Pass Guard at Ypres (8 page)

If only they could see the bottom of that tree. Two hundred yards more, and they could get to the crest and see it. If it was possible, they'd do it, but it was just as Bamford had said, just like Magersfontein over again. Shove on, though. Robbie was shoving on, and there was Townroe and Toler out in front, and Bill's crowd on his right. Shove on; it didn't matter about the other bullets, didn't particularly matter now even if that one came along—getting there was all that mattered. But they couldn't do it. Just about here was where the first wave had stuck. Nearby those leading platoons lay all in rows. Here was Hooker, a shell seemed to have got him pretty badly. Let's see if they could get a little further—just a yard further, just for the sake of doing it. Get up, Johnson. If you must fall, don't fall on your bayonet. Oh you can't get up; that's one less. How's that on Kaye's theory? All right, but it's the getting on that's difficult. Nobody seems to be getting any further now. Townroe's stopped, they've all stopped. Perhaps they'll go on when the Hun has fired all his ammunition. But there won't be many left. Nice job for Scribner, making out the casualty lists tonight. Back, is it? Withdraw, not retire, don't forget that—no such order as retire today. Withdraw sounds better—but retire or withdraw, they've got to go back the way they came. Bloody fool, the Corps Commander. Pity he wasn't here to enjoy it all himself. Get back—they'd damned well take Hooker and Johnson with them. Shove Johnson on your back, Bamford; I'll look after Hooker. Tell Bettson to fix up Biggs—no chance for him, if he's
left out here: give me his rifle. We'll get back somehow, many as we can, to Sanctuary Wood. Can't miss the way. There's bodies all the way back to show us. Wonder if there's any rum left in Sanctuary Wood. Not the way it worked out last year by Cæsar's Camp or on Laffan's Plain. Things don't often go as they should in front of Ypres. All right, Bamford, you can put him down now; we're back in Sanctuary Wood. He's dead, is he? Perhaps he was dead when we picked him up. But we'll stop the rats or Huns from getting him tonight.

“Beat up the band, for God's sake.” They were ready now, all fallen in. There wouldn't be any more, however long they waited. No use counting them over again. Thirty-two made thirty-two and why shouldn't a company have thirty-two? “A” Company only had six, and “B” Company ten, so why worry if “C” Company had thirty-two. He'd done well, had Freddy Mann; he'd brought fourteen out alive. No more to come—get on. Robbie was here and Toler and Bill and Harry—they were all ready except the band. There were plenty, too, to make a band. Give Baines a drum, and bugles to Hall and Grimes, they could blow bugles and Grimes could hobble along somehow, because it had missed his knee. Townroe was here now, and Toler on his horse, riding up and down beside them, riding damned badly, and blocking half the traffic outside the Goldfish Château.
Never mind that, the traffic would have to look after itself for once. There was the G.O.C. watching, and half the Staff, and here were some fellows of the 1st who'd strolled across from Dickebusch to see them. They were all ready, and they could form fours just as well with thirty-two men as with 200. Might have given them buses, perhaps, to get them back, but as they hadn't it didn't matter; back on their own they'd go, the band was all they wanted. Buck up the band. Shove in Fyles, if you want another bugle—double up, Fyles, they want you for a bugle, and you've got as much breath left as anybody, put your head up, that's the way. That's it now, drumsticks crossed, bugles ready, Townroe up in front and Robbie just behind him with three rows of fours between. Now for it—“Tipperary,” that's the tune—just what they want, this, to help them keep the step. Oh, keep step, for God's sake, Bettson. You've stopped the Hun and you're going back to rest. I know you're pretty well all in, but keep step, old son, same as the rest of us. Let's all keep step—that's it, heads up. Sing—damned crowd of scarecrows, and we didn't do all we wanted, but we're off back now to St. Jan-ter-Biezen and we've stopped the Hun.

Captain Freddy Dale sipped his whisky and regarded rather fixedly the officer
who faced him, toying with pencil and paper and looking at him with indifferent
gaze. If it were possible to credit such a thing of so finished a production of
Camberley, it would almost have appeared as if Captain Dale were nervous at the
prospect of the forthcoming interview. The situation was admittedly difficult,
especially as Captain Dale, in addition to his determination to fulfil his duties as
Corps representative, was conscious of the obligation laid upon him as a human being
to give some inkling of the feeling that existed up at Proven. It would hardly be
fair to let this Colonel, who seemed a sufficiently good fellow, go blundering on to
his fate in the fond belief that all was well, when as a matter of fact, in the eyes
of the Corps Commander, all was very far from well. So far, Colonel Townroe had
remained regrettably unresponsible to his openings. He would lift up his head a
little, look at him rather vaguely, pass the whisky or the cigarettes over and wait
for him to speak. Well, as things were, let the human touch come afterwards: he
couldn't well go wrong if he stuck to the mission on which he had been
sent.

“It is just, you understand, Colonel, that the Corps Commander wishes to get a clear picture in his mind of what was happening: and you were on the spot. Can you tell me exactly what was happening, say at four o'clock that afternoon, before—er—the order came to withdraw to Sanctuary Wood?”

“We were being potted at—that's about all there is to it.”

“And about 6 p.m. the order came to withdraw?”

“Yes.”

“From Brigade?”

“From Brigade or the War Office. It came, anyway. Have a drink?”

“Thanks. Well——” Freddy Dale's note book was in his hand. “Was it in your opinion—strictly necessary?”

Colonel Townroe raised his eyebrows.

“May I put it this way—if you had been in sole command, without any possibility of receiving orders—I put the case quite hypothetically—would you have—er—withdrawn?”

Colonel Townroe's eyes narrowed a trifle. He made no reply.

“You see——” Freddy Dale struck a match and held it a moment before lighting a cigarette. “The Corps Commander feels——”

“The Corps Commander wasn't there.”

“The Corps Commander feels,” he repeated with some decision, “that it might have been possible——” He stopped.

“Well, go on. What does the Corps Commander feel?”

The Corps Commander's feelings were, it appeared, definite and explicit. The Corps Commander had made a careful study of the situation from the beginning, from the launching of the attack. He had scrutinised personally all reports and orders that had come into his hands, and had questioned at some length some twenty-seven eye-witnesses, including three prisoners who had been brought to Proven that morning. He had, of course, taken the G.O.C. and brigadiers concerned into the fullest consultation before coming to his decision, but his decision, although he, Captain Dale, regretted to have to announce it, was that——”

“We ratted?”

Freddy Dale waved a deprecatory hand. No such thought he was sure was consciously in the minds of any of them, but in view of all the circumstances, it would appear that perhaps the position, both at Hooge and before Sanctuary Wood, was abandoned with undue haste, and without due regard——

“That's all very well, but what about our casualties? Do you know what we are losing?”

Freddy Dale was now on firmer ground. The Corps Commander was of opinion, with which he was sure that all would agree, that there were occasions upon which less regard must be paid to casualties than normally was the case. There were crises in trench warfare, as in all forms of warfare, in which prime regard must be paid, not to the toll of human life that was being exacted, but
to the requirements of the situation, the morale of the remaining troops, the honour of the regiment.

“This affair,” Captain Dale continued in more confident tones, “has left an unfortunate impression. I tell you this, you understand, as between ourselves. It does not fall within my official duties.” He paused before he continued.

“Yes, yes. Go on.”

“Very well, then, if I may speak openly, it has tended to create the impression at Corps and elsewhere that the value of Kitchener's Army as a fighting unit has been exaggerated. It is the first affair of any consequence in which a division of the New Army has been engaged. Notice has necessarily been taken of it, reports have been called for from G.H.Q. and from the War Office, and it stands to reason that the nature of those reports——”

“Have another drink.”

“Not now. It is understood, of course, that the Brigade and you yourself were placed in a difficult situation: full allowances have been made for the unexpectedness of the attack, the rawness of the troops, the strangeness of the ground. But the Corps Commander—we at Proven were not quite sure if you personally fully appreciated the situation. Your reports are non-committal and appear to show no realisation of failure. While although this is perhaps in itself a minor matter, the marching back of the troops to the accompaniment of a band—you know, Colonel”—with a sudden access of humanity—“I hate all this.”

“That's all right. Help yourself.”

“I'm damned sorry in myself for you.”

“That's all right.”

“Bad luck—we all know it's damned bad luck. It's only what the Corps Commander feels. He's fed up. That's why he's putting in the other crowd to get the trenches back. It's only that I had to tell you.”

“That's all right. Don't worry.” The Colonel sat immovable and imperturbable as ever.

“I hope it won't have harmed your fellows, don't you know.”

“It's difficult to harm the dead.”

He was one of the best of the War Correspondents upon the Western Front. Nine
months of war experience, combined with his professional knowledge and training,
enabled him to separate the essential from the unessential and to give to the
British public just that information which it required upon the things that
mattered, such as the nature of the struggle, the magnitude of the issues involved,
and the morale of the troops. He did not believe in writing up from theory or
hearsay, but preferred to portray events and characters as he saw them with his own
eyes in the course of his regulated wanderings. It was at places like this that he
would, he had discovered, obtain the material that he wanted. At G.H.Q. and behind
the Corps area the war tended to become rather remote, but here at St.
Janter-Biezen, in Corps reserve, he could find those who practically until yesterday
had been engaged in hand-to-hand conflict, and who now had leisure to recount
something of their experiences in that forbidden land which even he was not allowed
to enter. He would see for himself of what manner of stuff the battalion of
“K.1” was made. He had heard stories on the way up, some not
altogether favourable. Never mind stories. He was not
Bowles of
the
Daily Thunderer,
who spent his time in the messes
and the hospitals at the Base: he would get among them, and form judgment for
himself.

The day at St. Jan-ter-Biezen proved to be a day well spent. He was glad to see at the outset that the appalling losses which they had suffered had not quelled the military instincts of the battalion. They paraded as usual for battalion drill, and he noticed that the peculiar variations of detail in arms drill and formal manœuvre upon which the Southshires had prided themselves from time immemorial were observed as punctiliously by these soldiers of less than a year's standing as they could possibly have been by the 1st Battalion itself at Aldershot. He availed himself of the ample opportunities which Chip Viner, the Adjutant, afforded him of inspecting the huts and mess-rooms, and found, as he expected to find, that they were scrupulously orderly and clean. At B.H.Q. itself everybody, from the Colonel downwards, was busily occupied, and he noticed that both here and in the Quartermaster's department much time was being spent upon the composition of casualty lists and the sorting of effects. It was a sad business, but it was being executed in a thorough unemotional manner which spoke volumes for the spirit of those remaining.

In the afternoon, after a lunch at Headquarters mess, at which conversation seemed hardly less free than usual, and in which the Colonel seemed to have been in particularly good form, he walked across to the adjacent field to watch the games which Harry, the old Carlisle
three-quarter, and Robbie had organised. They were playing both Soccer and Rugger with a will, officers and men together, keen as mustard for “C” Company to beat the rest. Best of good signs, this, and the note-book was plied that afternoon. Nothing much the matter with the spirit of an Army in which men could come straight from Ypres to a game of football. That was the sort of thing that people at home might take a lesson from: no grousing or repining here, but on with the game with a swing, and jolly good luck to the next attack. Then, after tea, when the parades and inspections of the day were over, what of those little groups jesting round by their tents, ambling about or playing the eternal House—“Click, click,” “Top of the 'ouse”—happy to all appearance, happy and carefree, forgetting already their grim experiences. What men they were! And how the heart of the British public should swell with pride when it read any portrayal, however inadequate, of their daily life.

And if this could be said of the men, what could be said to do justice to the officers? If they had had to combine four messes into one, if out of the full complement but the C.O., acting Adjutant, two company commanders and five subalterns were remaining, then those remaining would see to it that in that one joint mess the old traditions should be maintained, and that the spirit of the British officer and gentleman should prevail over all adversity. They'd been through it all right; he could see that with half an eye. He wasn't like that fool Derry, of the
Wire,
who always pretended that the British soldier was insensible to
suffering. He saw the marks of strain. Toler, heavy-eyed and chalky in appearance, looked as if he hadn't slept for days. Bill's hands were trembling, and he guessed that that was not from excessive smoking. That Devonian's tunic seemed a bit too loose round the neck, and that little curly-haired, quiet-voiced chap in the corner, whom they called Cherub and Ganymede when the port came round—his eyes were skeery, and he was pretty well all in: he couldn't speak without a slight stammer, and his head kept twitching. Yes, by God, they were men to bite on the bullet and keep it up like this. He could picture those others, to whom they would refer from time to time as the talk went eternally from the latest show in Town or the chances of conscription coming to Hooge and Sanctuary Wood. He could picture Roffey standing on top of his parapet at Hooge, to fall with a dozen dead Germans round him headlong on his wire; Wray walking out towards the advancing enemy to pick up a soldier whom he had noticed lying wounded in a shell-hole as they were falling back; B.G. the tough tea-planter, standing at a sap-head, still firing steadily with his clothes on fire. Lies, lies all the way, had been told of this division. Those at the Corps who'd downed them so were liars, and he'd see they knew it. He'd got the story clear enough, and they'd hung on where it was hardly possible for men to remain and live: and it was through these men, and those they led, that Sanctuary Wood and Ypres were ours. Their comrades had died at their posts, or had their lives sacrificed uselessly in that counter-attack, supreme act of a general's folly. But these remained, and with them
lived something more—the spirit of a regiment that death itself could not overcome.

It was a fruitful visit. He was thanked by many for his article “The Spirit that Prevails,” an article which went far to steady public opinion at a critical time. He narrated nothing that he did not see, he exaggerated nothing, he put nothing into the mouth of officer or man that had not actually been said in his presence. He paid no more than the tribute that was due. He did not tell, because he did not know, of the company commander who, with ten men left of those 200 whom he had tried to guard and train, fingered his revolver late that night, put it apparently idly to his temple, then suddenly flung it with a curse out into the darkness, or of that other, the Colonel, who wrote in his war diary “Ichabod,” and walked the lanes all night alone.