And We Go On (21 page)

The word shocked me. “I'm not Steve,” I said, sharply. “I'm his brother.”

He peered at me, and I could see that he could not grasp what I said. “Steve – that's the name,” he muttered. “She went to meet Steve – her said it.”

We sat at his humble table, the old man and I, silent at times, now and then speaking about the war. “'Ee have been in battle?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Passchendale.”

“Aye, I have heard it were a fearful fight, he said, admiringly. “'Ee have lived a great day.”

“I don't think so, “I said bitterly. “This war is wrong.”

“Aye, the Kaiser have something to answer for.” The old man nodded vigorous assent. “But ‘ee have a chance to do a bit for England, for England. He raised his old bent figure from his chair and pointed out the window at the countryside. “'Ee have something to store, to tell 'ee children.”

I was silent. “'Course there be parts for forgetting,” he went on, “but the rest do make up for it. 'Ee have lived in a great day.”

We talked awhile about Phyllis, then when I was leaving he gripped my hand with his horny one and said gravely. “Lad, 'ee have much to be thankful for. Mine isn't for complaint, but to be young now would be the nearest thing to Heaven I knows of.”

All the while he called me “Steve,” and when I got outside I was glad I had not told him different. It seemed to please him that I had come and I knew that Phyllis had never told him that my brother had been killed. But – she had gone to meet Steve!

It was a lovely afternoon and as I went by the old church I saw that people were gathering for a service, and I went in. It was unforgettable. Through the stained glass windows of the old Norman church the sun's rays fell on altar and choir stalls, flooding the place with a riot of colour. The vicar, in white surplice and crimson stole, had an appealing voice and in his prayer seemed pleading with a God whom he actually confronted. The reverent people, the dignified service, the sunlight on the oak carvings, all touched me curiously. I felt that I was a rank outsider.

At the Inn I asked what the service was for and learned that a series of
special meetings had been held for more than a month, intercessions for aid to British arms on the western front. They were asking God to make England and her Allies victorious, pleading that right should conquer, that the German and the devil be defeated. And in my haversack was a belt buckle I had taken off a dead German. Its inscription was “Gott Mitt Uns.”

I went back to London and from there took train to Retford, in Nottinghamshire. The girl I left in Canada had been born in that district and I was going to visit her people. They made me welcome and I had a wonderful time exploring the villages, especially Gainsborough and Lincoln. The old Roman wall in Lincoln, and the cathedral, were marvellous to me. When I went back to London I went down to Bramshott and saw my brother, who had been in England as a musketry instructor. Stanley, the big, broad-shouldered brother of my fiancee, was there at the depot of the 85th Highlanders. He had been seriously wounded at Vimy and was anxious to get back to France.

They asked me what it had been like at Passchendale and I said “Not too bad,” and changed the subject. That which I noticed in others had come to me. No soldier who had been in that fighting would talk about it at all.

When I went back to the battalion it was still at Bourecq and I traded my finery to the quartermaster for a regular issue. He cut a dashing figure in my British warm. A dozen times I had been saluted while up in Nottinghamshire and when other lads at Bramshott donned my rigout to have a picture taken I realized that if we all were given the same uniform many officers would be in the background

A few days after my return we moved to Lieven and relieved the 16th Battalion there. One experienced an inexplicable thrill in being back again in dark, smelly confines and frost-bound trenches where only Death was sure of his billet. We were to do carrying parties up Cow Trench, that long crooked trail known to so many Canadians. Soon we were as lousy as ever and having a hard time to keep warm. The new officer proved conscientious and when I asked that “Old Bill” be allowed my rum ration the favour was refused. We made several trips each night, laden with barbed wire, “A” frames, corrugated iron, anything the engineers could load us with, while they walked along and gave orders. Tommy got a particularly evil burden the third night, some frame work an engineer was using to build an O-pip, and he expressed himself in no uncertain terms when we reached our destination. “The front line soldier,” he orated, “does more
work than any man in the labour battalions, gets less food than any soldier, does three-quarters of the engineers' work, is used like a mule, bedded and freighted like a horse, and officered by asses.” Hughes had a hard time quieting him.

On Christmas eve a few of us were in a cellar under a ruin. Our bunks were a mass of broken wire and foul sandbags. We had no fire and the rations were very slim, and it was so cold we could not sleep. Tommy set a candle on a long board and each man produced the biggest, most active louse he could locate on his person, and we raced them, three heats, the length of the board, the winner to take all the prize, three dirty paper francs. After that sporting affair was over we shivered and huddled around until in desperation we tore down the bunks and made one common bed on the floor, piling all the bags on it. There the six of us lay as close as we could pack, our greatcoats over us, and slept, warmed by the heat of each other's body. Shortly after day-light there were steps on the narrow stairs, then flashlight beams. We sat up, expectant. Rum or rations? It was the officer. “Merry Christmas, boys,” he chirped. “Aw, go to Germany,” said Tommy. The rest of us never spoke.

We stayed in the line, relieving the 49th. I went out with an officer of one of the other platoons, under barbed wire furred with frost, and got acquainted with the no man's land of that sector. The next night we were in the brick cellar used by the cooks, waiting for a mug of tea, when there was a shout of “gas.” We rushed out and found that gas shells were dropping everywhere, long slim containers that simply broke as they fell. The officer wheeled. “Follow me,” he snapped, “and put on your mask, man.”

I put on my respirator and followed him as well as I could, but it was fairly dark and I could not see well through the goggles. Before we had reached the last company post he was away from me. He waited there, and said something. I pulled off my mask to hear. “Can't you keep up with me?” he repeated. I looked at him. He had not had his mask on at all.

“Not with such a handicap, sir,” I said. “Give me equal chances and I can stay with you anywhere, anytime.” Perhaps I said it sharply. At any rate he was nettled. “Is that so?” he sneered.

“It is,” I answered. “You ordered me to put on my mask and left your own in the carrier, then expected me to follow you. That,” I said, “is unreasonable.”

“And so,” he sneered again, “you're as good a man as I am?”

“Absolutely,” I shot back, “mentally or physically, and only too happy to prove it any way you like.”

“If you say anything more I'll have you arrested,” he rasped, and turned away. He never talked to me again. I never understood what had made him so ugly that night. He was a good man in the line, better than ordinary, but at times he seemed to carry a grouch. If it had been some of the other company officers I would have been in trouble.

I spent New Year's eve on a listening post, cold and hungry, watching the Very lights trace their patterns in the sky, wondering what 1918 would bring, and whether or not I would see another New Year. The battalion moved back to Souchez when relieved, into miserable huts half the regular size, with vents to admit the cold wind, without stoves. With me was Pete, a 73rd chap who had been up to Passchendale. He had been an athlete, was a splendidly-proportioned man, but had lain too long in the water and slime. He was racked with fits of coughing, was too weak to go on parades, and finally they sent him down to hospital.

On the second night in the huts Tommy and I got up. We could not sleep. We went along the old Vimy shelters and searched, over a mile away, until we were rewarded by finding a small stove and enough pipe to do. We carried it back to the hut and the rest turned out and helped us demolish a wooden shelter at the head of the camp. Then, in turn we kept the fire going and were able to sleep warmly. On parade we were told that a Christmas dinner was to be held, and Tommy and I were two of a party detailed to assist the preparations. We had to carry tables and benches from engineers' quarters, over a mile away, and set them up in a marquee. By the time we had made the last trip the dinner was under way. Only a company could be fed at a time and we had to wait our turn, as the others went first. We had been carrying tables since seven o'clock and we did not get into the dining tent until four in the afternoon. A lump of cold pudding, a mug of cold tea and a few biscuits were shoved at me, the same kind of dinner we had had in a leaky hut at Mount St. Eloi the previous year. “Where's the Christmas dinner?” blared Tommy. “What's the bloody joke?”

“That's all that's left,” growled the cook. “What …”

Tommy drove his lump of cold duff at the fellow's head, and his mug of cold, greasy tea followed. I got him quieted enough to get him outside and almost all our platoon followed us. “Hi,” yelled the cook from a safe vantage.
“You guys can't beat it – you've got to stay and help wash up these dishes.”

They had got enamel plates and mugs for the occasion and we were actually supposed to wash them, after doing all the work that was done that day and not getting any dinner. It took all my persuasion to keep Tommy sane and “Old Bill' was ready to help him. We went up the valley to a Y.M.C.A. canteen and there got lukewarm cocoa and dry biscuits. We filled up on them, forced to do so, as we had no extra money, and “Old Bill” glared at the clerk as he eyed the tins of peaches on the shelves. We had asked for credit and of course it was not allowed. “I hope,” he growled, “that one of them heavies comes over and blows the blinkin' ‘Y' loose from its triangle.”

Our next trip in was to Cite St. Theodore, a place of underground passages and concrete chambers. We were in a room that the Germans had made waterproof and almost shell proof. A good stove was in it and just outside in the passage there was a store of coal. Our mail came and brought us Christmas parcels and we had a splendid time. Tommy and I roamed up the street we were on and explored. Passages crossed the street, from cellar to cellar, and other tunnels opened from strong points. The Hun had used concrete lavishly. We found a place partially destroyed that contained German blankets, ground sheets and shrapnel helmets as well as two German rifles. A passage led from it and we went along it for a considerable distance, then up steps until we were blocked by wreckage that had fallen over the stairway. It was well we stopped. After we found openings through which we could look, we saw, about ten yards in front of us, four Germans. They were leaning against a wall, smoking and talking, as if they were waiting for someone. After a time two of them went away and then the other pair called out to someone we could not see. They were answered by a voice that was almost above us. A footway ran alongside the wreckage and another German was walking along it. Had we dislodged anything, spoken, had we been smoking, we must have been discovered. We stole back softly the way we had come and in our own quarters tried to formulate some plan whereby we could capture one of the Heinies and surprise the troops.

At dark we were called to do a ration party. It was raining and we tried a short cut coming back. It led us into a mud hole that was knee deep and we were sorry figures when we returned. The stove was red-hot in a short
time. We made our beds and stripped all our wet clothing and hung it on wires we had strung. Shortly everything was steaming. The door opened and in came our officer. “Men,” he squeaked, “the orders are that no man is to take off his boots, and have your rifle and equipment where you can get it at a moment's notice.”

“Yes, sir,” we chorused. He had looked at us through the steam from wet socks and trousers and he nodded and went away.

The 87th Battalion relieved us and we went back to Fosse 10. Tommy and I had not gone in our tunnel again and we left the sector without telling anyone of our discovery. From Fosse 10 we went to Noulles mines and were billeted in the town. The Hun shelled it the next day and killed a few of the civilians, one a little girl from the house where we were staying. I helped the mother pick her from the street. Her eyes were open, looking up, her hair thrown back from frightened, pinched features, a frail little elf, who had smiled at me and shyly called me “Canada.”

That evening I was ordered to go with Eddie to Ferfay and report to the school there. Eddie had been a corporal and Davies told me that I would have to take a stripe. I warned him that I did not want one and told him about what had happened in Canada. The boys chaffed me as I took my pack and left them, but I had the last laugh on them. I found that there were other 42nd men at the school, men from the other battalions of the brigade, and we had a good time together, despite the fact that we were coralled by a 116th sergeant, who unfolded to our weary ears the mysteries of sighting, aiming, rapid fire, and triangles of errors. I chummed with Siddall, from one of our other companies, and Turner, a big South African who was with the 49th.

It was just before we finished our Course that I had the laugh on the boys. They had not been back to the front line, a fact which Tommy mourned, as he had wanted to kill a Hun, he said, on the Kaiser's birthday, and had had considerable drilling, and now “D” Company came to Ferfay. They were shined and cleaned so that I hardly recognized them and they drilled on the School parade ground in a way that made me proud that I belonged to them; they were shown as a model company. Our scouts went to Pernes and in competition there carried off all honours in sniping and observing. The 85th came to Rainbert, nearby, and I at once went to see them, for my brother had come to France. He had just arrived that night, had no rations, and was not issued any at the battalion.