by John Masters
Quentin hesitated. He wanted to spend the day visiting his companies, seeing that the men had a good meal, go to Brigade Headquarters and once more press the general to get some rum or whisky, somewhere, somehow. The men deserved it … and damn it, they needed it.
Venable said gently, ‘I know you have many things to do, but we really do need your help … and it is an order, from the corps commander.’ He laughed, to soften the hint of steel behind the velvet glove.
‘Very well, sir,’ Quentin said. ‘If I can have a few minutes to arrange things here.’ He turned to Campbell and began giving orders, while the colonel walked out of the dugout and up the steps and waited for him in the light September drizzle.
Fifteen minutes later Quentin joined him, and they started toward the rear, following the usual sequence that had obtained since the end of 1914 and the death of the mobile war – down communication trenches to the support line – back another half mile under ground level, then out, among battered houses and many shell holes. The Germans knew well where the trench system ended and regularly plastered all the exit points with long-range artillery, usually in the middle of the night, when ration parties and replacements would be coming up and wounded moving back. There was no shelling now, and a quarter of a mile beyond the end of the trench system they found Venable’s staff car and chauffeur, climbed in, and started off down the wrecked pave. After twenty minutes they came to a cluster of big khaki marquees in a muddy field beside the muddy road. A Red Cross flag flew over the biggest tent and Red Crosses were also painted on the canvas roofs. A convoy of a dozen motor ambulances were arriving from the west – the rear – as they walked up.
‘Is that the Casualty Clearing Station?’ Quentin asked.
Venable said, ‘One of them. This is 46 C.C.S.’
‘I’d like to go in for a while, sir … We had a lot of men wounded in the last push.’
Venable hesitated, then said, ‘Of course. I’ll come with you.’
Quentin waited a moment, bracing himself. He had been a patient in a C.C.S. himself, and visited them as often as he could, when the battalion was not in the front line. But every visit was an ordeal, far worse than the slaughter of the trenches. That he could endure – the men shot, wounded, dying, torn to pieces, spattered over him; but he was there, and there were the Germans, and all his being was braced to endure. Perhaps it was this that had lost him Fiona, he thought – that he could see such suffering and not weep, or lose his reason. But when it was over, when he had to read the lists of their names … worst of all, when he saw them lying in the narrow beds, or sometimes, after a heavy engagement, on the bare ground. Farther back there were nurses, some softness, the melody of women’s voices, the touch of their hands … not here, only the Royal Army Medical Corps doctors and soldier attendants. The R.A.M.C. – Rob All My Comrades, the men called them; for a soldier who went in with a silver cigarette case or a gold coin, even five francs in his pocket, or a signet ring on his finger, was unlikely to have them when he left – either back toward the front, or on to the rear, to the Base hospitals, the Hospital barges, ships, and trains, and Home … or to the cemetery always created next to any C.C.S. at the same time as the tents were set up.
He walked into the nearest of the big marquees and slowly down the middle between the rows of beds. The ground underfoot was wet earth, partly covered with duckboards. The air reeked of ether. ‘Any Wealds here?’ he asked, as he went. His voice was lost in the low moaning of the tent, the flapping of the canvas walls and ceiling, and everywhere the fast shallow breathing, the rattling in men’s throats, the moans as they moved, the sound of weeping, stifled sobs, groans … a sudden cry, cut off as the soldier in the bed beside him clenched his teeth.
‘Any Wealds…? Wealds…’
‘Here, sir.’ He stopped, beside a bed where a man lay under bed clothes, all his head except his mouth hidden by bandages, and there the lips swollen and the teeth gone.
‘Private Shaddle, sir. D Company … it’s the C.O., isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Shaddle. How do you feel?’
‘Oh, could be worse, sir.’
‘Well done. You’ll be back in Blighty in no time … Wealds? … You’re Smith, 96, C Company, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The man had a greenish tinge, his voice was weak, bandages crossed his chest, and froth bubbled on his lips. Lung wound, Quentin thought. He said, ‘Well done … You’ll be back in Blighty in no time … Wickilam, where were you hit?’
‘Foot, sir. Can’t walk … ’ave to transfer to the Navy … or get a job selling tickets at one of them cinemas.’
‘Not too bad, sir … Never thought I’d like Hoggin’s Plum & Apple, but the first rations we had when we got here was that … best meal I ever had.’
Heavy breathing … a face staring up at the high canvas … ‘Aren’t you Corporal Tompkins? Can you hear me?’
‘He don’t speak to anyone, sir. Just stares at the ceiling, shaking like … screams in the middle of the night…’
On, slowly, Venable silent at his heels … on, down the corridor of anguish, the valley of suffering. Men without arms, without legs, with life visibly draining from them, grotesque shapes in bandages, small faces haloed by death, a head with no face, two doctors and attendant bending over it, it struggling, mouthing words unhearable, unbearable. Quentin’s eyes were smarting and bulging. He forced himself to walk on, slowly, calling, ‘Wealds? Any Wealds? …’ through tent after tent, speaking, saying the same banal lies over and over again. He knew they were lies … still, it was right that they should be said, it was right that the men should see their commanding officer, and that he should offer them life, as he had sent them to death, and this.
Outside the end of the last marquee, he turned right, walked a few paces, then leaned against the canvas, his eyes closed, his hands clenched so tight that the nails bit into the palms.
At last he said, ‘Shall we go on now, sir?’
Venable said, ‘Yes … All of us ought to be forced to go through a C.C.S. once a week … us staff officers.’
They walked through the mud and the rain to the big Rolls Royce staff car, and climbed in. The chauffeur, a young soldier, started up and they drove off, slipping and sliding at slow speed. Quentin said, ‘It can’t be helped, sir. We all have a job to do.’
Signs of war gradually disappeared. Houses and trees stood in their ancient splendour. Green lawns stretched down to overflowing beke’s. Soldiers marched to and fro, spic and span, heads up, unbowed, carrying no weapons. The fields were green except where the large-eyed placid cows had churned the earth to mud round the entrances to the barns. A gravelled drive swept up to a great building with many windows. At the wrought iron gates military policemen in red-covered caps examined Colonel Venable’s pass. They entered the grounds of the huge seventeenth-century château that was the site of Corps Headquarters.
After the afternoon of conferring with Venable, Quentin bathed himself and cleaned his uniform as best he could, in the privacy of the large room allotted to him in the west wing of the château; but he still felt shabby and soiled when he entered the Great Hall, now being used as the anteroom for the Corps Headquarters A Mess. Here the Corps Commander dined each night with his principal staff officers. The Corps Commander had insisted that they were all on active service, so the mess waiters had not been issued with white coats, but wore their plain khaki tunics; however, white cotton gloves had been found. The officers all looked so fresh, Quentin thought unhappily, and they all had so many medal ribbons, even young captains … he recognized a Legion of Honour here, a Belgian order there, a Russian decoration on another breast … three, four D.S.O.s … half a dozen M.C.s … You had to listen carefully to hear the distant murmur of artillery under the tinkle of the wine glasses.
Colonel Venable came forward, glass in hand, saying, ‘Let me introduce you to the B.G.G.S., Rowland. This is Lieutenant Colonel Rowland of the 1st Wealds, sir, whom I told you about … Brigadier General Mallo
ry.’
The B.G.G.S. put out his well-manicured hand – ‘Welcome to our little home away from home, Rowland. Venable tells me you helped him a great deal, this afternoon. Now, a drink … whisky do you? Waiter!’
Quentin felt puzzled – ‘But, sir,’ he said, ‘there can’t be any whisky.’
The B.G.G.S. said, ‘Nonsense, there’s plenty of it. The best, too.’
Quentin said, ‘I don’t understand … We’ve had signals for three weeks, that there is no whisky available … no rum, even. And that as soon as any arrived from the rear it would be sent up to the front line.’
The B.G.G.S. was tapping the fingers of his free hand against the side of his thigh, a distant expression growing more aloof every moment on his face. Colonel Venable cut in, ‘This has just arrived, Rowland.’
The B.G.G.S. said coldly, ‘Nonsense. There’s never been any shortage, here.’
Quentin faced him. He still couldn’t understand. This was another Englishman, like himself – a regular, been through Sandhurst … served in a good regiment … and he was saying these words, which amounted to … barefaced robbery of his men’s simplest needs. He said, ‘We’ve been in the front line three weeks … mud, rain, shelling … The attack on the Nollehoek ridge … all we asked for was rum, whisky, for the men. You kept it here.’
The B.G.G.S. said, ‘Now, look here, Rowland…’
Quentin turned on Venable – ‘I have to get back to my battalion, sir.’
Venable glanced at the B.G.G.S. who turned his back. Everyone stood up as the Corps Commander swept into the room, followed by one of his A.D.C.s, the Director of Medical Services, and the Commander, Corps Royal Artillery. Venable muttered, ‘Come with me.’ Once out of the room he said, ‘I’m sorry … Are you sure you won’t stay? You – I mean you personally – deserve a good night’s rest in a comfortable bed, a good meal, even a drink.’
‘I won’t drink here,’ Quentin said. ‘I must go back.’
‘I understand. I’ll get you a staff car at once.’ He picked up the telephone on a table in the hall and spoke a few words. ‘It’ll be five minutes.’
‘I’ll go and get my things.’
‘Yes … Oh, are you by chance any relation to a Miss Naomi Rowland, who was in the Women’s Volunteer Motor Drivers?’
‘She’s my niece.’
‘She drove me about quite a lot when I was in the War Office. She occasionally mentioned her uncle in the Wealds and I thought it must be you. A charming young lady, and very efficient, too. My wife wants to keep in touch with her, but doesn’t get any answer to her letters. We hope she’s all right.’
Quentin said, ‘As far as I know … She transferred to the F.A.N.Y.s, and my brother – her father – told me that she had been sent to France last month … to Number 12 Convoy, I believe. Anyway, with our Army, not the French or Belgians.’
‘Thanks, I’ll tell my wife … And I really am sorry about the whisky. It’s a disgrace.’
Quentin looked him full in the face, and said, ‘Yes, sir. It is.’
When he awoke next morning, late, the rain had stopped and a watery sun shone through drifting clouds of early autumn … A bite in the air warned of winter coming … the sooner the better, he thought, as long as the frost is hard enough to freeze the mud and keep it frozen. What hope was there of that, here? You’d have to go to Russia or Canada or somewhere to find cold as intense as that. Here, it would just harden the mud a bit in the night; by ten in the morning the ground would be like porridge again, only with the added discomfort of being cold.
Archie Campbell appeared in the dugout entrance, and said, ‘Good morning, sir. The mess sergeant wants to know whether you will be having breakfast. If not he’ll clear it away. We’ve all eaten.’
Quentin grunted, then said, ‘Yes. Ten minutes.’
Campbell saluted, and disappeared. Quentin slid off the planks that were his bed and called for his batman to bring hot water. He washed, cleaned his teeth, then began to shave with one of his pair of open razors. The guns were firing to north and south, but not heavily … harassing fire, he thought. The nearest German shells were falling about four hundred yards away, up toward the front line. British shells sighed far overhead on their way to the German rear areas. He heard, for the first time for several days, the sputter and buzz of an aeroplane … might be his son Guy up there … could well be, for much of the R.F.C. had been concentrated behind Ypres, to support the offensive. In the last two weeks of July he’d never seen a Boche aircraft. Then – low clouds, rain … all the advantages of air superiority over the battle field lost.
He began to dress. He couldn’t get the scene in the Corps Headquarters A Mess out of his mind … a land of milk and honey, everything neat and clean, whisky, brandy, sherry, and wine flowing; he might have been in the Savoy. But that was England, the people there were civilians, or officers on leave, and women. The Savoy ought to be a luxurious haven. But in France … driving back through the darkness, sitting silent in the back seat, he had felt a progressive lightening, a sense of escape, and of coming home. He’d like to talk to Campbell about what he’d seen, what had happened. But it wouldn’t do to let junior officers lose faith in their seniors and the higher formations. Someone had to command the Corps and Armies and staff them. He certainly couldn’t do it – didn’t have the brains … and if he did have the brains, he’d probably be making sure he got his whisky, as they did. The B.G.G.S. must have thought he was being deliberately insulting, but he wasn’t – he just couldn’t understand; and when at last he did, he felt so bad, because he didn’t belong there.
Along the trench the men were singing, softly, with immense brio:
They were only playing leap frog
They were only playing leap frog
They were only playing leap frog
When one staff officer jumped up
on the other staff officer’s back.
He went out, suppressing a smile, to have breakfast in the mess dugout farther up the trench. To his surprise he found Captain Ramsburgh, the American officer who had been under instruction with the battalion some time back, at the makeshift table. He sat down as Ramsburgh stood up, saluting. Quentin said, ‘What brings you here, Ramsburgh? … Glad to see you, of course.’
The captain said, ‘Our general sent me to your Army Headquarters on a mission – spent three days there … thought I’d like to drop in on you, sir, on my way back.’
‘Well, that’s very good of you,’ Quentin said. The mess sergeant brought him sausages, bread and jam, and a mug of hot thick sweet tea. Hoggin’s Plum & Apple jam, he noticed crossly. Surely that fellow could afford to make some raspberry or strawberry jam now and then? He said, ‘Don’t you want breakfast?’
‘I had some early, sir, back down the line.’
Quentin began to eat. Ramsburgh said, ‘I’ve had a letter from Johnny Merritt, Colonel. He’s arrived at Fort Sill.’
‘That’s for officer training in the Field Artillery, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll write to his wife … but he must have done that himself.’
‘Surely … We never had a proper chance to say goodbye to your companies, Colonel, when we left. Sergeant Leary and Corporal Merritt can’t be with me, but I’d like to do it now, for all of us – with your permission.’
‘Of course. Lucky for you they don’t have any booze, or you’d never get back to your Regiment.’
Ramsburgh’s Virginia accent became a longer drawl – ‘I have overcome that problem, sir. I borrowed one of our ambulances for this trip and went scouting at your Corps and Army Headquarters yesterday. I obtained a dozen bottles of brandy.’
‘Did you, by Jove!’
‘Yes, sir. And one’s for you, if you’ll do me the honour of accepting it – as from Leary, Merritt, and myself. Or, I might say, from the United States Army.’
‘Why … why … Thank you very much,’ Quentin said. ‘And you’ll need a couple of men to help carry up th
at brandy. Ask the Adjutant for them.’
Ramsburgh saluted and left the dugout. Quentin drank some more tea. It was troops’ char as he’d drunk it a hundred times from his company cookhouse in India – pale brown, sweet, heavy with condensed milk, stewed enough to tan the lining of your stomach. He loved it.
Interesting fellows, these Americans, once you got to know them. Couldn’t tell what their discipline was like just from seeing Ramsburgh with Leary and Merritt, obviously all picked men. They’d both often spoken to Ramsburgh before they’d been spoken to, which the Wealds wouldn’t tolerate; but then, what they said, in his hearing at least, had usually made sense. And though Leary was much the same sort of person as regular sergeants in any Army he’d ever come across, Johnny Merritt was obviously not like most regular privates. He was an educated man and a gentleman … like many of the men whom conscription was putting in the uniform of the Wealds, he grudgingly admitted … Wonder where Ramsburgh got the brandy? And how? Could he have just stolen it … Might have forged an indent … or got some brass hat to requisition it for imaginary sick Americans, on the grounds of inter-Allied friendship? … Ingenious fellows, the Americans. They’d make a difference when they started to join the battle in large numbers.
What to do today? Nothing … well, that was never true, if you were commanding a battalion – just nothing obvious that had to be done. He’d sit here a while, resting and digesting, then decide what to do.
Archie Campbell came in and said, ‘Do you want to write to the next of kin now, sir?’
‘In a minute … It looks like a long list.’
‘It is, sir.’
‘It’s time we got this war over with.’
‘There are quite a lot of people at home trying to do that apparently,’ Archie said, ‘by passive resistance to all war work and effort.’
Quentin said, ‘I know …’ Then, the words wrenched out of him by the need to tell someone, he added, ‘My brother’s one of them. Boy’s father. In gaol for it at this moment, or just out…’
