by Peter Albano
“Fastueux,” Nicole muttered. “Magnifique.” A solemn Bernice nodded her approval.
The All Saints Church was located in a magnificent green area in a sharp loop of Thames, just north of Putney Bridge. Built in the fourteenth century, in the British tradition, it contained a collection of monuments and brasses to long-dead warriors and churchmen. Most impressive were a pair of ornate tombstones cemented into the chancel floor commemorating the deeds of William Rumbold, standard-bearer to Charles I in the Civil War, and Thomas Carlos, who fought gallantly at the side of Charles II at the Battle of Worcester. And, in addition, when Brenda first entered on her way to the bride’s chamber, she saw at least a dozen tombs of bishops of London. Along the walls the funereal atmosphere was strengthened by brightly colored effigies of long-dead parishioners. With a macabre sense of reality, some were kneeling in prayer, others had their heads up and arms out-flung, and still others were huddled with their wives and families. Brenda shuddered as the words, a wedding in a mausoleum, ran through her mind. But Reginald loved the place, had attended services here regularly with his father.
At the first notes of the Lohengrin wedding march, Brenda entered with Bernice from a side door instead of making a full sweep of the nave, de rigueur for a large, formal wedding. The enormous, nearly empty stone basilica resounded with the sounds of the organ, and Brenda smiled back at the small group of guests gathered in the front pews: Brigadier General Humphrey Covington and his wife Helen, Winston and Clementine Churchill, and Ramsey and Denise Kavanaugh.
There was a large group of uniformed men present. Clustered to one side was a group of Royal Navy officers and ratings. Lancer was well represented: Sublieutenant Ian Carpenter, Sublieutenant Trevor Grenfell, chief boatswain’s mate Withers, chief steward Fuller, young boy first class Goodenough, and two new officers Brenda did not recognize. A lieutenant and a commander from Reginald’s new planning section sat to one side.
Reginald’s uncle, Dexter Hargreaves, his wife Jacqueline, and their teenage children, Orville and Nancy, sat in a front pew. Living in Coventry, where Dexter owned and operated a foundry, they were the only family Reginald had in England.
On the other side of the nave, Barry Cooper was seated with a frumpish-looking young woman who looked as if she had just stepped out of an East End pub. In the same pew were Trevor, Bonnie, and Rebecca. Walter was not present. Rodney and Nathan, dressed in immaculate formal suits, were held in check by Bridie O’Conner and Nicole. Douglas O’Conner, Wendell McHugh, and Touhy Brockman all looked uncomfortable in high starched collars and tight-fitting coats. Randolph claimed he was “out of sorts with a bit of colic,” and did not attend.
Hugh led Brenda to the altar, where a beaming Reginald waited. His best man, a grinning Stephen Pochhammer, stood at his side. The vicar was young, inexperienced, and stumbled a few times. But fortunately the ceremony was short, the kiss long and hard, and the guests delighted. The couple exited to Mendelssohn’s triumphant recessional and the happy, excited murmurs of the guests.
Reginald had reserved the bridal suite at the Savoy. It was magnificent, with a large living room, dining room, bedroom, dressing room, and bath. The furnishings were rich and luxurious, the bed done in satin sheets and crowned with a silk canopy. Seated on a sofa side by side, the couple sipped their second glass of Veuve Clicquot, 1898. In this time of shortages, it was unusual to find such fine champagne in such abundance. In fact, the entire reception in a private room in the hotel had been surprising. There had been caviar, prawns, lobster, and other exotic seafoods; an abundance of green salads and now-rare lettuce. There was no hint of a shortage of food or liquor.
Reginald must have spent a fortune, but he was euphoric; throughout the reception his arm had been around his bride constantly, toasting her with their guests. And she kissed him, held him, never wanted to be out of physical touch with him. It was unreal, like a fitful dream just before awakening, but it had happened, he was there—she could touch him, feel the muscle and sinew under his coat.
He sank back into the soft cushions and raised his Veuve Clicquot. “To us, darling,” he said, saluting her glass with his.
“To us, Reginald.”
They emptied their glasses. He stood slowly and pulled her to her feet. The kiss was hot and demanding. “You’re mine—completely and forever.”
“Yes, darling. I’m yours.”
He led her to the bedroom.
The lovemaking had been long and ecstatic, and Reginald had brought her to exquisite exhaustion with his usual skill. Sleepily, Brenda snuggled her head against his chest. She kissed the hair, the scars, and abruptly she was struck with thoughts of Bernice, home, alone, her bed empty. She shuddered.
“What is it, Brenda?”
“I just thought of Bernice—how miserable she must be. She told me Lloyd was scheduled to return to the lines today. She’s alone and wretched while we. . .”
“Please, darling, put it out of your mind. This is our night.”
She sighed. “Of course. We own this night.” She was struck with a sudden thought. “You know, Reggie,” she said, raising her head and looking up. “I belong here.”
He laughed. “Of course you belong here, you’re my wife.”
“No. That’s not what I meant. It’s stronger than that.” She groped for words. “It’s as if I was destined to be with you from the beginning.”
He smiled and kissed her forehead. “Of course, darling. You’re home.”
“Yes, Reggie. That’s it. I’m home.”
He pushed her onto her back.
Engine roaring, the lorry bumped and lurched over the pockmarked road much like a small ship in a rough sea. Lloyd could hear the twelve enlisted men crammed into the vehicle with their haversacks, bandoliers of ammunition, iron rations, field dressings, and dries curse and complain about the “bloody pavé.” Lloyd, too, was burdened; battle bowler (helmet), field glasses slung over one shoulder, and a small haversack and map case over the other, prismatic compass, pistol, torch, ammunition boxes hanging from his belt. Everyone was smoking and the lorry was filled with cigarette and pipe smoke. The men began to sing one of the many songs that came from the trenches. Lloyd had never heard of it before.
When this bloody war is over,
O, how happy I shall be!
When I get my civvy clothes on,
No more soldiering for me.
No more church parades on Sunday,
No more asking for a pass,
I shall tell the bloody army
To stick the passes up its arse.
Smiling, Lloyd shielded his torch and looked at his watch. “Twenty-two hundred hours,” he said to himself. Then a sudden remembrance brought a soft laugh to his lips.
“All right there, Colonel?” a grizzled platoon sergeant seated next to him queried as the singing died away.
“Quite all right, Sergeant Abercrombie,” Lloyd said. “I just missed a wedding.”
“I don’t give a fig for weddin’s, sir, but receptions can be a bit of all right if a man can find ‘is fill o’ toddies and wenchin’.”
Lloyd laughed again. Sergeant David Abercrombie was the only man in the lorry whom he knew. A professional and a survivor of the “old contemptibles,” he was one of the handful of “old soldiers” left in the Coldstreams. Lloyd had met him at the railroad transport office in the railroad depot at Popereinghe, where the sergeant was sent to meet Lloyd and a draft of eleven Tommies; four returning wounded, two furloughed soldiers, and five replacements. Lloyd and the sergeant had fought through the Somme battles of ‘16 and had survived the carnage of Thiepval Ridge together. Hundreds of faces had come and gone, but Abercrombie’s square-jawed visage had been a constant. He was reliable and thoroughly professional. There was an old maxim in the BEF: “Officers lead, NCOs drive.” Abercrombie knew how to drive.
“Colonel Wade’ll be ‘appy t
o see you,” the sergeant said. “We bet our Dixie pots you were gone to blighty for the rest o’ this bloody lot.”
Lloyd chuckled. “Does the colonel still keep battalion headquarters in the forward line?”
“Quite right, sir. Only battalion CO in this bloody army who’s up front with ‘is chaps. Learned it from you, sir—’e’s no dugout king back in the reserve line.”
They both laughed and began to reminisce about battles, old comrades, home, and loved ones.
“Be at crucifix corners in a jiff, Colonel,” Abercrombie said, breaking the stream of reminiscences.
“Crucifix corners, Sergeant Abercrombie?” Lloyd said.
“Right, Colonel. Where the roads from Nieppe and Eglise meet. We’ve got to dismount there, Colonel. ‘Oof it the rest of the way, sir. The Jerries have the corner taped—can be a bit o’ nasty with Lazy Elizas, Dust Bins and the like. Once and a while a Wipers Express.”
Lloyd shuddered with thoughts of the great German howitzer that fired a one-ton sixteen-inch shell that could do unimaginable things to a man’s body with its blast alone. The lorry jarred to a stop. “’Ere we are, sir,” Abercrombie said, grinding his cigarette out under his boot. He picked up his kit and rifle and leapt to the ground.
“Fags and pipes out,” Lloyd shouted, stubbing out his Woodbine. “No smoking until I give the word.” He leapt to the ground and the other men began to follow. Heavily burdened, they were maddeningly slow in dismounting.
The sky was clear and moonlit. He cursed. Anxiously, he looked to the north, where he could see the blood-red glow of the front, pulsing like a live thing with the flash of battery fire. He could hear the dull, thudding roar of gunfire that shook the ground and came up through a man’s legs to tingle his genitals and turn his guts to water. Glowing balls of light rose like luminous balloons, silver and scarlet spheres that exploded above the horizon and rained down green, red, yellow, and white burning stars. Rockets were visible, arcing high in the sky, unfolding silk parachutes and then drifting slowly down, flaring brilliantly like hovering stars. They hung in their glory for a minute or two and then faded away, to be replaced immediately by another and another.
A column of troops rushed past—a compact body of men, black in the night and hurrying. Limbers rattled through the intersection with the clink of trace chains and hammering of hooves, caissons lurching from side to side, drivers hunched over the horses’ necks, gunners clinging for their lives, helmets glistening in the moonlight. A general stores wagon loomed huge and black and blocked the road for a moment. “’Urry it up, you sidey bastard,” a frantically waving sergeant with the red cap of the military police shouted. They were very close to the front; too close to be standing on an exposed crossroad.
Lloyd decided to clear the air with Abercrombie. “You’re in command of these men, Sergeant Abercrombie. Take them up.”
“Yes, sir.” Abercrombie turned to the men as the last Tommy dropped from the lorry. “Fall in! Stand easy!” he shouted impatiently. Then hastily as the last man fell into line, he shouted, “Attention! Slope arms! Form twos! Left turn, quick march.” With the sergeant leading and Lloyd at his side, the draft moved quickly off the crossroads. Immediately, the road narrowed and they passed a pair of smashed limbers and a stores wagon that had been pushed to the side of the road. Lloyd could smell them before he saw them—the sickly sweet smell of death. Two dead gunners lay on stretchers, abandoned next to a blasted eighteen-pounder. These were the first dead men for the replacements and they stared in wide-eyed curiosity and horror.
The road narrowed to a broken path and Abercrombie turned his head, shouting, “Single file! Five paces between men, march!” Hastily, the two columns vanished and a single file formed. They passed a battery of 5.9-inch howitzers firing from no more than a hundred yards to their left. Blinded by the flashes, the men grabbed their ears and groaned as concussions whipped their eardrums mercilessly. Clouds of smoke drifted down on them and the air was acrid with the smell of gunpowder, the pungent aroma bitter on Lloyd’s tongue and in his throat. Mist and smoke lay chest-high over the fields. Then two great flashes lit a wide sector of the northern horizon and the sky rumbled with a terrifying presence.
“Woolly bears!” Abercrombie screamed. “Down!” He flung himself to the ground. Everyone followed the sergeant.
Lloyd hurled himself down and dug his fingers into the soft, damp earth. A familiar sensation returned. Clinging to the soil, his being rushed back to a primeval time, an awakening of an animal instinct within him that sought refuge in the earth. The earth; his only shelter, his mother, sister, savior, sheltering him and protecting him on her bosom from the fury of the storm. He buried his face and tried to dig himself into her with his fingernails as the great shells droned closer. Descending, the pitch of their passage dropped and took on the rushing sounds of approaching locomotives. He stifled his terror by praying into the loose soil.
Two explosions ripped the earth, the road heaving under Lloyd, and he clamped his hands over his ears as a thunderclap followed by typhoonlike concussions rushed over him. The crossroads. The shells had landed at the crossroads. Slowly, he raised his head. He heard two rumbling thuds. The sounds of the German guns arriving long after the shells. There was a bellowing, howling cry of pain followed by another—powerful sounds like great horns of an orchestra played at their maximum and far too loud to be coming from the lungs of men.
“’Orses. ‘Orses. The bastards ‘ave ‘it some ‘orses,” a Tommy cried. More screams—frightful sounds that penetrated a man’s heart like a hot blade. Lloyd could see large black shapes staggering about, falling, rising, galloping, bellowing with all the pain of gutted creation. He grabbed his ears and tried to shake the agony out of his senses. But the cries drove through his hands, his eardrums, his soul. There was the clatter of hooves. A maddened horse, eyes wide and whites showing in large milky rings, galloped by only a few feet away, trailing its traces, spraying blood from its nostrils and tangling on its own intestines. It screamed in Lloyd’s face as he rolled away and the colonel felt blood spray on his flesh.
“Shoot it, Sergeant!” Lloyd shouted, leaping to his feet.
Abercrombie already had his Enfield to his shoulders. Three shots rang out so fast, the reports sounded like a short burst from a Lewis gun. The great black shape tumbled to the ground, legs jerking, breath wheezing. Two more rounds and the beast lay still. A flurry of shots from the crossroads and the other cries died away.
“On your feet!” Lloyd shouted. The men rose. One man, a young replacement, still clung to the earth. At first Lloyd thought the boy was wounded, but then the smell told him differently. “Up, man,” Lloyd commanded.
The boy patted his buttocks and looked at Lloyd pathetically. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s all right, old man,” Lloyd said. “Can happen to the best of us. Throw away your underpants and fall in.”
“Yes, sir.” The young man slunk to a shell hole off the path and dropped his trousers.
Lloyd turned to Abercrombie. “Carry on, Sergeant. This is your terrain—your show.”
“Yes, sir,” Abercrombie said. He turned to the men. “Keep you blinkin’ ‘eads down and follow me. Quick march! Chop! Chop!” Bending and taking quick, short steps, he led the column farther along the path that quickly sank into the ground and became a zigzagging communications trench. With the protective earth heaped up on both sides, Lloyd felt his muscles relax and his breath come easier. From a shallow part of the trench, he caught a glimpse of a battery of eighteen-pounder field guns camouflaged with branches and he knew they were within a thousand yards of the front lines. The branches would have seemed gay and cheerful if a battery had not been hidden under the leaves. More flashes on the horizon and a battery of German 77s salvo-fired into a sector just to the south. “Jerry’s restless tonight, Colonel,” Abercrombie said.
“Must know I’m back, Sergeant,” Llo
yd said. The sergeant laughed.
They passed the reserve trench and it appeared deserted except for a lone sentry posted at the intersection with the communications trench. As the draft trudged forward, the trench deepened and sandbags began to appear, reinforcing the parapet. They entered the support line and jogged to their right in traverse, passing a Stokes mortar crew firing flares and a Vickers gun in a sandbagged emplacement. They reentered the communications trench and began their last leg to the front line. The light from flares was continuous, casting eerie shadows and coloring the faces of the men in blue and yellow hues.
There was the dry rattle of a machine gun and suddenly the horizons flashed with renewed battery and counter-battery fire. The thunder of the guns swelled and everyone instinctively hunched farther over like men in a gale and steps were quickened. Above, the air teemed with swift movements—hissing bullets like angry snakes, shells of all calibers howling, piping, the heavies bellowing like rutting beasts. Both sides were firing long, searching for reserves, batteries, supply dumps. Lloyd breathed easier. The trench was deep and only a direct hit from artillery could kill a man here.
Suddenly, the communications trench ended and they entered the front line and Sergeant Abercrombie turned sharply to his left. They passed two machine gun posts and a half dozen sentries, peering out through their own wire into no-man’s-land.
“This way, lads. Just a few more steps and you’ll pinch the kaiser’s arse,” Abercrombie shouted over the noise.
“Not a good year for tourists,” a corporal said, stumbling on a knot of telephone lines and falling heavily on the firing step. Everyone laughed.
