And We Go On (7 page)

We talked about England, and her past, and a little about Canada, then she began to listen in a curious way, as if she could hear things a long way off. I asked her the reason, and her answer chilled me as the cold breath had done. “I am comparing voices,” she said. “Yours and his.”

“His?” I exclaimed. “Who's?”

She glanced at me impatiently. “Your brother's, of course,” she said. “Steve's.”

I did not start or cry questions, though she had not asked my name. It seemed, all at once, as if I had entered a different sphere of existence, that such a coincidence were natural and that it was not mine to either doubt or query. We talked long there together and when we parted she told me that Steve had told her that I would come. I believed her.

The next day the officer came and took me back to London. I had not asked a question at the Inn, and I knew nothing about Phyllis, except that she lived with her uncle in a cottage next to the rectory, and that she had met Steve in London. The officer chatted a little as he drove, but we were each preoccupied with our thoughts. He was a tolerant, easygoing fellow with Cambridge manners and that peculiar English drawl so often affected. I never saw him again.

We were glad when the train pulled out of Le Havre. In mud and slush and a snowstorm we had been paraded through an open hut, stripped naked save for boots that the muck tugged from our feet, and examined by a doctor who sat in the gloom beside a table and checked off names. He did not even look up as I passed by and went, growling and fuming, to dress again. Tommy was especially excited. “We're away from all that blasted outfit down there,” he said, “and I'm sure they make it so rotten purposely, and then a chap's glad to go to the trenches.”

A little party of us had stuck together, Tommy and I, the group I had mentally dubbed the “Fatal Six,” Earle, a big-shouldered farm lad, Baxter another, and Laurie, my cousin. The train moved slowly and as it went we heaved from the window the body belts that had been issued, odd tins of
bully, and enough ammunition to reduce our loads to a reasonable weight. That track from Le Havre must have been surrounded by such material, as each soldier dumped at least one quarter of his belongings.

We arrived at Rouen, and Tommy grew eager. “This place is noted for something, isn't it?” he asked. I reminded him of Joan of Arc, and we found the place where she was burned, and where William the Conqueror had died, and walked about admiring many buildings. When we got back to the train we were threatened for being away so long.

All the time we had been at Le Havre we had had no mail, and now as we came in sight of Mount St. Eloi a sergeant brought us a cartload of parcels. There were no letters, but all our Christmas parcels had arrived at one time, earlier than we expected, and while we were at a miserable overnight stand.

All day we had had little but tea and bully and we gorged on fruit cake and fudge and other good things.

In the morning a dull thudding, thumping noise woke us, and it continued. We sat up and looked at each other. It was very cold and we were shivering and shaking as we got dressed, while deep inside us there was a queer tightening, a funny feeling. Part of it was caused by too much fruit cake, but the rest was caused by the thunder of the guns. We wondered and wondered, and our parcels lost their importance. We drank the tea a surly army cook served us, and then went to the French house – we had slept in a barn – with all the things left over, chocolate and cakes and candy. Three skinny women and a swarm of kids almost fought over us as we gave them the lot.

As we passed Mount St. Eloi and its twin towers I dug up a little more history for Tommy. “The hill itself is over 400 feet above the sea level,” I said, “and that is a seventh-century church occupying the site of an abbey built ages ago by the bishop of Noyon, whose name was St. Eloi.”

He looked at me. “Where did you get all that dope?” he asked.

“In a little French guide book I bought in London,” I said. “I've got it with me. What's the use of coming over here on a trip if you don't know what you're looking at?”

He grinned. “Tell that to Howard,” he advised. Howard was a big-boned man who had been a sergeant in the brigade, and had reverted to ranks to come to France. He was one of the few men that the Bull Ring had not changed; he seethed with the fervor of platform patriots.

At Le Havre he had heard Tommy raving about the methods of those in authority, and how he intended dodging everything he could. “Be British,” roared Howard. “What did you come over here for?”

Tommy looked at him in an odd way. “Damned if I know,” he said. “Adventure, mostly. How did your ticket read?”

“Adventure!” blared old Howard. “I come to fight for my country, for the flag, and for the right.”

“Good boy,” soothed Tommy, “but how in heck do you know you're in the right?”

We had to get between them then, for Howard was ready to represent the British bulldog in realistic manner. He went to the trenches, and shortly after made close acquaintance with a five-nine shell. He was not seriously damaged, but his patriotism received a blow. He got back to England and held forth there on the glorious crusade on which we were embarked. It was much safer across the Channel.

At the transport lines we were lined up for an inspection. We had marched and trudged through mud and water, in a drizzle, until we were ready to collapse, and we all felt that it was well that there were no more Christmas parcels. A brick-hued, bulging officer inspected us. He looked as if he had been bred in the purple hielands o' bonnie Scotland, and he talked as if he considered himself the repository of the regimental honour. He told us that we must realize what great privilege was ours to come and fight in the ranks of such a company as the Royal Highlanders. He hoped, he said, that we would always do our best – and his tone implied that he thought our best would be pitiful enough – and that implicit obedience to all orders would be very much to our advantage. Then, before he dismissed us, he looked sternly at Tommy and said that he trusted that none of us would become a bar sinister on the famed Black Watch escutcheon, or words to that effect. Tommy had moved impatiently and said things under his breath. Inspections roused him, enraged him. They were, to men of spirit, a degrading thing. You were herded like cattle into fields or yards and there stood to await the pleasure of some be-ribboned personage who gazed at one as if he were really lower in worth than a good horse. You look straight in front and the steps come closer and closer as the mighty one and his retinue goes down the line, and then a cold, supercilious face is before yours, and with creaking, shining leather and immaculate khaki they pass as you try to thrust back at them a gaze of impenetrable indifference.

That night we went to Neuville St. Vaast and joined the battalion. Arthur, and big Herman, and Earle, and Laurie, and boy-faced Mickey, and Freddy, and Sam, and Ira, and Melville, and Baxter, and myself were shunted into a cellar in which were timbers holding shreds of wire that had once been bunks. Rats ran into holes as we lit candles and then came boldly back and stared at us. It was a cold and wet-smelling place. We sat on our packs and stared around. Not an order had been given us, we knew nothing about the lines, where we drew food, or what platoons we were supposed to be with. Some of the men were restless, and nervous. Tommy answered them sharply. “Let these Royal gents do the worrying,” he said. “They know where to find us.”

In the next cellar the same condition existed. Hughey was there, a hairy, thick-shouldered man; Joe, an ex-policeman; Charley, an old school mate of mine; Billy, a man who always complained; Glenn, a giant of a fellow bred beside the sea; Gordon, big-framed and good-natured; Christensen, a Dane; Eddie, an athlete from my home town; and Jerry, a fine, clean-living youngster away from home for the first time. There were a few others lined up in a passageway between, but these men were my friends. Tommy and I went above and explored our area. A path led around ruins to numerous other dugouts and cellars. We went down one entrance and looked around. It had splendid bunks and was fitted with hooks for equipment and rifles, and was heated by braziers. “They shoved us in that hole because we're new,” blazed Tommy, when we were outside again. “It's the old army game.”

“Sure,” I agreed, “but in six months' time we'll do the same with other new ones.”

“That don't fix things now,” he growled, and we went on down a side path to where light glimmered from an odd corner. As we looked a man came out of the low entrance, and he dragged his pack after him.

“Are you chaps looking for a billet?” he asked.

“You bet,” said Tommy.

“Go right in there, then,” said the man. “There's bunks and a stove and extra blankets.”

Ten minutes later Earle and Laurie and Baxter and Tommy and I were in that cellar. Our equipment was hung in place and we were reposing on our different beds. No one came to disturb us and we had a comfortable night, the best we had had in France.

Next day Tommy and I went outside and looked around. We saw signs, “Keep low. Use trench in daytime,” and we went along the trench until we came to a Y.M.C.A. canteen. We had money and so we bought plenty of tinned goods and chocolate and went back to our little home. There we stayed all day. At night we went again and found the sergeant-major's place. He was a dour-faced man, very Scotch, but we knew instantly that he was a “white” man and never had occasion to alter our opinion. We asked for mail and he piled out letters, over sixty for the five of us. On the way back we met Mickey. “How did you like it?” he asked.

“Like what?” blurted Tommy.

“The working party.” Then Mickey told us that all of his crowd, all of the draft but us, had gone to some distant trench and filled and emptied sandbags until nearly morning. It had rained and was beastly cold, and the new men were used like dogs, so he said. We grinned at each other and went back to our billet.

For three days we drew rations and stayed in that cellar and then, through Tommy being anxious to see what the front was like, we ventured out and “fell in” with the crowd. The sergeant in charge stared at us, but said nothing. He was a small man with a vitriol tongue and seemed to resent us. We were given in charge of a corporal, Stevenson, a veteran of South Africa, and went down a long trench until we were at the front. I thrilled. At long last I had arrived.

We had got used to the slamming roar of gun fire, and now we heard machine guns barking and snapping, and bullets came singing overhead to go swishing into the distant darkness. Some struck on wire or other obstructions and we heard the sibilant whine of ricochets. We had sandbags to fill. One man held them and the other shovelled in the gruel-like mud. When twenty or more were done, a man jumped up on top and emptied the bags as they were handed up to him. It was ticklish work and one often had to jump into the trench as bullets were humming about all night.

We got soaked to the skin. The cold slime ran down our wrists as we lifted the bags, and we stood so long in the mire that our feet were numbed, sodden things. All that next day we growled at Tommy for having caused us such displeasure, and at night Stevenson sought us out. We were to go, Tommy and Arthur and I, to an emplacement used by a big mortar they called the “flying pig.”

When we got there we noticed a peculiar odour. All that shapeless ruin of Neuville St. Vaast stank of decay and slime, but this new smell halted us. A corporal stepped from the gloom. “Here's bags,” he said. “Go in there and gather up all you can find, then we'll bury it back of the trench. Get a move on.”

A flying pig had exploded as it left the gun and three men had been shredded to fragments. We were to pick up legs and bits of flesh from underfoot and from the muddy walls, place all in the bags and then bury them in one grave. It was a harsh breaking in. We did not speak as we worked. When we were done the corporal told us we could go back, we were through, but Tommy and I lingered in a bay and stared over the dark flickeringly-silhouetted landscape.

Over the tangle of wire in front lay the no man's land about which we had heard. Not two hundred yards away were the Germans in their trenches, and I wondered if there were Tommys and Arthurs and Big Hermans among them. Then I thought of Steve and wondered what it had been like up Ypres way when he arrived, and I thought of Phyllis, the last glimpse I had had of her face, cameo-like in the light of a window. A thin stalk of silver shot up as we looked, curved over in a graceful parabola and flowered into a luminous glow, pulsating and wavering, flooding the earth below with a weird whiteness. It was a Very light. We craned our necks and stared. Jumbled earth and debris, torn earth, jagged wreckage; it looked as if a gigantic upheaval had destroyed all the surface and left only a festering wound. Everything was indefinite and ugly and distorted.

We continued doing working parties, and gradually we got acquainted with the rest of the company. The men were not our equals in physique and, I saw, not of equal mentality. Given equal chances and we had no need to ask favours of them in any matter. The “originals” held themselves aloof, the others were fairly friendly.

We went back to Mount St. Eloi and were billeted in huts on the hillside. It was wet and freezing cold at night. There was little attempt to drill, for which we were truly thankful. At last we had reached a land where the most important items were not the correctness of a slope or the forming of fours by numbers.

After the first day of sleeping and resting the men grew garrulous, and we listened eagerly to all they said. The order against fraternizing with the Germans on Christmas Day was first jeered at, and then flying pigs and
“Minnies” were compared. We heard different craters mentioned glibly, such as Patricia Crater, Common Crater, Birken, Durand, and Vernon, and then we learned that an officer and party had rushed across at dusk on New Year's Eve and captured two German prisoners without incurring a casualty. They had slipped across no man's land without being seen and had completely surprised the two enemy sentries. I was thrilled as I listened. What adventure! Tommy could hardly remain still, and he whispered to me about it after the lights were out.