‘And sentimental notions of decorated Christmas trees. In that regard what you say is true, very few of my men have anything much of their own worth fighting for.’
‘I believe those are the first bitter words I ever heard you say, Uncle Hew.’
They had sat on quietly for some while, until their chilled feet had driven them to walk again, retracing their steps back to Greywell. When he took his leave of them, Emily wept.
Otis’s thoughts drifted back into the room where her father was refilling her glass, where the fire glowed, the tree glittered, the music mesmerized.
Before she went up to her room, she related to her father what Max had told her of the brutalized prisoners. He said nothing, but had patted her hand as he used to do when she was little and had come to him for consolation after having tried Em’s patience to the point of exasperation.
—
My Dear Otis. Now that I have seen with my own eyes generals, safely behind the lines, feasting in the French equivalent of Mere Meldrum, whilst their men were being slaughtered; now that I have delivered a despatch to a room in which they were planning, with unforgivable incompetence, the destruction of entire companies of men, whilst smoking cigars and drinking good French wine … I applaud every man who refuses to have anything to do with this war and every man and woman who will try to put an end to it… The theory is that a spit-and-polished soldier is an efficient one, and I suppose that there is something in that for one does feel degraded wallowing for days in one’s own grime… We have taken a fair number of prisoners… Have you ever stood facing your own reflection and looked deep into your own eyes knowing that the eyes gazing back know you to your very depth, know things about you that you cannot bring yourself to admit? If you have done that then you know what it is like to engage the gaze of a man you have been trying to kill and who has been trying to kill you – neither one can bear the penetration for more than a few seconds… This is not the letter that you will receive, these are only random thoughts as I lie here and prepare to answer your welcome letter… What you will receive is a bland note that will pass censorship. Yours,
Jack
Private ‘Lofty’ Moth sits and rubs his louse-bites gently. Up the line, old hands all have their own remedy for stopping the itching – spit, a dab of fresh urine, dandelion leaves. But where are any dandelion leaves?
Where, for that matter, is there any bit of green when they are up the line? Any man in Jack’s platoon would have surely chewed the very life out of a dandelion rather than rub it on the bites. Nothing comes up to scratching with broken fingernails.
They receive regular lectures on Personal Hygiene in which a captain warns against the many creatures that soldiers must become wary of outside the bounds of their home counties. Lice, fungus, women. At base camp he gives loud and emphatic lectures and invites questions. Few are ever asked. In the trenches, care of one’s feet and louse-bitten skin are as important as food and drink. The Very Dangerous Women are not a problem this close to the enemy lines. Jack Moth claws all eight fingers into the hairline at the nape of his neck and shivers with satisfaction at that brief moment of self-abuse.
Jack has been removed to a ‘cushy’ part of the line, from where the two sides are well-entrenched and where any move by either side would lead to heavy losses for both. The British trenches are at least six feet and often more than seven feet deep, and at most a few hundred yards away from the enemy; in places as close as a few hundred feet. Somewhere, it was assumed, somebody had a plan of the trenches, but it must have appeared as a maze. Here and there where shells have landed the sides have been blown in and left in a state where earth, canvas, splintered wood and limbs are a compost heap around which new duckboards detour. But on the whole this sector is well-dug and well-maintained.
The platoon of which Jack is a member is on fatigue duty. During the day they curl up, helmet over face and hands in pockets against the vast army of fat rats, and sleep in a tunnel that serves the light railway and the trenches.
The sergeant arouses his men with a reluctant prod with the toe of his boot – reluctant because the sergeant, although his own youth is long past, knows what it is like to be young and tired. Once back in Blighty he is likely to be put on to recruit training duties. It will be no easier for him there to push boys, who might have been his sons, into some sort of fighting readiness, for he knows how short are the odds for them once they have crossed the water.
Jack arouses at once and shakes the heavily-sleeping figure next to him. ‘Cully. Cully. Time for up.’
Private Cullington’s fat, pink face grins up at Jack.
‘I had a good sleep, Loft.’
‘Good-o, Cully. Come on, let’s fill our bottles.’ Jack, who now as easily answers to Lofty as to his given name, chivvies his partner to the water tank. The choice of water is between that collected in shell-holes which might or might not contain long-dead soldiers and rats, or the tank which contains foul-tasting chloride of lime – the latter is marginally preferable.
‘Last night for us up here, Loft.’ Cully grins his childish, retarded grin and Jack winks his acknowledgement.
A few members of the platoon used the boy as the butt of their cruel jokes, others as a focus of their anger, but for the most part, like Jack, the men knew that now that the boy was in the army, no one would ever admit that a mistake had been made in passing Cully as fit, so he was theirs to protect as well as they were able. Which was not easy in the front line.
The night’s equipment arrives and they unload. Tonight the bulk of it is reels of barbed wire for replacement. It is a job that they have done before. It means a silent journey over the top and into the shell-holed no man’s land, and a silent placing of iron spikes and a silent playing out of the reels. It is about the only job that Cully is able to do without putting the entire platoon at risk. He treats it as something of a game: Cully’s side must creep out in the dark, replace the wire and creep back again without the Germans finding out; going down flat and still if there is the slightest sound – a soldier’s version of ‘What’s the time, Daddy Wolf?’
It is a short night, but they are back before dawn. The only incident has been when somewhere in the blackness someone stumbled and was spiked with the vicious barbs, when the single curse ‘Bugger!’ caused a short rash of flares and a few rakings by a machine-gun from the German outpost.
They had been in the forward line for twelve days; last evening they dropped back. A short respite. A decent shave. Jack felt that he would have sold his soul for a full tub of hot water, a bar of carbolic soap and a rough towel. For the present, though, a wait in the queue and a good wash down under the sprays would be pleasant enough. A cycle of sixteen days. Twelve days divided between three fronts, and four days in the comparative safety of some village.
Coming up are the village days. For four days hundreds of soldiers, thankful that their number did not come up this time, will stay in and around a cow byre and a few sheds where there is hay to rest in and planks of wood for a table. The walls of this byre have been bombarded and the roof is not whole, but they are away from the trenches until tonight when, under cover of darkness, they will take supplies of ammunition and rolls of barbed wire up the line.
‘Your turn to brew up, Loft.’
Jack takes a screw of tea-ration from each member of the squad of which he is a member. As a squad member of several months standing, he is one of the older hands. A few have been here longer; one of them is a captain. He has better quarters, better food, better odds of surviving than the men he commands, he knows how to keep his head down and look after number one. Another is the ageing sergeant, who never expected the men to do anything that he would not do himself, now kipped down with other sergeants: both were older hands than Jack Moth. Many – some boys, some almost of his father’s age – are new and raw.
Jack dishes out the tea and passes round a tin of condensed milk. Dropping with fatigue, they drink without much of their normal exchange, and s
ettle down in the straw for an hour before reveille.
Up the line they had an ear for where a shell would fall, and ducked automatically for those that would fall close at hand. But here they became jumpy. Old and new hands alike, they jerked their heads and played ‘Statues’ at the sound of any aircraft. They had been expecting a big German attack in the sector they were defending. But for now they could sluice down, parade, tend their feet and uniforms, eat hot food from the field kitchen and get in some sleep. Sufficient, uninterrupted sleep, that was the greatest deprivation up the line where, in the tunnel, although it was safe from the shelling, a thoroughfare for both men and rats, they slept in cat-naps.
In the early dawn, too much daylight comes in through the roof and the missing wall. Jack puts his cap over his face but, in spite of his fatigue, can only get into that state of half-sleep where the brain is afire. Where every image of grotesque horror, every moment of grief, every explosion of anger that has been pushed aside comes clawing its way to the surface.
He is not the only one who makes strange noises as he sweats and tosses in this state. He is not the only one to have seen a man come apart in mid-air; to have turned to shout something to a boy who did not shout back because shrapnel in the mouth had left him nothing with which to do so. Nor is he the only one who has gone into the attack with six friends, with whom he was drinking and eating in an estaminet on the last spell at base camp, and come out of it alone. They have all, except the very new members, become almost used to the sight of human viscera, brains, bone and decomposition; almost familiar with the sight of what they are often detailed to collect in groundsheets; almost hardened to the duty of recovering bits and pieces of their own khaki-uniformed company, indistinguishable, except for tatters of grey uniform, from the bits and pieces of young Germans.
The fact that they have become used to such sights does not lessen the impact upon the nerves, which are frayed to the point of breaking.
He rolls on his back, uncovers his eyes and looks through a hole in the roof at a patch of dawn-blue sky and thinks of Otis Hewetson.
Many times over the last months he has thought of her: How on earth could I have been such a fool? Since he had had time to think about it, he had become convinced that Victoria had known what his true feelings were. The kisses, the sudden passion to see her did not constitute his being in love with her any more than did her caresses of himself. She must have known that when she agreed to visit Mere Meldrum. Had she not shown an interest in himself, then he might have realized the truth of it sooner.
He sits up and feels in his haversack for pencil and letter-form. Otis had been the first to write, a friendly letter uncritical of his having volunteered to fight in the war she was against, and he had replied. Then she had written again, sending him chocolates and socks – absolutely the right items of comfort. Had she worked out for herself the most acceptable items? He liked to think that the chocolates at least were her own idea.
He would have liked to tell her that he had come to understand what she and Victoria were doing. But letters were censored.
The can of water over the makeshift fire is boiling again, so he rouses to brew himself more tea.
‘Loft?’ The pile of straw next to Jack moves and Cully’s fat, pink face with skin like that of a child emerges.
Jack puts his fingers to his lips. ‘Men’re still asleep, Cully.’
Private Cullington shrinks down and makes a face like a small child who has been forgetful. ‘Sorry, Loft.’ He edges towards Jack and says softly in his unbroken voice, ‘I was going to ask if you wanted a fag. I got some.’
‘Thanks, Cully. Want some tea?’ Jack shares his brew with the young simpleton soldier who pours in a stream of the thick, sweet milk and slurps awkwardly, as though he has not long learned to drink from a vessel.
‘You ate all your chocolates yet, Loft?’ His feigned innocence is as transparent as a child who knows that there is cake left but has been told that it would be greedy to ask for more.
Jack searches his pack for Otis’s box and hands it to the boy soldier.
‘You can finish them, Cully, they’ll only get melted if I hang on to them.’
Private Cullington’s grin is wet and loose, his mam had taught him his manners, perhaps realizing that some of his many defects might be forgiven if he knew how to be polite. ‘Thanks, Loft. I’ll give you some of mine if my mum sends any.’
‘You’ve already given me some of your cigarettes, Cully – fair exchange.’
‘I’ll give you the rest if you like, Loft.’
‘You hang on to them, or I might smoke the lot.’
‘All right, then, I’ll give you them one a day like my mam gives me prizes.’ He giggled quietly. ‘That’s if you’re good, Loft.’
Jack watched as the boy turned over the chocolates, pondering before selecting, and wondered, as he and other members of the platoon had wondered daily since Cullington joined them, whether the doctor who had been paid a decent fee to pass the boy as fit for active service, had actually looked at him, let alone medically examined him. For, although he was eighteen years old, and nearly as tall as Jack, Cully had a loose mouth, no beard, his sex organs had never fully developed, and he had the intellect and judgement of a child. In effect, that doctor had taken his fee to certify that an eight-year-old was fit to answer his Conscription call.
‘Kit inspection soon, Cully. Get yours out and I’ll look it over for you.’
The boy carefully stowed away the chocolate box and began to do as he was told. He was quite good at the routine business of army life – so long as he was told clearly what he had to do, then he would do it. What he could not do was to weigh up a situation and come to a conclusion. Worst of all was his sheer terror when under fire. Not, thought Jack, that any of us is any better, but at least we know enough not to put our heads above the parapet.
More than once it had occurred to Jack that what Cully needed was to get his hand above the rim of a trench when there was a hot-shot sniper about. A good Blighty wound. It had been done before – dangerously, for men had tried it and been charged with causing self-inflicted wounds, a charge that carried the death penalty. German snipers never gave up, but fired at tops of helmets, periscopes, waving hands or anything else that moved above the earthworks of the trenches. If a man’s hand was too badly injured for him to thrust a bayonet and press a trigger, then he was no use at the Front. But Cully did not have the cunning to get away with any such deviousness, and in any case was too afraid of pain to do anything of that nature.
In one respect, however, Jack was envious of the slow-witted boy, and that was for his lack of imagination. When they were in the midst of a battle, the boy was terrified, but once the firing ceased he could easily return to his own world of calm bewilderment and submission. He would say: ‘I’m glad that’s all over.’ And for him, until next time, it would be over. He could wet himself from fear, sponge and dry his uniform and forget it. He did not re-live the horror of the battlefield, nor did he appear to dream it. The wonder was that he had lasted so long.
Jack worried about what would happen to Cully if he himself were to catch a packet. Although there were others who felt it a damn shameful thing that the boy had ever been put in uniform, none would take him under their wing as Jack had done.
‘You writing to your mam, Lofty?’
‘I was going to write to the young lady who sent the chocolates, but don’t know what to say.’
‘Is she your girl?’
Jack drew deeply on the tattered cigarette Cully had given him. ‘Not really, but I’ve known her since we were children.’
‘Tell her the chocolates were the best I ever tasted. Tell her the strawberry ones are best but not the coffee. She won’t mind, will she, you giving them to me?’
‘She’d be quite pleased to know I shared them with a friend.’
‘I’ll bet she’s nice.’
Jack smiled distantly. ‘And she’s very pretty.’
&nb
sp; And I wish that I had not been such a fool as to have missed what was staring me in the face. Now that he was not only distant, but in hourly danger of never returning to England alive, he clearly saw that Victoria had come into his life at a time when he was youthful, of a romantic turn, and had nothing to do but be smitten by an older, exciting woman. Once smitten, it had only taken the evening of heightened emotion on the occasion when his mother had died for the excitement to turn to desire. From that night, he had continued to desire her and so assumed that he loved her.
When he had asked her to go down to Mere, he had, if he was honest, at the back of his mind a scene of seduction and some nights of requited lust. Even now, as he thought of her extreme desirability, he could easily have become aroused, but at this distance, and in these circumstances, he was able to distinguish between what he felt for Victoria and his growing longing for Otis.
My own dear Otis, If there is justice in the world, then you will tear up this letter and I shall get my just deserts. I believe that I have been in love with you for years and was too blind and stupid to realize it. With Otis there was not only the carnal desire, there was too the assurance that he would want to be with her after the desire was satiated. I can visualize Otis and Jack being elderly together… He was not able to bring to mind such a picture of Victoria and Jack.
He put away the form and took out an envelope and fold of writing paper.
A bugle sounded. The day had begun. Parade. Inspection. Good, hot food with a bit of cooked meat instead of the ubiquitous bully-beef. Swedish exercises. A decent tea with hot soup and some of the good bread that the army somehow still managed to turn out. Preparation for the night run. And in between as many forty-winks as any man could catch on the wing.
In his knapsack, an unfinished letter.
My Dear Otis, In a few days we suspect that we shall be in the thick of it. Some of this will be censored. I must chance that because I want you to know that I love you, and have found you ever more in my mind. This is the first love-letter that I have ever written. What is in my head and my heart come out in words that look trite and will probably read as pedestrian. What I want to say to you can only be said with looks and responses, with kisses and caresses. Over here, our emotions become buried so deeply that one wonders at times whether, from the way we can perform actions such as using our own dead as stepping-stones through the mud, we feel anything at all. Yet at other times our feelings are so close to the surface that we can weep at the death of a dog…
Goodbye Piccadilly Page 25
