Blunted Lance

by Max Hennessy

  ‘Will they get them?’

  ‘It depends how they make the appeal. They’ll need more than just the types who normally enlist. All too often they joined up for a good meal and a pair of boots because they hadn’t got a job. I think this time they’ll need to appeal to men with jobs who’re prepared to give them up for a while. They’re going to open up recruiting offices in every town, I hear.’

  ‘When will you go?’

  ‘Johnson thought within three weeks.’

  In fact, Dabney was standing on the quayside at Le Havre in less than a fortnight.

  The reservists and the remounts had poured into the depot smoothly and for once no one was arguing about the indents for equipment. Long before the call came to entrain for the coast, the 19th Lancers were ready, three squadrons of men and horses, complete with wagons, ammunition and supplies.

  Dabney had made a point of reading and rereading his orders, meeting the reservists and inspecting every animal. When everything was ready, he decided it was safe to meet his father for lunch and pick his brain.

  The Cavalry Club was as quiet as it always was, and still remarkably free of uniforms. Dabney had had a busy morning. He had been to the War Office, where he had arranged with his father to meet him, then he had visited his tailor. The old man behind the counter had known him since he had been a subaltern at the time of Omdurman.

  ‘I’m delighted to hear of your promotion, sir,’ he said, making a note of the crimson and blue of the DSO and the Sudan and South African campaign medals. ‘I’m sure it was well deserved and your father, the Field Marshal, will no doubt also be pleased.’

  As always, the club seemed unmoved by the events in Europe and it was impossible to hear the traffic moving outside. Dabney stopped to look at the pictures which he’d known, he felt, for most of his life – Rupert’s charge at Edgehill; the 21st Lancers at Omdurman; French’s charge at Klip Drift which had carried him through to Kimberley; the Marquess of Anglesey, who had commanded the cavalry at Waterloo; the great Duke of Wellington, curiously mild-looking for a man of such astringent comments; and Captain Oates, of the Inniskillings, who had offered his life in an attempt to give Scott a little more hope in the Antarctic.

  His father was in the smoking room, sitting in a deep leather armchair, studying a sheaf of papers. To Dabney’s surprise, he was in uniform. He hadn’t seen his father in uniform for a long time, and the blaze of colour above his left breast indicated just how much active service he’d seen.

  ‘Dab,’ he said, putting down the papers and rising. ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Dabney said. ‘Goodbye for a while, that’s all. We’re waiting for orders.’

  ‘It won’t be long. I’ve just come from the War Office. How’s the Regiment?’

  ‘Ready. To the last button.’

  The old man looked pleased. ‘Seen your mother?’

  ‘Yes. She’s not happy, of course, any more than Fleur. She’d heard from Helen in Berlin.’

  ‘Poor Helen. It’s harder for her than the rest of us. We may not be very clever but we’re her link with England. See Robert?’

  ‘No. But I hear he’s offered himself.’

  ‘He won’t go. He’ll put on a uniform and prance about a bit, but he won’t go. Perhaps it’s best. He’s more use making sure we get the weapons.’ The Field Marshal paused. ‘This war will be a disaster, Dab.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It should never have happened. The politicians panicked, and before they knew what was happening the whole of Europe was acting like lemmings. I hope the French plan’s a good one and I hope we don’t get lost in it, because the BEF’s not very big and we’re fighting for our very existence. It’s Britain and Germany who’re facing each other, you know. France’s become a side issue, and either Britain or Germany has to go down.’ The old man paused, his expression troubled. ‘And “down”,’ he went on, ‘will be a long way down. That’ll make it a long war because, under those circumstances, neither side’s going to acknowledge defeat until the very last moment. So, if you’re ever in command don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to enjoy being kept in the rear, sir.’

  ‘Don’t worry, they’ll all be in it, given time. I’m not sure John French has grasped the enormity of the problems which confront us. Not so sure, even, that he’s the man to have the command. There’s a weakness in his character and his outlook’s narrow. Haig’s already had a word in my ear that he has his doubts about him. Since he’s likely to be his successor if it comes to a change, it’s not surprising. The army’s full of intrigue.’

  Dabney listened quietly until the old man had finished. ‘How about you, Father?’ he asked.

  ‘Out to grass. Roberts is insisting on going to France to follow his beloved “boys.” We’re trying to dissuade him. He’ll only be in the way. Dammit, he’s over eighty and, field marshal or not, Bobs or not, the army won’t want to be occupied looking after a frail old man who refuses to give up trying to be an active soldier. I’m staying home where I can be of most use. I was born before Victoria came to the throne. I remember the Duke of Wellington patting my head. He liked children even if he couldn’t stand his wife. I didn’t learn about Waterloo from the history books, Dab, I got it first hand from my father. There’s no place in war for men of my age.’

  There was a holiday spirit about the BEF as it embarked. Despite the appalling discomfort in which they travelled, they cheered and sang and shouted ‘Are we down-hearted – NO!’ at the grey waters of the Channel, while the name of the commander of the German right wing had produced a song which so delighted them they persisted in singing it all the way across.

  ‘We don’t give a fuck

  For old Von Kluck—’

  They weren’t all young. The British army was small and it was relying a great deal on its reservists, and there were middle-aged faces and large moustaches among the pink-cheeked youngsters under the cheese-cutter caps. On their chests were ribbons for campaigns some of their comrades had never even heard of. They were tattooed, with all the usual crosses, bleeding hearts, unclothed women and ‘Death rather than Dishonour,’ and more than a few of them had crime sheets as long as their arms. But they were full of spirit and full of experience; the only trouble was that there were so few of them. Many were glad to be back as a change from unemployment, but there were as many again who were disgusted at having to leave their families to the meagre help offered by the government.

  It was easier for the officers. There was lunch on board, and the landing at Le Havre was as efficient as careful planning could make it. The population was already going mad as they filed down the gangway, both men and women kissing everybody within reach. Wine was flowing and the officers were scuttling about like lunatics confiscating bottles and pushing away the persistent French who were trying to thrust them on the far from unwilling soldiery.

  The long train journey to the front seemed occupied chiefly with feeding men and horses, a task that was not made easier by the fact that nobody seemed able to speak French. Dabney himself could speak excellent German because he had often spent his holidays with his German cousins but it was of little use to the French peasants who flocked round to see what the British army looked like. However, Leduc, who was his squadron second-in-command, came from the Channel Islands, and could translate.

  Union Jacks were everywhere as they detrained in a small town in the north to a scale of hospitality they had neither expected nor ever seen before. Dabney could see already that some of his men were beginning to get drunk and Johnson called him across.

  ‘Get rid of these damned French women,’ he snapped. ‘We’ve got to stop this drinking. The youngsters don’t know how potent wine can be on a warm day. When we move off, we’ll move on foot.’

  ‘That’ll startle the French, sir. They’re used to
seeing cavalry moving with a bit of dash.’

  ‘And ending up facing the enemy with exhausted horses. Our way will save the horses and sober the men.’

  They fed and watered in market squares where Uhlan patrols had looted the wine shops in the first days of the war, then began to move along a cobbled road through a drab area of mines and manufacturing. Somewhere ahead things were growing confused and there were constant delays. When the delays didn’t come from the front where some unit had come to a halt as their line of march was crossed, they came from the rear with cries to slow down to give the tail-end time to catch up. Horses were everywhere. There was no mechanical transport, not even for the generals, and though they had got into position with extraordinary speed, they were now reduced to the pace of Napoleon’s men because the railways were delivering troops faster than they could march away from the sidings, and the armies were growing congested.

  Everybody was alert with excitement, the officers crouched over their maps at every halt, studying the countryside for areas where mounted action could be considered.

  ‘Too many barbed wire fences, small fields and muddy ditches,’ Leduc grumbled. ‘We’d never get going.’

  Riding at the head of A squadron, Dabney turned from time to time to stare backwards where the lance points glittered in the sunshine above the fluttering red and green pennants. Up ahead he could hear the rumble and mutter of artillery where the forward elements of the BEF were in contact with the Germans. Around him, every field seemed to be full of men and horses and wagons, and the road they were on was jammed with more wagons and guns. Column followed column, rumbling carts, stumbling men, and horses staggering with exhaustion, riders dozing in the saddle, slowly bending further and further forward over the saddle horn until their noses almost touched it in sleep. Thousands of mules with tossing heads and wild eyes trudged back from carrying up supplies.

  Then they began to see batteries among the trees and occasional tumbled houses. When darkness came, they turned into a field. It was too dark to see what they were doing and they bivouacked silently, without attempting to make themselves comfortable. In Dabney’s mind there was a certainty that very soon they would be in action and, after making sure both men and horses had food and drink, he stumbled off to a tumbledown barn where Ellis Ackroyd, still with the regiment despite the promises he’d been given, had found shelter. It smelled of damp and mice and by this time Dabney felt mummified with the dirt on him, unshaven, tired and stiff with riding. He pulled a pile of straw together and lay down on it. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the roar of artillery and the occasional rattle of musketry, and through the chinks in the broken boards of the barn, could see a flickering light in the sky where the guns were at work.

  Things had happened so fast he found it hard to believe that it was real and kept feeling that he would wake up to discover it was a nightmare. Then he heard Ackroyd’s voice and realised that Johnson had appeared. He was holding a scrap of paper in his hand and was telling the orderly to make tea.

  ‘What is it, sir?’ Dabney demanded.

  Johnson crossed to the group of sleep-dazed officers. ‘Rouse the men,’ he said. ‘We’ll have time for tea but little else. We’re to move forward into Belgium. The French attack in the Ardennes has come to a halt. It appears to have been a disaster and they’ve had heavy casualties. One of General Lanrezac’s aides told me. He was trying to get the BEF on the move. We’re all moving to the left because there seems to be nothing there to stop the German right. The whole French army’s shifting front to meet them and the BEF’s to take up a position to the right of D’Amade’s group and the left of the French Fifth Army.’

  ‘Where, sir?’

  ‘Some mining town just over the border.’ Johnson glanced at the paper in his hand. ‘Mons. That’s the name. Mons.’

  Four

  They moved forward through the sweltering heat of the next day, pushing the tired horses along, flank patrols working the parallel roads. For some time now they’d been moving steadily east, and the squadrons had been broken up. Reconnaissance patrols had been sent out, brought back in panic as Uhlans were reported, then sent out again in different directions as the weird sensation of not knowing where the enemy was made the men in command nervous.

  They were in full marching order, each man’s possessions a saddle with two blankets under it, one for the horse, one for himself. On the offside of the saddle was a leather rifle bucket with a flat round metal mess tin strapped to it with a feed bag containing seven pounds of oats, on the nearside a leather sword frog and a pouch containing spare horse shoes, a folding canvas bucket for the horse’s water and an emergency ration of more oats. Now, in addition, there was a bewildering panoply of additional gear – with, round the horses’ necks, bandoleers containing extra ammunition. The horses themselves had gone ungroomed for days and, far from galloping, as their condition fell away it was all they could do to raise a spiritless trot.

  Johnson was not with the regiment. He had been to see the major-general in charge of the division and had not yet returned, and as they moved on again they were halted by a battery of medium artillery jamming the road. While Chapman, Johnson’s second-in-command, was still arguing with them, Dabney gave orders to tear down a barbed wire fence and the regiment moved past in the field alongside.

  Leaving the wagons behind to rendezvous at Carville, they moved on at increased speed but an hour later ran into a transport column moving towards the rear and had to wait until the wagons were turned off the road so they could continue. An aeroplane passed overhead, whirring like a sewing machine, a frail box-kite-like affair of wires and white canvas through which the sun shone, outlining the struts like the veins of a butterfly’s wings. It made Dabney think of Hedley Ackroyd.

  It was long past the time when the horses should have been watered but all the time the brigade major was chivvying them on.

  ‘The horses are going to suffer, sir,’ Leduc complained.

  ‘We’re in a war, Tim,’ Dabney said. ‘I’m afraid they’ve got to.’

  They pushed on again, the sergeants trying to encourage the men to sing, but they were tired and it was hard work. Dabney was aware now of his own exhaustion and sat straighter in the saddle to stay awake.

  There was still no stopping beyond a short halt in a village of which no one knew the name. The inhabitants had retired behind drawn curtains and somewhere in the distance there was the loom of a pit slag heap. A sergeant reported that the horses were beginning to go lame and that one or two had girth galls. There was nothing they could do about it. Then Leduc appeared to announce that C Squadron seemed to have vanished in the dark.

  The sound of firing grew louder. At midnight, they passed a heavy battery in an orchard and one of the guns fired as they clattered by. An orange flash lit up the gleaming steel of the barrel and they saw camouflage nets leaping in the momentary glare.

  Dabney’s horse was staggering with weariness as if it were drunk when Johnson appeared through the darkness and turned them off the road into a large meadow.

  ‘There are cattle troughs in the corner of the field,’ he said. ‘Get your horses watered and fed.’

  Lanterns gleamed in the darkness as they dismounted. One man, stiff after the ride, hobbled round his horse, hanging on to the saddle to keep himself upright. As Dabney moved along the lines, he saw that some of the horses were already lying down. Nobody asked about tents or bothered to tie groundsheets together to make bivouacs, but concentrated on hanging the nosebags on their mounts and preparing food.

  Ellis Ackroyd handed him a mug of tea, heavily laced with rum that coursed through his veins to bring life back to his stiff limbs.

  ‘Get the horses on their feet, Ellis,’ Dabney said. ‘Water by troops. And start now. It’s going to take a long time but we must be close to the Germans by this time and we don’t want them catching us unprepared
. They seem to do their shelling of villages during the morning so I expect we’ll be moving at dawn.’

  Ackroyd grinned. ‘Always dawn,’ he said. ‘Why not eleven-thirty? After coffee.’

  As daylight came, they struggled to their feet, still stiff and not much refreshed after only two or three hours sleep. The rations had come up and they were just about to eat when the first shells arrived.

  Whistling troopers, their braces over their hips, were grooming, watering and feeding their horses or cleaning rifles and saddlery. Other men, stripped to the waist, were washing and shaving in the canvas buckets that were used for the animals. A few officers in portable baths were removing the dust. Tea was being brewed and there was the appetising smell of frying bacon in the air. As he went about his business, Dabney became aware of a growing shout and lifted his head. Others heard the sound, too, and stopped what they were doing. The sound increased to a scream and there was a tremendous crash as a salvo of shells fell in the next field. Horses stampeded at once, followed by dismounted men, their faces all covered with lather. It looked like panic but was in fact no more than the swift reaction of cavalrymen useless without horses.

  No more shells fell in their immediate vicinity but there was a series of crashes near a clump of woods to the rear and they saw smoke begin to rise.

  ‘They must be after the battery,’ Leduc said.

  Though the shelling stopped, there was a great deal of bitter swearing because they were all itching to give their best and found little to cheer about. They had half-hoped for wide rolling country ideal for an exhilarating knee-to-knee gallop, but around them were only endless smoky villages, surrounded by slag heaps, railway embankments and the usual profusion of barbed wire.