Pass Guard at Ypres (15 page)

Bombs—Bombs had done it at the time of Loos, or would have done it if he had had half a chance, and bombs would do it again. God—if only he had some of his old crowd with him now, or even some of the August crowd at Glencorse Wood. Rabbits or not, they were his battalion. As for the perishers in this company of his, the knock-kneed mob of conscripts whom he had to drive out of shell-holes and pill-boxes—if Wingate could only see them he wouldn't buck about the regiment quite so much. Be damned to the regiment, and the brigade and the whole division they'd jerked him into after that scratch at Herrenhage Château. He'd rather be with the old gang and his two pips than have a company of these undersized wasters. Still, there they were, and now he'd got them he'd make them get on with it. Time this mud-crawling came to an end, all this squirming and sneaking round pill-boxes, all this floundering up to your neck or being crumped to glory if you left the duckboards. Whatever sort of an end it was, it was time it came. Just over there was the place Harvey had been to, on the day he'd told him about when they were at Ypres. Gheluvelt—that was the place to get to: yes, by gad! and if he went alone he'd get there—out of this filth once and for all, and on the road to Menin.

Muttering, he knelt beside the sodden boxes and drew the Mills bombs out one by one, handling them almost lovingly. Nice little eggs, they were, to be sure—pretty little eggs. He'd just hang a few round him, like this and this and this—and use the first on any swine in his new crowd who wouldn't come on with him. Bombs, bombs, and get it over—damned muddle it had been, it was time to get it over. They ought to have got Ypres free by now—got to Bruges, Passchaendale, God knows where. He'd do it for them—nobody else seemed able to do it, but he would. Robbie would have done it long ago, or the Skipper or Bill or Harry—but they weren't here now. Only at night they'd come and talk to him sometimes, but he was alone by day. Bamford would have done it, too, but Bamford wasn't there either: there was only him to do it. Everybody else was stuck in the mud but him. Thought they'd done him down, but they hadn't quite succeeded: they never would do him down, so long as he'd got his bombs. He'd got them, and he'd get there now. Yes, there it was. He clambered out of the pill-box and stood looking towards a sky just paling behind a line of jagged poplars to the east.

Gheluvelt—that was the place to get to. Never mind what it stood for, or what it was all about. Never mind all that. It didn't need Dick Leverett to stand mouthing out there, yapping at him from just over the edge of that shellhole, to tell him that. He knew it didn't matter, as much as Dick Leverett knew it. If Dick Leverett didn't take his ugly face away, he'd chuck a bomb at that to start with, just as he would if Wingate didn't get out of his way instead of
wagging his pincenez at him and trying to get into the pillbox to argue with him, or Madame Fouquière, sitting by that bit of wire and knitting and talking to him of Ypres. He'd chuck a bomb at all of them if they didn't get out of his way. He didn't want any talk about it, or what it was all about now. He'd finished with all that; all he knew was he was going to get there. That was the way, straight up, straight along—there was Gheluvelt behind those trees, and bombs would get him there—not talk, but bombs, bombs, bombs.

The German sniper watched in the shell-hole, with his finger on the trigger of his rifle. He was doomed, he knew, but this did not worry him, as everybody else at Ypres was doomed as well as he. Knowing this, he could afford to watch the situation calmly, as it developed before his eyes. The British were coming on on three sides now; he thought, as a matter of fact, that a few had got round him, as bullets were coming from his rear. Never mind them—he'd just watch those in front, and pick off those he wanted. They came waddling along, like so many water-logged and overladen clumsy wooden figures, falling about, some getting up again and others lying where they were. There were plenty to choose from for the final pick. He ran his eye deliberately down the line: yes, on the whole that was the fellow, that fellow in front with his hands moving in and out of his pockets in funny jerking movements, and
a grin, or something more than a grin, upon his face. He kept on opening his mouth, and jumping a little whenever he threw a bomb. He was just about the right distance, too—just right for a nice neat shot. He was coming on, still with his mouth wide open and his eyes twice as big as usual: he seemed an overgrown baby, all mouth and eyes and jerking arms and legs. Yes, he was the chap. He'd get him through the head—he couldn't miss him. Two steps more, and the sniper smiled as he bent his finger. It was a pity that he fell dead as he pressed the trigger, as it spoilt his aim.

There is no reason, provided you can walk, to think of mud as something other than it is. It is an evil thing, but, like other evil things, it can be evaded or overcome by the wit of man. It will drown you if you leave the duck-boards, but keep to the spider track across the wastes and you will be safe. It will cling around your legs, seep over your thigh-boots, ooze through tunic and shirt and bind your muscles with its clammy chill, but you can stand against it, sweep it from you with your hands and arms as you struggle forward, keep breast and head erect and win your way, struggling step by step, to firmer ground. It will not clog your pistol if you wear your lanyard round your neck, nor foul your food if it is stored on the topmost shelf inside the dug-out. It stinks, but it helps thereby to overcome other reeks more vile. It will pin you to your shell-hole, but it will
stretch before you as a protective bulwark to prevent your being overwhelmed by the sudden rush of the counterattack. It is an evil, but not the only evil, nor perhaps the worst. If you have been among those who have pressed on from Clapham Junction, past Weldloek and Herrenhage Château towards Gheluvelt and Menin, you will have known other evil things in plenty.

You will have lain motionless through the day before grey concrete squares from which machine-gun bullets directed by invisible hands have spat forth in intermittent streams towards your lair. You will have cowered, as you have cowered so often before, beneath bombardments, your legs, arms and body so many masses of quivering tissues which have long forsworn your mastery, and your head a sounding board for a thousand hammers: aeroplanes will have swooped low over you, raining destruction as they roar their way along the lines of shell-holes; skulls will have grinned at you from the rank undergrowth or between the twisted branches of Glencorse Wood; human forms stained red will have grovelled to you moaning; corpses mingled with sandbags will have formed your barricades; green sickly clouds will have drifted upon you, while you panted, your teeth tight set upon a rubber tube and your eyes peering blindly through great goggle glasses, smeared with dirt and moisture; shifting half-seen shapes will have come to gibber at you during your hours of fitful sleep.

It is when you can no longer stand that it is fearful, for then it ceases to be dead matter, and becomes, quite suddenly, monstrously alive. Then, perhaps, though not
before, you may be permitted to resign to it the mastery, knowing that no human spirit can struggle for ever against a spirit more than human, that is alive as well as evil. It is when you lie headlong in the fields in front of Gheluvelt at midnight, the final goal of your achievement almost before your eyes, but your body crippled and powerless to move, that the dead mass round you begins to stir and breathe. It will work its way over you, covering legs and thighs and waist and shoulders, sucking aloud in its grim rejoicing as it draws you further and further into the depths of its soft spongy being. As the star-lights rise before you, they will be reflected in the big saucer-like eyes that are now so nearly on a level with your own. A myriad fingers will entwine themselves in yours, and shapeless legs will hold yours in a grip that no wrestler in the world could ever break. Its smell will fill your nostrils, and its wet lips will rise to meet you and stop your mouth with the moisture of their kiss. It will live, and, living, cease to be your enemy and become your friend. You have lost so much, and you are so very tired. Those that were with you at Hooge and Bellewarde have left you. A hope that was dead and had begun to struggle to life again has died its second death: a city that you half hated, half cared for has forgotten you, for it has had many to care for it and hate it, and you are far away. Why grope further like an animal, or wander through the filth of daylight any more? There is a Being here that will hold you, and never let you go: its embrace is soft, and already as you sink within it the pain that made you breathe in spasms is lessened. You have had no respite,
and here at last is rest. The face of day is hideous, and the sun but shines to breed a greater foulness. Here, in your hiding place, you will lie sleeping, for the Being that has found you and taken you to itself will keep you, and will see to it that you do not start at any sound or open your eyes again to the corruption overhead.

Muriel, it was sufficiently obvious, had forgiven him—free and full was the measure of the forgiveness. Could she, she rightly thought, do less. Perhaps she had judged him rather quickly; perhaps she had been young, and hardly understood. After all, he had not been much more than a boy himself, and one should not be too hard. She knew better now: one learns a good deal after a year or so in war-time in a London office. She was glad that he was to be out of that horrid hospital and at Edenhurst for Christmas; it would give her a chance to show him, to let him know. She hadn't seen so much of him as she would have liked to, as he seemed always to be in camps or hospital when she had been at home. Well, she'd make up for it. Poor boy, to think of the time he'd had; to think of his lying out there, only a few weeks ago, with a broken leg; to think. . . .

The thinking, it appeared, was to be a co-operative process. John Mann was fully determined for the time being to put all gloomy reflections upon the Government's attitude towards the struggles of a hard-working and honest tradesman far from him, and see to it that that boy of his they'd knocked about so should see what a Christmas dinner should be like. Even, Aunt Jane reflected, even if
this world was a vale of iniquity and wickedness—and she was sure from all she heard and saw, much as she tried not to see and hear it, that it was hard to disagree with what the dear minister had said last Sunday week—well, even then there was no reason why one shouldn't make the best of it, come Christmas, and try to cheer the poor boy up a bit, seeing that it must all worry him as much as it worried her. To Cousin Helen, to whom a captain was obviously of greater intrinsic value than a lieutenant, it was sufficiently obvious that Christmas was the one time when all members of a family who were trying to do their bit should be together, and try to get out of their own little grooves by finding out a bit more about what each other knew, and there would be nothing like a long Christmas talk to get at the full story of the mess at Passchaendale, if Aunt Emma didn't butt in too much with her eternal Pharasaical preaching—which Aunt Emma most fully intended to do, for if one couldn't put the highest aspects of the struggle before her nephew's mind at such a time as this, what, she demanded very naturally, could be expected to happen to the poor dear boy's ideals? And her choice of that little book,
The White Souled Warrior,
was most suitable, and she would give it to him in plenty of time so that they could talk it all over quietly round the fire on Christmas Day.

Mr. Farrant, Muriel's father, who had, it was to be gathered, fallen into a Government contract or two in the building way, which rendered the falsification of his prophecies as to the early end of a war of attrition a
matter of slightly less concern, took a more direct line in the matter and contented himself with remarking that he would supply the fizz, and how the hell did John Mann or anybody else think they were going to get going without a dozen bottles. While all his mother wanted was to see to it that there was no nonsense with the cook, to know that her boy was happy, to tell God that she was thankful, and to keep a watchful eye on Uncle Wal.

Whether this last precaution was as strictly necessary as was popularly believed, there can be little doubt that the problem presented by Uncle Wal was no less difficult in 1917 than it had been two years before. In some respects, indeed, it was distinctly aggravated: for the fact that Uncle Wal had come into a bit o' money increased his standing with the ne'er-do-well elements in the population of Edenhurst, and tended at times to make him slightly self-assertive even when in the company of his cousins and “in-laws.” A further difficulty arose from the habit which Freddy Mann had formed of seeking, quite unconsciously, of course, his company to a greater extent than was perhaps desirable. Even now, at this Christmas feast, when sundry sniggered accompanied observations and uncalled-for lapses into a species of levity of questionable taste, should have warned all present that Uncle Wal had better be kept in his place till “it had worked off a bit,” Freddy Mann, it was regretfully noted, saw fit to forsake the claims of Muriel and the port and cigars which were thrust upon him alternately by Mr. Farrant and his father, and bury himself in a secluded parlour behind the shop with Uncle Wal.
This must, however, be said in justice that Uncle Wal, with a humility that years of steady repression had engendered, was among the first to realise the unappropriateness of Freddy Mann's action.

“Damned nice of yer, me lad, but it ain't yer place, not to be sitting here with yer old uncle while there's others round. That gel, for example—that gel Muriel—pretty bit——”

“Damn Muriel.”

“Pretty bit o' goods, though, all the same. Fair knockout tonight. Bit o' gold stuff in 'er 'air, too: gives class, that does—bit o' tone. Sweet on yer, too, she seems. If she'd been like that before, p'raps yer wouldn't——”

He stopped.

“You mean Irene?”

“Yes: no offence, lad——”

“Of course not. Good sort, Irene—used to be. Damned good sort. I remember my second leave and that time in hospital. Gave them fits at Millfield, did Irene. But—no, Uncle, old chap, Irene's not her rival. She's in America now, my pretty Irene—film comedienne, you know. Saw her off last year. Thought it would break my heart at the time, and all that. But no, it didn't break my heart.”

Freddy Mann lit a cigarette indifferently.

“Your case, Uncle. Have one?”

“Thanks.” Under cover of lighting a cigarette Uncle Wal watched his nephew narrowly.

“You know, lad, seems to me you've hardened a bit like. Natural, of course, along o' this war. But it's working on yer.”

“Strange, isn't it?” Freddy Mann's voice was hard and toneless, and he lit his cigarette as he spoke with an expression of indifference.

“No, 'tain't strange: it's natural. But it's a pity; and all these 'ere clackin' 'ens——”

Good chap, Uncle Wal. Unconsciously, as so often before, Freddy Mann warmed towards him. He could have gone soldiering happily enough with Uncle Wal. Uncle Wal didn't go down in the accepted circle of Edenhurst: so much the worse for them. He wasn't giving much away so far as the rest of the Edenhurst crowd were concerned; but it wasn't quite the same with Uncle Wal.

“ 'Tain't as if I haven't watched yer, lad: watched yer since the beginning. You was keen enough then, time yer first went out. Wore off a bit even then, though, time o' Loos, when that gel played up, and then again last year, and now——”

He looked at his nephew, leaning slightly forward, and then sat back.

“ 'Tain't I want to worry yer—not like that crowd in there,” as he jerked his finger towards the doorway. “But it's just—no kids o' me own, yer know—and if I could be a bit of help——”

Yes, let him hear. Why keep up the artificial reserve with Uncle Wal? He'd seen a good deal, he might as well know all.

“P'raps you're right, Uncle. It's just—that the bottom's dropped out somehow. Sometimes does with fellows, you
know, after they've been out there. Not with all—not with chaps like Robbie. But we aren't all Robbies—and—it has with me.”

He helped himself to a liberal whisky, leaned back and smoked for a few moments before continuing.

“Seems to have gone, you know, just bit by bit. Look at 1915, for example—we were going through in 1915—damned lot of going through at the end of it. Look at the Somme, Passchaendale—all that: three years, and now——”

Poor spirited, but you have to pick your Greathearts very carefully if it is from boys of nineteen that they are to come.

“And all that rot they talk about it—war for humanity, war to end war, war for God knows what. Go and look at a battlefield, and you'll soon cease to believe that quack. Leverett told me a thing or two about that, I remember—Dick Leverett, you know—but I guessed before.”

“You ain't the only one.”

“Funny way to free humanity, to drive conscripts into Wipers with pistols at their heads—done that in my time, you know.”

Freddy Mann looked half doubtfully at Uncle Wal. Was he giving too much away? He was a civilian, after all.

“Go on, lad—Uncle Wal don't split.”

“And it's such bloody hell, you know. Fools like Farrant don't know what they're talking about. But when you've had two years of it—just hell—only thing to do is, not to
care. That's what you learn after a time—just not to care. Pretend to listen when fellows like Wingate preach, but the only thing to do is not to care.”

He stopped a moment.

“Funny way you'd be in if you did. Look at our crowd, for example. Pretty well all gone now—just Robbie left and one or two. But most of 'em went at the flame attack on Loos, and Mitchell went at Glencorse Wood, and Bamford's done—suppose his bullet came, poor chap—and Chips and Bill——”

He got up suddenly.

“Be damned to it all. I'm through. Got to carry on, I suppose, but I'm through. That's all it comes to—ceased to care.”

“Nothing then, now, you don't care for? Bad, that, in life, if there ain't nothing left.”

“Nothing: how could——” Freddy Mann stopped and flushed and Uncle Wal looked quickly across the room.

“Sure? Dead sure? Ain't there nothing left to care for?”

“Nothing: except just——”

“Tell me, lad: just tell me.”

“Ypres. That's all. That's all there is now—Wipers. But it's that that Leverett forgot. That's all. Funny thing is, though, it sometimes seems enough.”