Death of a Hero (45 page)

Winterbourne stood outside the entrance to his cellar, took off his steel helmet and folded down the top part of his gas-mask so that he could see, while still keeping the nose-clip on and the large rubber mouthpiece in his teeth. The whitish morning light looked cold and misty, and the PHUT PHUT PHUT PHUT of the bursting gas shells continued with ruthless iteration. He watched them exploding; a little curling cloud of yellow gas rose from each shell-hole. The ground was pitted with these new shell-holes, and newly-broken bricks and debris lay about everywhere. A dead rat lay in a gas-shell hole just outside the entrance so the War caught even the rats! There had been a young, slender ash-tree in what had once been the cottage garden. A heavy explosive had fallen just at its roots, splintered the slim stem, and dashed it prone with broken branches. The young leaves were still green, except on one side where they were curled and withered by gas. The grass, so tender a Spring green a week before, was yellow, sickly, and withered. As he turned to lift the gas blanket he heard the whizz and crash of the first heavy of the day bombardment. But the gas shells continued.

Inside the cellar was complete darkness. He took off his mask and fumbled his way down the broken stairs, trying not to wake the other runners. It was important to use only one match, because matches were scarce and precious. The air inside was foul and heavy, but only slightly tainted with phosgene. Winterbourne half-smiled as he thought how furiously he had contended for “fresh air” in huts and barrack-rooms, and how gladly he now welcomed any foul air which was not full of poison gas. He lighted his stub of candle, and slowly took off his equipment, replacing the box respirator immediately. His boots were thick
with mud, his puttees and trousers torn with wire and stained with mud and grease. A bullet had torn a hole in his leather jerkin, and his steel helmet was marked by a long, deep dint, where it had been struck by a flying splinter of shell. He felt amazingly weary, and rather sick. He had known the fatigue of long walks and strenuous Rugby football matches and cross-country runs, but nothing like this continual, cumulative weariness. He moved with the slow, almost pottering movements of agricultural labourers and old men. The feeling of sickness became worse, and he wanted to vomit out the smell of gas which seemed to permeate him. He heaved over his empty canvas bucket until the water started to his eyes, but vomited nothing. He noticed how filthy his hands were.

He was just going to sit down on his blanket and pack, covered by the neatly-folded ground-sheet, when he saw a parcel and some letters for him lying on them. The other runners had brought them over for him. Decent of them. The parcel was from Elizabeth – how sweet of her to remember! And yes, she had sent all the things he had asked for and left out all the useless things people would send to the troops. He mustn't touch anything except the candles, though, until tomorrow, when the parcel would be carefully divided among everybody in the cellar. It was one of the good unwritten rules – all parcels strictly divided between each section, so that every one got something, even and especially the men who were too poor or too lonely to receive anything from England. Dear Elizabeth! how sweet of her to remember!

He opened her envelope with hands which shook slightly with fatigue and the shock of explosions. Then he stopped, lighted a new candle from the stub of the old one, blew out the stub, and carefully put it away to give to one of the infantry. The letter was unexpectedly tender and charming. She had just been to Hampton Court to look at the flowers. The gardens were rather neglected, she said, and no flowers in the Long Border – the gardeners were at the War, and there was no money in England now for flowers. Did he remember how they had walked there in April five years ago? Yes, he remembered, and thought too with a pang of surprise that this was the first Spring he had ever spent without seeing a flower, not even a primrose. The little yellow coltsfoot he had liked so much were all dead with phosgene. Elizabeth went on:

“I saw Fanny last week. She looked more charming and delicate than ever – and such a marvellous hat! I hear she is
much
attached to a
brilliant young scientist, a chemist, who does the
most peculiar
things. He mixes up all sorts of chemicals and then experiments with the fumes and kills dozens of poor little monkeys with them. Isn't it wicked? But Fanny says it's most
important
war work.”

The sickness came on him again. He turned sideways and heaved silently, but could not vomit. He felt thirsty, and drank a little stale-tasting water from his water-bottle. Dear Elizabeth! how sweet of her to remember! Fanny's letter was very rattling and gay. She had been there, she had done this, she had seen so-and-so. How was darling George getting along? She was so glad to see that there had been no fighting yet on the Western front. She added:

“I saw Elizabeth recently. She looked a little worried, but
very
sweet. She was with such a charming young man – a young American who ran away from Yale to join our Flying Corps.”

The heavy shells outside were falling nearer and nearer. They came over in fours, each shell a little in front of the others – bracketing. Through the gas-curtain he heard the remains of a ruined house collapse across the street under a direct hit. Each crash made the cellar tremble slightly, and the candle flame jumped.

Well, it was nice of Fanny to write. Very nice. She was a thoroughly decent sort. He picked up the other envelopes. One came from Paris, and contained the
Bulletin des Ecrivains
– names of French writers and artists killed or wounded, and news of those in the armies. He was horrified to see how many of his friends in Paris had been killed. A passage had been marked in blue pencil – it contained the somewhat belated news that M. Georges Winterbourne,
le jeune peintre anglais
, was in camp in England.

Another letter, forwarded by Elizabeth, came from a London art-dealer. It said that an American had bought one of Winterbourne's sketches for five pounds, and that when he heard that Winterbourne was in the trenches he had insisted upon making it twenty-five pounds. The dealer therefore enclosed a cheque for twenty-two pounds ten, being twenty-five pounds less commission at ten per centum. Winterbourne thought it rather cheek to take commission on the money which was a gift; but still – Business As Usual. But how generous of the American! How amazingly kind! His pay was five francs a week, so the money was most welcome. He must write and thank…

The last letter was from Mr. Upjohn, from whom Winterbourne had not heard for over a year. Elizabeth, appeared, had asked him to
write and send news. Mr. Upjohn wrote a chatty letter. He himself had a job in Whitehall, “of national importance”. Winterbourne rejoiced to think that Mr. Upjohn's importance was now recognized by the nation. Mr. Shobbe had been to France, had stayed in the line three weeks, and was now permanently at the base. Comrade Bobbe had come out very strong as a conscientious objector. He had been put in prison for six weeks. His friends had “got at” somebody influential, who had “got at” the secretary of somebody in authority, and Mr. Bobbe had been released as an agricultural worker. He was now “working” on a farm run by a philanthropic lady for conscientious objectors of the intellectual class. Mr. Waldo Tubbe had found his vocation in the Post Office Censorship Bureau, where he was very happy – if he could not force people to say what he wanted, he could at least prevent them from writing anything derogatory to his Adopted Empire…

George laughed silently to himself. Amusing chap, Upjohn. He got out his jack-knife and scraped away the mud so that he could unlace his boots. Outside the shells crashed. One burst just behind the cellar. The roof seemed to give a jump, something seemed to smack Winterbourne on the top of the head, and the candle went out. He laboriously re-lit it. The other runners woke up.

“Anything up?”

“No, only a crump outside. I'm just getting into kip.”

“Where've you been?”

“Up the line again, for the officers.”

“Get back all right?”

“Yes, nobody hit. But there's a hell of a lot of gas about. Don't go out without putting on your gas-bag.”

“Goodnight, old man.”

“Goodnight, old boy.”

9

T
HREE more nights passed rather more tranquilly. There was comparatively little gas, but the German heavies were persistent. They, too, quieted down on the third night, and Winterbourne got to bed fairly early and fell into a deep sleep.

Suddenly he was wide awake and sitting up. What on earth or hell was happening? From outside came a terrific rumble and roaring, as if three volcanoes and ten thunderstorms were in action simultaneously. The whole earth was shaking as if beaten by a multitude of flying hoofs, and the cellar walls vibrated. He seized his helmet, dashed past the other runners, who were starting up and exclaiming, rushed through the gas-curtain; and recoiled. It was still night, but the whole sky was brilliant with hundreds of flashing lights. Two thousand British guns were in action, and heaven and earth were filled with the roar and flame. From about half a mile to the north, southwards as far as he could see, the whole front was a dazzling flicker of gun-flashes. It was as if giant hands covered with huge rings set with searchlights were being shaken in the darkness, as if innumerable brilliant diamonds were flashing great rays of light. There was not a fraction of a second without its flash and roar. Only the great boom of a twelve-or fourteen-inch naval gun just behind them punctured the general pandemonium at regular intervals.

Winterbourne ran stumbling forwards to get a view clear of the ruins. He crouched by a piece of broken house and looked towards the German lines. They were a long, irregular wall of smoke, torn everywhere with the dull red flashes of bursting shells. Behind their lines their artillery was flickering brighter and brighter as battery after battery came into action, making a crescendo of noise and flame when the limits of both seemed to have been reached. Winterbourne saw but could not hear the first of their shells as it exploded short of the village. The great clouds of smoke over the German trenches were darkly visible in the first very pallid light of dawn. It was the preliminary bombardment of the long-expected battle. Winterbourne felt his heart shake with the shaking earth and vibrating air.

The whole thing was indescribable – a terrific spectacle, a stupendous symphony of sound. The devil-artist who had staged it was a master, in comparison with whom all other artists of the sublime and terrible were babies. The roar of the guns was beyond clamour – it was an immense rhythmic harmony, a super-jazz of tremendous drums, a ride of the Walkyrie played by three thousand cannon. The intense rattle of the machine-guns played a minor motif of terror. It was too dark to see the attacking troops, but Winterbourne thought with agony how every one of those dreadful vibrations of sound meant death or mutilation. He thought of the ragged lines of British troops stumbling forward in smoke and flame and a chaos of sound, crumbling away before the German protective barrage and the Reserve line machine-guns. He thought of the German front lines, already obliterated under that ruthless tempest of explosions and flying metal. Nothing could live within the area of that storm except by a miraculous hazard. Already in this first half-hour of bombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently slain, smashed, torn, gouged, crushed, mutilated. The colossal harmony seemed to roar louder as the drum-fire lifted from the Front line to the Reserve. The battle was begun. They would be mopping-up soon – throwing bombs and explosives down the dug-out entrances on the men cowering inside.

The German heavies were pounding M—with their shells, smashing at the communication trenches and crossroads, hurling masses of metal at their own ruined village. Winterbourne saw the half-ruined factory chimney totter and crash to the ground. Two shells pitched on either side of him, and flung earth, stones, and broken bricks all round him. He turned and ran back to his cellar, stumbling over shell-holes. He saw an isolated house disappear in the united explosion of two huge shells. He clutched his hands together as he ran, with tears in his eyes.

10

W
INTERBOURNE found the other runners buckling up their packs and fastening their equipment with that febrile haste which comes with great excitement. Even in the cellar the roar of the artillery made it necessary for them almost to shout to each other.

“What are the orders?”

“Stand by in fighting order, ready to move off at once. Dump packs outside billets.”

Winterbourne in his turn feverishly put on his equipment, buckled his pack, and cleaned his rifle. They stood, rifles and bayonets ready, in the low cellar, ready to spring up the broken stairs as soon as they were warned. In a moment such as this, a kind of paroxysm of humanity, the most difficult thing is to wait. They dreaded the awful storm thundering above them, but they were irresistibly hallucinated by it, eager to plunge in and be done with it. The German shells thudded continuously all round them, muted by the vaster clamour of the attacking artillery. No orders came. They fidgeted, exclaimed, and finally one by one sat silent on their packs, listening. A large rat ran down the cellar stairs and began to nibble something. The beast was exactly level with Winterbourne's head. He shoved a cartridge into the breech of his rifle, murmuring, “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and they no breath at all?” He aimed very carefully and pulled the trigger; there was a terrific bang in the confined cellar, and the rat was smashed dead in the air. Not ten seconds later a red, perspiring face under a steel helmet was anxiously poked through the cellar entrance. It was the Orderly Sergeant.

“What the fuckin' hell are you doing, down there?”

“Having a spree – didn't you hear the champagne cork?”

“Spree be fucked – one of you buggers fired his rifle and fuckin' near copped me. Fucked if I don't report the fuckin' lot of yer.”