And We Go On

by Will R Bird

  He was sincere. All the oldtimers were talking morosely. They were sardonic, bitter, caustic, needed careful handling. And the brass hats rose to the occasion. Drill and shino stuff was pushed to the fore. We must jump to it, snap into it, be “smart” soldiers. Now was the time to show our stuff. I heard terrible suggestions, bloody ones, cruel ones, and was thankful that my leave came through – at last. Leave! It seemed an irony now. I tried to locate my pack, all our things that we had left in billet as we went to attack Mons. Only the pack remained. All my treasured war souvenirs were gone. Those camp followers, the transport men, and batmen, and cooks, had stolen everything. Tommy’s was the same, emptied of everything. Probably there is to-day in some part of Canada a home decorated by a Luger, an Iron Cross, a German officer’s cap and gloves, all taken by the gallant fighter who brushed mules in French stables and shivered when the bombing planes were over.

  Leave! Bitterness welled within me and was increased by all the petty final delays of getting my warrant. I could not go to see the old man by the waterfall, I was not fit to meet him. Nottinghamshire looked changed and peaceful, but I could not rest. I left abruptly when I saw fat, contented German prisoners loafing about farm stables. On the boat from Boulogne there had been some of our lads who had escaped from the Hun lines, gaunt skeletons, with sores that made one’s flesh creep, living dead men who would never again know the blessing of good health. Up in Glasgow the crowds were after Ramsay MacDonald, and machine guns and barbed wire barricades were about, so I went back to London. There I seemed to be always meeting officers and I tried to forget myself in the extremes of “Zigzag,” “The Better ’Ole,” “Seven Days Leave,” “Going up,” “Yes, Uncle,” and kindred plays. When it was time to go back to France I thought I was glad.

  On the boat an officer spoke to me. It was the lad we had found under the tank at Cambrai – already on leave. I had been once since the fall of ’16!

  He was eager to talk and asked questions that would have enraged Tommy, but I really liked the man. He was his natural self and had simply followed the flow of circumstances, as he always would. Then a gunner chap came and spoke to me, a clean-looking, wistful-eyed fellow.

  “Do you know, Jock,” he said, “that I’m going back with three hundred dollars in my pocket, simply because I couldn’t spend it.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I don’t drink,” he said, “and I don’t gamble, and my chum was killed at Cambrai. I’d like to see this country but I’m one of those queer ducks who won’t travel alone.”

  A few hours later he and I were on our way to explore France. We went away down south, through sunny little towns and lovely sea shore places, where the war had not reached. We visited American encampments, and were treated royally, being fed real steak and onions and potatoes, dinners we never saw in our battalion. The Yanks we were with were fine fellows, and denounced their army bitterly, saying that the “dagoes” and “bohunks” were in the majority, and ruined it. When we left them we were convinced that the real American of British descent is as good a man as any on earth.

  On and on, back to the war zone, on trains, lorries and barges, in barracks, hotels and theatres, with French and Welsh and New Zealanders. Back on the Somme for a last look on those terrible fields. It filled me with a chill I did not lose for days, for it was evening when we reached that desolate part where not even a blade of grass was growing. It was motionless, a stark sea of tragedy, where not even a bird sang or a hearth smoke broke the sky line.

  Lille, Tournai, Namur, and Charleroi, and then we went to Ypres, out again over that awful, death-ridden ground where shaky duckboards still survived among obscene slimy places more horrible than words could paint. The fearful stench of death was there, hovering, clinging, and along the old used ways there were stiff legs sticking from the mire, and bloated bodies of mules not entirely sunken in the muck. Old stubs like jagged spikes still toothed the skyline. It was a cesspool of human desolation, shaking into abominable rottenness, a succession of stagnant, discoloured, water-logged shell holes, cankering the dead crust of a vast unhallowed graveyard. Standing there in the twilight one could feel the damp odours, and with them a mysterious eddying clamminess. Relax the will ever so little and one heard long-drawn, shuddering sighs, saw broken forms twisting in agony, visioned once more hell’s hurricane over that most-tortured scene that man has trod.

  I reached the battalion at Genval, fourteen days over my leave, and reported. The sergeant-major looked at the captain, then back at me, and gave me the orders for next day. I was to carry on as orderly sergeant. That reception broke my defiant bitterness, and I found billet in a lovely home that had been refused the officers. In that town we had our Christmas dinner, my third in France, and then we moved back across the border.

  All the fool drilling had been discarded and we just did enough to keep in good physical shape. There had been a rebellion at Mons that made the brass hats realize they were facing serious problems, and orders had changed overnight. I was asked to take a third stripe, and refused, then bitter again, I paraded and asked to be allowed to revert to the ranks.

  The captain granted it, but I wondered just how he judged my peculiar attitude. He had always treated me fairly though I know my conduct was trying at times. I felt, however, that he did not know anything about myself or Tommy, that he had never been aware of our work on patrols or in the trenches, knew that he did not have opportunity. We did not mix freely with the men and I had little in common with sergeants, and so it was a shock when I was given the ribbon for the Military Medal. More surprising was the award:

  Operations at Mons, 10/11th November, 1918.

  For courage and devotion to duty.

  This N.C.O. was in command of a section during the attack on Mons on the night of November 10/11th. When the advance was held up by two enemy machine gun posts he worked his way forward, and by bringing heavy rifle grenade fire on the posts forced them to withdraw. He showed great gallantry and initiative through out.

  I had not seen the captain until I joined his party just before we crossed over to the station, and yet there was proof that he had seen and known what others did not, and it made me wonder just how many other things there were of which he had not made mention.

  Another leave was offered, the final battalion leave, and I was given a chance to go again. I went to see the old man by the crooning water. It was evening when I got there, and the little cottage was closed. I went to the “Black Boar” and was welcomed with a sincerity that warmed me. The old man? Did I not know? He had died in November, yes, the day before the Armistice was signed.

  It was a chilly night in February but I went to the place by the waterfall where I had first met Phyllis, and stood there a long time, how long I do not know, and all at once I saw her, and Steve with her, close together. They were indistinct save for their faces, and it was as if they were lighted by a glow. I was startled, voiceless, and their eyes held me. They were full of pity.

  “Why?” I tried to shout my question, but choked – and they were gone. And then the night was cold and very dark.

  We were billeted at Bramshott Camp. I was more bitter than before, and would not attend parades or stay with the company. Tommy and I roamed around like strangers in a wild country. One day he took a little Testament from his pocket.

  “My mother gave me this when I left home,” he said, “and told me to read something in it every time I went into the fighting. I did, and after a while I got to thinking that it was a charm that kept me safe, and I always read in it before every trip outside the bags. Now it’s all over and I read it just the same, but it’s got me thinking that there’s nothing right. Back home they’ll be waiting with all that hero stuff, and we-won-the-war stuff, and telling you that right was bound to win. I don’t want to hear it. The first Germans in the war were brutes, I think, but the last crowd were just like we are, and their papers and preachers told them the same twaddle ours told us. Which one was right? Was e
ither of them right? I’ve got so that I don’t believe anything, and I’ll have to go back and pretend I do because I could never make my mother understand that the Germans aren’t horned devils, and that the British weren’t haloed champions of Christianity. I wish I was with Mickey.”

  He was terribly in earnest. Tommy was utterly weary of everything, and I could understand him. There always had seemed to me a peace deeper than sunsets in that world of little white crosses, a peace that couldn’t be taken away. When the gunner and I left the Salient we stood near Sanctuary wood and I was impressed by the very atmosphere of that region. It seemed as if something tremendous, solemn, inviolable, was over all, an invisible and yet an invulnerable keeper. Even the wind seemed comforting those sleeping amid that stiff, stark horror, and chilling us outsiders. Down near one of the make-shift shelters to which the Belgian fugitives were returning I saw an old woman gathering wood for her fire. She stopped in her prowl and gazed over the gray sweep of the Salient – then hastily made the sign of the cross.

  We went to one of the big entertainment huts and after the regular concert was over they prepared to hold some sort of religious service. Tommy promptly rose to leave and a padre tried to stop him.

  “No,” said Tommy, “I don’t want to hear any more twaddle. I’ve had to go on church parades, but this isn’t compulsory, and once I’m out of this rig no man will ever make me listen to your stuff.”

  The padre tried to argue. “We’re going to teach a real gospel now,” he said. “The war’s over and we’re going to, first of all, prove to the people what a horrible crime it is.”

  “Don’t do that,” cried Tommy. “You’ll lose the few you’ve still got if you turn hypocrite. The war hasn’t changed. If it’s wrong now it was wrong in ’14, and what did you shout then?”

  The padre’s eyes flooded full. He could not talk. Next morning Tommy was feverish, then he was taken to the hospital. I inquired and found that he had flu. He grew worse and after enduring all kinds of snobbery from officials I finally reached his ward. They made me wear a sort of mask and sprayed some disinfectant about. Poor Tommy. I hated going in to him looking like some grotesque monster, but he had seen others. He did not talk at first, did not seem to understand who l was, then, all at once, he knew. His eyes lighted, almost sparkled. His fingers pulled at the sheets. He wanted to sit up.

  “Bill,” he said, and his voice was only a husky whisper. “I’m – going – to the Boys.”

  “Nonsense, Tommy,” I said sharply. “Don’t talk that way, old man. Buck up. You’ll be all right in a few days.”

  And I laid my hand on his, stroked it, pressed it. Inwardly, I felt as if cold talons had squeezed my heart.

  He sank back, his eyes still smiling into mine, happy, satisfied, and I knew he would not live. He did not want to. As long as I have memory I’ll not forget Tommy’s look as he watched me go from his ward. It was almost as if he pitied me, were sorry that I could not share his joy. I tore the mask from my head and flung it aside, and went from the hospital without hearing a word anyone said to me.

  Next night Tommy joined “the Boys.”

  We got on the boat at Liverpool. My brother was there in hospital and he came to see me just as we embarked. While talking to him I missed my pick of a hammock. The “Adriatic” was a clean-looking vessel and I wandered slowly to the first deck. A white-painted cabin had no name on the door. I seized a chalk and wrote “Occupied,” and went in. All the way over no one came to me or molested me.

  There were a number of nurses and passengers on board and the ambitious Sam Browners got some of the men lined up and tried to make them do monkey tricks, but the older heads left us alone. Kennedy and Sambro and I talked hours on end. At other times we stood silent, moody, cynical, watching the water, indifferent to everything. Several of the lady passengers were loud in their talk and we heard them exclaiming as they saw the “real kilties: they’re famous, you know, for their bayonet fighting.” And they eyed us as if we were wolves, on chains, being exhibited.

  One of the boys saw an officer among the admiring fair sex, showing them his trophies. He had a German Luger and helmet, and a Prussian sword. He had come to us a few weeks before the finish of the war and we could imagine the lurid stories he was telling.

  Sambro and I looked at each other. We had no souvenirs of any kind. “What are you taking home?” I asked him. “That book I had said that the Crusaders took back to France the Damask rose, the mulberry tree, black rats and venereal diseases.”

  His face hardened, but he said nothing. Then he pointed to a fellow seated in the sunshine, a soldier who had lost a leg and who handled his crutches awkwardly.

  “I’ll let them take a leg off me or an arm, any old time,” he said, “if they’ll take the pictures of the war out of my mind.”

  All the next day I thought of what he said. I’d seen men twisting and writhing in their sleep after big battles, tortured by visions that held them on a rack, by screams and shouts and the sounds of fighting that still echoed in their ears, and I knew that years would not entirely remove such remembrances. Those images of war would be with us as long as memory remained, needing but a slight impetus to make many nights an ordeal of dread, haunting us like scuttling winged ghouls, obliterating the finer, saner susceptibilities. It would be harder for us than any others in the competition of life, for all our constructive thinking would be marred by overshadowing visions and phantoms. Some grisly trench corner would leap at us in uncertain moments and drag us back to bitter dreams of the futility of war, hideous nightmares leading from the stark savagery of Giger’s killing to the strategy of gilded staffs that ended in the filling of more graves.

  At night I stayed on deck for hours. It was clear and calm and the stars were wonderful. I watched them, studied them. Back in boyhood days they had been to me the greatest marvel of all creation, and it was my fantasy that they sprinkled the “roof” of our world. Many and many a night when relaxed on outpost duty I had turned on my back for the moment and rested my eyes on the great star-lit spaces overhead until I felt lifted away from all the foul and cruel existence that we knew. Stars in the sky, twinkling stars! What a sense of the infinite they endow! It came to me as I watched them that even the war, the greatest catastrophe this world knew, was but a momentary episode, that Time and Space were limitless. And we go on. Where?

  From the hour I had walked out of Tommy’s ward I had not let myself think of him, I could not, dared not. It had seemed to me a tragic thing that he had had to die after going unscathed through all he had endured, but now I wondered … And, more startling than any thought, there came to me the conviction that he had known, had sensed his end. During those last days we had been together he had grown kinder, more patient, different. He had omitted further talk of what he would face when he got home and had reminisced continually about Mickey and the Professor and the Student. And how his eyes had lighted as he told me …

  On the evening of the last night out our emotions ruled us, turned us to a riot of horseplay. We scuffled and wrestled and dragged each other about and made mock speeches. Then, gradually, we quieted, each with his own thoughts. And when all was still I went on deck and stared over the dark waters ahead.

  Darkness. The rush of the ship. I felt my way again into a stifling dugout, into an atmosphere rancid with stale sweat and breathing, earth mould and the hot grease of candles … I saw faces, cheeks resting on tunics, mud-streaked, unshaven, dirty faces, some with teeth clenched in sudden hate, some livid with pulse-stopping fear … I saw men turning on their wire bunks, quivering as if on some red-hot grill … I heard them gasp and sob and cry out in agony, and mutter as they tossed again. Then, a machine gun’s note, louder, higher, sharper, crack-crack-crack as it sweeps over you in a shell hole where you hug earth … the growl of guttural voices, heavy steps, in an unseen trench just the other side of the black mass of tangled, barbed barricade beside which you cower … the long-drawn whine of a shell … its heart-grippin
g explosion … the terrible oppressive silence that follows, then the first low wail of the man who is down with a gaping, blood-spurting wound …

  I moved about, shook myself, sniffed the salt air, tried to rid myself of my dreams, and as I stood there came a sudden chill. I grew cold as if I had entered a clammy cavern. I could not understand but went and got my greatcoat. A dim figure passed me as I returned to the deck and a voice said. “We’re getting nearer home. I can feel the change.”

  Ah – I knew. We had left the warm current and were into the icy waters – nearer home. We had left behind the comradeship of long hours on trench post and patrols, long days under blazing suns and cruel marches on cobbled roads – the brotherhood of the line; and we were entering a cold sea, facing the dark, the unknown we could not escape.

  Dark figures came and stood beside me. I had not thought that anyone save myself would come on deck, and here they were, ten, a dozen, still more, all hunched in greatcoats, silent, staring. I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock in the morning. These men could not sleep; they were come to see the first lights of Halifax. I moved quietly among them, scanning each blurred face. It was as I thought. They were all “oldtimers,” the men of the trenches. We went on and on and on, and no one spoke though we touched shoulders. I tried to think of a comparison. Ah – we were like prisoners. I had seen them standing like that, without speaking, staring, thinking.