A Fox Under My Cloak (41 page)

Here he met a Scottish major, who was examining the ground of his battalion's attack. He said that the Fifteenth Division had started eight minutes late, as the men had crowded
together
, trying to find the gaps in the British wire, which had been cut only the night before. There had been some casualties from shell-fire, but practically no opposition from the Hun infantry. In twenty minutes his battalion had got through the fourth enemy line, and “were into the blue”. The major was optimistic; the German front was broken; the R.F.C.—Phillip had not seen an aeroplane so far—had reported a concentration of horse transport outside Lille, which looked as though the old Hun was in a panic, and shifting his headquarters further back. Did he know where were our reserves? Had he seen any? Why hadn't they come up? Had he seen anything of the cavalry? What?

“No, sir.”

The dead in
feld
grau
lay everywhere in their old front line; they had got the gas. He crossed over, and walked beside a communication trench leading up to the redoubt. It was choked with German dead piled upon one another, three and four deep. Obviously they had been caught in the
Allee
,
or communication trench, trying to get away; bomb after bomb, to judge by
shattered
heads and faces, must have been lobbed on top of the struggling masses. Many had hands blown off, as though they had been crying
Kamerad
.
It looked like a massacre of prisoners, which was understandable, so soon after zero hour, because attacking men were nearly insane with fear, and the exhilaration succeeding intense fear. It was awful; he had seen enough; and when he got to the top of the down-like rise, and suddenly saw troops moving along the skyline, and saw very close to him the twin pylons of Loos and the brown cluster of broken roofs down below on his right, and heard the gruff coughs of bombs, with the hiss and cracking of bullets passing him, he turned back,
determined to make his way to his billet in Mazingarbe, and report sick with gas. With luck, he would get down to the base.

This idea became an obsession. He must get away from all the horror, which really had no purpose, since both sides thought they were fighting for the same thing. He began to stride along fast, but the going was heavy; boots were clogged with grey clay, puttees thick with plaster. He went down the slope to what looked like a track, along which, in the distance, wheeled
transport
, strung out, was visible. At last he got to the road beyond, after floundering through more trenches blown in, their
withy-and-stake
revettments in a horrible mess,
feld
grau
and khaki dead lying outside the tilted beams of dugout and shelter, and came to the top of the rise where the old front line had been. He walked down the road for the best part of a mile, and saw no fresh troops moving up. Shells from field gun batteries in the open were flashing and barking under the leaden sky, into which reared the dark pyramids and heaps of the fosses, the strange iron towers of the winding-gear of coal-pits. He thought how it all looked like the scenery of the nightmares he had had as a child.

It began to rain. The churned-up road, pitted with
shell-holes
, gleamed hopeless like the sky. The flashes of guns were
indistinguishable
from large and nervous blinks of the eyes. He passed hundreds, thousands of wounded limping, or lying on stretchers in the mud above ditches, and no-one to take them away. He hastened on, desperate to get to his billet.

*

The elderly major of sappers said, “Ah, so you are back again. We feared something might have happened to you.”

“I was with my regiment, sir. They had lost most of their officers.”

The old man looked at him benevolently. “Well, you look to be in need of a good night's rest, my boy. Perhaps you had better see the doctor. That hoarse voice sounds like a whiff of gas.”

“I think I'm all right, sir.”

“Well, better to be on the safe side. Chlorine is not so easily got rid of. I think we'll have the doctor run over you. How were things going on your sector?”

“The Lone Tree position was surrendered by the Germans, sir.”

“Yes, we heard that. Things are going as reasonably well as can be expected, though Horne's Second Division is still checked. The gas blew back, I am afraid. Thesiger's Ninth has over-run the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and both Big and Little Willie trenches, and has taken Fosse Eight and the Dump. Capper's Seventh has captured the Quarries, and is over the Lens-Béthune road, and reached the second German line about Hulluch.” He looked at a message on his blanket-covered table. “Yes, things are going well. The First Division, as you know, is now astride the Lens—Béthune road after initial checks at Lone Tree, and has captured six hundred prisoners.” He put down the Corps battle report. “Well, let me have your written report first thing in the morning, will you? Now I think we'll get the doctor to vet. you.”

Phillip saw the M.O., an elderly Scotsman with a rugged face and drooping grey moustache yellow with nicotine. A cigarette smouldered on his lip. He had a scurfy scalp, Phillip noticed, as he put the stethoscope over his chest.

“Do ye play bridge? We need a fourth in the mess.” He folded up his red rubber tubes, and pulled down his patient's lower lids. “A bit of inflammation, you're lucky to have got no more than a whiff of that gas.”

“No, I don't play, Doctor, I'm afraid.”

“Ye'll soon learn. A few days' light duty won't hurt you. Your heart's intermittent, and a wee bit on the rapid side. We play for sixpence a hundred. Did ye see anything of the new Kitchener divisions as you came down the Harrow Road?”

“No, I didn't, Doctor. But the wounded were still lying out in No Man's Land. I think it ought to be reported to someone.”

“Oh, things are bound to be in a muddle at this stage. Don't worry yourself about what canna' be helped. The Hun front is broken, but our reserves are on the way. Two Kitchener divisions from home have been marching up during the past three nights, to avoid being seen from the air. Then some dam-fool military policemen held up the leading Brigade for an hour, on a standing order, for trench warfare only, that platoons going into the line must have a hundred yards' interval. You were with the London Highlanders at Messines, were ye not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I had a nephew of mine killed at Ypres—Elliott, did you know him?”

“Yes, Doctor. He was in my company.”

“Well, you've done your bit. Take things easy. I'm giving you four days' light duty. Now go and sleep. Have you got four francs on you? I can let you have a bottle of Johnny Walker, only don't drink too much. It's the best sleeping draught.” Phillip handed over a five-franc note, and took the bottle.

“Right, you're a franc in credit. And don't forget to come to the mess for bridge after dinner tomorrow. We only play for sixpence a hundred.”

Phillip hurried away, thinking jubilantly that it was indeed a bit of fat. His jubilant mood soon went. He was cold, his throat was metallic; depression returned as he crossed the wretched little square filled with limbers and wagons, files of led mules with pack saddles, and echoing to the tramp of a weary-looking column of soldiers passing through towards the line, and went on to his billet, one of a row of drab little back-to-back cottages, the
corons
of the French miners. The village had been shelled during his absence; more rafters gaped, new shell-holes in the road had been filled in with bricks, the blackish mud was streaked with red by the passing of files of pack-mules taking up eighteen-pounder shells, and wagons.

He found his batman sitting by the fire with the widow and her children; they got up when he entered, and all except “Twinkle” disappeared into the scullery. Thinking to celebrate the break-through, Phillip invited the old fellow to have some whiskey with him.

“Twinkle” handled lovingly the bottle of Johnny Walker, and insisted on pouring for Phillip what he called a chota peg, which meant that a cup with a broken handle was filled nearly three-quarters full. Then “Twinkle” helped himself, as invited, and proposed his officer's health, which Phillip took
appropriately
seated, while the batman swallowed his cupful in two swigs, champing his bare gums afterwards, and uttering deep sighs of satisfaction.

“Twinkle's” bare gums were in the nature of a permanent insurance; he had told Phillip that he had hidden his dentures against the possibility of being ordered into the trenches; for, toothless, he would be unable to eat iron rations.

“I could do with some breakfast, Twinkle.”

“Breakfast, sir? But I got your lunch all ready! No matter, sir, no matter! Breakfast you shall have, forthwith,” and going
to the stove, the servant took up a canteen and returned to tip the contents into a plate. It was an oily mess of lumps of yellow fat and meat surrounded by cabbage leaves, dumplings made of flour and lumps of biscuit, onions, and watery potatoes.

“Breakfast up, sir! Just a moment, sir, I've got a French flavour for you.”

Phillip sat back, wonderfully warmed by whiskey, with loose lips and stretched legs, and watched while his servant covered the plateful with cheese shavings. “You're not only a chef, you're a conjurer,” he said, feeling he was falling to pieces. “Dinner into breakfast without even the wave of a napkin.” He raised his glass. “I drink your health, Chef!”

“Thank you, sir, I don't mind if I do,” promptly replied the Chef, helping himself to another quartern from the bottle. That, too, was as rapidly disposed of as the first, with appreciative suckings, and clappings of gums and lips.

“Come on, sir, aren't you 'ungry? My word, sir, you oughter've sin them rookies of the new Kitchener's mob what come up this arternoon! They'd 'ad no food all day, and was wet through and proper flogged out by forced rowt marching. Thank Gawd we've got the Guards a-comin' up, that's what I said to misself when I see'd'm.”

Like all old soldiers of the file who had seen much military endeavour come to nothing, the Chef went on to prophesy doom. The young soldier agreed.

“I don't like the look of the whole business, sir. It gives me the shakes, all them rookies goin' in for the first time, arter three nights' forced foot-sloggin' on the
pavé,
and no grub under their belts, and none seen a shot fired in anger. It ain't Sir Garnett.” He took the bottle, and helped himself. “Here's your very good health, sir. Aren't you 'ungry, sir? What would you fancy like, for afters? I got prunes, and tinned milk, and a cupper kawfy. If I'd've knowed you was comin' I'd've got the old gal to frizzle you hup han rhum souffle like the bellarenas and the ballet boys used to take afore the shows at the old Crawl fer Pardon, that's rhymin' slang for Covent Garden, sir, wanting something light, to settle their nerves. They was the days, or rather nights! Twinkle me boy, they used to say, Twinkle, they'd say, in their foreigner's lingo, they was all furriners you see, sir, cor strike a light, what 'abits some'v'm 'ad, proper Oscar boys they was, talk about nancies, some on'm was jealous've me, sir, would
you believe it, jealous o' Twinkle! Old enuff to be all their farvers! The chorus boys all come, fur coats over tights, 'ungry as 'unters, into my 'Am an' Beef, and wolfed thicks in the interval, that's 'ow I got to know 'em, you see, sir, they give me their confidences, like a lot of kids they was. What you lookin' at, sir, suthin' in me mutton 'ot-pot?”

“Only a hair. Your sheep must have tails like horses', Chef.”

“Can't 'elp a little fing like that in war-time, sir, it must've come off'r butcher's daughter, Marie, she's called, sir. Eat up, sir, stoke up. What about those rookies comin' up, arter nights o' forced marchin', on empty bellies, sir?”

“That's one way of looking at it, certainly. By the way, surely this
is
a horse hair? Perhaps Marie's father was a horse?”

“It must've got in somehow,” remarked the Chef, thrusting his greasy hand before Phillip's face and taking the hair away, to hold it up to the light of three candles before dropping it on the floor and remarking, “Nature's a wonderful thing, sir, to my way o' thinkin'. Didn't you never 'ear as 'ow eels growed out'r 'ossairs, sir? I sin 'm wriggling in the Wandle near Wandsworth when I were a boy. Many a time I've taken of'm home in a jemjar, a proper mystery, it was, them 'ossairs a-wrigglin' away accordin' to nature's law. Makes yer fink, don't it? Yes, eels come aht'r 'ossairs.”

“So you think the father of an eel is a horse, Chef? Well, I think I'll have the prunes now, I'm not very hungry.”

“What? You ain't goin' to eat yer plateful, sir? Wiv all them fresh dried veg I wangled aht'v A.S.C., sir? Go on, 'ave a try, sir! Must keep yer strength up, you know.” The old fellow stifled a yawn. “Manners, Twinkle!” he reproved himself. “Kripes, I could do wiv some kip, sir. I ain't slepp a wink for nights, what wiv them Long Toms a-crackin' off double each time just be'ind me an' liftin' the tiles over me 'ead. Go on, sir, stoke up! It's me special mutton stoo!”

“No thanks, I really can't eat any more. It's too fat!” He laughed to an imagined Desmond. “I'd like the prunes. I'll put the milk on myself, thanks all the same, Chef!”

“Very good, sir,” exclaimed the Chef. “Just as you say, sir. Prunes, sir, now comin' up. Very good for the bowels, sir. Cawfee to follow, sir, tout suite.”

“I'll put the milk in, Chef!” Phillip didn't want the
blowing-act
to be repeated, the old man's breath upon the milk, as on a previous occasion with prunes. To divert his mind off the
blowing
he offered him another drink.

“Come on, Chef, help yourself to a spot of old man whiskey.”