The Passing Bells (54 page)

The sherry was too sweet for Martin's taste and he merely raised the cut-crystal glass to his lips. Fenton Wood-Lacy, standing with a group of battalion commanders, caught his eye and moved his head in the direction of the terrace doors. Martin nodded in acknowledgment, and when the general began to pace back and forth in the ballroom, warming to an anecdote about some long-forgotten battle on the Nile, he drifted out of the ornate room and met Fenton on the terrace.

“Well,” Fenton said with a smile, “you're pretty good at sneaking away.”

“Almost as good as yourself. How are you, Fenton?”

“As well as can be expected. Overworked and underpaid, as they say in the ranks.”

“Are you in Sir Julian's corps?”

“Hard to say. They keep shifting our brigade about a bit. We're in trenches opposite Thiepval now, so I suppose we're in the old boy's domain. Anyway, I got an invitation to come for supper, so here I am. Did he give you chaps the picture yet?”

“Just that the Fourth Army intends to break through the German lines in one day . . . and be in Bapaume with the cavalry within two. The ‘Big Push.' Nothing new in that. This has to be the worst-kept secret of the war, but he didn't explain the magic formula.”

“Just as well,” Fenton said grimly. “It's more wishful thinking than magic.” He strolled to the stone balustrade and looked out across the neatly trimmed gardens of the château toward the River Ancre, narrow and sluggish, curving past the orchards. On the skyline, brown sausage balloons hung motionless in the June heat. “Fifteen divisions in eighteen miles of trench. They say there are no more than six Boche divisions dug in over there, and two of those are in reserve. We've beaten them hollow—on paper.”

Martin smiled and leaned against the balustrade beside him.

“Pessimistic—as always.”

Fenton stared gloomily at the landscape, following the distant flight of some British two-seaters by the trailing puffs of Archie bursts.

“I can recall a similar observation of mine before Loos. Remember? The Café Bristol in Béthune, you and that fellow from the
Daily Telegram
telling me I was wrong because the Germans were outnumbered four to one. Machine guns and wire become great equalizers.”

“I hear hints dropped that Haig has found the solution to that.”

“No mystery about it—artillery and more artillery. In this case, one gun to every seventeen yards of German trench, with a day-and-night bombardment for a week before Z-Day.”

“Good God,” Martin said quietly.

Fenton's smile was a shadow. “Sounds irresistible, doesn't it? A total pulverizing of the Hun positions . . . destruction of the wire. But I have grave doubts about it and I'm not muttering alone. How much of the front have you seen, Martin?”

“Not much. It's been a controlled tour. No closer to the line than Albert. A German shell or two came over and they moved us back again. Three of us took a hotel room in Amiens. We'll stay there during the offensive and get fed the communiqués—that is, unless we can manage to sneak up for a closer look.”

“Won't do you much good though, will it?”

“Well, you know, the censors won't permit anything that deviates too much from the official reports, but I've always managed to get a good story through from time to time.”

“Are you still with the
Post
?”

“No. Associated Press. Parted amicably from Lord Crewe. I'm based in Paris now and like it better.”

“Jacob must miss your company.”

“No one to clear up after him.”

A heavy howitzer in a wood a mile away fired a round, the concussion rattling the château's windows.

“Firing for register,” Fenton said. “All new guns coming into position are allowed a few rounds to check their range. They'll hear this barrage in England clearly enough when it gets going. Would you like a front-row seat? I can swing a special pass from the old boy.”

“I would appreciate that very much.”

“I wonder if you'll appreciate it a week from now,” Fenton said.

Mesnil-Martinsart, June 23, 1916

This village is approximately in dead center of the British assault line, which begins at the Gommecourt salient seven miles to the north and ends eight miles to the south, where the British link up with the French in the marshes of the River Somme. The objective of the British offensive is the town of Bapaume, nine miles to the northeast, straddling the straight-as-an-arrow Roman road that runs from Amiens. The timetable calls for a total rupture of the German trench system on day one and the taking of Bapaume by the cavalry on day two. Roads and railways radiate from Bapaume to Arras and Cambrai, and a breakthrough there would put the British to the rear of the German armies with a good chance of rolling them up and forcing a major retreat. The optimism of the troops—Fenton and the old sweats excepted—verges on the ecstatic.

“We're going to scupper 'em, old chum,” a private in the 13th Yorks and Lancs (Barnsley Pals) told me. This is the New Army for the most part. Volunteers . . . men joining up together . . . battalions of friends and co-workers. Hull Tradesmen . . . Sheffield City Battalion . . . Grimsby Chums . . . Glasgow Tramways . . . Tyneside Irish . . . Liverpool Pals. Pals and chums and post office workers—even a group of footballers, cricketers, and Rugby players who formed a battalion. They have been tacked on to the traditional units of the army, but each group has its own particular and unique ties. A people's army if there ever was one—like the army Grant led down the Mississippi to Vicksburg—and they are here on the Somme determined to win the war. The enthusiasm is electric.

June 24

The barrage began today. Birds flutter in confusion above Aveluy Wood. There is simply no way to describe the power of it. The earth rocks and the air reeks (battle-reporting cliché number 346, but, dammit, the earth
does
rock and the air
does
reek). Birds fly erratic patterns across the Aveluy-Hamel road into Thiepval Wood. Not a shred of cloud and the heat is intense. One can see—I'm sure of it—a twinkle of brassy specks far off in the sky as the howitzer shells pause in their arcs before plunging to earth.

June 27

In a front-line observation post with Fenton and several other officers. They are checking the effect of the bombardment on the German wire. Fenton and the others grim. The belts of wire with their inch-long barbs are a hundred yards deep in some places. A jungle of steel brambles. Artillery using 18-pounder guns firing shrapnel to cut the thickets. Not too effective. There are gaps here and there, but Fenton explained that the Germans will deliberately leave gaps so as to channelize attacks. Men bunched up going through a gap become easy targets for machine gunners. To compound their concern, one of those freak summer storms has swept in, and the heavy rains will make the churned-up ground tough going for the infantry.

Château Querrieux, June 28

HQ of Sir Henry Rawlinson, commanding general of the Fourth Army. He has called a meeting of his corps commanders, and I have driven here with Sir Julian, who is in fine spirits. I tell him of Fenton's concern about the wire.

“Bugger the wire,” Sir Julian says.

June 29

Fenton's battalion HQ. A comfortable old farmhouse. Excellent meal. Plenty of whiskey. Fenton tells it straight to his company commanders. Attack will jump off on the morning of July first. Sir Julian's unconcern for the uncut wire is now obvious as Fenton reads a message sent down to all battalion commanders:

“There will be nothing ahead of you but dead or wounded Germans and a few crazed derelicts. Troops may slope arms if they wish while crossing no-man's-land. The bombardment will roll ahead of you and destroy any semblance of resistance.”

“We will exercise full caution,” Fenton says tightly. “And we will move at the ready and as quickly as possible.”

The barrage grows in intensity. Candle flames sway in the shock blasts. Looking outside, one can see nothing but bolts of flame erupting from the German front lines. It seems inconceivable that so much as a rat could be alive over there.

“Colonel's a bit of a worrier, isn't he?” a young captain whispers in my ear.

Thiepval Wood, July 1

Men packed into the forward trenches five hundred yards from where I sit in what had once been a fine old wood. Most of the trees cut down, either by German shelling or by brigade artillery so as to give better fields of fire for their guns. Rain has stopped and the sky is clear, sun hot. Barrage has been continuous all night. Suddenly ceases at 7:30
A.M.
Silence catches at the heart, and I can clearly hear the whistles blowing all up and down the line. One hundred fifty thousand Englishmen climb out of their trenches and start across. Twinkle of sunlight off bayonets for as far as the eye can see in both directions. Many men with rifles sloped. They are heavily laden and walk slowly, almost casually, in long lines . . . nearly shoulder to shoulder. I think of an illustration in a history book—8th grade?—the redcoats marching up Bunker Hill. A Highland battalion off to my right is being piped across.

Machine guns at a distance sound ineffectual—a metallic, rattling sound, like a marble shaken in a tin can. Nothing dramatic takes places as it does with artillery—no scream of shell . . . no bursting charge and fountain of earth. . . . Nothing to a machine gun but that clattering sound and the invisibility of death. The lines of walking men begin to melt away. Some begin to run toward the German wire. They do not get far. Others waver . . . turn in confusion and drop. The second wave plods on. . . . The third wave follows the second. There may not be many Germans left alive in the ruins of Thiepval or in the shell-pulverized trenches, but there are enough. Their machine guns scythe the middle ground and the Tommies die where they stand. Difficult to write . . . hands shaking badly. . . . Generals were quite wrong. . . . Battle of the Somme will not be won today—or tomorrow, or the day after that.

Alexandra Greville waited with her group on the deck of the small steamer that had brought them up the Seine to Rouen. There were eighty of them, and they stood silently together, wrapped in their wool capes, flurries of rain sweeping the river in the chill September wind.

“All right, ladies,” a sergeant in the RAMC called out cheerfully as he came across the gangplank from the quay. “All off, an' a nice mug o' tea waitin' for you at the canteen.”

The quay was jammed with men, mules, artillery pieces, great mounds of unfused shells, new ambulances, and an assortment of myriad other supplies. The nurses joined hands to keep from being separated and followed the sergeant past a maze of open-sided storage sheds and giant warehouses and then into the streets of the town.

“Not far now, girls!” the sergeant said gleefully, grinning at them as though they were all his personal possessions. “Don't wander off. This is France . . . and you know what they say about Frenchmen!”

France. Alexandra felt a tightness in the throat as memory stirred. It all seemed so long ago, almost a different war. The soldiers in their steel helmets and rain capes looked alien to her—medieval, like the men-at-arms who had burned Joan of Arc in Rouen in yet another war. Lorries filled with troops clogged the street leading away from the docks. Australians, veterans of Gallipoli. One of them leaned out over the tailgate and said, “You'll be washin' me bloody stumps in a month, Sister!”

The soldiers in the lorry laughed. The nurses stared fixedly ahead.

At the Red Cross canteen a short baldheaded captain addressed them.

“My name is Captain Jenkins, and I'm rather a long way from Harley Street. You are all a long way from other places . . . from your homes . . . your loving parents. We of the Royal Army Medical Corps greet you fine young women of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service.” He paused for effect. “My, my, takes as long to say
that
as it does to sail to France, doesn't it?”

The nurses, tense with fatigue and trepidation, laughed much too loudly.

Captain Jenkins waited patiently until the laughter subsided. “Well, now. Here you are. No longer probationers but qualified nursing sisters in the QA's. I realize that your training has been cut short due to the increased casualty rate on the Somme throughout the summer, but you will soon pick up any fine points you missed at All Souls. You are greatly needed here. . . . We will work you hard, and I know you will do your very best. I salute you . . . and may God Bless you.”

She lay on a cot in the nurses' quarters of one of the base hospitals on the outskirts of Rouen, drifting in a vague half sleep. She was riding in the back of an ambulance, and Robbie was kneeling beside her, holding her hands. “Alex . . . Alex . . . Alex . . .”

“What? What?” A light was shining in her face. . . . Someone was kneeling beside the cot, touching her.

“It's me . . . Ivy.”

She sat up and embraced Ivy fiercely. “Ivy! How on earth . . . ?”

Ivy Thaxton set her lighted torch on the floor and returned the hug.

“I got your letter last week, and I've been checking the draft lists ever since.”

“Did you come down from Boulogne?”

“No. I'm based here now . . . in the hospital train unit. We're getting twenty of your group, so I made sure your name was included on our list.” She drew back and took a folded sheet of paper from her carrying bag. “We leave at five-thirty . . . running empty to Amiens. Here's the list of girls. You can help me find them.”

“I'm glad you did this, Ivy. Glad we're together.”

“It helps to have a friend,” Ivy said.

The runner from brigade HQ came along Ale trench, paused for a second at the corner of Bitter and Stout, and then turned into Stout, moving swiftly in a half crouch like a large and wily rat. A bullet cracked loudly as it passed over the narrow trench. Sniper's corner, but he had been this way many times before and knew all the bad spots. Stout was a horrible trench—tumbled in from shelling, full of deep muddy sumps and broken duckboards. It meandered along the edge of High Wood in the direction of Martinpuich, in and around the shattered stumps of blackened trees. Cadavers had been spaded into the parapet, and bony fingers and legs mingled with the snaky roots of the trees. The stench on a hot day was enough to stifle a man, but it was raining now, and cold, and the smell wasn't too bad. He passed four New Zealanders squatting in an observation sap, their faces smeared with mud, only the eyes bright, luminous as the eyes of ferrets.