The Long Week-End 1897-1919

by Wilfred R. Bion

  A party of some ten men was approaching with a curious shuffling, somnambulistic gait which yet reminded one of men marching. As they came nearer it was clear that they were marching. Harrison dared to ask the question the rest of us seemed unable to voice.

  “Who are you chum?”

  “Coldstream Guards.”

  “What! The whole lot?” said Harrison facetiously.

  “The whole bloody lot—and mind your own business!” He was angry; so they were alive and not a delusion.

  Now we felt unable to be certain of our own reality. During one of my turns at driving I became aware through the open flap at the front of my seat that the sky was lightening. Dawn! And heaven knew how many miles to the nearest air cover. As far as I could see the country was bare; just the rolling downland in front silhouetted against the pallor of the sky. Suddenly someone I could not see was yelling through the flap. It was O’Toole and Allen. “Stop! Stop!” I knew the engine must be about red hot and stopped at once.

  “Sir, you’ve nearly driven into a house!” I got out to find we were in a village street, the nose of the tank almost touching a sturdy brick building. Thoroughly awake I got back to my driving seat to find that the ‘sky’ was the dim torch light, which they were using to watch the engine, reflected on the flap of the observation opening. At least we still had time.

  Remembering the Coldstream experience I said that when it was time to take fresh air the crew were to do it in pairs, both men walking together. I did not want anyone lost through falling asleep.

  Far behind the tail of the battalion we eventually limped into a village. We had to stop. I drew in as close as possible to a ruined cottage. We draped sacking over the sides and placed empty petrol cans on the roof so the tracks were hidden. We piled up some cans to simulate a chimney.

  The Major came up. “Quite a nice little country cottage you have there. I’ll have to warn the infantry you may not be able to operate. Luckily the rest of the battalion seem to be at their stations.” And off he went, affable, rosy-cheeked, cosy; there are worse states of mind and I felt comforted by his matter-of-fact state.

  As for the crew, they were as near mindless as fatigue can make men. I told O’Toole and Allen the driver to check up the tank and its guns so that nothing we could do would be left undone for action. The rest were to go under the tank—there was a space of two feet between the lowest part of the belly and the ground. Then I went off to find Williams and the other company officers in the wood.

  The wood had real trees with thick foliage and its quota of magpies. Why, I wondered, was it not a name on a map? Why had nobody been fighting? Nobody had been fighting because this was a position to which the enemy had retired after the Somme; it was untouched country and we were now lying before the Hindenburg Line. Or so somebody said.

  Where was Williams? The mess corporal gave me a note. ‘Sorry—can’t do anything now. As soon as it is dark get your tank into the wood under the trees where we can work at it properly. We shall have nearly twelve hours. Sorry you had a bad trip.’

  Quainton, Cohen, Bayliss and all other tank commanders had had a virtually trouble-free trip. “You look tired”, said Quainton. I felt oily; the cool morning fresh air emphasized the greasy, unshaven sense of being encased in a film insulating me from fact. My skin was tired, my eyes bloodshot. Quainton was not being funny. Both he and Cohen were clearly concerned and I wondered why.

  “Where’s Williams?” I asked.

  “The corporal has a note for you from him.”

  “Oh damn it; of course, I’ve seen it.”

  “Go and get some sleep.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere; I’ll wake you if you are wanted”, said Quainton. Then in a low voice, “I’m sorry old man—are you all right?”

  Of course I was all right—but we were still inexperienced and had not seen fatigue close to, let alone felt it. Later I learnt more of that terrible infantry fatigue of men tried beyond endurance, pasty-faced, almost as if their very eyes had become grey. In tanks we knew nothing of that unending ‘world without end’ fatigue. In April the next year… but that was mercifully hidden.

  I went back to the crew; they were now all asleep except O’Toole who was keeping watch.

  “Do you think we shall get into action sir?”

  “I know we shall Sergeant; but I have no idea what we shall do when we get there.”

  In his fatigued state he looked more horrible than ever. “Hard luck if we miss this sir. After Ypres this looks like proper tank ground.”

  It told him it was part of the fortress-like defences of the Hindenburg Line.

  “It will be pretty tough fighting then. But Jerry always is a tough job.”

  Particularly for a lot of amateurs, I thought—and I was one of the amateurs who said the words without knowing what they meant. There were many catch-phrases endlessly repeated. Those in vogue at this time were, ‘Remember Belgium’, a sarcastic use of an official formula; The first seven years are the worst’; ‘Remember the Hundred Years War’; ‘Oh my, I don’t want to die! I want to go home’, a tuneless song sung in the English manner— tunelessly.

  “Rout out one of the others and get some sleep yourself Sergeant. I’m going to the mess tent if you want me, but I will be back anyway. As soon as it is dark we must get into the wood where we can see to this properly. Oh, and keep the men from wandering round the tank when they do wake up.” He saluted and I went off.

  The Quartermaster’s men had managed to set up a marquee, part of which was divided off by a screen to serve as the mess. No one was there except the Quartermaster, a short, smooth-faced man, a peace-time Territorial who I think must have been a grocer. He was not given to talking because, I suspect, he had not much to say to executive officers. I seized the opportunity to show him my lunch, a tin of bully beef made by a well-known foreign firm. ‘This”, I said, “is all I have left of my day’s ration. It’s got to see me through the show tomorrow.” The next day’s battle was a ‘show’—probably indicating something more important than a ‘stunt’. He saw one third of the tin was finished; the ‘unconsumed portion of the day’s ration’, the official title, was a solid chunk of translucent gristle. Without a word he pulled out his field service notebook and entered into it the name of the firm and the date. Then he handed the tin to his orderly. “Get this weighed and tell me the result.” Peace-time grocers are not used to being surprised. Wartime (embodied) territorials of his experience did not sentimentalize about patriotism or the loyalty of our Allies.

  “How about some bully mutton?” he asked me. I told him I would try anything once, but I would like to know what was the worst part of a sheep that could happen to me. “Ah, I didn’t say anything about ‘sheep’”, he replied, “but it could get you invalided back to England if you are lucky in the draw. That chunk of bully wouldn’t even get you into hospital.” After a moment’s thought he added, “unless you’ve got very good teeth.”

  The arrival of our Company Quartermaster made him terminate the conversation by telling his orderly to get me a tin of bully mutton from the store. “Make it two tins”, he shouted after the man. “Do you want some biscuit too? Captain Tipledy could let you have some.”

  “Sorry; no teeth”, I said and took my leave to a chair in the corner to have a snooze till I had to go back to the tank.

  Tipledy, our Quartermaster, was a motherly old woman, competent and with exactly the right name and temperament for the job. Unfortunately he was the wrong sex and this led to a number of coarse jests which tended to a mild and uncertain irrascibility of manner.

  “Why? What’s the matter with the biscuit?” Tipledy was mobilized. I had no inclination whatever to engage in war about biscuit.

  “Nothing. It’s OK I was just telling the QM about some bully and he wanted to know if I wanted biscuit. If you’ve got a decent tank to spare I’d be glad of it.”

  “You know damn well I have nothing to do with issue of tanks.”

/>   “I know you haven’t. I was only joking.” I felt the conversation had taken the wrong turning. I was desperately tired and wanting to snatch a few moments of sleep before going back to that nerve-racking tank. He glared at me with twitching moustaches like a very large, suspicious and bloated rat. A bit like the corpse-fed rats in our billet up at Ypres I thought—and then his good-natured smile reappeared.

  14

  I WAS woken from an uneasy sleep when the sound of voices stopped. The silence disturbed me. It was still another quarter of an hour before I need set out. It was hopeless to try to sleep again so I set out for my tank. How dark it was and gloomy! The crew I found awake. They said they had all slept and were fit for anything. I felt they were glad to see me, and I felt glad to see them. What the devil we were all so glad about I could not imagine.

  The crew cranked up and we drove some six hundred yards to our rendezvous. We had to stop five times in that short distance to let the engine cool down.

  Williams had a reputation for talking bull-shit. So we were not impressed by his optimism and assurance.

  “First”, he said, “we will check up once more. Has it been any better? No? Just the same in every respect—no power, short run, backfiring and finally red-hot? You’re quite sure?”

  “Damn fool”, I thought.

  “Positively no deception, ladies and gentlemen—you have heard what these gentlemen have said? Very well then. This is a defective tank. Now watch me very carefully. First we shall retime it because it is obvious that there can be no other explanation. But this time we shall do it by measuring—from the cylinder heads. All right then—first remove the cylinder heads—”

  “You mean first remove the roof of the tank don’t you? We can’t take the cylinder heads off without.” Williams checked up and saw this was true, but he was not going to be deterred.

  “We shall have to do it through the exhaust ports. Not so good, but good enough. I always said these bloody petrol engines were no good. They should have used steam.”

  It was popularly supposed that Williams was an ex-naval engineer who had never recovered from the day the navy went out of sail. Now it was the change from steam to the infernal combustion engine.

  It was a long job and time seemed to race by. Eventually Williams stood up. “Jesus wept! I’ve got it! Do you know what’s wrong? Those bastards have marked dead centre wrong on the fly-wheel!”

  Bastards? What bastards? Not Americans who had provided us with plenty of small arms ammunition—or tins of bully gristle to eat? It is called an iron ration so it is really very generous to have given us animal substance and not mineral. But who are these bastards? They gave us plum and apple jam, they gave us one fly-wheel with dead centre marked wrong. In fact they were patriotic Britons who one day would be rewarded by their grateful country. For the present they had to be content with making their fortunes. Later—the Honours Lists. For us—sleep you perishers! A Military Cross for your officer; “Art thou sleeping there below?”—a ‘wooden cross’ certainly seemed more likely.

  “Finished!”

  I felt too tired to care. We said nothing. I did not believe the job was finished; I was beyond profanity, depression or anger. Now, when the entire crew was exhausted, our troubles were about to start. Williams was surprised, even hurt, at our reaction to a very arduous and finally successful job of work. Looking back, I wonder if the journey from Ypres to our starting point at Cambrai killed the spirit of our crew.

  The job was hurriedly tidied up—there was now no time to lose—checked and passed by Williams for the last time. He wished us luck and disappeared. The engine was now running sweetly as she should have done from the moment we had drawn her from the Tank Central Workshops. I left a message to be taken to Advanced Company HQ and a copy to the Battlion HQ of the Seaforth Highlanders to say we should be operating after all.

  At last we were clear of Harrincourt Wood, out in the open and on firm ground. It was dark and silent. The last tank had reached its starting point long before and I imagined dawn was beginning to pale in the east.

  The engine suddenly overheated and stopped. I think I must have ground my teeth with rage, but all I said was, “Give her time to cool.” After a few minutes it was evident that either it had not cooled enough and it would be blown to bits, or we should be dangerously late, caught in the barrage if we waited.

  “Swing her!” I ordered the crew. A splutter and then a roar as it sprang to life. “Throttle down for God’s sake”, I said to Allen. It seemed noisy enough to start the enemy barrage at once. This time the engine went on running till we reached our starting point with a couple of minutes to go. We left the engine to idle as I thought it would be tempting Providence to stop it and hope to start it again.

  Night had turned to pale grey. My watch hand crept on to zero and there were three individual bursts from our artillery. Then at once a moaning in the air. The enemy’s trench system was picked out along its length by our barrage, unregistered yet bursting, at most, twelve feet above ground level in a precision I have never seen equalled. I could have cheered as I saw the white puffs shot through with white sparks picking out the pattern in the pearly light.

  A and C companies, forming the first wave, had already gone through. Our company, B, were to support and go through A and C at the Grand Ravine. We went through to avoid the enemy’s counter-barrage and then lay waiting beyond his barrage lines till our turn came.

  As the light grew we could see our first line forging ahead. To us it looked as if the enemy’s surprise was complete. We could even see the Highlanders signalling the tanks on at crossing point of trenches and other obstacles.

  It was our turn; soon it was the Grand Ravine which turned out to be no obstacle at all. A and C companies halted while we went through to take the lead. The ease and orderliness of the operation after the chaos of Ypres induced a sense of unreality. The battlefield was set out like a diagram; the functions of infantry gunners and tanks slotted together with such perfection that it seemed as if we were more pieces of a Staff Officer’s dream than soldiers at war. Small pockets of German prisoners were being marched back, filled more with curiosity than fear as the spectacle unrolled before them. It was as if the British Army had decided to have a mock field day on territory already in use by enemy troops. They seemed awfully decent about it and indeed quite keen to watch what we were doing.

  I raced my tank—in those days four miles an hour—towards my objective, the village of Flesquieres. The firm ground made it easy and exhilarating. The ground sloped upwards to an enemy strong point. As we came nearer I could see how formidable was the barbed wire—at least six feet high and ten yards thick surrounding the fortification proper. As a routine I closed my flaps and plunged into the wire; for a moment I felt a slight tug as it gripped us. Then we broke through and over wire which at Ypres would have held fast for weeks any attack no matter how powerful the artillery support, and probably for as long as we cared to go on hanging our corpses on it.

  I still had not got over my exhilaration when an appalling din broke out. It was probably only one gun left out of the depleted garrison, but there may have been as many as two. It sounded, each bullet, like a sledge hammer stroke against a sheet of cast iron held against one’s face. There was no way of seeing anything. Taking control I drove the tank so that the bullets struck in front of me; they could do no harm against our armour, and I argued that so long as the bullets were striking on the armour in front of me we must be heading straight for the machine-gun. As each bullet struck off a red-hot splinter from the armour, we had an improvised direction finder provided by the bullets themselves. Feeling my face pouring with a greasy sweat I put up my hand to wipe it away. Allen looked white-faced and scared as I saw him looking at me. I noticed that my hands were covered with blood. Another wipe with my hands showed me why Allen looked scared; my face was streaming with blood. ‘His gory visage down the stream sent.’ The words repeated themselves in my mind monotonously, rhythmical
ly, like ‘Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran.’

  The gun stopped. The silence seemed to flow back with a suddenness that hurt one’s ears. The roar broke out on my left side.

  “Put it in reverse! Fire the left six-pounder”—at anything, anywhere, to make them think we’re fighting someone, I thought to myself.

  The moment the breach was opened to load, such a storm of bullets came up the barrel that gunner Allen left it in panic. At once the inside of the tank was an inferno. Richardson managed to close the breach and thanks to him we had nothing but a couple of flesh wounds amongst us.

  “God damn your soul Allen you bastard!” I yelled at the cowering boy. I was blubbing with rage and fear myself.

  No sooner had the gun causing us such havoc been silenced, or had silenced itself, than an explosion from the rear of the tank rocked us all. The tank stopped.

  “What’s up?”

  “Won’t go”, yelled Allen.

  What on earth had happened? I had no idea and couldn’t think.

  “I think it’s catching fire by the petrol tank”, reported O’Toole.

  “Every man with a Lewis gun and as much ammo as you can carry. Now out you go! Richardson first—we’ve only one door—the left one. Fall out, firing your gun as you go. Into the trench!”

  Richardson tumbled out with only one bullet through his thigh. The enemy must have been as surprised as we were; all eight of us arrived safe in a bay of the enemy’s trench system.

  When I could look back I saw that the tank had a shell hole where the right rear driving mechanism had been; it was effectually out of action, but the destruction of the gears had saved the petrol tank and ninety gallons of petrol from exploding in flames.

  So—we were in the enemy’s strong point, holding a short bit of trench in a veritable fort. In front was a high brick wall. At right angles to this, and on our left, was a low wall about a copse of tall fir trees. As we and the enemy recovered from our surprise so the sense of menace grew. My utter ignorance of fighting, as contrasted with the professional soldier’s knowledge, was mercifully hidden from me. I could feel it, but I did not know it; subsequent events conspired to postpone my enlightenment.