Heart of War (78 page)

Garrod came in and said, ‘There's Florinda and Probyn Gorse to see you, sir. Shall I tell them to wait in the kitchen till you've had your breakfast?'

Cate laughed. ‘Good gracious, no! Have the Marchioness of Jarrow cooling her heels in our kitchen? Bring them in here, please, and bring another pair of cups.'

Garrod returned a minute later and held the door open as she said formally, ‘The Marchioness of Jarrow and Probyn Gorse, sir.'

Cate got up and held out his hands to Florinda – ‘You look even more lovely than you do in the
Bystander
and the newspapers … How are you, Probyn? Sit down. Coffee or tea?'

They sat down one on either side of him, and Florinda said, ‘Coffee, please, Miss Garrod,' and Probyn said, ‘Tea.'

‘This is an early call,' Cate said, sipping his newly refilled coffee cup, ‘but welcome.'

Florinda said, ‘I brought something to show you, before I go back to London. I want to know whether it's all right.' She opened the heavy cardboard box she had been carrying, to reveal a blued telescopic sight, lying on tissue paper and chamois leather. Cate whistled softly, ‘For Fletcher?' She nodded. Probyn said, ‘It'll fit one of them Lee Enfields the soldiers use.'

Cate looked at it and murmured, ‘Magnification x 6 … that's good. I was afraid, when I first saw it, that you'd chosen too big a magnification … he'll need a reasonably wide field, and good lighting – this has it. And it's beautifully made. German, I see!'

He put the sight down and Florinda said, ‘Could you test it, Mr Cate? I wouldn't want Fletcher to trust it, out there, if it wasn't right.'

‘Oh, I'll be happy to test it,' Cate said, ‘but aren't you afraid it might be stolen in the post? Many good things are, on their way to the Front.'

‘I have my own couriers,' Florinda said, smiling. Ah, Cate thought, of course she'll have plenty of pilots and officers at her beck and call. Her lips were slightly parted, the sun pouring through the tall windows into her auburn hair. She seemed to have gained an inch in the bust and lost two in the
waist, and her skin was perfect. She was gorgeous, luscious. Yet Cate felt no stir of sexual longing for her, as he often had in the past, and, at least a few times, had slaked in her body. For him now, sexually, there was only Isabel Kramer; and, looking into Florinda's eyes, he could tell that she was sending him the same message – of affection, understanding, a warm regard for what they had been and done: but now – her heart and body belonged elsewhere.

The land rises gently to the Pilckem Ridge ahead, and the Gheluvelt plateau to the right. Little streams called
bekes
in Flemish flow down the centre of each shallow valley and depression. There are no woods or trees near the front lines, all destroyed by the artillery fire of the past three years. Miles of barbed wire, a hundred feet deep, cover each front. The ruins of Ypres Cloth Hall rise like a shattered cathedral out of the landscape behind.

On July 16th the artillery preparation for the great attack begins. Three thousand and ninety-one British guns open fire, and continue firing according to detailed programmes of targets until the assault. The guns are aided by 600 aircraft. The final barrage begins at 1 a.m. on July 31, all the guns firing at once, making the loudest noise till that moment created by man, and rivalling the explosion of Krakatoa. By then 65,000 tons of shells have destroyed the natural drainage of the whole area. The breeze is west, with dense clouds low overhead, about five hundred feet up. At 3.50 a.m. the British infantry climb out of their trenches and advance through the gaps cut that night in their own wire.

In the afternoon it begins to rain. It rains all day the next day, and the next. It continues raining.

Excerpt from the diary of Brigadier General John Charteris, Field Marshal Haig's Chief of Intelligence:

August 4
. All my fears about the weather have been realized. It has killed this attack. … Every brook is swollen and the ground is a quagmire. If it were not that all the records of previous years had given us fair warning, it would seem as if Providence had declared against us … It is so easy to think what might have happened had we attacked on the 26th or 28th and got the high ground before this monsoon had burst on us. We can not break off the battle now, even if
we would. We have to fight forward to keep the Germans from attacking the French.

August 9
. The rain keeps on and with each day's rain our task gets more difficult … the front area baffles description. It is just a sea of mud, churned up by shell fire.

Captain Ramsburgh was a thin lantern-jawed officer from Newmarket, Virginia, by way of the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. First Sergeant Patrick Leary, 6 feet 3 inches, 230 pounds, was from Benicia, California, via twenty-one years' service in the 16th U.S. Infantry. Corporal John Merritt was from Nyack, New York, via Harvard University. The three shared a dugout near battalion headquarters of the 1st Weald Light Infantry, to which they were attached for instruction in trench warfare. Outside, it was raining, and water dripped steadily through the makeshift roof, falling with small metallic pings onto their steel helmets. The Germans were shelling the area at random. Inside, they were attempting to brew up coffee. Two days before the 1st Wealds had taken part in an attack in the Nollehoek sector. They had advanced two hundred yards. Yesterday they had beaten off a strong German counterattack. The ground gained had been consolidated; but Nollehoek itself was still a mile away, up the gently sloping ridge.

Captain Ramsburgh said, ‘What do you make of the British fatigue system, Top?'

‘No good, sir,' Leary replied. ‘Why, every man spends half the night on fatigues when he's supposed to be resting up for his next spell in the line.'

‘How can we improve on it?'

‘Use tractors to pull the loads farther forward,' the sergeant said.

Ramsburgh said, ‘That would help, but tractors can't do trench revetment.' He looked at Johnny. Johnny said, ‘Use labour battalions farther forward, sir.'

Ramsburgh said, ‘H'm … This Weald outfit makes the sentries stand with their heads and shoulders clear of the parapet. Doesn't make sense to me.'

Leary said, ‘I think it does, Captain. The Krauts like to fix machine guns to fire at the parapet level. If the sentry's showing his shoulders, he stands a chance of getting a chest or
shoulder wound – if he's only showing his head, that's where he'll get it.'

‘But the other will produce more wounds, over all … we'll have to think about it … What was the main thing you learned from the attack, Merritt?'

‘That no one can move in this mud,' Johnny said without hesitation. ‘And the worst of the mud was apparently caused by the shelling. If they'd attacked with no shelling or very little, it wouldn't be so bad.'

Ramsburgh said, ‘I don't know … I reckon that no attack will have a hope of succeeding without really heavy artillery preparation, and our Field Artillery doesn't have the weight of fire to give it.'

‘How can we, with nothing bigger than French 75s, sir?' Johnny Merritt said. ‘The 75's high explosive shell weighs only 11.65 pounds, with an actual H.E. content of 3 pounds of melinite, and the shrapnel shell's not much more – 15.96 pounds, with 300 lead bullets. Compare that with …'

‘Say, Harvard, have you been reading the Artillery manuals?'

‘As a matter of fact I have, Top,' Johnny said. ‘And when I get back Stateside, I'm going to apply for the Field Artillery. The first time I saw a battery on the move, I said to myself…'

Captain Ramsburgh interrupted – ‘We're not all that interested in your future plans, Corporal … We were talking about what we've learned from the British, so far.'

‘Our soldiers'll sure as hell mutiny if they get this Hoggin's Jam and Bully,' the sergeant said.

A shell burst nearby, shaking the ground and bringing trickles of mud down the sides of the dugout. A head poked round the side of the gas blanket and the three Americans rose to their feet, crouched over, saluting. Lieutenant Colonel Rowland said, ‘I'm going to visit the Regimental Aid Post, Captain Ramsburgh, and then go round the battalion's trenches, if you'd care to come with me.'

‘Yes, sir. May I bring Sergeant Leary and Corporal Merritt with me?'

‘Of course. And when we come back I've told my adjutant to show you all how we prepare trench maps and keep them up to date.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘Come along, then.'

England: August, 1917

Jane Stratton sat in the parlour, her arthritically swollen hands folded in her lap, staring at the curtained window. She ought to be doing something, but what? Supervise Nellie cleaning the bedrooms? Going shopping? She couldn't face the crowds, the people … so many she would know, coming up with mournful faces … ‘So sorry, Mrs Stratton, our deepest sympathy …'

Listlessly she picked up the newspaper, glanced at a headline and put it down again. What did it matter what was happening in the world? How would it help her to live out her remaining days, a widow, to know that the Serbians were counter-attacking at some place with a name a yard long, or that Mr Lloyd George was visiting Durham to speak to the coal miners?

She heard footsteps coming downstairs and put her handkerchief to her eyes. Her daughter, Ethel Fagioletti, came in, head high, smiling, her face shining from recent scrubbing, smelling of Pears Soap. ‘It's time to go out shopping, Mother,' she said cheerfully, coming to a stop in front of her mother's chair.

Jane dabbed her eyes. ‘How can you be so happy and smiling with your poor father not yet cold in his grave?' she muttered. She shivered involuntarily as she spoke, for Bob was in no grave. They had not found anything more of him than a few shreds of his coat, and his bowler hat, undamaged, on a rooftop a quarter of a mile off. A dozen of those poor women had gone the same way, vanished. So there was nothing of Bob Stratton in the grave: she'd wanted to bury just the bowler hat in the coffin, but the Reverend Mr Hunnicutt had regretfully refused permission, saying that the burial service was to be said over the bodies of departed souls, not their bowler hats. Jane felt obstinately that Mr Hunnicutt was wrong. The bowler had been a part of Bob just as surely as his hand or foot …

Ethel composed her face to a more serious expression and said, ‘I'm sorry, Mother … and you know how sad I am about Father, but … but with Niccolo come back to me, how can I help being happy, a bit? And we're getting married again.'

‘You're all the same,' Jane mumbled. ‘Even Frank, sending that telegram to make sure that that motor cycle of your father's – Victoria – isn't sold until … And you should
have had more pride than to go crawling back to Niccolo, after what he did,' she added, feeling a surge of anger fill the empty void of her emotions.

‘But I love him,' Ethel said simply. ‘Mother, Niccolo wants us – him and me – to have our own house again. I must leave here soon, and go to London and find one. You must live with me, till the war's over. You'll never be able to look after yourself here, alone.'

Jane said, ‘I'll not come to London. I'll not leave here.'

‘Well, we'll talk about it later … Come on now, the shopping.'

‘You do it,' Jane said. ‘I don't want to go out.'

Ethel put out her hand and took one of her mother's – ‘Come on, Mother! You shouldn't sit here, thinking of poor Father … come and buy a new hat.'

‘It'll have to be black,' Jane said sharply.

‘Yes, of course … and visit Anne and her children.'

‘That sister-in-law of yours is going out too much,' Jane said. ‘People are talking.'

‘Come on, Mother.'

Slowly, Jane rose to her feet; then put away her little handkerchief and said, ‘I must wash my face. I look dreadful.'

Fletcher Gorse and Betty Merritt walked on Beighton Down, westward, with swinging strides toward the setting sun. He was wearing his own clothes, as he used to wear them here in summer, his uniform left at his grandfather's cottage – she a light summer dress, but with strong shoes and no hat, tendrils of her hair escaping to frame her face, now tanned by the day in the sun and reddened by the wind. They had not spoken more than a few words all day, since she had picked him up in her car at the cottage and driven to the edge of the Down. Since then they had walked nearly twenty miles, first east until they were level with Ashford in the Weald below, then back by different tracks, north of the Daneway. The larks were silent now on the Down, for the broods had long since hatched and the males had no cause to rise, rejoicing, towering against the sun, to announce in endless lyric outpouring the birth of their young.

He has not changed, she thought. Whatever horrors he has seen, and endured, have somehow passed over him … or
entered only into the secret part of him that makes his poetry – not marked his face or eyes, as they did to so many others. She was content.

He said suddenly, but the words coming slowly, ‘There's greater things, out there, than Milton had in
Paradise Lost
… and very like, too … The armies of Satan thrown down – that's us, all of us … gathering on the edge of the burning lake … rallying to Satan's colours … with pain and hurt … and many of them afraid of the anger of God, I'll be bound.'

He walked on five minutes. Then – ‘It's so big you can't see the end of it, any way you look … right, left, up … it reaches up to the sun … the size of it, it's like the Milky Way, circling round you, we're all lost in it … But it's so small, too. When I get a man's head in my sniper sights … the telescopic sight Flo gave me … it's not big, it's very small, just that man's eye, and the blue of it, and in the middle of the blue I can see him and his wife and baby. They're still there, for a moment, after he drops … Other times, I'm looking at my mate's eye, and seeing through it, into him, and I can see deep into him because of the war. It's stripping him … the bit that he thought was brave, the bit that he thought was cowardly – whatever isn't really there, goes … what's left, is him.'