Love and the Loveless

by Henry Williamson

  Sergeant Nolan was waiting. “We’re just about hooked-in, sir.”

  “Good man, oh, good man!”

  “They say the Alleyman’s got flamethrowers, but they won’t have carried them things so far. Best get out, sir.”

  “Have you seen Captain Pinnegar?”

  “Gone to see to the sections, sir.”

  Pinnegar came back, looking grim.

  “We’ll have to get back to the reserve line, wherever it is. From what I hear, the outpost line had been overwhelmed. Look at that lot!”

  Panic-stricken faces were passing, among them an officer striding on alone.

  “Let’s get a move on! Trouble is, no bloody ammunition. We left ours in Bourlon Wood, for the relief.”

  Phillip remembered the map of the night before. “There’s a station at Gouzeaucourt, Teddy. We might get some there. There’s bound to be a dump of sorts. Shall I take the limbers there?”

  “It’s as good a place as any.”

  “I’ll see you at the station!”

  “Righto. Lead on, for Christ’s sake. Better make for the road, though these bloody Hun scouts will strafe us, I suppose.”

  Barrow appeared, flushed and panting. “I’ve got your clobber, sir!”

  “Shove it in a limber! Are you ready, Nolan? Turn left just before the straight road. You know—the one we came down last night. Better still, keep off it, keep a parallel course, about a hundred yards short.”

  They got down without trouble, and found a train standing in a siding of the Decaville light railway built before the battle, when Gouzeaucourt had been about two miles behind the British lines. Its iron trucks were loaded under tarpaulins. The A.S.C. officer was clean-shaven, and wore pince-nez spectacles. He was saying that he could not allow any unauthorised removal of food or ammunition, when Pinnegar drew his revolver and said, “That’s my authorisation! If you don’t bloody well get out of the way …! Come on, get a move on, s’ar-major, get the limbers filled!”

  “I must ask you to give me a receipt for the stores you’re taking,” said the A.S.C. officer.

  “You’ll be able to give it to the Boche, who was just about up to our field-gun batteries in Gonnelieu when we left half an hour ago!”

  The A.S.C. officer looked bewildered. He went to the telephone, while tins of biscuits, boxes of Maconochie, bully, butter, and whiskey were put in the limbers, together with bombs and S.A.A. The A.S.C. officer came back to say that the line was dead. He looked anxious. He was saying that five heavy batteries of howitzers were in Gouzeaucourt when an engine was heard coming down the track. A great rattle approached, enveloped in steam. Waving arms were seen as the train rushed backwards into the station. The trucks were filled with elderly men. An officer standing up in the last truck shouted as it passed, “Germans! Coming down!” The train swayed past, going south, at its maximum speed of about ten miles an hour. It was soon gone over the skyline.

  “Better fill a couple of belts,” said the sergeant-major.

  While this was being done, Pinnegar took the officers into a shed, where they filled their bottles with whiskey and water. “May as well let the men have a swig,” he said, giving each section officer a bottle. Small loaves and tins of butter had already been dished out.

  Drivers’ carbines were hauled from limbers, magazines charged. Half a dozen belts had been filled when engine-steam was seen again at the top of the cutting. The train was returning to the station. Hardly had it stopped when the pioneers jumped out, and made for the village.

  “Look at them, the ragtime army,” said the sergeant-major, a stocky little man with a big dark brown head, as he munched bread and butter. One of them heard and shouted in a broad West Country voice, “They’m zwarmin’ through Gosh Wood, maydeers! The man in charge a-roarin’ and a-bawlin’ in Jarman ‘Zurrender!’ ’a crieth! You’d bestways start sparkin’, maydeers!”

  “Closin’ time! Jerry’ll be ’ere in ’arf a mo’!” cried another.

  “What do you feel about a receipt now?” said Pinnegar, whiskey-jovial, to the A.S.C. officer. “Of course, if it will make you happy I’m quite prepared to give you one for the whole bloody train.” Dot-like figures were now to be seen at the top of the cutting about a thousand yards away. Bullets began to buzz.

  “How d’you reverse this thing?” he went on, peering at the engine dials. “Like this?” He pulled a couple of levers.

  Steam expanded, wheels raced. The train began to move back towards the sky-lined German dots.

  “That will keep them guessing,” said the sergeant-major, stuffing the last of half a loaf into his mouth, followed by butter scooped from a tin with his forefinger.

  As far as could be seen, little groups of men were hurrying westward, down the road from Gonnelieu to the north-east, and crossing rising ground to the west. Explosions reverberated, as dump after dump was blown up by the Engineers. Warmed by whiskey and water, Phillip began to enjoy what was happening. Yet he was trembling: he realised that he was still half undressed.

  *

  286 M helped to hold a line in an old British trench running across the high ground beyond Gouzeaucourt. The Vickers guns covered open ground from a wood about half a mile north of the Peronne road to Revelon farm, a distance of nearly two miles. The defence was organised by a Brigadier-General who had lost his brigade. He had just had time to get out of his dug-out headquarters not far from Gonnelieu; and with clerks, cooks, and various stragglers had made a stand in Gauche Wood. Then behind him, he said, the Boche had come down in trucks drawn by a light railway engine going full-bore. The Boche were dressed in khaki and wearing battle-bowlers and so obviously windy that he tried some of his German on them; whereupon they reversed the engine and went back the way they had come.

  “Unfortunately we were out of ammunition or we’d have got the lot,” he said to Pinnegar. “It only shows you, one can never trust a Boche.” Then turning to Phillip, and looking at the pyjamas, “Where have you come from, the Ritz?”

  “Oh no, sir,” replied Phillip, playing up, “I always fight like this!”

  The General roared with laughter. Pinnegar’s gift of a bottle of whiskey had made him happy, too.

  The line was held; an attack stopped. The Germans went back. Pinnegar produced some food with another bottle of whiskey; and best of all, the General told them that the Guards division was on the way from Havrincourt wood, to stop the rot.

  *

  Phillip took his transport section to lower ground near Havrincourt Wood a couple of miles back. There he was told by a rueful Barrow that his clobber had been left behind when the limbers were cleared to take ammunition boxes; so he wound a spare pair of puttees round his feet and legs, before returning on foot with Morris to the line. The best part of a bottle of whiskey and water had given him a sense of invulnerability, the shivery feelings had gone. His eyes still had the stinging feeling, otherwise he floated.

  “It’s a good thing you fellows managed to lose your way last night,” said the General. “Your guns couldn’t have appeared at a more opportune moment, as far as I am concerned.”

  By the rumble of bombardment behind them, the Germans were still attacking along the Bapaume road. “It was obvious that they would try to drive across the base of our bite into their Siegfried Stellung,” the General continued. “Both Division and Corps repeatedly warned Third Army that the Boche would return the compliment, but I suppose Army reserves have gone to Italy, after that affair at Caporetto.”

  *

  Battalions of the Foot Guards were forming up outside Havrincourt Wood. Phillip, sent back by Pinnegar to supervise the filling of belt-boxes in preparation for supplies that night, watched them getting into artillery formation. The sun appeared in rents of low cloud. Strings of pack mules were taking up Vickers guns and ammunition, for the barrage before the counter-attack.

  Behind the Guards were gunners of some of the siege batteries which had been left behind in Gouzeaucourt. Other units, which had broken in retreat
, were being collected and re-formed. The most amazing sight was the appearance of the Guards themselves, both officers and men. They had been relieved only the night before, after the fighting in Bourlon Wood; yet here they were on parade with boots shining and puttees free of mud, trousers and tunics neat, wooden casing of rifles brown with oil polish. Amazement changed to pride as he saw them advancing in diamond formation: watched them doubling out on the sky-line into extended order as they came under fire. He followed with others as the hammering of machine guns laying the barrage seemed to serrate the day: saw them pass through the old trench while others there, including some Americans of the 11th Engineer Railway Regiment, rose up and joined them: and hastening forward, under the machine-gun barrage, the attack went down the slope into Gouzeaucourt—where later the supply train, only partly raided by the Germans, was available for the Guards, whose quartermasters duly gave the A.S.C. lieutenant receipts for all supplies removed from the trucks. Nothing could have been more convenient; it fed the division for the next two nights and days.

  As for the engine and trucks Pinnegar had started on its southern journey, they were reported to have passed, driverless, through Epéhy without stopping; the train continued on to Villers Faucon, where the engine ran out of steam. For the remainder of its time upon the 60-cm. line it was known as the Ghost Train.

  *

  286 M went back that night to Ribecourt. The senior lieutenant-colonel of the Brigade was in command, the Boy General having been killed during the heavy assault of the Germans debouching from behind the uncaptured Siegfried Stellung north of the bulge.

  The colonel was curt about the absence of the company. What had happened elsewhere, he said, was not his concern. There was no excuse for not having made every effort to get to Ribecourt the night before. The Brigade had been ordered at noon to move to Lock 7 of the Canal du Nord, to support another Division, and the 286th Machine Gun Company had been found wanting. The Divisional Commander had called for a report on the matter. The discipline of the Machine Gun Corps generally was considered by the Third Army Commander to be unsatisfactory. It was realised that the Corps was new, and had expanded too rapidly for a proper esprit-de-corps to be properly cultivated; but now discipline was to be enforced.

  Pinnegar was asked to read the acting-Brigadier’s report, and to sign that he had read it. When he came to tell Phillip, his eyes showed hurt under their anger.

  “Why didn’t you tell him it was my fault, Teddy?”

  “Why should I? I was in command, wasn’t I?”

  “Then I shall!”

  “Not with my permission.”

  “Then I’ll apply in writing to be allowed to see him.”

  “What bloody good would that do?”

  “It wasn’t your fault, it was my fault.”

  “Why split hairs? What the hell can they do? Only send me back to the school at Camiers, and take away my third pip. Or even send me home.”

  “Stellenbosched?” Phillip started crying.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you? I don’t give a hoot, I tell you, now the Boy General’s gone! He was a bloody good man. He’d have understood. We helped at Gouzeaucourt, didn’t we? I’m quite happy about going back to my regiment. Don’t let it get you down, mein prächtig kerl! Let’s have a drink.”

  “I won’t, thanks, Teddy.”

  “Aren’t you well?” He put a hand on Phillip’s forehead. “You’ve got a temperature, old man. How d’you feel?”

  “Oh, not too good.” More tears.

  Pinnegar made him see the American doctor, who diagnosed “Perdoxia unknown origin”.

  “Skrimshanker’s fever, doctor.”

  “Wale, I have never heard a louse called that, young man. You are feeling mean, I guess?”

  “Yes, I am, rather.” He wondered how the doctor knew about Pinnegar taking the blame. “But Teddy wouldn’t let me see the Brigadier.”

  It was explained that mean in America meant poorly.

  “I’ll send you down to Casualty Clearing at Edgehill, outside Albert, young man, with a recommendation to the Colonel there that you have a long rest in Britain.”

  “But I’m not really ill, doctor!”

  “Don’t you want to go home?”

  “Not very much.”

  “Is that so? Wale, I guess that attitude is most unusual. Haven’t you any young ladies you want to see?”

  “No, doctor.” More tears.

  At last the doctor got it out of him. “So your girl was killed, and you want to avenge her death. Now see here——”

  “No, not that exactly, doctor. If I had been true to my great friend, who loved her, Lily might not have been there when the aerial torpedo fell.”

  “Oh ho, I get it now, young man! But you must not assume responsibility for God, no sir! If that dear girl’s time was come, nothing you or anyone could do would have averted it. When the Lord calls, each one of us must answer alone.”

  Phillip looked suitably receptive to the idea, without being able to accept such an aspect of God.

  “Now don’t worry your head about what is beyond you, young man. You have had a long, long time out here, I guess, and what you need is a long, long rest. And be kind to yourself. Relax those taut nerves of yours. I am going to send you right down to Edgehill so soon as your man-servant has brought your pack.”

  “Mayn’t I go out to see my friends before I leave, doctor?”

  “No, sir, you will stay right here! One hundred and three temperature is not to be fooled with. You will go with the next convoy to Edgehill, and I will say goodbye for you to Teddy and the boys.”

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  He could write to Teddy, to Nolan and to Morris; but nothing could be done about Black Prince.

  Chapter 21

  COMUS & CO.

  3rd Gaultshire Regt.

  Landguard Fort, Suffolk.

  Dear Teddy,

  I am posting this to the Birmingham address you gave me, to be forwarded. How and where are you? I’ve wondered a lot, since I left the coy. Here things are much the same. I was sent to Mrs Greville’s hospital at Polesden Lacey near Guildford, but managed to get out after a week. The Board gave me 3 months’ Garrison B duty, and 10 days’ leave which were somewhat dud, as I saw none of my old pals. My best news is that ‘Spectre’ West is not missing as we feared, but wounded only, and back in England.

  The first thing Phillip had done on arrival home was to ask where The Times copies were; and on going into the front room he saw a neat pile of newspapers on the table, and on the top a list, written in the clear and careful handwriting of his father, containing all the casualties in both the Gaultshire Regt. and the General Staff for the past six weeks. At the bottom of the Gaultshire list, on two sheets of foolscap paper, was the word FOUND in large letters, and the entry

  Captain (temp. Major while seconded to the General Staff) H. J. West, D.S.O., M.C.

  He sat down beside the aspidistra in its brass bowl, and cried.

  Hetty saw, with pity that she tried to conceal, that he had a thin, staring look. She tried to tell herself that on no account must she question him about his doings in France. She was alarmed by his later manner, after he had refused a cup of Benger’s Food. He was so silent and restless, going from room to room, to see if everything was the same, and finding it the same, appeared to be unable to bear it. He could settle at nothing.

  At last she said, “Are you sure you are all right, Phillip?”—stopping herself just in time from calling him “dear”. “Is anything the matter?”

  “I think I’ll go down and see Mrs. Neville.”

  “I did hear Mrs. Feeney say that Desmond is home on leave, Phillip. He’s got his commission; something to do with anti-aircraft guns.”

  “How did Eugene get on with Mavis—or should I say Elizabeth?”

  “Oh, I don’t think she saw him after that one time, Phillip.”

  “I didn’t think he was quite her sort, Mother. So she saw him only
once?”

  “Yes, dear. He took her to the Coliseum.”

  “And then wanted her to go to his flat?”

  “Your sister Mavis—oh dear, what am I saying—Elizabeth didn’t say, Phillip. It was a long time ago.”

  “I think I’ll go next door and see Gran’pa and Aunt Marian.”

  “Yes, do, dear. I am sure they will be most pleased to see you.”

  Afterwards she saw him sitting on the first seat of the Hill opposite, where so many times, looking from the verandah of her bedroom, she had seen all the children playing happily in the summers of long ago. Was he hoping that Desmond or Mrs. Neville would see him? For he had not gone down the road after seeing Papa.

  Elizabeth—she must remember never to say “Mavis” by mistake—was the first home that day. Hetty asked her to be very very careful what she said.

  “He’s in the sitting-room, playing the gramophone.”

  “Father’s, or his own?”

  “Father’s, Elizabeth. His own was lost in France, he says.”

  “Yes, and if Father comes home unexpectedly, he’ll blame you!”

  “Now, Mav—I mean Elivabif—oh, what am I saying——” She laughed, the mood swiftly changed, she felt like crying, but said gaily, “Go down and see your brother, Elizabeth, and do be nice to him, won’t you? He isn’t very well. I’m just going to make some dripping toast; it will help keep out the cold.”

  Mavis saw Phillip sitting over a glowing coke fire. “Hullo, how are you? Haven’t you put on a lot of coke? Father will say something if he sees that! Coal and coke are awfully hard to get now. Didn’t you know? There’s no need to stand up. I know very well you don’t think much of me!” She felt distress. Why didn’t he say something? “Well, how are you? Can’t you answer, eh?”