Heart of War (65 page)

Quentin continued, ‘If you promise to marry her, I'll divorce her … give her evidence so that she can divorce me, I mean, of course. Can't have her name dragged through the mud in the divorce courts.'

‘Sir,' Archie said, ‘I couldn't, now. She's your wife and when all this is over she'll understand what a wonderul husband she has. I could only make her unhappy.'

‘You should have thought of that in the beginning,' Quentin said severely. Then – ‘You do not want to marry her? At all?'

‘No, sir. I don't want to see her again. I'm sorry for what I – we – did wrong, and I … that's all.'

Quentin shook out the dottle from his pipe into the tin can. He thought he must be dreaming, talking to a lieutenant, a temporary officer, at that, about his marriage, and Fiona, and their future … Campbell was an older man, of course – nearly his own age. It wouldn't have seemed strange if they were both out of uniform. He felt an immense lightening of spirit. Fiona was not yet over her infatuation, apparently, but there was a chance, if Campbell kept his word, that sooner or later she would be. He must just keep on loving her, and hope that one day she would return to him.

Campbell said, ‘I've been very happy in the Wealds, sir. Please don't have me transferred out of the regiment altogether.'

‘Out of the regiment?' the C.O. growled. ‘What are you talking about? You're not leaving this battalion. You'll stay here. I'm not going to start training another adjutant … I'm going round our trenches. Stay by the telephone here. If any message comes from brigade, send to find me at once. It will be important. They might tell us not to retire – that they're going to break through and reinforce us … I'll be back in an hour.'

‘Very good, sir.'

Quentin was on his way back to his command dugout. All was well, the moon was still bright and would last most of the rest of the night, being five days past full. That might mean trouble, if the German machine gunners spotted them as they started their withdrawal, but it was a chance he'd have to take. Withdrawal after daylight would be impossible – and if they stayed they'd be wiped out by the next German counterattack, this time properly organized, and with heavy artillery support; for the fall of the German harassing fire – still in progress – showed that by now they had plotted quite precisely what area of their trenches was held by the British.

But there was also the chance to give the Boches a bloody nose, if reinforcements came up; or perhaps even to hold onto these advanced outworks of the Hindenburg Line. That attack at dusk yesterday had taken the Hun by surprise; now if only the brigade could get through with some message, bring up reserves, wire, more machine guns, put the artillery
onto pounding the Germans opposite – this could be consolidated, held … But no one had got through, neither the men the Wealds had sent back nor those the brigade had sent forward – if any.

He was three bays from the headquarters dugout when a sentry on the firestep, facing the front, turned round sharply and said, ‘Someone coming from be'ind!' He swung up his rifle as Quentin leaped up onto the parados – the German firestep a few hours ago – and peered out, revolver outthrust. He saw a figure stumbling, crawling on, and in the moonlight clearly recognized the British steel helmet. ‘Don't fire!' he snapped at the sentry. ‘One of ours.'

The stumbling man at last reached the trench, slid down into it, struggled back to his feet, and peered up – ‘Who's there? Is this the Wealds?'

‘Yes, I'm the C.O.,' Quentin said eagerly. ‘Are you from brigade?'

‘Yes, sir.'

At last, Quentin thought! We're in touch again. To the runner he said, ‘You're wounded.'

‘Not bad, sir. Through the arm … had to drop my rifle, though.'

‘Doesn't matter.'

‘Saw some Jerries back there, so I crawled round them … ran into some of our blokes, too … don't know what push they was from … They didn't know where you was, so … kept on.'

‘Good man!'

‘The message is in my breast pocket, sir … can't get it out.'

Quentin eagerly fumbled with the man's pocket button, found the message and started for his dugout, turning only to say to the nearest soldier, ‘Look after this man.'

They were through! Anything was possible now … he could almost hear the clink of bayonets as reinforcements came up … the deeper heavier beat from the guns … must remember to put that runner in for an M.M., at the least, for what he'd faced and overcome to bring the message up …

He reached the double-blanket-shielded door of the dugout, carefully passed through the light and gas blocks, and entered. Campbell and Caffin jumped to their feet as Quentin cried exultantly, ‘A message from brigade!'

He unfolded the message form and read:

MOST URGENT

To: OC 1 WLI

From: G.H.Q., B.E.F.

Ref. I.O.D. Lucknow Letter 729573 dated August 1, 1914 and reminders. If Lieutenant C.J.C. Rowland 2 WLI att 1 WLI does not pay Rs. 64-10-1 into Paymaster Funds immediately on account of pakhals lost April 7, 1914, and finding of Court of Inquiry held Lucknow Jul 6 1914 subsequently confirmed by G.O.C. Lucknow District, orders for Lieutenant Rowland's arrest will be issued by Brigade commander concerned.

Quentin's head slowly sank and his shoulders hunched. Slowly he composed himself. This was the Army. Orders – must be obeyed. After a time he said to his adjutant, ‘Give this message to Boy when you can, Campbell. Tell him to give you a cheque, at once, and you send it on.'

‘Yes, sir … Then we'll retire to our old positions fifteen minutes before dawn, as you ordered?'

‘Yes … Damn it, damn it!'

The brigadier general was angry, his face red under the red banded hat, his neck muscles swelling up as he banged the table in his headquarters, two miles behind the front line ‘Why did you not have sentries posted?' he snapped.

‘We did, sir,' Quentin said. ‘They saw the Germans as soon as they left their trenches, and called the Stand-to.'

‘Why couldn't you halt the attack, then?'

‘They came on too fast, sir, before their barrage lifted.'

‘You were taken by surprise, then?'

‘Yes, sir,' Quentin answered after a momentary hesitation. The general wasn't being quite fair. All standing orders had been obeyed – their own, brigade's, and division's. The Germans had just come too fast, and in too great numbers, using the ground well … and the British artillery response to the S.O.S. had been a few seconds slower than it should have been …

The Brigade Major, a beautiful young man from the 4th Hussars, stood behind the general's desk, trying to look sympathetic, but only succeeding in looking debonair and bored.

The brigadier general said, ‘How we ever got your
battalion out of the mess you had it in, I don't know. But with luck – much more luck than you deserved – we did. I had to report to the divisional commander what was happening – as far as I could make out. He was not pleased.'

Naturally, Quentin thought. It had all been very messy, for nearly twelve hours, until finally everyone seemed to have infiltrated back into the positions they'd been occupying before the Germans broke the peace.

The brigadier general said, ‘I was seriously thinking of relieving you of command of your battalion, Rowland, but there are extenuating circumstances. And your action in attacking and capturing part of the German front line was most commendable … By itself, that would have merited me recommending you for a D.S.O., but … well, consider yourself lucky you're still in command.'

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

‘That's all.'

Quentin saluted, turned about, and marched out. Campbell was waiting for him and walked back at his side as they headed up the muddy shell-torn pave for the front. Pollarded willows followed the course of a little stream, here poplars lined the road, there a broken brick wall and a calvary marked a crossroads. Just ahead, the path sank into the earth and became a trench.

Campbell said at last, ‘What did the general say, sir?'

‘Said we'd been surprised.'

‘That's a lie!' Campbell exploded. ‘We were just overwhelmed.'

‘He was pleased about our counter-attack. If it hadn't been for that, he would have stellenbosched me.'

Campbell broke out violently, ‘The bloody fool! He was the one who was taken by surprise, with nothing allotted to protect that flank, and the brigade's machine guns put so far forward they were overrun in the first wave!'

‘Don't speak of superior officers like that, Campbell,' Quentin said. He trudged on, but felt better. The men had done well, whatever the general said.

Half an hour later they came to battalion headquarters, back in the cellar of the ruined house in the centre of Feuchy. A clerk was waiting at the table, with a sheet of paper held in one hand. He saluted – ‘Casualty list, as reported by companies at ten ack emma, sir … And 2nd Lieutenants Cate
and Harbeston have just reported for duty, from the Depot, sir.'

Quentin took off his helmet and hung it on its peg. To Campbell he said, ‘I'll see them in a few minutes – when I've had a look at this.'

He sat down and began to study the list … most from D Company which had been overrun in the beginning. They must have put up a stiff fight, though … died hard … Then B, which had done the counter-attack: not many from A or C. He began to read:

Killed: Major Green, D. W., Lieutenant Reeves, J. R., 2nd Lieutenant Bevington, P.

Died of Wounds: 2nd Lieutenant Marlowe, C.

Killed: Sergeant Bygrave, M., Sgt Braddock, R., Cpl Brooks, G., Cpl Lemon, T., Cpl Smith, G. J., Ptes Scannel, Bartholomew, Shelley, Garner, Farley – old soldier, Farley: was in his platoon in South Africa – Galvin, Cantrell, Faraday, Daly, Bitting, Bracken, Watt, Nealy, Jones, Jevons, Garrick, Constable, Trevithick, More, Donne …

He found tears clouding his vision. Out there, they were the anonymous dead. To him they were his flesh. ‘Oh my men, my men,' he gasped … and everything was back as it was, by the Scarpe, except the dead.

He read on: Bunyan, Turner, Gibbon, Darwin …

Well, good, Cate thought. The Italians and Austrians seem well matched to each other; but they'd better look out if the Germans send some divisions down there. Everything he had read and heard made it clear that the German soldier – officer and man – was a great fighter. Many individual Austrians might be too, of course – but then there'd be Croats and Slovenes and Montenegrins and Hungarians with no stomach for the business, particularly since the unifying grandfather figure of old Mutton Chops, Francis Joseph, had gone.

He put down the paper. There was to be a meeting of the Mid Scarrow War Problems Committee this afternoon. The agenda that he'd been sent already looked as though they'd be at it a long time – increasing amount of rape and molestation of women on non-corridor trains; care of old people living alone, when so many of those who would in normal times have been looking after them had left home to work in factories hundreds of miles away; day care for children of mothers working in the munition factories.

Sufficient unto the day: he turned to his mail – three letters: one from Naomi, one from Guy, one from Charlotte, his brother Oswald's widow; he hoped she wasn't inviting herself to Walstone for a visit: wouldn't read that now – it might spoil his kedgeree … Naomi was feeling very restless in London and had just about made up her mind to transfer to the F.A.N.Y. He used his butter knife to open Guy's letter and settled down to read, with pleasure.

Guy Rowland adjusted his goggles and looked quickly round the sky … a summer morning over Artois, climbing eastward, altitude ten thousand feet; scattered cumulus cloud to the south, over the Somme; below, the zigzag lines of the trenches, the wide dark carpets of barbed wire, in between and for miles to east and west the pockmarked earth, a patient dying of smallpox. The sun shone on the torn roof of Arras cathedral and the great cobbled ‘places.' Nearer to hand, flying in tight stepped-up echelon of Vs, were the other S.E. 5 As of Three Threes; to the north, and lower, two squadrons of Bristol F 2 Bs.

He was flight commander now and, keeping an eye on his squadron commander, he noticed that the major's machine was climbing a little more steeply than his own. He eased his throttle forward, and pulled the control column a fraction closer to his belly. The little biplane answered like a rocket and in a moment he found himself surging past the level of the major's left wing tip. The goggled head turned, and he could imagine the punitive glare in the concealed eyes. ‘Sorry,' he said aloud, knowing that no one could hear; and eased his craft back into position. These little blighters were very light on the controls … wish he'd had more time to get used to them, but they'd only arrived three days ago, and yesterday everyone had had to take his own machine up, individually, to try it out and get the feel of it. Obviously he himself had not succeeded very well. But what bliss it was to have a liquid cooled V-8 engine, and a real working throttle, with total command of power, instead of that mass of machinery whirling round in front of you, and only the most elementary control of it!