A Fox Under My Cloak (37 page)

He returned to the cellar, and peered in. It was nearly 2 a.m. He heard the brigadier say, “Well, ‘Nosey’, you’d better turn in for a couple of hours, it will probably be your last chance for several days.”

The night was quiet, with the least movement of damp air. Going to the front of the ruinous buildings he stood and let the wise-like feeling between his legs possess him, and so to a sense of detachment from life, the feeling of loneliness that was, deep within, strangely satisfying. He waited, detached, sunk in
stillness
, while an occasional shell passed with chromatic whine into the vaporous hollow before him, to burst redly, seeming sullen by distance; while away in the south the sky was filled with a multitudinous play of light under distant clouds. What did it all mean, what was it all for, why had it come about? Both sides, along the vast front from the North Sea to the Alps, were waiting, with the same hopes and fears. And yet there was something wonderful about it all, despite the truth that people at home could never know.

An hour seeped away. Exhaustion thinned him. There was no wonder left; the war was really one great horror, a
nothingness
, everything that had ever been becoming nothing, in pain and fear. Well, he had nothing now to live for: the dream of Helena Rolls was ended, and Nature was gone from his life. What could he
do
,
in the broken nothingness all around? The old black depression had fixed itself upon Phillip.

E
VERY
hour during Y/Z night meteorological reports had been coming in to First Army Headquarters from observers in the army area. At midnight, the speed of the wind, from between
south-west and west, five feet above ground, was variable from two to four miles an hour; by midnight it had fallen to a calm.

In the early hours of the morning reports from London gave details of wind-speeds at different places in the British Isles. When at 3 a.m. the meteorological expert saw General Haig and his chief general staff officer, he said that conditions were still favourable for a south-west wind in the morning, but a change back to south might occur.

“At what time is the wind likely to be most favourable?” the general asked.

“The wind usually begins to increase after sunrise, sir, and goes on increasing in the forenoon; and in the case of wind from the south-west, the increase of speed is accompanied by a change of direction towards west.”

“
Towards
the west, Captain Gold, did you say?” asked the C.G.S.O., as General Haig stiffened.

“The term applies to the direction whence the wind is blowing, sir. The south-west wind tends to veer, to come from the west. I must add, sir, that owing to the general changes I have mentioned, it would be unsafe to rely on the wind increasing at all.”

“When, in your opinion, will be the most favourable time?” the general asked again.

“As soon as possible, sir.”

Sir Douglas Haig considered this for some moments, then he asked again if the possibility existed that the wind might increase with the rising of the sun; and on being told yes, turned to his C.G.S.O. and said that zero hour would be at sunrise, 5.50 a.m., for the releasing of the gas, the infantry assault to follow forty minutes afterwards at 6.30 a.m.

*

Phillip was watching the staff captain as he listened on the telephone. The staff captain was glancing at the chronometer on the table with its black and almost-heart-beating second hand moving round the large face, and checking with his wristlet watch laid beside it. The large chronometer and minute gold watch reminded Phillip of the picture on Father's bedroom wall of a very large and a very small dog in the same kennel, called
Dignity
and
Impudence
.
He heard the staff captain say,
Thank
you
,
colonel
,
I'll
give
the
brigadier
your
message
,
before the receiver was replaced. Then he wrote something upon a message
pad; and beckoned the four subalterns who had been waiting for the past six hours.

“Gentlemen, zero hour is at five-fifty ack emma. I repeat the time of zero. It is at ten minutes to six this morning. You will take this information immediately to your commanding officers, by word of mouth. Here is the time-table of gas and smoke discharge. There is a copy for each emplacement, with extra copies for yourselves. Will you now synchronise your watches.” When this was done, he repeated once more that zero hour was at 5.50 a.m. They all saluted, and went up the steps, and after “Cheerios” and “All the best” went their ways in the darkness.

A guide led Phillip to the battle headquarters of the first battalion, the Gaultshire Regiment, nicknamed “The Mediators”.

*

The commanding officer of “The Mediators” came of a family of professional soldiers. He was a temporary
lieutenant-colonel
with the substantive rank of captain in the first battalion. Lieutenant-Colonel Mowbray wore the D.S.O., and silver rosette of a bar to that decoration, awarded for leadership and selfless devotion to duty as a company commander in the retreat from Mons in August 1914, and again during the battle of Ypres. He was a heavily-built man, with a manner of great courtesy that went with his simplicity. Now a widower, he had been happily married, with the peace of mind that a matched marriage had given him, even as a happy childhood had given him peace in his soul. It was said by some of his brother officers in the regiment that Colonel Mowbray had suffered a great tragedy in his life when, a junior captain, serving in India, he had returned to his house after a week's absence on manœuvres and watched from the bottom of the stairs his wife, running to greet him, trip and lose balance and fall; and when he picked her up her neck was broken so that she died. The grief of Captain Mowbray had been deep; but his faith was deeper. He maintained his faith with prayer as regular as his other habits in both his private and professional life. Thus he kept his spirit free; thus the habit of courtesy, which, beginning as an imitation of his father's manner towards subordinates, had since youth been part of his personality. The stress of war had not shaken his integrity, for Colonel Mowbray within was as Colonel Mowbray without. For him there was only one tragedy in life: to fail in duty towards others.

It was the message from Colonel Mowbray which had
disturbed
the brigadier and his brigade major, the effect of which Phillip had observed, when they had looked at the trench map on the table. Colonel Mowbray had reported that the enemy wire north and south of Lone Tree was still intact after the bombardment.

*

The guide stopped before a dugout, which went down ten feet under the surface. It had a roof of timber baulks and bags, with an air-space to act as cushion in the central layers. Sods on the top hid the bags of chalk.

Colonel Mowbray was sitting at a table reading Malory's
Mort
d
'
Arthur.
He put down the book when Phillip entered.

“I have to report that zero hour is at five-fifty ack emma, sir,” said Phillip, saluting. “And may I show you a copy of the gas time-table?”

“Thank you,” replied the colonel, quietly. “Sit down, won't you.” He examined the time-table; looked up and said, “How is the wind?”

“Almost nil, sir, but what there is, is moving north-east by east.”

“Can you tell me what the effect of our final bombardment will have, particularly as regards the low-trajectory eighteen-pounders, on a slowly moving gas cloud?”

“They will tend to disturb, it, sir, and so break it up,” replied Phillip hurriedly.

“Will they carry forward, or impede, the cloud?”

“They will tend to carry it forward, sir,” he said, trying to appear as though he had not made up the reply.

“I see. Now when the cloud reaches the enemy's wire and front trenches, will the bombardment disperse the gas, owing to the heat of the explosions?”

“Yes, sir. But the gas, being heavier than air, will settle again.”

“Thank you.” The colonel looked at his watch. “The time is now twenty minutes past four. In one hour and thirty minutes you will be discharging your gas?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are your cylinders intact?”

“They were when I saw them last, sir.”

“When was that?”

“Between eight and nine o'clock, I mean pip emma, sir.”

“Where have you been meanwhile?”

“Waiting at brigade headquarters, sir, to be told the hour of zero, and for the revised time-table. I was ordered to be there at ten pip emma.”

“You have had to wait a long time. Well, I must not keep you. You are going to your emplacements now, are you? Goodbye, and good luck!”

*

The wet night was turning, with a rise of temperature,
towards
the dawn, soon to reveal a morning of mist and drizzle in places, to cast the first wan light of day upon innumerable watery boot-marks left by those who, having said goodbye to life, were now become spectral to themselves and to one another, grey with fear, barren with the thoughts of men whose lives might soon be taken from them.

*

It was eerie to be passing men trying to sleep in all attitudes in the reserve trench; and coming to the communication trench marked UP, Phillip went on to the front line. Here it was likewise crowded with men in sagging attitudes, heads bowed over knees and resting on elbows, faces hidden away from dreadful thoughts of aloneness and obliteration. He passed by the half-sleeping, the thought of Captain West guiding him. When he reached the shelter, all within was quiet and dark. The orderly sitting on a box just inside the blanket whispered that the captain was asleep.

“He told me to wake 'im when you come back, sir. He's only bin down to it an hour. He was out acrost to the Jerry wire, and then with the colonel until nearly two, sir. Shall I wake him, sir?”

“No, let him sleep. I'll go and see my chaps, and come back later.”

He was about to go out when Captain West's voice said, “Don't you ever obey orders, Phillip? Where have you been? Come and tell me. When does the balloon go up? How's the wind?”

“Zero is 5.50. I've told your C.O.
Wind is fairly faint. There's also a revised time-table for the gas discharge. I haven't read it yet. I've got to give a copy to each sergeant in charge of my emplacements.”

“Let me see.”

Captain West rose on an elbow, switched on his electric torch.

“God's teeth, my eyes are seeing double. Read it out.”

“Zero to 0.12 minutes, six cylinders gas

0.12 to 0.20 minutes, four smoke candles

0.20 to 0.32 minutes, six cylinders gas

0.38 to 40 minutes, two triple smoke candles

0.40 minutes—Assault!”

“So we go over at half past six,” said West. “Boon! Bring tea, hot, thick, and
no
sugar this time. I've got a mouth like the bottom of a parrot's cage. So they've changed the plans again.”

“Yes. The original idea was thirty-eight minutes of gas right off, to use up the German helmets, including a second dip in the hypo. They last for fifteen minutes only, without a re-dip. Thirty-eight minutes of gas, then the smoke cloud for the final two minutes, to give the infantry complete cover from view. This new arrangement isn't so good, in my opinion.”

“It's to get the main body of Hun troops out of their deep dugouts, when they see the smoke, to meet our assault, then to catch them in our final bombardment,” replied Captain West. “But if the Hun doesn't come out until the guns lift, and if furthermore, my lad, your gas doesn't put him down, we'll be for the high jump again. For, I will tell in strict confidence, the gunners haven't cut the wire along our front.”

“Good God!”

“Not a word, mind,” said Captain West, through clenched teeth.

Phillip was startled to realise that the great “Spectre” West was afraid. The revelation gave him, in the same moment, the thought that what Westy could do, he could also do. In this extraordinary feeling of having shed his old feeble self, he said, “It says here that local commanders may give orders to run the gas concurrently with the smoke, if necessary, so if you like I can easily let it all off in the thirty-eight minutes. That will saturate their masks. I think it must have been your report I heard the brigadier discussing. Is the German wire intact two hundred yards north of Lone Tree, to three hundred south of it?”

“Yes. What did he say?”

“That he'd ring ‘B.G.R.A.' at corps, whoever that was.”

“Brigadier-general of gunners. What happened?”

“He changed his mind, and rang ‘G.S.O. One, Division'.”

“Well? Hurry up! You're too damned slow!”

“I didn't hear any more.”

Captain West said sharply, “Not a word about this outside, or to any of my subalterns, mind!” in such a tone of command that Phillip automatically said, “No, sir!”

Then, after a pause, he said, “Well, I think I'll get along to my emplacements, and warn the N.C.O.s in charge of the change of time-table.”

“Come back here when you have done so. I may have
something
to say about how you release your gas, and blast every staff wallah! Boon! Hold that tea back until Mr. Maddison returns. I'm now going to sleep for half an hour. Shut up, you bloody thing!” he shouted at the alarm clock, ticking loudly on the table as it lay on its face in disgrace. Captain West covered it with his balaclava helmet, before rolling upon the bed again and pulling the blanket over his head. But not to sleep. He lay in the darkness fighting to overcome a picture of men bunching in front of thick rusty wire until cut down by the screeching blast of machine-guns firing at point-blank range. He clenched his hands, drew up his knees, made himself rigid as he tried to dissolve the picture; but always it reformed itself before his closed eyes, to the loud ticking of idiot Time.

*

Phillip moved along the assembly trench, passing company after company of men in all attitudes of unquiet sleep and quiet despair, huddled on duckboards or leaning against
chalk-bagged
walls of each traverse. Sentries stood in the fire-bays, patient and thoughtful as they took moments of privacy with shut eyes, with subdued sighs. Through the damp and stagnant air, in the hour before dawn when the thoughts of waking men, in peace or war, are often catastrophic, the body vacant of soul, Phillip moved among herded men, his slow progress revealed by the wan light from a torch whose glass lens he held between his fingers. Strange thoughts of his new self passed in his mind;
he
was commanding men;
he
was one of those superior beings to whom men looked, as having power over their lives. It was a surprising thought that he, Phillip Maddison, could stand up to real officers like Captain West, M.C.; could speak to staff officers as an equal. How remote seemed his old self, that used
to feel small in the presence of such people as Captain Whale, Major Fridkin, and Lieutenant Brendon, who had remarked, with slight contempt, “As a soldier, Maddison is in that state known as
non
est
.”

He was sweating when he reached the first emplacement, to hear the sergeant say, “I thought perhaps you'd copped it, sir,” to which the reply, “Oh, no, I'm too wicked to die just yet,” while Cranmer's face seemed to be upon his own, strangely. He left a time-table sheet, and pushed his way on to the next emplacement, while telling himself there was no need for hurry, there was a full hour before the balloon went up. The strain ended only when he had come to the last emplacement; then a further anxiety developed when the sergeant, asking to speak in private with him, said, “I don't like the look of this quiet air, sir. The men are saying that the gas will hang about, and they'd rather go over the bags without it. If you'll excuse my saying it, sir.”