I realize that he is pretty badly scared.
“Is this place safe?”
“Passably.”
He gets up and descends farther into the darkness, and I can see his face looming up at me. I remain up above, wickedly gloating. I take out my pipe and pouch, fill the pipe and light it. Jerry is pitching shells nicely along the communication trench, and working down towards Company Headquarters.
“I think we can go on now, sir.”
“Better wait a minute or two, Brent.”
His voice sounds quite polite.
“I mean, on to the aid-post, sir. He is shelling down, not up.”
I am aware of a grotesque figure trying to remove some of the mud with long, flipper-like hands.
“I’m afraid you have got in rather a mess, sir. Why not go on to Battalion Headquarters, and have a clean up?”
I make my voice sound debonair and completely respectful.
“I think I’ll leave the aid-posts to-day, Brent. I’m inclined to sciatica.”
“Then I think we had better move, sir. I think the funny business is over. He gives us about a dozen, and then stops.”
“Have you counted them, Brent?”
“Not actually, sir.”
“There might be thirteen to-day.”
Move him I cannot. He insists on staying down below for another twenty minutes, and when I do persuade him to emerge I am almost sorry for the man. He is soaked and shivering, and his tremors are partly dreadful agitation. All his sour arrogance has gone for the moment.
“Do you think it is safe now, Brent?”
“Quite, sir.”
He takes the lead and goes storming on his long legs down the trench. When the duckboards end we flounder and stodge through the mud and water. Cleek sets a furious pace, and as I look at his long, thin neck I see it growing pink. He is sweating, and I am moved to wonder whether this unseemly affair will not be bitterly remembered against me. I have seen authority with its shirt hanging out and its dignity disgracefully dirtied.
When we emerge from the trench I draw level with Cleek. His forehead is beaded with sweat under his tin hat. He is muddied even to his tabs.
“Would you like a clean up at the A.D.S., sir?”
He shows his fangs in a kind of snarling smile.
“I’ll get straight back, Brent, thanks.”
And he does, bolting into the waiting ambulance as though to escape publicity. But some of the men have seen him, and as I stroll back across the yard after the ambulance has swung out, I am aware of grinning faces, and I hear a voice say, “The old blighter’s got a mouthful of mud.”
XV
Fairfax comes down about half-past eleven to go round the posts, but I am careful of Fairfax; I keep him to lunch and persuade him to take his country walk at the quiet hour when men have been fed and are feeling peaceful and somnolent.
Fairfax is precious to me. And why? Do I cherish his safety because he stands armed between me and meddlesome authority, and can preserve me from being pushed hither and thither like a pawn on a board? Does my little, mean self love him for that alone? I know that it is not so, and that my affection for this large, lovable creature is somewhat selfless.
There is a breath of spring in the air. This stricken country is sun-steeped and almost peaceful. One can hear birds singing. The communication trench is drying up, and we do not hurry, and I am conscious of the sky and the clouds overhead. We can talk intimately here, without Chiffinch’s suspicious and poky little face obtruding itself upon our friendship.
“How’s poor old Margy?”
“Rather shaky still. I am keeping him at headquarters for a while. The 203 have already had to send one man down.”
“Sick?”
“Nerves, Stephen. A shell crumpled up a house near his billet. I suppose we are going through the weeding out process.”
Suddenly he pauses, turns and faces me, and with one of his large laughs, asks me a question.
“What have you been doing to Cleek, Steevie?”
“Why? Any complaints?”
“We have had a hell of a shemozzle. He came along and tried to row me about the A.D.S. He even hinted that you had inveigled him into a small shell storm.”
The fool! I would not have conceived it possible for a man in Cleek’s position to give himself away so fatuously by blurting out an accusation of that sort. The fool! “Did he say that?”
“Hinted it.”
“The idiot. But as a matter of fact I was feeling rather mischievous.”
“What happened?”
I give Fairfax a description of my morning with Colonel Cleek, even to his ventral plunge into the mud, and his disinclination to emerge from the dug-out. I can feel that Fairfax is chuckling, but he assumes a solemn air and pretends to reprove me.
“Brent, I am sorry to find that you have not sufficient reverence for authority.”
“That depends upon the authority, sir. But surely the man wasn’t such a naïve ass as to accuse me of having spoilt his dignity?”
“He did not put it quite so crudely.”
“How, sir?”
“He said that you did not appear to consider the personal safety of a senior officer, and that you had no tact.”
“Incredible! If Cleek is a man with so little sense of the fitness of things!”
“I’m afraid you have made an enemy, Steevie.”
“I’m sorry if I have involved you, sir.”
“No. I think you know that, for some reason, Cleek and I are up against each other. I’m not afraid of the man. I knew he could be a nasty person, but I did not think he was so exceedingly unsubtle. All the same, it is not helpful to the unit.”
“I’ll be mild as milk in future, sir.”
“Just be your self, Steevie. I think I have enough influence in this crowd to stand up against prejudice. By the way, I’m going to relieve you next week.”
“I’m quite all right, sir.”
“You may be, but Hallard and Gibbs have got the hang of the work at ‘Wigmore Street.’ It’s a rest-house there. I’m sending Gibbs down here. You will come back to headquarters for a week. Bath and a bed, Stephen, and perhaps a little dinner somewhere.”
“That sounds good, sir.”
* * *
I am pleased with myself. It seems to me that I am learning my lesson, that a man’s happiness may rest in his striving to be the master of his soul. I have been afraid, but somehow I have managed to put fear under my feet, and even to conceal it from these other men. My night-terrors are less hideous and haunting. I am learning to assume a facile cheerfulness, and in wearing this shield I find fear less capable of penetrating to my vitals. Moods of morbid depression can be laughed out of countenance.
I am beginning to hope that unless I am tried too sorely I shall be able to live this life and keep my self-respect. Besides, Fairfax is a man who will try to save one from being tried too sorely. I feel that he understands, and perhaps that is why I love him.
* * *
I have had a hot bath, a real hot bath, not just two inches of water in a green canvas saucer. It is a tin structure, scrounged from somewhere by Bond, who is proving himself a resourceful lad as a quartermaster, and this bath is loaned in succession to our officers. I hear that Hallard has christened it “The Cream Tart.” The implication is obvious. I get into clean undies and slacks, and sit on the bed which I am to occupy. This war does make one appreciate the elementals.
I find a new officer in the mess, a large, sallow, sullen young man, with a truculent face and a self-assured manner. He has been sent to us as a reinforcement, and his name is Bamborough Brown. The Bamborough strikes me as being pretentious, the Brown alone would be adequate.
I do not like him.
But no matter. Gibbs is back for a night, and Fairfax has ordered an ambulance and a dinner at a famous little place in the neighbourhood. He and I and Gibbs and Margy set off on our merry evening, leaving Carless and B.B. in charge. Already, Carless
and Brown are trying to outboast each other in the stories of their sex-adventures. Let them.
We have a merry evening. Fairfax stands champagne. We are waited on by a pleasant French m’amselle, and Gibbs gets quite googly about her. Margy is very talkative and excited, and laughs too easily and too much. I see Fairfax watching him with wise and kind comprehension. I feel that Margetson will not be with us long. It is not his fault. Men can be the victims of temperament, and of a mental physique that is too sensitive.
Gibbs becomes uproarious, and with one arm over the back of my chair, reels off the vulgar medical student tags.
Fairfax laughs and reproves him.
“Be quiet, Gibby, be quiet.”
But Fairfax’s jocund air of shocked modesty only makes Gibby worse. He is beginning to sing, and to be ridiculously sentimental when we get him into the ambulance. He is a broth of a boy and a supreme sportsman, the kind of man who never lets you down.
I have a strange desire to see spring flowers, and in this particular French village there are no flowers. If one could cook or preserve daffodils or violets I suppose the French would grow more of them. Margy asserts that the Frenchman’s only idea of floral things is presenting a bunch of carnations to another man’s wife. This, of course, is nonsense. But I find my spring flowers by wandering forth along a dusty little track that is decorated with Rougeville’s domestic debris, and which leads to the cemetery. The place has four pollarded limes sheltering an iron cross; it is surrounded by an ugly brick wall, but in the cemetery I find my flowers intermingled with those tawdry crosses and wreaths made of wire and coloured beads which the French taste cultivates.
I discover a clump of primroses, some violets and, in the shade of a ragged cypress, a few blue hepaticas.
Lovely things! But somehow they hurt me, and produce in me strange, poignant pangs. I remember that I have to go back to that devastation where death waits for one amid the torn earth and the broken walls. I want to go home. I want to be with my wife and child——
But this will not do. One must not suffer one’s self to look too tenderly at peaceful things, or to grow sentimental about them.
I close the iron gates of the cemetery and walk away.
Margetson asks me whether I have found any flowers. I tell him of the cemetery. Just before dinner I happen to go into Margy’s room to borrow a book he has promised to lend me. I find him sitting on the bed holding a tin mug in which are stuck three primroses and a few violets. He has a peculiar smile on his face, and I realize that these flowers have affected him as they had affected me.
He looks up at me wistfully.
“These things do make war seem silly and awful, Stephen.”
I want to take the mug away from him. It is as though it contained sweet poison, and the edge of Margy’s self-control has worn too thin.
* * *
Hallard is back at Headquarters. I go to take his place at Wigmore Street. This ruined village has a bizarre and sinister beauty. It is not too completely ruined, and the spidery skeletons of roofs stick up against the sky amid mutilated trees that are attempting a little greenness. The A.D.S. is situated in a ruined house that still retains a large walled garden in which a few gooseberry and currant bushes are putting out leaves. Some horticultural soul has been trying to grow young lettuces, and Finch discovers strawberry plants. He talks, if we remain here, of dishing up strawberries and Ideal milk, but I am pretty sure that those strawberries will not fruit for us.
This is a comparatively peaceful place. Jerry registers on a ruined house about three hundred yards away, and occasionally he shells the church. We receive about one wounded man per day.
* * *
I have seen the great Richthofen or one of his circus, a most dramatic show. I was strolling along the road when I heard a burst of rifle and machine-gun fire, and saw suddenly a red ’plane flying low over our trenches. It seemed to be less than fifty yards from the ground, and sailed along like a huge scarlet dragon-fly.
Cheeky devil! But being what I am I admire the fellow’s courage. I hear later that he got away unscathed. I am glad.
* * *
Fairfax pays me a visit. He is looking worried, which is unusual for him. He tells me that Chiffinch has made a mess of an affair at Semelles. The Boche has been in a rather nasty mood, and he landed a big shell in the headquarters dug-out of some gunners and made a bloody mess. They sent to the A.D.S. for help, and apparently Chiffinch diddled about and funked going out until an officer came for him. Carless was up the line. But the gunners put in a complaint to our Divisional Headquarters, and Cleek has been on his hind legs about it.
We are a rather unlucky unit.
I say to Fairfax, “Well, it wasn’t your fault, sir.”
“Everything like that is a C.O.’s fault, Stephen. But that isn’t what I have come about. I have orders to withdraw Chiffinch, and send my most experienced officer down to Semelles. It doesn’t seem quite fair to you, Stephen.”
I understand him.
“If you want me to go, sir, you know that I’m only too ready.”
He gives me a look of gratitude.
“Good man. But just one word, Stephen, I’ll consider you later when the others have had more experience.”
“That’s all right, sir. It isn’t only a matter of obeying orders.”
How curious that Chiffinch should be the first man to be wounded in our unit, and how unexpected the manner of his wounding. The little man had pleaded to be allowed to stay on with me at Semelles, and I did not realize how badly he was feeling about that other affair until this other thing happened. There has been a good deal of shelling, and we were having tea when an orderly rushed in with a message.
“R.E. dug-out hit, sir, down the road.”
Chiffinch was up in a flash and grabbing his tin hat and box-respirator.
“I’m going, Brent.”
“Wait a moment.”
“No, let me go.”
I sit glued to my box and he rushes out, and I remain and reflect upon the soul of Chiffinch, and the courage that has moved him to efface a horrid memory. I finish tea, and light a pipe, knowing that in a few minutes I shall have cases to deal with, shocking cases probably. Chiffinch has taken bearers with him. It seems only a few minutes since the little man has left me when I am called. The first case is in; there are others to follow. A sweating and white-faced bearer tumbles down the steps.
“Captain Chiffinch has been hit, sir.”
“Good lord! Badly?”
“In the leg, sir. They are bringing him in.”
My feeling towards Chiffinch has changed completely. When the stretcher on which he is lying appears on the “shoot,” I go to it quickly. I am aware of Chiffinch’s small face, minus its pince-nez, somehow radiant and very pale.
“Much pain, old man?”
He smiles at me.
“Not much, Brent. Got it in the leg, rather badly. I don’t mind somehow.”
I am very tender with Chiffinch. I plug morphia into him. His right leg is a horrid mess, but he lies quite still and does not make a sound while I apply dressings and splints. I feel that the little man’s spirit is both exultant and at peace. This ends the war for him, and the end is good.
“You ought to get a decoration for this, Chiff.”
“Me?”
“Yes, I’ll see Fairfax puts it up.”
He smiles at me.
“A tally with a nice red edge will be good enough for me. We got those other fellows out all right.”
“You did.”
When the work is done I cover him with a blanket, and stick a cigarette in his mouth.
“How are things outside now, Block?”
“Pretty quiet, sir.”
“Good. Ambulance in?”
“Yes, sir.”
I go up into the yard and see Chiffinch and the three others placed in the ambulance. I tuck the blanket under his chin, and pat his shoulder.
“Good luck, old man. You can go ho
me proud.”
He can, and I, as a man who may have been tempted to scoff, have received a salutary lesson.
* * *
Our ambulance has been relieved by the 201 F.A. who have been put into the line to gain experience. We are moved to the other sector across the canal, and our headquarters are at Hameau Farm.
I shall never forget this place or my first glimpse of it after Rougeville and the ruins of Semelles. We see across the flat fields what appears to be a green cloud supported above the earth on silver pillars. Splendid white poplars. An avenue of them leads up to the farm. I see a moat snowed over with water-crowfoot, and an old orchard, some of whose trees are still in bloom. We march in through a funny old brick and tile gatehouse, and find ourselves in an immense yard surrounded on every side by buildings. There is the usual vast manure pit in the centre, but the smell of it is not too aggressive. One becomes accustomed to the odour, and even associates it with pleasant, peaceful things.
The mess is a great big sunny room floored with tiles. My bedroom, has a window looking on the moat, and through the poplars to the placid fields. It is remote and still and at the end of a corridor, and is simply furnished. The bed has a feather mattress. Finch comes up with my kit, and his face is rosy.
“Bit of all right, this, sir.”
I unpack and arrange my belongings and prepare to spread myself and feel at home. The post has come in, and I have a parcel and two letters from Mary.
The charm of this place is inexpressible. Fairfax and I wander out into the orchard after tea, where all the young green growth of the year is beginning to spread itself. Ducks are swimming on the moat, and beyond the poplars a field of wheat is brilliant in the sunlight. Fairfax is a countryman, and his face looks all smoothed out and serene. He says that he means to try and get hold of a tent and sleep out here in the orchard.
The men are in great spirits. Bond has gone off to Merville to buy beer, and whatever Cleek’s prejudices may be, the unit feels that it has done its first job creditably. There will be competitions for fresh eggs and milk, and Murray the Sergeant-Major is preparing to open a canteen, and to organize a concert party.
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