Blood and Thunder (15 page)

George Fletcher found it especially hard to have to utilise his German proficiency to read through the letters of dead enemy soldiers to try to glean information. Military relevance aside, he found it awful to have to read what their mothers had sent them. Finally though, he was confronted with his personal loss. Ten days after his brother's death he was lamenting his broken wristwatch and that there was no Regie close enough to fix it for him. He supposed that he was still to the north, where he heard the artillery was busy. Nearly a week later, he was complaining that he had had no news. ‘I don't know what he has done since going to his new battery … I expect Regie has had a fearfully exciting time …
Please send me all his letters
.'

He finally received the news that his brother had died on 16 November and it was brutal, shocking. All he could do, isolated in his trench with plenty of time to contemplate his loss was find solace in the fragments of poetry that he had stored inside his head. ‘This does not make me in the last more revengeful against the Germans except that I feel more willing to push the war right home to a decision'. Any murderous feelings he had went towards the pacifist MPs criticising the war and to the crowds who went to football and, in his opinion, cared ‘not two straws' how many lives were being claimed, the best of men dying ‘while defending their worthless lives'.

Boredom was rife on the British front. George had been ‘snaffling' in Armentières and managed to find a skipping rope and an eclectic collection of English books in the classroom of a school including
Brer Rabbit
and
Robinson Crusoe
. He was, he said, flabby and fat. By spring his men would be ‘as fat as Wiltshire hogs', or worse still, as fat as Germans. His captain apparently had already begun morphing into a frog, ‘so podgy has he become'. He just wanted to hibernate until spring when he might be of some use. His father was sending him more reading material from his flat in Eton but it did little to alleviate the monotony. It was a blessing to have a vivid imagination. George Davies was dreaming of a family reunion at the Ritz when he got home, and Ian Henderson was imagining a posh dinner with his parents, a crisp white tablecloth, polished silver and lovely food. George Fletcher's imaginings had transcended to a whole other level. He had been having a vivid dream about a talking goat wearing medals and causing a stink in his room. It disappeared eventually with a clap of thunder and he woke up to find that the thunder was in fact the artillery shelling German trenches in front of him.

The men of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers sang to keep themselves occupied. One of the corporals had a penny whistle and the rest would sing along. George thought that the Germans were better at it. It was ‘eerie and wonderful' listening to their harmonies as they drifted across no-man's-land. He sent home snippets of sights and sounds that coloured his image of life at the front. The rattle of maxims ‘like a very loud motorcycle'. Rifles made a double report when they were fired. There was a ‘pleasant hiss' as British shells went overhead on their way to the German trenches. Aeroplanes buzzed above him, men chatted around him; their frequent blasphemy had a strangely contented ring about it. Then came the crack of a sniper's bullet, the singing of the cat-like shrapnel.

His daily routine was not inspiring. George would get up just before dawn and stand to, barging his way down the trench, dragging out ‘snoring lumps of humanity'. He went stamping up and down with a pipe in one hand and the other shoved deep into his pocket, a light-hearted impression of his father. The day was spent supervising the men; making sure that they cleaned their rifles, arranging digging parties, wood-fetching parties, sawing parties, guard duty. Then he would have to censor the men's letters. Before dark there was more organising, dictating who was going to fetch water, who was going to fetch rations, who would be put in one of the outposts. Any gaps in his day he attempted to fill with eating, drinking lukewarm tea or jumping up and down to keep warm. At night they waited for ‘water-cart' – not only literally water but the nickname for the gossip that came with the drinking rations. (Most of the time it was fanciful. On one occasion it was rumoured, via a friend of Regie's, that Kitchener's army was to be equipped with knuckledusters with long spikes and with daggers; the officers were to get miniature axes.) Finally, George had checks to do at 9 p.m., midnight and 3 a.m. before he could attempt to sleep, before beginning all over again, until they reached the end of their five-day stint and were relieved for a similar period.

This stuffy atmosphere of course made for bickering and antagonisms. Most of George's rage was aimed at the Scottish battalion that rotated in and out of the lines with his men. This was on the grounds that their only occupation was to undo any of the work that his men had done and he even took to drawing flaming red dragons on parts of the trench to make it clear whose territory it was.

It was symptomatic of his gift for endearing himself to his men. One hardened reservist in his battalion claimed that they were wary of young subalterns who were shunted into their path. They were judged by whether or not they showed guts in the trenches. On this score, George impressed immediately. The same man claimed that his men thought him ‘the bravest man in France', with ‘more brains than all the battalion officers put together'. George had heard them talking about him in the close confines of the trenches: ‘T'aint 'arf a lark bein' in that there Fletcher's section … 'E speaks to the bastards in their own bloody language!' In return George was already quite fond of them. He was massively amused by a conversation he overheard one morning between two of the soldier servants:

‘You go and wake Mr Fletcher.'

Mess servant: ‘You go and wake adjective Fletcher your adjective self; I've got this 'ere adjective bacon to serve up.'

They might have moaned a lot, but he thought they were remarkable. ‘They can carry any weight through any mud and dig any amount of wet clay all through the night.' They required prodding, but as long as he was standing there cursing over their shoulders they were very efficient and thorough. One day he was marching them through Armentières when he decided to cheer them up by pulling out his penny whistle and playing the ‘Marseillaise' in the highest possible key with electrical effect. After that they cheerfully swung through the ‘echoing and desolate town' just like the mythical soldiers in the
Daily Mail
.

George had a somewhat unique perspective as far as the enemy was concerned. Having lived and worked in Germany, he couldn't bring himself to hate an entire nation based on the indiscretions of a few. In the wake of Regie's death, their eldest brother Leslie was raging. He wanted to hurt the Germans but George's response was measured. He seemed to think that his brother's position on a ship, isolated and not face to face with the enemy, had fostered this attitude. He was sure that Leslie would change his mind when he was required to rescue them from struggling in the sea, especially if he had suffered the same fate. It was different for him, ‘biting the same ground', suffering the same hardships as the Germans. News had arrived at Oxford that Regie had fallen in British territory; that Bevil Quiller-Couch had buried him with his own hands. It caused some relief to their parents and to Leslie that he had not been touched by the enemy, but George's mood was not much altered. It made little difference to him.

His command of the German language and his sense of humour meant that he became well known to the troops across no-man's-land. The lines were only 100 yards or so apart and George held daily chats with the enemy; in this case Saxons. In mid December the battalion heard that three German ships had been sunk. The commanding officer decided that their opponents ought to know and so George chalked it up on a board in German and they waved it above the trench. The men began hollering to attract attention. There was a momentary pause, clearly whilst the Germans digested the information; and then bullets began to fly at their sign. The men tied a red flag to a long pole and waved it to signify hits or misses: ‘Yah! Put it down as a bloody miss!'

Christmas approached and presents began to flow in. His parents couldn't send him the kitten he wanted to make his billet homely, but they had found him a penknife with cats engraved on the handle and he stuck it in the ground opposite his brazier so that they could warm their theoretical paws. George had ordered chocolates for his men and his parents were sending them pipes and tobacco. He was jumping at every package like it was his Christmas stocking in the 1890s.

George had been dreaming of integrating with the Germans for a Christmas party since the beginning of December and had no intention of leaving it to chance. He had been trying to persuade the men across no-man's-land to partake in a ‘beer and sausage evening' on Christmas Day. ‘You will provide the sausage and beer,' he informed them, ‘and we will produce the plum pudding.' All he got initially was loud guffaws in response. By Christmas Eve his plans had been downgraded to the erection of Christmas trees on the parapet and a meeting in no-man's-land at midday, so he was still slightly hopeful. That was until his company commander forbade anything of the sort.

Despite the captain's best efforts though, and perhaps as a result of George's efforts, at about midday on Christmas Day two Germans appeared, rolling two enormous barrels of beer towards the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Two men jumped out and went to fetch them. Before George knew it, white hankies were waving on both sides and men were streaming out into the space between the lines. They shook hands, cheered, laughed and exchanged cigarettes and food. George even saw one of his men emerging from the German lines smoking a fat cigar with a brazier under each arm. Some of the Germans had climbed out to start burying their dead and the Fusiliers helped. The lines were extremely close together and the company commander was wary of the Germans being able to see inside their defences. Too much ‘prowling about' might have dire consequences at a later date and so he sent George out to put an end to the fraternisation. The men retreated into their lines and resumed waving their hankies in good spirits.

Miffed at the lack of festivities, George wandered off down the lines to the 2nd Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders to find a friend of his. There the trenches were much further apart and almost everybody was out. George joined them and found himself surrounded by kilted Scottish soldiers scampering about wearing German foraging caps. He and his friend went armed with cigarettes and newspapers to make friends with the German 133rd Regiment. They barely talked of war. Six of the men they met had won the Iron Cross and one of them let George examine his. They discoursed on football and exchanged calling cards for after the war. George thought their men rather ‘pipsqueaky' but the NCOs were tall, intimidating fellows. They talked for nearly an hour before a bark came from the German lines and their men scurried home. At dawn the following morning a captain in George's battalion pulled down the white flag and three shots were fired. The Germans put up a board saying thank you and fired three shots of their own. Heads went down. War had begun again.

Anything that could remind the men a little of home was a welcome diversion in the New Year. George Llewelyn Davies had long since had a ruse running at Eton whereby he would feign starvation and Barrie would promptly despatch hampers of treats from Fortnum & Mason. War was no different. He showered George's mess with boxes and boxes, whether solicited or not. ‘I ask for the devil of a lot,' George admitted, but Barrie did not care. ‘It is always a blessed thing for me when you want something, if you don't want, go on inventing.' The truth was, that whether it be food, cigarettes, mittens for men, pipes, writing letters to the wives of their men or even visiting them in hospitals at home when they were wounded, parents, grandparents and extended families just longed to feel useful.

Shades of Eton followed her old boys about the front as they cherished familiarity in their depressing setting. George Fletcher was able to walk down to the Rifle Brigade battalion and talk ‘tug-shop' with another old Colleger. Billy Congreve's position as an aide gave him a mobility that meant he could drop in on even more friends up and down the front. He found one old school friend ‘exactly the same as when we were at Eton together'. OEs swapped news of each other. Reggie Hargreaves was, so he heard, ‘disgustingly brave, so I suppose he is bound to get hit sooner or later'. George Fletcher, of course, was still fully connected with the school and had been fairly grovelling for news. His school colleagues had obliged. ‘It is very good of them to let me have a whiff of Eton in the middle of … blasphemous war,' he told his father. Charles Fletcher had returned to Eton in January and was proudly showing George's letters off. For the boys and masters who remained he became their window to the war. His tales of being arrested, of doing his daily rounds of the trenches with a cat on his shoulder, and the sights and sounds of the trenches became common knowledge amongst the various boarding houses.

Eton was, after all, his home for much of the year and George missed it sorely. He would have loved to have seen it just for one ordinary evening. ‘[A] College kickabout … or the hum of boys going into 5 o'clock school', his father leading the way to the classroom with an enormous key in his hand. Masters made sure he had the
Eton College Chronicle
; bits of news that had reached home rebounded back out to him. One of his old College and Balliol friends, he heard, was on his way to the Dardanelles, ‘lucky devil'. The boys were sending papers and socks for his men along with sheaves of letters for him. ‘Curious little letters, full of the infinitely remote details of Eton life.' George adored reading them. He took one batch on a march up to the lines and read them as he moved along. ‘The two worlds clashed strangely together', house colours and football with the noise of rifles and artillery shells.