Heart of War (85 page)

Outside the end of the last marquee, he turned right, walked a few paces, then leaned against the canvas, his eyes closed, his hands clenched so tight that the nails bit into the palms.

At last he said, ‘Shall we go on now, sir?'

Venable said, ‘Yes … All of us ought to be forced to go through a C.C.S. once a week … us staff officers.'

They walked through the mud and the rain to the big Rolls Royce staff car, and climbed in. The chauffeur, a young soldier, started up and they drove off, slipping and sliding at slow speed. Quentin said, ‘It can't be helped, sir. We all have a job to do.'

Signs of war gradually disappeared. Houses and trees stood in their ancient splendour. Green lawns stretched down to overflowing
beke's
. Soldiers marched to and fro, spic and span, heads up, unbowed, carrying no weapons. The fields were green except where the large-eyed placid cows had churned the earth to mud round the entrances to the barns. A gravelled drive swept up to a great building with many windows. At the wrought iron gates military policemen in red-covered caps examined Colonel Venable's pass. They entered the grounds of the huge seventeenth-century château that was the site of Corps Headquarters.

After the afternoon of conferring with Venable, Quentin bathed himself and cleaned his uniform as best he could, in the privacy of the large room allotted to him in the west wing of the château; but he still felt shabby and soiled when he entered the Great Hall, now being used as the anteroom for the Corps Headquarters A Mess. Here the Corps Commander dined each night with his principal staff officers. The Corps Commander had insisted that they were all on active service, so the mess waiters had not been issued
with white coats, but wore their plain khaki tunics; however, white cotton gloves had been found. The officers all looked so fresh, Quentin thought unhappily, and they all had so many medal ribbons, even young captains … he recognized a Legion of Honour here, a Belgian order there, a Russian decoration on another breast … three, four D.S.O.s … half a dozen M.C.s … You had to listen carefully to hear the distant murmur of artillery under the tinkle of the wine glasses.

Colonel Venable came forward, glass in hand, saying, ‘Let me introduce you to the B.G.G.S., Rowland. This is Lieutenant Colonel Rowland of the 1st Wealds, sir, whom I told you about … Brigadier General Mallory.'

The B.G.G.S. put out his well-manicured hand – ‘Welcome to our little home away from home, Rowland. Venable tells me you helped him a great deal, this afternoon. Now, a drink … whisky do you? Waiter!'

Quentin felt puzzled – ‘But, sir,' he said, ‘there can't be any whisky.'

The B.G.G.S. said, ‘Nonsense, there's plenty of it. The best, too.'

Quentin said, ‘I don't understand … We've had signals for three weeks, that there is no whisky available … no rum, even. And that as soon as any arrived from the rear it would be sent up to the front line.'

The B.G.G.S. was tapping the fingers of his free hand against the side of his thigh, a distant expression growing more aloof every moment on his face. Colonel Venable cut in, ‘This has just arrived, Rowland.'

The B.G.G.S. said coldly, ‘Nonsense. There's never been any shortage, here.'

Quentin faced him. He still couldn't understand. This was another Englishman, like himself – a regular, been through Sandhurst … served in a good regiment … and he was saying these words, which amounted to … barefaced robbery of his men's simplest needs. He said, ‘We've been in the front line three weeks … mud, rain, shelling … The attack on the Nollehoek ridge … all we asked for was rum, whisky, for the men. You kept it here.'

The B.G.G.S. said, ‘Now, look here, Rowland…'

Quentin turned on Venable – ‘I have to get back to my battalion, sir.'

Venable glanced at the B.G.G.S. who turned his back.
Everyone stood up as the Corps Commander swept into the room, followed by one of his A.D.C.s, the Director of Medical Services, and the Commander, Corps Royal Artillery. Venable muttered, ‘Come with me.' Once out of the room he said, ‘I'm sorry … Are you sure you won't stay? You – I mean you personally – deserve a good night's rest in a comfortable bed, a good meal, even a drink.'

‘I won't drink here,' Quentin said. ‘I must go back.'

‘I understand. I'll get you a staff car at once.' He picked up the telephone on a table in the hall and spoke a few words. ‘It'll be five minutes.'

‘I'll go and get my things.'

‘Yes … Oh, are you by chance any relation to a Miss Naomi Rowland, who was in the Women's Volunteer Motor Drivers?'

‘She's my niece.'

‘She drove me about quite a lot when I was in the War Office. She occasionally mentioned her uncle in the Wealds and I thought it must be you. A charming young lady, and very efficient, too. My wife wants to keep in touch with her, but doesn't get any answer to her letters. We hope she's all right.'

Quentin said, ‘As far as I know … She transferred to the F.A.N.Y.s, and my brother – her father – told me that she had been sent to France last month … to Number 12 Convoy, I believe. Anyway, with our Army, not the French or Belgians.'

‘Thanks, I'll tell my wife … And I really am sorry about the whisky. It's a disgrace.'

Quentin looked him full in the face, and said, ‘Yes, sir. It is.'

When he awoke next morning, late, the rain had stopped and a watery sun shone through drifting clouds of early autumn … A bite in the air warned of winter coming … the sooner the better, he thought, as long as the frost is hard enough to freeze the mud and keep it frozen. What hope was there of that, here? You'd have to go to Russia or Canada or somewhere to find cold as intense as that. Here, it would just harden the mud a bit in the night; by ten in the morning the ground would be like porridge again, only with the added discomfort of being cold.

Archie Campbell appeared in the dugout entrance, and said, ‘Good morning, sir. The mess sergeant wants to know whether you will be having breakfast. If not he'll clear it away. We've all eaten.'

Quentin grunted, then said, ‘Yes. Ten minutes.'

Campbell saluted, and disappeared. Quentin slid off the planks that were his bed and called for his batman to bring hot water. He washed, cleaned his teeth, then began to shave with one of his pair of open razors. The guns were firing to north and south, but not heavily … harassing fire, he thought. The nearest German shells were falling about four hundred yards away, up toward the front line. British shells sighed far overhead on their way to the German rear areas. He heard, for the first time for several days, the sputter and buzz of an aeroplane … might be his son Guy up there … could well be, for much of the R.F.C. had been concentrated behind Ypres, to support the offensive. In the last two weeks of July he'd never seen a Boche aircraft. Then – low clouds, rain … all the advantages of air superiority over the battle field lost.

He began to dress. He couldn't get the scene in the Corps Headquarters A Mess out of his mind … a land of milk and honey, everything neat and clean, whisky, brandy, sherry, and wine flowing; he might have been in the Savoy. But that was England, the people there were civilians, or officers on leave, and women. The Savoy
ought
to be a luxurious haven. But in France … driving back through the darkness, sitting silent in the back seat, he had felt a progressive lightening, a sense of escape, and of coming home. He'd like to talk to Campbell about what he'd seen, what had happened. But it wouldn't do to let junior officers lose faith in their seniors and the higher formations. Someone had to command the Corps and Armies and staff them. He certainly couldn't do it – didn't have the brains … and if he did have the brains, he'd probably be making sure he got his whisky, as they did. The B.G.G.S. must have thought he was being deliberately insulting, but he wasn't – he just couldn't understand; and when at last he did, he felt so bad, because he didn't belong there.

Along the trench the men were singing, softly, with immense
brio:

They were only playing leap frog

They were only playing leap frog

They were only playing leap frog

When one staff officer jumped up

    on the other staff officer's back
.

He went out, suppressing a smile, to have breakfast in the mess dugout farther up the trench. To his surprise he found Captain Ramsburgh, the American officer who had been under instruction with the battalion some time back, at the makeshift table. He sat down as Ramsburgh stood up, saluting. Quentin said, ‘What brings you here, Ramsburgh? … Glad to see you, of course.'

The captain said, ‘Our general sent me to your Army Headquarters on a mission – spent three days there … thought I'd like to drop in on you, sir, on my way back.'

‘Well, that's very good of you,' Quentin said. The mess sergeant brought him sausages, bread and jam, and a mug of hot thick sweet tea. Hoggin's Plum & Apple jam, he noticed crossly. Surely that fellow could afford to make some raspberry or strawberry jam now and then? He said, ‘Don't you want breakfast?'

‘I had some early, sir, back down the line.'

Quentin began to eat. Ramsburgh said, ‘I've had a letter from Johnny Merritt, Colonel. He's arrived at Fort Sill.'

‘That's for officer training in the Field Artillery, isn't it?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I'll write to his wife … but he must have done that himself.'

‘Surely … We never had a proper chance to say goodbye to your companies, Colonel, when we left. Sergeant Leary and Corporal Merritt can't be with me, but I'd like to do it now, for all of us – with your permission.'

‘Of course. Lucky for you they don't have any booze, or you'd never get back to your Regiment.'

Ramsburgh's Virginia accent became a longer drawl – ‘I have overcome that problem, sir. I borrowed one of our ambulances for this trip and went scouting at your Corps and Army Headquarters yesterday. I obtained a dozen bottles of brandy.'

‘Did you, by Jove!'

‘Yes, sir. And one's for you, if you'll do me the honour of accepting it – as from Leary, Merritt, and myself. Or, I might say, from the United States Army.'

‘Why … why … Thank you very much,' Quentin said. ‘And you'll need a couple of men to help carry up that brandy. Ask the Adjutant for them.'

Ramsburgh saluted and left the dugout. Quentin drank some more tea. It was troops' char as he'd drunk it a hundred times from his company cookhouse in India – pale brown, sweet, heavy with condensed milk, stewed enough to tan the lining of your stomach. He loved it.

Interesting fellows, these Americans, once you got to know them. Couldn't tell what their discipline was like just from seeing Ramsburgh with Leary and Merritt, obviously all picked men. They'd both often spoken to Ramsburgh before they'd been spoken to, which the Wealds wouldn't tolerate; but then, what they said, in his hearing at least, had usually made sense. And though Leary was much the same sort of person as regular sergeants in any Army he'd ever come across, Johnny Merritt was obviously not like most regular privates. He was an educated man and a gentleman … like many of the men whom conscription was putting in the uniform of the Wealds, he grudgingly admitted … Wonder where Ramsburgh got the brandy? And how? Could he have just stolen it … Might have forged an indent … or got some brass hat to requisition it for imaginary sick Americans, on the grounds of inter-Allied friendship? … Ingenious fellows, the Americans. They'd make a difference when they started to join the battle in large numbers.

What to do today? Nothing … well, that was never true, if you were commanding a battalion – just nothing obvious that had to be done. He'd sit here a while, resting and digesting, then decide what to do.

Archie Campbell came in and said, ‘Do you want to write to the next of kin now, sir?'

‘In a minute … It looks like a long list.'

‘It is, sir.'

‘It's time we got this war over with.'

‘There are quite a lot of people at home trying to do that apparently,' Archie said, ‘by passive resistance to all war work and effort.'

Quentin said, ‘I know …' Then, the words wrenched out of him by the need to tell someone, he added, ‘My brother's one of them. Boy's father. In gaol for it at this moment, or just out…'

Campbell said, ‘That must hurt you, sir.'

Quentin looked up. Archie understood. He said, ‘Yes … How can he do it? Stab us out here in the back?'

‘Perhaps he's trying to save us all, sir, including you and Boy.'

‘I don't want to be saved, and I'm sure Boy doesn't either,' Quentin snapped. ‘We want to win the damned war and we're damned well going to do it. All we want is to do it quickly, and the first step is to get that damned Nollehoek-Passchendaele ridge.'

‘God knows we're trying hard enough, sir … the men are, at least.'

Meaning, the brass hats aren't, Quentin thought. He ought to reprimand Campbell for that; but he didn't feel like it. Instead he said gruffly, ‘I'll be writing to my wife later. Any messages?'

Campbell said slowly, ‘I don't think there's any need to say anything, sir.'

Their eyes met. Quentin thought again, he understands. Good man, in spite of being a Scotsman, an artist, and overfree with women and whisky, when he got the chance. Well, that all went together, really.

Troops passed in a long single file up the trench, heading for the front line, marching painfully through the mud, chanting to the tune of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic':

The platoon commander had twenty-five men
,

The platoon commander had twenty-five men
,

The platoon commander had twenty-five men
,