God's Sparrows

by Philip Child

The expression of distress humanized her; it did not dignify her face, but it made her look miserable. So that Dan, who had steeled himself for anything, was genuinely shocked when, after having a drink, a lewd expression came into her eyes and she began to hum again in her hoarse voice the song about Adam and Eve.

  “She’s crying again,” said Dan harshly.

  “Daisy, keep quiet, can’t you? That don’t do no good. And you’re bothering my gentleman, can’t you see? … I ’ave to go in, dearie. She’s that nervous.”

  As soon as she was out of his sight, Dan snatched a banknote out of his pocketbook and put it on the table, then opened the door and fled downstairs.

  “Women! God almighty, how I loathe them.” He felt as though he had been dragged through ordure. Then he thought: “I was a swine to go with a tart after knowing Beatrice.… Whatever I want it’s not a dirty mechanical adventure with someone who is more of an animal than a woman — not feminine anyway. The sort of thing that cad, Dolughoff —” What really shocked him was to have found a person when he had looked for a thing. … “When you think of it, it’s damned odd: I and that tart and her scared sister, all under the same sky. The same stuff all of us, flesh, blood, and nerves.”

  At the hotel he found a cable from Alastair. Mother died suddenly, early this evening. The message was dated the previous day. This news steadied him but it was not a surprise. She had never got over his father’s death; that had broken her heart, there was no other phrase for it.

  He thought of his mother. “She hated ‘messiness.’ She liked the peaceful, decent things. She loved tea in the afternoon with pleasant, civilized talk and small compliments given and taken. And she liked to read a quiet book like Jane Austen: nice appraisals of social status, for instance — whether Fanny Price was ‘out’ or not; settled conventions that were never questioned and upon which crude violence never intruded. ‘Poise,’ that was what she liked.”

  Brother Newt to Brother Fly

  Mysterious the twisted ways of men,

  Dear Brother Fly,

  And now and then

  I marvel at the way the creatures die.

  They perish joyfully to prove their soul —

  I wonder why?

  Now I, had I a soul, should eat the whole

  Affair on earth;

  Not love and kill and die so terribly

  To prove its worth.

  Lo, yonder by the shattered German trench,

  A case in point —

  Ein kerker Mensch! —

  The face (it’s buried) has a bluish squint,

  And half a lip.

  That he was man remains one only hint —

  That leg and hip.

  It sticks there like an exclamation point

  That booted tip.

  Mysterious the twisted ways of men,

  Dear Brother Fly,

  I marvel when

  I see the curious way the creatures die:

  A shell strikes, he erects that airy foot

  And so affirms

  His soul is saved — and Germany to boot;

  So, glad to die.

  Thank God we have no souls to justify,

  Let’s dine on worms.

  (From Quentin’s Notebook)

  PART IV

  Wind in the Stubble

  Chapter XIII

  I

  The winter of 1917-18 was a winter of exhaustion. Russia was out of the war and the British Army, overspent by Ypres, eyed the Germans, expecting them to rush in for the kill. “Have you seen the GHQ Summary of Intelligence?” remarked Lynch. “The Germans moved seventeen divisions from the east to our front in December alone. Draw your own conclusions, my lad.”

  “‘Ripeness is all,’” quoted Charles cheerfully. How about pushing off to Amiens for a dinner at Godbert’s?”

  Late in February the Wellington Battery was moved out of the Canadian Corps and down to the Third Army front, south of Arras. “We’re for it, my lads,” said Jiffy Tripp, “they must know something or they wouldn’t lift us out of our own crowd.”

  One day the officers of the artillery brigade were addressed by their colonel who, though he loathed the public exhibition of sentiment, felt vaguely that these men under his command were, after all, human beings risking their lives and — well, dash it all, a soldier wasn’t a mere machine! Flushing, and a little fierce with them because, on their account, he had to commit his inarticulate soul to sentiment, he looked over their heads and uttered remarks obviously prepared in advance. Gentlemen — hm — Perkins, close that confounded window, will you? A man can’t hear himself speak with that infernal row (the troops were playing a quiet game of “house” offstage). Gentlemen, you are going back to your batteries with the certainty that, within a few weeks, the enemy will launch against you the greatest attack in history. I have every confidence that the attack will be foiled, and that you will acquit yourselves in a manner — er — in a manner — hm — that you will prove yourselves worthy of the highest traditions of the Royal Artillery. The regiment’s highest traditions — yes. Hm. Hm. Well, dash it all, gentlemen, we’ll take all that sort of thing for granted, what? What I really want to say to you is simply ‘good luck to you all.’” … The irrepressible Tripp murmured to Dan, “‘Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more!’ Nice old boy, the colonel.”

  Letter from Dan to Beatrice:

  Dear Beatrice,

  Sorry I showed such a mean streak in London. I admit I had no right to say what I said. If you were to put down my remarks to pure jealousy you would not be far wrong. I do understand how upset you are, and in a way, I sympathize with your point of view, though I am absolutely certain you are wrong! Of course, I ought never to have forgotten even for an instant that you are going through dies irae and can’t be yourself.

  If I take back what I said, will you do likewise? Or no, you needn’t take it back. Very likely it was true. But at any rate, let’s be friends, and do write me now and again. Write often! I happen to be in love with you, as you very well know, so I think you might! I could say more about that, but I won’t till I hear from you.

  All’s well with me. Our small fraction of the British Army in France is cultivating its garden and waiting for whatever is to be. Nothing much I can tell about “ ours. ” Oh, yes. You remember my speaking of Dolughoff, the crazy Russian? He is with the battery again, as egotistical, quarrelsome, suspicious, sanely mad or madly lucid (I don’t know which) as ever. He took me aside and said: “ I told you I’d be back, didn’t I? ” I had to admit that that was true. “ Look here, Thatcher, ” said he, “ I count on you to say nothing to the major about that episode in the salient. You know yourself that anyone, even as good a soldier as I, may do queer things under a strafe. You promise? ”

  My batman, the gipsy Jobey Loversedge, deserted. No, “ deserted ” isn’t quite the word, as you shall see. One day he simply vanished — and so did one of the battery motorbikes. I told the major he’d be back. “ I know Loversedge, sir. He wouldn’t clear out without saying a word to me. ” Sure enough, after two or three days, Jobey rolled up drunk — in the ration lorry. Told us an amazing story which I didn’t believe. Said he meant to desert, but got tight and decided to sleep it off in a lorry which turned out — amazing coincidence! — to be the battery ration lorry. So he was tumbled back willy-nilly . Of course, being Jobey, he would never admit that he hadn’t a perfect right to desert. All he would say was, “ I’m a gipsy, sir. They can’t tie me to no gun wheel. ” Of course, he’ll get blazes, but he’s too stout a fellow to be charged with desertion.

  Do write to Cynthia and tell her to give Al a good shock. He’s making an idiot of himself with my flighty relative Tessa. It’s no use Cynthia’s sitting back and just being proud, I know my Al. She’ll have to take him by the scruff of the neck. He’s a spoilt
devil. You write to Cynthia, and I’ll give Alastair blazes.

  Yours affectionately (if you don’t mind),

  Dan

  He had to wait a long time for her reply.

  Dear Dan,

  I suppose I am to be grateful for your effort to make an honest woman of me in your own mind? It so happens that I am too fond of you not to overlook the priggish side of your nature, though I admit your utter nobility of character exasperates mere human me a good deal. No doubt it will be good for my soul — or whatever it is — to trail along in friendly association with you, picking up whatever crumbs from your largior aether you choose to throw me. That’s that. You are a stick-in-the-mud and a prig but somehow likeable. Am I really only twenty? I feel at least fifteen years older than you. I shall certainly write to you now and again, and I hope you will write to me — if you want to. What is the “ more you could say about that ” ? I can’t imagine what you mean.

  I am more anxious about you than I ought to be for my peace of mind. No! I won’t be niggardly. I am anxious about you. I can’t think of anyone else whose safety means a snap to me. I am going to a base hospital “ somewhere in France ” next week. Maybe — no, perhaps we’d better not see each other again. Just letters. It wouldn’t offend me much if you explained what you meant by the “ more you could say about that . ”

  Your affectionate (seems safe enough),

  Beatrice

  P.S. — I had a visit from your uncle Murdo on his way to France. He is going as a surgeon, not a chaplain. He said to me: “ Since the church has given up preaching peace, goodwill toward men, it might as well shut up shop for the duration of the war because soldiers won’t buy there. ”

  Spring came early. Soon the parti-coloured daisies that poets write about were pushing up among the tumbled rubbish of what had been villages. The March sun melted the dormant mustard gas in shell holes and one or two men were gassed. At times one could not help feeling in a holiday mood; the spring air, the quiet evenings and the longer twilight, the first flowers, the feeling of expectancy. Not even the smells of war: the stench of chloride of lime, the faint, sweet, nauseating, poison gas smell, the odour of moist new-turned earth, the rank smell of explosives, of decomposition, of wood and charcoal burning in the braziers — not even these could spoil one’s rejoicing at spring in the making. Sometimes as many as twenty or thirty planes grappled in a dogfight over the trenches, they seemed like midges in the spring sky, while soldiers leaned back smoking and cheered them as though they were a bank holiday spectacle. A speck dropped from the swarms of whirling midges for a thousand feet like a stone, with another midge swooping down on its trail. Suddenly, an engulfing billow of black smoke curled about the lost plane and a black mite jumped from it — the pilot. “A long way to fall,” Dan said to Charles, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “‘From eve till morn he fell, from morn till dewy eve, a summer’s day,’” Charles quoted soberly.

  The forward section of the battery clung to the side of a long valley at right angles to the trenches. In front flowed a little stream, in full flood now, spanned by a road bridge and a trestled railway bridge. Two sappers made their appearance and went to work laying a demolition charge under the bridges. Thereafter, they bivouacked beside the switches, night and day.

  The bivvy where Dan slept, a rough erection of sandbags and corrugated iron, had been built into the side of the valley about eight hundred yards behind Dan’s guns. Tripp and Charles Burnet shared it with him. The three of them were lying on chicken-wire bunks. Jiffy stood up, yawned, and stretched.

  “I’m down for OP duty tonight. Better be on my way.” He put on his trench coat and took down revolver and gasbag from a peg.

  “Which OP, Jiffy?”

  “Cascara.” He grinned at them. Cascara observation post was in the front line.

  The telephone buzzed and a calm voice from the exchange came over the wire. “Dispatch rider for you, sir.”

  “Send him in,” said Charles.

  The battery dispatch rider stooped and entered the bivvy, saluted, fumbled in his pocket, and handed a message to Charles.

  “Had I better wait?” asked Tripp.

  “What do you think, Jiffy?” asked Charles grimly.

  “Same thing you do. I’ll wait.”

  Charles opened the message, read it, and looked up at them in silence.

  “Is it?” asked Dan.

  Charles nodded, not looking at Tripp. “Listen. ‘The enemy is expected to attack in the early morning of March twenty-first or March twenty-second . Acknowledge receipt of this message to brigade.’”

  “Tomorrow or the day after,” said Jiffy. “I like the adjutant’s terse style. What price the trenches tomorrow morning at daybreak? Want my job? Well, cheerioh.”

  He lingered at the doorway. Without consciously reasoning why, both Charles and Dan stood up. “I say, skipper, give me a spot of your whisky for my flask, there’s a good chap.” Charles got the whisky. Tripp waved and turned to go out.

  “Jiffy —” said Charles.

  “Captain Burnet, sir, at your service.”

  “Er, Jiffy — well, good luck, old man!”

  “It will have been nice to have known you,” said Jiffy dryly. He hitched his shrapnel helmet on one side of his head, gave his haversack a tug, and disappeared into the dark — into the dark.

  Charles said: “It’s odd. I knew that message was coming tonight. Anyhow, that’s that!” He gave his nephew an intimate look, affectionate and quizzical. “Well, Dan — ‘Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd’?”

  “D’you know, Uncle Charles, in a way I believe you’ve actually enjoyed the war.”

  “No-o . Enjoy isn’t the word, of course. But I am a bit of a mountebank. Play-acting is second nature with me. No, first nature. I get a kick out of playing the beau rôle. And I will say that the war has brought out my best.… I haven’t exactly made a mess of life; I always meant to enjoy it and I have. I have always been myself, you know, though people never thought I amounted to much before the war. ‘That charming, irresponsible fellow Charles Burnet, let’s ask him to dinner. He’s such fun!’ That’s what they used to say. Well, I don’t regret a damn thing!”

  “But for God’s sake, Uncle Charles,” exclaimed Dan, “you talk like — like the Ides of March.”

  “Just a feeling. Against my end, as the Scotch say. The Burnets are fey, didn’t you know?”

  During the night, at two hour intervals, the big howitzers had to awake to the business of searching and sweeping German back areas, and each time Dan had to get up and go down to the guns. They fired the last rounds of the night’s program an hour before daybreak. The gun detachment relaid the gun on the SOS lines and faded back into the darkness to their bivvies.

  The air was chilly and a light mist lay along the valley. There would be a mist! Dan strolled about the gun position and looked up the quiet valley toward the trenches.

  He walked humming to himself the Habanera, though he did not know he was humming. He spurned the earth, he did not know it was there, and No. 041006, Gunner Harris, T., the gas guard, sole guardian of the night, scratched his anonymous head in whimsical surprise to see the officer bump into Moll Flanders who weighed several tons and was no lady, without even cursing, without seemin’ to notice it ’ardly.

  Dan went back to the hut. Charles was soundly asleep with a placid expression on his face. Dan put his holster and gasbag where he could easily reach them in a moment, and lay down fully dressed. He fell into an uneasy slumber.

  He awakened to a fearful impression that, in the darkness, the walls were whirling about him and that the solid earth under his feet, as he jumped up, was solid no longer but tilting this way and that, drunkenly. The impression was not entirely wrong. The walls of the bivvy were actually shaking from the impact of shells along the valley, and thr
ough the soles of his boots, he could feel the vibration of the earth. Against the terrific din he distinguished an insistent note close at hand: the crazy buzzing of the field telephone. He took up the receiver. “Sir —” began a voice, then the line went dead. Cut somewhere. You had to gather yourself together; there were things to be done, quickly. He snatched his accoutrements and put them on … a match flared beside him. He had completely forgotten that he was not alone. Charles was on his feet, and the spurt of light illumined a face bent with absorbed intentness over the act of lighting a pipe. Charles said coolly: “Here we are. I’ll take the rear section; you go up forward and see that they’re started on the SOS. I’ll be up later. Jump to it, Dan!”

  Outside, the din swooped upon him with malignant opacity and made him stagger. He ran as fast as he could go, up the road toward the guns. As he ran, he faced the most terrible and beautiful sight he had ever seen. Off on the horizon, where the Day of Judgment had come to the poor devils in the trenches, the flashing of the German artillery was like the northern lights, and along the road and valley in front of him, he could see the flowering of a multitude of jets of fire wherever shells were falling. Over his head and round about him as he ran, he could hear the whine of splinters, flying and landing with a thwack in the bank alongside the road. He felt lonely and sick. Once he stumbled into a shell hole in the road and fell prone, cutting his face and filling his mouth with dirt; and in the act of falling, he heard a soul-shattering crash, and a shower of mud and pebbles spattered over him. For a moment terror took him by the throat. He was alone. About him were nothing but blind forces, without soul. “Must I go on? … Mustn’t think, mustn’t think, mustn’t think.” He ran on, pounding out the phrase to a crazy rhythm — lurching from side to side. At last he reached the guns. He shouted, “Number One and Number Two — action!” and hoped the crews would come running. They did. Now he felt exultant, intoxicated with the power he felt over himself. “I can do anything!” … Moll Flanders pushed her snout up through the net and spat out her first shell; it went screaming up, up, to be absorbed in the universal noise. Number Two gun fired almost in the same instant. Over their heads, they heard shells from the rear section boosting themselves into the sky. “That’s the stuff to give ’em, sir,” said Sergeant Critchley.