The Passing Bells (46 page)

There was a bleakness to the countryside that Fenton had never seen before during all the many winters he had spent in the North Downs and the Weald. A shabbiness and neglect that was not solely attributable to the weather. The lack of able-bodied men, he supposed, as the train lumbered slowly past one neglected-looking village after another: Effingham and Horsely . . . Clandon and Merrow. Roofs needed repair, walls thirsted for whitewashing, orchards were unpruned. The train was delayed at Abbotswood Junction to permit a battalion of New Army troops to double-time across the tracks. The West Surreys, he noticed, catching sight of the flag-bearing lamb badge on an officer's cap. The officer was gray-haired and rode his horse with taut-bodied fury, probably mentally cursing the shambling mob of soldiers, who were obviously in the first stages of their training and could not run across a railway track without stumbling into each other or tripping over the rails. The West Surrey officer saw only a thousand green troops foisted on his ancient, noble regiment to meet the needs of the war. Fenton saw one thousand bricklayers, house painters, carpenters, well diggers, tree pruners, butchers and butchers' boys, and God knew what else. The heart's blood of the shire running across the embankment and on into the misted, sleet-covered fields beyond.

Charles had warned him that there might not be a taxi for hire in Godalming and to telephone the house when his train got in. There was a taxi, if he cared to wait an hour for it, but Mr. Pearson, the brewer, was driving his lorry into Abingdon with six barrels of ale and offered Fenton a lift.

“Like when you was a young 'un,” Mr. Pearson said jovially. “You and young Mr. Charles and your brother, God bless him, 'opping on the wagon when I'd slow them old Percherons o' mine on Burgate Hill.”

Summer fields and dray horses. Fresh in old Pearson's memory, but beyond recall to Fenton. He got out at the iron gates that marked the mile-long road to the house and walked the rest of the way, his kit bag slung over one shoulder. The Pryory looked as weathered and bleak as everything else he had seen, the house stretching away in the afternoon gloom like some abandoned relic. The once-manicured quadrangle of the Italian garden seen beyond the weed-dotted terrace was a tangle of unpruned cypress. The stables, he knew without seeing, would be empty, the horses given to the cavalry. They might just as well have stayed in their warm, comfortable stalls for all the good they were doing in France.

But the house only looked abandoned. There were a number of cars parked at the end of the driveway, and when Coatsworth opened the door, Fenton saw he was in full livery.

“Why, Mr. Fenton, sir, good to see you.”

“Thank you, Coatsworth. Did I walk in on a party?”

“Just a few of his lordship's friends. Last gathering for some time, sir.” He took Fenton's trench coat and kit bag and whispered, “They're closing the Pryory after Christmas, sir. We all move to the Park Lane house. Only forty rooms there . . . much easier to keep up.”

Only forty rooms, Fenton thought wryly as he walked down the corridor toward the library. Well, everyone had to make sacrifices in wartime.

The candles in their silver holders were reflected in the highly polished surface of the long table. But for the lack of footmen—there were only three, who were old, older even than Coatsworth—it could have been any gathering for dinner at Abingdon Pryory at any time. The war was snugly tucked away as Lord Stanmore sliced the roast mutton and Coatsworth uncorked the hock. It seemed to Fenton that he had but to close his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again Roger would be arguing with Charles about current trends in modern poetry and Alexandra would be chattering away about Paris frocks or what was playing at the cinema in Guildford. But time did not come back, no matter how familiar the surroundings. Roger was dead. Charles was a married man, and Alexandra hadn't opened her mouth all evening except to say hello. Some things never changed, however. Mr. Cavendish, squire of Dilton Hall and the second largest landowner in the district, still bore his grudge against the Liberal party, although Lydia Foxe Greville's presence at the table caused him to keep his comments to a near-inaudible mumble.

Lydia Foxe Greville. Fenton was seated opposite her and it was impossible for their eyes not to meet. What did he see there? A hint of triumph? A veiled smugness? Perhaps. It had always been difficult to tell what Lydia was thinking. When toasts were offered, he raised his glass to her and she smiled at him, as though saying, “You see, I told you I would do it.” The future Countess of Stanmore. It seemed incredible, but there she sat, looking to the manor born—and almost excessively lovely.

“So the fighting has wound down for the winter and I would like to know what we've got to show for it.” Brigadier General Sir Bertram Sturdee, long retired, tapped his wineglass with a spoon. “Nineteen fifteen is not a year I would ever like to see again.”

“Must we talk of the war, Bertram?” Hanna said.

“It's on everyone's mind, Hanna.
Non
war conversation always seems to flounder somewhat. And with Fenton's DSO ribbon staring me in the face, I can't quite keep my thoughts on local matters.”

Hanna rose majestically. “You may talk of the war all you wish over the port. We ladies would prefer to be spared.”

Alexandra stood up with the other women and then walked to the head of the table and kissed her father on the temple.

“Good night, Papa. I'm going to bed.”

“Still feeling under the weather?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “a bit.” She turned to Fenton and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Good night, Fenton. It's so good to see you again.”

He touched her hand. It was cold and her face had a waxen appearance.

“Alexandra not well?” he asked after the women had left the room.

“One bout of flu after another,” the earl said, passing a box of cigars to his right. “Caught a chill of some sort in France and can't shake it.”

“Alex was in France?”

“Thought you knew. Yes. Went over with the Red Cross . . . came back in October quite ill.”

“Mustard and vinegar,” Mr. Cavendish said. “Rub it thickly on the child's chest, wrap it in flannel, and keep her in bed. Works wonders.”

Brigadier General Sturdee lit a cigar and waited for Coatsworth to pour the port.

“So Sir John French is out and Sir Douglas Haig is in. So much for the politics of the high command. You're in Whitehall these days, Charles. What sort of wild tales filter through the War Office halls?”

“Not too many filter down to my office,” Charles replied, scowling at his glass of port. “I'm rather a new boy and not on the grapevine. But I understand that Haig would like to end the war next year with one huge blow in late summer . . . up at Ypres. Joffre would prefer having our offensive launched closer to the French buildup in Champagne . . . perhaps along the Somme. Either way, it's going to be a big push and nineteen sixteen might just be the victory year.”

“Don't bet a quid on it,” Fenton said. “They're just getting light-headed up at GHQ seeing all these New Army battalions come into being. A million men under arms. They're mesmerized by the figures, but it doesn't change the formula.
Ten
million men could have gone over the top at Loos, and they still would have been stopped by the wire and the Boche machine gunners. The Hun formula for defense is basic, simple, and works like a bloody charm. We have to make a radical change in our strategy, and Haig isn't the man to do it. He thinks the infantry's sole function is to find a path through the wire and punch a few holes in the trench system so that the cavalry can pour through and win the war with saber and lance. That's lunacy and every Tommy knows it.”

Mr. Cavendish cleared his throat loudly. “Dash it, Fenton. That sounds defeatist . . . like an article in one of those damnable pacifist broadsides one finds scattered about in railway stations or on the street. I am quite surprised at your attitude, sir.”

Sturdee chuckled softly. “You said the same thing to me once, Tom . . . when I came back from the Transvaal. I said Buller's an ass and you nearly shoved the Union Jack down my throat.”

Lord Stanmore coughed discreetly. “Let's break out the whiskey and play some pocket billiards. I agree with my dear wife . . . must we talk of the war?”

The old general accompanied Fenton on the way to the billiard room. He walked slowly and stiffly, because of the Boer bullet that had terminated his career and that was still deeply embedded in his right hip.

“Your uncle was kind enough to take the time to write me a letter. He's damn proud of you, Fenton. He predicts you'll be commanding a brigade before summer. I assume you plan to stay in the army . . . make it your career.”

“I don't know anything else.”

“You have all the qualities it takes to make field marshal one day. That is to say, all the qualities but one. You're too quick to express an opinion. You're bound to rub the mossbacks the wrong way, and there are a great many mossbacks above you in rank. Believe me, I know. I would have retired a major general instead of a brigadier if I had been less vocal about the debacle of the Tugela River crossings. If you will permit an old man to utter an old saw, A word to the wise, dear fellow . . . a word to the wise.”

By midnight, only Fenton and Charles remained in the billiard room, playing in a desultory fashion. Fenton poured two whiskies and watched Charles miss an easy shot.

“You haven't said much about Whitehall.”

Charles glared at the tip of his cue stick. “Not in Whitehall actually . . . small building of our own in Old Pye Street. Just started, really, so I don't quite know what it'll be like. We're an odd group—officers and NCO's, mechanical engineering and chemistry dons from London University, mad scientists with Viennese accents—a whole gamut of oddballs talking to other oddballs and crackpots. Strange people come to us with mad ideas on how to win the war—death rays, stuff like that.”

Fenton sank the five ball and scanned the table. “Don't exaggerate.”

“Well, they've come up with some good ideas. Steel helmets—all the troops will have them by spring—a truly decent gas mask, an improved trench mortar, and more powerful grenades that always work. So I suppose they've justified their existence to date.”

“Sounds like a very worthwhile place to be.”

“I suppose it is. We used to make our own grenades at Gallipoli, jam tins stuffed with guncotton filched from the navy. One out of six actually exploded. It's just that— Well, dammit, I feel I should be with the Windsors. The regiment's back in England . . . what's left of it. Seventy-five-percent casualty rate . . . almost all of the officers either dead or in hospital. I should be on the square helping drill the new battalions, not talking to farmers about their experiences with caterpillar-tread tractors. Someone, somewhere, came up with the whimsical idea for a land battleship—a sort of enormous armored tractor with naval cannon in gun turrets, its iron sides bristling with machine guns. Bound to be a washout. We simply don't have the technocracy to develop something that exotic, and even if we did develop it, we don't have the generals who would know what to do with the bloody thing. Generals hate machines, you know that. If they can't saddle it or boot it in the arse, they don't want it in their commands. I have the sinking feeling that I'm devoting my energy to a doomed enterprise.”

“If you feel so strongly about it, you shouldn't have volunteered for the job.”

Charles flubbed another shot and watched in disgust as the cue ball drifted into a corner pocket.

“I was picked right out of the hospital . . . ordered to report to General Haldane as soon as I could walk without crutches. He told me that he wanted me to work in NS Five, shoved a mass of technical journals at me, and that was that. It's only a temporary assignment, of course. When the medical board finally gets around to certifying me fit for active duty, I can say goodbye to talking to Hampshire farmers and looking at moving picture films of muddy old tractors crawling over muddy old ditches.”

“Well, at least you have a lovely young wife to go home to every night. Count your blessings.”

“I do,” he said gravely. “In fact, I feel guilty about having so many to count.”

“Remind me to send you a hair shirt. Be sensible, old boy. I've been watching you. You walk rather painfully.”

“All the breaks have knit well,” he said defensively.

“Perhaps they have, but you'd be bloody useless marching around for hours drilling troops. Any sod can do that. Keep working on your death ray, or land battleship, and remember that there's a chap just like you in Berlin trying to beat you to the punch.”

He became fully awake before the first pale light tinted the windows in his room. It was from force of habit, the morning stand-to of the trenches, the men alert and tense, bayonets fixed, waiting for the sun to rise behind the German lines. A machine gun or two would tap out a few rounds. A signal rocket might hiss upward into the dawn sky. A flurry of rifle shots as men sensed movements in the mist-cloaked no-man's-land between the belts of wire. The time of greatest tension. Then the day would break with no sign of the Germans coming across. The men would stand down and listen for the comforting rattle of the tea dixies being carried along the communication trench from the cookers in the rear. Fenton's heart beat faster and he felt sweaty under the eiderdown comforter. He sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette, wondering if he would ever be able to enjoy dawn again, or even enjoy sleep, for that matter. His dreams had been bad ones. Nothing specific. No faces, no vivid images of the war, only feelings of dread and raw terror. There was a tremor in his right hand, a spasmodic movement of the thumb. He cursed it softly, held the cigarette in his left hand, and slapped his right sharply against his leg. He lived in dread that one day his body would betray him and he would suddenly begin to tremble all over, or lose the use of his legs, or bolt screaming into the vomiting earth of the barrage as his company sergeant major had done so unexpectedly at Auchy.