Last Train to Waverley

by Malcolm Archibald

  No fighting in your army then, Douglas thought bitterly. He heard a bugle’s insistent call from the castle above and shivered at the martial sound. God, but he hated the army and military life! Maybe some miracle would end the war before he reached the front; maybe the next push would break through the German lines. Maybe …

  Gillian’s eyes were bright. She ran her hand down his chest, allowing her fingers to play with his brass buttons. “You’ve lost weight Douglas, but it is all muscle now.” She pushed her open hand against his chest, her tongue protruded from her mouth for just a fraction of a second. “My, I bet you are strong now.”

  “Strong enough,” Ramsay said. He remembered the tales he had been told of Mons, the Germans advancing in uncountable hordes. ‘We shot them and shot them,’ the veterans had said, ‘but they just kept coming. They were like machines.’

  “We might be sent to Egypt,” Gillian said breathlessly. She patted him, panting slightly. “We could see the pyramids and the sphinx, watch the sun rise over the desert and ride camels beside the Nile. How romantic!” Her eyes were wide. She stepped back slightly. “Oh, Douglas, what a wonderful life we could have. You could be the Colonel of the regiment and lead your men into battle …”

  “And get my head blown off, like as not,” Ramsay said, but Gillian did not hear or chose to ignore him.

  “You would be a hero. I know you would be brave as a lion and win a whole uniform full of medals.” She intertwined her hands with his. “You could rise to be a general like Kitchener.” She pulled him close again and kissed him openly, despite the two elderly ladies who sat on a bench within a few yards of them.

  Her lips were soft, but Ramsay was not prepared for the quick flicker of her tongue into his mouth.

  “Gillian!” If any of his other girls had acted like that he would have been delighted, but Gillian was to be his wife. He expected certain standards of decorum from her, especially in douce Edinburgh.

  “I do wish they had kept scarlet uniforms,” Gillian said. “You are smart, but khaki is so drab compared to scarlet. Full dress is so much more becoming when it is bright, don’t you think?”

  Ramsay tried to imagine a scarlet-clad regiment in one of the trenches he had heard so much about. “I’ll pass your idea onto the King next time we meet,” he said.

  “Will you meet the King?” Gillian asked and then gave him a playful slap. “You are teasing me.”

  They walked hand in hand along the winding paths of the garden, the rock of the castle frowning on one side as a reminder of Ramsay’s military future, and the bustle and trams of Princes Street on the other, taunting him with his civilian past. Gillian moved closer, bumped her hip against his and giggled. “Father is away on business,” she said artlessly. “We have the house to ourselves.”

  Ramsay thought for a moment. “Your maid will be there,” he said, “If your mother still keeps a maid.”

  “She does, but I could send Isobel to her mother’s. With both her brothers at the war, Isobel would be pleased to go home for a while.” Gillian bumped hips again. “We could have the entire house to ourselves, Doug, including the bedrooms …”

  “Best not, I think,” Ramsay said. “It would not be proper.”

  “Proper!” Gillian’s hand tightened around his for a moment, then slackened and she slid it free. “Since when did propriety concern you, Douglas?”

  Ramsay said nothing, but lengthened his stride and walked on so that Gillian had to hurry to catch up with him. She walked at his side for a few moments and then slipped her hand inside his again.

  “You are very quiet, Douglas,” Gillian said as they stopped to admire the ornate fountain. “Are you all right?” She paused for a significant moment. “Don’t you like me anymore?” She put her right hand on his face and turned it towards her. “Am I no longer good enough for you, now that you are a commissioned officer? You were keen enough before!”

  What’s happened to me? I have changed! Gillian is offering herself to me on a plate and I’m turning her down. What have I become? I’m in love. The previous women were unimportant, all of them: Mary, Georgina, Lucia and the others, even Grace. They did not matter but Gillian does.

  He shook his head at her troubled eyes. “You are far too good for me, Gillian, but I am about to go to war. I may not come back. I do not wish to leave you with something you may regret, especially since I would not be in a position to rectify matters.”

  “You mean I may fall pregnant.” Gillian surprised him with her bluntness. “Well, Douglas Ramsay, I would not object to that in the slightest. Many ladies …” she emphasised the word, “are bearing children just now, even though their men are at the war.”

  “I will not leave you a pregnant widow, or even worse, a pregnant and unmarried woman,” Ramsay proved he could be every bit as frank. “Once this war nonsense is finished and we have kicked the Kaiser back to Berlin, then I will make you my wife and we can have as many babies as you like.”

  God! I mean that! I want to father this woman’s children.

  Gillian stepped back and shook her head. “You’re a strange man, Douglas Ramsay. Nearly everybody I know warned me against you. They told me you were a bounder, a womaniser and a cad, but I knew there was more to you than that.” She held up her hand as Ramsay opened his mouth to speak. “No! Don’t try and deny all the other women you’ve known. I don’t care and I don’t want to know. All I want is your assurance that they are in the past, and that I am the only one now.”

  “You are. Of course you are,” Ramsay said.

  Gillian touched her fingers to his lips. “Then that’s all that needs to be said about the matter. The past is dead and never to be mentioned again. It is only our future that matters.”

  Grace: I must tell you about Grace in case there is trouble in the future. You must know that side of me if we are to be a proper man and wife.

  “Now, you will have heard how some women allow their men some latitude when they are at war.” Gillian’s smile faded. “I am not of that persuasion, Douglas. I will be faithful to you and I expect you to do the same.”

  “I will,” Douglas said.

  I mean that. I genuinely do.

  Gillian’s smile returned. “I have heard all about the French girls and their tricks to entice men, and I want you to promise that you will have nothing to do with them.” Her smile remained, but there were shadows in her eyes. “Go on, promise!”

  Ramsay remembered the medical officer’s lectures about venereal diseases and the horrors they could inflict on his body. “I promise,” he said quietly, and smiled. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Gillian seemed satisfied. “Then there is nothing more to be said.”

  There was never any pretence with the Prussian Guards. When they attacked, they did so in style and with effect. When they defended, they did so with great resolution and a stubbornness that ended only with death. When they marched they were erect and solid. They were marching now; rank after rank of tall men in long grey coats, each with his rifle held at precisely the same angle over his shoulder. They appeared out of the dusk and headed west, toward the constantly retreating British lines.

  Ramsay had watched them march past for ten long minutes before he realised the time and shook McKim awake.

  “Keep the boys quiet,” Ramsay said. “Fritz is moving again.”

  McKim wriggled forward. “Heading to Albert,” he said. “They have never been so far forward before.”

  “And we have never been so far back,” Ramsay scanned the shadowy figures passing him in a steady stream. “Once these Prussian lads are past we will get moving again. With luck we can overtake them and get into Albert before they do.”

  McKim removed the broken pipe from the corner of his mouth. “They might stop for the night, sir.”

  “They might,” Ramsay said. He watched as the last of the Prussians marched past, two immensely broad-shouldered NCOs acting as rear markers.

  The Hauptmann with the monocle is
not there. Maybe he has been killed.

  “Shall I get the lads up, sir?”

  Ramsay looked over the few men who remained. They lay around the trees in various positions. Cruickshank’s hands were curled around his rifle while Turnbull was curled in a foetal position, cradling his broken wrist. “Yes, we have to get moving.”

  They waded the River Ancre without difficulty, although as the smallest man there, McKim had some trouble keeping his head above water, but once on the far side they slowed down.

  The gunfire was so incessant that Ramsay barely noticed it, but despite obvious resistance, the German advance showed no sign of slowing. Once again Ramsay kept his small command parallel to the Bapaume road that ran right through Albert, and they saw the constant flow of traffic moving in both direction. Reinforcements and replacements marched or rode towards the front, alongside ammunition wagons, guns and supplies, while ambulances rolled eastward, together with an occasional batch of dejected British prisoners.

  Twice they heard sudden outbursts of firing and guessed that the British were offering stiffer resistance, but on each occasion the firing died away. The German columns slowed or temporarily halted, only to start again, rolling inexorably westward. As the horse-drawn transports passed the infantry, soldiers shouted greetings and waved their hands and rifles.

  They are confident now. They think they are winning the war. Maybe they are.

  They passed small groups of dead; the British wore full packs and lay in clusters or extended lines, where they had charged forward.

  “Bloody Fritzes are still pushing us back,” Cruickshank said. “That’s day after day now and we are still running like bloody rabbits.”

  “At least they died fighting,” McKim said. “God rest you, lads.”

  “Much bloody good it did,” Cruickshank said, and they trudged on wearily and with hope diminishing with every yard they covered.

  A marching column of infantry split to either side of the pave when a staff car snarled forward, its headlights gleaming yellow in the fading light.

  “Bloody red tabs. The Hun variety is just as bad as ours.” Cruickshank hefted the rifle on his shoulder.

  “Save your breath.” McKim looked at Ramsay. “I wish Flockhart was still with us, sir.”

  I wish they were all still with us: Mackay and Buchanan and Aitken and Edwards and Niven and all the rest. What a terrible waste of good men.

  “Well he’s not, McKim, and there’s nothing that we can do about it now. Keep marching.”

  “They’re after Albert,” Cruickshank said. “They’re after the Golden Virgin.”

  Ramsay said nothing. An officer did not exchange small talk with his men, it was bad for discipline. Cruickshank was right. The Germans hoped to capture Albert. He remembered the bustle of the town just a few days ago when he was on his way to the Front, and wondered how it was that so important a centre, with so many men, could possibly be in danger from the German advance. If they were successful in taking Albert, what was next? Amiens?

  “Something’s happened,” McKim said. “Listen.”

  “Wait, lads. Halt just now.” Ramsay put a hand on McKim’s arm. “What is it, corporal?”

  “The Huns have halted.”

  McKim was right. The constant thump of boots had fallen silent and there was no sound of grinding wheels.

  “They’ve stopped,” McKim said. “May I have permission to have a decko, sir?” He threw a very rare salute.

  “Take care,” Ramsay nodded, and McKim slipped away into the dark. Ramsay listened to the sounds of the night. A German voice barked a guttural order. There was soft German singing and somebody played a plaintive tune on a melodeon until another harsh order silenced both.

  “Keep your rifles ready, lads. Fritz might send out patrols.”

  Musketry sounded ahead, joined by the chatter of a machine gun, and then silence. A flare slid skyward to the west, hung like a suspended floodlight and slowly descended. Darkness returned and with it the spatter of rifles as nervous owners targeted imaginary enemies in the night.

  A single shot sounded, close to, and the yell of a challenge. Another shot, a third and then silence.

  McKim? Have the Germans shot McKim?

  A shell whizzed down to explode a few yards from the road. For an instant the explosion silhouetted the traffic on the road; a string of supply wagons was motionless along the centre of the road. The horses stood with their heads bowed as they rested from their life of toil. Around the wagons, spread in regular lines and lying in neat groups, were German infantry.

  When the light died the darkness was stygian: thick and threatening and pregnant with menace.

  Ramsay blinked to try and recapture some of the night vision that the shell had shattered. He peered toward the road and hoped the Germans would stay put. He glanced behind them, where their train still smouldered red on the horizon. One fire among many.

  That’s where Flockhart died; that’s where I regained my freedom from worry. That’s where I lost more of my men. That was the last train to Waverley Station.

  A flare burst overhead, revealing a change in the landscape. The road narrowed as it squeezed between a thick hedge and a steep embankment. It would be a perfect place for an ambush. If he commanded the defence of Albert, he would place a Vickers machine gun there and delay the Germans for hours. The Germans knew their stuff: that would be why they halted.

  The thought hit him like a douche of cold water. With the British in full retreat, the war might not last long. If he was to walk up to the nearest German and surrender, he could sit in comfort until peace came and then get back to Gillian and the sane life of an Edinburgh solicitor.

  I would survive. I have done my bit for King and country now, surely. I have killed my quota of Germans and led my men to the best of my meagre ability. I am no soldier; I never wanted to be a soldier; they can’t expect me to do any more, please God, they can’t expect more from me.

  Ramsay sat down and leaned against the bole of a tree, slumped forward and buried his face in cupped hands.

  How much longer will this nightmare last? How many more days will I wake up shaking and bathed in sweat, how many more days will I spend pretending to be brave so my men do not realise I am quaking in terror; how many more nights will I close my eyes praying not be killed in the fearful hours of darkness. Every time I light a cigar I flinch in case a sniper is peering at me down the barrel of a rifle; every time I drop my trousers in the latrine I pray not to be wounded or killed in that most undignified of positions; I pray not to be emasculated by shot or shell, or hideously disfigured so that Gillian recoils from me in horror.

  How much longer; oh, God, how much longer can I take this, before my mind breaks like Aitken’s or that young German soldier, and I lie gibbering in an endless nightmare that is no worse than this reality?

  “The whole bloody German army has stopped.” McKim appeared out of the darkness, unseen and unheard. “There is no movement as far as I can see. The advance has stopped.”

  “Or maybe we have stopped it,” Cruickshank said.

  “Maybe we have,” Turnbull said.

  “Are you all right, sir?” McKim sat beside him. His eyes were concerned, more like a father to a son than an NCO to an officer, but suddenly Ramsay did not care. McKim was a good man; he would be a good man in any society and class.

  “I’m just a bit tired, Corporal,” Ramsay said. “Thank you.”

  This is our chance; we can get back to our own lines. Surrender? Not a bloody chance; I will get my men home safe and get back to Gillian as a hero officer and not as a coward. She would not know, but I would.

  Ramsay raised his voice. “Right, lads. Fritz has stopped for the night. We won’t. We will get past him and march right into Albert. General Gough seems to have halted the German advance so hopefully the line has stabilised now.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  ALBERT

  26 March 1918

  There was no barbed wire, no series o
f trenches, not even a proper sequence of outposts and strong points. After three and a half years of static warfare the front had opened up into a war of fluid movement, but rather than the British pushing eastward for Berlin, they were running westward, leaving a trail of discarded equipment, abandoned wagons and broken men and horses behind them.

  “Halt!” The challenge was abrupt and unexpected. Ramsay stopped at once.

  “Who the hell are you?” The accent was English, coarse and flat.

  “Lieutenant Douglas Ramsay, 20th Royal Scots, and don’t you know to salute when you address an officer? And you call me sir!” He barked the words instinctively although he felt like weeping at the sound of a British voice again, after so many days wandering behind German lines.

  “Oh. Sorry, sir.” The Englishman did not sound sorry. “I was not sure who you were. You came in from the German side.”

  Ramsay did not respond, the man was merely a private. “Where is your officer?”

  The Englishman shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. Most of the unit pulled out earlier today and left a few of us as rearguard. As soon as orders come we are moving too.”

  “Where is your sergeant, then?” Ramsay said. “Or whoever is in charge.”

  The Englishman snorted. “Christ knows where anybody is, or who’s in charge now.”

  “You say sir when addressing an officer,” McKim snarled, “and stand to attention, you slovenly creature! What kind of soldier are you?”

  “Sorry, sir.” The Englishman stiffened to attention.

  “Are you saying the army is not going to try and defend Albert?” Ramsay asked.

  As if a mere private soldier would know. Pull yourself together, man!

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Carry on then, private,” Ramsay ordered. He hid his bitter disappointment. He had hoped to find an organised defence, with a proper military hierarchy, and instead he had walked into chaos and confusion. The world he had known for the past three and a half years had turned upside down.