The Secret Rooms: A True Gothic Mystery (46 page)

Violet had succeeded in stopping Diana from going to the Front. But John was still there and showing every sign of staying put.

Two weeks had elapsed since she had written to him about the meeting with Lord Curzon. He had not replied to her letter. Anxious to discover whether he believed her, she wrote to try to elicit some sort of response:

Darling, I want news! I always forget to say Esteeming, London, is
my telegram
registration name.

We have been making respirators – hateful – but War Office says they have enough! Is this possible, or is it that they are no good?

I see in last night’s evening papers fighting in
your
region and nothing of it in morning papers – Armentière region and even Epinette? Your ‘plug street’ region?

Bless you, my darling, of course you know I never stop for 1 minute thinking of you.

Ten days later, she was still waiting for a reply to her letter.

Henry was faring no better. As Violet was floundering, he weighed in to exert his own form of pressure.

A few days after John received the field marshal’s offer, he had written to tell his father that he had turned it down: ‘Father dear, I expect you have heard by now how the Sir John affair ended – but I beg you to believe that I could not do otherwise.’

‘Jack, my dear,’ he replied, ‘I understand,
but do not miss your chance
.’

In the same breath, he went on to mention his financial difficulties:

Not much to tell you here. Having got through the winter all right till a week ago, I contrived to catch a smart attack of ‘flu’ which kept me in bed for three days and has left me a wreck. But I am picking up and am able to entertain the Prime Minister at lunch today! A sort of friendly truce for the duration of the war. Whether I shall live till that event takes place I know not, but I don’t feel like it at present.

I’m afraid that when you return you will find financial matters greatly altered for the worse. Even should matters go well for England, I can see no hope financially for anyone here. A report is being
prepared as to what is recommended to be done about the whole position – for both estates, and 16 Arlington Street. I am afraid it will recommend a complete closing of Belvoir for some years; and the sale – if possible – of this house.
*
£113,000
^†
of mortgages have been called in, and to get the money the rate of interest will be at least 1% more.

Henry’s focus on his financial difficulties was a heavy-handed way of reminding his son of his future responsibilities towards the Belvoir estate. While he stopped short of spelling it out, his message was clear: John was not in a position to take a moral stance over the Sir John affair. To risk his life was a luxury that he could ill afford. At the time Henry was writing, a complex set of insurance policies underpinned the mortgages on the estate. The slim prospect of keeping up the house of cards that Henry had constructed depended on John’s survival. If he died, the policies would become void.

Nor had Henry any qualms regarding his own moral position. With one hand he was raising thousands of men for the war; with the other, he was pushing his son to accept a position thirty miles behind the front line, one that would guarantee his safe return.

‘I hope you will see the commander-in-chief before you have gone much further,’ he reminded John in the first week of April. ‘Recruiting is very brisk,’ he added breezily: ‘I am starting a bantam or another Service Battalion. I’m not sure which it will be.’

Later that day, Henry watched
from a crossroads outside one of the villages on his estate as thousands of soldiers – the troops of the 11th (Northern) Division – marched past him. He was with Marjorie, his eldest daughter, and General Hammersley, the commanding officer of the division. The troops were on their way from Belton to a military camp near Farnborough, where they were to complete their training before going out to France.

The soldiers saluted the Duke and the general as they passed. The scene was one that Marjorie described to John:

Kitchener’s 1st army from Belton marched through Knipton and by stages to Rugby this week, from where they go to some new camp or other. Father and I watched them from a crossroads with General Hammersley. Rather a wonderful sight –
miles
of them – Notts and Derby, East and West Yorkshire, South Staffs, Borderers, York and Lancs, Royal Engineers, Fusiliers, baggage wagons, pontoons, mules, ambulances etc. all the paraphernalia of war down the peaceful lanes and roads. I wonder when last England saw the like –
miles
of volunteer citizens on the march. Cromwell’s time? 1715–45? When? They billeted 3 officers on the Knox’s
*
(and they with no cook!) – and Knipton thrilled with billeted military and sentries for 2 nights.

Will you tell me where these new thousands are going to be put in the present line of fighting? As it is we have troops stationed almost 50 miles thick behind our firing line, haven’t we? The men and horses all looked like
real
soldiers, I must say – all a match as to colour and shape – the only apparent difference being the great disparity of ages – young boys and grey-haired men marching shoulder to shoulder. I felt I’d have willingly shouldered my pack and marched off with them. I hate the feeling of standing idle with those poor dears – most of them breadwinners – doing all the dirty work.

In taking their salute, Henry, unlike his daughter, had felt no discomfort.

John treated his father’s promptings to see the ‘commander-in-chief’ with the contempt they deserved: he refused even to acknowledge them.

The one person he was in regular touch with was Charlie. They were writing to each other two or three times a week. But he also ignored Charlie’s pleas to make an appointment to see Sir John. He hadn’t even written to Charlie to tell him what he thought about Moore’s ‘catapults’ suggestion. His letters barely referred to the ‘business’ – as he called it.

On 12 April, almost a month after Sir John had first made his
offer, and fed up with tiptoeing around the subject, Charlie’s temper snapped:

Dear Jacko

I haven’t time to write to you properly at this moment, as there is a pressing chance of sending this off at once, but I am told to let you have knowledge of the following extract which comes in a letter just received by Mr M from his Great Friend:

‘Young Granby has never shown any sign of coming in to see me yet.’

You are urged very strongly to write to Brooke
*
to send for you the moment the Great Friend has time to see you. I feel sure you will understand this and act on it.

Yours C

John ignored this letter too. When he did write – a week later – it was to tell Charlie about the Battle of Hill 60 at Ypres.

North Midland Headquarters

France

20 April 1915

Old Boy,

Things are quite exciting here now.

On the 17th the English opposite Ypres had a large battle. I witnessed the fight from the top of Sharpenburg Hill. The attack was started by the exploding of six mines – laid by us under the German lines – each mine having 1 ton of explosives. We got up to the top of Sharpenburg at about 6.45pm. The mines were timed to go off at 7 o’clock. It was a most lovely evening with the sun setting behind us, thus showing up the ground in front of Ypres, and just to the north-west of St Eloi, where the attack was to take place.

The object was to capture a short line of the enemy’s trench on the ridge of a hill called Hill 60 – about 300 yards in front of our own trenches. Punctually at seven, off went the mines, a most wonderful, but really awful sight. The explosion was a success, blowing up the whole of the German trench. Then, instantaneously, a terrific bombardment started. I never saw such an extraordinary sight. It was getting darkish and the hundreds and hundreds of shells bursting all the time, without intermission, made the country all around the attack look as if it was on fire, spotted with red flashes. At the same time the Germans began blazing off as hard as they could go. It was one continuous deafening roar. The Germans kept sending up hundreds of their rockets, which is a sign of wanting help when used in daylight.

In the attack, which was not altogether successful, we lost 600 men and 15 officers.

The Germans counter-attacked all that night (17th) and the following day. The impression it gave from a distance was that it was
impossible to believe that anyone could live at all in such a fearful hell. The situation at 1am after the attack was this:

So you see, even after using 6 tons of explosive, blowing up every German in the trench and knowing the exact moment when to dash forward to the attack, we were only able to occupy three out of the six craters up to the following morning (18th). Since then we have attacked again, and occupied the other three (but bringing the casualties up to 1500 men and 40 officers), and there is much doubt as to whether we shall be able to hold it, or will be obliged to fall back on our original lines.

John spent the next three days monitoring the progress of the battle from Sharpenburg Ridge. The position altered dramatically on the evening of 22 April when, six miles to the north-west of Hill 60, the Germans attacked the French and Canadian positions, firing poison gas. It was the first time it had been used in the war.

Late the following night, John wrote to Charlie to tell him what had happened.

‘The situation is now very critical,’ he reported:

Yesterday at dinner, the news came in that the Germans had broken through the French line just north of Ypres (at the point where it joins the Canadian sector). It was bound to come, the enemy having been aggravated at Hill 60. Well they began their attack about 6pm yesterday with an historic bombardment not only along that bit of the line, but also all around Ypres. Ypres is now a total wreck – half the town burnt out and all the inhabitants fled. The Germans fired asphyxiating gas, which has the effect of sending one to sleep. It is a
sweet-smelling stuff, which, when one smells it from a distance makes one’s eyes run like anything, and makes one’s mouth dry and hot. This was more than the French could stand and they fled like rabbits.

The battle is going on still something terrific. The Canadians, who had just as much gas, have behaved perfectly wonderfully. Up to now they have saved the situation by not moving at all. The French are sending up thousands of men – about fifty thousand. We have sent as many as we can – or at least are in the middle of doing so. To my mind, if the Canadians hold out, it will be one of the finest things of this war. If they don’t, well, it will be bad for our Divisions. A tremendous counter-attack will take place tomorrow morning.

The whole country along the affected line is on fire, at least everything that can catch fire. The shelling is practically as bad as at Neuve Chapelle, plus this new terror, ‘gas’. I don’t know what it is, but from my limited knowledge of chemistry, I should say it has a good quantity of Picric Acid in it. They fire it in cylinders – also, shells – which burst and emit fumes, some of them red fumes, others light green. Not dark green as with Lydite. Anyhow, it is a new terror, and the casualties will be awful.

As John was writing, the true deadliness of the gas began to filter through to the North Midlands headquarters. Six thousand French troops had died within ten minutes at Ypres; the Canadians had suffered a further six thousand casualties in the forty-eight hours that followed. Reports were also coming in from the North Midlands brigades in the reserve trenches at Messines. They were eight miles from Gravenstafel, where the Germans had fired the gas, but they were also feeling its effects.

‘My God,’ John continued after hearing the reports, ‘someone ought to be punished for this war. But England says she must play the game while her own men are being asphyxiated. If you kill, what does it matter
how
? If this gas job does not change the damned straight-laced gentlemanish habit of behaving properly, God help her. I suppose this will come out in the papers as a glorious victory. But the Germans have had a jolly good success, and it will cost us very dearly to retrieve this.’

John’s anger increased after visiting the division’s brigades at Messines. The authorities had failed to equip the army with any protection against poison gas. Until the respirators, now hurriedly being made in homes and factories up and down Britain, arrived at the Front, cotton mouth pads were the only form of protection available. But with the rush to supply the troops in the front-line trenches, the pads had not been issued to the divisions in reserve. Anxious to protect the North Midlands against the possibility of another gas attack, John spent the week driving to and from Boulogne, where he bought thousands of mouth pads. The authorities had not covered their cost: he had paid for them out of his own pocket.

Then, on 2 May, he visited No. 8 Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul. What he saw there had a profound impact on him. The press censorship in force meant that journalists were banned from the front line, and from the casualty clearing stations in the rear, with the consequence that British newspapers had not carried first-hand reports of the horrific effects of the gas. Seeing the victims, John realized he was witness to sights that few outside the military had seen. When he got back to division headquarters, he wrote to his father: