by John Masters
‘Of course, of course. Just as soon as Archie’s back, off you go, and good luck to you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
At the lower end of the village a squad of men from C Company were marching out to fatigue duty, carrying picks and shovels and singing briskly to the tune of ‘The Church’s One Foundation’:
We are Fred Karno’s Army
The ragtime infantry!
We can not fight, we can not shoot,
What bloody good are we?
And when we get to Berlin,
The Kaiser he will shout,
‘Hoch, hoch, mein Gott,
What a bloody rotten lot
Are the ragtime infantry!’
As the sounds died away the three men sitting round a table in one of the village’s four estaminets refilled their glasses with van blong and drank moodily.
Private Fletcher Whitman, Battalion sniper and, in another world, lover of Betty Merritt, said, ‘Don’t know why this place isn’t jam full, with us going up tonight.’
‘Everyone’s spent their money,’ Private ‘Snaky’ Lucas said.
‘Or lost it at Crown & Anchor,’ young Private Jessop said morosely. ‘You must ’a won ten quid working that bleeding board, Snaky. You could stand us all another bottle, at least.’
Lucas beckoned, and the young girl at the other end of the room came up with another bottle. ‘No sooner said than done,’ Lucas said magnanimously. ‘Next time, the luck’ll change, eh?’
‘Not bloody likely, with you running the board,’ Jessop said. He drank again. ‘Old Rowley and the Regimental were calling us everything bar darlings this morning, weren’t they? What’s the use of all that fucking drill? Presenting arms doesn’t kill Jerries.’
‘Old Rowley was giving us ’ell because we looked like a ragtime army. And because we’re taking over from some ruddy Guards tonight … D’you know what the sarn’t-major used to ask us blokes when I first got out to the Shiny? “Wot’s the rarest thing in India?” ’e shouts. We don’t know, of course, and ’e says, “Guardsman’s shit … and what’s the second rarest?” Still we don’t know and ’e yells, “Drafts from the Depot wot knows their arses from ’oles in the ground!” … This push ain’t sigarno yet, but it’s the ’ell of a lot better than when we come out of Passchendaele … and we need to be, ’cos the Jerries ain’t near finished yet, you mark my words.’
Fletcher drank, listening idly to the chatter round the table. They’d all drink as much as they could afford to buy this afternoon. But however much they drank they’d not get drunk – because they were going up the line. Tomorrow night, on the firestep, it would be easy … if you could win some rum.
Jessop was talking about his last visit to a red light house in Amiens. It wasn’t so long since the kid had had his first woman, arranged by the other blokes in B, when the battalion was up by Arras … There was a letter from Betty Merritt in his left breast pocket. It was a long letter, several pages, mostly about what they’d do after the war; but there was some local gossip – her brother’s wife had disappeared; that was Miss Stella Cate, of course. They thought she was in London, hiding. Rum go, that. Couldn’t imagine it happening before the war except maybe some young lady running off with a handsome coachman … Betty had heard that Anne Stratton was some months pregnant, which was very distressing news, as Frank had not been home for a long time and the baby could not possibly be his. The war was to blame, but would Frank understand that? He was such a straightforward, honest man, and so single-minded about love and duty, that it would be very hard for him to see that Anne had betrayed him not from lack of love, or love of other men, but from being overpowered by the misery that the war had brought upon her … The letter looked again to the future: he must learn, study, in the wider world, for he was to be a world-wide poet. He must learn more about educated people, especially women, about the very rich, the very poor. She would do anything to help him follow his star …
He pushed back his chair abruptly, ‘I’ve ’ad enough. Thanks for the van blong, Snaky.’ He went out. Snaky Lucas, now with twenty-two years’ service and so far unscratched from several scraps on the Indian frontier, and in action without a break from August 1914 to this date, said ‘Let ’im go. Poets and snipers is bad company. Another van blong, mademoiselle … and don’t we all wish you was from Armenteers.’
2nd Lieutenant Laurence Cate lay on his stomach in the reeds by the north bank of the Somme a mile from the village where the battalion was billeted. His binoculars were to his eyes and his heart was pounding. Since settling in two hours ago he had observed much water life on the pleasant stream, here separated from the barge canal. After half an hour he had seen a pair of little grebes, in their winter garb of brown and buff. The sexes were indistinguishable and it was too early for them to have paired off for mating, yet he thought the two he had seen were male and female. Now across the river, swimming slowly into the focus of his glasses, in and out of the thick reed beds over there, was a much bigger bird … perhaps twenty inches along the water line … the lower body pale, the neck long and slender … he began to tremble with excitement: if his suspicion was right there ought to be a dark cap and obvious crest … but the crest was not so obvious in winter, the books said. He had never seen one, so he didn’t know, but it fitted. There should also be a rufous collar, again obvious in summer but barely visible in winter … yes, there it was … the big bird was diving now, bottom and webbed feet up … surfaced again, head shaking, nothing in its beak. It was barely fifty yards off now … if only it would come out of the reeds … In answer to his prayer, it did, swimming majestically into the open, now clear against the background of pale reeds and thin ice glittering on the surface of the river. ‘Great Crested Grebe!’ he cried aloud, and again – ‘Great Crested Grebe!’ What a lovely bird! It was still rare in England from the time, about 1860, when the plume trade for women’s hats had reduced the numbers, the books said, to fifty pairs in all Britain. Then laws had been passed to protect the bird, and now there were supposed to be about six hundred pairs there. Here, in France, he did not know how many. Not many – French women had demanded plumes for their millinery just as voraciously as Englishwomen. This might be the best sighting in his life.
The grebe swam steadily away up stream, keeping close to the reeds on the south bank, and eventually disappeared. Half a dozen moorfowl were in view but Laurence rolled over on his back and stretched luxuriously. The air was cold, and the ground was hard frozen, but he noticed neither. He was wearing warm underclothes, a thick flannel shirt, and of course his barathea tunic and serge greatcoat … and he had seen a Great Crested Grebe. Movement caught his eye straight above him. He saw a flash of light, and then another, another, another. He put the binoculars back to his eyes and made out five small shapes … aeroplanes. They were high but he could see black crosses under the wings of three of them … so, three German against two British. Now he heard the faint chatter of machine-guns, and shivered … machine guns, awful inhuman monsters. The five planes circled and swooped against banks of brilliant white cloud towering up to the zenith. The guns chattered, the water lapped in the Somme below him … a waterfowl quacked, two rose from the river with a whirr of wings … the aeroplanes dived, swooped, swung … one was suddenly a torch of flame, fire trailing far behind, now smoke. He turned over on to his stomach and searched the river. Where were the grebe, the moorfowl, the snipe … where were they?
Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Rowland sat at the makeshift table in the headquarters dugout of the 1st Battalion, the Weald Light Infantry. It was comparatively large, with a corrugated iron roof, two timber supports in the centre – and the floor was dry. Candles burned in empty bottles on the table, and on a row of ammunition boxes in the corner, where Quentin’s batman slept when he was not following Quentin on his rounds. More empty ammunition boxes and a large case that had held nose fuses for 4-5-inch howitzer shells contained papers in makeshift files. ‘Bloody bumf,’ Quentin muttered under his
breath. The war would have been over a year ago if everyone didn’t have to spend so much time filling out forms, answering damned silly questions from headquarters so that superstitious twenty-year-old brass hats could justify their existence. He looked at his watch in the wavering light. Ten to ten ack emma. Ten minutes before the fellows would arrive for the conference.
The gas blanket swung aside and a tall figure came down the three steps from the reserve trench outside. It was Captain Kellaway, his B Company commander, recently back from hospital, and now wearing a black patch over his left eye. Kellaway saluted, and Quentin said gruffly, ‘Morning, Kellaway. You’re early,’
Kellaway was a good officer – not a Regular, but an early volunteer, a millionaire dilettante, an expert on art, ballet, books, theatre, poetry, music … never seemed to have had anything to do with women. He’d been wounded twice – or was it three times now? – and had just got a Military Cross … but he made Quentin uneasy, so that he spoke more sharply than he intended.
Kellaway said, ‘Yes, sir … I wanted to ask you if you would consider sending a more senior officer than Laurence to command the raiding party. It’ll amount to two platoons, at our present strength. I’d be happy to go myself.’
Quentin started to fill his pipe, thinking. After a time he said, ‘He’s been out some time now – eight months, isn’t it? He’s due for his second pip … I can’t give it to him unless he’s shown he can act independently. No, he’ll command … give him confidence. That’s all that’s the matter with him … doesn’t believe in himself.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Kellaway said. He was tall and thin, and in moments such as this, hesitant. In action he was quick and resourceful and brave. Now the one eye was troubled. He said, ‘What is the exact purpose of the raid, sir? I want to be quite sure that Laurence – and Sergeant Fagioletti and the men, understand,’ he added quickly, seeing a frown cross his commanding officer’s forehead.
Quentin said, ‘The divisional commander wants one of the new German gas masks so that we can see if they’ve made any modifications to the old model – which could mean that they’re proposing to introduce a new type of gas … The brigadier general – and I – and the gunners – want up-to-date German trench maps … We all, always, want prisoners, for identification purposes. And’ – he looked up at Kellaway standing a little stooped across the table from him, his own eyes bulging, bright blue in the candle flame – ‘we want to arouse the offensive spirit in our men … keep them full of it, so that it’s bubbling over all the time, and …’ his voice rose – ‘We want to kill Germans!’
The gas blanket swung again and Regimental Sergeant-Major Bolton stood in the entrance, the bowl of his steel helmet touching the beams overhead, but he did not seem to be stooped. ‘Officers and NCOs for the conference, all present, sir!’ he barked.
Quentin nodded and the men trooped in, saluting as they entered. Quentin said, ‘Sit down where you can …’ He looked round; they were all here – Kellaway, the company commander who would do the detailed planning; 2nd Lieutenant Laurence Cate, his own nephew, who would command the raiding party; Sergeant Fagioletti, Laurence’s platoon sergeant, who would be his second-in-command on the raid; Woodruff, the adjutant, to record what was ordered, and see to the co-ordination of the final plan with the troops holding the front line to right and left of the Wealds, and provide for the evacuation of casualties and the interrogation of prisoners brought back … The Regimental, his work done, saluted and went out. The gas curtain dropped into place behind him.
Quentin said, ‘We are going to carry out a trench raid. The objects of the raid are …’; he repeated, almost word for word, what he had just been telling Kellaway, ending, as before, with ‘… kill Germans!’
Then he gave his orders about the size and equipment of the raiding party, and after giving out some more details of its tactics and intercommunication, he said, ‘The raid will go out through A Company’s front on the first night after the 16th when the wind is right – that is, from the south, or north, blowing down the German trench line – because we will be using gas shell mixed with HE in the preliminary bombardment, which will last fifteen minutes. You, Kellaway, arrange with the gunners for box barrages and SOS fire on success signals, emergency signals, and withdrawal signals.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The raiding party will cross the enemy wire by Brock’s carpets – you will carry not less than two, so that you don’t have to bunch up too much … No stretcher bearers. Once you’ve done your work, unwounded men can help carry any wounded back. Until then, no one turns back, for any reason whatsoever. Is that clear, Mr Cate?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So … the raiding party will move up in the afternoon of the 16th into the reserve trenches behind A … and wait there till conditions are right.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Any questions?’
The circle of whitish-yellow faces, all staring at him, made him feel that he was the centre of some obscene performance. The gunner captain’s hand was moving on his map board though his eyes were fixed on Quentin’s. No one spoke.
Quentin said, ‘Very well, Mr Cate, you stay behind. The rest, dismiss, please. Thank you.’
One by one they filed out, up the steps, through the gas curtain, and out. Laurence Cate too was on his feet, an army signal pad and a pencil clutched in his left hand, with a folded section of trench map. Quentin said, ‘This is your chance to prove yourself, Laurence.’ He spoke gently, for he had known his nephew since he was born. The boy took after his father Christopher Cate – never raised his voice, a gentle man, but of course a patriot, and a sturdy, dogged fighter. English gentlemen did not shout or yell or show anger; that could be left to lesser breeds without the law: Laurence’s middle name was Hengist, after the Germanic king who had conquered Kent in the fifth century, from whom the Cates claimed descent. He would not fail.
The young man said, ‘Thank you, sir.’
Quentin stood up. ‘You’ll do all right, Laurence, but … be there! I mean, your mind as well as your body must go on that raid. When I’ve seen you in action before … at Nollehoek, for instance … I’ve felt that your mind was wandering. Commanding a platoon or a raiding party requires your whole attention, every moment … Sergeant Fagioletti is there to see to small details – that the men’s pouches are full, rifles and Lewis guns in good order, Very lights to hand, that sort of thing. He is not there to tell you what to do. You are in command. So command.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘That’s all. Good luck.’
The five soldiers squatted on their hunkers or sat on boxes of Mills bombs in the bottom of the trench, crowded into a side bay which had originally been dug out as a latrine bay, the site of a latrine bucket, but now disused for that purpose – though still redolent of it. It had been enlarged and was now used to store ammunition, wire, angle irons, and other paraphernalia of the trenches. Private Lucas, the old soldier, spouted the universal chatter of Crown & Anchor in a low continuous murmur, ‘Pick ’em up, lay ’em down … you comes on bicycles, you goes away in Rolls-Royce motor cars … C’mon, Jèssop, you’re a man now, not a bleeding errand boy. I seen you stick your prick into a woman with me own eyes. Wot the ’ell good’s a tanner?’
‘You blokes shouldn’t ’a been watching,’ Jessop, now seventeen years old – not quite sixteen when he had enlisted – grumbled. ‘That was private.’
‘We was only making sure she did right by you, seeing’s we’d paid for it.’
‘Madame Fonsard wasn’t that sort of woman,’ young Jessop said. He picked up the sixpence he had laid on the queen, and substituted a half crown.
Lucas whistled, and Private Brace said, ‘Cor stone the crows! Cyril wants to break the bank, Snaky.’
Lucas restarted his patter. Sergeant Fagioletti and Corporal Leavey appeared round the trench traverse twenty feet away and Lucas made to sweep the box and the oilcloth marked with the game’s symbols out of sight, for it was an
illegal gambling game, though every Other Rank in the army had played plenty of it in his time – however short that time might have been.
Fagioletti raised his hand, ‘Me and Corporal Leavey know what you’re doing, Private Lucas, so it’s no use trying to hide it. And I’d march you all up before the captain, only Mr Cate said the blokes was to have it easy while we waited … so, I ain’t seen nothing, see? But I’m not blind, see?’
‘Right y’are, sarn’t,’ Lucas said cheerfully.
Fagioletti said, ‘Just see you don’t bet more’n you can afford, young Jessop, understand?’
‘Yes, sarn’t,’ Jessop mumbled mutinously. The Dago and Buckle-my-Shoe were good NCOs, as NCOs went, but no one was going to tell Cyril Jessop, any more, what he was going to do and what he wasn’t going to do. He wasn’t Mr Cate’s stable boy now, nor yet a recruit what hadn’t had his greens. He’d killed his man – many of them – and fucked his woman … ah, Madame Fonsard, what a woman …
‘Wake up,’ Lucas said. ‘Shake ’em up … There she goes … Two Jam Tarts and the Mudhook … Pick ’em up, put ’em down. Nothing for you, Cyril, may I call you Cyril? … a bob for me old pal Jones 46 … Pick ’em up, lay ’em down …’
Jones 46, a farm labourer in the far-off times of peace, a twelve-month veteran of France and Flanders, muttered, ‘Wish the bleeding wind would change so’s we can get going.’
‘Or stay the way it is for ever so we never have to go,’ Brace said. ‘Just spend our lives here, playing the board and listening to Snaky’s stories of Romance in the Shiny …’
‘The Major, two Mudhooks, ’oo’s in luck! Pick ’em up, lay ’em down …’
‘Can’t sleep a wink proper, waiting,’ Jessop said, ‘… never liked those bleeding Brock’s carpets … catch your fucking boot nails in them just as much as if you was walking over the bleeding wire … ’sides, I feel like a monkey on a pole standing up there, every Jerry in a mile looking at me, his finger on the trigger.’
