Love and the Loveless Read online

  “I know! Well, not long afterwards there were mysterious fires in houses in Bailleul, and robberies. The M.P.’s have agents, you know, or informers—it’s a dirty job being a cop—and through them they learned that it was the work of Broncho Bill and his gang. An informer tipped them off on the next job. The A.P.M., you may remember him at Grantham, Brendon––––”

  “Brendon! My God, I know him! He was in my battalion at Heathmarket in ’fifteen!”

  “Well, as I was saying, Brendon went in his car, and a lot of redcaps, and surrounded Baloo. All exits guarded. In the square, where he stopped, there was a smart squad under a sergeant with ginger eyebrows and Charlie Chaplin moustache. Terrific Guardsman salute, old Brendon returning it. Then the search for Broncho Bill began. When Brendon returned to the square, his motorcar was missing, and the driver sitting on the pavé with a whack over the head, minus his revolver, cartridge pouch, armlet, and cap. You’ve guessed it. Broncho Bill was the bloke with the false eyebrows and moustache.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “God knows, and he won’t split. I’ve heard that he has a hide-out on the old Somme battlefield. He travels about, been known at Amiens. A month ago he was at Pop. He got hold of a room and started a crown-and-anchor board. Also ‘one up’, you know tossing heads-or-tails, with coins with two heads. He was rumbled at that, but whipped out a revolver and threatened to shoot the first bloke who tried to stop him. Now he’s back here.”

  “How d’you know?”

  “A pal o’ mine works in the office of the Area Commandant, and told me that his chief was rung up by the A.P.M., saying he’d had a chap who’d done five years’ hard labour in a Dartmoor prison, and was sending him as a camp warden. He suggested that he be put in a dug-out next to the Area Commandant’s staff dug-out, so’s they could—keep an eye—on him. Hell, I’m blotto.”

  “What happened?”

  “Christ knows, and he won’t split.”

  The story-teller pushed past him, and stumbled out of the tent. Phillip put on The Garden of Sleep, which, Hobart said, had been written in Norfolk, near Sheringham, among fields red with poppies. Poppies—opium—sleep. The flowers of death, of Francis Thompson’s “after-sleeping”. How strange that they could be blooming everywhere, on the eve of a great battle.

  After the record, he put on Kipling’s Mother o’ Mine.

  If I were drowned in the deepest sea

  I know whose thoughts would come down to me,

  Mother o’ Mine––––

  When his host came back, saying that the fug in the tent had turned him up, Phillip waited to hear what the gaol-bird had to do with Broncho Bill.

  “Well, he cleared off after a bit, and was caught, and brought back. Here’s the point. As he was being taken along the village street, to the cage, a redcap overheard an A.S.C. corporal coming out of an estaminet say, ‘That’s the bloke that’s been harbouring the Australian deserters.’ So the redcap reported it to my pal in the Area Commandant’s office, whose chief rang up Brendon. That night a ring was made round the dug-outs’ entrances in the field, and the redcaps went through the tunnels, checking every man in every platoon with their company officers. And caught Broncho Bill and two of his gang. They were handcuffed and taken to the M.P. Camp on the Dickebush road.”

  “Were they shot?”

  “What, Broncho Bill? Don’t be silly! He’s still at large! He had been a day in the camp when he knocked out the sentry sent to look after the three of them when they went to wash, got his rifle and went to a hut; his mates each got a rifle, and made for the gate, saying they’d let the daylight into anyone who tried to stop them.”

  “Did he get away?”

  “He got away, but not his pals. They got as far as the Poperinghe road, there was some shooting, one was hit in the arm and again in the leg, and the second gave up while trying to cross a muddy field. Broncho Bill got clear. A day or two later he pinched Brendon’s best breeches hanging out on a line, right outside his office. Then while they were all out looking for him, he came back and pinched Brendon’s horse, after knocking out the groom in charge of it.”

  “Good lord, what a nerve! How long ago was that?”

  “Last week.”

  “What a lad! What a lad!” cried Phillip, and finding a record of Emmy Destinn singing Ritorna Vincitore, put it on the turn-table and, kneeling down, listened to the deep, tender, and passionate notes of the singer. All yearning, all hope, all rest was in the music. When he looked up, the other chap was lying back on his camp-bed, his eyes closed.

  He finished the bottle alone. The funny thing was the stuff didn’t make him swirl as in the old days. It was a food, and went very well with riding. Perhaps the shaking of the liver got rid of the poison. “Cheer-ho, mein prächtig kerl!” he toasted the recumbent one. “I heard that phrase on Christmas Day, ’fourteen, when we made friends with the Alleyman, as we called ’em then, and one showed me a meerschaum pipe with Little Willie’s face on it. Their Prince of Wales, y’ know. I can’t bear the kind of chap who sneers at their Kronprinz, they don’t sneer at our Pragger Wagger.” He felt the tent swirling about him. Christ, he was blotto. Getting up, he walked back to his transport lines, feeling better in the fresh air. Black Prince jet black in moonlight. Dear old Blacker Pragger, to whinny at him! Faithful Black Prince! He felt he loved him, and put his arms round the warm neck.

  Beside the gelding stood, uneasily, the stocky bay mare once ridden by Fenwick. She was named Betty, after Darky’s girl at Sleaford. Good old Darky, back in England, safe with a nice wooden leg, soon to marry his girl of silk, and lie warm every night against the terrible softness of her body. He thought of Sasha, and how she must really despise him for being nothing. He felt twisted up, and gave a shout. Bloody fool! Never, never would he go back to Flossie Flowers’ again.

  “Did you call me, sir?”

  “No, no, Sergeant Rivett. I was thinking of something, a long time ago. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, sir.” The sergeant walked away in dissolving moonlight.

  For a long time, it seemed, he stood with his cheek against the warm silk of Prince’s neck, vaguely aware that the bay mare was turning her hindquarters, dumbly, to Prince. Perhaps all the light and flame had disturbed her: but how stupid he was, she was in season. Poor brown mare. As he imagined her feelings, sympathy flowed in him. Pushing between the mare and gelding, he put his arms round her neck, and talked to her, feeling her warmth flowing into him through his face. He felt to be nobody, to be of the moon. Was she appealing to him for relief, or sympathy? God, I’m tight, he thought: no matter, why shouldn’t I help the poor creature. With slight erotism, and thrusting aside a feeling of being seen, swiftly he took off his jacket, and baring an arm, prepared to ease the mare. She turned her head as though with understanding, while Prince, whose ears were alert, uttered a happy little sound, huf-huf-huf. I believe they understand, he thought. How superior animals were to men who raped, with daggers in their minds.

  He put on his tunic, and was buttoning it up when he saw the short figure of Sergeant Rivett a few yards away. Had he been there all the time, camouflaged by the moonlight? Had he seen him? He spoke to Prince, pretending not to have seen the sergeant. Then he changed his mind.

  “What’s the time, sergeant?”

  “Nearly two o’clock, sir. I am about to change the picket.”

  “I thought of going for a short ride, it’s such a beautiful night. And there’s nothing doing now until five ack emma.”

  “Very good, sir. Shall I warn Morris?”

  “Oh, don’t wake him.”

  “He’s still up, sir. None of us can sleep in this moonlight.”

  “Right ho, I’ll take him with me.”

  Supposing something did come in, while he was absent? Rivett could deal with it. But supposing it was a job of taking ammunition up, and there was shelling? Rivett was windy, he might behave as he did to Cutts when a few 4.2’s had come over at Mory. Rivett had his moth
er with him all the time, thinking of her and what she would feel if he were killed, just as he himself had felt in 1914. It was fatal to have your mother with you at war; thank God he himself had broken away. And yet, was that only why he could keep his feelings down, when shells came over? No: it was Lily helping him. If he hadn’t the thought of Lily to keep him going, he would be windy himself: if he were going to be killed, he would be killed, and that was that. Rivett was where he had been, before he had been able to yield himself to Lily. So it was best to keep Rivett away from the line; he was very good for the routine work.

  Hell, nothing could possibly come in. Only an attack from the Alleyman, what was called a spoiling attack, to catch our chaps on the hop, all ready for the advance, and so unready for defence. In which case he could soon get back. Even so, how would the limbers be needed? But what a schemozzle it would be if the Alleyman had decided to attack ten minutes before zero! It would be hell let loose. Would the order to blow the mines, prematurely, be given? That would scupper them all right! If not, our chaps and Germans would all be mixed up, and what would our machine guns do?

  Hell, why worry. It wouldn’t happen. The attack would go according to plan. The sections were not going over with the first waves. They were to squat still at their emplacements, sixteen among seven hundred Vickers machine guns helping with the barrage. The rate per gun was three hundred rounds per minute, fired in bursts … twenty odd thousand empty brass cartridge cases being flicked out by the extractors per minute, the bullets swishing up and over the Ridge. Poor bloody Alleymans! He imagined himself in feld-grau uniform, bringing up ammunition, water, and rations, and having to pass through one of the seven hundred lattice-curtains of nickel. Fourteen million bullets, spinning, three feet above the ground, over the Ridge and down the reverse slopes. Each one a whisper, a cry, a moan, a buzz, unheard in smoke, dust, and roar-rendings of more than two thousand shells from guns and howitzers, and nearly as many again from Stokes mortars and short-ranged torpedoes—the “flying pigs” of the heavy trench-mortars.

  This vision momentarily spoiled his ambition to see the grandeur of the opening bombardment from Hill 73, behind Ploegsteert Wood, between two and three miles away. There was a ruined chateau, La Hutte, on its top. He remembered it had yellow walls seen in the distance when bicycling down from Messines on Christmas Day, 1914, during the truce, to try and find cousin Willie at Plug Street.

  How tight was he? Holding hands before him, he shut his eyes and stood on one leg. He stumbled; still, it was difficult in the moonlight. He tried again, and kept upright while he counted three, slowly. Good, he was all right. Very well, check. It was 2 a.m. He was free for a least three hours. Pack mules, loaded with water and ammunition, were to be at the emplacements at 5 a.m., together with pack mules to carry the Vickers guns to the Second Line just below the Crest. There was to be a two-hour pause, in which to consolidate. Then the second assault, to be followed by a five-hour pause, to await the counter-attack, smash it, and then advance to the sixth objective, the Oosttaverne Line.

  Zero hour was at 3.10 a.m.: if he left at 2 a.m. he would get to La Hutte Hill in plenty of time to see the start of the show. With no transport on the roads, he would be able to trot all the way back, taking from fifteen to twenty minutes.

  “I’ll be back well before five o’clock,” he told Sergeant Rivett. “You’ll know what to do if anything comes in, won’t you?”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “Not that anything is likely to come in, but anyway—I’ll not be gone for long. Back about four ack emma.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  When his officer had left, Rivett said to the man on picket duty, “There he goes, joy-riding again! Leaving everything to me!”

  The driver said, “Yes, sergeant,” but he thought that the sergeant had it as cushy as the A.S.C., for Sticks always took the convoy up the line, while Rivett stayed back and had a good kip every night.

  Followed by Morris, Phillip took the road to Wulverghem, with its faraway memories of the grey morning after the defeat at Messines on that never-to-be-forgotten night of Hall’o’en. As he trotted beside his shadow, aeroplanes began to fly over, at about a thousand feet. Surely that would tell the Germans quite clearly that they were flying to and fro in order to drown the sounds of tank engines, as they moved up to their starting points? Then, before him, was a misty movement, which he saw as he went on to be a column of marching men. They were the reserves, and carried much equipment, spades, extra bandoliers, canvas buckets of bombs, and Lewis-gun ammunition—and oranges. He stood still as they passed, faces turned curiously towards him. They seemed endless, so he walked on, followed by Morris. Other columns were moving across the fields, all in silence. No red point of cigarette.

  By the time he got to La Hutte Hill the guns, which had been firing intermittently, were silent. He left Morris with Prince, and walked up a slope. Somewhere inside the hill was a very big dugout, called the Catacombs, rumoured big enough to hold a brigade. He was aware of faces suddenly appearing, as he came upon groups of men talking in quiet voices, some sitting, others standing, all waiting like himself for the start.

  He found an 18-pounder shell-box, and settled himself comfortably elbows on knees and face in hands, while thinking that the Bible phrase of bowels turning to water could not be bettered.

  The aircraft flew back towards Bailleul and Hazebrouck. Time dragged at the moon. At last it was three o’clock. His heart began to thump. It was so quiet that he could hear nightingales singing far away. They were surely very late in singing, the eggs must be hatched by now, and normally the cockbird ceased to sing when the hen began to sit. Perhaps the unnatural noise of the guns had strained their nervous systems. Some birds, notably wrens, uttered nervous little trilling bursts of song when alarmed at night. Perhaps all beauty, whether of sound or colour or shape, came out of pain, or suppression of life, as poetry came from suffering. Then he thought, How can any species evolve without fear, or dread of pain? Life on earth was obviously a series of experiments. And behind fear and pain was the spirit of life, which was love. Of course! He felt calm, and happy. Life must endure all things.

  Low voices were audible. He stood up and moved towards a group, drawn by the feeling of their excitement which showed itself in all their faces turned one way; but in time saw the dark old-blood colour of their hatbands, and moved away to a safe distance. Then hearing their voices, he knew them for Australians, and felt at ease, though still keeping his distance.

  What were the Germans feeling in their pill-boxes, so white in the sun after the bombardments had blown away the covering earth around them? Had they evacuated their forward positions, knowing of the attack, as they had Y Sap before La Boisselle on July the First? Their detector-sets had picked up the Fourth Army’s telephone messages then, perhaps they had better instruments now? He felt the being-drawn feeling between his legs, and his mouth was dry—he looked at his watch—nine minutes past three.

  Before he was ready for it a great tongue of deep yellow flame arose slowly into the moonlight. It went up silently and was followed by another and another, curling up away in the distance, slowly turning red and broadening upon his stopped breath, until each became in shape like an enormous rose, opening its petals and shedding them slowly in fire and smoke. He could not breathe; then the entire world seemed to split; terrific explosions bumped against him. He did not know if it was his legs shaking or the earth. Smoke arose blackly, tarnishing the moon, which seemed to tumble and twirl. He found himself thrown down upon the grass, while figures of staff-officers, their red bands clearly seen in the fiery light, were clutching one another and calling out among themselves.

  But it was not over; now yellow chrysanthemums were rising on broad ruddy stalks, to burst and rock the earth. Staggering reports echoed in thunder all around the night, suddenly to be joined by a mixed massiveness of light quenching moonlight. More than two thousand gun-flashes fluttered to the zenith; thunders rolled; an
d through them running sparkles of three necklaces appeared low in the night—three zones of barrage fire upon the western slope of the Ridge. Now seven hundred Vickers guns would be heating their water-jackets, and more than a hundred battalions of infantry advancing up the slope.

  From above, white and green rockets burst almost imperceptibly. How pathetic, he thought: SOS, SOS, SOS, the German rockets were saying, help us, help us, help us, to their smothered artillery.

  As he rode back, in the light of the guns and a dawn of lurid pink, he saw the camouflage netting of a howitzer battery, 9.2 guns almost track to track, flare up as one gun fired. Even Jimmy the mule broke into a canter, to get away from that. The sun was behind the Ridge, now clear against the sky, when he got back to the picket line, feeling grey and emptied out. There was no time to sleep, so he had some tea from his batman, who came into his tent with the German dog on a leash.

  “What’s the idea, Barrow?”

  “Precaution, sir, as you might say. I don’t want to git Little Willie half-inched, not wiv all them Horsetrailians about, proper scroungers they are, sir. They nick anyfing from a dorg to a mule if they could git away wiv it.”

  When he had gone, Phillip poured whiskey into his tea, and soon felt more cheerful. And when the sun rose up, and all firing ceased, and he knew it was successful, he drank another quartern to celebrate. They were moving up, said Barrow, coming into the tent, to the tune of Destiny waltz.

  “I shan’t want any breakfast, thanks.”

  “Come on, sir, you must stoke up! I’ve got some nice rashers fried, wiv a bit o’ fat bread. I know just what you want, sir. They say it’s a walkover this time. I reckon Ole Indenburg’s copped it good an’ proper. Abaht time too. This new General Plumer ’as put paid to ’is little game. Not like at Bullecourt, sir.”

  A minute later he returned. “The guide ’as come from the capting, and Sergeant Rivett says the pack mules will be ready in ten minutes, sir. I brought you some fresh tea, and here’s your lunch. Jules packed it special, sir. He says he’s got all the orfficers done the same. There’s a ration of oranges, too. Very different from the Fifth Army style, sir. Shall you want me to come, sir?”