Quartered Safe Out There: A Harrowing Tale of World War II

by George MacDonald Fraser

  Then we were moving out from under the trees on to the edge of the dry plain. It was to be a two-company attack, with ourselves on the left, and we formed up in extended lines, a couple of hundred green-clad figures well spread out, with our platoon roughly in the middle behind the vanguard. This was not lost on Sergeant Hutton as he moved among us, making his last-minute checks.

  “It'll be heids doon an' keep movin' the day,” I heard him say to Peel. “An' we'll be the ones that catch the shit, an' a', stook in the middle.” He sounded more irritable than usual, possibly because, since we had been given no replacement for Gale, he was de facto platoon commander, responsible for thirty-odd men, a job which no sergeant cares for. He came across to me. “Jock—keep close to the Bren, mind, when we git in.” As 2i/c of the section, the Bren gunner and his number two were my immediate concern. I said I would, and asked him why being in the middle of the advance was a bad thing.

  “When Jap artillery oppens oop, he'll ga for the middle o' the target—an' that's us. So keep weel spread oot, all on ye, an' keep movin'. The farther ye git in, the less chance there is o' the whizz-bangs gittin' ye. Reet, Nick?” But Nick was enjoying his pessimism, as usual.

  “Jap's got ’is eye on Nine Section,” he announced. “Special orders f'ae Tojo—’Git them boogers, me jolly lal Japs, an' there's a sivven-day pass for the gooner that puts a whizz-bang oop Grandarse'.” He cackled and leaned forward to shout to Grandarse, in the line in front of us. “Are ye reet, owd lad? Nivver bother, we'll a' git killed!”

  “Aw, fookin' shurroop!” snapped Forster, and for once I sympathised: Nick's eternal parrot-cry isn't exactly what you want to hear before going in under Jap artillery without a scrap of cover. Mind you, I'd have felt there was something wrong if he hadn't said it; I'd probably have been superstitious enough to regard it as a bad omen.

  We waited in the sunlit morning, listening for our own divisional artillery whose barrage would signal the start of the battle, and I was interested to find myself less nervous than I had been before we went over the bund to the temple wood. It was a primitive thing, no doubt: then there had been no one between me and the enemy position; now there was the lead platoon ahead—I wasn't an old enough soldier to appreciate Hutton's warning about being in the second wave. I heard someone laugh, and saw to my surprise that it was Long John, the company commander, checking his watch as he talked to the sergeant-major. I couldn't recall hearing him laugh before; the quiet smile was more in his line, but today he was looking as though he hadn't a care in the world, joking with the C.S.M.

  “Happy as a pig in shit,” muttered Hutton, and added, with a sour grin that had a deep affection behind it: “’E's a lad, oor John.”

  That, incidentally, is about as high a compliment as a Cumbrian soldier can pay, and was a just reflection of the company's feeling. They didn't give their admiration lightly, but they wouldn't have swapped Long John for any officer in the Army. He was a wild cat in action and a gentle man out of it; forty years on I watched him finding seats for latecomers to a memorial service in Carlisle Cathedral, mild and unobtrusive as he handed them their hymn-sheets—and remembered him coming out of the dark with that bent bayonet on his rifle.*

  The artillery opened up behind us with a thunder that made the ground shake, every gun in 17th Division throwing its high explosive at the Japanese positions far ahead; the green lines stirred and the bush-hats tilted back as everyone craned to see what was happening beyond the haze, with the ritual murmurs of “Send it doon, David!”—whoever David might be. The bursts were invisible, but the rumble of the distant explosions came back to us in a continuous wave of sound. For five minutes the barrage continued, and as it died away Nine Section expressed their appreciation.

  “Is that a', fer fook's sake! Christ, Ah could ’ev farted better than yon! Aye, weel, that's a' we're gonna git—an' nae air coover, neether! Sod that for a game o' sojers! Bloody madness! Gooners, Ah've shit ’em!” etc. etc. Actually, by their standards it was practically a hymn of gratitude.

  A word of command sounded from the platoon ahead. All around men were hitching their rifles to the trail, settling their hats, twitching pouch-straps and water-bottles to make sure all was secure, tapping the hilts of kukris and bayonets; the lead platoon was advancing out on to the plain, three extended lines of them, the right markers keeping distance from the company on our right—I'm told there were Shermans of Probyn's Horse somewhere, but I didn't see them. We moved off in the lead platoon's wake, extending as we came into the open until there was five or six yards between each man; Nick was on my immediate right and Stanley with the Bren to my left; a few yards ahead were Morton the Yorkshireman and Grandarse—and between Grandarse and the lead platoon the tall figure of the battalion chaplain, swinging along good style with his .38 on his hip.

  I wondered then, and I wonder now, what the Church of England's policy was about padres who put themselves in harm's way; giving comfort to the wounded and dying, fine, but ethical problems must surely arise if Jap came raging out of a bunker into his reverence's path; the purple pips on the chaplain's shoulder wouldn't mean a thing to the enemy, so…And if a padre shot a Jap, what would the harvest be—apart from three ringing cheers from the whole battalion? In my own Church, the highly practical Scottish one, it would doubtless be classed as a work of necessity and mercy, but I wasn't sure about the Anglicans. If this seems an unlikely field of speculation when you're going into battle, well, my mind had been running on religion lately. I'd been given the hand of fellowship by the Scots Kirk at Deolali (mainly because it would be welcome news to my father), and had accidentally strayed into a C. of E. communion service at Meiktila, receiving wafers and wine to which I obviously wasn't entitled, and escaping detection only by copying the actions of the other communicants. Also, after being an agnostic from the age of ten, I'd started saying my prayers again—there's nothing like mortal danger for putting you in the mood; as Voltaire observed, it's no time to be making enemies.

  I came out of my reverie to realise that we'd gone several hundred yards, and were well out on the plain. The advance was swift but not hurried, about a regulation marching pace, and the rhythm of it, the steady tramp across the hard earth, and the companionship of those long green lines ahead and to either side produced a momentary exhilaration; someone nearby was whistling “Bye-bye, Shanghai”—it must be Parker, somewhere to my right—and I found I was hissing it through my teeth and keeping time in my head, left-right-left-right, as we strode ahead, watching Grandarse's small pack bumping to the step, the dust drifting past from the boots stepping out ahead…

  Something exploded about ten feet above us with an ear-splitting whine-crack—the celebrated Jap whizz-bang, better known as the 75 or 73 calibre gun. Then another and another, whizz-bang, whizz-bang, and dust was flying among the marchers ahead, and invisible things were whistling past. They seemed to be crashing out every second now, and I found my head was flinching to each report even while my feet kept moving. People were shouting orders—no, they weren't orders, really, just the automatic cries of rally and encouragement common to advancing armies since time began: “Keep going! Keep moving! Don't stop! Keep spread out! Keep going!” And overhead those infernal things whined and cracked, deafening and staggering the mind if not the body; to my left Stanley was striding on, head down, face turned like a man walking into the wind. On my right Nick had his head hunched down on his shoulders, and I could see him swearing savagely to himself; something went shrieking past between us, the explosions seemed to be rising to a crescendo—out of the tail of my eye I saw a man in the platoon ahead go down, and then another, stumbling onto his knees, but he was up again in a second and someone was running to the first man, who lay horribly still.

  Grandarse staggered and let out a bellow of pain, and I thought, oh, Jesus, not Grandarse, and Hutton ran past me and grabbed his elbow. “Y'areet? Y'areet, man?” Grandarse turned, clinging to Hutton to keep his balance, then letting go to wipe his face w
hich was plastered by dirt thrown up by a splinter. He was roaring unheard obscenities, the whining and cracking over-head blotting out the words, and then he was plunging on, and Hutton was turning, marching backwards for a few steps, bellowing to make himself heard: “Keep ga'n! Keep ga'n! Keep spread oot!” As I passed him he was snarling in a justified way about how right he'd been—we were in the middle, catching the shit, just as he'd foretold. Whine-crack, whine-crack—and I saw a cloud of smoke and flame erupt right in front of Morton the Yorkshireman at head height, bursting right in his face. Goner, I thought—and he shook his head without even breaking stride; about seven thousand shell splinters must have missed him, by a miracle.

  A deafening crash, apparently on top of my hat, and I staggered, momentarily stunned, but only by the force of the explosion. Nick was staring at me, but I signalled that I was all right—and there was a man reeling away from the lead platoon, collapsing on a little bank, blood running down his face. Someone ran to him, but the fallen man—he was a corporal, with black curly hair—waved him almost savagely away, and the man ran back to the ranks. As we drew level the corporal had dragged out his field dressing and was mopping the gash on his temple; he waved it at Nick and me and shouted:

  “Ga'n git ’em, marras! Remember Arroyo!”

  “Booger Arroyo!” roared Grandarse, and the corporal pulled himself up into a sitting position, and as we swung past he was trying to sing, in a harsh, unmusical croak.

  Aye, Ah ken John Peel an' Ruby too,

  Ranter an' Ringwood, Bellman an' True

  From a find to a check, from a check to a view

  From a view to a death in the morning!

  He was a romantic, that one, but whoever he was I'm grateful to him, for I can say I have heard the regimental march sung, and the regimental war cry shouted,* as we went in under the Japanese fire. I don't know how many casualties we took at that point—seven dead and thirty-three wounded was the count at the end of the day—but I do know that the companies never stopped or even broke stride; they “kept ga'n”, and I must be a bit of a romantic, too, I suppose, for whenever I think back on those few minutes when the whizz-bangs caught us, and see again those unfaltering green lines swinging steadily on, one word comes into my Scottish head: Englishmen.

  Then suddenly we were through, and the shelling stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Hutton had been right: the closer we got, the better. Only a few hundred yards of broken ground separated us from the line of ruined buildings beyond which the gradual slope began, and the Japanese guns, on the reverse slope, must already be at maximum depression—in other words, they couldn't shoot low enough to hit us. Then there was small arms firing to the right, and we were ordered to take up firing positions in a cluster of low hillocks; I believe, but am not certain, that the right-hand company had hit bunkers, and our advance checked while they were cleared. Anyway, we were halted long enough for an incident which I blush to record, because it was too damned silly for words, but since I am writing a faithful record I can't very well omit it.

  We were lying among the hillocks, watching our front and listening to the firing on the flank and the occasional whit! of a shot overhead, cursing the blazing heat and lamenting that we had no chaggles with us, when Grandarse asked Wattie for a drink from his bottle, a request answered in that comradely spirit for which Nine Section was celebrated.

  “W'at's wrang wi' thi own fookin' bottle?”

  “It's roond back on us, ye gormless Egremont twat!

  It's lyin' atop me bloody arse, that's w'at's wrang wid it!”

  “Well, oonfasten the bloody thing!”

  “Look, bollock-brain, if Ah oondoo the bloody straps Ah'll nivver git them doon oop again!” Grandarse, being portly, might well have had difficulty re-threading the two straps from which his bottle hung below the small of his back. “Ye want us runnin' at bloody Japs wid me bundook* in one hand an' me bottle in t'other?”

  “Awreet—Ah'll oondoo it for thee mesel'. Then we'll baith git a drink—oot o' thy bottle!”

  “Ye miserable sod, w'at difference does it mek w'ee's bottle we soop frae?”

  “That's w'at Ah'm sayin'! W'at fer should we use my bottle ’stead o' thine? Y'are always on the scroonge, you! Guzzlin' big-bellied git!”

  “Reet!” roared Grandarse. “Stick yer effin' bottle oop yer goonga, an' Ah hope it gi'es thee piles!”

  “Ah, give ower, ye bloody bairns!” snapped Forster. “There's a fookin' well ower theer, wid watter in't. Use that, an' stop natterin', an' keep thi bottle till efter.”

  This sounded sensible, since water was liable to be precious by the end of the day, and the well was in plain view just outside our position, a circular mud wall enclosing the well-head. Grandarse, however, was hygiene conscious.

  “It'll be full o' shit, like that ’un we used last week, an' foond there wez twa deid Japs in't. Bloated tae boogery, they were.”

  “Weel, ye took no ’arm!” said Forster. “The purification pills does the trick. Ye've got toons o' the bloody things!”

  “We ’evn't got a chaggle,” objected Grandarse. “We'll ’ev tae use oor ’ats tae git watter. Weel, then, ye ’ev to shek pills tae dissolve them—’oo the hell ye gonna dae that in a bush-hat?”

  That seemed to dispose of that, until Wattie had his great idea.

  “Tell thee w'at! Why doan't we put t'pills in oor gobs, an' dissolve boogers that way! Then we can wesh ’em doon wid the pani,* easy!”

  “Aw, piss off!” derided Grandarse. “Stick ’em in oor gobs!” He gave a great guffaw. “’Ey, that minds us o' w'en Jocky Rootledge wez constipated. Ye mind Jocky, back in't 5th Battalion? A reet wooden booger. Weel, ’e ga's till the M.O., an' the orderly gi'es ’im a suppository. ’W'at dae Ah dee wid this?' sez Jocky—’e wez a reet iggerent cloon, tho'. ’Insert it in your rectum, my man,' sez the M.O. ’In me w'at?' sez Jocky. ‘Stick it oop yer arse,’ sez the orderly. ‘Doan't give me yer bloody lip,’ sez Jocky, an' ’e larruped ’im, an' brok' ’is jaw, an' got ’issel' twenty-eight days!”

  “Fook Jocky Rootledge! Ye gan fer the pani or nut?” said Forster. “Ah's gittin' thoorsty listenin' tae ye!”

  “Ah'm gehm,” said Wattie, and after consultation with Peel I made a quick dash for the well to examine its condition. I peered over the wall into the murky depths, and while it wasn't company's own water, I'd seen worse. The surface was about six feet down, covered with a bright green scum no doubt rich in vitamins, but the pills should take care of that. I called to Wattie and Grandarse to brings their pills, and they scuttled across. Grandarse still had doubts about swallowing the pills along with the water, but Wattie brayed at him, insisting it was all one how they got inside him.

  “Dissolve the bloody things in yer spit, man!”

  “Ah've got nee spit! Me mooth's like a Toorkish russler's jock-strap! Awreet, then—let's git crackin'!”

  The difficulty was to reach the water. I lowered my hat on the end of a rifle sling, but the thing refused to sink through the emerald crust, however much I bounced and swung it.

  “W'at's in this fookin' well—sheep dip?” demanded Grandarse. “Aw, booger it—Ah've ’ed this. It'll joost give us the fookin' cholera, any roads.”

  “We've got the pills!' cried Wattie, panting like the hart. ’Coom on, man, gi'e's that sling!”

  He plumbed away, blaspheming, without success. I had already decided that whoever drank from that well, it wasn't going to be me. We'd better pack it in, I said.

  “Nivver!” cried Wattie, straining over the wall. “Sink, ye sod! Ah, hell! Ah'll git thee, thoo varmint! Giddoon!” But even he had to give up at last. “There's nowt for it,” he croaked. “One of us'll efta ga doon.” They both looked at me. “It'll efta be thee, Jock.”

  Now I know this was the point where I should have put my foot down, and indeed I did demur, quite forcibly, but Grandarse whined that he was dee-eye-drated, and I was his only hope. Which was true, for Wattie weighed thirteen stone, and Grandarse himself
would have needed a cattle sling. Anyway, there was no sign of our having to advance soon, and it is difficult for a feckless youth to resist the pleadings of his elders, even when he knows they're idiots. And a good lance-corporal should look after his men. Or perhaps I'd got a touch of the sun. So a few seconds later I was hanging upside down just above the green surface, preparing to scoop with my hat, while Wattie and Grandarse, mumbling as they chewed purification pills, held my legs. To do this, they had to stand erect, oblivious of the fact that Jap was still in the vicinity.

  In that confined space I didn't hear the machine-gun opening up, but I was aware of shots smacking into the well-head, splinters raining down, startled bellows from overhead, and of my legs being released. And that, my dears, is how grandpa came to fall down a well during the last great battle of World War Two.

  I took the water smoothly, sliding in rather than falling, and fortunately the shaft was wide enough for me to turn underwater and come up head first, coughing and clawing waterweed out of my eyes. After the initial shock it was quite pleasantly cool, and I trod water while muffled shots sounded from the world above, and Grandarse announced my plight—he sounded as though he was speaking with his face pressed to earth; the section was evidently firing, and either they or the well-head were being fired upon in return. But it was difficult to tell, and the thought crossed my mind that if Jap counter-attacked successfully, I was going to be embarrassed. There wasn't a hope of climbing out, and I was just wondering how long I could tread water in heavy boots, when a bush-hatted head appeared above.

  “W'at the hell are you daein'?” demanded Sergeant Hutton.

  I try to be civil to superiors, but there are limits. “I'm attacking Pyawbwe by submarine!” I shouted. “What the hell does it look like I'm doing? That bloody idiot Grandarse dropped me!”