How Dear Is Life (32 page)

“Oh, I shall go home. You see, I am not an enlisted man. On the contrary, I retained my civilian status, being Colonel Hatton’s valet for the last twelve years. I wear the kilt as a courtesy, if you follow my meaning. Oh no, I am by no means a military man.”

He rearranged the towel deftly.

No one had eaten. There was no hunger. Phillip’s fingers felt hot and thick, like his feet and his wrists. All fear was gone, except for shells, and that was momentary. To bullets hissing over the stack, or whizzing and scolding in richochet off the
pave
road he was indifferent. He was only afraid when he thought of his mother, and how she would be if he were killed. That thought always unnerved him. What would she
do
?

At times he had felt a sort of satisfaction that he was actually under fire. This feeling stayed with him as he watched the sun go down in the dark clouds of the west, leaving upon the furrowed field a sort of purple penumbra, a faint ruddy light, shifting as he stared. Was something wrong with his eyes? He asked a man of ‘G’ Company, sitting next to him. He noticed it, too. Looking round the stack, they saw that the play of light over the field came from burning buildings in Messines. They stood up.
Lance-corporal Furrow told Phillip to act as sentry, eyes across the road.

In the dusk Phillip heard voices. Leaving the shelter of the stack, he walked into the field, feeling strangely free in the fading light, by which he could just discern figures approaching across the furrows.

“Halt, who goes there?”

There was sufficient light to recognise the Earl of Findhorn, with the Adjutant and the Staff-sergeant. Staff, as he was called, was next in seniority to the Battalion Sergeant-Major, and like him, a Coldstreamer. Behind were two scouts.

“What company are you men?” asked the Adjutant, in his conversational voice.

“Two of ‘G’, three of ‘D’, two of ‘B’, sir,” said Furrow.

“With your permission to speak, sir,” said Gostello, in a polite voice, “Colonel Hatton is here, under some straw. He died this afternoon. A shell splinter, in the head, sir.”

The Colonel said nothing. The Adjutant turned away to look at the body.

The Colonel wore his British warm, with no visible equipment, not even a revolver. His right fist clasped a tall thumb-stick, like one Phillip had seen the otter-hunters carry in Devon. Not the ones in uniform, who carried poles, but the others.

He heard the Colonel tell Staff in his high, rather thin voice, to arrange for stretcher bearers at once. Staff turned away and spoke to a scout. “Get a move on, my lad.” The scout hurried away over the field.

“Hatton had no business to leave battalion headquarters,” the Colonel said to the Adjutant.

“No, Colonel.”

The Adjutant turned to the group by the stack. “Have any of you men seen Captain Forbes?”

“No, sir,” said Furrow.

“Or any other officer?”

“Only Captain McQuaker, sir, lying on the road,” said Phillip, putting himself forward. “He went to the rescue of a wounded man, and was hit immediately.”

“Didn’t any of you men attempt to bring Captain McQuaker in?” asked the Colonel, an edge on his voice.

“Please, sir, it was a machine-gun, sir,” said Costello, standing to attention. “I was not actually here then, but I understand
that the others considered that by showing themselves it would draw more fire, and perhaps kill them both, sir, if they were wounded. And if I may say so, sir——”

The Colonel turned away, and said something to the Adjutant. The Adjutant pushed through the hedge. He came back a minute later.

“Oats is dead, I’m sorry to say, Colonel. Hit through the head,” he said in the same level voice.

While they had been talking, an odd figure had shambled up, with a face that looked strange; it made queer little glottal noises; and when it came nearer, was seen to be an Indian with his lower jaw entirely shot away, and his tongue hanging loose. He looked deeply dejected; but when Staff spoke to him in Hindustani, he brightened.

“Get the bodies of the two officers away on stretchers,” said the Colonel to Staff.

“Sir!”

“And see that this man goes at once to the First Aid Post.”

“Sir!”

As they were moving away, Staff said, “Corporal Furrow, have your men at the stand to, with fixed bayonets. And remain ’ere until an officer comes. Look out for Allemans coming up from yon.” He pointed to the east. “There’s bloody thousands over there. And don’t get down-’earted!”

“Right you are, Staff!”

When Staff had gone, Costello said in Phillip’s ear, “You get no thanks from that bloody guardee Findhorn! There’s esprit de bloody corps for you!”

Costello seemed to be almost another person, thought Phillip.

*

In deepening dusk he watched files of men moving away from the road towards the wood. What was happening? At length he asked Lance-corporal Furrow if they ought to be going, too.

“You’ll stay here,” said Furrow, “until I give the order.”

“What are we supposed to be doing, corporal? I mean, we could have remained in the wood just as well, and waited for the dark.”

“You do what you are damned well ordered to do!”

Phillip felt more sure of things when Mr. Ogilby came along, with Sergeant Henshaw. They had been down the hedge, near the windmill, all the time.

“Ah, Lance-corporal Furrow!” said Mr. Ogilby. “‘B’ Company is to reinforce the Dragoons in the trenches over the road, with ‘A’ and ‘H’ Companies. You fellows of ‘D’ and ‘G’ are going to be withdrawn to the edge of the wood, to join ‘F’ and ‘E’ and half of ‘C’ in battalion reserve. In the meantime, wait here under Lance-corporal Furrow until you get orders from one of your own officers. Is that clear?”

“Certainly, sir,” said Furrow, looming huge.

“Keep a good lookout, old chap,” whispered Sergeant Henshaw, as he and Mr. Ogilby went away behind the hedge.

Phillip remained apprehensive, while others of the stack party were obviously cheered by the idea of going into reserve. Apprehension became fear with the dark. Those bloody thousands of Germans!

*

When Sergeant Henshaw returned, with other men of the section, Phillip began to think how he missed Baldwin.

They filed through a gap in the hedge, and crossed the road on tip-toe into a field where some stumbled, as upon hundreds of human heads. But it was only winter swede-turnips.

“Pick your feet up, boys,” whispered Sergeant Henshaw. “No talking, mind, no talking!”

They filed away in the dimness lit by flames from Messines on the right. Shells were starting to come over again, bursting with red-black gashes low in the darkness of the night. Bullets cracked past. They moved with heads held low, fearful always, picking their way over the level darkening field.

In front before their feet were thuds, tiny spirts of red. Unexpectedly they had come to the trenches. Phillip saw men standing below, firing away over the field. He scrambled down, and following the man in front, pushed past other soldiers, who greeted him with cheerful expressions like, “How goes it, cock!” “Whatyer Jock!” “Just in time ter join the picnic!”

One man with a beard was smoking a cigarette.

“Put that light out, for God’s sake,” said a voice that Phillip recognised as Martin’s. The reply of the bearded one was to draw brightly at his fag-end, and inhale deeply. Then he said, “’Ows your gout, Percy, ol’ feller?” in a mock music-hall toff’s voice.

They were the Carabineers, the Dragoon Guards, Phillip heard with relief. At once he realised that they were good chaps, like Cranmer. He could feel that they were trying to be kind; and
on their best behaviour, too, like Cranmer—who had never used guttersnipe words when with him: the very opposite of what Father had objected to him knowing Cranmer for.

Father—he would be walking over London Bridge now, on the way home. Home! It belonged to another world, gone for ever.

R
ICHARD
was thinking, as he walked over London Bridge in the twilight, much the same thoughts as his son, but with less poignancy, for the world had changed since his youth. Even the sunlight had seemed more expansive in those days, the countryside a-dance with butterflies, where in later years they seemed to have vanished. How often had he seen a Painted Lady or Fritillary, Marbled White or Clouded Yellow during recent summers? Perhaps the fumes of motor cars and omnibuses, and the drift of sulphurous fumes from ever-growing London had something to do with it. Well, the changes he had seen coming upon the world had certainly not turned out for the better! Which reminded him that it was time Timmy Rat was put down: it had developed a cough, which might very well be phthisis. There were the two girls to be thought of.

Richard Maddison was in his fiftieth year: ten years on from being too old at forty, he thought with a slight self-scoff. He was tired, he knew; ever since the outbreak of war he had worked until seven every night at the office, and often until two hours later. Overtime at half a crown an hour was not to be sneezed at, of course; the war would not last for ever; the Navy would ensure the country’s protection, and its vital trade and shipping; even so, things would never be the same again. Income tax, already high at ninepence in the
£
, would probably go even higher; while the cost of living was going up steadily. Those damned Prussians, who had ruined the old Germany of kingdoms and principalities, the Germany of his mother, of Mozart and Beethoven, Wagner and Goethe!

Not that Richard had read any of Goethe’s works; the name had been on his mother’s lips, and later Dora had often mentioned the name.

He stopped by the parapet of the bridge, touching its cold granite, which had come from Dartmoor, that romantic region, for ever associated in his mind with the
Hound
of
the
Baskervilles
clear fast-running streams, and wild grey-green slopes and hi)’, and valleys set with wind-carved tors, visited during solitary cycling holidays in the past. He looked down at the rushing swirl of waters below, the spring-tide being one of the highest of the year; then at the silhouette of the Tower Bridge spanning the tail of the Pool, dim-seen now that the lights of wharf, street, and warehouse were masked. As he gazed, he saw a smoky-red line of fire apparently upon the bridge itself, and was wondering what it was before he realised that it was the top of the moon rising beyond the Thames estuary. He stood and watched it, his spirit relieved with romantic thoughts of Swilly and Nore, of shadowy battleship and destroyer, steam-pinnace and mine-sweeper, ever on the alert to guard the shores of England.

Then, suddenly, he listened. Was it the rumble of traffic, or had the air shivered? He waited—it came again. Gunfire!

He walked on towards the station, recalling what he had read in the train that morning, of Prince Louis of Battenberg’s resignation from his post as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. It was easy to read between the lines of his letter, where he stated that his ‘birth and parentage impaired his usefulness in some respects’. An understatement, if ever there was one! He considered that the outcry for his dismissal, led by
The
Globe
,
was a little unfair. After all, he was of Austrian, not German, origin. Richard had never countenanced the wild rumours of Prince Louis’ confinement to the Tower, as a traitor. Well, history had certainly repeated itself in one respect!

He recalled his father telling them as children how, during the Crimean War, a crowd had waited on Tower Hill to see the Prince Consort brought there, chained hand and foot, as a traitor. The beastly mob again!

Richard had never forgotten Bloody Sunday, and his part, small as it had been, as a special constable, in limiting the riots.

In the train home, with blinds pulled against Zeppelins, which surely would follow the railway lines all leading to London’s heart, he read Winston Churchill’s letter to Prince Louis, accepting his resignation.

It was certainly a wise act on his part, he thought as he walked over the Hill, to have removed the tell-tale name of
Lindenheim
from the bar of his gate at the outbreak of war.

The dark trees of the elms consoled him, and the night breeze coming across Kent, from the far sea he saw in his mind. Then upon the crest, between elm-row and school, he felt the night shiver, and stopping, removed his hat, the better to listen. The dull shivering rumble came again, through the air, or was it through the ground? He waited; again the deep grumble, sensed rather than heard: the guns of Flanders, where the big battle for the Channel ports was now joined!

Dark figures approached. It was Mr. Mitchell with his wife. Richard had spoken to him during occasional encounters since the outbreak of war.

“My lass and I are just out for an airing, on Hallowe’en, Mr. Maddison. Do you hear the guns on the wind? I expect Phillip and my lads will be in the thick of it by now. Have you no’ heard from Phillip? We had a letter today from Peter—the London Highlanders will be in the line by now.”

On arrival home, Richard kept this information to himself.

D
ULLY
over the wide and open expanse of the root-field sounded the flat reports of rifles, the scoring rush of British bullets through the darkness, the crack of enemy bullets passing low overhead. The black-bearded Carabineer said the Alleyman was using explosive bullets. Phillip watched him as he removed a bullet from its brass cartridge, and pushed it back the wrong way round. If the Alleymans did, so would he, he said, with an expression on his face like that of an out-of-work man.

Night settled upon the mournful waste, with its vast human oneliness under a sky flickering incessantly with gun-fire. High
above lay the uptilted constellation of the Plough, and Polaris fixed in cold but steady shining over the ring of fire breaking out of the darkness around Ypres, a fire now extending to the flooded areas behind the sand-dunes of the coast where the North Sea poured through breaches in the barrier walls. Night lay upon the battlefield, darkly gravid with the unutterable thoughts of the hosts of the lost, each one cowering within its frail shell of flesh, separated from death by secret thoughts of life that had gone, it seemed, for ever.

*

Away over the extending root-field, with its low layer of mist and smoke, Phillip saw a red arc moving up, dull at first, but soon clearing to a defined curve of orange as it rose clear of the earth. Almost the moon's rising was a signal, for the sky became bright with many shapes of soundless light: flashings which reached half-way to the zenith; more intense lower bulgings which merged with others, to be succeeded by wider quiverings which vanished only to be replaced by more.

The distant firing of German batteries lit the faces of men looking out of the trench, defined by parapet and parados thrown up untidily among parallel lines of turnips. Phillip saw the dim stare of faces vanish as the first droning of shells curved down the sky. With others he lay down in the trench, leaving his rifle in position on the parapet. He pressed his forearms over his head, shutting his eyes. He lay there wincing from splitting concussion upon splitting concussion, the glare of each near-dropping howitzer-shell showing through pressed eyelids. His head seemed filled with black-gold-red after each terrible detonation that outclanged the earth. No longer was he able to control himself by thinking that each shell meant that the end of their stay in the line was nearer. He had never acquired the power to think; now he lost the power to be. He screamed until his voice seemed torn out from his throat.

“What's up, chum? Copped it, 'ave you? Got a blighty one?” the bearded Carabineer was holding his arm. He tried to get up. His legs would not move.

“'Arf a mo', cully.”

The shallow trench was filled with clods and earth; the smoking crater of a Johnson lay three yards from the parados.

“I'll soon get you on yer pins, chum.”

The Carabineer lugged away lumps of clay and earth from
Phillip's legs, and helped him to his feet. Phillip's head was ringing, while a sort of snake, a black and electric zigzag flickering, ran up and down the outside of his left eye. He lay trembling against the side of the trench, until, remembering his rifle, he groped for it: to find the muzzle split wide, the bayonet twisted.

“I reckon a Alleymand explosive bullet did that.”

The shells were now going beyond the road, bursting a quarter of a mile away across the ploughed field.

“They're to stop reinforcements gettin' up. Alleymans comin' over soon. Let 'em try! We'll stop the bleeders!”

“What about my rifle?” cried Phillip.

“There's lots o' buckshees. Hi there! Any spare carbines?” the fellow shouted; and scrambling into the field, went along the trench.

The moon was now clear of the earth; no longer oval, but round and yellow and casting a haze. It seemed to be floating visibly up the sky. The rows of roots were pointed with light. Waiting there, teeth riddling, Phillip heard the partridges calling from the direction of the moon. This time they made the urgent screech as when springing off the ground in alarm. He heard their wing-beats coming nearer, the
ret-ret-rettle
of throw and check of stiff pinions; then they had gone over the trench, flying strongly for the plowed field. Oh God, the Germans must have put them up!

Hardly had the covey passed, when the noise of a band playing came distinctly over the field. It was a brass band, the tune at first seeming to be echoing from elsewhere, until he realised that more than one band was playing. Then there was cheering, not like British hurrays, but shorter cheers sounding like
hoch!
hoch!
hoch!

“'Ere y'ar chum.”

Phillip's new friend slithered down into the trench beside him, and held out a carbine.

“Thank you very much.”

The Carabineer stared at him curiously.

“I'm very sorry to bother you again,” said Phillip, “but all my cartridges are loose, and foolishly I threw away the clips. They wouldn't load into our magazines. Have you any you could lend me?”

“Blimey!” ejaculated the Carabineer. “You're posh!”

Phillip was pleased by this tribute to his gentility.

“I'm afraid I haven't any money on me——”

“That's all right, chum. Stand me a wet arterwards. 'Ere, gimme y' carbine.” He took a rag from his pocket and began wiping the bolt. “Alleman'll be comin' over soon.” He loaded the magazine. “Aim low, 'old yer fire till you're sure of a targit. 'Ere, fill yer pooches.” He pulled a bandolier from a wooden box and waited while Phillip filled his webbing pouches.

Phillip felt suddenly elated, confident. He could hardly wait to fire the carbine. He felt outside himself now, excited and hot but also calm, as though nothing really mattered. The only thing was his hands shaking, and the electric snake flickering down his left eye.

The
pom-poom-err
,
pom-poom-err
of brass bands, the steady beat
ing of big drums, came with a great volume of cheering and shouting from way down under the moon. Then looking round, Phillip saw a figure standing in the field behind the trench.

“Hold your fire, men!” cried the voice of Fiery Forbes. “Wait till you get the order to fire! Every round must tell.”

“Come down, sir!” cried Martin's voice. “They're coming, I can see them coming, sir!”

“Hold your fire,” said Captain Forbes again, shielding his eyes from the moon. Far away up the line, from northwards and the Menin Road, a crackle of rifle fire was arising, just like a dry thorn fire, thought Phillip, remembering an afternoon at Beau Brickhill when a stubbed-out hedge had been burned. Bullets began to crack overhead.

“Get down, sir!” more voices cried.

Captain Forbes slid into the trench, and taking out his case, lit a cigarette.

The crackle of musketry was sweeping louder and swifter. It seemed to rush upon the trench.

“Stand to!” Phillip heard the voice of Fiery Forbes shouting.

“Stand to, men, stand to!” echoed the anxious voice of Sergeant Henshaw, squeezing behind them along the trench.

“Don't get the wind up, chum!” said the Carabineer, as he chewed his quid of 'baccy.

*

When the attack was over, when the cheers and singing of the Bavarians advancing to the crest with the blare of brass-bands coming through the moon-mist had died away, then under the droning of heavy shells and the swishing of shrapnel searching
the road behind, Phillip was aware of moaning in front, and repeated cries like
mutter-mutter-mutter!
, until with amazement above the sweating of his body and the ringing noise in his ears he realised that the cries of the German wounded were the same as
mother
,
mother
,
mother
!
heard from the Iron Colonel's bloodless lips just before he had opened his eyes wide, and died. It was a startling thought, that the Germans felt like that, too—he hardly dared to think it. Then, wondering why the wrist of his left hand was stinging, as though the skin had been cut by a sharp knife, he stood the carbine against the trench, drew back his sleeve, and to his amazement felt a soft greasy water-blister there.

“The 'eat o' the chamber,” explained the Carabineer, “boils the grease packed under the wooden cover. The barrel gits red 'ot, not as you'd notice it when you're giving the Alleyman five rounds rapid.”

Five rounds! thought Phillip. He must have fired a hundred. He felt wildly exalted that the attack had failed; he wanted to laugh, to sing.

*

The moon of Hallowe'en, one night away from its full shine, sailed high in the sky, so that figures of men, whether standing or lying, moving or still, complete or broken into pieces, cast the smallest shadows upon the earth.

But such quality of observation vanishes like tissue paper in flame when high explosive detonates, and a man is exposed to his own frail aloneness. Phillip leapt down into the trench when with swoop and swish German shrapnel began to crack above.

High explosive followed shrapnel. The timeless night roared on. Cries came feebly through the choking fumes; showers of sparks and fiery tongues rose from the stacks west of the road; the windmill blazed until its arms dropped to pieces with running blazing tar. The shell sunk low, while yet the farm near it was lurid with flame.

With the glare behind them, the survivors in trench and rifle pit were appalled by a sudden great burst of cheering, prolonged and repeated; and to the striking up of
Deutschland
,
Deutschland
über
Alles
the Bavarians attacked again. The rows of faces were lit by flames as they ran forward, to fall before rapid-thudding rifle fire. Phillip could hear their officers shouting; he saw one run forward, until he stumbled upon his face, sword
in hand. Then from Messines came the steady
pop-pop-popple-
clat-clatt!
of traversing machine-gun fire. More than one was enfilading the line of trenches. Parapet and parados, or what served for them, seemed to jerk viciously in places, sending spirts of dirt upon him. When the machine-guns stopped firing there was more shouting; another rush; some of the attacking figures leaping from side to side, but never coming really near. Others lay down, and started to fire. There were only a few flashes here and there; and as the flames behind the trench sank down, the attack seemed to be called off. Whistles were blown, shouts were heard. Phillip felt himself suddenly to be feeble.

Mr. Ogilby walked along the back of the trench, asking how they were. Any casualties? Lance-corporal Douglas reported none in his half-section; but they needed more ammunition. Sergeant Henshaw told him to detail two men to fetch boxes from the dump behind the farmhouse to the right of the burning corn-stack, now a low glowing heap of embers sometimes fluttering with lilac flames.

Douglas, tense and sharp, ordered Phillip and Martin to go. Martin, a limp figure of woe, on hearing his name, began to cough hollowly, as he held his hand to his side.

“Get back as soon as you can, boys,” said Sergeant Henshaw, encouragingly. Phillip was glad to get away from the trenches. With Martin slow and silent beside him, he made for the far side of the stack ember-pile.

“We must avoid showing ourselves against the glow of the fire.”

“Oh my God. I can't go on,” groaned Martin.

“Come on, I say. It's not healthy here. These bullets aren't aimed anywhere, but all the same, it's no sense standing still.”

“I'm not well,” moaned Martin.

“The crack you hear is the air closing up behind the bullets. One of the regulars told me it was because they were explosive bullets. He said the sparks they made when hitting the road proved it, but I don't believe it. Come on, get over the road quickly!” He-took Martin's arm.

“Oo are yer?” cried a voice.

“London Highlanders!”

“Pass,” cried the unseen sentry.

They crossed the road.

“I hope we're relieved tonight, I can't stand much more,”
said Martin, with half-sigh, half-groan, stopping beside a hedge.
He coughed hollowly, bending down, pressing his hand to his side.

“I hope so, too. What's up, a stitch?”

“Yes,” gasped Martin. “I've had it ever since that shell got me in the side this morning.”

Phillip thought Martin was making that an excuse to go sick, but he said nothing. “You'll be all right. Come on.”

“Feel my forehead.”

Phillip felt. “It feels rather hot, I must say.”

“I believe I'm bleeding inside. Oh!” Martin began to sob. “I can't stick it no more, Maddison! Honestly I can't! This pain is awful, all down my side!”

“I'll carry your rifle for you. We're nearly there.”

But Martin would not move. Phillip began to feel scorn for him, a Leytonstone boy indeed, with his woeful monkey-eyes. Martin was obviously putting it on. “Come on, I know it's pretty bad, but perhaps we'll be relieved tonight. That regular told me the Indian troops only had twenty-four hours in the line, then they were relieved.”

“But they had lost all their officers,” wept Martin. “Oh, why doesn't someone stop it?”

Phillip walked slowly beside him. They passed the dark shape of the farmhouse and went down a lane to where several shadowy figures were standing and talking in low voices. Phillip saw stretchers on the ground. Captain McTaggart the Medical Officer was kneeling by one. The orderly holding an Orlik torch beside him seemed familiar. It was Tommy Atkins.

The ammunition dump was at the other end, in an orchard. Mules with pack saddles were waiting there, their bridles held by tall transport men wearing woollen comforters. They were the Coldstreamers. Phillip asked if Sergeant Cakebread was about.

“Here I am, young Phil!” said Bertie, to his immense relief. “How's things?”