The Glorious Dead

by Tim Atkinson

  ‘Vandenpeereboomplein?’

  ‘That’s the one. People here will insist on using Flemish now instead of French,’ the man explains. ‘An assertion of their regional identity, I suppose. You’ll find a lot of places being referred to in Flemish these days.’

  ‘Aye,’ Jack says. ‘I know that. I just didn’t think that it was called Vandenpeereboomplein the last time I were here.’

  The driver shrugs. ‘So anyway, it’s past the cathedral, left into Elverdingestraat, and the IWG office is on the right just before Haiglaan.’

  ‘I hope they’ve gone and got themselves a Plumer Straat an’ all,’ Jack smiles.

  ‘Well, they’re planning to as a matter of fact. You certainly know your stuff!’

  ‘Aye, sir. I know me way around.’

  ‘Jolly good. Remember when you get there to report to Captain Grady. He’s in charge of the cemeteries around Nieppe and he’ll be your supervisor – got it?’

  ‘Got it, sir.’ Jack tips his cap. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Good luck!’

  Jack waits until the truck has driven back down the Menen Straat towards what Jack can just make out is the cleared gap in the ramparts where, it is said, a new memorial arch is to be built. But instead of walking on in the direction he’s been given, he turns and crosses the Grosse Markt in front of the rising, scaffolded walls of the Lakenhalle and, with the Gerechstot on his right, turns and strides out purposefully down Boter Straat.

  The hotel now has an impressive stone façade. How can so much have changed in little under a year? All over the town buildings have begun to rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of war. Only the fresh white mortar and newly chiselled stone give the game away. Opening the door of the small hotel, he walks straight to the bar and looks around for her.

  ‘Kan ik u helpen? ’

  ‘Er … I’m looking for …’ The bar has changed so much, but the space is still familiar, like a remembered dream. ‘I’m sorry … Ik spreek niet goed Vlaams,’ Jack stutters. ‘Spreekt u Engels? Mag ik een pintje, alstublieft.’

  The woman starts pulling at a decorated hand-pump. ‘Ik spreek geen Engels,’ she is saying.

  ‘Aye, but I bet you know someone who can …’ Jack mutters under his breath. ‘I’ll call back,’ he says, when he finishes his beer. ‘Tell her I’ll come back. I’ll see her later.’

  The small Imperial War Graves Commission Office in Elverdingestraat, no more than five minutes’ walk away from what was once the British Tavern, is empty when Jack finally walks in.

  ‘Hello? Hallo?’

  After a few moments Jack hears footsteps on the stairs and a small, bespectacled man appears in the office. ‘Patterson, sir. Jack Patterson.’

  The man squints at him for a moment.

  ‘Er, Patterson, sir. Albert Jack Patterson. I’ve been taken on by t’War Graves Commission. They said to …’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the man is saying. ‘Yes, yes, I know.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jack says. ‘Didn’t think that you’d heard.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ the man smiles. ‘I heard all right.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, Lance-Corporal “Jack-the-lad” Patterson – or should that be monsieur le patron? Whose medals are you going to be wearing at the church parade on Sunday morning? Or are you here to don your kitchen apron?’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Jack stares at the man, open-mouthed, then starts grinning broadly. ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘The gardening teams are already out,’ Jim says eventually, once the two of them have recovered from the initial, mutual surprise and have finished reminiscing.

  ‘No longer out gardening yourself then, over Lijssenthoek way?’

  ‘No. Too old for all that.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Yes. They’ve given me a job here now. Filing bits o’ paper.’

  ‘Really,’ Jack raises his eyebrows. ‘That could be handy.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Jim goes on, ‘I’d come back tomorrow if I were you. You’ll have had a long journey. Let me take you to your lodgings. We’ve booked you in with a family in Chaussée de Bruges.’

  ‘Chaussée de Bruges?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jim Ashbury nods. ‘I hadn’t realised when the order came through that, well … you know! But now I suppose you’ll be staying at Mr Steenvan’s new place, will you?’

  ‘Well I don’t know about that,’ says Jack. ‘It were all a long time ago.’

  ‘I know,’ Jim nods. ‘I was there when they buried the girl. Remember?’

  ‘Helped me dig the grave, if I recall.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Jim nods. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Aye, well … If it’s all t’same to you,’ Jack says, ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit o’ fresh air. As you say, it’s been a long journey, and for most of it I’ve been cooped up inside one sort of wagon or another.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jim nods. ‘And it’s a lovely afternoon. You leave your stuff here, then. Have a wander round the town. Changed a bit since the last time you were here, no doubt?’

  ‘Aye,’ Jack says. ‘And not just the town, neither.’

  ‘Very well then,’ Jim says, turning to go. ‘I usually close up here at five o’clock.’

  ‘Before I go.’ Jack takes a folded slip of paper from his inside pocket and opens it out. ‘I was wondering.’ He hesitates. ‘There’s something I ought to do. Would you mind?’

  He hands over the scrap of paper. Jim reads, then listens, then disappears back up the stairs. A few minutes later he is in the office holding several typed forms.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says, ‘there’s a grave in Motor Car Cemetery. The records certainly show some ambiguity … Yes, here you are. You’re in Plot C, Row 12, 12, 12 – f. Here you are!’ He hands Jack one of the typed sheets. At the bottom there is a familiar signature.

  ‘Well, well.’ Jack shakes his head. ‘Ingham was certainly thorough with t’paperwork, I’ll say that for him.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, nowt. The officer who used to be in charge of our little section … Let’s just say he was an officer,’ Jack pauses. ‘But not a gentleman.’

  ‘So anyway, about this empty grave …’

  ‘This one, you mean?’ Jack hands back the piece of paper. ‘He were meant to be shipped back to Blighty.’

  The War Graves man continues leafing through a sheaf of different forms, licking his thumb: ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘He were supposed to be shipped back to Blighty.’

  ‘But that’s …’

  ‘Illegal, I know. Didn’t stop it happening though!’

  ‘So this plot here, the one at Vlamertinghe. The one that should’ve had—’

  ‘Aye, lad!’ Jack smiles. Outside, in the street, a wagon passes.

  ‘That’s quite a story,’ the man says at last.

  ‘Oh aye,’ Jack sighs, shaking his head. ‘Reckon could write a book!’

  Leaving the beer behind the bar to settle, the woman goes through the door that leads into the enlarged back room, through to what Jack takes to be the hotel kitchen. He strains his eyes into the darkness after her, but sees nothing. ‘Katia!’ he hears the woman call.

  And then, suddenly, like the dawn chorus, like the sunrise, like Reveille, there is the unmistakable sound of her, of Katia, of her voice, raised in conversation with this other woman, speaking fast, too fast for him to have any chance of translating whatever she is saying. Then, at last, he sees her, hands first, rubbing a towel as she walks through the door and into the bar to see for herself what the woman has just told her, to see if it could possibly be true. Then her eyes – huge, brown eyes – startled at first, then briefly pleased, and then suddenly angry. As she meets Jack’s gaze and as slowly, slowly, slowly, the rising tide of relief in her heart begins overwhelming every other swirling and confused and tormented emotion, she smiles – but without intending to. She lets out a nervous little laugh as Jack smiles back – then throws the tea towel she is holding ha
rd into his face.

  Acknowledgements

  My thanks go to the staff at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission for their patience and courtesy in answering my many requests for information, and to staff at the Imperial War Museum for their invaluable assistance. I would like to thank Diederik Vandenbilcke for his help with the nuances and accuracy of the Flemish language as spoken in Ypres, and Mike Hodgson for advice on the historical accuracy of the events and locations described. Any mistakes, however, are entirely my responsibility! My good friend Nick Fitton read and commented on early drafts, as did my father, and I am indebted to them both for their advice and encouragement. I am extremely grateful to Scott Pack, my editor, and to Imogen Denny and all the staff at Unbound for making this book what it is. Finally I would like to thank my wife, Sarah, for her patience, support and advice throughout the process of researching and writing this book – without you it would not happen!

  Further reading:

  Readers who would like to know more about the events described will find the following books and sources, all of which are highly recommended, invaluable:

  Max Arthur, Forgotten Voices of the Great War, London, Ebury Press, 2002

  ——, We Will Remember Them, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010

  Franky Bostyn, Passchendaele 1917, Barnsley, Pen and Sword, 2007

  David Crane, Empires of the Dead, London, Collins, 2013

  Wayne Evans, Pierre Vandervelden & Luc Corremans, Silent Cities in Flanders Fields: Ypres Salient and West Flanders WWI Cemeteries, Houten, Lannoo, 2013

  T.A. Edwin Gibson and G. Kingsley Ward, Courage Remembered, London, HMSO, 1989

  Tonie and Valmai Holt, Battlefield Guide to the Ypres Salient, Barnsley, Pen and Sword, 1997

  ——, My Boy Jack, Barnsley, Pen and Sword, 1998

  Philip Longworth, The Unending Vigil, Barnsley, Pen and Sword, 1967

  E.P.F. Lynch, Somme Mud, London, Bantam, 2008

  Martin Middlebrook, The First Day on the Somme, London, Penguin, 1984

  Alan Palmer, The Salient – Ypres 1914–18, London, Constable, 2007

  Sidney Rogerson, Twelve Days on the Somme, London, Greenhill Books, 2006

  Tim Skelton and Gerald Gliddon, Lutyens and the Great War, London, Frances Lincoln, 2008

  John Starling & Ivor Lee, No Labour, No Battle: Military Labour During the First World War, Stroud, History Press, 2014

  Glossary

  Alleyman – a German soldier, from the French ‘allemand’, for German.

  ASC – Army Service Corps (from 1918 Royal Army Service Corps) – responsible for supplies and logistics, as well as a labour force in support of front-line fighting troops.

  base rat – soldier based behind the lines, either at HQ (headquarters) or a supply base, out of the range of enemy guns.

  Battle Police – Military Police, the Army’s police force charged with maintaining discipline and – in battle – ensuring that men didn’t linger in the trenches. There are reports of summary executions on the front lines (see Middlebrook, p. 221), but no official reports exist.

  Blighty – name derived from the Hindi term for foreign country – ‘Bilayati’ – used widely by the British in India and arriving in the trenches as slang for Britain.

  Blighty one/Blighty wound – an injury serious enough for a soldier to be evacuated back to Britain for treatment.

  Bull Ring – the parade ground at Étaples, notorious for the harsh discipline imposed by NCOs on troops arriving in France for the first time.

  bum brusher – an officer’s servant (or someone unduly subservient to authority).

  canary – an instructor, so called because of the yellow armband worn.

  cold meat ticket – one of a pair of identity discs. Discs carried the name, number, unit and religion of the wearer, and from 1915 the British Army issued two official tags made of compressed fibre, strung together. One was removed if a man was killed; the other (the cold meat ticket) remained on the body.

  cooler – slang for prison.

  coolie – Chinese labourer. Members of the Chinese Labour Corps were recruited to free front-line troops for fighting.

  devil dodger – slang term for an Army chaplain (see also ‘sky pilot’ and ‘holy Joe’ below).

  Eat Apples – Étaples, a small fishing port on the French coast where imperial troops trained on first arriving in France and from where many casualties were evacuated.

  estaminet – a small café.

  Fritz – slang for German (see also ‘Jerry’ and ‘Hun’ below).

  Graves Registration Unit – British Army unit responsible for recording battlefield burials.

  holy Joe – nickname for an Army chaplain.

  German Flandern Stellung – Reserve position behind German front-line trenches at the start of the Battle of Passchendaele, July 1917. Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria proposed withdrawing to these lines when it became clear the Allies were going to attack but the defences had only been under construction for about a month.

  Hun – slang for German soldier, or the German Army, often referred to as ‘The Hun’.

  Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) – the body responsible for recording burials and commemorating all those killed in war. It evolved from a Red Cross Mobile Unit founded (on his own initiative) by Fabian Ware. In 1915 it became the Graves Registration Commission under the auspices of the Army before being chartered in 1917 as the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission.

  Jerry – slang for German.

  King’s Regulations – Army manual of rules and regulations, governing conduct as well as battle tactics.

  landowner – the buried dead.

  Lee Enfield – standard-issue .303 bolt-action rifle used by the British Army.

  minnie-woofer – German mine thrower (Minenwerfer) used to fire small calibre shells at Allied trenches.

  omms-n-chevoos – French railway carriages marked with the maximum occupancy for men (hommes) and horses (chevaux) and used to transport troops to and from the Front.

  Pickelhaube – traditional German spiked helmet.

  pillbox – small concrete fortification with fire holes, often spaced along German defensive lines.

  RAMC – Royal Army Medical Corps, or ‘Rob All My Comrades’, thanks to the myth that orderlies would routinely remove personal effects including money from the wounded for ‘safekeeping’. The RAMC was the Army’s medical division.

  redcaps – Battle Police (see above).

  rest camp – slang for a military cemetery.

  sky pilot – nickname for an Army chaplain (see also ‘devil dodger’ and ‘holy Joe’ above).

  SIW – self-inflicted wound.

  wooden cross or ‘WC’, order of – another way of referring to a soldier who is dead, in this case buried and with a grave marked with a wooden cross.

  A Note on the Author

  Tim Atkinson is a teacher, author and award-winning blogger. He was born in Colchester, brought up in Yorkshire and now lives in Lincolnshire.

  www.timatkinson.info

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