The Death of Hope

by Andrew Wareham

  “You mean he is utterly useless and only marginally qualifies as a member of the human race?”

  “Precisely, sir! Just what one expects of the breed.”

  Richard shook his head.

  “I trust you will all appreciate the sacrifices I have made for this battalion, Vokes. My congratulations, by the way. In my opinion you are more than capable of leading a battalion. I had, in fact, previously recommended that you should go back to Blighty, to take over a New Army battalion. Staying here in the 8th will be better for you and for the men. With your agreement, I shall inform the Mess tonight before dinner.”

  “A good idea, sir. Sensible to inform them all in the evening rather than expect them to understand anything at the breakfast table. What of the RSM, sir?”

  “O’Grady? I cannot take him with me, can I?”

  Richard’s knowledge of the Regulations was far less than Vokes’. He had no years of peacetime service behind him, had had no opportunity to peruse The Book and discover all of its wrinkles.

  “It is possible, sir. If you need to establish an administrative cadre then a senior warrant officer could head the new organisation. Not as a sergeant major, as such, but at equivalent rank.”

  “I shall speak to Braithwaite.”

  “Sir, I am told that I may need a warrant officer to set up my administration, run my offices for me.”

  “I wondered when that would occur to you, Baker. Strictly speaking, it cannot be done – you should look for a body on a Home posting, unfit for service at the Front. In practice, all things are possible when a general and a brigadier wish to fiddle them. I understand that O’Grady is a reformed character, has forsworn the booze?”

  “He has become a model of all that a soldier should be, sir. I will be pleased to have him at my shoulder when we come out in May.”

  “Let it be so. I shall arrange the papers for our party. Yourself, Michaels and O’Grady together with your batman, I believe.”

  “No, sir. Major Vokes fell down on bended knee before me, begged that I should not take Michaels from him. He is far the best of the subalterns for his aggressive spirit, I must admit. Wasted on the staff. In exchange for suggesting that I take O’Grady, Vokes offered me Wincanton.”

  “He, of course, is ideal for the position, being utterly useless as a soldier. I shall put his name in place of Michaels.”

  Wincanton was called to the colonel’s office, found him there with Major Vokes. He stood to attention and saluted, remembering to use the right hand, wondering what he had forgotten to do.

  “Back to England for five months, sir, as your staff? Oh, please, sir! My father will be so delighted, sir, especially that I am working to you, sir!”

  Richard hid his distaste. He thought he disliked Wincanton’s father slightly more than the son.

  “Be ready for eight o’clock in the morning, Wincanton. If you are so much as one minute late, I shall go without you and find a replacement in England.”

  Wincanton swore he would be on time, early in fact, and ran off to find the servant he shared and make a nuisance of himself while the man packed for him.

  Sergeant Major O’Grady came next.

  “If you wish, ‘Major, you are to be my warrant officer in charge of my brigade’s office. Aldershot until May, when we bring the New Army across to France.”

  “Thank you, sir. Working to you will keep me happy, sir. I shall require one day to gen up my successor in the battalion. I can then make my own way to Aldershot, sir, given the papers and travel warrants.”

  “See Mr Hawkeswill. He will deal with all of that.”

  O’Grady saluted and marched out, nodding to Paisley as he left.

  “Why, Paisley?”

  “Never said it, sir, and don’t know nothing. He can’t just walk out, sir, without handing over the deals to Jim Crowe what will take over. Jim’s not the senior sergeant, but he’s the one they reckon is best. He has to take him to the rear and make him known to the right people, sir. Can’t leave the battalion without its supplies, sir.”

  “You mean the gin and vanrouge and fresh bread and cheese that turns up every week or two?”

  “That’s right, sir. The stuff you don’t know nothing about. Don’t grow on trees, do it?”

  “How does he pay for it, Paisley?”

  Paisley put a finger to the side of his nose, the sign that he was not actually saying anything, was not to be quoted.

  “Got his store of souvenirs, sir. From the trenches we took at Loos. He puts them to his middleman and they go to the docks and back to England. Good money for them there. Helmets and belt buckles and those Lugers get most. Any sorts of badges fetch a few bob. Bayonets as well. Rifles, if they can get them across – a bit big and bulky, they are. German paybooks sell as well, especial if they got a bit of blood on them. I know they want one of them Parabellum machine guns, if they can get hold of one, but they’re much too big a risk, so the ‘Major thinks.”

  Richard was amazed at the almost industrial scale of the black-market activities. It was none of his business, however. Officers had a blind eye to turn – he must use it.

  “Who buys the stuff, do you know, Paisley?”

  “Not as to say ‘know’, no, sir. From what I hear, and from who I can’t say, it is men in reserved occupations back in England. You know the sorts, sir – ‘Nothing I want more than to go out and do my bit, but my job is too important. They won’t let me go!’”

  “So they collect souvenirs and a few years after the war ends, when the memories have faded, they will have the stories of how they ‘happened to pick them up’ during the War.”

  “That’s it, sir. Going to be an awful lot of heroes, twenty years from now.”

  “Still, you will always be able to tell who was actually over here, Paisley. They will be the ones sat at the back of the pub with nothing at all to say. Too many memories to need to shout their mouths off!”

  “Might be right at that, sir. The more the bullshit, the less the action as a rule, sir.”

  The docks at Calais were better organised than Richard remembered and full of Military Police. Despite their rank, the pair of officers and their two staff lieutenants had their papers checked three times before reaching the boat.

  A sergeant was willing to speak rather than grunt a demand for ‘documents’.

  “Pass through, sir. Officers to the first gangway.”

  Paisley and Braithwaite’s man looked about for porters, reluctantly carried the luggage aboard themselves.

  “Don’t allow any spare bodies near the ferries, sir. Keep an eye on every man working here.”

  “Deserters?”

  “Pick up a few every week, sir. Some of them with good papers, too. Had a captain come through last week, sir. Everything right except the travel warrant – bit smudged on the name and the date where he had borrowed somebody else’s and changed them a bit. Not very happy when we took him in charge, sir. Said he had swapped with a pal who didn’t mind waiting a few more weeks. He wasn’t doing any harm, he said. Just wanted to get back home and see the missus. So do we all!”

  Braithwaite was intrigued – it was not the behaviour of an officer as he understood it.

  “What will happen to him, Sergeant?”

  “Up to the court, sir. Any we pick up here go to a court automatic, like. That’s the rules. No chance of getting a wigging from their colonel and getting extra duties. Being as he is a captain, sir, I reckon the court martial won’t be soft on him. Expect better of an officer, sir, especially one what’s got a company. Shouldn’t reckon they’ll shoot him – they’ll find Absent Without Leave, not Desertion, being as how he was going to come back again. Break him, for sure, sir. Private soldier and stuck in an infantry battalion at the Front. No leave until the war ends and then a dishonourable discharge. No chance of promotion. No nothing.”

  It was harsh, for sure, but the man had shown unreliable – an officer who could do that sort of thing could never be trusted again.
r />   “You did well to spot him, Sergeant. Do you think any do get through?”

  “I’m sure they do, sir. Get a battalion going Home on leave, the private soldiers just flash their paybooks. Provided you’ve got a paybook for the right regiment, you’re through. Can’t really check them. They get wet and muddy, no matter how well the men look after them, so the writing can easily be a bit smudged and you can’t argue with five hundred men, one after another. No, it’s the clever ones we catch, sir – the bright sparks who forge an officer’s papers and warrant and get hold of the correct uniform and come through on their own. We had a major, so called, last month. Everything right except he didn’t have a batman and was carrying his own valise. When we checked, his battalion had never heard of him. If he’d had enough sense to come with a mate, carrying his bags, he’d have got away with it.”

  They chuckled and walked up the companionway and into the first class lounge, exchanging salutes with a few leave officers and taking seats at a spare table. A steward ran with drinks and sandwiches, apologising that it was not like the old days, they had to make do, he feared.

  A Military Police lieutenant appeared soon after they cast off, checking all papers, very politely but firm in his insistence.

  “Brigadier Baker? Ah, yes.”

  He showed recognition of the name, nodded respectfully.

  A final check at quayside in Dover followed by Customs, disappointed that their bags contained neither bottles nor tobacco. An hour and they were aboard the train to London, slower than in peacetime but still nonstop, reaching Charing Cross in the early afternoon.

  “How do we get to Aldershot, Paisley?”

  “Waterloo, sir. Need taxis to get across. If they still got them.”

  There were no taxis, all off the road due to a temporary shortage of petrol, a not uncommon event. The Army had a transport office and found a tender to take the senior officers the short journey across the south of London.

  “Majors and below take the omnibus, sir. Or the Underground. More senior officers are granted transport. Batmen and baggage have to use the same vehicle, sir.”

  A Scammel lorry, space on the bench seat in the cab for the two senior officers, baggage, batmen and lieutenants up in the tray.

  “Undignified, Baker!”

  “Better than a bus, sir, crammed in among the civilians.”

  Braithwaite shuddered at the prospect. He preferred his civilians to be kept at arm’s length.

  “Have you ever used a bus, Baker?”

  “Only when we went to war in August, sir. We all took buses across from St Pancras, if you recall. Used one again a couple of months later.”

  “That’s right. I remember now.”

  The lorry crawled into Waterloo, walking pace because of the mass of bodies, all in khaki. The platforms and forecourt were jammed with men, all with their rifles and kitbags.

  The driver nodded at them.

  “All them going to the east part of Salisbury Plain comes here, sir. Them going across to the west use Paddington Station. Hell of a lot coming down from the North and going to Aldershot, sir. Looks like the New Army is all being brought together, sir. Special troop trains coming down from Catterick every day, sir. Thing to do, sir, is to get hold of a redcap and have him lead you through to the ticket office, sir.”

  The driver whistled and waved to a corporal, beckoned him across. The policeman stiffened at the sight of a general accompanied by a brigadier, a sufficiency of rank to drop him into deep trouble if they were offended. He spotted the splash of colour on Richard’s breast, saluted rigidly, immediately willing to assist fighting officers rather than the mass of Home Front warriors he saw more commonly.

  “Four officers for Aldershot, Corporal.”

  “Thank you, Driver. I will take them from here.”

  All very formal, Richard saw, approvingly. They were in public, should be making the correct show.

  The corporal beckoned to four of his men, brought them to his front to act as escort, ploughing their way in a straight line to his destination.

  “Warrants, if you please, sir.”

  First class tickets appeared in less than five minutes, together with third for the batmen.

  “Not running second class no more, sir. Put the men with your bags in the guard’s van, sir. Be safer there, the bags, that is, and more comfortable for the men than jammed in with some other battalion. Guard will have the kettle on as soon as you pull out.”

  The corporal headed for a standing train, double-checked it was bound for Aldershot, ushered the pair into a crowded carriage immediately next to the dining car. He put his head into a compartment containing a major, two captains and three lieutenants, all happily comfortable and pleased with themselves for grabbing a place where they would have a chance of eating, could certainly get a drink.

  “Beg pardon, Major. General and Brigadier and staff require seats.”

  They stood reluctantly, knowing that they would not find another compartment, would have to push in where they could, the lieutenants certainly standing all the way. There was a quick elbow in the major’s ribs, eyes turned meaningfully to Richard’s chest. Salutes followed.

  Richard heard their voices as they stalked down the corridor.

  “Bedfordshires. Got to be Baker. Made brigadier! Man can’t be thirty yet, by the look of him!”

  Braithwaite showed amused.

  “You look older than your years, Baker. What are you actually?”

  “Twenty-one, sir.”

  Braithwaite whistled.

  “A Boy Brigadier indeed! Not the youngest, even so. Close to, must be.”

  Wincanton and Braithwaite’s man were staring open-mouthed, neither having realised Richard’s age.

  “Not to be discussed, I think, gentlemen!”

  They hurriedly agreed it was not a matter for public debate.

  The train remained in the station for half an hour, finally heaved itself out onto the mainline and pottered off towards Hampshire, occasionally reaching express speeds, more often chugging along at thirty or so miles an hour. Sometimes it stopped, for no apparent reason, out in the middle of the winter countryside, barren and empty.

  “Silver birch – miles of them, Baker. Lovely in spring. Bleak at this time of year.”

  Richard agreed – he had no knowledge of the countryside, accepted the trees to be silver birch from the colour of their bark. He was far more interested in the steward who appeared at the door.

  “Not got no restaurant service, gentlemen. Can do ham sandwiches and tea, if you wants.”

  The bread was the previous day’s but the tea was strong and welcome.

  “Four o’clock, Baker! Damned near three hours for a journey that used to be eighty minutes at most!”

  There was transport at the station, waiting on the offchance of senior officers appearing, a common enough event at the largest depot in Britain.

  The problem arose of which of a dozen messes they should be taken to.

  “Beg pardon, sir. Enquire at the guardroom will be best. If you are due today, you will be on a list.”

  “War Office orders are to report today, soldier.”

  “Shouldn’t be no problem, sir.”

  Reaching the gates, the sergeant of the guard turned his men out for the general officer salute, was left wrong-footed when he spotted the VC, which took precedence.

  “Beg pardon, sir.”

  “Carry on, Sergeant.”

  The familiar words brought comfort, giving the sergeant the choice of action to take.

  Formalities complete, he looked at his list.

  “Major General Braithwaite; Brigadier Baker, VC. Staff officers. Waterloo Mess, gentlemen, overnight. You are to go out to the barracks at Arborfield, near Reading, in the morning, sir. Your Division has been brought together there. Transport for nine o’clock, sir.”

  “Zero nine hundred hours, is that, Sergeant?”

  “Not in the Home Establishment, sir. Only used overseas
, sir, the twenty-four hour clock. Don’t have twenty-four hours in the working day in England, sir.”

  Braithwaite showed irritated.

  “Bloody well see about that tomorrow, man!”

  “Yes, sir. Your drivers know where to go, sir. They will take you to the Waterloo Mess building, sir. Tenth and Twelfth Battalion of the Bedfords there, sir, which is why you were put there.”

  “Twelve battalions in the Regiment now, Sergeant?”

  “No, sir. Fifteen. Not the biggest, the Hampshires have got twenty-two, sir, might be others with more. Spread all over the world, as well. Not usual to have two of the same regiment together, sir.”

  They knew almost none of the officers, recognising a few faces who had been transferred from the First and Second to offer professional expertise. Unsurprisingly, they were known themselves, being renowned figures in the Regiment.

  Dinner partook of a formality unknown outside of the chateaux of the generals in France. All officers were dressed and the settings were of silver. The meal had only five courses, the President of the Mess, a Major Danby, apologised, blaming wartime hardships.

  “How do you find things in France, General? I should imagine the Mess is able to lay its hands on some good wine!”

  “I am told they can do so in the rear areas, Major. There is no mess as such in the Trenches, of course – the officers eat in their dugouts, sharing the food sent up for the whole battalion. At Brigade I was able to do a little better, but still only a soup and a main course, accompanied by water or vanrouge. You won’t have met up with that particular vintage in England – it tastes a little less harsh than battery acid but probably has a similar effect on the human gut! Safer than water, however, and I cannot drink tea with my meal!”

  “Truly, General?”

  The Major wondered if he was not the victim of some elaborate and obscure joke. He had observed that those who had spent time in France tended to be almost contemptuous of the Home Establishment, thought that might be the case here.

  “Utterly, Major. When you come out, you will discover the reality. I presume your battalion will join the New Army in May?”