Pass Guard at Ypres (9 page)

Freddy Mann put back his final stake into his pocket, gathered up the kitty and
a 50-franc note from the grunting and admiring Harry, helped himself to a final not
illiberal whisky and soda, and with a cheery “Evening all. Three
o'clock—must be pushing along. Thanks for a damned good
evening,” swung out of the farm-house to his billet. He whistled as he made
his way across the field, lit his candle and slowly undressed in front of his shack,
then lit a cigarette and took a final stroll, clad in pyjamas and British warm, to
the corner of the enclosure before turning in. A very reasonable ending to a very
reasonable sort of day. Nothing like doing Harry down at poker to finish with,
especially when Harry threw in a full house and he held a pair of nines. There
wasn't much in doing down those two kids who'd joined
“C” Company since he left: they were sitting birds, those kids Ball
and Trench, who'd just come from England with the latest draft, jumped
whenever they heard a shell, and couldn't tell a joker from an ace of
spades.

But Harry was a different matter. He'd given him his first lessons in poker a bare six months ago; he wondered how much he imagined he could teach him now? Yes, and what applied to poker applied to dozens of other things as
well in this ruddy war. Damned fine soldier, Harry, one of the best he'd ever seen, and he would make something of the new “C” Company now that the Skipper had gone to Intelligence, if anybody could. He'd taught him more by example than by talk, most of the tricks of the trade. But was there now much more that he had to learn? He didn't want to buck, but there it was. Townroe had thought him good enough to give him the Battalion bombers, and from what he'd heard so far he hadn't exactly cramped their style. There might be something in that hint Chips had dropped of a “mention” for that July business for all he knew, and, anyway, there was no getting round the fact that the second pip had come through that morning. He'd had four months of it, and seen a bit, but no, he cheerfully reassured himself as he plunged into the darkness of his little triangular abode, the Huns had done their damnedest with him and he was still top-dog. That little singing in his head was nothing. They'd find before they finished that he was by no means done for yet; as Robbie would say, so far he'd played the bowling. And yes, by God, he'd learnt a bit since April.

He had. Take a boy of nineteen from school, put him into uniform, send him abroad, and give him within the space of nine months fifty-six days in the trenches by the Menin Road, and thirty days and nights in Ypres, and he will tend to grow in what passes in a war for wisdom. There wasn't much that Freddy Mann hadn't sampled, from the digging of a cable trench and the martialling of a ration party at Birr Cross Roads to putting a revolver
bullet through the head of a German who was coming at him round a traverse with a bayonet. That first night and first stand-to had been predecessor to many nights of ghostly mystery. There had been other raids since that fearsome expedition led by Toler during the storm in June, when they had spent three hours hung up by machine guns inside the German wire, and Brains had been brought back with a leg he would never use again. He had met others since of the breed of Corporal Sugger, and ex-Regular soldiers, lead-swingers, quartermaster-sergeants and the like held no terrors now for him. He had learnt on the whole to appraise a man's value in the line in inverse proportion to the volume of his talk. Others beside poor Baggallay had gone from a cheery hour in his company, in billet or dug-out, to sudden death. He had seen others besides Sugger suddenly fall shrieking to the bottom of the trench or cower at the corner of a traverse crouching on the fire-step with their backs to the parapet.

There wasn't much in the way of trench warfare, or of the reactions of human beings to twentieth-century armaments, that anybody could tell him. He knew the anxiety which comes with the midnight hours of a moonless night, when one can see but ten yards ahead and some cheerful R.E. officer on his way back to Brigade has remarked that they are certain to attack. He knew that strange sympathy with the German infantry 200 yards away which one instinctively feels when the artillery of each side is registering upon front-line trenches. He knew what it means to stand in a fire-bay and curse the Staff,
the artillery, the A.S.C., the trench-mortar merchants, the next battalion, even the next company, everything, everybody but one's own forsaken little crowd. He knew, with Grenfell, those moments of exaltation which come, even if rarely, when the thundering line of battle stands. All this he knew, and one thing more, what it means to belong to a division and a battalion which is under a cloud, but which knows perfectly well that when the crisis came it did all that any division, Kitchener or Regular, could do. And this knowledge, and the knowledge of what terror means, the loss of comrades and disgrace to accompanying torturing death, had not broken him, but had left him pretty hardened and, as it appeared at the present moment, very much with his monkey up. They'd had their gruel, had they? Good enough! The best in their crowd had been wiped out, only 200 of the originals were remaining. Right. The Boche was still round Wipers, still looking at them from the hills to north and east and south. Just wait a bit, with the Mills bombs coming out, the new drafts being broken in, the battalion reshaped, shrapnel now unlimited and our artillery strengthening day by day. South Africa had started something like this, and—yes—he'd learnt a good deal from good old Bamford; let them wait.

Topping, these September nights, with the harvest moon. He pulled the flap of his doorway to one side, stepped out for a moment and looked around. Gad, it was good to be alive on a night like this. There were our star shells far away, now pretty well as good as theirs; those flashes were the flashes of our guns; and somewhere
there, down at the end of a white road that faded into the moonlit distance, lay a town which stood for the frustration of many German hopes. Be damned to them all—the croakers at home, and the Staff, and the Boche, those swine at Corps H.Q. and all who'd tried to crab them and do them down: hadn't they helped to save their Wipers? And did the Boche imagine that there was nothing more to come, that his bombers and the whole battalion were being fattened for a Laffan's Plain review? There's Loos to come, he muttered with a smile: hope you enjoy it. Good-night, blasted Huns and other pretty darlings. Good-night, Ypres, old girl: sleep safe!

The iron had entered deep: it had not yet pierced to his inmost soul.

To say that Private Bamford was in any real sense elated would be an
overstatement. The experiences of the past few months had only served to deepen his
philosophy in regard to war, and he took the daily events of trenches or reserve
billets without emotion as they came. Yet, on this occasion, one who could have read
in secret places might have perceived a certain vague fluttering round Private
Bamford's heart, not entirely dissimilar to if fainter than that rush of
feeling that had come to him fifteen years before, when he stood at the foot of
Glencoe to face his first engagement. Rumours he knew all about, and no rumour save
of disaster lived long in Bamford's presence. But rumours and definite
statements from G.H.Q. are different matters, and this was clear enough. They were
going over the top that night, over and on and through. That meant, say, by
November, the end of the war, which meant in its turn that he would qualify for his
sixteen years' pension, and be nicely home for Christmas. Just see his
officer through this last little bit, and that would be the end of that, if only he
didn't do anything extra foolish and the bullet with his number didn't
come. Wasn't any thanks to him, he must say, that it hadn't come
already. Look at him now, talking to that Staff
fellow, head
and shoulders over parapet, as if they were looking over the Thames Embankment.
He'd better go and drop him a hint: no—as Private Bamford lumbered a
few steps forward and then drew quickly back—no, in the circumstances, not.
He always believed in lying low while G.O.C.s were about, and here was the G.O.C.
He'd been just like that at Kimberley, he remembered; all this damned
keenness, that was what it was, and it didn't seem as if he'd grown
out of it since then. There they were now, both of 'em at it; Freddy Mann
leaning over and pointing towards the lake, and the G.O.C. eagerly following his
finger. Ought to be at Division, as a matter of fact, the G.O.C. They were going
over three hours from now: he supposed, though, he wanted to be in at the death. So
would he, if he were G.O.C. Bit of all right, to be a G.O.C., and know your whole
blooming Division was going through. None of that Redvers business this time. Lucky
swine, the G.O.C., to have a job like his, and know he was top-dog over the Boche.
Hullo, he was off now, with Harry. Funny, that way he fell behind for a moment, and
looked back and tugged at his moustache as if he were worried about something. Just
a trick, that was all that was; nothing much to worry about for him or anybody else.
The Boche was done: French had said so himself in so many words in this special
order that had just come round. No earthly doubt about it, reflected Private
Bamford, as he contentedly spat pieces of plug into the corner of the traverse: it
can only mean one thing when a General visits a front line trench twice in
twenty-four
hours, and an officer gives his batman ten francs
to buy chocolate at the first shop they come to, and tells him to keep the change.
He'd just shove along now, and begin to get ready for it by scrounging the
Q.M.S.'s rum.

The worst that could be said against General Vicke as a soldier and a Divisional Commander was that he was too attached to his men. This fault had been the subject of comment at Aldershot and was increasingly in evidence during the operations in Belgium in 1915. Care for one's men is, of course, inculcated as one of his first duties into the mind of every junior officer, and previously in South Africa and India General Vicke had shown that he had learnt his lesson to the full. When, however, one arrives at the rank of Major-General, and finds oneself in command of 12,000 infantrymen and gunners, to say nothing of mounted troops and details, care for the individual must to a certain extent be merged in considerations of strategy and of the unit as a whole. It was by this time sufficiently established that a division in such a sector as Ypres loses 60 per cent. of its strength every three months, and entirely changes its personnel, sometimes more than once, in a year.

The wise commander, in view of this, will therefore steel himself against undue interest in the subaltern or private soldier. His men cannot in the nature of things be to him as were Methuen's to their commander in
South Africa, or Roberts' at Kandahar. It was a pity that with all his excellent qualities General Vicke never quite appreciated this point. To have done so would have in no way conflicted with his well-established habit of slipping off whenever possible to the front-line trenches, and dropping into dug-outs to share a drink from flask or canteen with subalterns or men. He could have done this, and still known every officer and many N.C.O.'s by their names, while recognising without mental disturbance the fact that within a few weeks or at most months they were almost bound to part. As it was, as Corps Commanders and high Staff officers would remark, this damned paternal interest was all very well, but there was a war on, and you can't make omelettes without breaking eggs, and all this worrying about casualties upset corps commanders' equanimity and the peace of Army Conferences.

He was, it was recognised, getting on, was Vicke, and probably it was too late to change him now, but the Corps Commander didn't like it and it was rumoured that it was this defect alone that kept him from greater things than a divisional command. If he had dropped 10,000 in the Salient since April, well, so had others, that and more, and he would probably drop a damned sight more before he'd finished, so he'd better just make up his mind to it and cease to worry. Which was just what Archie Vicke refused to do. He would pore over casualty lists, ask who 24,218 of the Redjackets or 44,317 of the Southshires was, and whether he was married or single, and what sort of a wound he had had, and whether he had died in pain, and who had written
to his relatives, and get hold of the A.D.M.S. and ask him whether it wasn't possible to save more lives, and criticise tactical plans submitted to him on the ground that they involved undue exposure to the men, and turn his R.E.s on to the building of shell-proof shelters for O.P.s even if it meant taking them away from their other work. As the Army Commander once remarked, the thing seemed always on his mind.

Some hoped that matters would improve after the flame attack, in which two of his brigades had practically been wiped out. But although he was always cheerful enough, as he stumped round the line in his blue reefer coat, or sat at the head of his mess-table in the evening, watching the port go round, August saw no real change, and this defect in his composition prevented his appreciating the beauty of the plan which involved the holding attack on September 25th at Ypres. Though he failed to realise it, his division really didn't fare so badly: their casualties were, of course, in excess of those estimated, but as this invariably proved to be the case there was nothing to be surprised at there. The division didn't gain any ground, but, as General Vicke guessed, it wasn't really expected to, and, more important, it didn't lose any, which, in view of the situation as it had appeared at 3.30 that afternoon behind Bellewarde Farm, was rather lucky. His own regiment did not disgrace itself again. The subaltern in whom he had been interested came through, after hanging on throughout the day and the greater part of the night with a little squad of men to a few sandbags and bits of timber which he called a trench
by Witteport Farm, trying to keep a Lewis gun going with half the team knocked out, scrambling round the dead and wounded for ammunition, and praying that the death which seemed each moment more inevitable would be merciful and sudden when it came.