by John Masters
Bentley’s face was grave as he listened. Someone cried, ‘How are we going to elect the members? By corps and regiments?’
The speaker shouted back, ‘What do our bloody corps or regiments matter now? Elect by huts first, one per hut, then those meet in the main mess hall, and elect committees … We’ve got no time to waste. So, let’s sing the Red Flag, then everyone back to his hut and get on with the election. Hut representatives to the mess hall at nine ack emma!’ He raised his voice –
The People’s flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead.
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their life-blood dyed its every fold.
Bentley shouted in Ron’s ear – ‘I think I’ll go to the mess hall, and talk to the hut representatives when they turn up.’
‘Good luck, sir,’ Gregory said. ‘You’ll need it.’
‘March all bloody day, march all bloody night, then ride in bloody lorries half the next day … what are those bloody ASC blokes doing? Murdering all the Frogs in Calais? More power to ’em, I say.’ Smith ’87’s voice was aggrieved, as he set up the ground sheet that was to be half his bivouac with Private Halton.
‘They might be shooting their officers,’ Halton said.
‘The bloody ASC don’t have officers,’ Smith said. ‘Not like ours. Just foremen, really, and who’d mind putting a bullet in a foreman?’
A couple of yards away in the field Snaky Lucas was making a bivouac with Sergeant Fagioletti – ‘’Ow far are we from Calais now, sarn’t?’
‘Don’t know, Lucas. All I know is I want to get some kip and I don’t want no rain. ’Ad enough of that to last me the rest of my life … Look, they’re going to blow Cookhouse any minute now. Take my mess tin, I got to check all these bivvies before the captain comes round.’
Lucas nodded without speaking. In a few moments the bivouac was up, two ground sheets making a little tent. The ground below was sodden … couldn’t help that. The whole battalion was in the field, close-packed as ruddy sardines … looked daft, after so many years when you couldn’t do it, because a couple of Jerry shells would have napooed two or three hundred blokes. There was the Cookhouse call – Oh officers’ wives have pudding and pies, But soldiers’ wives have skilly.
The buglers were getting better, not as good as they’d been in ’14 of course, but better than the Boys’ Brigade they’d sounded like ever since. Old Wylie would have ’em all the way up soon. A bit of a tartar, he was, in spite of being the Honourable … because of it, perhaps …
He took the sergeant’s mess tin and his own, and wandered over to the cookhouse, without hurrying. It was set up in a lorry now, and that was different, too. Back in the company bivouac area, he sat down on the ground, and half a dozen soldiers gathered round, all eating the beef and potato stew out of their mess tins.
‘I’d still be sleeping in a big bed in Roulers,’ Smith ’87 said moodily, ‘if it wasn’t for them bloody ASC blokes.’
‘We oughter be sleeping in our own bloody beds, back ’ome,’ another private said. ‘They’d be up shit creek if we all went on strike too, like those blokes in Calais and Ee-taps.’
‘Shut your mouth,’ Lucas said.
Sergeant Fagioletti came and stood over them. He said, ‘The captain’s going to speak to the company as soon as you’ve all eaten. Ten minutes from now. Fall in by that tree at the edge of the field, there.’ He took his mess tin and moved a little aside, turning his back.
Smith ’87 said, ‘Well, at bloody last we’ll find out something … perhaps!’
Fifteen minutes later, when the men were gathered round the tree, silent in the late twilight, Captain Kellaway said, stammering now and then, as he always did – ‘Tomorrow morning we’ve got a v-v-very unpleasant job to do … We … two divisions … have been ordered to break up the s-s-strike at the camp outside Calais … There are f-f-f-five thousand men there, all in a s-s-s-state of mutiny, and all armed. The c-c-c-camp is f-f-five miles due west from here. We will advance at s-s-seven ack emma, in column of route. About half a mile from the c-camp we will open up into attack formation. At two hundred yards from the camp, we will halt, on orders, and officers to be detailed will advance, unarmed, calling on the mutineers to return to their duty, and parade immediately, without arms, on their parade ground. Two battalion snipers will be allotted to each company – we will have Privates Whitman and Hurling. If it becomes necessary, they will fire, on my orders, at ringleaders, to kill. These t-targets will be specifically pointed out to them by me. No one else will open fire unless the action becomes general. We are being supported by the whole artillery – a hundred guns – but they will not fire at all unless the situation becomes critical … That is v-very unlikely. We will be twenty-five thousand trained infantry, they are five thousand service corps and motor drivers … Keep calm. Keep your heads. These fellows are not Germans, they’re Englishmen. But the mutiny must be put down. That’s all. Get to sleep now.’
The company sergeant-major bellowed, ‘Company … shun!’ The men stiffened to attention. Kellaway touched the rim of his steel helmet and moved away – ‘Company, stand at-ease! Break off.’
The soldiers crawled into their bivouacs. Lucas said dreamily. ‘Just like aid to the civil power, in the Shiny. Only we won’t ’ave no magistrate out in front reading the Riot Act.’
‘And these blokes ain’t niggers,’ Halton said. ‘They’re Englishmen, like the captain said … I don’t like this. Buggered if I’ll pull the trigger tomorrow.’
Lucas said, ‘You’ll do what you’re ordered to. Who said you had to like everything you did, in the army?’
The battalion advanced across the downland east of the Transit Camp. Other battalions stretched to right and left in a huge semi-circle. The 18-pounder guns and 4-5-inch howitzers were in position on the slope of the hill two miles behind, guarded by a battalion from a reserve brigade. The Transit Camp stood in ordered rows of huts under a hazy winter sun, smoke belching from one tall chimney … the camp incinerator, Captain Kellaway thought, marching in the middle of his company’s line and a few paces in front, with his batman and Privates Whitman and Hurling, the snipers, close at his heels. Colonel Wylie was a hundred yards to the right, with Lieutenant Woodruff and the RSM. There was a barbed-wire fence round the Camp, and wire-cutting teams now ran forward from each company. The CO raised his hand and the mass stopped. The wire cutters worked for five minutes, cutting and pulling, until they had made a series of large gaps. Inside the Camp, the mutineers appeared suddenly to realise what was happening. They gathered, shouted, pointed, ran back into the huts, to reappear carrying rifles. Kellaway’s heart sank. What a way to die … to be shot by people you really sympathised with, though … well, mutiny was mutiny. There’d be a bloodbath … the guns would open fire … and they’d wait here preventing any escape, till the massacre was over. There must be plenty of innocent men among them …
The wire-cutting teams ran back. All along the crescent bugles blew. The battalions advanced to the wire, and halted. Inside, the mutineers were massing, but without a real focus. Colonel Wylie called, ‘Detailed officers! Ready!’
Kellaway took his revolver out of its holster and handed it to his batman. Half a dozen officers of the regiment were doing the same, including the colonel. Inside the Camp a score of mutineers had taken up position at the corners of huts, rifles in hand. Farther off, towards the centre of the Camp in an open space, a group stood close round two flags, a Union Jack and a home-made red flag.
A man in civilian clothes came running out of the Camp, through a gap in the wire, towards Kellaway. He stopped, panting for breath – ‘For God’s sake don’t use artillery,’ he gasped – ‘They’ve got real grievances … this can be settled without bloodshed … I’m Bentley, Member of Parliament …’
Kellaway said, ‘It’s too late to change anything now, sir. We have our orders. You’d better stick by me.’
The CO called, ‘Detailed of
ficers – advance!’ At his side the second-in-command shouted, ‘By companies – load!’
The colonel, Kellaway, and the half-dozen other officers, now all unarmed, who had been detailed to persuade the mutineers to return to their duty, walked forward – Wilfred Bentley at Kellaway’s side.
Kellaway walked through a gap in the wire. A nineteen-year-old subaltern, Barton, just out, walked through the next gap to his right, the colonel through the one beyond that. Kellaway began to call out, ‘On p-parade, men! On your m-m-main p-parade ground … leave your arms in your h-h-huts!’
He was passing through a scattered crowd of them, some calling ‘Don’t give in,’ but most silent.
He walked on, exhorting, ‘N-no one’s going to get hurt if you get on p-parade. We c-c-can f-find out what the t-trouble is afterwards …’
He was twenty paces from the two flags. A man standing by the red flag was holding a revolver, fingering it nervously, licking his lips. Beside him another man, carrying a rifle, snarled, ‘This is loaded. Stop where you are, or …’ He raised the rifle, aiming at Kellaway’s heart.
‘L-l-look b-b-behind me, m-man!’ Kellaway cried.
Just outside the wire the khaki ranks remained steady, standing at ease, the skirts of their greatcoats stirring in the chill raw wind off the Channel. The 2nd-in-command held his binoculars to his eyes; beside him the Regimental stood motionless, his waxed moustache twitching, the steel helmet set squarely on top of his shaven head. In the middle of B Company’s front rank, and four paces forward, Fletcher Whitman held his rifle in the aim, the cross hairs of the telescopic sight centred over the heart of the mutineer threatening Captain Kellaway. He couldn’t save the captain’s life if the mutineer fired; he’d been told not to shoot unless they fired first. So, if they were going to start something, the captain would be a goner. So would the mutineer, a second later, but that wouldn’t help the captain.
At the flags, the man with the rifle, still threatening Kellaway, screamed, ‘Comrades … break ranks!’ Kellaway realised that he was calling on the soldiers outside the wire – ‘Join us! We’re fighting for you as well as ourselves … for all working men … comrades … !’
For a moment the scene froze. By the flags, everyone was silent, and motionless, mutineers’ fingers ready on triggers. Outside, the battalions, veterans of Loos, Ypres, the Somme, Cambrai, Arras, Passchendaele, waited. Farther back the gunners waited by the massed guns.
Kellaway said, ‘On p-p-parade, m-man! M-m-my feet are g-getting c-cold!’
The mutineer with the revolver said, ‘Oh, fuck!’, threw his weapon on the ground, and headed for the central parade ground. The man with the rifle yelled after him, ‘Bloody coward!’
Another man said, ‘What’s the use, Jim? … The officer’s feet’s cold!’ He laughed grimly and walked off, dropping his rifle. Now they were coming out of huts in twos and threes, drifting away from their defiant positions, streaming towards the central parade ground.
Colonel Wylie came up and faced the ringleader. He said, ‘A Court of Inquiry will meet to investigate this disturbance at nine ack emma tomorrow morning. Meantime, you’re under arrest. Go back there and report yourself to my RSM.’
The man glared, ground his teeth, and at last dropped his rifle. Colonel Wylie said, ‘Acknowledge my order, and salute.’
The man said, ‘Yes’ – grated his teeth again, and at last got it out, ‘Yes, sir. I understand, sir.’ His hand rose to the peak of his forage cap, then he marched off, head low.
Wilfred Bentley let out his breath in a long sigh, and said, ‘Well done all … Now what?’
The CO said, ‘The battalion will reform and march into Calais, and, this afternoon, entrain for Cologne. We are joining the Army of the Rhine at once.’
They were marching up from Cologne Hauptbahnhof to their barracks on the outskirts of town, guided by an officer and a sergeant from the brigade staff. They were marching at attention, for Germans were watching. The band of another battalion was playing them in, but it was heavy infantry, and played too slow a beat until Colonel Wylie sent the RSM forward with the message to play at a hundred and forty paces a minute. Then the big drum beat faster and the Weald Light Infantry stepped out in their own light, fast pace.
Private Lucas marched easily from long practice, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead but seeing a great deal peripherally from under the rim of his steel helmet … So these were the Jerries at home … big headlines in funny letters on posters … the captain said Germany was really in a state of civil war, outside the areas occupied by the British, French, and American armies of occupation … very shabby everything was, specially the clothes … kids thin, clothes in rags … and it was bloody cold, colder than Strensall Barracks in February … The shops empty, that he could see … but they must have something that a British pound note could buy … which reminded him … he was getting short of the ready and would have to set up the board as soon as he could … it was a hell of a long way to barracks … The colonel had thought so too, and they were changing arms, by companies. Smith ’87, next to him, was grumbling under his breath, ‘Why in ’ell don’t we march at ease?’
Lucas said nothing. If Smith ’87 had served in the Shiny in the old days, he’d know you never let the wogs and niggers know you ever got tired, or scared. His father had told him once, ‘Dover is where niggers begin, my boy,’ and by God he’d been right. France was all niggers really, and Germany too, though they were better soldiers than any other niggers he’d ever come across or heard of …
Lucas was strolling down a narrow street in central Cologne, flanked by Privates Halton and Smith ’87. Every now and then they stopped and peered in the shop windows, which, as Lucas had guessed, contained something, but not much. Money jingled in all their pockets, especially in Lucas’s as he had set up his Crown & Anchor board the first afternoon, in a secluded part of the rambling ex-German infantry barracks; and, in the ensuing week, had won over eight pounds. Winston Churchill, now Secretary for War, had doubled the soldiers’ pay, as one response to the Calais mutinies, and to bring their pay closer to civilian levels, thus partly defusing the demobilisation and job issues; and the men had been expansive in their gambling, though in fact they had not yet received their first pay under the new rates.
Two children of about seven, a boy and a girl, held out their hands silently. They were in rags, the snow-bladed wind cutting through to the visible, dirty skin below. The girl had sores round her mouth, the boy round his eyes. Their feet were bare, and some of the boy’s toes dead white. Lucas stopped – ‘You’re going to get frostbite,’ he said. The boy stared, hand still out. Bloody foreigners, couldn’t understand a word you said. Lucas raised his voice – ‘You’re going to get bloody frostbite!’ he shouted. ‘Lose your bloody toes! Look!’ He pointed down. The boy looked down, saw nothing unusual, and looked up again. Lucas glanced round. The next shop up the street displayed three pairs of shoes in its window. He caught the boy by the ear and dragged him into the shop, calling over his shoulder, ‘Bring the girl, too.’
‘Hey, Snaky, we’re not supposed to fraternise. Old Wylie was very hot about it.’
‘Fuck that!’ Lucas said. He turned to the shopman, who was waiting apprehensively in the middle of his floor – ‘’Ere, you, shoes for the kids … strong shoes … dekko, joothi, damn you!’ He raised his foot and pointed.
‘Ah, schuhe,’ the man said.
‘’Urry up, I ain’t got all day.’
The three soldiers stood, their forage caps agleam with the bugle horn and prancing horse badge of the regiment, their greatcoat buttons glittering, belt buckles gleaming, boots shining like anthracite coals, until both children had been fitted.
‘Danke schön,’ the kids said in chorus; then they held out their hands.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Lucas exploded. ‘Well, let’s ’ave a dekko.’
He lifted the boy’s shirt and stared; his belly was nothing but a hollowed-out cage. The girl lifted her own sk
irt; she, in contrast, was bloated and pot-bellied.
‘Got any chocolate?’ Lucas asked.
Halton said, ‘I have, but …’
‘’And it over … there … there … Now cut along or I’ll maro your arses. Jao!’
The soldiers left the shop and continued their stroll. A woman’s voice called softly, ‘Tommy! Want good time?’ Two women were standing in an alley, shawls wrapped round their shoulders. They were both young, and one was carrying a baby of about a year old.
Lucas went over – ‘’Ow much?’
‘A shilling …’
Lucas said, ‘A whole shilling?’
The woman said desperately, ‘Nothing, then … nur chocolate, food … bully beef …’
Lucas said, ‘You ain’t no whore, are you?’
The woman drew herself up and said, ‘Whore? What …? Oh … No!’ She sagged again – ‘I am wife’s Hauptmann, captain … she, wife’s Fregattenkapitan, navy … not wife’s, widow’s.’
Lucas whistled through his tobacco-stained teeth. Officers’ wives, going for a tin of bully. A tin of Hoggin’s bully!
Halton said, ‘I got some bully … Fuller told me there’d be lots of women, and what they’d want.’
‘And I’ve got a bob … and one for you, Smithy, for your chocolate.’ He turned to the women – ‘All right, lead on.’
‘What about fraternising?’ Halton said anxiously. ‘I don’t want to go to the Glasshouse.’
Lucas said, ‘Fucking ain’t fraternising. I’ve fucked a lot of niggers in my time, but I never fraternised with one … Look, you – we follow behind … keep an eye out for Red Caps … got it? Sumjow?’
The women nodded and Lucas said, ‘Money when we get there … money and bully.’
‘If I ’ave another drill parade this week,’ Smith ’87 said, ‘I’ll … I’ll … and don’t tell me I’ll do wonders in my trousers. Snaky. I’m proper browned off, and that’s the truth. Drill, drill, drill …’
