy thought, but the restraints that normally held her had definitely been loosened if not totally destroyed, partly by loneliness, partly by the wine.
He said, ‘Madame, I respect you. I respect you too much to touch you.’ As he spoke, his penis was throbbing in a powerful erection. He had never made love to a woman, and now was surely not the time, nor she the person: for she did not know what she was doing. He prayed that she would not notice the erection, for then heaven knew what she’d do.
She cried, ‘Please, Meester Boy … I need you!’
He wondered whether that could be true. Did men really need women, and women need men, as one needed water when one’s body had been deprived of it? Or was it not more properly a lust that could be controlled and channelled to true love – love for someone with whom you had more to share than the ability to fornicate? And it was not only that such lusts could be controlled, they must be, if the standards by which decent people lived were to be upheld. What if Naomi, for instance, were to feel this need, and simply go and ask a man to satisfy her, as Madame Baret was now asking him? What would happen to society, to decency, to respect for women – and for men?
He said, ‘Madame Baret, I can not betray your husband.’
‘But ’e is dead! I know eet! Dead, blown to little bits, deesappear, so no one can say, ’ere is Caporal Baret, ’e is dead, we will tell ’is wife. ’E ’as gone!’
Boy said miserably, ‘I cannot betray you, either. You have a good name here in Wieltje. You must not risk losing it. The war will be over soon, and we will all go back to England, but you will stay here. Wieltje is a small place. Everyone will know, always.’
‘Please, Meester Boy, oh please, please, please!’
She had noticed the erection now and her hands, tugged free, were stroking it through the trouser material. Boy broke free, hurried to the door, grabbed up his cap, and ran out into the street.
Boy sat in his uncle’s billet, sipping from a glass of wine. Up the line the never-ending artillery fire continued, but it was slight now. Yesterday they had come out of the line; today they would rest; tomorrow would start the fatigues that made a spell in divisional reserve harder work than duty in the front line, where at least most of the work was necessary for self-preservation – such as trench improvement and sentry duty. The best place was forward reserve; there the men could not be scattered on fatigues, because they would be needed instantly in case of a German attack; nor were sentry duties so heavy, as the enemy could not get at them without passing through the front, second, and third lines. But back here, after the one day of rest, louse hunting, eating, and sleeping – it began: fifty men to carry sandbags up to the front; forty men for wiring in the brigade reserve area; twenty for carrying water; thirty to enlarge the Casualty Clearing Station a quarter of a mile across the fields in Wieltje Farm … and so on, and on, until the CO could barely count on a hundred men in hand out of the eight hundred he officially commanded.
Quentin said, ‘I had a letter from Guy yesterday. He came in third in the Big Kingsley. And now he’s Rowland major. Some other Rowland’s arrived, in the Murray … no relation, as far as I know. He’d also sent me a box of Bourbon biscuits, from Grubbies. And they actually arrived, by the same post!’
Boy said nothing, for any comment would have launched his uncle on a familiar tirade, about the base and rear-area scoundrels who stole parcels intended for troops in the front line: why, a Christmas pudding made for him last year by Mrs Abell at High Staining had never arrived, and … so on, and so on.
He wanted to ask his uncle how his Aunt Fiona was. He had always liked her, though she was strange sometimes, the way she looked at, or through you, as though she were miles away. But even before he went to Sandhurst he had realized that there was something wrong in the relationship between his uncle and aunt – they were nothing like his mother and father, to each other: so he kept quiet.
Quentin said, ‘I wonder if they’ve started in the Dardanelles yet.’
‘Nothing in the London papers, sir? It’s three days old, isn’t it?’
Quentin said, ‘Yes … I’m against it – the Dardanelles operation. This is the decisive front, and that’s just a diversion – of men, guns, ammunition – which we need here. Especially the ammunition.’
Boy said nothing. If the Dardanelles operation was a diversion, one might reasonably say the Russian Front was, too, yet it obviously wasn’t.
Quentin said, ‘They should have done it with the navy alone, the first time they sailed up … in January, wasn’t it? Just the navy and a few marines. We need all the soldiers we can get here.’ He put down the paper and said in a strange voice, ‘You know what I think, Boy?’
‘No, sir,’ Boy said, wondering; his uncle looked conspiratorial, as though about to say something treasonable.
‘I think we need conscription. Oh, I know it’s never happened before. But there’s never b
een a war like this before, for England. And it’s going to get worse … bigger. People say we’ll get men who’ll make bad soldiers, men who don’t want to fight, who aren’t any good … but look what the navy had to do in the Napoleonic Wars! They press-ganged men out of the gaols, the pubs, the poorhouses, and made them the best sailors in the world … and some of them not even English!’
Unseen troops tramped by in the street, singing Tipperary. A loud voice interrupted the song – ‘We’ve had enough of that bloody song. Sing something else.’ It seemed to be a sentiment generally shared, for the singing died down, until two or three voices began – I don’t want to join the army ! which was taken up with glum enthusiasm. To the north-west, the shelling began to increase noticeably, so that the ground under the house shook, the building itself trembled and the remaining windows rattled.
Quentin said, ‘The truth is that only conscription will get us the men we are going to need. The trade unions are already protesting – before there’s anything to protest about – but they’ll have to lump it. We must have the men. Anyway, it’s high time all the slackers are winkled out of cushy jobs back home and sent out here.’
The shelling was really uncommonly heavy for a slack time. North-west, and about five miles away, Boy thought – about Bixschoote, held by French Algerian troops.
‘All we need is conscription, to get the men into the army,’ Quentin continued, ‘and then one big push, here on the Western Front, we and the French together, and it will all be over.’
A bugle shrilled in the street and Quentin raised his head, muttering, as the bugle continued – ‘Battalion call … stand-to … company commanders’ orders … Wonder what’s up?’
Boy stood up, finishing his wine. ‘Thank you for the wine, sir. I’d better be going.’
Quentin nodded. ‘Come and see me again when the flap’s over. It’s probably just another Hun hate.’
Boy ran down the village street. He breathed a sigh of thankfulness when Stratton joined him, fully dressed and equipped: he would not have to face Mme Baret alone. Last night had passed well enough. She had apologized for her behaviour, said she had taken a little too much wine, Meester Rowland would please forgive her; and had behaved with the utmost decorum thereafter; but now, the bugles were calling, the German shelling had increased to a hurricane of sound and fury, and she would again be in a high state of nervous emotion.
As they ran Stratton pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and gave it to Boy. ‘Quartermaster gave me this for you, sir.’
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t know for sure, sir. Something to do with lost equipment and you have to pay.’
‘Sixty-four rupees, fourteen annas, four pies,’ Boy snarled. ‘Why the hell don’t they take it out of my pay and have done with it?’
‘I asked that, sir. Quartermaster said they couldn’t without a court martial and …’
‘Burn it, Stratton, at the first opportunity. Don’t just throw it away, or it’ll find its way back to me … Oh, and listen. I’ve spoken to Captain Maclachlan about you. You’ll be promoted soon, perhaps into the Pioneer Section. You’re much too experienced a man – and craftsman – to spend the war as my batman.’
‘But, sir – ’ Frank began anxiously; but Boy said, ‘You just take what’s coming, Stratton.’
Then they were at the house. Mme Baret was nowhere to be seen as Boy struggled into his equipment, helped by Stratton; then they both ran back up the street to the edge of the village, where B Company was gathering, scattered in groups to avoid unnecessary casualties from shell fire.
A man came running down the street, shouting. He was a Negro in Algerian French uniform, his face purple-black, eyes bolting. He had no rifle and was clutching at his throat and croaking in a choked voice, ‘Asphyxiation! Sauve qui peut!’ He did not reach the end of the village, but stumbled, fell, and lay in the middle of the pave of Wieltje, retching, and jerking. More Algerians ran past, a few Belgian civilians among them, all coughing and stumbling.
Boy felt his stomach tighten and his throat constrict. What on earth was this, now?
The Algerians seemed to have lost their way, for the French front was further west, and as the battalion advanced up the road towards St Julien, they did not see any more. The artillery fire continued heavily to the west, now two ways, for French and some British guns had opened counter battery fire, while the Germans were firing their huge 17-inch howitzers into Ypres itself. Tall columns of smoke rose from the city, drifting away to the south.
At St Julien the battalion opened up, for light shelling was reported further up the road, and continued its advance. Soon afterwards a halt was called, and they lay down or sprawled where they could. Orders and information gradually trickled down, until Captain Maclachlan could tell his platoon commanders, at a conference in a field off the Poelcapelle road, that after heavy bombardment of the French Algerian lines, the Germans had advanced behind a cloud of some sort of noxious gas. The Algerians had broken and fled, and the Germans had poured into the gap, heading for Ypres. All this was to the Weald’s left – west. Now British forces were going to attack the German flank. The 1st Weald Light Infantry would lead, two companies up, until resistance was encountered.
Boy returned to his platoon, and explained the situation to Sergeant Knapp and his corporals. Soon the battalion moved out neatly into open order, and advanced north-westward across country, bayonets fixed, rifles at the high port.
For a time nothing happened, and they saw no one. They were moving through what had been a rear area, for Boy could clearly see, to his right, a rudimentary trench system and rows of barbed wire. Suddenly, after fifteen minutes, shells began to fall among both leading companies, including on to Boy’s platoon. For a moment he thought that they were British 18-pounders falling short but, listening carefully, he distinctly heard the boom of the guns from behind the German lines, to the north, and then the crack of the exploding shells. Machine-gun fire rattled by at the same time. A man fell here, another cried out, tumbling over. The battalion continued to advance, Boy’s platoon on the extreme left of the left-hand forward company. Some of the men broke into a run, going forward.
‘Walk!’ Boy shouted. He had not seen a German close-to since his first trench raid, with the 2nd Battalion, and although he carried a revolver, he seldom drew it, but used a strong ash plant with a curved handle, with which he could point out objectives. He also found it useful for knocking down the stinging nettles that filled every ditch and bypath, ruined hamlet and farm in the Salient.
The firing increased and men were going down faster. He could see Germans now, about three hundred yards ahead, crouched along hedge and willow lines and outside farm buildings. The British artillery was firing fast, and shrapnel was bursting over the Germans.
The battalion had made contact, as ordered. A runner panted up from company headquarters. ‘Hold present line, sir!’ the man gasped, out of breath.
Boy nodded, pulled out his whistle on its lanyard, blew it, and pushed his hand down in the signal ‘Take position!’
Everyone ran then, for a few seconds, to reach a ditch twenty yards ahead, where they threw themselves down, Sergeant Knapp and Frank Stratton at Boy’s sides. Boy, lying flat on his stomach, said, ‘Get a sentry posted in each section, and everyone else digging, as soon as it gets dark … about twenty minutes … meanwhile keep their heads down, and keep the Germans’ down, too.’
The artillery firing increased for a while, as though both artillery commanders had decided that their respective enemies were going to attack; then died away. It became dark.
By first light there was no trench, only lines of holes two feet deep, unconnected. A message had come down from the high command, and finally reached Boy on a grubby message form from company HQ. He went round his platoon himself just after dawn, crawling from pit to pit and giving the men the information: ‘The gas the Germans used yesterday was chlorine. It is greeny yellow in colour. If you see a cloud of it
coming, urinate on your handkerchief and tie it round your nose and mouth.’
As he left one hole, occupied by two earth-stained and hollow-eyed soldiers, their entrenching tools lying on the loose earth outside, he heard one say to the other, ‘What if I can’t piss, Bill?’
‘Shit, mate! We’ll all be able to do that.’
The battalion waited and watched, unable to move, for every movement drew accurate German rifle and machine-gun fire. The German artillery fired steadily, but not heavily. The British stayed quiet, reserving their ammunition.
The wind changed, blowing in Boy’s face. For a moment he enjoyed the different feel of it, then he started, and cursed himself for a fool. Early yesterday evening the wind had swung round from north to almost west. There had been no gas attack. Why? Because if the Germans released gas, it would be blown back into their own faces. Now, with the dawn, the wind was again northerly. Almost simultaneously, he saw it – a yellowish cloud, advancing silently across the fields towards him, towards all the Weald Light Infantry. The cloud stretched for ever, it seemed, to right and left – more British troops were to the right, Canadians to the left.
Frank Stratton saw it at the same instant he did, and cried, ‘Gas, sir!’
‘Gas!’ Boy shouted. ‘Get ready!’ As though the German gunners had heard him, a storm of whizzbang and 5.9-inch howitzer fire burst along the British positions. Boy, crouched in his little hole with Stratton, found it hard to urinate. He tried, but nothing came. He had taken a leak just before first light, and the message … He should have waited … how could he have known? Now, there it was, a feeble trickle. A shell splinter passed across the upper sleeve of his tunic, cutting the material as though with a razor, but not touching his skin. Then the gas cloud reached them. Boy gasped for breath, a deadly pain at his throat, his eyes bulging and smarting. He pressed his face into the earth … it felt a little better, and the wet handkerchief was filtering out something of the gas … but some of his men were jumping out of their holes, kneeling, hurling themselves this way and that like landed fish. ‘Lie down!’ he cried, realizing they could not hear him, for the handkerchief over his face, and the thunder of the bursting shells. He whipped off the handkerchief, and bellowed again. then sank back, choking and retching. Dimly, through smarting eyes, he saw men running … back … and struggled to his feet, waving his arms. It was no use … they had gone. The green-yellow cloud moved past and he saw that he had only half a dozen men left.
