Other Paths to Glory (12 page)

General Leigh-Woodhouse had been saved by his granddaughter in Oxford and her decent biologist husband just as surely as if they had plucked him out of the path of a runaway bus. Maybe after killing twice - three times including himself - the enemy had grown more cautious before increasing their score without first checking on the necessity for it … Maybe they’d checked on George Davis just like this, but had found that unlike the General he knew too much … And maybe they had balanced the risk of leaving the General alive against the risk of killing someone as distinguished in his way as Charles Emerson, unlike the humble old soldier and the unknown researcher whose deaths would never make headlines.

No matter. For whatever reason this kindly old gentleman, who would have been as easy to kill as a kitten, had been spared. And that was something to be glad about.

‘What was he like?’ Audley had recovered his wits.

‘Charles Emerson?’

‘The man who came and asked you about him?’

General Leigh-Woodhouse considered Audley in silence for a few moments.

‘First, you tell me a thing or two, Dr Audley. I am beginning to become a little curious about my sudden popularity with strangers - ‘ he took the edge off the words by adding a smile to them ‘ - delighted as I am to see you both, because I don’t get many visitors these days.’

This would have been the point where Colonel Butler thundered to their rescue, but for the life of him Mitchell couldn’t think of anything to say that might divert the General from his curiosity. And since the General outranked him possibly Butler might not have attempted a rescue this time, anyway.

‘Well, I’ll tell you. General,’ said Audley. ‘It’s altogether possible that your visitor killed two innocent people yesterday, tried to kill a third - and thought he’d succeeded - and contemplated killing a fourth. Would that be sufficient reason to want to know about him?’

‘Killed - ?’ Shock was succeeded quickly by disbelief on the General’s face. ‘You’re not serious?’

Audley seemed somewhat surprised by the reaction.

‘What makes you think I’m not. General?’

‘Well, there are a lot of cranks around these days. Had a young couple round last week trying to make a Christian of me.’

The General continued to scrutinise Audley as though checking him for signs of eccentricity.

‘And if there was a mass-murderer loose and he’d come calling on me - well, you’re not a policeman, I’m certain about that, whatever you are -‘ the eyes switched to Mitchell, disconcertingly shrewd and hard now ‘ - and you’re certainly not a policeman either, Captain. So what are you, eh?’

Mitchell could see that the wind had been quite comically taken from Audley’s sails.

He was accustomed to people turning awkward, but not to being taken for a crank.

The General leaned forward.

‘Hmm! I see you are perfectly serious. God bless my soul!’

Audley drew a deep breath, reaching into his breast pocket for the magic folder.

‘Perfectly serious. We’re from the Ministry of Defence.’

‘
That
lot?’

Leigh-Woodhouse held the folder at arm’s length. His gaze shifted again from Audley to Mitchell as if he was about to question what a nice clean-cut lad was up to in such doubtful company.

‘I was the third target, sir,’ said Mitchell quickly. ‘The one that got away.’

‘And you were very nearly the fourth, General,’ said Audley harshly. ‘You’ve had a lucky escape.’

‘I have?’ The General sat back, resting his hands on the arms of his chair. ‘Well, I won’t ask you how or why, because you’d only tell me a pack of lies of course. What is it you want to know? What the man was like, eh?’

‘For a start, yes.’

‘For a start…’

The General smoothed his bald head thoughtfully.

‘Well, he said his name was Craig - James Craig - and that he was a freelance journalist. He said he was doing a series of articles on the Great War and Charles Emerson had recommended me to him. Said maybe Emerson had mentioned him when he came to see me just recently - and of course I told him that Emerson hadn’t yet seen me, just as I’ve told you.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Nothing unusual about him. Medium height, darkish hair, horn-rimmed spectacles … youngish - about thirty-five, I’d say, but his hair was rather long and I find it hard to guess a man’s age when he wears his hair long. A London accent. Not a very remarkable person.’

‘And he asked you about the war?’

The General nodded.

‘That’s right - and nothing very remarkable there, either. He didn’t seem to know a great deal about it for a man who was going to write on the subject. But then he was only a journalist, so I don’t suppose that would worry him too much.’

‘He asked you about the Somme?’

‘Yes, that’s right. How did you know?’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘What did I tell him?’ The General stared at them. ‘Well, nothing very startling, certainly … but I suppose it’s no good my asking what possible use to you anything I say will be, eh?’

‘I’m afraid we don’t really know ourselves,’ said Audley disarmingly. ‘But if we know the questions he asked and the answers you gave, that’ll be a start anyway.’

‘Well, you know best -‘ The General shook his head ‘ - but I fear it’ll be of little use to you. Which was what I told him, in fact. You’ll learn far more from what Miles wrote in the Official History - it’s in the shelf over there, Captain, down by your elbow - that’s it.’

The General’s collected volumes were faded and thumbed, unlike the pristine copy in the car, and Mitchell could see that the Somme one had been heavily annotated long ago in thin spidery handwriting, full of tail loops and curlicues, in violet ink.

‘You find the place. Captain. It’s in the battle of Hameau, about three-quarters of the way through. I think there’s a marker in it.’

A marker there was: the menu of the Christmas dinner of ‘C’ Company, the 29th Battalion of the Rifles, December 25th, 1915.

Mitchell examined the card, fascinated.

- SOUPE “ROLE RENVERSE” (It is usually we who are in it)
- TURKEY & SAUSAGES (“Made” in France)
- CHOUX DE BRUXELLES (Further refugees)
- POMMES DE TERRE “DUG-OUT” - PLUM PUDDING (An excellent opportunity of getting a little of your own back)
- CHINESE “QUICK-MARCH” - RATION BISCUITS - DESSERT (Nobody wants to. Much too risky in war time)
– CAFE (Not yet out of bounds)
- SPIRITS - LIQUEURS (Not for the youngsters).’

He turned the card over. There were five officers, including a 2nd Lieut. D. W. Leigh-Woodhouse, and well over a hundred NCOs and other ranks - nearer 150 including a dozen or more machine-gun instructors who had shared the feast. He ran his eye down the printed names. If Leigh-Woodhouse had eventually been George Davis’s company commander it didn’t follow that they’d been in the same company at the start of the battle. But it would be useful to know, nevertheless.

Acting Corpl. Davis G.

It was the Rifle Brigade, of course, and there was no such thing as a Lance Corporal in it - they were always called Acting Corporals. Obviously this battalion of civilians had taken over all the jealously-guarded Rifle Brigade customs and usages, lock, stock and barrel.

‘Have you found it?’ said the General rather querulously. ‘The 291st Brigade attack, you want.’

The 291st Brigade moved forward at 4.30 a.m. when the guns lifted their fire to form a
barrage beyond
…
’

‘Yes, sir. Where do you want me to start?’

Mitchell could see that the violet ink marks didn’t start for a long paragraph after the lifting of the barrage.

‘With the Berkshires, boy - they were just ahead of us. Our “D” Company supported them, poor devils.’

‘
The 9/North Berks Fusiliers -
‘

‘That’s it. Go on from there.’

‘
The 9/North Berkshire Fusiliers lost heavily by enfilade machine-gun fire, direct and
indirect, from Bouilletcourt Farm and Bouillet Wood as it approached Hope Trench and came to a
halt in shell-holes some distance short of their objective. By then Lieut. Colonel H. P. T. Challener
had been mortally wounded and every officer except one hit.
’

‘Go on a few paragraphs. Captain.’

‘Yes, sir
…
Folhwing them, the rest of the 20/Rifle Brigade also suffered from enfilade fire, but
it was at this point that the crew of the second tank broken down in the sunken road behind
Honey Trench succeeded in restarting their machine -
‘

Mitchell looked at the General.

‘You’ve written “Euclid” in the margin, here, sir?’

‘That’s right. Euclid was the name of the rank. It was commanded by a lieutenant with a classical education, we went back in the same ambulance together. He was a schoolmaster from Yorkshire, and he insisted on telling me why he was there. It seems they’d come round asking for volunteers who understood the working of the internal combustion engine. He assumed it was for the Army Service Corps, so he naturally volunteered - he maintained he was a tank commander under false pretences. I told him he should have known better than to have volunteered … He’d called his tank “Euclid” anyway. We were supposed to have two tanks that morning - it was only the second time I’d ever seen the wretched things.’

He acknowledged Mitchell’s badges with an apologetic chuckle.

‘I’m sorry, my boy, but they
were
wretched things in those days; they were frightfully slow and they were always breaking down. And the poor fellows inside were practically asphyxiated by the carbon monoxide from the engines, I believe - not at all what you’re used to.’

Mitchell smiled back uneasily. It was ironical that in reality the only tanks he knew anything about at all were the General’s ‘wretched things’, which he had studied at length. Indeed, the old man’s memories of them came as no surprise at all, they tallied with other first-hand accounts he had received from survivors of Flers and Bullecourt; only the armchair strategists of a later generation confused Haig’s tanks with Rommel’s panzers.

‘Anyway, both our tanks broke down. One broke its tail on the way up - those wheels at the back, you know.’

‘The hydraulic stabiliser.’

‘That’s it. And the other one, the schoolmaster’s tank, was stopped in a sunken road just behind our front line, so the poor old Berkshires attacked without it, for all the good it might have done them. But go on, Captain, go on.’

‘ -
succeeded in restarting their machine. Veering to the right -
‘

‘That was the only direction it could veer,’ murmured the General. ‘There was something wrong with its steering - that was how it got into the sunken road in the first place, I think.’

Mitchell stole a side-glance at Audley and was surprised to find an expression of rapt attention. Either the big man was a fine actor or he was genuinely interested. But the General was looking at him, expectantly.

‘
Veering to the right, this tank dealt with a machine-gun in Harrow Trench and successfully
engaged the strongpoint on the edge of Bouillet Wood-
‘

‘Huh!’ snorted the General, matching a violet exclamation mark in the margin. ‘Go on, go on!’

‘ -
and enabling the surviving members of the flank company to enter the southern tip of the
wood -
‘

‘Successfully engaged?’ The bald head shook vehemently. ‘ “Successfully engaged the attention” was more like it. It did that at least, so I suppose it’s fair enough, that last bit. But our chaps were the ones who dealt with that strongpoint, as I remember, because that was when it got ditched for good and all. Go on, then.’

‘-
before breaking down again. Although tangled undergrowth made movement difficult, the
Riflemen skirmished through the wood with skill and determination, being joined by the rest of
the battalion and a party from the 9/North Berkshires (consisting of one sergeant and twenty-four
men). As the light increased the Riflemen and Fusiliers fought their way through the southern
part of the wood, suffering more casualties (including Lieut. Colonel Lord St Blaizey, killed by a
sniper) but extinguishing all resistance by Germans belonging to the 450th Reserve Regiment -
‘

‘Bavarians. Good soldiers - died hard.’ The General regarded Mitchell benignly. ‘One of them saved my life.’

‘Saved your life?’

‘Oh, he didn’t mean to. He meant to do exactly the opposite - he shot me. Just here - ‘ The General tapped his shoulder ‘ - bullet went clean through, made a big hole in the back. What we used to call “a nice blighty one”; sent me back to England.’

‘And that saved your life?’ said Audley.

‘Undoubtedly, yes. I was the senior subaltern left by then, the company commander had been killed, so I was leading the company. The chap who took over from me - a friend of mine named Dickie Dyson, a very nice boy, very brave - much braver than me, I was a timid fellow - he came up to take over from me. I remember I was lying in a shell-hole between the roots of a tree, there were still quite a lot of trees standing in the wood at that time, unlike later on, and I could see first light through them, so I knew we were near the edge of the wood … we seemed to have been going through it for hours …’

The General fell silent, staring at a point in space just above him.

‘It’s really quite a small wood, Bouillet Wood,’ said Mitchell, gently jogging him forward.

‘Is it now? You know it then?’

Mitchell nodded.

‘I was there in 1971. It’s grown up again and there’s quite a large house in it.’

‘Is there indeed? And you say it’s small?’

The General nodded politely.

‘Well, you see - it does seem very large when you can’t get out of it… and I was absolutely convinced I was dying and that I was there for good. In fact, I said to him - quite stupidly - “They’ve done for me, Dickie.” And I told him to push on to the edge of the-wood and dig in there.’

He paused again, looking candidly at Mitchell.

‘You see, what I was afraid of was that the Germans would counter-attack from the Prussian Redoubt and I should be left alone in there. But then I remembered the man who’d just shot me, and I said “Watch out for the sniper, Dickie - it’s almost morning now” - by which I meant that he could see us properly. And he said “Well then. Woody, I expect I’ll be saying ‘Good morning, God’ in a moment or two” … and
crack
-
the moment he put his head up over the edge of the hole the sniper got him too. Killed him straight off, just like that -
crack!
’