Love and the Loveless

by Henry Williamson

  “I speak how I feel! Always did. I’m blunt, I am! And I’d do it again if it happens again! What the hell is there to laugh about?”

  “Oh, nothing really.” Only the idea of a poor wretch, as Mother would say, trying to do it again while completely disguised in White Leghorn feathers, so that even his eyes were hidden!

  “You’re a soft silly fool, that’s what’s wrong with you, Maddison! You’d let anybody piss on you and not raise a little finger to defend yourself. Go on, laugh at me!”

  “Have a spot of old man whiskey, Bright! I wasn’t laughing at you, honestly, only at your idea of anyone defending himself against a liquid attack with a little finger raised!”

  “You’re a bloody fool! You’d laugh at anything!” retorted Bright, contemptuously. “And you can stick your whiskey where the monkey stuck his nuts.”

  And Bright, with jaw extended and face pale, pushed his way out of the tent.

  Phillip poured himself a quartern of whiskey, and wound the gramophone.

  *

  The battlefield was covered with tanks abandoned in all positions. Some were reared up, with tracks dislocated; others were shot through and through, half sunken away in shell-holes, smitched with fire, tipped over, ditched, bellied, and broken. Sergeant Rivett being at a base hospital, Nolan now looked after the lines, an acting, unpaid, and rather reluctant lance-corporal, “But I don’t mind wearing a stripe for you, sir.” On August 8 there was a violent thunderstorm, to add to the terrors of the night. Phillip again gave his men rum when they had delivered the stuff, and so once more the string came back in hilarious mood. It was Charlie Chaplin funny to see someone slip off a duck-walk beside a mule slowly pumping itself along, sock-plug-splosh of feet, to haul out of a shell-hole the troglodytic driver the heavier by more than a hundredweight of slurry. A communal pull at Phillip’s water-bottle of 20% over-proof rum helped to keep the feeling of all being in it together. One driver had been killed, on the way up, by a shell. At last the body, after several back slidings, was secured upon a mule’s back and tied by feet and hands under the mule’s belly. It was the only way to bring the body back for burial; and the arrival at the lines after daylight caused some remarks. Bright already was known throughout Division, if not Corps, as the Tarbaby; now it was variously said that 286 Company M had brought back a stiffy for their private corpse factory, and (this spread farthest) because of a reward offered by rich parents. The truth was that it did not seem right to leave Daddy M’Kinnell in that lonely waste of mud and water.

  Chapter 14

  PHILLIP IS FOR IT

  10 Fri Buried M’Kinnell in graveyard at Kandahar. Nolan put on the cross of ration box wood he made, in indelible pencil, Sleep on, dear Brother, take thy Gentle Rest. One can never tell a man’s soul by his outward appearance. Company relieved at night. Took 9 hours. Guns brought back for armourers.

  11 Sat Half quarter day. £10 from M.F.O. making my balance at Cox’s £127–5–4. Attack on Gheluvelt plateau failed. Saw remnants of 7th Gaultshires coming back, had been in line a week already and were done up. Other battalions had been in for ten days, hanging on by eyebrows in watery shell-holes. Westhoek taken by R. Irish Rifles. Got tight.

  12 Sun Refitting. Collected four newdonks. Three drivers arrived, but we are still six short.

  13 Mon We are to go in again tonight. Have told Nolan to see that Cutts stays back, on picket, and to help stitcher and cold shoer, etc.

  During the four days out of the line the company, one of nearly fifty which had been in the battle so far, together with one hundred and ninety-two infantry battalions, had no rest. New arrivals had to be trained and instructed. At least the Machine Gun Corps was a specialist branch; it was the infantry which suffered when drafts made up of men recovered from wounds and young conscripts out for the first time were poured, regardless of regiment, into half-empty and quarter-empty battalions. They were like hundreds and thousands, childhood sweets consisting of minute coloured round specks, half an ounce of which, poured into a twisted paper spill, had cost a farthing. The poorest children bought them, because they lasted longest. The way to eat them was to dip a wet finger-tip into the spill and suck off the dozen specks that clung there. Now they were alive, the hundreds of thousands, with divisional colours on helmets, shoulders, limbers, waggons—among them the Watching Eye of the Guards; Keyhole of 11th; Red-and-White check of 25th; Pelican crest of the Earl of Derby, the 30th; Red Dragon of the 38th; White Diamond of 48th; the letters H.D. of 51st; Red Rose of 55th; Shamrock of 16th; Bloody Hand of 36th; Red Sword of 56th.

  The old woman in her little wooden cottage near Cutler’s Pond had a long spoon for taking “hundreds and thousands” out of the glass jar, to be poured into the spill, each one making a tiny rattle on the side of the paper as it fell. A tiny rattle in the spill-shaped shell-hole, one of a hundred thousand in the Salient making up the Fight, as the Staff called it; and the long spoon was dipped again, wrote Phillip.

  14 Tue Attack postponed. Took loads of duck-boards to Mouse Trap Farm by limbers 7 a.m.—6 p.m. Saw “Spectre” coming down from the line. Terrific thunder-storm in afternoon. More rain in evening. Went up line with weary pack-mules at 8 p.m. Moonless slipslop dark. Shelling bad. Board tracks tipped, splintered, floating in places. Lost 3 mules and two drivers (Winnick and Snell).

  15 Wed Got back at 2.30 a.m. Slept as I was, all in. Awoke 6 a.m. heavy and cold, on groundsheet. Sent off limbers with Nolan on duck-board fatigue, M.T. farm, as yesterday. Changed, shaved, washed, felt fit. Went to draw coy pay at Poperinghe and saw “Spectre”. We went to a service in a disused hop-loft, after he’d strafed me for drinking too much.

  ? Poetry is love, and love is courage.

  “No,” ‘Spectre’ West said on that occasion, “I’m not going to ask you to have another cognac. You’ll spoil your liver if you get in the habit of wanting ‘just one more’. I know what I’m talking about. Why d’you look at me like that? You’re thinking that it’s the reformed poacher who makes the best game-keeper, no doubt?”

  Phillip laughed. “I can’t keep any of my thoughts from you, Westy. All the same——”

  “No, it’s not the same! You are not me, remember!”

  “The violet smells to me as it does to you.”

  The pale blue eye glared. “Aren’t you being a little impertinent?”

  “I—I’m awfully sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “And I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’ve been an usher, you know, and had too many small boys to bear-lead. What I mean is that you still have poetry. You are not petrofact, like me. I see life as a waste land; you see the flowers. You have a future. George, bring me the cognac, and a tumbler. And coffee for my guest.”

  Coffee pot from chafing stand, then bottle, tumbler, and siphon were put beside him.

  “Now, tell me about your trouble,” he said, filling his guest’s cup. Phillip felt sad beyond words. Did Westy know he was going to die? He found it hard to speak.

  “Well?”

  “I’m all right now, thank you.”

  “You’ve reconsidered the matter, whatever it was?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Good. We must all dree our own weirds. I think I know what you wanted to tell me, but I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. It’s a matter entirely between you and your Commanding Officer. In the meanwhile carry on as you are now, and bite on the bullet. I said bullet, not bottle.”

  “That’s what I intended to do.”

  “As I told you before, you’re by no means the only one who comes up against it. At all levels of life there is not only misunderstanding, whence misinterpretation, but what might be called un-understanding, or failure even remotely to understand. Nowhere are things ‘too well’; and that’s an understatement. But I know nothing. I’m a low form of brazen life, a mere collector of local data. This weather hasn’t given anyone a fair chance, which is an understatement. I was talking to ‘Meteor’ this morning. The weather
has broken all records for rain this year. It was fine in August 1914. One and a half inches fell in August 1915, and just under three in 1916. So far this month, we’ve had nearly five.”

  “May I ask about the war?”

  “By all means. But I know very little.”

  “Why didn’t we go for the Gheluvelt plateau first? From the stuff coming from that direction, I imagine it to be as bristly with guns as a porcupine with spines. If Messines could be taken, why wasn’t Gheluvelt taken the same way? It’s no farther on than the Oosttaverne line was, and last June we would have got there if the reserves had been ready at once to go in. Surely the high-ups learn by experience?”

  “Now you’re asking what everyone else seems to be asking! I’ll try and explain. As you know, Plumer got to the Messines heights in one bound. But instead of thrusting on to the open Oosttaverne line beyond, he waited. Lest it happen again, the Chief handed the Salient over to Hubert Gough, his youngest General, and a thruster. But it was a gunner’s job to scupper the German artillery, the Porcupine as you aptly describe it, behind the Gheluvelt plateau. Plumer is a gunner. Gough, the Fox, tries to outflank it. His idea was to break through in the centre and outflank the Gheluvelt plateau with its concealing woods and reverse slopes. So there is the tactical dilemma. While trying to outflank, Gough is himself outflanked. The Porcupine shoots its quills into the side of the Fox.”

  “But didn’t Old Man Moonshiner anticipate this?”

  “I do not follow you.”

  “Big Chief Firewater whose genie out of the bottle cures the ‘aigue’.”

  “You horrible punster! Yes, of course the Chief knew it. But the Chief does not interfere with his Army Commanders, once he has given them the job. He can only give a directive. He approved the Fox plan, and so did Plumer, whose Staff knows every puddle in the Salient, which the Fox didn’t. And told the Chief so. Gough arrived here only on the tenth of June.”

  “But couldn’t the Fox have carried out Plum’s used arrangements, and plans?”

  “My dear Phillip, plans are more than printed words. Plans are the spirits of many human beings. And even if transference at all levels was humanly possible, or practicable, it would serve no purpose to ask a Fox staff to deputise for a Plum staff.”

  “I see.” He waited; and said, “I wonder if you would advise me. I forgot to leave my cards when I came to lunch last time. I’ve got them here. Who shall I give them to? I’ve written on them. One for the General, the other for the General Staff Officer.”

  “I’ll give them to the mess sergeant. You must be the only officer below the rank of General who carries cards with him in the B.E.F.! ‘Mr. P. S. T. Maddison, The Gaultshire Regiment.’ Thank God someone thinks it’s a gentleman’s war! Have you had them with you all the time?”

  “I brought them back with me from leave.”

  “I’ll see that they are put on the Green Baize Board. What else have you got in your knapsack, a field-marshal’s baton? Now if you’re fit, we’ll depart to the ‘Old House’ in the Rue de l’Hôpital. I’d like you to meet a friend of a friend of mine.”

  Phillip did not ask questions about this mysterious destination. Was it a Staff building? Had Westy a job for him, up his sleeve? A surprise job, perhaps in Intelligence?

  They stopped outside a tall grey house, on the door of which was a notice, All rank abandon ye who enter here. Inside on the wall was a painted hand pointing to the door, with the words Pessimists Way Out. They went up a wooden stairway, and then up another flight, and so along a bare wooden corridor. On the wall was another notice, If you are in the habit of spitting on the carpet at home, please do so here.

  “Is this Corps Headquarters?” laughed Phillip. He wondered if he had said the wrong thing, for ‘Spectre’ West looked straight ahead as he climbed up some steep open treads, and so into a large loft with beams and posts holding up the roof.

  Phillip saw that it was a chapel. From the king-post was suspended a chandelier with a ring of candles. Beyond, against one wall, was a red altar cloth, with green borders. Another red cloth, with gilt tassels, hung from a beam above the altar. The space before the altar was flanked by two massive candles on wooden stands. Beside each was a bowl of flowers. A carpet covered the centre of the floor. There were a few plain wooden chairs and benches, and two shrines, one on either side of the altar, below semi-circular windows. There was a lectern painted white.

  ‘Spectre’ West was standing erect. His eye was closed. As Phillip glanced again he saw tears running down one cheek.

  With the air drifting in under the tiles came the distant rumbling of cannon. ‘Spectre’ went forward and kneeled before the altar. He stood still, looking up at the whitewashed beams and purlins, stained brown where rain had dripped through the tiles, and at the smooth bare boards showing the holes gouged by the goat-moth caterpillar in the living trees. Father had told him about the goat-moth when he was a child, he remembered, how it fed on willow and poplar. The air shivered with deeper undertones of heavy howitzers, pounding away in the Salient. Then the sun came out behind a cloud, for light shone whiter through the five semi-circular windows. Here men had clumped up the steep and narrow stairs, borne up by Hope, seeking solace at the verge of unutterable Darkness. He thought of Father Aloysius, of Mère Ambroisine at the convent at Wespaelar, where Mavis had been to school, and Mother before her, and Mère Ambroisine had stroked his head and said, He is a good boy, Hetty.

  He stood still, unable to pray in words, hearing the sparrows chirping on the roof, and the incessant rattle of wheels on the pavé of the road below. He thought of Francis Thompson on the Embankment, sleeping on the paving stones under Waterloo Bridge, while his mind was lit by poetry, the spirit of God. He had read most of the poems so many times that he knew them by heart.

  Pierce thy heart to find the key;

  With thee take

  Only what none else would keep;

  Learn to dream when thou dost wake,

  Learn to wake when thou dost sleep;

  Learn to water joy with tears,

  Learn from fears to vanquish fears,

  To hope, for thou dar’st not despair,

  Exult, for that thou dar’st not grieve;

  Plough thou the rock until it bear;

  Die, for none other way can’st live.

  Yes, it was true. The old self must die. He had always known it, but had so seldom acted it. He felt strangely glad that he was at the front. It was the only life; the only death.

  Afterwards, ‘Spectre’ West said, “Do you know ‘The Mistress of Vision’?”

  “Yes, I was recalling part of it while you were in front.”

  “I wondered if you were when some of the lines came into my mind.”

  “How strange! And yet——”

  “Now you know why I told you that you did not need whiskey.”

  “I’m sorry to be obdurate, Westy, but we don’t get the kind of food we had for lunch today, in the line.”

  “I know, I know,” whispered ‘Spectre’ West. “You don’t have to explain to me. Obdurate means hard of heart; you will never be that. Obstinate, yes indeed! I’m sorry ‘Tubby’ Clayton is not here, you would like him.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Gilbert Talbot’s great friend. Gilbert was a Green Jacket, killed in the flame attack at Hooge. He was a son of the Bishop of Winchester, and a fellow of the quality of Julian Grenfell. The altar over there is his memorial. It’s a carpenter’s bench. This was a hop loft originally. Take care how you go down the steps. They’re built close and steep for better foothold, while carrying up bags of hops. Now I’m going to take you to have a hot bath. Only mind you don’t catch cold afterwards.”

  To O.C. 286 M, Battle H.Q. 14 August 8 p.m.

  Sir,

  May I have four drivers from the Coy lent to my section please to replace casualties. I have only 16 drivers for 47 mules. This means that drivers on fatigue all day have to go up with pack-mules all night. The matter is urgent
.

  I am informed that Sergeant Rivett is about to return from the Base.

  P. S. T. Maddison

  lt, 286 M.

  In the night of 15/16 August, through a terrain of yellow clay underlying sand and patches of gravel—a hungry soil, its fertility maintained in peacetime by ewe flocks wintering on turnips in the rotation of corn, hay, roots—a terrain now liquefied, without drainage and become morass again, nine British divisions struggled forward to the tape lines laid from Langemarck in the north to St. Julien and onwards to Frezenberg, thence across the Ypres–Roulers railway embankment to Westhoek and the Nuns’ Wood to Stirling Castle south of the Menin road: a distance, as the tapes were laid, of ten thousand yards.

  Before the march-up, there had been protests at Corps level that the attack would suffer because “the concentration of German batteries at the back of the Gheluvelt plateau had not been mastered”. Also it had been stated that many of the tracks and duck-walks, by which alone the infantry dumps were to be replenished, were destroyed. Moreover, the assault divisions were far under strength, despite drafts of conscripts and men who had recovered from wounds. And all the divisions in reserve to the four attacking corps were now immediately behind the line, in addition to the last two divisions in Army reserve. The jar of hundreds and thousands was almost empty.

  To the young Fox, with eyes fixed on the distant sky-line, came three of the best divisions of Old Plum. They were “to be held back for subsequent developments”, which meant the break-out and pursuit into the Plain of Flanders. The Fox was still on the Black Line, with the Green Line, otherwise Flandern I, before him; and beyond Flandern I were Flandern II and Flandern III.

  *

  On the morning of 16 August, after a rainy night to St. Julien and back, Phillip heard the barrage breaking beyond the muddy tapes which almost were trodden out of sight by 4.45 a.m. He had then been back at the picket line about five minutes. At the end of ten hours with the mule convoy he was almost beyond speaking power; but compared with the infantry, he knew, the transport section had a cushy life. He could sleep, sleep, sleep; and out of the rain.