Starshine

by John Wilcox

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Right. Well I am prepared to give it a try if you are. To get your notice through you’d better start a week on Monday. Sharp at eight o’clock. Come on. I’ll show you the work.’

  She followed him out, back once more into the huge shell assembly workshop. Miller pointed upwards to the side of the shop and towards the far end of it, where long crane booms swung out, their long chains dangling down like fishing lines, huge steel hooks at their ends. Distant figures were threading the hooks through strong nets on which the shell pallets rested. Then the pallets were hoisted, swung delicately from left to right and deposited somewhere out of Polly’s sight.

  ‘There you go,’ said Miller. ‘It’s responsible work because you need to know exactly what you’re doing. Dropping a pallet could be hugely dangerous.’

  Polly realised that her mouth was gaping open. ‘Golly. Would they explode?’

  Miller chortled. ‘No. The fuses are not fitted here. But if they fell on someone he’d have a nasty headache.’ He pointed to the side. ‘You would have to climb that ladder to get to your cabin. It’s about forty feet or so up. Think you could do that?’

  She forced a grin. ‘Oh yes. Of course.’

  ‘Just one suggestion, lass.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Miller?’

  With a half-embarrassed smile, he gestured towards her long skirt. ‘It’s better not to be wearing a skirt when you climb that ladder, if you know what I mean. There are plenty of blokes on the shop floor.’

  She blushed and nodded.

  ‘We can provide overalls but it would be best, if you’ve got trousers, to bring them to wear underneath. All right?’

  ‘Of course. Thank you, Mr Miller.’

  ‘Good. See you a week on Monday. Unless you change your mind, that is.’

  Polly shook her head firmly. ‘Oh no. No question of that. I will be the best crane driver you have, Mr Miller. I’ll show you.’

  He smiled, gravely shook her hand and waved her goodbye.

  Outside in the street, a mizzly rain was falling again. She took a deep breath, pinned on her hat and then leant against the wall for a moment, impervious to the wetness. An overhead crane driver! It would mean entering a completely different world. No more genteel discussions with elderly ladies about types of knitting wool and colours. She would sit high above the world, in charge of her own piece of complicated machinery that could cause great harm if she got something wrong. She would pull and push levers and lift shells and then swing them away and gently – so gently, she supposed – deposit them down. Important work. Work that could help her boys in Flanders. War work!

  Polly gulped and began walking towards the tram stop. There would be problems at home, she knew that. But she had always been able to get what she wanted from her gentle, hard-working father. And Mother could be overcome, if she was allowed to get used to the idea. Trousers! She must buy a pair. But most of all, she must write to Jim and Bertie and tell them. War work! The very sound of it made her feel closer to them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Polly’s letters were given to the boys as they reached the little town of Poperinghe, some six miles behind Ypres, directly to the west. As a rail terminal it was the main supply point for men, supplies and ammunition to ‘the Salient’ as the Ypres battlefield was being called, but, now, in late 1914, it was also becoming essential as a convenient place of rest and recreation for troops down from the miseries of front line duty. The town was just in reach of the heaviest of the long-range German batteries on the ridges overlooking the Ypres basin, but, so far, it had escaped heavy bombardment.

  Jim and Bertie tucked their letters into their jackets and marched to the rows of tents that marked their camp on the outskirts of ‘Pop’.

  ‘I’m not openin’ mine till I’ve had me bath,’ said Bertie. Neither of them had bathed properly since they had entered the line and the grime of trench warfare had imprinted itself on their faces and bodies. Worse were the vermin that infested their clothing.

  ‘Good idea,’ agreed Jim. ‘Sort of “be clean for her”, eh?’

  Bertie nodded. ‘I’d like first, though, to get rid of these little fellers.’ He offered up his shirt where lice could be seen happily at home in the seams of the fabric. He ran his thumb along the main seam. ‘The little varmints have moved in like lodgers, so they have. Look, I can’t budge ’em and that bloody powder they gave us in the trenches doesn’t seem to do any good at all.’

  ‘No, but there’s supposed to be fumigating machines at the baths, I’ve heard. So we can clean up completely there.’

  ‘I don’t know which is best, to kill the old ones or the young ones. If you kill the old ones, the young ones might die of grief, but the young ones are easier to kill and you can get the old ones when they go to the funeral.’

  ‘Hmm. I’d rather rely on the fumigating thing.’

  ‘Right. Let’s go and get clean.’

  Rain had set in on the Salient long ago and mud was just starting to be as much of an enemy as the Germans. The plain itself was low-lying, not far from the sea and soggy, even before rain fell. The farmers had cut in ditches to carry the water away but the shelling had opened them up so that they were as one with the sodden landscape, from which individual fields and woods had now virtually disappeared. The soldiers manning the trenches to which the British had retreated after repulsing narrowly the heavy German attacks of October were now cold, wet and lousy. It was a foretaste of what was to come.

  The boys soaked themselves in the canvas baths, pitched under canvas and fed by large cauldrons set over field stoves. The water was hardly hot enough but it was luxury to soak and soap themselves all over. Their clothes were fumigated and then cleaned while they bathed. They picked them up, brushed their hair and, off duty, decided to walk into town, keeping their precious letters until they could find a corner of a congenial bar.

  The streets of Pop were narrow and crowded but, fortunately, there was no shortage of estaminets ready and happy to take their money. The Café des Allies beckoned and they entered. It was smoke-filled and crowded with British Tommies (a corporal had told them not go to ‘La Poupée’, which was reserved for officers only) but they found a tiny round table, covered with dozens of wine-stain roundels.

  ‘You want plonk?’ demanded a stoutly bosomed waitress.

  The two looked at each other. This was the first time that they had come down from the line and their first experience of a French estaminet. ‘What’s plonk?’ asked Jim.

  The waitress sighed. ‘It ees vin blanc. White wine. You Tommees call eet plonk. You want it? Ees one franc for a bottle. You want?’

  ‘Er … yes. I suppose so.’ Jim gave her a coin and she immediately seemed to magic from nowhere a bottle containing a yellowish liquid and two tiny glasses. She poured it and bustled away.

  ‘Well, old lad.’ Jim raised his glass. ‘Here’s to Polly.’

  ‘Ah yes. Here’s to Polly, bless her.’

  They emptied their glasses in one gulp. Bertie wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Not much to it, is there? I’d rather have a pint of Ansells.’

  Jim replenished their glasses. ‘Doesn’t seem to taste of much, does it?’ He looked around. Everyone seemed to be drinking exactly the same wine, from bottles carrying no labels. ‘Everyone else is downing the stuff so I suppose it must be all right. Perhaps it’s what you might call an acquired taste.’

  Suddenly a piano accordion struck up. It was a lilting waltz and a little wizened man playing it and wearing a beret began to sing:

  Après la guerre fini,

  Soldat anglais parti,

  Mademoiselle in the family way,

  Après la guerre fini.

  Bertie leant forward. ‘What’s he singing?’

  ‘I think he’s being rude about British soldiers. But everyone’s laughing, so I suppose it’s all right. Shall we read our letters?’

  Immediately, they both settled back in their chairs, slightly
turning away from each other, and began reading.

  ‘Blimey!’ Jim looked up in consternation. ‘She’s going to work in a factory. Driving a bloody overhead crane.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bertie screwed up his face in annoyance, his slowness in reading exposed. ‘I haven’t got that far. Hang on.’ Then, ‘Strewth! She’s going to be slinging shells all over the place. Sounds dangerous. A lovely little slip of a lass like that can’t be doing that stuff, can she? It don’t seem right, does it, Jimmy boy?’

  Jim sighed. ‘These are strange times, Bertie. Six months ago, who’d have thought that we would be standing in mud, trying to kill people? Put like that, I don’t suppose it’s so strange. She’s a plucky, marvellous girl, though, ain’t she?’

  Bertie’s eyes lit up. ‘Ah, so she is, Jim. So she is.’ He looked down at his letter then up again at his friend. ‘Does she … er … say she loves you, then, Jimmy?’

  Hickman looked embarrassed. ‘Bloody hell, no mate. She’s, well, she’s not that sort of girl. She’s not sloppy and all that.’ He paused uncertainly. ‘Why, does she say that about you, then?’

  It was Bertie’s turn to show discomfort. ‘Well no. Not in so many words, anyway. But you sort of know, don’t you? I do, anyway.’

  Jim did not reply but, frowning, filled their glasses again and fixed his eye on the accordion player. The two sat in awkward silence for a moment and then, in unison, as though pulled by a marionette’s strings, they both slowly folded their letters, put them away in their tunics and lifted their glasses.

  Inevitably, it was Bertie who broke the silence. ‘You know, Jimmy, this life in the trenches, when it’s a bit quiet like, with no chargin’ about with bayonets and all that stuff, wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for old Black Jack.’

  Hickman slowly nodded. They had learnt that Sergeant Flanagan, seconded from a regular regiment – in his case the Connaught Rangers – with other regular NCOs to give ‘backbone’ to this territorial battalion on active service, had earned the nickname by his fierce demeanour in and out of action. It had quickly become clear that he was a bully with a sadistic bent, but also that he had taken a particular dislike to Bertie.

  ‘He certainly doesn’t seem to like Catholics,’ mused Jim, sipping his wine.

  ‘Ah sure, sure. And that’s the funny thing, so it is. Y’see, the Rangers are from the west of Ireland and they’re a Catholic lot themselves. What, then, is bloody old Black Jack, a Protestant heathen through and through, just like you, doin’ serving in a Catholic regiment, eh?’

  Jim shrugged. ‘He’s also a professional soldier, through and through, and the Rangers, so I’m told, are one of the finest regiments in the British army. I suppose he just happened to be from one of the few Protestant families in Galway, or somewhere like that, and he joined up to follow the flag in a good regiment. Now he’s no longer serving with Catholics, perhaps he’s enjoying the chance of showing his prejudice.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, I wish the bastard would stop showing it to me.’

  It was true that Flanagan seemed to take a delight in persecuting Bertie. As their platoon sergeant, he would single out the little Irishman for fatigues and special duties whenever he could. It was difficult, in the dirt and general discomfort of the trenches, for Flanagan to take advantage of Murphy’s natural dishevelment for his persecution, but he pounced on him whenever he could. Bertie seemed to have spent more time as latrine orderly for the platoon than standing on the trench firing step. Jim had tried whenever possible to come between the two and, indeed, the sergeant seemed to be wary of the lance corporal – perhaps not least because the young Lieutenant Smith-Forbes, their platoon commander, fresh from public school and exactly the same age as Jim, had taken to the tall, quiet, obviously efficient soldier. But Flanagan chose his moments carefully and Hickman could not always protect his friend.

  Jim took another sip of his wine. They were learning now to treat the pale yellow liquid with some respect and Bertie was already beginning to grin vacantly at everyone within sight. ‘Trouble is,’ he said, ‘he’s obviously a bloody good soldier. Have you seen the ribbons he wears?’

  Bertie nodded.

  ‘Well, he’s got campaign medals from the Boer War, I can see that. But he’s got some other sort of medal which I can’t recognise. It must be for bravery. Well, what the hell. Perhaps a sniper will get him.’

  The smile left Bertie’s face. ‘No hope. They only get the lovely fellers.’

  They were interrupted by the bosomy waitress. ‘You boys like a little ooh la la, next door?’ she enquired, as though she was asking if they needed another bottle.

  Bertie looked up at her amiably. ‘Thish ooh la la’s loverly, me darlin’. Why should we go nesht door for another one?’

  The woman lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Ooh la la ees not a drink, Tommy.’ She eyed Jim’s stripe and turned to him. ‘You want, or not?’

  ‘No thanks, missus. But we could drink another bottle, please.’

  Seeing his soft brown eyes and broad shoulders, she gave him a smile and shrugged. ‘Eh bien,’ she said and turned away.

  ‘What was she on about, then, Jimmy boy?’

  ‘I think she was offering us a woman. There must be a brothel next door.’

  Bertie blinked his blue eyes. ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t do that, Jimmy. Would you? It wouldn’t be right by Polly, now, would it?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t. Now don’t get too pissed, Bertie lad, ’cos the redcaps are patrolling the town and Black Jack would just love to have you up before the colonel. Let’s see if we can buy a baggage, or whatever it is they call their bloody great sandwiches, to go with this next bottle. It will soak up the booze – and we deserve a drink or two tonight.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to the lovely little crane driver back home.’

  Bertie’s grin lit up his round and now very red face. He raised his glass in reply. ‘Here’s to the sweetest li’ll crane driver thad ever lived.’

  A baguette au fromage helped to reduce the effect of the alcohol and they eventually left the estaminet in reasonably good order, Jim keeping a wary eye open for the red-capped military policemen who regularly patrolled the little town.

  Their period of rest out of the line lasted for just three days, after which they marched back up to Ypres, the town still bustling with civilians and comparatively unaffected by the shelling which was slowly reducing the plain before it to a morass. There, they waited for night to fall and then joined the dreary and dangerous convoys struggling to the east in the dark, through the mud, to the long, curving and now less fragile line occupied by the Allied troops.

  It was rumoured that the BEF had sustained more than 55,000 men killed, missing or wounded in the first battle of Ypres and the French between 50,000 and 85,000. German losses were said to have been even heavier. It was clear that the weeks of the late autumn had to be a period of recuperation for Allies and Germans alike. There had been no real attack launched by either side since early November, although the German shelling of the front trenches and supply lines across the plain had increased and night parties still made sorties across no man’s land.

  For Jim and Bertie, now manning the line some two miles to the south-east of Ypres, near Hill 60 (in fact, merely a flattish hillock only sixty metres high but looming over that ravaged plain like a wart on a whore’s cheek), the days passed in discomfort and boredom, broken only by the irregular arrivals of mortar bombs and heavier shells. The routine of trench life consisted of standing to at dawn, dodging the explosions, burying the dead, keeping look out during the day, repairing the trenches against the unremitting onslaught of rain and bombardment, cooking over open braziers, digging out the square, slime-filled latrine pits (Bertie’s speciality), and crouching to find sleep in primitive dugouts at night, unless on patrol duty in no man’s land.

  The latter provided Sergeant Flanagan with an opportunity to reveal that his persecution of Bertie was something more serious than merely an idle diversion. He was selected by Black
Jack to join the six-man party that was to raid the German trench opposite, in the hope of capturing a prisoner to give information about the identity of the regiment manning it. Lieutenant Smith-Forbes was to lead the party and immediately Jim volunteered to join it.

  ‘No,’ grunted Flanagan. ‘Too many.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Flanagan,’ said the subaltern. ‘Seven’s not too many and I’d be glad to have a junior NCO along, just in case …’ he coughed, ‘something happens to you, you know.’

  Flanagan scowled but said nothing more. So Hickman joined the party, who assembled in the firing trench that night just after midnight. They wore no caps, nor greatcoats or capes, and carried only hand grenades, bayonets and revolvers. With faces blacked, they looked like a cross between pirates and burglars. They sat on the fire step as Smith-Forbes briefed them. It was clear that he was nervous, for he kept clearing his throat and licking his lips, his eyes glowing out from his face, like those of a piccaninny.

  ‘Right chaps. The enemy lines are about a hundred and eighty to two hundred yards to our front. It sounds as though they have a wiring party out, which is bad news but good news also. It’s … er … bad because we don’t want to blunder into them, and good because they’ll be out there, on the edge of the German trench making a bit of a noise, so that should cover us a bit.’

  He coughed. ‘Our job is to get quietly across no man’s land to a stretch of their trench, cut the wire sufficiently for us to get under it, slip into the trench, take our prisoner and get back again. We don’t want to make a fuss or start another war. Just get in, grab our bloke and out again. Now I’ve been chosen to lead this handsome band,’ he gave a nervous chuckle, ‘because I speak some German. So I shall say to the lookout in German that we are a wiring party coming back.