The Rise of Henry Morcar (13 page)

The Germans had taken Liège and were sweeping through Belgium. Now, the British Expeditionary Force had landed in France without a single mishap, so Brussels would not fall.
GERMANS ADVANCE IN FRANCE. SLOW RETIREMENT OF THE ALLIES
.

“Retirement!” exclaimed Morcar, astonished. “The British Army retire?”

GERMANS ENTER BRUSSELS. ENEMY ADVANCING ON GHENT. GERMANS MARCHING SOUTH OF BRUSSELS. POPULACE FLY BEFORE INVADERS. ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? NO! The Kaiser's command is that you exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little army
.

“Contemptible!” exclaimed Morcar. “Treacherous!”

“Do you know, Charlie,” said Morcar soberly, as the two young men left the mill together at noon on Saturday August 22nd, 1914, “I have an idea we aren't doing so well out there? I mean, in France?”

“I've thought so for some time,” said Charlie, grim.

They did not speak again, parting only with a nod when Charlie dismounted from the tram at the end of Hurstholt Road.

Morcar jumped off just before the next stop and swung into his home. His mother was busy cooking in the scullery and called to him not to wash and change before the meal, as it would be ready without delay. Harry accordingly rinsed his hands at the
sink and sat down, and to pass the time picked up the
Annotsfield Weekly Record
, which lay on the table. A large advertisement attacked his eyes:

THE CALL TO ARMS

LORD KITCHENER ASKS FOR

100,000

for His Majesty's Army.

Annotsfield calls upon its sons to do their duty and provide its share of the force.

Come and Help to Fill the Ranks of the Duke of Wellington's Own Regiment.

You can enlist at:

Annotsfield Drill Hall

The Terms of Service are:

Morcar hastily whisked the paper aside as his mother came into the room. He was quiet during the meal, answering in monosyllables her comments on the stories of “hoarding” she read in the papers.

“It isn't right that some should get all and others nothing,” she said. “But I'm bound to say I haven't seen any attempts to get more, in the shops.”

“Don't buy anything extra yourself, Mother,” said Morcar.

“I shouldn't dream of doing so, Harry,” replied his mother with dignity.

Morcar washed and dressed and went out.

“Shall you be in to tea?” asked his mother as he was leaving.

“I hardly think I shall,” replied Morcar with a considering air. He was perfectly sure in fact that he would not.

Where was the Drill Hall? He had no idea, and felt an insuperable objection to enquiring, yet at the same time could not bear a moment's unnecessary delay. A tram passed; he ran-after it and leaped aboard. There were two or three other young men in the tram who looked thoughtful and embarrassed even as he; perhaps he might follow them, mused Morcar. However, in the centre of the town there was no further difficulty; posters of Kitchener's appeal everywhere plastered the walls, with
Annotsfield Drill Hall
and the name of the street filled in at the foot. Morcar swung round a corner rapidly and found himself at the end of a considerable queue.

“Is this the Drill Hall?” he asked the man in front.

“That's right,” replied the man with satisfaction.

“Aye, this way for t'B.E.F.,” cried another, and several turned round and grinned sheepishly at Morcar.

Embarrassed by all this attention, Morcar flattened himself against the wall and kept his head down. A hand fell on his arm and a voice said:

“Harry!”

“Have you been here long, Charlie?” mumbled Morcar.

“No—I'm just a few yards up in the queue,” said Charlie.

“But I'll come back here with you. We may as well stick together.”

The queue moved slowly forward.

“I'll tell you who's going to be fed to the teeth with this,” said Charlie with relish. “John William Shaw, Esquire.”

“Well, it can't be helped,” said Morcar mildly. “Nothing else to be done.”

“Nothing,” agreed Charlie, nodding.

They had expected of course to be off to France in the morning to aid the Contemptibles, as the first British Expeditionary Force now began proudly to call themselves; they expected, they were ready and eager, to perform prodigies of valour and endurance in the terrible battle round Mons. Instead, they were packed off to train at Hudley, ten miles away, and learned to number by the left, salute smartly and wind their puttees tight, while the Contemptibles were in spite of stubborn and prolonged resistance driven back, inexorably back, into France. Paris was in danger, and saved by the battle of the Marne, and Shaw and Morcar were still in England, chafing. To get to France became the greatest ambition of their lives.

Morcar took Army life easily. He had a strong physique, a cheerful disposition and a good deal of patience, and these were the three main requisites. Charlie at first found it a good deal harder. It was symbolic that while Morcar's big burly body looked well in soldier's khaki, the neck of Charlie's jacket always appeared too large. Less strong physically, less placid and more acute than Morcar, Charlie fretted against the maddening delays, the everlasting orders and counter-orders, the route marches to nowhere, the muddles over rations and billeting, the endless drill by old-fashioned sergeants, the tent-pegs without notches, which were often the lot of the British Army recruit in 1914. He continually began his remarks with: “Why don't
they …” and Morcar had to admit that his suggestions, never of course adopted, seemed more sensible than the official scheme. It was probably owing to Morcar's placid good-humour that Charlie's tendency to fret critically over Army regulations never went so far as to mar his good conduct record, while Charlie's quick grasp of unfamiliar terms, the meaning of which he communicated rapidly to Morcar, enabled them both to be and to appear “keen”—a magic word in the vocabulary of officers at that time. Sergeants and officers early recognised that Shaw and Morcar were inseparable, and more use together than apart. They kept each other out of scrapes in their spare time, too. In the Army Morcar discovered the soothing power of beer and when overpoweringly bored was inclined to drink it to excess. But Charlie detested clouded wits and had no patience with his friend in his sodden, slow, post-beer condition, and his sharp raillery diminished the number of Morcar's pints. On the other hand, on Morcar's side of the balance came an incident when the pair once stood together in front of a house in a sordid street in a seaside town.

“Are you going in?” said Charlie.

“No!” said Morcar emphatically.

Charlie took a step or two towards the door and stood, considering. Morcar turned and walked along the street. In a moment Army boots clattered on the pavement, and Charlie stood beside him.

All these discontents, however, existed only while they were in England. Charlie was splendid once they were in the front line. Lively, resourceful, cheerful, tireless, in two weeks he was a first-class soldier, the pillar and support of all company commanders, liked and respected and listened to by the men. Morcar too was not without his value. Trenches where Morcar dwelt always emerged from his stay improved—sides revetted, duckboards laid, firing-steps in good condition, dug-outs made comfortable by many ingenious devices. Charlie had a thoroughly “offensive” spirit and was always thinking up new ways of annoying and outwitting the Boche; Morcar was best when the enemy after heavy shelling came over on a raid, or made a flanking attack, or blew up an uncomfortably close mine. Charlie joked and jested, always knew numbers and times and mileages and names, wrote long amusing letters home and once had a piece printed in the
Wipers Times
. He was always the first to volunteer for dangerous duty, always the first—that is, until he got a stripe—to discover the inconvenience in a new order and grumble at it. Morcar smiled at his jokes, pondered them during the night and on sentry duty, sometimes added a footnote or an
illustration. He understood distances and the directions from which sounds came and had a better eye for a sniper than Charlie, but could not make deductions from observed facts as quickly as he. They both loathed mud, rats and lice, but Charlie felt them more acutely than Morcar, who on his side felt so cramped in the narrow trench that the order to go over the top was almost a pleasure to him.

In a word, they were two typical specimens of the men who from 1915 onwards held the British line—the new armies.

A certain page in the history of the Regiment:

The main activity of the Battalion at that time was patrolling. In this department Corp. C. J. Shaw (acting/Sergeant) was extremely active. Night after night he penetrated deeply into No Man's Land in his effort to secure prisoners for an identification. Though unsuccessful in this, he secured valuable information as to the strength of the enemy wire, his dispositions, defences and working parties. On October 12th a small party under his control went out, consisting of four other ranks including Pte. H. Morcar. There had been desultory shelling by the enemy during the evening, but mostly directed to the rear. The ground was not easy to cross, being one mass of shell-holes, and littered everywhere with the débris of scattered trenches and wire entanglements. They had reached a point about thirty yards from the enemy's line when a flare went up and revealed their presence. They flung themselves flat but they had been seen, the rattle of machine-gun fire was heard and there were casualties, Pte. Jessopp being wounded. Under the direction of Corp. Shaw they now contrived to roll into a shell-hole nearby, partly filled with water, Pte. Morcar assisting Pte. Jessopp. Unluckily the Jerries had evidently planned a “strafe” for this night, for shells now began to fall more quickly on the sector and in a moment a full-dress barrage developed. Meanwhile a merciless machine-gun fire was directed towards the shell-hole, Corp. Shaw's previous patrol exploits having probably made the Jerries nervous. After a time the shelling died down and the party repeatedly attempted to withdraw. As soon as the enemy detected the movement, however, heavy rifle and machine-gun fire broke out again. In one of these bursts of fire Corp. Shaw was wounded, and altogether the withdrawal was a very difficult operation. Eventually Pte. Morcar carried Corp. Shaw on his back to safety, receiving two bullets through his clothes and one through his left arm while doing so. He then actually returned across No Man's Land to help Pte. Jessopp, who had lost consciousness owing to the loss of blood from a wound in his face. For his coolness, courage and gallantry
throughout this operation, Pte. Morcar was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and after his recovery from his wound at a base hospital, proceeded to England for a commission. Corp. Shaw …

The shell-hole was luckily a deep one; from the slimy greenish water at the bottom protruded the hand and head of a German soldier killed on a patrol ten days ago. Jessopp touched Morcar's hand and made uncouth moaning noises. Morcar wriggled round on his stomach in the mud so that he could put his ear close to the man's lips, and said: “What is it, lad?” Jessopp made desperate efforts to articulate words but could only moan grotesquely, and suddenly a spurt of blood flowed over Morcar's ear. He shook his head to get rid of it, and the barrage broke out again. Heavy explosions seemed to stamp brutally on the shrinking earth so that it trembled; a vast weight of metal screamed and roared through the air above their heads. From time to time portions of the sides of the crater slid down into the water with dismal splashes.

“Did you cop anything, Harry?” whispered Charlie.

“No. How about you?”

“All right.”

“I think Jessopp's broken his jaw.”

Charlie crawled over in Jessopp's direction.

The gun-fire died away at last; the hush was wonderful. Crouching in the mud in the darkness—which was not as dark as they could wish, the moon must have risen behind the clouds— the men in the shell-hole listened for sounds from the nearby enemy trench. A harsh and angry voice harangued the Jerries.

“We might go now while the blighter's talking,” whispered Charlie.

“Better wait till they stand down—they'll all be there now, listening to the officer,” cautioned Morcar.

They waited. The voice went on and on in a jerky rhythmical manner.

“We can't wait here for ever,” said Charlie impatiently: “It'll soon be daylight. Besides, we must get Jessopp in. Are you ready, lads? We'll make a dash for it. Can you walk, Jessopp?”

A vague stirring and rustling in the darkness and an uncouth sound from Jessopp signified assent.

“Come on!” whispered Charlie. He leaped up out of the shell-hole.

There was a sharp crack; he spun round and fell on Morcar's feet so that Morcar stumbled over him. He was evidently unconscious, for he did not exclaim. A machine-gun rattled venomously.

“Keep down there!” ordered Morcar, pulling Charlie into the crater. “We must wait.”

At last, when they had heard no sounds for some time, they tried again. Morcar heaved Charlie on to his back—it was not easy, because the sides of the crater were steep and slippery and he had a horror of falling into that loathsome water. However he managed it at last, got Charlie's arms over his shoulders and tried to link his hands. But Charlie's fingers slipped apart. “Still unconscious,” thought Morcar anxiously. Holding his rifle in one hand, he gripped Charlie's left wrist firmly in the other and crawled out of the shell hole. A couple of rifles spat in their direction and the rattle of the machine-gun began again. But it was too late to wait any longer, daylight was threatening. Stooping and crawling and taking all the cover they could find, they crept towards the British trenches. The Jerries at the machine-gun lost them and found them again; Morcar staggered and fell, and finished the distance on his belly. There was a moment when in the dim pre-dawn light the British barbed wire loomed up ahead of him thick and unbroken; with difficulty he heaved himself to the left—Charlie seemed to weigh a ton in spite of his light frame and he wasn't doing a thing to help himself, reflected Morcar irritably. Then he saw the gap he was seeking, just ahead. But now it seemed far, far away; each barb he passed seemed miles apart. He was panting as though he was pushing his bike up Hurst Bank, reflected Morcar, and with a great effort rose to hands and knees. His left arm was stiff from gripping Charlie. Something pulled sharply at his sleeve. He croaked the password. “Harry!” said a voice. Charlie's weight rolled off him—the relief was heavenly. “He's wounded,” explained Morcar thickly. “Unconscious.” The familiar cry went up: “Stretcher-bearer!” Where was that idiot Jessopp? Charlie, who never lost a man on patrol, would be vexed if Jessopp got left behind. “Come
along
, Jessopp!” urged Morcar angrily, seizing the prostrate man by the band of his trousers and half carrying, half dragging him to the gap in the wire. The enemy artillery was starting up again, though what was the point of such a noisy bombardment unless they were planning a daylight attack, heaven knew; it was a senseless waste of metal.