by John Masters
The captain said nervously, ‘I believe there is an Indian Labour Corps somewhere in France, sir.’
‘We need more … coolies, labourers … Conchies! If we aren’t going to shoot them, they should be doing this!’
‘’Ark at old Rowley,’ Jessop muttered as he and Lucas swung out another box of .303.
‘’E’s right,’ Lucas said. ‘Hup!’
‘Gawd, I could do with a beer.’
‘They don’t have …hup… no bleeding beer in – hup – this bleeding country – hup …’
Down below Leavey muttered, as he caught the boxes and sent them crashing into the bed of the lorry, ‘Who’s that … near the light?’
His partner, Fagioletti, glanced round, then turned back in time to catch the next box of .303 – ‘The Adjutant – Mr Campbell.’
‘What the ’ell’s ’e doing?’
‘Drawing … drawing us! You’ll be in the papers, Ikey Mo!’
Lucas said, ‘Our gallant British Tommies working cheerfully at the common task, to defeat the ’Un … One dago waiter, and one Whitechapel Jew tailor.’
‘We’re all fucking Wealds,’ Ikey Mo Leavey said without heat. ‘Fucking thirsty, just like Private Fucking Lucas, our hexpert in the French language.’
Archie Campbell sat on a stack of railway sleepers near the edge of the circle of light thrown by one of the lights. The working men threw giant weird shadows on the ground and the insides and floors of the wagons they were working in. The violent but graceful movements, the rhythmic thump of the boxes being hurled and stacked in the lorries added something, of rhythm, of a diffused but common sense of purpose.
The C.O. came and glanced over his shoulder. After a moment he said, ‘That’s pretty good, Campbell. Could I have one?’
‘Of course, sir. Take any one you like.’
‘I’d like to frame it,’ the C.O. said.
‘I hope to use these as notes one day, sir, and make oil paintings out of some of them … I’ve been drawing up the line, too.’
‘So I noticed. Didn’t know you were this good, though.’
Archie saw that the C.O. had taken a drawing he’d done earlier in the evening when the battalion had just started working, against a background of an old engine under steam, its crew leaning out of the cab and staring.
The labour continued. At midnight the battalion broke off for tea and biscuits, served at the siding by their own cooks, come down with the cook wagons from Eecke. Then they took an hour’s rest, the men catnapping where they could, lying in the coal dust and clinker of the siding. Then work began again, this time to transfer ammunition for the 18-pounders of the field artillery. Shells for these guns were ‘fixed,’ that is the propellant and projectile fixed together and ready, fused, only to separate when the gun was fired. The shells came in boxes of four, weighing 150 pounds.
‘Cor stone the fucking crows,’ young Jessop muttered, as he and Lucas lifted the first box of shells. ‘This’ll fucking rupture us.’
‘Not me,’ the old soldier said. ‘Take it easy. Use your legs and back to lift them, not your belly and arms … And you don’t get to be a man by nasty words, but by … fucking women … killing men …’
‘I killed plenty of men, by High Wood and Bazentan,’ Jessop said briefly; and in the unearthly light of the gas an innocent observer would not have guessed that he was barely seventeen – the lines of fear and triumph were etched into his face, the eyes narrowed, even in the dim interior of the wagon, the corners of the mouth hard.
‘And you’ll get to fuck a woman tomorrow … Take it easy, man, easy … swing slow, steady … like that … that’s better.’
Below, Leavey gasped, ‘These buggers weigh a ton, I swear!’
‘Two tons, more like,’ Fagioletti gasped. ‘Damn fucking fuckers!’ Whatever sort of language his comrades used, Fagioletti would use more, and stronger. From the day of the assault near Mametz he had felt a thawing in these hitherto unknown foreigners, strange soldiers, who were now his countrymen and comrades. He wanted to get closer, and this was surely the way to achieve it.
A voice called from nearby, ‘Private Fagioletti!’
Fagioletti stiffened – ‘Sir!’ Since his hands were not there to catch that side of the next ammunition box, it swung loose hitting Leavey on the shin with tremendous force. Leavey fell to the ground with a yell. Captain Kellaway appeared round the back of the lorry.
He stooped over Leavey – ‘Are you all right?’
Leavey staggered to his feet and hopped around – ‘Don’t know yet, sir … It hurts like … a lot… I’ll be all right.’
‘Sit down a bit,’ Kellaway turned to Fagioletti. ‘Have some sense, man. You don’t salute officers when you’re supposed to be catching a box of 18-pounder shells. Which confirms my thought that there are jobs you are better suited for than rifleman in a platoon. I’ve decided that my batman, Wiley, deserves a stripe, and the C.O. agrees. Would you like to take his place?’
Fagioletti caught his breath. Three, two months ago he would have given his right arm for the job. He knew how to look after an officer. Soon a more senior officer would notice his skill, how smooth and professional was the service in Captain Kellaway’s dugout … the colonel would have him transferred to be a waiter at the headquarters mess … the brigadier general … Sir Bailward Shannon-Watson … Sir Douglas Haig … he’d be wearing a white jacket, walking softly on thick carpets, serving chilled champagne, caviare …
The others were looking at him. They were just beginning to accept him, as one of them, a soldier of the Wealds. He had never felt such acceptance in his life before. He said, ‘Thank you, sir, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay with the blokes … in the platoon.’
Kellaway nodded. ‘I’ll find someone else … Leavey, go and see Doctor Sholto at once, at the far end there. And don’t come back for an hour. Tell the R.S.M. I sent you.’ He raised his voice – ‘Sar’nt major!’
‘Sah?’ another voice answered from up the line of wagons.
‘Send a man from the spares to this end. Leavey’s been hurt.’
He strolled on, appearing and reappearing between the pools of darkness.
Work continued. As the earliest dawn streaked the east, and the guns in the Ypres salient opened up their regular morning thunder, the 1st Battalion, the Weald Light Infantry fell in along the siding and marched out onto the pavé, at the ceremonial step. Almost at once, ‘March at ease!’ Quentin commanded, and lit his pipe. Coming down the road in the opposite direction was what looked like a football crowd, a mob, out of step, wearing all kinds of uniform.
‘French, sir,’ Campbell said.
‘Good God!’ Quentin said. ‘No wonder it’s taking so long to win the war.’
Campbell, marching beside him, hesitated, then said, ‘They just don’t do things the same as we do, sir … These men may have served a spell at Verdun.’
The French came on at a rapid shamble, the rifles and long needle bayonets a wavering forest above them. As the two columns neared each other, opposite the railway station, the French burst into simultaneous deep-throated song:
Il est cocu, le chef de gare,
Il est cocu, le chef de gare!
Il est près d’sa femm’ qui vient d’accoucher
Il est près d’sa femm’ qui vient d’accoucher
Quentin began to chuckle – ‘The station master is a cuckold!’ He couldn’t understand the rest of the words but those were clear enough and the tune very catchy. The battalions passed, and he and the French major exchanged salutes, smiling. An upper window in the station building flew open and a man’s head and shoulders appeared, wearing a red flannel nightgown and tasselled night cap. He was visibly dancing with rage, shaking his fist and screaming, ‘Elle est défendue, cette chanson-lá … Imbéciles! Cretins! Criminels! … Défendue, défendue…’
The Weald Light Infantry took up the song, the tune exact, making noises that sounded more or less like the French words: Eel ay cock
koo le chef d’garr!
The station master, for such it was, stared as though he could not believe his eyes and ears … British, singing the hated, legally forbidden song! He pulled in the metal shutters and slammed the window down.
The field was soft from overnight rain, and it was hard for the men to march well, at any step, let alone at 140 paces a minute. Quentin Rowland, watching the companies march onto their markers, kept his face impassive. They were doing their best; it wasn’t good enough.
The battalion formed line of companies in close column of platoons and stood at ease. The fourteen men to receive decorations were standing in a row, facing Quentin, ten paces in front of the front rank of C Company. He raised a hand, and Campbell stepped out from behind him, walked forward, then mimicked the action of climbing out of a car … have to have some fresh brushwood put down there tomorrow early, or the general’s car might get stuck in the mud. Lieutenant General Sir Bailward Shannon-Watson, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. would not be pleased.
Quentin bellowed, ‘Weald Light Infantry … general salute! Prese—eeent arms!’
The battalion sprang to attention and jerked the rifles to the present in two motions, the right heels kicking back behind the left as the left hands slapped the rifle slings.
‘Order arms!’
Campbell began to walk down the front line as in a formal inspection, Quentin following him, sword drawn and upright. He had had all officers’ swords dug out of the 2nd line transport, and insisted that officers should wear them for all drill parades in this period out of the line. It was good for morale, and it emphasized what some of the New Army officers were inclined to forget or gloss over – that they were officers, with separate responsibilities and lives from the men’s.
He glanced at the men as he passed … not bad, considering. ‘Dirty cap badge!’ he snapped. ‘Take his name.’
‘Gottim, sir!’
Quentin continued – ‘Dirty boots … that man’s safety catch is off … sight not down, there … he didn’t shave properly … that man has a packet of Woodbines and a box of matches under his helmet, Captain Kellaway.’
Kellaway stared, ‘Private Lucas, sir? But …’
‘Take your helmet off,’ Quentin snapped. Lucas, wooden-faced, lifted his steel helmet six inches straight up into the air, revealing a packet of Woodbine cigarettes, and a box of lucifers resting on the flat, close-cropped hair of his head.
Kellaway’s jaw dropped and Quentin walked on behind Campbell, keeping his face straight. Lucas had been in his platoon in ’06; he always carried his fags there.
The inspection ended. Quentin and Campbell returned to their places. Quentin called – ‘Company commanders!’
When they had all doubled out, with the battalion second-in-command, and stood in a row before him, swords vertical in their right hands, Quentin said, ‘We’ll do it again. And this time the march-on must be better. The general won’t be here to see it … but I will.’
‘Now listen,’ Lucas said, ‘’er name is Fonsard.’
‘I can’t get my tongue round that Frog stuff,’ young Jessop said.
They were sitting in the back room of an estaminet, one of the four in Eecke, drinking van blong. It was six o’clock in the evening, dark outside, no lamps in the street, all the house windows covered with brown paper outside and dark curtains inside. The place was full of soldiers, and thick with tobacco smoke from cigarettes and pipes.
‘Dago and I’ll go with you,’ Lucas said. ‘We walk in and Dago says, what he has to say.’
Fagioletti said, ‘Madame, voulez-vous coucher avec nous – and we all put down our two francs. You sure that’s right, Snaky?’
Lucas nodded – ‘I talked with Lakri Woods in D. We put the money down while you’re talking, an’ you know what that does to a Frog … And that’s enough of that van blong, Jessop. You can drink a lot of van blong, or you can fuck Madame Fawnsar, but you can’t do both … Then you go upstairs with her. You know what to do?’
Jessop said, ‘’Course I know what to do!’
‘Well, it just comes natural,’ Lucas said; but in himself, looking at the boy, he wondered. The woman was a bloody Frog whore, and she’d just want her money and get on to the next man. That was a bloody shame, for Jessop, when you came to think of it. Couldn’t be helped.
‘Time to go,’ he said.
‘I’ve got to piss,’ Jessop said. He went out of the back door to urinate on the pile of manure in the yard, as everyone else did.
Lucas leaned over to Fagioletti – ‘Listen, Dago, you tell the woman not to hurry Jessop, see? It’s a ’orrible thing for a man if he can’t get it up, especially the first time. Then he thinks he never will. There was a bloke in B Company in ’Pindi with me, near as young as Jessop, who put his rifle muzzle in his mouth and his big toe on the trigger because of that … blew his brains all over the barrack room wall, and we had to clean them off. Don’t want that to ’appen ’ere, do we?’
Fagioletti swelled. Snaky Lucas, one of the oldest soldiers in the battalion, was engaging his, Niccolo Fagioletti’s help, in a matter affecting a soldier of the battalion, his battalion. ‘I’ll tell ’er,’ he said, ‘though I don’t know the French for hurry … yes, I do too – dépéchez-vous… non dépéchez-vous.’
They rose from the table as Jessop came back in. The bill was paid and they went out into the darkness. The bakery door was shut. The three soldiers opened it and walked into the light. Madame Fonsard was of medium height, fortyish, with big, sad, blue eyes – a faded northern blonde with work-hardened and cold-chapped hands. She smiled tiredly at them – ‘Bon soir, messieurs. Que voulez-vous?’
Fagioletti stepped half a pace forward and took out two francs and put them on the counter. Lucas and Jessop followed suit. Fagioletti said, ‘Madame, voulez-vous coucher avec nous?’
The woman’s smile faded. She looked at the door, hesitated, and said, ‘J’ai peur de la police … your regiment polis.’
‘Tell her I know the Provost Corp,’ Lucas said. ‘Spoke to him at dinner. All fixed.’
Fagioletti translated as best he could. Madame went to the door without a word, closed and bolted it, and said, ‘Qui vient le premier?’
Fagioletti pushed Jessop forward, muttering, ‘C’est la première femme pour lui, madame … non dépéchez-vous.’
‘No ’urry?’ she said, the smile half-reappearing. She looked at Jessop and took his hand, ‘Come wiz me.’
They listened as the clump of Jessop’s boots and the pad of the woman’s soft slippers faded up the stairs. Lucas beckoned and pointed upstairs – ‘Boots off!’ he hissed. Quickly they took off their boots, and, holding them in their hands, crept upstairs. Two stairs creaked but no one came out of the rooms at the top. They heard faint voices from the room on the right, and Fagioletti stooped to the keyhole. Lucas bent close.
‘She’s undressing,’ he said.
‘What colour’s her bush?’
‘Wait a minute … dark brown.’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Taking off his shirt … trousers … prick’s limp as a piece of cooked macaroni … she’s lying back on the bed … putting up her legs.’
‘Bloody ’ore!’ Lucas whispered furiously. ‘We told the bitch to go slow! First sight of one of them things between ’er legs can frighten a boy out of his wits… looks as if it’s a bloody hairy spider going to eat your prick. I’ve a good mind to go in and …’
‘Hsssh! Wait … Jessop’s crying. He’s sitting on the bed … I can see his shoulders shaking … She’s sitting up now. She’s stroking his head.’
‘Never had a two bob whore stroke my head! Let me see!’ Lucas bent, looked and leaned away. ‘My God, she is! He’s resting his head on her tits … she’s stroking his cheek … kissing him on the lips … putting his hand on her bush … very gentle …’ He pulled away from the keyhole and stared at Fagioletti. ‘She’s crying, Dago.’
He bent to look again. This time he stayed a long time.
The boy was growing a full, proud erection. The woman was pressing her wet face to his cheeks, sighing, affectionate, kind. Lucas stood away and up. ‘She’s not a two-bob whore,’ he said. ‘She’s a widow … twice, Lakri said. Come on downstairs, Dago. When Jessop comes down we’ll tell him we’ve changed our minds, and he can have our turns.’
‘And our money, to pay for it?’ Fagioletti said anxiously. He didn’t want to offend Lucas; but he needed those two francs.
‘She won’t take any money,’ Lucas said.
‘Can’t be French,’ Fagioletti said.
Lucas said, ‘And we don’t really want her, do we? You got an old woman back home? Save it up for her. Let Madame Fawnsar turn our brave boy into a fine upright British soldier. A lot of women will be grateful to her, if he doesn’t get his balls blown off first. C’mon, let’s go and play Housey-housey.’
Company Quartermaster Sergeant Spencer, of C, was calling the numbers, and this card he was calling Regimental House: that is, when the number he had to call was ‘One’ he didn’t call the usual ‘Kelly’s Eye, number one,’ but ‘Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard’ – the nickname of the Royal Scots, the 1st Foot of the British Line. He never called the actual number out at all; if you didn’t know the numbers, nicknames, and connected anecdotes of every regiment in the Army, you were never able to fill in your card. Lucas had undertaken to teach Fagioletti what he knew, for a consideration – a packet of Woodbines every day for the next seven days.
‘The other Minden Light Infantry,’ Spencer called. ‘The Chowkidars …’
‘God, what’s them?’ Fagioletti muttered.
‘Fifty-one – King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry: they was at Minden with us … Forty-two, the Black Watch – Chowkidar’s Hindustani for a watchman.’
‘… Right in front of the Red Marines … they marched away and left the girls in a family way …’
‘Forty-nine, Royal Berks,’ Lucas said, ‘the Marines march between them and the Scruffy Half Hundredth, Royal West Kents, when they’re on parade with the Army … Ninety-five, the Rifle Brigade’s old number, ain’t got one at all now, that’s their regimental march …’
