Love and the Loveless

by Henry Williamson

  “Too much whiskey, more like it. That reminds me. I understand that two of your drivers got drunk the day before yesterday, after absenting themselves without leave. Why didn’t you bring them up to my Orderly Room?”

  “I didn’t want to bother you, sir.”

  Major Downham stared at him. Then he burst out, “Who the hell d’you think you are?”

  “Well, sir, they’re my men, after all, and I’m responsible for them. They do their job, and surely that’s what matters?”

  “I like your bloody nerve! My God, you take the biscuit! It’s like your damned cheek to assume powers that you don’t possess! Why, it’s a case for the Colonel. Or do you consider yourself superior to him?” concluded Downham, sarcastically.

  “Well, as a matter of fact I looked it up in General Routine Orders, No. 585, where it states that the Court must carefully consider the circumstances in which a man absented himself with a view to avoiding any special or dangerous duty; also this should be borne in mind when considering what charge should be brought, at the discretion of the Convening Officer.”

  “Really! Do you happen to know what a Convening Officer is, by any chance?”

  “I didn’t think it necessary to go so far as that, sir. After all, I was in the best position to judge. I know the two men concerned fairly well.”

  “A Convening Officer, let me tell you, is a senior officer on the Adjutant-General’s staff!”

  “Well, sir, I can only say again that they were my men, and I’m looking after them. Both have been under considerable strain, one ever since 1914.”

  “Like you, I suppose, at Messines?”

  Phillip took a deep breath, and trying to overcome the quaver in his voice, appealed to his senior. “Look here, Downham, as I used to call you, can’t we drop this sort of thing? You’ve had it in for me, ever since I romanced to you, that first morning at the office, when I said I’d been wildfowling in the Blackwater estuary, when I hadn’t. I know I was a damned fool over that. I’d read about it, and longed so much to go, and suddenly found myself saying that I had. And there’s another thing”—he was near to tears—“did you have to sneer at me when I came home wounded, when you said to Mr. Howlett and Hollis that no doubt I’d been running away, because a bullet happened to pass through the front of my leg and tear away most of my behind, as bullets often do! Can’t we let bygones be bygones? I apologise for my lapse in not asking you if I might withdraw from the mess, but honestly, I thought dinner was over, when cards were suggested. Shall we shake hands on it?”

  Downham seemed as surprised as Phillip felt about this outburst.

  “All right,” he said, at length. “Only why can’t you be like other fellows? You’re such an ass, somehow. I can never quite make you out. Anyway, you must pull your socks up and stop leaving all the work to your sergeant. Do your job, and stop miking; and no one will be better pleased than I.”

  “Very well, sir, I’ll do my best!”

  They shook hands on it.

  Phillip slept soundly until Morris awakened him with a cup of tea at five o’clock next morning, in time for early stables. Later in the morning, he was given permission by Downham to accompany Pinnegar into Poperinghe to draw company pay from the Field Cashier. The first thing they did after dismounting and handing over reins to grooms was to go into the Aigle d’Or for a drink. Hardly had they entered when Phillip exclaimed, “Good God! I know that man!”

  A staff officer, whose wooden hand was covered by a black glove and fastened by a swivel to his belt, and one eye covered by a black patch, was talking to three colonels at the bar.

  “Perhaps this place is reserved for the Staff, Teddy,” he said, hesitating at the door.

  “We’ve as much right to be here as any staff wallah! I’m thirsty.”

  “I’ll find out if it’s their mess.”

  He asked a hatless sergeant, a smooth man with well-tailor’d jacket, non-regulation brown shoes, and knife-edged creases to his trousers. The sergeant was impersonally genial, in the manner of his master. He was the sergeant-servant of the Corps General. “‘B’ mess is here, sir, for which the dining room is reserved. The public restaurant is down the passage.”

  “That is Major West, isn’t it, sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. Major H. J. West, from G.H.Q. Giving a lecture, here in the town this afternoon, sir.”

  “Where, d’you know?”

  “In the Convent School, west of the church.”

  “Is it only for the Staff, d’you know?”

  “I think it’s for battalion commanders downwards, sir.”

  The sergeant bowed and smiled slightly, before moving away on the Phillips soles of his highly polished shoes. He had his own valet, or batman, who gave both the general’s, and the sergeant’s, boots and shoes the real, much-boned Sir Garnett shine.

  “Yes, it’s ‘Spectre’ West all right, but I hardly like to speak to him, Teddy. I can’t barge in——”

  This feeling of diffidence was not lessened by Phillip’s awareness that Pinnegar’s appearance was a little on the loud side. He was wearing his non-regulation wide-cut salmon-pink breeches, floppy cap of thin material of very nearly the same shade, matching his shirt and tie. This kit somehow emphasised his I-don’t-give-a-damn-for-anyone manner. What a cad he was to think such thoughts about dear old Teddy …

  “Anyway, I don’t like the look of the place. Let’s go to La Poupée.”

  They went to a small street off the Square. It was crowded. They had to wait ten minutes, constantly being shoved as more and more officers tried to get in behind them. Pinnegar expressed his disapproval of the conditions in a grumbling voice.

  “The bloody place has been commercialised.”

  Phillip thought this rather funny, since the real name was Café de la Commerce.

  “Listen to that bloody bell every time the door opens. You’d have thought they’d have had the sense to take it down.”

  The bell rattled again. “They’ve got far too many tables in here. If anyone took a deep breath, they’d all tip up, one after the other.”

  Phillip laughed; and thus encouraged, Pinnegar went on, “But if anyone sneezed, fifty bloody wine glasses would ring a carillon and people’d think the war was over!” Gazing mordantly around, “Look at that waitress, I bet she gets a cheap thrill squeezing between the tables!”

  “Steady on, old boy!”

  “What the hell? They don’t understand our language, except napoo, san fairy ann and, of course, jigajig.”

  Thank heaven there was such a row going on, no-one was likely to hear. At last they could sit down.

  “Two Bifteks mit Bombardier Fritz. Vin rosé, une bouteille”—he held up one finger—“to commencer avec. Comprit, ma fille?” The girl went away nose in air. “See what I mean, Phil?”

  “You offended her, Teddy. It should be jeune fille, or mademoiselle.”

  “What the hell’s the difference? Why the puritan attitude? You don’t understand girls. They’re just like men, only the other way round—receivers, not transmitters. The little girl here has probably slept with half the fellows in the room.” When the girl came with the steaks and fried potatoes, he said, “My friend here thinks you ought to be called a jeune fille. I told him—you know your way about, eh?”

  “S’il vous plaît, m’sieu?” She smiled down at Phillip. “We have a ver’ nice cherry patisserie to follow. May I reserve slices for you?”

  “You speak very good English, ma’mselle,” ventured Pinnegar, winningly. “You are far too pretty to think only about cooking, eh? Am I right?”

  “Pleas’, m’sieu? Two patisseries—cherry?”

  “That’s right. Vous make up for it trés chérie, ma’mselle, ma chérie.” He patted her hand.

  “Two pieces of cherry tart, m’sieu, oui?”

  “Oui! And une autre bouteille, comme ça, vin rosé. Merci beaucoup, ma chérie! I—I think I’ve clicked,” he said to Phillip, when she had gone.

  I don’t,
thought Phillip. And twenty minutes later, Pinnegar’s optimism had gone with the wine. The steak, he said, as he tried to detach fibrous wedges from between his teeth, was nothing but old cow. “I knew by the yellow fat, as soon as I saw it. Deux cognacs, fine, comprennez?”

  “C’est triste, m’sieu, il n’y ena plus! Fini! C’est la guerre, m’sieu!”

  So they had calvados, which Pinnegar said was made from apples. It was fiery, and burnt a way down the gullet. “Hell,” he said, “I feel as though I’ve swallowed a lot of shrapnel bullets.” He took another sip. “Tastes more like potato alcohol to me. You know, they distil any bloody thing nowadays. This is probably made from petrol.”

  “Have a cigar with me, Teddy?”

  “I don’t mind if I do.”

  Two rather yellow cigars arrived in a wine glass. Pinnegar made a wry joke. “Even the bloody cigars are in khaki! Look at them, the colour of——” Phillip coughed loudly to hide the word. He wished Teddy would damn-well shut up. “Like bloody trench mortars, aren’t they? What the hell you see to laugh at, beats me!” Pinnegar, after sniffing, rolled one near his ear. “If it crackles faintly, it’s fit to smoke.” He listened. “Only just made, by the way it keeps silent!” He began to laugh. “These Belgians are bigger robbers than the French.” He bit off an end, spat it out, and tried to light it on Phillip’s fusee. He sucked for some time.

  “You’re smoking my fusee, Teddy!”

  “What did I tell you! Damp as a bloody midden!”

  Phillip flicked the wheel once more, blowing on the spark which instantly changed the black fusee head to crimson. Vigorous puffs transferred the rose to the cigar end. “How’s that, Teddy?”

  Pinnegar let out rasping coughs. “Tastes of phosgene, if you ask me!” He tore it open. “If that isn’t a cabbage leaf, I’m a Dutchman!” he cried, sticking the fuming end into his coffee. “What bloody awful coffee,” he went on. “It’s chicory ground up with dandelion roots, you know. Waitress! Ma’ms’el, l’addition, siwouplay!”

  “I’m sorry, Teddy, we ought to have stopped at the Eagle, as you said. Let me pay.”

  “Not on your life. I asked you to have lunch with me.”

  “Well, thanks very much. I’ll do the same for you next time.”

  “Not here!” exclaimed Pinnegar, swallowing several soda-mints. “Not in this bloody awful Poopy!”

  Chapter 12

  PHILLIP MEETS AN OLD FRIEND

  Outside in the cobbled street they parted, and Phillip made his way to the convent school. Several hundred officers were already assembled in the main room. Those behind followed the example of their seniors in the front rows and stood up as the lecturer walked on from the side of the platform. There was a scraping of chairs as three hundred sat down again, trying to fit themselves into the least uncomfortable positions, to relax as far as possible amidst other legs, arms, elbows, and knees. Those in the rear half of the hall were already smoking when Major West, standing white-faced and still, said quietly, “Do smoke if you want to, gentlemen,” whereupon, Phillip noticed, the front row began to fill their pipes. He wondered if Westy felt nervous. It must be awful to face hundreds of ordinary officers, when you were on the Staff.

  “I am asked to speak about the past, present, and future of Ypres. It is first heard of in history as a small fortress originally built on an island in the tenth century. The monastery of St. Martin was already there, apparently. The town grew fast, it had a charter in 1073, with two parishes, St. Martin and St. Peter.

  “Sheep, otherwise wool, made the wealth of England, and it made Ypres rich, too. Cloth-weaving was patronised by the Counts of Flanders. After the first two decades of the twelfth century, Ypres market was known throughout Europe, being a centre of much trade. During the fourteenth century the human population was nearly a quarter of a million. One can imagine the fields around the town, grazed by flocks, the pastures drained and irrigated by water taken off and leading back into the brooks, or beeks, whose names are familiar to many of you today—the Belleward, Reutel, Zonne, Steen, Stroom, Loo, Haan, Groot Kemmel, and so on. Sinister or apocryphal places today, but once of pastoral quietude. And will be so again, sooner than perhaps many of us can grasp at the moment.

  “But to our brief history of Ypres. Trade enriches a country, which means usually one particular class. There followed civil strife, a revolt of the traders against those who had been enriched by them. Ypres burgesses, with those of the sister-towns of Ghent and Bruges, took up arms against the Counts of Flanders, who tried to restrict their privileges. They had to fight, too, against the Kings of France, always enemies of the Flemish. Wars benefit only mushroom growths, profiteers and opportunists. True industry is paralysed, foreign merchants depart. The celebrated cloth trade of Ypres declined, city life with it. The weavers left. Some went to England, and established their craft there. By this time the Burgundians had taken the city, and destroyed its charters. By the sixteenth century, the Spanish were overlords. Under the despotic rule of the Dukes of Alba, the population was less than five thousand, and most of the city in ruins.

  “During the seventeenth century the French occupied the town and surrounding country. Louis XIV fortified it, making it one of the strongest towns in the conquered territory. In 1715 the Dutch garrisoned it, making the Belgians pay for their upkeep. A usual procedure in war, gentlemen, though it has been known to be worked the other way round.”

  This dry remark caused laughter: it was generally said throughout the British Expeditionary Force that the British paid both French and Belgian governments rent for the land they occupied, including the trenches.

  “During two hundred years the city had suffered siege, bombardment, plunder, fire, hangings, and heavy taxation to enable its Spanish and Austrian masters to fight against France. Flanders, you will recall from the classroom, is the Cockpit of Europe. Human nature does not change, nor does the nature of the wolf and the sheep. The moral seems to be that of Cromwell, ‘Trust in God and keep your powder dry’.

  “By a decree of 1792, the French Revolutionary Convention made new laws for Belgium. Ypres was powerless against the Jacobins, and lost under their rule what the town had managed to keep under all previous rulers, its municipal autonomy. The Concordat of 1801 removed the power of the bishops. The Dutch returned, to fortify the ramparts once more. Fifty years later, in 1855, under Leopold the First, the fortifications were once again torn down.

  “In October 1914, when the finest small army the continent has ever seen entered Ypres, the population was seventeen and a half thousand. The people were chiefly tradesmen and artisans, with what we would call a comfortable middle class of old burgher families and property owners. There was also a limited society of the old nobility living in hereditary mansions in the town, and old châteaux in the surrounding country of farms. A sleepy town, ‘a rose-red city, half as old as time’, with little ambition, small culture, her artistic minority living in the past, and caring for the town’s historical relics, mainly architectural. A town like any old English market town, its economy maintained by farming, which had taken on new cultivations of hops, tobacco, beet sugar, corn, and fruit, in addition to the classic products of beef, mutton, and butter. The butter market was indeed, until the summer of 1914, one of the most important in Belgium. I myself have an affection for the town—”

  Laughter and cries interrupted the speaker. He stood motionless, the laughter ceased. “I am perfectly serious, gentlemen. I came here with some friends in a reading party between Trinity and Michaelmas terms in 1906. Among other pleasures, we were offered some duck-shooting by the Baron of a very finely ordered château in a quiet pastoral hamlet. The Baron’s keeper fed grain to flighting mallard in the little brook which ran out of Bellewaarde Lake. Afterwards, we had an excellent game of billiards, I remember.”

  This information created a stir, followed by odd noises of laughter beyond derision. The contrast was too great—the familiar rubble and earth heap of Hooge Château beside the Menin r
oad, scene of innumerable flammenwerfer, bayonet, and bombing attacks over a totally upheaved and detonated soil saturated with gas, odours of the dead, and chloride of lime, on the one hand; and someone shooting duck and then playing billiards with a Baron, on the other. Everybody seemed to be laughing: why, Phillip wondered. Hadn’t Cranmer shot a pheasant in the woods, and cooked it for both of them, in November 1914? Of course: that was in the time of the “red little, dead little army”.

  “Yes, gentlemen, I am indebted to the Baron de Vinck for some very good sport. So ends a brief outline of the past. Now we come to the present, and to the not so far distant future. The Salient, and the country extending to the gentle rises—one can hardly call them ridges, in the sense of our downs at home, and particularly what we know as the chalk ridges of Sussex, Surrey, Kent and Buckinghamshire—the almost imperceptibly rising ground to the east, from the Gheluvelt plateau on the south to the Passchendaele-Broodseinde-Westroosebeek-Stadenberg hillock on the north—the Salient is like the palm of one’s hand, when held out stiff and flat before one, thus——”

  ‘Spectre’ West extended his right hand, horizontal to the ground. “The ball of the thumb and the thumb are the Monts de Flandres, lying west of the Salient. The palm of the hand is the lower ground of the Salient. The lines crossing the palm are the Steenbeek and its tributary watercourses, Haanebeek, Stroombeek, Lekkerboterbeek, and other threads. They rise about the watershed of the Gravenstafel ridge, flowing south and west, and then north. Other streamlets flow east, having their sources in the same sort of sandy, gravelly soils which overlay yellow and blue clays of the subsoil. This gault clay resists the percolation of water. So that’s our country, from which it is intended to dispossess the present squatters, on our way to the Flanders plain lying below the sky-line to the east.

  “Before I pass on to a description of the Flanders plain, I will speak briefly of the terrain of the battle to be fought before the breaking out of the forces of pursuit. The battlefield of the first phase is the palm of the hand. There are valleys, or more correctly depressions, between the fingers, whose tips end the rising ground. These depressions, to us, are dead ground, providing hidden routes for the enemy counter-attack divisions, and cover for their field-gun and howitzer batteries. Both the counterattacking divisions and the batteries are therefore mobile. The reserve divisions will lie out of range of our barrage, awaiting the moment to advance; the batteries each have several alternative emplacements, to which they can move at night. Now for the Eingreif Divisionen. The German word eingreif is more than our word grappling. Rather is it interlocking, or as they say in East Anglia, cogging-in, fitting-in-with. The eingreif divisions, one behind every division in the line, function by hastening forward, under cover of dead ground, at the psychological moment when the attackers, having arrived at their limited objectives, after an expense of courage, have not yet got into shape for defence.