by John Masters
Fagioletti bawled, ‘I didn’t say it was over. I just told you what I heard the CO say to the captain.’ He turned on his heel and marched out.
‘Pay!’ Private Jessop said dreamily. ‘That girl with the dark hair, that lives in the little house across the road – she’d go out with me if I could wave five francs under her nose … into a field … a wood … hand in hand …’
‘Not fucking likely,’ Private Lucas said, ‘with the rain pissing down. Take her behind the altar. We won’t look – we’ve seen it before … some of us ’ave.’
‘In ’ere?’ the boy said aggrievedly. ‘In the fucking church? You wouldn’t mind, would you, corp?’
Corporal Leavey was a Whitechapel Jew. Before his promotion his nickname had been Ikey Mo, as was most Jews’; but once a man achieved his first magic stripe, nicknames and first names became taboo in the Wealds; that would be familiarity with those in authority. Leavey was still called Ikey Mo behind his back, or sometimes Buckle-my-Shoe or Four-by-Two, from cockney rhyming slang. He now said briefly, ‘You blokes don’t fuck in the synagogue and I don’t fuck in the church, and vice versa … Anyone got a Colney Hatch?’
He leaned forward, cigarette in mouth, while a soldier produced a match and lit the cigarette for him. Lucas said, ‘Crown and Anchor half an hour after pay parade.’
‘Where, Snaky? We can’t do that in here.’
‘Why the ’ell not? Behind the altar, and those not in the game can kneel on the front side, so any officer coming in won’t want to disturb the soldiers at their meditation …’
Then a bugle blew and Lucas cocked an ear. The youngest soldier jumped to his feet – ‘Pay parade!’
Leavey snapped, ‘Hold your noise … It’s “Officers”. There won’t be any pay parade. I’ll tell you what it is. The leading troops have met resistance five miles up. The gallant 305th Brigade – what brigade are we in now? – will move forward and attack on the left flank … Who’s got any money left?’
‘I’ve got five bob … a bob … three and a tanner … six francs … a tanner … sweet fuck all …’
‘All right, let’s ’ave a quick game before we go up.’
‘But how do you know …?’
‘Come on, we ain’t got no time to waste.’ Lucas rummaged in his pack, and drew out the Crown and Anchor box, and cloth, and hurried up a side aisle of the church to the altar, now covered with the green and gold of the Trinity season. Behind the altar he rapidly spread out the cloth, set the box in place, and rolled the dice. ‘Roll up, roll up!’ he began to intone in a low urgent voice. ‘You comes on bicycles and goes away in motor cars … ’oo’s for the Mudhook? The Major? The old Jam Tart? … lay ’em down, pick ’em up …’
He did not stop when the main door of the church at the far end of the building was opened, letting in a gust of cold rainy wind, then banged shut again with a heavy clang. This time it was Company Sergeant-Major Parr, shouting ‘Attention, B Company! Pay parade’s cancelled … the leading troops have met resistance five miles up …’
‘Christ!’ the soldier next to Lucas cried. ‘We’ve got to attack … again!’
‘Goes away in motor cars,’ Lucas muttered, sweeping the money off the cloth and into his trouser pocket, sweeping up the box and cloth and dice, and returning to his place on the wall before the others, standing and listening to the sergeant-major, knew that he had gone.
The voice at the other end of the field telephone line was thin, faint, and overlaid with a scratchy static, but 1st Lieutenant John Merritt could just make out the words – ‘Right eight mils, down twelve!’
He raised his hand from the instrument and shouted at the top of his lungs, ‘Deflection, right eight, elevation – minus twelve – Battery – one round – ’ He waited, watching as the sighting adjustments were made on the four guns lined up behind the thin hedge. The half-section commanders’ arms snapped up in the signal ‘ready,’ and John shouted ‘Fire!’ Flame jetted from the four muzzles simultaneously, followed by long gouts of smoke, which quickly dissolved and blew away on the rainy wind. John waited, the telephone again to his ear. Nearby, Chee Shush Benally, by now appointed to him by Captain Hodder as his horse holder – the only way to keep him out of more trouble, the captain had said – was squatting on his hunkers in a way only the Indians could manage, chewing some mildly hallucinogenic leaves that his relatives sent to him from Sanostee.
The forward observer, today the captain himself, advancing with an infantry battalion headquarters two miles forward, spoke – ‘The doughboys are going to attack in five minutes, Merritt. Their major thinks the Jerries will pull back just before we attack … they’ve got another position 400 yards on, in a village … and he wants to be sure to catch them as they cross the open. Be ready to put rapid fire on them when I give the order. You’re OK for line now, but the target will be plus seven mils elevation.’
‘Yes, sir … What am I to do if the telephone line’s cut?’
‘Watch for Very lights. I’ll send up red over green.’
‘Yes, sir … Chee, get up, take my binoculars – here. Watch for Very lights – there.’
The Indian ambled forward a few yards until he had a clear view over the hedge, then stood, the glasses to his eyes. He really doesn’t need them, John thought – he can see as well without them as most men with … He waited, the rain dripping off the rim of his steel helmet. The guns waited, water running down the barrels and trickling on to the wet ground, soaking into the heavy earth under the wheels. The horses waited, 200 yards back, in the edge of a village, their coats dull with rain … feel I must tell you that the boy is dark-skinned, but has Stella’s mouth and nose: the words of Father Christopher’s letter, brought to him by hand through mysterious channels, were imprinted before his eyes: Stella is well, and so’s the baby, though a little fractious … dark-skinned: Father Christopher was saying that the baby’s father had been a Negro or perhaps an Indian, a Hindu; Stella’s mouth and nose – which probably meant that he did not have thick lips or other Negroid traits.
‘Line dead!’ the telephone operator shouted.
‘Line party forward,’ John cried.
‘Red Very!’ Chee called back sharply.
‘Stand by!’
‘Green Very!’
‘Gun fire, rapid – fire!’ The guns barked and bounced, barked and bounced. A storm of German shells whistled and burst all round as the German gunners opened counter battery fire to cover the rearward movement of their infantry.
The Huns were moving back – further away from the guns. The line was cut and the captain couldn’t tell him just how fast they were moving; but there were no trenches or barbed wire to negotiate, and they’d be all but running … say a hundred yards a minute – ‘Elevation, plus three mils,’ he shouted … he watched the seconds tick off – ‘Elevation, plus three mils!… Elevation, plus three mils!’ The battery’s fire should be marching forward with the Germans, staying right on top of them. One last change of elevation. Now he ought to be on the new German position, in a village. The 75s wouldn’t do much damage there beyond knocking off a few bricks. ‘Cease firing!’ he shouted. He listened. Thump of heavy guns firing from the rear … then the shriek of the shells passing over. The French heavy batteries in support were opening fire on the new German front line. Their telephone had obviously not been cut.
At the guns, some cannoneers sponged out the breeches, others hurried forward with more shells to stack at the gun positions. John waited. The line party he had sent forward and the other, which the captain would have sent back from his position as soon as the break was detected, should find and fix it soon … dark-skinned… he grated his teeth together. For God’s sake, find another target. He wanted the guns to fire till the cannoneers dropped from exhaustion, till the barrels twisted and melted, just so the war could be finished and he could get to Stella … dark-skinned. But Chee was quite dark-skinned. If Chee had been in London when Stella was there, doing what she was doing, he might
have become the boy’s father. He was not an abstainer from sex, John knew, for he had been to one or two of the innumerable whorehouses in Juarez, across the border from Fort Bliss, during their days with the 16th Infantry. Would that have made Chee a bad man, or in some way deformed or disgraced his son? He could not bring himself to believe it, in spite of his agony. So what was the real shame, the real tragedy, the real horror? It was surely in Stella’s condition, that she should have to … say the word … prostitute herself to get money for the drug. That was what must be held on to, not the fact of the prostitution, or that she had sold her body to a black man or a brown man. Neither they nor she were to blame: the drug was, and the human condition that allowed it to take over a human being’s personality, destroying all learned and inherited traits and behaviour.
The telephone bell rang and the operator called, ‘Line fixed, sir. It was broken by shell fire a thousand yards forward … Captain on the line for you.’
John took the instrument – ‘Sir?’
‘Send up Anspach as OP officer.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And stand by to move forward. We’ve taken the old German front line and are moving on again in half an hour. The British are sending eight tanks to help and as soon as they arrive, we’ll attack … I can hear the tanks coming up the road behind us now. Battery F will take over our tasks while we’re moving … Hold on …’ John heard the captain’s voice, very remote, as he was apparently speaking to someone else, but with his mouth still near the telephone. ‘Yes, sir. Right, sir,’ Loud again, the captain said, ‘Battery F’s all set. Move up to behind Goudraincourt. Got it?’ John looked quickly at his map as the captain said, ‘Map reference 6793.’
‘Got it, sir.’
‘Get off your tail, then!’
John jumped up, shouting, ‘March order!’ He stayed studying the map as the new 1st Sergeant, Clay, gave further orders. The gun teams came trotting up from behind, the cannoneers stacked unused shells back into the caissons, then sweating, pulled them round so that the teams could sweep up and begin the abattage … Across that field and into the lane, John thought, looking at the ground, then back at the map … trot east 2000 yards, and when the houses of Goudraincourt were close ahead, find the best place for the guns.
Clay, now mounted, cantered up and saluted – ‘Battery ready to move, sir.’
Chee was mounted, holding John’s horse by the head. John swung up into the saddle and faced the guns and men of the battery – ‘Forward-Ho!… Trot-Ho!’ Falling into place ahead of the leading gun, he spurred his horse to a trot. The Germans were still shelling the area, but he did not notice.
‘This is like bloody Mons,’ Private Lucas growled, shifting his weight from one foot to another. B Company was in open order, standing on the western slope of a mountain of coal slag. The rolling chalk uplands of the Somme, the pretty villages nestled in the folds, the green grass and the orchards, were all gone, with Picardy and its rich farmland. They were back among the coal mines and tall pit towers and wheels, and smoke from the factory chimneys of Lille drifting downwind on the rain far ahead …
Smoke curled out of the slag, for it was hot, from subterranean fires burning in its heart, and that was why Lucas shifted his feet. ‘We ’ad to take our positions on stuff like this at Mons,’ he said. ‘Might as well have lain down in the kitchen fire at ’ome.’
‘Bet the Jerries didn’t have forty fucking machine-guns a battalion at Mons,’ Private Jessop said. His hands were trembling and his voice shook, even though he had tried hard to control himself, and spoken in a deliberately grating manner quite foreign to him. ‘And you was fucking well lying down, letting the Huns come to you … ’stead of walking out in the open, like a lot of fucking dummies at target practice, like what we got to do.’
‘Shet yer trap, Jessop,’ Corporal Leavey snapped. ‘It don’t make nothing better to fucking bellyache about it.’
2nd Lieutenant Cowell, the platoon commander, resting on his ash plant further along, said, ‘Keep the language down, men. That doesn’t make things better, either.’
Private Jessop muttered, ‘It don’t do no good to yell when you hit your finger with a fucking ’ammer, but you do it just the same.’
The German artillery was firing, but not heavily, and most of the shells were whining over the village with its slag heaps, its rows of mean houses, and the mines, which had been its life, to fall among the British batteries to the rear. The men of the 1st Battalion the Weald Light Infantry were lined up among those slag heaps, which they had reached an hour ago after marching up from the west, their pay parade cancelled. All four companies were ready, and knew what their objective was: the far end of the village, 300 yards on. Some Germans were occupying the village, but no one knew just how many, or with what support in the way of machine-guns and artillery. Another battalion of the brigade was to attack on the right, through another mining area, at the same time as the Wealds went in.
Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Rowland came along the line, accompanied by his runner, Campbell the adjutant, and Father Caffin, the battalion’s padre. Quentin stopped at B Company headquarters and spoke to Kellaway – ‘Are you all ready?’
Kellaway said, ‘Yes, sir.’ His good eye wandered from the CO’s face to Campbell’s – ‘We were to have a platoon of the Machine-Gun Corps with us, in case of German counterattack. It hasn’t come yet.’
Campbell said, ‘They’re coming up now, Stork. We passed them a few minutes ago.’
Kellaway nodded and the colonel lowered his voice – ‘Have a good sergeant and a couple of reliable men at the rear when you go forward, Kellaway. You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Kellaway said, his mouth turning down. Everyone knew what he meant. The British Army was nearing the end of its tether. Ever since the great March retreat there had been a steadily increasing number of cases of desertion, and much more shirking of duty. The work was still being done, but at an increasing cost, and the cost was all being paid by the best.
Quentin walked on. When he was out of Kellaway’s earshot he said, ‘A few months ago, an attack like this, with the ground unreconnoitred, no artillery preparation, and no tanks, would have been unthinkable. It would have been criminal, and I would have been stellenbosched for putting it on. Now, I’d be stellenbosched if I didn’t.’
Father Caffin said, ‘Jerry’s still a good fighting man, colonel.’
The CO said, ‘Yes, but he’s changing as much as we are … more. Look at the deserters we got the day before yesterday – deserters or surrenderers, it doesn’t matter – most of a battalion of Württembergers, with all but five of their officers. Württembergers! And they told our people that they’d been met on their way up to the front by mobs going to the rear, who shouted at them, “Go back, you bastards, we’ve pulled the plug, don’t go putting it back in.”’ He looked at his watch and turned to Campbell – ‘Everything ready?’
‘Yes, sir. This is our headquarters position for the first phase … Here’s our gunner OP officer, Captain Thomason. He has a line to the guns and can get through to brigade for us, if we need to.’
‘Good,’ Quentin said. He looked at his watch again. Five minutes to go. He got out his binoculars, and, standing at the corner of a brick cottage, the end of one of a row, stared through the prisms at the wasteland of garbage dumps, coal piles, scattered mine buildings that his men would soon have to advance over, and occupy. Looked rather like Loos, he thought. He shivered involuntarily. That was not a good memory.
Sergeant Fagioletti walked at the rear of B Company as it moved slowly forward, a long line of men, three deep, three platoons up, the fourth platoon following behind the centre; and with that platoon four machine-guns of the Corps, being carried forward by their struggling, swearing crews. Each gun weighed nearly ninety-five pounds, the tripod as much, besides the boxes and belts of ammunition, range finders, water tins, and other paraphernalia that had to be manhandled with it.
They’d cover
ed a hundred yards from the starting point – all well so far. No one edging back, or off to the flank. He had privates Green and Coley with him, good men. He’d wanted Snaky Lucas but Lucas had said briefly, ‘I ain’t shooting no Wealds … ’sides, they need me in the platoon. ’Arf of ’em ain’t learned how to piss standing up yet.’
All well … but the Jerries hadn’t fired a shot yet. Where were these buggers that had held up the brigade in front, so that the Wealds had been rushed up from that village with the church back there? Must be hiding somewhere, waiting. He was as wet from sweat as from the continual rain; that, no one noticed now; they’d been wet for a fortnight, and only noticed when they got cold as well, which was every night, sleeping in their sodden clothes … A long burst of machine-gun fire rattled from the right. The line in front wavered. The captain was waving his revolver in the air … centre and left platoons moving on, right platoon down and in cover, disappeared before you could say Jack Robinson … but the centre platoon was down now, too. That was his platoon, two or three men hit, but he couldn’t see who they were from here … Mr Cowell was getting them on their feet again, and they were running, bayonets up. The left platoon was blazing away at a couple of sheds to the flank. Mr Huxley had got them charging, firing from the hip. Fagioletti found himself cheering hoarsely, waving his rifle over his head in animal triumph.
‘There’s a bloke, sarn’t,’ Private Coley said, pointing his rifle a little to the left. Fagioletti saw that it was a man, crouched against a pile of rubbish and slatey coal. Fagioletti prodded him with his bayonet – ‘Get up, you bugger.’ The man did not move, his hands over his face. Fagioletti reached down and yanked him up. The hands fell away, showing a face with a hole in it, just above the nose. Brains were oozing out of the back of the head. It was Private Jessop, on his nineteenth birthday.
Fagioletti dropped the shoulders and moved on, now furiously angry. One of his men, young Jessop, what he and Snaky and the others had got his first woman for … The German artillery had learned of the attack and were firing … whizzbangs only, Fagioletti noted; four or five guns – not much. Another machine-gun, this time from the left … and another from straight ahead … a man running, stumbling. The captain and Mr Cowell were taking the centre and right platoons on at the double, sweeping through the houses up there like a dose of salts. Mr Huxley had wiped out that MG on the right. German soldiers were walking back, by themselves, hands raised, guerre fini for them, lucky sods …
