Blunted Lance

by Max Hennessy

‘Your clothes are thin, boy.’

  ‘That’s because of the heat, sir.’

  ‘What about the engine? She seems very slow.’

  ‘It ought to be faster, sir. Everybody acknowledges that.’

  The officer who had stage-managed the demonstration interrupted. ‘The navy and the flying corps have first call on all engines,’ he explained. ‘We have to make do with what we can get.’

  Aware of his lack of knowledge even of the car he owned, the Field Marshal turned to the tank commander again. ‘I’d like to see inside.’

  A few eyebrows were raised but the tank commander was more than willing.

  ‘It’s pretty dirty in there, though, sir,’ he warned.

  ‘Damn the dirt! This is the most exciting thing I’ve seen for months.’

  The inside of the tank was stifling and stank of hot oil. There were projecting pieces of hot metal and only limited vision through open slits.

  ‘How about communication with each other?’

  ‘Hand signals, sir. You can’t shout above the engine and the noise of the tracks.’

  ‘How about with outside?’

  ‘Pigeon, sir. We shove ’em out through the hole there.’

  ‘Then how do you lead your people into action?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘That’s something we’re trying to work out, sir. So far, we can only think of the commanding officer walking in front.’

  ‘And that,’ the Field Marshal said in a flat voice, ‘will be bloody dangerous.’

  The demonstration was followed by lunch and drinks which made the Field Marshal wonder why it was that politicians seemed unable to decide anything without feeding their faces. Robert, he noticed, had disappeared and he decided he’d gone deliberately rather than have to offer his father a lift in his car.

  Because of the late hour when he returned to London, the Field Marshal decided to eat in the West End before meeting his wife and daughter-in-law. The Cavalry Club didn’t appeal because he wasn’t in the mood to listen to flattery or to satisfy the old men waiting in the leather armchairs for the latest news from France or the War Office. Instead, he took a taxi to Claridge’s, and he was sitting in a dark corner of the lounge drinking coffee and brandy when he saw Robert enter. He was about to rise to greet him, wondering why he was there, when he realised his son wasn’t alone and that the woman with him was Lady Balmael. They spoke to the clerk at the reception desk and turned to go upstairs.

  As they reached the lift, Robert’s eyes met his father’s. For a moment he hesitated, awkward and embarrassed, then he defiantly followed Lady Balmael.

  For a long time the Field Marshal sat in silence, staring straight ahead, as if he’d seen nothing, then he rose, paid his bill, and headed for the street. Feeling he needed to be alone, he headed for the Cavalry Club. He couldn’t face his daughter-in-law at that moment.

  As he walked, deep in thought, he realised he was in the middle of the park and could hear sirens going. As he stopped, wondering about his safety, it occurred to him that, despite the whistles, he was probably in the safest place in the whole of London. Nothing but a direct hit from a bomb could hurt him. In the distance, he could hear the screams of women heading for the shelters and the shouts of the men with them. The street lamps had gone out and the place was in darkness but, standing in the park, he saw that searchlights had sprung up all round the city. Lifting his head, at the apex of two or three beams, he saw a long cigar-shaped object raising its nose towards the clouds that were reflecting the light of the searchlights. Guns began to fire from all directions and he saw the sparkle of shells in the sky, then over the East End several flashes lighting the sky told him bombs had fallen. Pity one couldn’t fall on Robert, he thought savagely.

  Next morning, he was at King’s Cross before most of London was about. As he rode back north he found his mind occupied partly by Robert’s stupidity and partly by what he’d seen at Hatfield Park.

  Gradually, Robert faded to the back of his mind and he began to grow excited. It still bewildered him a little that the army had allowed so many months of trench warfare to pass without considering some means of overcoming its special problems. Doubtless they were too busy, like the politicians in the House, with their private squabbles; and it was typical that it was Churchill who had risked his reputation and Admiralty money on the new invention.

  It was quite obvious that in the tanks they had a weapon which must not be squandered or presented to the enemy too soon. The first time they appeared on the battlefield they must appear in the largest possible numbers so that they could reintroduce the long-forgotten quality of surprise and tear a hole in the enemy front big enough to be properly exploited by fast-moving troops – even men on horses.

  When his wife arrived home, she was looking worried. She kissed her husband abstractedly, and as she took her hat off, he fished a little.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘Come on, Gussie. You’ve never told fibs to me before. What’s it all about?’

  She sighed. ‘Robert,’ she said. ‘All that nonsense of Elfrida’s about going shopping in London was just show. She wanted to talk. She thinks Robert’s carrying on with another woman.’

  The Field Marshal drew a deep breath. ‘He is,’ he said. ‘I went to Claridge’s for a meal and he was there with that damned Balmael woman.’

  Part Three

  One

  Everywhere you looked the earth was brown with humanity. Every field seemed to be choked with men and horses, and the arrow-straight road was jammed with more guns and vehicles than the Field Marshal had ever seen.

  As the Crossley car that carried him drove towards the east, convoy after convoy came past, rumbling carts with screeching axles and square-nosed, brass-bonneted ASC lorries, nose-to-tail, their drivers nodding at the wheel. Thousands of pack mules with tossing heads and wild eyes trudged southwards and westwards from the front, their legs and bellies caked with the chalky mud of the forward areas. Near every village carpenters were at work, both civilian and military, smocked and uniformed men working alongside each other to hammer bunks together outside barns and sheds.

  ‘There’ll be no mistake this time, sir—’ The pink-cheeked young major with the red tabs and arm brassard who had been wished on the Field Marshal at headquarters spoke enthusiastically as his eye roved over the ranks of guns, battery on battery, that were waiting ready in the fields, the men behind them stacking great piles of shining shells into dumps.

  The Field Marshal wasn’t so sure. Remarkably little seemed to have been done to disguise the approach of the offensive and, as he lifted his eyes to the high ground in the distance, he was in no doubt whatsoever that the Germans were aware of it.

  Listening to the soldiers, he was worried by their cynicism, sufficiently an old soldier to know what lay behind their guarded comments. The New Army men who had seen action seemed to have lost that eagerness that had led them to enlist and were now doing their job without sentiment or emotion. There was also no religious feeling, because the New Army men had sufficient intelligence to see that their God was the same as the Germans’ Gott, but what appalled him most was the intense hatred for the staff that was obvious everywhere. He had always been aware of the fighting soldier’s dislike for the men who mislaid his rations and got his friends killed in pointless attacks, but here in France so much fun was being poked at the red tabs, the glossy field boots and the elegant breeches it was almost a campaign of derision. Unhappily, it seemed well-deserved, because there were clearly far too many young men at the headquarters he had visited who had been selected less for their ability than for their family connections.

  Among them were some splendid men, many of whom had been wounded in action, but there were others who were almost caricatures of brass-hats, and the general impression seemed to be that they lived i
n luxury, never missed a meal, consorted regularly with smart Frenchwomen, and seemed less concerned with fighting than with conducting distinguished visitors round the safe rear areas.

  Despite the Field Marshal’s wishes, his visit had been well publicised by the government and there was a major general, a brigadier, several colonels, a whole battalion of less senior officers and a posse of newspapermen to follow him around.

  ‘I didn’t ask for this, dammit,’ he snapped.

  ‘With respect, sir—’ the brigadier was a smooth man in immaculate uniform who seemed to be remarkably untouched by the war ‘—it has to be done. Government instructions. War Office instructions. The people are interested. It’s a morale-building exercise.’

  ‘What damn morale can an old man like me build?’ the Field Marshal snarled.

  But he went along with the arrangements. Battalions were inspected at Querrieux and Bus and Coigneux, batteries in front of Albert and Sailly, and a training school for bayonet fighting at Verquemont where he listened appalled to the instructions offered to young men being inoculated with blood lust. In a South African Division facing Delville Wood, he found men with familiar names, one of them even a Burger and a grandson of the man who had been his second-in-command in the Zulu War. But no one remembered him.

  Then he discovered that the North Cape Horse, his old unit, had raised a contingent which was fighting as infantry, but once again he realised he belonged to the lost age of Victoria’s little wars and his connection with them was unknown.

  He was equally disappointed with his visit to head-quarters. He was given a good lunch and the brandy bottle was placed so conspicuously to his hand that he was particularly watchful. The Commander-in-Chief was on a visit to French headquarters and he was attended throughout by the brigadier in charge of Intelligence, one of whose jobs seemed to be to convince everybody at home through the person of the Field Marshal that all was well. He seemed to be suffering from a sort of self-delusion that the Germans were blind and stupid and was convinced that the struggle for Verdun which was beginning at last to die down from sheer inanition, was going to be a great help.

  ‘The Germans are worn out,’ he insisted. ‘Their reserves have all been swallowed up in the battle against the French. Once we get going, we can punch a hole in the front here so wide that any attempt by the Germans on the flanks to close it can only fail.’

  Over the maps, he became even more enthusiastic. His hand moved across the sheets, indicating strong points and positions where German reserves were held.

  ‘Sir Douglas would have preferred Flanders,’ he said. ‘But it was Joffre’s claim that the land here in Picardy is far drier and more suitable than the marshy land up there. Besides, it’s unfought over and undamaged and it gives us elbow room. We’ve built railway lines and provided water and seven weeks’ lodgings for over four hundred thousand men and a hundred thousand horses. It was, of course, originally to have been a Franco-British attack but the German assault on Verdun’s changed all that. It’s now almost entirely British.’

  In the eyes of the staff officers around him, the Field Marshal perceived an unholy glint of triumph – as though they had never wanted the French, anyway, and welcomed the slaughter at Verdun as a means of freeing them from the interference of foreigners they didn’t like.

  ‘What about the men? Can they operate in scattered groups?’

  ‘They won’t need to. We’ve made it clear to them they’re to obey orders to the letter. All they’ll have to do is go over with the bayonet and mop up the survivors of the bombardment.’

  The Field Marshal had looked across the maps at the brigadier. ‘Have you ever done any trench fighting?’ he asked.

  The brigadier seemed surprised at the question. ‘Of course not,’ he said.

  ‘Then,’ the Field Marshal had asked coldly, ‘how can you be so sure?’

  Sitting in the car that was taking him up to the line, the Field Marshal thought on what he had learned. The French seemed worried by the ideas coming from British headquarters and he had discovered that Rawlinson, commanding Fourth Army, whom he had met in South Africa and considered an intelligent man, also had doubts. Rawlinson believed there was too great an optimism at headquarters and felt that the methods to be employed would exhaust the British before they had exhausted the Germans. His own suggestions had been for a more modest series of attacks instead of an attempt to finish the war at one blow. Allenby, another intelligent man who had the Third Army, was also suggesting less ambitious ventures, but neither was prepared to object too strongly, and it occurred to the Field Marshal that the Dardanelles had had its effect on all of them. Ian Hamilton, who had run that campaign, was also an intelligent man and he had been defeated, and they didn’t seem prepared to set too much store by their military acumen.

  As the car neared the front, the Field Marshal brooded. He had to admit that about him there was a new spirit in the air. He could sense it, could see it in all the eager faces about him. Kitchener’s New Armies were arriving in their tens of thousands now, enthusiastic and, for the most part, untouched by the cynicism of the older soldiers. The shell shortage had been overcome, the ground was dry and different from the soggy marshes of Flanders. It was land where cavalry could move, good open country for the breakthrough. The Field Marshal earnestly prayed that they’d be given the chance.

  The procession of cars reached Albert during the afternoon. The place had been destroyed in the early battles and hollow echoing buildings with broken windows like empty eye-sockets and smashed doorways like wailing mouths passed on either side. Heavy batteries were hidden among the trees and behind ruined houses and, as they entered the road that led to the Rue de Bapaume, the car stopped to let a battalion of marching men pass. Mouth organs were whining and they were singing the maudlin songs that had already carried them across France for two years. They were all grinning as they passed, old faces, young faces, all brown and healthy, all excited at the prospect of being in at the final victory on the Somme. They were a Kitchener battalion and they forgot to give eyes right and one or two men, seeing the Field Marshal’s red hat band, even made rude noises.

  The old man, huddled in his coat, said nothing. He had never been one to fuss about ceremonial. What was more important was the look of these splendid men. Four after four they came, the crunch of their heavy boots muffling their strong rough voices. They were all reduced to a common level by their khaki uniforms and were sweating under the weight of their equipment, but they were all singing, all cheerful in spite of their loads, all chivvied by new young officers, all bursting into cheers at the slightest excuse.

  When the last man had passed, the car moved on again, eventually stopping at a crossroads close to the line. A tired-looking young captain with hollow eyes and a livid scar on his face that looked only newly healed, was waiting for them. He seemed quite indifferent to the Field Marshal who suspected he had done this job of conducting important people to safe areas of the line far too often to be impressed.

  ‘Cleaver,’ he introduced himself. He nodded to the pink-faced major. ‘’Morning, Horton.’

  Major Horton seemed to resent his attitude, but Cleaver appeared not to notice.

  ‘Ammunition dumps,’ he pointed out, gesturing. ‘Rest billets for troops.’

  ‘I didn’t come all the way from England to see ammunition dumps and rest billets,’ the Field Marshal snapped. ‘I’ve come to see the troops.’

  ‘Sir,’ Horton pointed out, ‘we’ve seen troops all the way up here.’

  ‘I’ve seen troops moving up to the line. Many of ’em. But I’ve not seen troops coming out of the line and I’ve not seen troops in the line. That’s what I intend.’

  It was noticeable that the cortège of officers and pressmen dwindled suddenly. The smooth brigadier discovered he had work to do and with profuse apologies climbed back into his car, removing with him sev
eral other officers. The press gallery disappeared at once – and far from unwillingly – as they were informed that they were not allowed, as civilians, into the area of the front line.

  Cleaver stood watching the Field Marshal while all the sorting out was going on. The old man waited patiently. He was cold and tired but was still grimly determined to see what he’d come to see. Cleaver seemed to consider him mad, but he shrugged and finally led the way.

  ‘Dangerous just here,’ he said, moving quickly across the road.

  Hurrying after him with Horton, back aching with stooping, knees cracking with unaccustomed exertion, the Field Marshal arrived at a wide and muddy path cut in the clay that ran through a cluster of white crosses on the edge of a wood. On one or two mouldering caps hung khaki ones among the old-fashioned French képis.

  ‘Devons caught it here,’ Cleaver remarked.

  The path went downhill until they found themselves stumbling below ground level between strong parapets of clay. The going was hard because the mud was glutinous and sometimes deep, and Cleaver was clearly worried for the health of his elderly charge.

  ‘You all right, sir?’ he kept asking.

  ‘Yes, dammit,’ the Field Marshal panted, hoping to God he hadn’t bitten off more than he could chew.

  They passed under a plank bridge and moved round a promontory of earth and timber that forced them to make right-angled turns. The parapet was edged now with sandbags, laid header-stretcher three or four deep. Between them grass was sprouting and a poppy bloomed scarlet against the sky. A few men stood in the trench, dressed in mud-caked sheepskin jackets, and more lay asleep on the fire-step. They waited patiently as the group pushed past, a tattered crowd with hacked-off overcoats and sloppy unwired caps.

  Here and there were dark caves with corrugated iron roofs with, occasionally, real curtains and little doors to give them a look of home. Above the openings were signs, ‘No barrel organs, circulars or hawkers.’ In the entrance to one of them a man was sitting with his shirt across his knees, delousing it.