Love and the Loveless Page 14

  Practically all cross-roads, level crossings, entrances to and exits from villages have been blown up.

  The rails of all railways have been torn from the sleepers.

  A prisoner states that orders were given to poison all wells. The well at BARLEUX was found to be poisoned with arsenic.

  5. LATE INFORMATION. ALL villages west of SIEGFRIED STELLUNG are in flames.

  Jack was asleep, and snoring gently. He turned down the wick of the lamp. The night was quiet. He could not sleep in the rushing silence. Then through the moonless dark came the cries of flighting mallard, flying west to the peaceful marshes of the Ancre. They would be nesting soon, he thought. For birds, the spring meant love—for men, the spring offensive, and the kiss of bullets.

  Chapter 7

  HINDENBURG LINE

  In a drift of sleet they arrived next day upon wide and gently rolling downland east of the Arras-Bapaume road. Jack Hobart asked Phillip where he would like to put up his picket line, saying that the guns were to cover the Brigade front, behind the infantry screens now about a mile and a half to the east.

  “About here, d’you think, Sticks? The guns will be eight hundred yards in front of you, then. Right, carry on, old boy.”

  They pitched tents near the source of a small brook, which Phillip saw from his map to be the headwater of the Sensée river. Each officer had been given half a dozen cloth-back Trench Maps, with all German positions, and wire, meticulously marked on them in red. They were printed in sections of large rectangles marked by capital letters. Each rectangle was divided into squares of 1,000 yards, and numbered; and each square was subdivided into four smaller squares, about the size of postage stamps, marked a, b, c, and d. Thus a position could be pin-pointed to within a few yards, and found by cross-reference.

  The sleet which had fallen as they were leaving Achiet-le-Grand gave way to rain; they sat dry and happy in a shelter made of posts and rails and covered by a large black tarpaulin “won” by Phillip from the A.S.C. forage dump in Achiet station yard. The mess table made at Ascheux was still a home comfort, with the canvas armchairs. As usual, Jules made good use of the rations. Initialled whiskey bottles stood on the table with the gramophone, while everyone read letters just arrived from the post-dump at Sapignies.

  When the rain stopped, Phillip told Sergeant Rivett to let the drivers and grooms graze their animals in pairs upon the grass and clover all around them. By the look of it, the place had been grazed by sheep, before the withdrawal of the Germans. But a short bite, as Jack called it, had grown since; and by the way the mules and horses cropped, they were enjoying the smell and taste of their new surroundings.

  Phillip accompanied Hobart when the guns were sited.

  They were placed under the higher contour lines, so that the gunners would have their targets against the skyline, should the Germans make a surprise attack. Also, being placed lower than the skyline, they would not come under direct observation from the Germans, before such an attack. He marked the gun positions on his map 57C N–W, on which was printed in the right top corner, Trenches corrected to 5–2–17. There was a later edition, corrected to 4–2–17, of the country to the east, which took in the Siegfried Stellung, the complicated trench systems threading red through it, like the wandering veins on an inflamed eyeball under a magnifying glass.

  Phillip had an idea that the Germans might sally forth from their great new underground fortress, in a series of lightning raiding columns, to destroy with gun-cotton slabs all the many batteries of guns and ammunition dumps which were coming into position before the Hindenburg Line; they might even drive through and take thousands of prisoners. If anything happened to Hobart, Pinnegar would be in command, and he did not trust Teddy, he was too easy-going, damning the staff as “Spectre” West had done, but in general, not particular, terms. If the Germans had prepared a huge trap, and open warfare began, backwards across the old Somme battlefield, of which they knew every inch … their submarines were sinking ships faster than they could be built, Russia was just about out of the war, so it might be a case of one terrific burst to win the war, of another British retreat from Mons, but this time to the coast.

  The gun-sites having been marked, he felt his mind to be neater, and returned with Hobart to camp, to write up his diary, and enter up his pay for March—£13–3–6 @ 11/6 a day, plus £3–17–6 field allowance @ 2/6 a day; add to this £10 half-quarterly pay from the office. Not bad, £27–1–0 in one month!

  Under a shining sun, he began to feel that the war was remote, that life was enjoyable, that he wouldn’t have missed any of it, the war was a tremendous adventure! The Ancre Valley was a remote memory. Green downland extended all around; the mules and horses had the run of fine, open pasture, unmarked by war. They grazed eagerly upon the growing grass, their ears upright, eyes clear, coats smoothing to glossiness, no longer staring. Patches of grey skin eroded by mud rash were growing new hair. The drivers, too, had lost the haggard, pinched look which had seemed normal in the mud.

  “Have ye seen yon Alleyman graveyard?” said M’Kinnell one morning, as he groomed a mule. “’Tis a bonny sight, I’m thinking.”

  Phillip went over to look at it. The small cemetery was laid out with gravel paths lined by low box-wood hedges in an intricate pattern, with beds of pansies, red daisies, and other low plants which later would flower. About this time The Daily Trident, which arrived four days late, was making much of a story, with the aid of a Belgian cartoonist named Raemaekers, of German dead being collected from the battlefields and tied “in bundles of four”, to be sent in open trucks to German factories, the fat of the cadavers being used in the manufacture of high explosive. Here in the wide and shallow bowl of upland grazing was a cemetery with half a dozen carved headstones, five of them for Germans and one for an Englishman who had died of wounds. Looking around, he saw a solitary grave about a quarter of a mile away. Walking there, he saw that it was enclosed within posts and wire. A broken four-bladed wooden propeller stood at its head. Flowers bloomed on the mound. Here rests in God a brave unknown English flier who fell in battle July 14, 1916.

  Another afternoon, riding around the countryside, he came across a large cemetery at Ablaizanville. It had wrought-iron gates, behind which, set in turf, were cream-coloured stones and carved monuments, both Germans and British lying together. A still larger cemetery at the edge of the village was set with wooden crosses, and some of the British shells had fallen among them, disclosing long leather boots and grey tunics, and what they contained. Father ought to see it; then he might cease to be held in the mental barbed wire of armchair hate. He thought to write a letter to The Daily Trident: but would they allow it, as they had started the Corpse Factory stuff?

  He picked a few pansies from the graves, and sent some home to his mother in a letter, others to Mrs. Neville.

  During a further exploration, he came to a sandy escarpment above a sunken road. Seeing that a tunnel had been made in the face of the cliff, which was only a few feet high, and obviously filled in, he dug with his hands and pulled out a wooden box about thirty inches square and ten deep. It had rope handles and a clip fastener. Inside were small black bombs, each in its compartment, like packed eggs. In another rack were the detonators, which could be screwed in place of a cap holding in black grains of ammonal. He filled up one, pulled the ring, and flung the bomb away. It burst after a few seconds. The box would be the very thing in which to carry souvenirs, so he put the bombs, together with the detonators, in one heap, fitted up one, pulled it, and after placing it on the heap, lay down in the sunken road. Explosion after explosion cracked unseen; when he looked up again, he saw the A.D.V.S. approaching, followed by a groom.

  “What’s the game now, eh?” asked the Blue-banded Dogsbody.

  “Destroying a booby trap, sir.”

  When they had gone by, he hid the box, lest someone pinch it for firewood. He would pick it up later, when passing with a limber.

  Life in Clover Valley, as All Wea
ther Jack called it, continued into April. On the 3rd news came, via Brigade, that the United States of America had entered the war. They heard it with little interest. “About time, too,” remarked Pinnegar. “The Yanks have made a lot of money out of the war, lent a lot all round as well, and don’t want to lose it.”

  Life went on evenly: fetching and delivering rations, ammunition, and fodder; carrying out divisional transporting jobs; inspecting the feet, mouths, and general condition (“top-hole”) of animals; harness, saddlery, boots and equipment of drivers daily to be oiled, soaped, polished; metal-work burnished. He left the routine work to Sergeant Rivett, and went farther afield on Black Prince, followed by Morris riding Jimmy the grey mule.

  Once, after passing a cross-roads, on sudden impulse he set off at a gallop over the grass, followed by the groom who had managed to kick Jimmy into a canter; they had gone about two hundred yards when there was a tremendous explosion, and looking back, he saw a yellow-brown mushroom-shaped cloud rising behind them. A time-action mine had blown a deep crater at the cross-roads which later was railed around, lest waggons, limbers, and guns skirting its edge, topple over. It added to the spice of living.

  “Look at this newspaper tripe,” said Pinnegar. “Here’s the Trident talking about the ‘Hun-like barbaric destruction’ of evacuated villages and ‘spiteful’ cutting-down of trees; but all the Germans have done is to make a glacis in front of their new fortress-line, to give clear observation for their balloons, and to cause us to expend labour and material on the building of new billets, storehouses, divisional and corps headquarters, railways, and the boring of artesian wells, which is being done everywhere. Utter bilge!”

  Phillip thought that poor old Father would believe every word of it; newspapers were a kind of poisoning of the mind. After the war he would damn-well clear off, and avoid getting into the same rut, even if it meant never seeing England again: but his heart quailed at the idea.

  There were some plots of coppice-wood growing in places upon the downland, planted as covert for pheasants, Hobart told him. Some wrecked huts lay about in one coppice, and among them stood what appeared to be a splendid sentry-box painted in broad diagonal bands of the German imperial colours, white, black, and red. He approached this gingerly: there were stories of all kinds of booby-traps in the area, pianos in dugouts with a particular key wired to buried explosives—someone playing If I were the only boy in the world, and—roa-ar!—it would be a world entirely of girls henceforward! The sentry box looked to be an obvious booby-trap. Probably opening the door would set off a stick bomb. The door was a-jar; he pushed it with a long stick, while crouching down. Nothing happened. It was a private latrine box, let into the ground by four legs. While he and Morris were pulling it out of the ground, the dog with eyes of two colours appeared casually out of the scrub, and allowed itself to be greeted as an old friend. It followed them back to camp, returning with Potts driving a half-limber to fetch the privy, which was much admired when set up near the officers’ tents. It must have belonged to an oberst at least, said Hobart—“And a very useful addition it is, especially now that these blasted north-west winds have brought back the sleet!”

  During the fetching of the magnificent privy, Phillip had sat on the grass and smoked a cigarette with Tallis, asking him about his little boy. Apparently the child doted on his father, the more so for the terror of having seen his mother and sisters killed in the Silvertown explosion. “I don’t mind going west for myself, sir, it’s the little lad that worries me, if anything ’appens to me.”

  “I might try to get you posted to home service, Tallis.”

  “Please, sir, I didn’t mean that. I’m all right with the boys here, sir. Only if my Phil——”

  “I understand. If anything happens to you, I’ll look after him, Tallis.”

  *

  It was strange to realise, when he looked in his note-book, that it was nearly Easter. That afternoon the company moved its transport line forward. Following the course of the brook, descending under the skyline, they came to Mory. There, to Phillip’s uneasiness, Pinnegar put up the tents on a grassy field at the highest level, the 110 contour on the map. Surely that would be visible to the Alleyman?

  The afternoon turned out sunny, and the mess table was laid for tea in the open. While they were sitting there a rattle came down from the sky, and looking up, Phillip saw a lumbering B.E.2c, which had been droning in wide circles as it spotted for a howitzer battery, dropping away as a small biplane dived past it. The biplane zoomed, and climbed away into the sun, obviously to try again. Meanwhile the slow old art-obs bus seemed to be gliding down in a straight line. Then across the sky flew a small sturdy plane, which began circling as it climbed away from the scout biplane which had fired. “It’s got black crosses!” said Hobart, looking through his binoculars. The enemy plane, now above the gliding machine, turned over and dived upon it, whereupon the other scout came down vertically in pursuit. Phillip saw the hair-like smoke of tracer bullets. The machine, a Sopwith Triplane, missed the German scout, and falling fast, just managed to pull out of its dive, while almost touching the earth. The German pulled up also, but a hundred yards above, so that they saw the black crosses at the end of its wings. Rifles were being fired at it; it turned over and came down at the row of tents, firing at them with its machine gun. It passed over the tea-party at the table so close that Phillip could see the black leather helmet of the pilot, and his face looking down. He waved a gloved hand, then flew away east, about ten feet above the ground. The B.E.2c meanwhile had continued its glide, and struck the ground, turning on its nose. There it remained, soon to be surrounded by soldiers. Word arrived, by way of Jules the chef, that the observer had been killed while in the air, and the pilot hit through the neck.

  Having assured himself that they were being taken care of, Hobart went on talking to Phillip about the day’s foxhunting they had had with the Brownlow. Phillip felt anxious, but concealed it, even when there came the drone of a descending shell. It burst a hundred yards from the tents. Phillip wondered what Jack would do. He went on talking. Another shell—a 4.2 like the first—groaned down and exploded. Two more followed at intervals, the fourth fifty yards from the picket lines. Showing no concern, Hobart went on talking. Splinters, thought Phillip, could do some damage at fifty yards. The mules were bundling together, some of the drivers were trying to calm them.

  “I think I’ll go and see if I’m wanted, skipper.”

  No animal had been hit. Sergeant Rivett was not to be seen. Cutts, the driver who had replaced the one gone to hospital with pneumonia, was standing about twenty yards away, held by the arm of Nolan. Going to find out what was the matter, Phillip saw he was slobbering at the lips. At that moment Sergeant Rivett hurried up, his face staring with fear.

  “I saw you slinking off, Cutts! You did that once before!” he cried. “I know all about you, and if you don’t take care you won’t be so lucky next time!”

  Anger arose in Phillip: and with it the thought or self-portrait of himself uttering involuntarily the words Filthy beast to the Canadian’s scornful ‘dry goods clerk’ who had got syphilis. He checked himself; remained still within himself, impersonal, as Sergeant Rivett turned to him, saluting, to say, “Sir, I wish to report Cutts for dereliction of duty. I saw him leaving the line when the first shell burst. I consider he was deserting his post, sir, in the face of the enemy!”

  “If you please, sir——” began Nolan, but Sergeant Rivett cut him short. “Speak to the officer only when you are addressed! Have I your permission to dismiss Nolan, sir?”

  “Very well, Sergeant Rivett.”

  When Nolan had saluted and gone, Phillip said, “How did you know that Cutts had been sentenced to death before he came to us?”

  “He told me himself, sir, when he came. He has told many of the drivers, too, sir. If you ask them, they’ll corroborate my word.”

  “Why do you think Cutts was sent to another branch of the service?”

 
“I suppose to give him another chance, sir.”

  “Exactly! So we must give him another chance, don’t you think?”

  “Do I take that to mean, sir, that I as Sergeant am to take no notice if one of my men deserts his post in the face of the enemy?”

  “Everyone gets wind up at times. I was so jumpy when I came out first that I was almost out of my mind.”

  “I am responsible for discipline, sir. Almost solely so, if I may say so.”

  “You’re windy, too, you know, Rivett.”

  “Sir!—I ask to see the commanding officer, with your permission, with a view to handing my stripes!”

  “Look at it from Cutts’ point of view. We ought to try and help him. Something’s broken his nerve. A shell, perhaps; or, from the look of him, he probably had hell as a child. He hasn’t had your advantages, coming from a good home.”

  This reference to his social superiority seemed to satisfy Rivett, for he said, “Very good, sir, I’ll say no more about it.”

  The sergeant came to see him before dinner. He asked if he might detail Cutts for limber duty that night. “I feel sure he’s trying to work his ticket, sir. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s a lead-swinger.”

  “I think not. Put him on picket duty until further orders.”

  “Then who will look after his mules, sir?”

  “He can. But not take them up the line.”

  Half an hour after sunset Phillip set out, four fighting limbers with eight pairs of mules. A full moon shone above the track following the course of the brook, and along the bottom of a shallow valley leading to the embankment below the Hindenburg outpost line. Great white clouds were now passing over the moon, a cold wind blew from the north-west. The Hindenburg Line was dissolved in a dusky pallor; not a shot was fired. The silence was strange. Saying goodbye to Jack and the others, he led the empty limbers back at a trot, with a moonlit feeling of having a highwayman’s shadow.