The Horizon (1993)

by Reeman, Douglas

  God, his mother would miss young Titch. He had been the apple of her eye. Perhaps in some way he had reminded her of her man. Payne had two sisters, both married and making good money, one in a munitions factory, the other stitching uniforms. His mother would be doubly lonely now, he thought. And he had noticed that his step-father had removed the picture of his real father from the parlour.

  His step-father had remarked on one occasion, ‘The armed forces are no way to find a proper living – I did tell you that, Flo.’

  Payne had retorted, ‘Most of them are dying at the moment, Mr Green.’ He could never bring himself to call him anything else. But he had refrained from making it worse. His mother, so frail and troubled, would only suffer for it.

  His boots crunched up the winding gravel driveway. Even they sounded angry. No, he had not been sorry to get back. The major had sent a message to explain that he had had to go to London. Never a moment’s peace. I’ll bet he’s been going over it all again while I was in Winchester. He almost smiled. He had done enough of that himself. Where to next, I wonder?

  Maybe they would get a ship together. Whatever it was he would stay with the major. When was he coming back, tomorrow? He would clean his kit for him, if old Jack Swan hadn’t already done it. He was as pleased as Punch to be ‘back in the regiment’ as he called it, doing things for the Blackwood family.

  ‘Take that man’s name, Sergeant-Major!’

  The voice scattered Payne’s thoughts and automatically he stamped to a halt, his fingers opening in readiness to salute.

  But it was one of them: a tall, gaunt man who was hobbling across the wet grass leaning on two sticks. He looked wild and outraged, and Payne waited patiently to see what would happen.

  ‘You – what’s your name?’ He peered at him searchingly. ‘Don’t you usually salute when you see an officer?’ He gestured with his head towards his shoulder. ‘Don’t you recognise my rank?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Payne felt a sense of hopelessness closing in. It was so cruel and unreal. The man with the wild stare was wearing a dressing gown with no piece of uniform at all. Payne had stood in the line with Blackwood and seen awful things, men screaming and dying as they had fallen to splinters and bullets. He had even felt the agonised breath of a Turkish trooper when they had clashed, bayonet to bayonet on that crumbling parapet; seen his eyes roll like marbles as he had wrenched the bayonet from his ribs and kicked him away. But this was something he could not fight, and he found himself thinking it was a mercy that Titch had been spared this living death at least.

  ‘I’ve met your sort before, you know!’ The man in the dressing gown gave a desperate grin. ‘Think that because of a war we’re going to allow all the standards to go to blazes, what?’

  From one corner of his eye Payne saw a white-coated orderly emerge from a door and then stand stock-still as he saw their drama.

  ‘Where is that bloody Sergeant-Major?’ He swung round angrily and one of his sticks slipped to the ground.

  The orderly called in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘I’ll take over. Leave it to me!’

  But keeping his eyes on the man in the dressing gown, Payne lowered himself beneath his pack and equipment and retrieved the fallen stick.

  ‘Here you are, sir.’ He was careful to be very formal, as he would have been with Colonel Waring. ‘Sorry about the salute, sir. I don’t know what I was thinking of.’

  The man snatched the stick and snapped, ‘Well, in future . . .’

  Payne was unable to watch as he suddenly burst into tears.

  The orderly murmured, ‘You were lucky, mate. He can be a bit difficult.’ He took the man’s arm and added, ‘Come along now. Time for some coffee.’

  But the other pulled his arm away and turned to stare at Payne. His face was streaming with tears but he managed to call, ‘Smart turn-out, that man!’

  Payne waited until they were swallowed up by the buildings and continued on his way to the stable-yard, beyond which was the cottage he would share with Jack Swan.

  He was still brooding over the encounter, and was not prepared for a woman’s voice calling him by name.

  ‘You must be Harry Payne! Mr Swan told me all about you.’

  ‘Not too much, I hope.’ It gave him time to recover himself.

  It was not a nurse as he had expected, but a tall girl in a green, fur-collared coat. Her long chestnut hair was hanging quite free, and when she smiled he believed she was the prettiest thing he had ever laid eyes on.

  ‘And who might you be, er, Miss . . .?’

  She said, ‘I’m not miss, I’m Alexandra Pitcairn. My father’s the local doctor. I work here in the hospital when I can.’

  She brushed some hair from her eyes, and her smile was gone.

  ‘I was in the house just now and I saw what happened, what you did. I suppose you’re quite hardened to it, obeying orders, fair or otherwise, without question?’

  ‘You get used to it, Miss.’ What was she working up to?

  ‘That officer with the two sticks . . . he probably led a lot of men like you to their deaths in the name of duty.’

  It was not a question, and Payne waited for more. She had a low, almost husky voice. Local girl, not like some of the snooty, affected officers’ wives he had met.

  She said abruptly, ‘I’ll show you your room. I was helping Mr Swan get it ready for you.’ Then she added in her strangely direct manner, ‘I was very sorry to hear about your brother. I can imagine how you feel.’

  Payne remembered his step-father’s boozy grin when he had left, the falseness of his handshake. It would wipe that smirk off his face to have to stand on the firestep, shoulder to shoulder with his mates.

  As they walked she asked, ‘What about Major Blackwood? – Is he able to command his men to attempt the impossible? Do you enjoy doing what you do for him?’

  He answered as sharply as he dared speak to any woman, ‘I clean his boots. He doesn’t expect me to lick ’em!’

  They entered the cottage and she led the way to a room with its own cheerful fire already alight in the grate. He felt her watching him as he slipped off his heavy pack and leaned his rifle against a cupboard. It was like undressing in front of her. His eyes moved to the neat bed and he tried not to picture her there.

  ‘I think Major Blackwood is the finest man I’ve ever met.’ He said it so simply and firmly that she stared at him. ‘As for men getting killed, we all know the risks. I’ve seen a lot of good chums go. But you hope for the best.’

  ‘Mr Swan tells me that your major has been decorated, or will be very shortly.’

  Payne hid his surprise. So that was it. She had met him already and formed an opinion of him which in no way fitted the man.

  ‘I was there, Miss.’ His eyes were faraway, seeing it again. ‘A lot of fellows went west that day. We started with a colonel in command but after the major fell what was left of us was in the hands of a junior lieutenant. I knew it was going to happen – I’m sure he did too. But the Aussies were being shelled by one of our own ships.’ He was leaning against the mantelpiece, his face warmed by the fire. ‘He stood up, calm as you please, framed against that bloody sea – begging your pardon, Miss . . .’

  She said quietly, ‘I hear much worse. Please tell me. I want to know.’

  ‘Well, the ship ceased fire, then Johnny Turk started shooting at him. Even they couldn’t miss. I thought he was done for. When I saw his wounds I could have wept. But we made it.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘Never thinks of himself. I sometimes wonder why he went into the Corps at all. I once heard him say, because it was expected.’ He forced a grin. ‘Like me, I suppose. We never knew nothing else.’

  Mercifully Jack Swan appeared and beamed at both of them.

  ‘All shipshape, Harry.’ Then he looked at the carpet. ‘Sorry about the kid.’

  Their eyes met, and there was understanding and compassion in them that the girl had never seen before between such hardened men. Why had she told him about David
Blackwood? She had only ever told her mother, and she had died in an influenza epidemic. Even her father didn’t know. And yet she had told David’s brother, a perfect stranger; and once she had almost asked Jack Swan about serving with David in China.

  She said uncertainly, ‘I must go. I have a class of two waiting.’ She looked at Payne. ‘Enjoy your stay.’ Then she was gone.

  Swan said, ‘Come into the kitchen. The missus has done some mulled wine for us. Just the stuff to give the troops, eh?’

  Payne said, ‘Why does she have it in for the Blackwood family?’

  Swan shrugged. ‘Didn’t know she did. The estate owns her father’s house, but then it used to own just about everything around here.’ He reached into a cupboard above the stove. ‘Now tell me all the news about the mob. I hear old McCann’s a bloody sergeant-major now. God, the Corps must be desperate!’

  Payne shook his head. Once a Royal Marine, always a Royal Marine. But he was thinking of the girl’s face, her expression of shock when he had described the moment the major had been smashed down.

  He raised the thick glass mug and said, ‘Here’s to the lads who couldn’t get back, Jack!’ He thought of the sobbing officer with the sticks. ‘God, what a bloody mess it all is.’

  They drank in silence.

  Jonathan Blackwood’s appointment at the Royal Marines Headquarters was not until afternoon, so having arrived early at Waterloo station he decided to walk the rest of the way. He had always had a wary respect for London, but he had never grown to appreciate it like many of his brother officers.

  If he had expected some sign of war he was soon surprised, as he crossed Westminster Bridge and paused to gaze at the handsome towers and terraces of Parliament and the nearby abbey. He had heard that air raids had been carried out the previous year by German airships, the Zeppelins, but they had become almost nonexistent now, too vulnerable to the massed anti-aircraft batteries around the capital, and the increasing success of the Royal Flying Corps.

  The thing that struck him more than anything was the mass of servicemen in every major street. Some were with their girls and others lurched tipsily from one pub to another. He had thought he might find here the same tension so obvious in Plymouth and Southampton, but he had been mistaken: he was surprised by the outwardly carefree and jocular behaviour of soldiers and sailors alike.

  He walked on. On this cold January day he felt fitter and stronger than for many months, and he supposed his regular walks around the estate were having the right effect.

  He lingered in the silence of the abbey, looking at the many plaques and statues: noble figures in splendid uniforms, men remembered if not for their lives then for their brave deaths in every quarter of the globe. Sound echoed and carried, and the many visitors seemed to be holding their collective breath as they stared around at the abbey’s treasures. He left, feeling oppressed.

  A troop of Horse Guards clattered past, their young faces pink in the bitter air, and their officer saluted him with his sword. He watched them until the buildings swallowed them up, seeing himself in their youth, their obvious pride in their uniforms and their service which he had once known, and could now barely recall.

  The Royal Marines section of Admiralty was in Tothill Street, down towards Petty France. When he showed his identity card to the military police he glanced at a clock and marvelled where the time had gone. He smiled. And he was not even breathless.

  ‘This way, Major Blackwood.’ A bored civil servant who showed neither curiosity nor much interest led the way to the first floor. ‘Please wait. I shall announce you.’

  There was a long wall mirror near the double doors, no doubt a necessary fixture, so that visiting officers could adjust themselves and their uniforms before facing the imposing might of the adjutant-general. He thought suddenly of Waring, his contempt for the strutting Brigadier-General Nugent at Mudros. But Nugent had not been the only one to vanish into oblivion after the evacuation of Gallipoli. Even Sir Ian Hamilton the G.O.C., whom Nugent had quoted with such relish, had been dropped. Kitchener had been lost at sea in the cruiser Hampshire, and General Sir John French, who had commanded the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front since the beginning, had been replaced by the experienced General Haig. French, a cavalry officer of the old school, had been defeated by his own insensitivity to the war’s mounting barbarity, and after the disastrous battle at Loos where the British losses had been almost double those of the enemy, and for no gains at all, he had bowed to the inevitable.

  ‘Please go in, Major Blackwood.’

  There were two men in the high-ceilinged office. Jonathan had only seen the adjutant-general once or twice, but he was not a man one would easily forget. Tall and formidable, his chest adorned with four rows of decorations, he seemed to tower over his companion. It was hard to imagine him a young lieutenant, creeping beneath the deckhead of some small cruiser.

  Major-General Sir Herbert Loftus was instantly recognisable. Without waiting for the adjutant-general to get down to business he strode forward and gripped Jonathan by the hand. ‘This is a happy day for me! To see you looking so well after what you have gone through is far better than any late Christmas present!’

  Loftus was well known throughout the Corps, and there was no class of cruiser or capital ship in which he had not seen service. His record of arms read like the Corps’ history itself. Egypt, Africa, China, India; the campaigns had been as blustery as the man himself. Although young for his rank, his hair and neat moustache were completely white, so that by comparison his skin was like tooled leather. A Royal Marine’s Marine, they called him. He had once been heard to say that he could win no greater honour.

  The adjutant-general coughed politely. ‘When you are ready, Herbert?’ Then he smiled and the severity vanished. ‘I was in doubt as to the value of this interview, Blackwood. Now I see it might hold some merit.’

  Major-General Loftus nodded. It was obviously high praise from the great man.

  They sat facing each other, the faint beat of a military band muffled by distance and the stout walls of Caxton House.

  The adjutant-general crossed his hands on his empty desk top. Jonathan doubted if he ever allowed it to be littered for long. ‘Open the batting, Herbert.’

  Loftus began, ‘Another naval and marine division has been raised to fight on the Western Front.’

  Jonathan saw his superior frown. Loftus was perhaps being too frank at this stage.

  The major-general was unmoved, and stared unwinkingly at him. It was what he remembered most about Loftus afterwards: eyes so blue and intense they had seemed to go right through him.

  ‘There is to be a new offensive, probably in the spring. That is not so far away as it seems on this cold afternoon. We need every trained man we can find. I shall command the division as a whole, under the direction of Sir Douglas Haig of course. A full-scale attack in the old Somme area must be successful before the weather breaks. I happen to know that Haig has certain doubts about the French support, and our attack is intended to remove the pressure from our main ally.’

  Jonathan opened his mouth and then decided against interruption. Perhaps he was even more out of touch than he had realised. Only weeks ago the papers had been full of the great battle of Verdun, and the fierce French resistance. Their proud rallying cry, They Shall Not Pass, had seemed a rare beacon of hope and victory in all the blackness and misery.

  ‘Speak out, Blackwood. You have to know anyway.’

  Jonathan looked down at his hands. Clenched into fists again, like a warning.

  ‘The French held the line at Verdun, sir. The enemy captured one of the fortified positions, but only temporarily.’

  Loftus said quietly, ‘As in your campaign at Gallipoli, censorship is severe. But the truth will out, as it did when a handful of journalists revealed the dreadful losses you had really suffered, while Sir Ian Hamilton’s releases to the press had always been filled with optimism.’ Jonathan waited. He had at least learned why Hamil
ton had been relieved. Loftus watched him impassively. ‘They held Verdun certainly, after months of bloody fighting and the threat of disgrace and ignominy for any French general who failed to hold his sector. But to date, as far as I know, nobody is aware that when the Germans eventually broke off the engagement, there were half a million dead in the field.’ He watched his words going home. ‘Also our one worthwhile ally, the French army, was in a state of chaos and mutiny.’

  How could any offensive succeed if an army was in a state of revolt?

  Loftus answered the unspoken question. ‘Much has been done to seize and remove the ringleaders. In some instances the French artillery was ordered to fire on its own lines. But morale has never been lower. They need – no, must have the pressure removed. Sir Douglas Haig has promised to break through to the Belgian coast, and destroy the German bases there between Nieuport and Zeebrugge, which are being used for U-Boats. I hardly need to tell you that that further tightens the enemy’s hold on French supply convoys.’

  Somewhere outside a clock chimed, and Jonathan realised he had been here for a full hour. It seemed to have passed in minutes.

  Loftus glanced questioningly at his superior, who offered a curt gesture in reply.

  He said, ‘There will be one additional Royal Marine battalion, which will be separate from my main division. It will be infantry, and will also contain some of the heavy howitzers for support. It is only a matter of time before the R.M.L.I. and R.M.A. become one, but time we do not have. There’s nothing in battle that succeeds like competition and reputation. You know the Corps, and every man jack in it knows your family’s reputation . . . In short, I want you to command it.’

  Jonathan felt the room closing in. Wyke had hinted at this, because he had known better than most what he had gone through during the months on the peninsula, and in the agony of those that had followed.

  Loftus said, ‘You will be made up to lieutenant-colonel – brevet, of course.’ But he did not smile, and his eyes were like reflections from an arctic berg. ‘I know your family has given more than most already for this damned war. I cannot order you to take this appointment.’ He shrugged. ‘I simply happen to believe that you can do it – and you are possibly the only one in the Corps who can. And soon, I think you yourself will come to accept that.’