15
WE were under fire, but I had not the slightest idea where the bullets were coming from. They were in fact converging on us from all directions. At the time the most obvious seemed to be the high wall in front, but I had no clear reason for concentrating on that rather than any other possible target. I told O’Toole to take charge in the trench while I tried to deal with our tormentors.
Taking four drums of Lewis gun ammunition attached to my waist and a Lewis gun, I clambered clumsily onto the top of the tank and set up my gun under cover, as I thought, of the fascine—the bundle of faggots about four feet thick which had taken the place of the unditching beam as a special equipment for crossing the deep trenches of the Hindenburg Line trench system. I was not awa-e of any danger and therefore experienced none of the fear which might have served as a substitute for my common sense which was wholly lacking. I commanded a good view of the little copse behind the wall, this 1 proceeded methodically to spray. I soon exhausted almost the whole of my four drums of ammunition.
By this time my escapade had stirred up a veritable hornets’ nest in the copse. I do not know what I expected would happen—probably nothing—but I was surprised to find German troops, led by an officer, pouring out of a gap in the left distant corner of the wall. An officer pointed his swagger stick to direct his troops to me. I swung round and opened fire on them as they were coming through the gap. At the same moment my gun jammed.
I saw it was a simple stoppage, could not clear it, and realizing that my drum had no more ammunition left fell rather than scrambled back into the shelter of the trench.
By this time I must have been thoroughly scared though I was unaware of it. My crew were standing about nonchalantly doing nothing.
“Why the hell aren’t you firing?” I said to Lance Corporal Forman—he and O’Toole were the only men left. Allen, the driver, had been sent back with gunner Allen to take our two wounded, Pell and Richardson, to the trench on the perimeter. “For God’s sake man! Fire at them!” I pointed to the enemy now lying in the open. O’Toole was fiddling with a German gun.
“No ammunition left”, said Forman.
Before the enemy had recovered I said “Get back!”—to the trench about a hundred yards distant—”short rushes!” O’Toole struggled with the German gun.
I remember our short rushes; Forman and I with our last two Lewis guns. I remember being hauled by a Highlander into the trench. Safe at last, I thought as I realized that all three were present, still unwounded. Otherwise, but for a vague sense of being under fire, I remember no details.
Gradually I took stock. Richardson and Pell were in good shape, but both were too badly wounded for further fighting; the two Aliens were very badly shaken and as there was nothing for Allen to drive I decided to send all four back under O’Toole who was to report to Advance Company HQ after handing over the two wounded to the first advanced aid post. The Aliens he was to hand over to the Regimental Medical Officer. Forman and I stayed with our two Lewis guns and the German machine-gun which now was ready, after O’Toole’s ministrations, to fire again.
I reported to the Seaforth captain, Edwards, who appeared to be the only officer left in his company. While I was talking to him in the trench there was the loud crack of a near bullet. He fell forward and I saw blood and brains bulge out at the back of his skull.
I was too stunned to know where or how the bullet was fired; it might have been chance but the infantry had no doubt it was aimed fire. As we were occupying the enemy trench system there was no parapet to protect us from fire within the planned strong point.
Search showed a suspicious thickening near the top of one of the tall pines; on this our Lewis gunfire was at once concentrated. Under the intense fire the thickening began to disintegrate, a body detached itself, caught in some branches, hung for an instant and crashed onto lower branches, was again halted and finally dashed to the ground. The Lewis guns continued their chattering search of all tree-tops in the radius of our segment, but there was no further result. Edwards was avenged. What does ‘avenged’ mean? Think it out—later.
At Ypres, and once again later, there was a sniper posted at least a mile within our lines. In each case it was clear that the end for the sniper was death or, very improbably, capture. Such cold-blooded bravery, if there is such a thing as bravery, I could envy but never emulate.
There was one similar act which was unknown to me at the time (but of which I learned from the Commander-in-Chief’s dispatches) which had led to the destruction of our tank and seven others. The Commander-in-Chief, in addition to all his other crimes, was much criticized for having given comfort to our enemies by having made known to the world the bravery of the German gunner officer whose devotion to duty, when all his men had fled, was responsible for our disaster. For my part I am glad that, even if one cannot oneself be capable of such courage, our C.-in-C. had the courage to acknowledge courage in our enemies. In 1976 I learnt there was no such German officer, but in 1917 there was a hole in my tank.
The Highlander senior NCO reported to me that there were no officers left. Would I therefore take command of the infantry? As I knew nothing of infantry fighting I asked him to stay near and advise me on my new duties.
They turned out to be insignificant. It was obvious that we had to hold our positions which we did against one powerful counterattack on our left flank. Although the troops of the infantry battalion on our left were forced to yield some ground we held our pivotal position. We lit our marker flares when one of our reconnaissance planes came over.
That was the end of my part in the Cambrai battle. Shortly after, the Colonel of the regiment, hearing my report of the position rapidly summed it up.
“Since you have no tanks you and your bloody Lance Corporal are no good to me. Get back to our HQ.”
I reported to our Major, was kindly received and told to turn in. My batman had produced my sleeping kit; I lay down and in the slight drizzle that had started fell fast asleep. Some time the next day we went back to the comforts of our bivouac in the wood.
Through the day I heard, bit by bit, what had happened. Quainton had escaped injury and so had two section commanders, Bagshaw and Clifford. Stokes was dead and so was Bayliss. Broome had not been in action. Cohen had been very badly wounded and it was thought was now in the hands of the military hospital.
Of the rest of the company one-third that had gone into action had been killed. As usual there were few wounds as the nature of tank warfare meant that most casualties were killed outright by direct gunfire or the almost instantaneous fire caused by the burning petrol.
Looking back I am surprised that these casualties had so little impact on us at the time. In the next few days Quainton and I had plenty of time to talk. His tank had broken down just after the Grand Ravine; he and his crew had been holding a position ready in case of counter-attack when their tank was knocked out. It blazed up at once and for the rest of the day could not be approached because the exploding ammunition made it a spectacular but dangerous firework. None of them was hurt and as no counter-attack developed and nothing could be done for the tank they were ultimately withdrawn.
Quainton, Carter and I were thrown together with very little to do. Quainton was a comforting person to be with, partly because of his Quaker origins and secure religious outlook. Carter, the tough, wiry, colonial intelligence officer, was also good company, but for different reasons. He was supposed to have joined the army, coming to England for the purpose, when he was still at the permissible age. I am sure he was nearer sixty than forty, but his great physical fitness gave a mild degree of plausibility to his fictions. He strode about his duties, in action or out of it, with a stout walking stick which he said was not so heavy as a rifle and “a damned sight more use”. We did not discuss the casualties; they had gone and that was that.
We few survivors were summoned to say good-bye to the Major. We went down to the road where the car was going to pick him up. There the old aristocrat spoke
a few words.
It appeared that he had been dismissed from his command. There seemed to be no good reason to suppose that he ought not to have been—and equally no good reason to suppose that he should have been retained. I could only suppose that it was in keeping with a stereotype of the Colonel’s idea of efficiency. To be efficient you must be ruthless; if you were ruthless it proved that you must be efficient.
“You mark my words”, muttered the Major, “I’ll get that tailor’s dummy”— meaning, we all assumed, the Colonel—”You see if I don’t.”
Shaking hands with our small party and wishing us luck he clambered into the car and drove off. He was in a very bad temper, only slightly alleviated by his assumption that he was beloved by his troops—of whom in fact he had only the vaguest impression. Still, I was sorry to miss the healthy countenance and exuberant moustachios. He was a link—with the past.
To anticipate: before Christmas our Colonel also went— dismissed. Quainton saw him on leave reduced to the rank of captain. Poor man; the blow to him must have been infinitely worse than if he had never been promoted to a job for which he had only one qualification—his looks. Gull went at the same time.
16
THE removal of our company commander had one immediate consequence for us; the interviewing of officers reporting their part in the battle fell to Major Gatehouse. He was a powerful, ambitious and not very intelligent regular. I loathed the prospect of having to explain the action; I did not feel very clear about it even after several talks with Quainton and Carter. To make matters worse there was a rumour, fortunately quashed in a day or so by the capture of Flesquieres, that Highland troops had been fired at by a British officer from on top of his tank. I could not see how I could have made such a mistake because the troops who counter-attacked were German. We could not, all three, have been mistaken—nor yet the Highlanders who had witnessed the action. But anything seems possible in retrospect after battle. The evidence of German dead had not become available at the time.
I was called to see Gatehouse. I was far from being at ease as I stumbled through the interview. It was a long one and I was relieved that my account, which was substantially the same as that previously given by O’Toole and Forman when the men’s account of the battle had been taken, seemed to reassure him. Then, right at the end my confidence was shaken; Gatehouse congratulated me on a ‘stout show’ and said he was going to recommend me for the Military Cross.
I could not easily say why I felt dismayed. Even the rumour about the ‘officer on the tank’ could hardly account for my feeling. Why on earth couldn’t they leave me alone? But so it was. Quainton congratulated me and was surprised that I was annoyed; I said I wished I had never heard of tanks.
Quainton told me that he and Bayliss had talked before the action, wondering whether they should not tell the CO they wanted to become conscientious objectors. He said he had spoken to Gull after the action and put his doubts to him. I said that in any case after action ‘they’ would say that it was ‘shell-shock’, and before action that he did not know what he was talking about. We were still discussing this when Carter appeared. Affecting a jaunty tone he said he had just heard my good news and congratulated me.
Quainton went on, “Obviously the whole business is flat contrary to the Christian religion.”
“Well of course it is”, said Carter, “But”, he added, “I don’t believe in the Christian religion. I’ve never understood what all you pious people are doing here. I think the Boche are a lot of dangerous maniacs—if we don’t stop them it’s all up with everything decent.”
“Why do you bother with its being decent then?”
“Because I prefer dealing with decent people. In my business before the war”—he was a coffee planter—”I preferred dealing with people who didn’t lie, stuck to their bargains and didn’t rob you if your back was turned. Or murder you”, he added meditatively, “but I don’t see what this has to do with Christianity.”
“Christianity has a lot to do with it though”, rejoined Quainton. “If there had been no Christianity there would not be any decent people to deal with.”
“Oh rot! The biggest liar I ever knew was a ‘Christian’. By the way, did you know that poor Yates lost one of his ‘pips’?”
Yates had, before leaving England, been promoted to Lieutenant, a step nearer getting back to his mourned and coveted Captaincy. Carter told us that at Ypres he had broken down and hidden, weeping, in a shell-hole. He was now a second lieutenant and a tank commander. He was all right again and had been all right at Cambrai, perhaps because A Company in reserve had seen no fighting after we had gone through them at the Grand Ravine. Our debate ended for the time being, leaving me to bear my impending Military Cross alone.
Two days later Gatehouse called for me. He seemed curiously excited—I wondered what was up now. It was not long in coming.
“I have had a long report about you from the 51st Division.” (My God, not shooting up their men for heaven’s sake7)
After an impressive pause he went on, “They have said they want to recommend that you be awarded the Victoria Cross. With their report I absolutely agree. So I am putting you in for the Victoria Cross, not the MC.”
Not a court martial, I thought. Not for shooting their men or losing my tank. I was immensely relieved. “Did you say from the 51st Division sir?”
“Yes, entirely their idea. My recommendation has not gone through to HQ. So it can go in ‘for Military Cross read Victoria Cross’”, he said with heavy playfulness.
I could not think of any suitable reply, so I saluted and went to digest this turn in my fortunes.
In fact I did very little digesting; the recommendation was so utterly unlike the experience I would have expected had I been told two months earlier that I should receive it. Gatehouse managed to be completely unconvincing; it sounded as if what he was saying had nothing to do with me, but a great deal to do with some story of which he was the hero. The story, I could see, was quite a good one even if somewhat unconvincingly dramatic. It was odd that it fitted so closely the facts as I knew them, and odder still that nevertheless it was not the experience I had had.
Yates looked in, disgruntled, red-faced and red-eyed. Was I supposed to know, to say something?
“Congratulations old man—wish I had had your luck. If I had the luck of the draw.
It was obvious he had not—he was drunk. I did not hear from him what had happened. Indeed he was so oblivious of any personal disaster that I wondered if the story I had heard had any truth in it. I judged it prudent not to ask any questions. I murmured something suitably nondescript, but I need not have worried; he had staggered off.
He was immediately followed by another A Company officer, Collinson. He looked at me with frankly jealous, envious eyes as if hardly able to believe that / of all people should be on the way to a decoration—and such a decorationl His eyes kept on returning incredulously to have another look. No; there was no clue; nothing at all.
“It’s no good looking at me like that—I haven’t done anything. You’d better ask Gatehouse.”
He checked his wandering gaze, quickly, guiltily. His eyes settled on my face again. He was not really listening to me, suspecting that I was probably being modest, or, more likely still, that I was a bit soft in the head. “Why Bion? Why not me?” he seemed to be asking himself vainly. Then he sheared off.
The baffling old problem—why do the wicked prosper, and not decent, worthy fellows? I could not help him. I was obviously all set to be turned into a war hero though I could not bring myself to believe that anything so ridiculous as my having to wear a VC would come out of it.
Yet—I hoped… But what for? I longed to be a VC. It would be wonderful… but I dreaded it. The worst part of it was facing my crew. They were there damn it! They knew what had happened; they had seen what I had seen and had been in the same danger. They did not know—I did—that it was my bungling incompetence that had driven the tank into the strong p
oint before time, before I was due. Had they all forgotten that I shouldn’t have been there at all? Ought I to remind them? Or should I keep my mouth shut and get a VC? How marvellous it soundedl
I had to face my crew; they would have heard by this time. Booby Bion. How humiliated I had felt when F. M. Kingdom—the master we called Bim—ticked me off, with the background of sniggers from the form. This was worse. I faced them: Hayler, the farmer who was no more likely to be fooled than Williams was when facing Henry V; the two Aliens, my driver and the one who was shortly to be charged with the crime of ‘dumb insolence’ for his curious archaic smile.
“Of course I realize”, I stammered out my guilty embarrassment, “that we were all in it and it’s silly to single me out as if I were…” (Bloody fool, I said to myself, what the hell did you get those pips on your shoulders for? You knew you wanted to be ‘somebody special’, and you knew you weren’t.)
I think it was Colombe who recognized my embarrassment and came to my rescue. “We are all very pleased sir”, he said. Hayler said nothing; Allen the Australian said nothing; Allen was not insolent but was with his senses shut.
Gradually in the following days I grew a protective skin and my fellow officers shut me out. I was not ostracized—it was as if they had become reconciled to my peculiarity, a ‘rum bird’, always a bit queer, more queer even than Cohen and Quainton. In this unpleasant turmoil of feeling I faced the prospect of further investigation. How I hated them all! How I longed to avoid them all. But I loved my crew and resented being cut off from them.
The Long Week-End 1897-1919 Page 19
