The Shadow of War

by Stewart Binns

  Bron is still hiding her face as the fusiliers’ colour serjeant major orders them to salute as they pass the tables of the Maison de Ville. The men salute and turn their heads. Realizing that Hywel might well remember her, Margaret abruptly turns away. But it is too late; Hywel does see her and keeps his head turned towards her long after the rest of the Royal Welch have reverted to eyes forward.

  ‘Did they see me?’

  Bron’s heart is racing; she has suddenly become the bewildered, petrified girl from the summer. Margaret thinks it wise not to mention that Hywel has almost certainly recognized her.

  ‘No, don’t worry; even if they looked this way, they would only have seen the back of your head.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear it, if they knew I was here. I’m not ready to see them; I may never be.’

  Margaret picks up their bottle of wine and takes Bron inside the estaminet, where she finds a quiet corner.

  ‘It’s unlikely they’ll be billeted nearby. I’m sure they’ll be gone in the morning. There are tens of thousands of men along a line that stretches for many miles.’

  ‘I hope so, Margaret. I know it seems odd, but the only way I can cope at the moment is not to feel anything. I switch off my feelings when I’m tending the wounded; I imagine I’m a vet, treating simple creatures, not human beings.’

  ‘We all have to do that, Bron.’

  ‘I bury my memories, and I try to feel numb towards everything, but they come back. Life was so simple at Pentry. Tom was a good boy; we could have been happy. You know, sometimes I hate what Philip did to me, taking my innocence, making me feel things that I may never feel again. Other times, I think I can’t live without him and I want to feel those things again. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Of course I do; you’re no different from the rest of us.’

  Bron rests her head on Margaret’s shoulder and begins to cry; not in great lurches of anguish, but more like the whimpering of a distraught child. Margaret cradles her head and rocks her gently.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you back to your room. We can drink our wine there, and you can get some sleep.’

  They finish the bottle in Bron’s room, after which, with Bron feeling distinctly tipsy, Margaret helps her get into bed. As she pulls up the bedclothes, Bron grasps Margaret’s hand.

  ‘Will you stay with me until I go to sleep?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She rests her hand on Bron’s brow. The girl closes her eyes and, for the first time since her brothers’ sudden appearance, looks at ease. She keeps her eyes closed, but after a few moments asks Margaret the question she has been wanting to ask since they arrived in France.

  ‘Do you remember when you told me that you had secrets of your own that helped you understand what I was going through with Philip?’

  ‘Yes, I remember. I certainly know what it means to feel guilt.’

  ‘Will you tell me about it? It will help me to know that someone as strong as you has dark secrets as well. One of the girls said you were seeing an officer – a toff. Is he your dark secret?’

  ‘Hamish Stewart-Murray? He was the officer at Philip’s bedside when he died. No, we’ve never even kissed; he’s not my type. I think he’s very keen, and he’s certainly charming, but he’s a posh rascal, only interested in going to bed with me.’

  ‘Aren’t they all!’

  ‘I suppose so. But I carry no guilt about him.’

  Bron opens her eyes and stares at Margaret pleadingly.

  ‘Oh, please tell, Margaret.’

  ‘I can’t, Bron; it may harm our friendship.’

  Bron puts her arm around Margaret’s neck and smiles at her.

  ‘But it might make it stronger.’

  Margaret pulls away gently, but maintains her resolve.

  ‘No; like you, I have to bury the past in order to cope. Now, let’s both get some sleep, and I’ll see you in the morning.’

  Part Six: November

  GRAVEYARD OF THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES

  Wednesday 4 November

  Merris, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France

  Saturday 31 October became the critical day of the First Battle of Ypres. The German High Command, dismayed that their 4th and 6th Armies had failed to break through enemy lines, despite launching relentless infantry attacks and pouring murderous fire into the Allies’ defensive positions, developed a new plan.

  Using fresh troops transferred from the south, a new Army Group was formed under the command of General Max von Fabeck, a respected infantryman. While the two existing Army Groups continued their attacks in their present positions, von Fabeck was ordered to throw his six divisions, over 60,000 men, at a point which Erich von Falkenhayn, the German Commander-in-Chief, thought was the weakest in the entire Allied line. He chose a position only six miles wide, between Ploegsteert Wood and Gheluvelt, just four miles west of Ypres.

  Von Falkenhayn, notoriously demanding and uncompromising, insisted that his men strike a ‘hammer blow’ to the British defenders, pushing them back, taking control of the Messines Ridge and thus opening the door to Ypres.

  Von Fabeck’s Order of the Day could not have been more explicit, nor laden with more scorn.

  We must and will conquer and settle for ever the centuries-long struggle. We will finish the French, British, Indians, Moroccans and other trash. They are feeble adversaries, who surrender in great numbers if attacked with vigour.

  To help ensure success, von Fabeck was given 260 heavy guns and almost 500 smaller-calibre pieces. The British defenders, on the other hand, had far fewer artillery resources and were having to ration shells.

  The German onslaught began at 4 a.m. that morning, without a preliminary artillery bombardment, thus catching the British unawares. Ferocious battles raged all along the six miles of the attack until daylight allowed some sense to be made of the situation. The morning was damp and foggy with visibility poor. At one point, in the village of Beccelare, a mile north of Gheluvelt, defended by the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, a gust of wind cleared the fog to reveal an entire regiment of German infantry just eighty yards away. To their right, just three diminished companies of the Black Watch and the Coldstream Guards faced three battalions of seasoned Bavarians.

  As the British positions began to weaken against overwhelming numbers, General Haig asked for help from General Joseph Dubois, commander of the 9th Corps of the French 8th Army, who readily sent a brigade of cuirassiers and three infantry battalions. But still, the sheer weight of German numbers was beginning to overwhelm the British positions.

  The road to Ypres was full of artillery pieces being rushed out of danger; hundreds of wounded men were limping and shuffling westwards. A gap appeared at one section in the line – right in its centre, close to Gheluvelt – leaving barely 1,000 battle-fit British troops standing between Ypres and the massed battalions of Fabeck’s army.

  With just two of his staff officers for company, General Haig rode up to assess the situation. Immaculately turned out as always, he sat calmly on his conspicuous white horse and gave encouragement to his men as shells burst all around him. Despite his presence, the day looked lost; a miracle was needed. But, in an action typical of many such acts of heroism in the Great War, a miracle did happen.

  Just at the moment of imminent defeat, Major Edward Hankey of the 2nd Battalion Worcesters, an Etonian and a veteran of the Boer War and the Sudan, was ordered to attempt an audacious counter-attack.

  The Worcesters had already been involved in heavy fighting throughout October and had suffered severe casualties. But they were the only unit not already committed to the battle. As Hankey prepared for his attack, he counted just seven officers and 357 men. They off-loaded their packs, ate a tin of hot stew, quaffed a rum ration and were given extra ammunition. As they sat on the ground, the major spoke to them only briefly.

  ‘These are our orders: “The 2nd Worcesters will take Gheluvelt.” We can and will do it. Good luck to you all.’

  They had to cross 1,000 yards of
open ground in front of them, just beyond a line of trees. As they emerged from the treeline and looked around, every other British and French soldier was moving in the opposite direction, towards Ypres.

  Hankey turned to his regimental serjeant major and asked quietly, ‘Are they up for it, Sarn’t-Major?’

  ‘All up for it, sir,’ was the immediate response.

  Hankey then bellowed his order.

  ‘Officers to the front; advance at the double!’

  In the few minutes it took the Worcesters to charge across the muddy field of stubble, they lost over 100 men – almost a third of their number – in a hail of fire so intense that some men said they could see bullets in the air like waves of rain in a storm. When they eventually reached a copse next to Gheluvelt Château, Hankey ordered bayonets to be fixed before his men emerged from the trees to confront over 1,200 Germans in the process of looting the château. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting followed; miraculously for the Worcesters, their opponents were novices from a Bavarian reserve battalion, who soon scattered in disarray.

  Hankey ordered his men to spread out left and right. They soon made contact with remnants of the Scots Guards on one side and the South Wales Borderers on the other. Thus, the line was restored before the German commanders could take advantage of the breach.

  At the end of the day – a day which saw ferocious fighting, as intense as any since the beginning of the war – von Falkenhayn decided to retreat to lick his wounds.

  As the men of the 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers gather in the village square at Merris, a small village nine miles north of Armentières, on the morning of 4 November, all the talk is of the heroics around Ypres and, in particular, of the amazing counter-attack by the Worcesters – an action that it is now being talked of as the charge that saved Ypres and the Channel ports.

  The success helps disguise the sorry state of the Royal Fusiliers’ own battalion. Since the costly bayonet charge at Neuve-Chapelle on Sunday 25 October, they have suffered three more days of close-quarters fighting, during which they had to be supported by two companies of French Chasseurs Alpins, the elite mountain troops of the French Army, who were a very welcome sight and came to their aid just in time.

  The fusiliers were taken out of the line on the 29th and marched to Merris, taking a route via Vieille-Chapelle and Doulieu. When the roll is taken at Merris, only eight officers and 350 men have survived the ordeal. Captain Leicester Carey has fallen, shot through the head by a sniper, and almost all the NCOs have perished. Harry and Maurice are among the lucky few.

  They have spent the morning cleaning their uniforms, kit and rifles and, having been inspected by General Horace Smith-Dorrien, Commander II Corps BEF, are standing to attention to listen to him address them. Harry and Maurice are not keen on listening to addresses, especially not from generals.

  ‘Stand at ease, men. I will make this brief, as I know you would prefer some well-earned rest rather than listening to me. I just wanted to say that I cannot find the words that adequately express my admiration for the way in which your regiment has behaved. All through the campaign, you have had it the hardest of any regiment in my Corps and I can safely say there is no better regiment in the British Army than the Royal Fusiliers. I can assure you that when this war is over, you will be treated as heroes at home. Thank you on behalf of everyone at HQ and everyone at home. I can’t promise you it’s going to get easier; it isn’t. You will be back in the trenches very soon, and winter is approaching quickly. However, I am not concerned, because I know you men will stick it out better than the Germans. Until we meet again, brave Fusiliers!’

  An appreciative cheer goes up from the ranks of men. Maurice looks at Harry quizzically.

  ‘Thought you said he’d be a tosser like all the others?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You bloody did!’

  ‘Well, the exception proves the rule.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘All top brass are wankers!’

  ‘Well that one’s got a DSO on his ribbons, so at one time he must have done more than give speeches.’

  Not long after Smith-Dorrien leaves, Harry and Maurice hear that, having been promised eight days’ rest out of the line, they will be going back in just forty-eight hours.

  Harry is furious.

  ‘Fuck a duck, at this rate none of us’ll be left by Christmas!’

  Maurice is much less perturbed.

  ‘The adjutant says we’re replacing the 1st Dragoons, who are worse off than us.’

  Harry’s ire rises another notch.

  ‘Fuckin’ Cherry Bums! I bet they get their eight days off, while we get our arses blown off for ’em.’

  ‘Come on, ’Arry, you need a tiddly; let’s get into that gaff opposite the church before the other lads drink all the pig’s ear.’

  The prospect of a beer calms Harry down. He decides to let Mo in on something that has been bothering him lately.

  ‘Mo, what are we gonna do wiv that German officer’s clobber?’

  ‘Dunno, we can’t carry it around for ever.’

  ‘Let’s bury it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Someplace where we’re sure to be able to find it again. But nice an’ deep, where no bastard comes across it by mistake.’

  Two hours and four strong Belgian beers later, Maurice and Harry, using a yew tree as a base point, have paced out a spot that is twenty strides into a farmer’s field. They have spent many hours in recent weeks preparing endless trenches, so digging a deep hole for their captured Prussian sword and helmet does not take them long, especially when fortified by the extra flagons of beer they have brought with them.

  When they are finished, Harry proposes a toast. He is drunk and the words do not come easily.

  ‘To Herr Fritzy Mecklenberg … and his mate, Tannhausen … may they rest in peace.’

  ‘Amen.’

  ‘Mo, do me a favour; if I cop it, promise me you’ll get this loot back to that bloke’s family?’

  ‘Course I will.’

  Both men, still swigging from their brown ceramic flagons, stagger back to the road and into the village’s tiny café. The bar owner is trying to remove the last few fusiliers, who are much the worse for wear. It has been a long night for him. The village has seen troops pass through before, but this is the first time any have been billeted there, and it is his first experience of British drinking habits and the raucous behaviour it produces. Both his serving girls left halfway through the evening, no longer able to cope with having their arses tweaked and their breasts squeezed.

  Harry notices some of the men giving the owner a hard time and bellows at them.

  ‘Right, you lot, fuck off! Now!’

  No one messes with Serjeant Harry Woodruff and his order has the desired sobering effect. He then turns to the diminutive bar owner and waves his empty flagon at him, as does Maurice.

  ‘Non, messieurs, s’il vous plaît, le café est fermé. Finish!’

  Harry waves his flagon again and attempts some of the French he has picked up.

  ‘Non … ouvrez!’

  Harry’s intimidating demeanour has the same effect on the little Frenchman as it does on his men and he fills both flagons with beer. He refuses to take money for them, but pushes both serjeants out of the door and gestures to them to sit at the outside tables.

  ‘Pas de chants, pas de cris, s’il vous plaît; no sing, no shout!’

  With a hasty flourish, he then closes and bolts his door. The bar lights go out seconds later, leaving Maurice and Harry illuminated only by the glow of the cigarettes they are smoking. Harry is still feeling morose over the incident with the Prussian Guards.

  ‘Them German toffs we killed.’

  ‘What abaht ’em?’

  ‘Well, they’re rotting in the ground, just like any other boys.’

  ‘Once we’re in the earth, we’re all the same, ’Arry. Worms don’t know a toff from a barrow-boy.’

  ‘Except for their f
amilies, they’ll soon be forgotten.’

  ‘That’s the way of it, ’Arry.’

  Harry pauses, pulls on his cigarette and takes a deep draught of beer.

  ‘We’re gonna end up the same before long, ain’t we?’

  ‘S’pose so; we’re all gonna cop it sooner or later, the way this is goin’.’

  ‘Who’ll remember us?’

  ‘We should’ve got ’itched an’ ’ad kids, like other blokes.’

  ‘What, an’ leave ’em with no fathers? Not on your Nelly!’

  Maurice does not respond. Like Harry, he knows that, other than the fading memories of their ageing parents, and their scant regimental records, no one will regret their passing, or remember who they were or what they did. Almost everyone they have served with over the years is dead, or has been invalided back to Blighty. There is silence between them for some time. Another cigarette is lit and more beer drunk. Then Harry resumes his melancholic reflections. Maurice cannot see them, but there are tears running down his friend’s cheeks.

  ‘This new army Kitchener’s makin’.’

  ‘What abaht it?’

  ‘Two-thirds of the battalion’s gone, Mo: top soldiers, pros. The new recruits are kids: poor farm boys from some shit’ole in the middle o’ nowhere; city boys who think they’re Jack the Lads. They ’aven’t a fuckin’ clue. Poor sods! If only they knew.’

  Maurice grabs Harry’s arm.

  ‘Come on, let’s get our heads down; the war can wait til the mornin’.’

  Early the next morning, too early for Maurice and Harry, they are ordered to Battalion HQ at Bailleul, two miles away. Major Ashburner has been badly wounded and has gone home to England, so they have been summoned by Colonel McMahon, the new commanding officer. The two serjeants have managed to smarten themselves up a bit, but are still very bleary-eyed. McMahon has just been promoted to brigadier, but has not yet received the extra pip on his epaulettes. He will soon be transferring to the newly arrived 10th Brigade’s HQ, removing the last veteran senior soldier of quality from the 4th Fusiliers’ line officers.