Pass Guard at Ypres (2 page)

“It looks to me,” said Derek Robinson, as he blew reflectively
into the bowl of his pipe, “it looks to me as if we were nearly
there.”

“Aye!” Jack Wilson had joined the forces after a short but not uneventful career in a windjammer, and his conversation savoured of the nautical. “We'll make Ypres soon: get off my mapcase, you swine,” as he dumped Freddy Mann bodily two feet farther away from where he had previously sat. “What's the news, Skipper?”

Captain Toler, fresh from the temporary Battalion Headquarters, approached the group sitting by the roadside outside Vlamertinghe with something more than his usual importance of manner. His step was more determined, the lines between his eyebrows more deeply graven, the tug at his bushy black moustache even more vicious than was generally the case.

“Gawd, we're for it,” as the irreverent Malcolm leaned back against his pack and munched another bar of chocolate. “Hold hard all. Well, Skipper, who's won the war?”

“Now look, Captain Harry, look, gentlemen.” Captain Toler rapidly approached with one finger firmly planted on a certain point on his talc-faced mapcase. He looked
quickly round. “Mr. Wilson, perhaps you had better rejoin your company; Captain Massy Vane will need you—and this is no time for merriment.”

“Right-ho: six bells it is: avast ahoy. Lewis, don't forget the milk. Cheerio all,” and Jack's stubby form rolled down the road towards his recumbent platoon.

“Now, gentlemen,” as Captain Toler, now safe with his own circle, looked from his second in command to his subalterns in turn. “Now look, Robbie—Mr. Robinson—look, Mr. Mann; are you attending, Mr. Shepherd?”

Sammy Shepherd's attention was for the moment diverted, as it was so often to be diverted in the near future, by the sudden screech of a shell, the identification and classification of which as friendly or hostile appeared to be of paramount importance.

“Yes, Skipper, yes, I see—yes.”

“Well, then, now”—having fixed the roving eyes of Shepherd—“perhaps we'd better have the Sergeant-Major—ah there you are, Sergeant-Major. Well, we're to move at once to the Ramparts and join the 1st Battalion in the line tonight. Have you got Ypres on the map, Mr. Malcolm—square K2. Have you got your map, Mr. Mann? Always have your map on active service. Have you got Vlamertinghe? Good.”

A cloud of smoke obscured for a moment the pointing finger as the Skipper puffed vigorously at his pipe.

“Well, then, we move by the Poperinghe-Ypres Road, past the Goldfish Château, to the Ramparts, then on to the line—we move as a battalion to the Ramparts, Captain
Harry, and by companies with guides to the line—and there we find the 1st Battalion. We shall be attached to them for training purposes probably for a week, but it's not quite certain yet how long. It's 2.30 now; we move at 4. Now remember, gentlemen, remember, Robbie lad, remember, Mr. Mann, all I've told you—we're going into the thick of it now. Remember, on the march, march discipline first, last and all the time. And remember, when we get to the line, always take bearings, use prismatic compasses—keep in line with flanks or platoons in front—no smoking, dead silence, and if things happen remember that the men will look to you.”

The afternoon wore on, punctuated by occasional further exhortations and sundry inspections of company transport and kit by the over-conscientious Skipper. Freddy Mann knew already by heart all that his O.C. had or could possibly have to say, and there were other matters here to engage his attention. To the traffic he was to a certain extent already accustomed. Those lines of men moving east and west, those guns and limbers, ambulances and occasional cars had passed him on the road by which they had travelled during the last three days from peaceful Watten through Steenvoorde, St. Sylvestre Capel, Abeele, St. Jan ter Biezen and Poperinghe. But today there were other things to see as well. That howitzer by the line of willows, for example, fixing in a leisurely but
purposeful fashion a shell every fifteen minutes; the Antiaircraft Battery, which Freddy Mann had already learned to call an Archie, standing in retreat just up the lane; the three sausages on the road between them and Ypres; the ambulance which he'd just passed along the road with a load of bandaged men; the comings and goings round the C.C.S. in the farmhouse a few hundred yards away. Nobody, thought Freddy Mann, seemed in any hurry; nobody, save perhaps their own raw selves, showed any particular sign of emotion; it was a fine afternoon, and war seemed a leisurely business on the road to Ypres. Perhaps in Ypres itself it would be rather different. He was sorry that he could not see Ypres. It lay there down the road in the middle distance beyond the caissons, with the smoke drifting over it. He wanted to get there to see it, now that he had got so near as this, and he was glad when at 4.30 the battalion collected itself, shook itself together and took the road past the R.E. dump, the advanced corps battery positions, the Goldfish Château, the Divisional H.Q. and on to the Asylum.

Ypres was plain enough now before them, and around them the country grew more desolate and sinister. The road led past a ruined farm-house here, a row of torn pollards there; shell holes, some recent, because more frequent. The men they saw were moving not in mass but in single lines or scattered groups. A curious dead smell was perceptible in the evening air. The road was straight now, straight ahead to Ypres. Freddy Mann trudged on, following Robbie's platoon sergeant, who grumbled on his
way a few yards in front of him, passing down occasional orders and watching flickers and stabs of fire in the sky in front of him as the darkness began to fall. Oh well, it was quiet enough, anyway. Here they were, past the Asylum now, and in the narrow street that led over the bridge and past the water-tower on the outskirts of the town. This was Ypres: it seemed to have drawn them from Watten almost as if it were a magnet. It was better than he expected—better except for the sickening stench. That was gas, he supposed, or dead bodies—perhaps a bit of both. That was the prison, was it, on the left; he'd heard of that. And here where the road curved round to the right and to the left again, here was the Cloth Hall and the Square. Pity he couldn't see the Hall a little better, but it was a dark night and he had to keep in touch with Robbie just ahead, and it wasn't the sort of place at which they'd halt, to judge from the accounts he'd already heard. Like slugs, the platoon ahead of him moved on towards the ramparts. That was where the guides were going to meet them. So they'd got there, and now there was nothing to do but to lie down by the side of the broken street and wait. No doubt about it, they were getting near: the crack of rifles and machine guns was incessant—star shells flickered round them, shells came with greater frequency overhead. Where he and Robbie sat there wasn't much to see but a calvary standing in a ruined church and rows of dug-outs in the ramparts on their right, but just over the ramparts there lay the canal and the Menin Road. That was the way the Skipper said they were to go tonight. Good luck to it.
Nothing had gone wrong yet; the men seemed cheerful, the night was fine, a shell had burst near him and he hadn't been afraid and . . .

“Bit of all right this, sir.”

Freddy Mann looked round to see standing by him the heavy form of his batman, Private Bamford. He wondered exactly what he intended to convey. The phrase itself is nothing but the King's pawn opening to soldiers' conversation, and the only fitting answer to it, “Not arf it ain't,” is one that it is not easy for an officer to use. He nodded and awaited elucidation.

“This ain't arf all right, it seems to me,” came the low growl in which Private Bamford usually spoke. “Blimy, sir, 'ere we are within a stone's throw of 'em, as the sayin' goes, and walkin' about large as life, an' nothing happens. Best of this 'ere war, that is—yer knows where yer are, when yer for it and when yer not. In South Africa now—I tell yer yer couldn't walk about like this in South Africa, what with them Boers be'ind each kopje, and arf the in'abitants with shot guns be'ind yer back. Didn't stroll about there, same as if we was at a picnic, I can tell yer. Snowballin' this, I calls it, compared to South Africa. That'll be the Cloth Hall, I take it, that there.” He nodded carelessly across his shoulder.

“That's it; we're in the Salient now all right. Glad you think it snowballing. Men seem happy enough so far.”

“All right, they are, sir; you leave 'em to me. We knows each other, as the sayin' goes. S'long as old Uncle B. is with 'em—that's me, sir—that's what they call me off parade. Good fellers, though, they are. Stout-'earted. Swears well:
always a good sign that, if a man can get it across with 'is language.”

“They?” Freddy Mann hardly liked to voice the question that had been so often in his mind. “You think they'll be all right—when the bullets come? Sometimes I—we—just wonder a bit, you know. It's—hard to tell if you haven't known.”

Private Bamford was anything but a fool and he was an older man and kind. His son was nearly Freddy Mann's age.

“You'll be—they'll be all right, sir.” He stopped himself from the awful breach of discipline just in time. “Talk to 'em about it sometimes, I 'ave. Just a word like, cheery.” The growl became even more sepulchral and forbidding. “Just one thing there is, I always tell 'em—what we said in South Africa—that's what I always tell 'em. No need to worry, lads, I tells 'em. If yer bullet's got yer number on it then yer for it, and there ain't no dodging. But if it ain't got yer number, it can't get yer, so there ain't no need to worry. It's all a matter o' that—just whether the bullet's got yer number—and thinking or worrying can't change that. That's the way to cheer 'em, sir, you'll find. Just you tell 'em that. Moving off soon, sir, we'll be. No need to worry if the bullet ain't got yer number. That's all there is to it, as the sayin' goes, just whether a bullet's got yer number.”

Common soldiers' philosophy—well, he supposed it was about as good as any other, as good as any that had occurred to him during the past few weeks. So long as it worked. That was what one wanted to get hold of, something that
would stop a fellow asking the eternal question, stop him from being—no, it wasn't exactly that. It wasn't exactly for himself he minded so much, but he was afraid of appearing to funk it before the men; that would be ghastly, for they would be bound to know. He rather wished he hadn't read that book a month ago at Aldershot—that book
The Four Feathers,
about the fellow who resigned as soon as war broke out. It was that that had set him thinking so, worrying, wondering. How could he tell? What had he had in his life so far except one or two hard games of footer and an occasional bathe in a roughish sea. There was nothing at Edenhurst or at Three Oaks Grammar School at all like this. He smiled a little grimly. Well, here it was; he'd soon know now.

On now down the Menin Road. Robbie was just ahead, imperturbable as usual. The Skipper blew like a grampus up and down the line, with an occasional “Now steady, men. Now look, Mr. Williams; now, Robbie lad.” Harry's temper seemed to be getting a little short, but Freddy Mann was soon to learn that this was a peculiarity of Harry's near the line and betokened no ill-will. On now, past the Ecole de Bienfaisance to the White Château, threading their way now through closely packed dark moving figures, with the dark mass of the ramparts, the tower of the Cloth Hall and the flames of Ypres behind them. By this time local knowledge was becoming all-important. “Wouldn't bother with yer map, sir, not if I was you.” Freddy Mann heard the company guide remark in a cheerful Cockney voice to the Skipper who was struggling at every halt with prismatic
compass and maps of all shapes and sizes. “Them two broken chairs and the dead 'orse's 'ead by the 'edge is where we turn off—them's what yer want to guide yer into West Lane. All very well them maps, but it's things like that yer want to know when there's wire about, same as what yer've got it 'ere. 'Ell Fire Corner, that is,” he nodded carelessly in reply to a question. “Straight ahead. Pretty spot, I give yer
my
word. 'Ell of a bloody 'ole, I calls it. We gets into the trench 'ere, sir. Mind the wire. Ain't any use ducking, sir, not from bullets, not if yer outside a trench. Overs, that's all there is. Put yer to sleep if they get yer, but they ain't aimed at yer, so what's the odds. Captain Corra, he said he'd be 'ere to meet us, if all was well up there. I'll just look round and—ah 'ere 'e is. 'Ere's Captain Corra. 'Ere's this 'ere ‘C' Company, sir, same as what I fetched.”

Private Walley, the guide with the general air of one who had just introduced Stanley to Livingstone, saluted smartly, hitched his rifle on his shoulder, and retired to the lee side of a ruined wall, to await further orders and enjoy a well-earned drink. Freddy Mann looked with interest upon a quite unusually slow-moving and imperturbable individual who emerged from the side of the road to greet the company. He seemed to Freddy Mann's Aldershot-trained mind to be regrettably lacking not only in appreciation of the value of cover, but also in equipment. In contrast to their efficient selves, he carried nothing but a respirator slung across his shoulder and a pistol. Even the pistol he would fain have left behind, but, as he explained apologetically to the “C” Company
officers in a dug-out a little later on, you never quite know what you're going to meet in a show like this. His average rate of speech was about thirty words a minute, and Freddy Mann gained the impression that his rate of thought corresponded. He greeted the voluble Skipper with undisturbed sang-froid, and with him walked along the company.

“Thought I'd stroll down to meet you,” he explained. “Glad you've come along. Bit quietish here just now, of course, but we'll try to show you a bit of what's going on. Yes, that's it, Railway Wood, that's where we are, bit North of the Menin Road: not a bad sector, so long as the Hun isn't feeling uppish. Might as well be pushing on, I suppose: your fellows ready? Just up these fields to the right and over. Yes, suppose we'd better keep 'em in the trenches, but I usually stroll along the top myself. Wonder what's the matter with the Hun?”