The Beauty and the Sorrow (59 page)

The officers and the crew live together, are both metaphorically and literally in the same boat, but their living conditions are actually grotesquely different. That is true of everything from their food and their living quarters (officers’ cabins are furnished like upper-class homes,
with oriental rugs, padded leather armchairs and original art) to their working conditions and leisure (ordinary seamen are rarely given leave whereas officers can sometimes be excused from duty for months on end and, when in port, often sleep in their own homes). The proximity which is inevitable aboard ship has revealed these hitherto hidden distinctions with unprecedented clarity. At the same time, the absence of activity, of battle and of victories—in short, of blood—has made it possible to question the differences.

Things are different in the army. Even though there are eye-catching differences in conditions there too, there are practical reasons why they are not so glaring, and they can even be excused to some extent by reference to the demands and sacrifices of army service. There is no more dangerous occupation in this war than that of a junior officer in the infantry.
ⁿ
In the navy, however, in the virtually immobile High Seas Fleet, the demands on officers are small and their sacrifices even smaller. So what justification can there be for their privileges other than that they come from a privileged class? And is there not a real possibility that all this high-flown talk of honour and duty and sacrifice will eventually lose its power and stand revealed as a pretext to keep the masses in their place?

Stumpf sees manifestations of the class system even in this anniversary celebration. The officers naturally keep their own company in their luxuriously appointed mess and enjoy a bacchanalia that goes on until four o’clock in the morning. The ordinary seamen are treated to nothing more than “a few barrels of watery beer” and their party is held up on the deck. What bothers Stumpf most, however, is not that the officers get so much and the crew so little—what really upsets him this evening is that so many of the ordinary seamen are still prepared to bow and scrape to their masters (who grin at them condescendingly) in order to be rewarded with some words of appreciation and some crumbs from their table:

The officers’ mess resembled a lunatic asylum. But what was even more scandalous was to see the seamen begging beer, cigarettes
and schnapps off these drunkards. I could have screamed out loud at the way they humiliated themselves. Some of them lost all self-control and assured the officers that they were good sailors and good Prussians, and as a reward they got an extra glass of beer. It finally reached the stage where they were cheering individual officers and their generosity.

WEDNESDAY
, 6
JUNE
1917
Paolo Monelli marches up to the front line at the Cima della Caldiera

Evening. They march. The long column of the battalion makes its way steadily upwards in the dusk. They all know where they are going. Those who were here during last year’s battles point out the places they recognise and name the names of men who fell. “Via dolorosa.” At first, looking down, down into the valley bathed in moonlight, gives Monelli a marked feeling of vertigo, but soon his growing tiredness means that he slowly loses interest in everything around him. Finally, there is only the tramping of feet, and weariness.

They march across the plateau under the cover of darkness, feeling the vague waves of cold coming up from the snow that is still left. He sees some big fires and he sees men sleeping: these are the units that will be in tomorrow’s attack. He thinks,
Poor devils
. Then he thinks:

Every man’s lot seems more wretched than my own. Not to have been selected to take part in the first wave of the attack seems to me to be an immense piece of good fortune and I am amazed that these men can sleep so calmly, these men who once outside the trench tomorrow will let go of everything that protects their lives. I am afraid for them. (It’s not so different from the times I have been seized by vertigo when standing on a boulder watching a man clinging to a sheer rock-face—and then the next day I have followed in his footsteps.)

They reach their goal at dawn and make camp. He sees cliffs, snow and the occasional pine tree.

MONDAY
, 11
JUNE
1917
Angus Buchanan comes under attack at Ziwani

Where is the enemy? Where are our own people? These are the questions that always come up during night operations. At the stroke of twelve, under cover of darkness, Buchanan’s 25th Royal Fusiliers, together with one of the growing number of black battalions, are put ashore at a spot up the Lukuledi river ten miles from Lindi and the coast. The idea is a good one: in this way they, in combination with a force that is advancing in the north, will outflank the strong German positions closer to the coast.

The problem is that a march that would be difficult enough in daylight will be something approaching a nightmare in the dark, and in the bush. For once, however, those in command have thought about this. The idea is that Buchanan’s battalion will march through flat bush country along a narrow-gauge railway that they know runs from the river in the direction of Mkwaya. Which is what they do, with the result that his unit moves quite quickly. They all got wet and cold while disembarking on the muddy river bank and the march warms them up. But the questions remain: where is the enemy and where are the rest of our own people? They hope that the black battalion is advancing on a parallel course somewhere to the left of them.

Buchanan hears a solitary cock crowing, loud and clear. He realises that they are approaching a settlement and that dawn is close. He can see a weak glimmer of light on the horizon. He can hear the first muffled explosions of artillery in the distance. It is one of their own gunboats, which has been seen and engaged in an exchange of fire. Soon he can also hear the sound of the British aeroplanes that have been sent up to spot the enemy, who is keeping himself well concealed in the fragrant, dark-green bush.

They pass Mkwaya in the pale light of dawn and there the column turns west in the direction of Mozambique. Two hours later it is broad daylight. When they come up onto a ridge near Ziwani they get their first sighting of what they have been watching for since midnight—the enemy. On the other side of the valley, less than a mile away, large groups of German
askaris
are on the move. He can also see puffs of smoke from the enemy artillery—105mm pieces that the Germans, with their
usual talent for improvisation, have salvaged from the light cruiser SMS
Königsberg
after it was knocked out by the British. When Buchanan and the others move down into the valley they discover that the enemy is already there and they immediately encounter strong German patrols. There are some confused exchanges of fire and the British withdraw to the top of the ridge. It soon becomes clear that the battalion on their left has also made contact with the enemy and the 25th Royal Fusiliers are ordered to dig in on the ridge for the time being.

This work takes the rest of the morning and goes on again after lunch.

At two o’clock, however, something happens.

From a distance of no more than thirty yards there is sudden, deafening and intense gunfire from
askaris
equipped with both rifles and machine guns. They have crept forward through the bush and tall grass completely unseen. Buchanan compares the noise to the clash of a violent thunderstorm.

When he comes to describe the events later he finds it difficult to give a clear picture once the fierce close-range fighting began:

From then on one lost all reckoning of time, all reckoning of everything, except that there was something big on that kept every energy alive and working at fever speed.

One small piece of luck for the British is that the attackers make what is a very common mistake when fighting in dense vegetation: they instinctively aim too high, with the result that most of the bullets go over the defenders’ heads. There is, however, one drawback: the swathes of bullets shoot down bees’ nests that are hanging in the trees and the infuriated insects attack everything and everyone they can find. The stings of this species are particularly painful, and when the otherwise reticent Buchanan writes that the pain drives them “almost crazy” he is not exaggerating. This type of thing happened on several occasions during the campaign in East Africa and on one occasion Buchanan saw a man so badly stung that he quite literally went out of his mind.

The fighting is over by the evening. The attackers withdraw and the 25th Royal Fusiliers remain on the ridge. All the British troops are covered with yellow swellings, in some cases their faces are so swollen that they have difficulty in seeing. Tomorrow they will go back towards Lindi.

THURSDAY
, 14
JUNE
1917
Michel Corday strolls along a Paris boulevard in the evening sun

A whole new theme—not a mere variation—has been added to the old one. Understandably enough, it is related to the American entry into the war. Michel Corday has been in the Chambre des Députés listening to René Viviani. Corday does not have a high opinion of Viviani. It is not just because the man is a weak politician surrounded by rumours of drug abuse, but mainly because of what he did, or rather did not do, in 1914. Viviani, a man of the left who was prime minister at the time of the outbreak of war, had done nothing to avert the catastrophe; indeed, he was one of those who pushed for the war credits that were a necessary precondition for fighting the war.

Viviani’s days as a “Man with Power” are already more or less over, but there is still considerable use for his talents as a speaker, which are undoubtedly great. Viviani specialises in stylish and excited rhetorical flourishes and, as always in these situations, the manner in which something is said is at least as important as the words spoken. The speech he made was, indeed, “an oratorical triumph.” He said more or less the same thing as everyone else is saying and on this occasion, as usual, he put the needle down on the same scratched old record that proclaims fighting “to the bitter end.” But something new was added, something that made Corday catch his breath. The war has a new goal, a new meaning, a new excuse. Its real purpose is now said to be so that “our sons’ sons will not need to lose their lives in such conflicts.” So that’s what it is all about! They are fighting a war to put an end to all wars. A new idea. Neat. A neat slogan.

It is almost seven o’clock in the evening as Corday strolls along one of the boulevards in warm, low sunshine. Street life is a motley scene and in many ways a reflection of the war:

[There are] prostitutes with hats the size of parasols, knee-length skirts, bosoms bared, diaphanous stockings and made-up faces; young officers with unbuttoned collars and magnificent medal ribbons; Allied soldiers—muscular British, inoffensive Belgians, unfortunate Portuguese, Russians with their impressive marching boots, young men in tight battledress.

Corday also comes across a representative of a new phenomenon, the soldier beggar. Of late it has become usual to see them at restaurants or cafés. They are often wearing medals on their chests, fine medals like the Croix de Guerre, awarded for heroism in the field. They sell picture postcards or sing patriotic songs to collect a little money.

The begging soldier Corday meets on the pavement has an arm missing. He is also drunk. He is meandering through the stream of people, asking one, then another, for a few coppers or for a cigarette at least. And he repeats the same word all the time: “Peace … peace …”

Corday later talks to an acquaintance who tells him that the mutinies in the French army are not over and that over 400 mutineers have been shot so far.
^o
His friend also tells him about one mutineer who, when threatened with this fate, said: “If they shoot me at least I’ll know why I died.”

WEDNESDAY
, 20
JUNE
1917
Florence Farmborough returns to the front at Voloschyna

A summer sun. Heat. Thunder in the air. Up on the hill she can see tents covered with branches. She can see horses clustering under the few trees to enjoy the shade. She can see figures bathing in the muddy water of the river. Farmborough is happy to be back. Everything is quiet at the moment, but rumour says that the Russian army will launch a new attack in a few days and in that case they will have more than enough to do.

Farmborough has been away for only a few days to meet some British nurses in another unit, but it was long enough to make her sensitive to things that had earlier passed as everyday normality. Like the food. She hesitates when the standard soldier’s gruel is served. The lumps of fat disgust her. And the fish soup is too salty. Despite her hunger she does
not eat anything apart from black bread, washed down with tea. She finds the conversation depressing and the mood is argumentative.

After dinner, I walked up to the top of our hill with Sofiya. In the far distance were the high mountain peaks, bathed in a soft, cobalt haze. The small villages of Saranchuki, Kotov and Ribniki were lying far below us in their respective valleys; we could see that the homesteads were ruined and deserted. The enemy’s trenches were visible; they seemed perilously near the Russian lines—only 70 feet away, Sofiya said she had heard. There are scarlet patches of poppies in the fields around, marguerites too and a few cornflowers. There is something so comforting, so home-like, about a field of poppies.

On the same day Elfriede Kuhr notes in her diary: