A Test to Destruction (10 page)

“‘A’ Company, Captain Kidd reporting, sah!” he barked. “All present and correct! Nominal Roll prepared for the Orderly Room Sergeant, sah!” Having got rid of that, he changed his part. “Congratters my mad son on your third pip! Lovely day, what? Too blasted quiet for Bill Kidd’s liking. Bill Kidd knows where he is when the old Johnsons are floppin’ about!”

“Johnsons?”

“Aye, Johnsons! Coal Boxes! Black Marias! Angels of Mons and all that stuff. A shout! A scream! A roar! Black in the face!” He coughed, bending down to keep attention upon himself. “Sorry for the rust in the old organ pipes.” He adjusted his 5-ft. length of thick, loosely knitted worsted scarf, weighing
about 4 lb., flung twice round his neck and almost hiding his chin. “That’s better. Keep the old vocal chords warm. Well, old boy, I’ll give you a buzz when we’re all safely tucked up in the old keep. Chin chin, see you later.”

He faded back into the mist, and the last Phillip was to hear of him for two days was a rasping, “Come on, you crab wallahs, do an allez!” and then the thread of mouth-organ music grew faint, to nothing.

Phillip stood with the padre by the sentry’s brazier. “Quite a character, Bill Kidd,” said the padre. “The men would follow him anywhere. The only thing he appears to be afraid of is French cartridges!”

“How is that, padre?”

“Well, as you know, most of the fellows after some time out here get superstitious fears. With Bill it’s French cartridges. This particular hoodoo began, I gather, when some of the boys in the 8th battalion in Oppy Wood found some French cartridges, and carried them as souvenirs. First one, then another, was killed by shell-fire. Then in that raid a week or two ago, four men who had them in their haversacks fell under a direct hit. Bill plays his harmonica to overcome the hoodoo.”

Talk came round to the Germans. “They’re sportsmen, most of them,” said the padre. “I remember a stretch of the Menin Road between Hooge Tunnel and Clapham Junction, I expect you know it? The road there at that particular section, you may remember, was still under direct observation after we had captured the pill-box at Clapham Junction. My job during the battle was to bring stretcher cases down the road from Inverness Copse. Most of the troops and carrying parties went up and down under the right bank, and were under constant fire from everything, but when I went down on the road itself with the wounded, the Germans never fired their machine guns. It wasn’t chance, I’m pretty sure, for on three occasions they laid off when stretchers and walking wounded were going down.”

Phillip warmed to the padre, telling him of similar experiences at Loos, again on July the First, and at Passchendaele.

“Oh yes, they’re sportsmen; the pity is that our newspapers don’t publish such things, but I suppose the people at home wouldn’t understand, that’s the tragic part of it. Well, I must be off, but before I go, do let me tell you the story of our Chaplain-General, Bishop Gwynne. I was riding with him on my
way to Third Army School at Auxi-le-Château last summer, when he told me about a chaplain in a battalion of the London Regiment who insisted on going into the trenches with the boys. He had a board outside his dug-out with the words
The
Vicarage
painted on it. One day a Cockney passed and said to his pal, ‘Blime Bill, who’d have thought to see a bloody vicarage in the front line?’ At that the chaplain popped out his head and said, ‘That’s right! Now you’ve seen the bloody vicar, too!’ ‘And,’ said the Chaplain-General, ‘that’s the kind of chaplain I’m trying to get them to send out to France.’ Cheerio, Maddison, and all the best!”

Phillip waited until the other two companies had been checked in, then went back in high spirits to report their departure. ‘Spectre’ was still lying on his back covered by blankets on a stretcher, his boots sticking out like those of a dead man. “Numbers One, Three, and Four Companies have left for the Aviary, sir. It is nearly 4 a.m. The order to Man Battle Positions came in just after 2 a.m.”

“I heard it.”

A hand came from under the blankets, and took his, the pressure remaining upon his fingers for a few moments, then ‘Spectre’ said,

“If you feel you have been made unhappy by your father, think that it was because your father has been made unhappy, too.”

“I understand, Westy.”

A stumped wrist—the black-gloved dummy had been taken off—crossed with the hand and gave a double clasp. “Bless you, dear boy. Now get some sleep. We’ll be leaving for our advanced headquarters at 4.30.”

Fully clothed beside the security of the telephone, Phillip lay calmly still. There was little under an hour to go. Then messages began to arrive, and no sleep was possible, or desired.

At 4.30 a.m., as he was slinging haversack, field glasses, map case, water-bottle, revolver, etc. he felt the chalk under him beginning to tremble. Then the air was rumbling. He went outside and stood in a light-pattern of thousands of great scissors flashing to the Galaxy.

*

An hour later, soaked with sweat, the battalion H.Q. party was inside the 30-ft. deep dug-out of the inner Zone. There, sitting
on the floor beside the telephone, Phillip managed to make some notes for the C.O.’s use when he had time to write up the battalion War Diary.

At 6.5 p.m. Lt.-Col. West ordered Phillip to report the situation to Brigade, which had moved to its advanced headquarters in the Quarry. ‘Spectre’ gave him a sealed envelope for the Brigadier.

The sun was going down south-west of the wooded Sydenham heights, upon which stood the familiar Crystal Palace, as Richard crossed the Hill that evening. In the old days its glass roof had often gleamed with little flecks of fire, reminding him of his boyhood in the West Country; but now the panes of the roof were painted black, lest they guide enemy aircraft into London. And so, he thought, was life; come almost to darkness.

In the City the news had broken at mid-day that a great battle was raging along a 50-mile front. Phillip, in the Peronne sector, must be feeling, as he put it to himself, ‘the full force of it’. He must be the first with the news, breaking it gently, lest Hetty imagine the worst, as she tended to do nowadays.

With long strides, carrying a copy of
The
Pall
Mall
Gazette
folded under one arm against the crook of his umbrella, and bowler hat in hand, he crossed the Hill, went down the gully—putting on his hat before reaching Hillside Road—and with a dull feeling of arrival, opened his front door. At once he felt disappointment, then vexation, at the sound of his father-in-law’s voice. Having wiped his boots on the mat, he unstiffened himself to be amiable, and looking round the kitchen door, said “Good evening, Mr. Turney”, while his glance took in an open copy of the Liberal paper
The
Star,
from which his father-in-law had apparently been reading.

“I am afraid I have interrupted you,” he said, withdrawing his head.

“Oh no, Dickie, Papa was just going——”

“The news is good, I fancy, according to Bonar Law in the House this afternoon, Dick.”

Richard, having hung up black hat and black umbrella, opened the door wide, out of courtesy, before facing the other man.

“Well, Mr. Turney, all I can say is I hope that Bonar Law knows what he is talking about. Castleton in the
Trident
has long urged that there be changes in the High Command.”

“That may be so, Dick. For myself, I cannot help thinking that if only Asquith had remained we might by now be at peace. No good can come of the war now, that I can see.”

“If I may venture an opinion, Mr. Turney, it was Asquith and his Liberal Government before the war who insisted on cutting the Army estimates, thereby causing so many regiments to be disbanded. Had that not been so, we might have had a just peace by now.”

Thomas Turney, cloth cap pulled down over bald head sunken into heavy coat collar, went back next door, where his elder sister Marian, upright in her chair, awaited him. Always stiff, always attentive, she irritated the old man. Why did she always watch him like a cat watching a mouse! Why didn’t she read a book sometimes? He had gone to see his daughter with a view to advertising for a housekeeper. He felt Marian was destroying him. She was the eldest of the family, and had always tried to mother him. It was time she went elsewhere.

Marian Turney suspected this, but was too reserved to say anything to her niece about it; even as she concealed the belief that she was going blind.

“The macaroni cheese is ready in the oven, turned low as you told me, Tom. Would you care to have your supper served now, or will you have it later?”

“Wait a minute, woman! Can you not let me rest still a moment? And if supper is to be served now, how can I have it later? You waste words.” He sat down, after struggling to remove his ulster coat, having refused her help. He was thinking of Phillip; and of Charlie’s boy, young Tom, with the South Africans.

In her sitting-room, while Richard ate sausages largely made of bread and gristle, Hetty waited to hear the latest news. It was not so much that she dared not to ask her husband, but that behind her reluctance hovered the spirit of fear which had long settled into a feeling of dread whenever she thought of Phillip: a feeling which, accumulating during the day, usually broke blackly into the sleepless small hours of night, a period only to be endured by prayer, which brought relief, usually, half an hour or so before she had to get up at 7 a.m.

Richard, having finished his supper, put the bits of gristle in a match-box for the cat—later. Zippy was anxious, too, for sometimes its benefactor left the match-box beside the clock for long
periods. On such occasions it would utter a faint
me-ow,
and Richard would say gently “You must learn patience, Zippy,” and continue the reading of
The
Daily
Trident,
which blanked out his face to the cat.

“Where are the girls, Hetty? Have they come in yet?”

“Elizabeth is going to Nina’s for supper, and will be home about nine o’clock, Dickie, while Doris has gone to see a friend who lives in St. Margaret’s road. She won’t be late, I’m sure.”

“Oh. Is this another young fellow?”

“Oh no, Dickie! Mary is one of the girl students at Bedford College.”

“Does Doris still hear from that young fellow—what’s his name—Willoughby?”

“I think he writes to her occasionally, Dickie.”

“Who are his people, d’you know?”

“I don’t think Doris knows. He lives in Essex, I think she said.”

“H’m. Well, it’s none of my affair, I suppose. Is it, Zippy?” He rattled the match-box, while the big yellow neuter cat me’ow’d inaudibly. “You must learn patience, Zippy!” He put the box on the chimney shelf before changing boots for carpet slippers. Thus comforted by the sign that master was not going out, the cat settled down before the coke fire, the words
learn
patience
causing it to think of food. It began to purr, almost inaudibly.

After reading a third of the paper Richard took out his half-hunter gold watch and compared its time with that of the clock on the marble shelf above the fire-place. “Eight o’clock, Hetty. Time for you to forsake me, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’ve just remembered, how silly of me to forget! Might I see the thing about Bonar Law——?”

“But surely your father read it to you?”

“Oh no, Dickie! Papa came in to talk over an advertisement for a housekeeper.”

“H’m,” said Richard, remembering the circumstances of the last housekeeper’s sudden departure. “You’d better be careful——” His sense of good taste prevented him from saying what he thought.

“Oh yes, of course, naturally! But perhaps when the better weather comes——” She, too, stopped her words, lest he think the worse of her father, should it mean Aunt Marian’s departure.

“Here you are,” he said, offering the evening paper, which had remained beside him on the table. “You worry yourself needlessly. Why didn’t you say you wanted it before?”

Knowing that he liked to read bits from the paper, she asked him to tell her what it was, and got the reply, “Better read it for yourself, then there can be no mistake about the need for a compromise peace with that old woman Asquith kowtowing to Prussian militarists!” And feeling better, Richard dropped the match-box on the floor for Zippy to try to hook open. Soon the box was skating all over the linoleum, the cat playing happily while knowing that sooner or later the box would be opened by
Dickie,
a name it knew as well as its own.

She could not understand what Bonar Law, the Leader of the House of Commons, meant by these words, except in the last two lines, which relieved her feelings; and with some cheerfulness, which Richard did not fail to notice, she went out of the room and by the back way into her father’s house to play piquet.

*

As Phillip made his way from shell-hole to shell-hole bullets were coming from all directions. He passed a howitzer being pulled on to the road by a caterpillar tractor. Wounded men were lying about. He spoke to many, saying, ‘Help is coming’, while wondering what he could do to keep his promise. Very lights were white-blurring through the mist to his left front as he hastened, sometimes lying down at the imminent shriek of a shell, on the way to the Quarry. There he delivered ‘Spectre’s’ letter, and gave what information he could to the Brigadier, including the fact that the Germans appeared to be behind the right flank. Then he went across to the Aid Post, where the M.O. and his orderlies were obviously overworked. He returned
to Brigade headquarters, and after a drink of hot sweet tea said he must be getting back. The Brigade-major told him to take it easy, and stand by for the time being.

At 8.30 p.m. the Brigadier discussed with his Brigade-major a message which had been brought by despatch-rider,
The
Battle
Zone
will
be
held
to
the
last
man.

“Sir——” began Phillip, but the Brigadier impatiently flipped away words with his hand.

“Sorry, sir.” He went outside the sand-bagged shelter, and suddenly felt very cold. Mogger’s arrival was cheering, until Moggers said that ‘Pluggy’ Marsden had been killed by a shell that morning.

“I am sure that we ought to retire, Moggers——”

“Now don’t try and do ‘Aig’s job for ’im, Lampo.”

He left Moggers. At 9.14 p.m. Allen appeared. He reported that the Germans were in the right flank redoubt. The Aviary was under heavy m.g. and mortar fire from two sides. He was sent back with the Brigadier’s order to hold on.

“Can’t I go, too?” Phillip asked the Brigade-major.

“Not at the moment, Maddison.”

Deep depression overcame Phillip. He passed a cold night in the Quarry, wondering off and on if ‘Spectre’s’ letter to the Brigadier contained an adverse report.

At dawn mist lay thickly, hiding all objects beyond forty yards. The Brigade-major snowed him a message from Division, signed by Brendon, saying that every opportunity should be taken to counter-attack the enemy probably assembling under cover of fog. “Can’t you see old Shotbags picking his teeth after breakfast, while wondering if his effort to win the war will get him a gong, Maddison?”

Phillip said ‘Huh’, while thinking: What is happening to Westy? It was senseless to allow them all to be killed. That was what the Germans wanted. He recalled a newspaper phrase—
‘the
anvil
of
Verdun’.

Shortly after 11.0 a.m. a motorcycle despatch rider appeared through the salvoes of five-nines and shrapnel now regularly plastering the road. It was a Fifth Army Order ‘to all commands’. The B-m. showed it to Phillip.

“That’s what we’ve been waiting for, Maddison. Will you get it through to ‘Spectre’?”

Papers were being brought out for burning. Phillip was slinging bandoliers of S.A.A. over his shoulders when a grey-faced subaltern, accompanied by three other walking wounded came into the Quarry and incoherently, through chattering teeth, managed to get out that a German machine-gun was covering the exit from the Belvedere. With the Brigade-major’s permission Phillip set off with Sergeant Tonks carrying one of the two Lewis guns which had been set up above the Quarry to cover the road. He took a canvas pannier, with spare drums and a couple of Mills bombs. Some time later, after nipping from shell-hole to shell-hole, they heard, shockingly near in the mist, the shattering reports of a German gun.

Writhing over the grass in the direction of the noise, they saw it mounted on its sled on the edge of a crater. Tonks sited and fired a drum right into the back of the team. Pushing himself forward, all teeth and sweat and fixed staring eyes, Phillip flung himself into a shell-hole and pulling out the pin of a Mills bomb stood up to throw it after counting off three seconds. After the explosion he looked up and saw a large dog twisting round and round. It seemed to be biting itself near two Germans holding up their hands. Wrenching free his revolver he went forward, beating out with his teeth the tune of the blonde who came from Eden by way of Sweden. Then he was looking down at the knocked-out gun, its barrel ragged and steaming beside Germans writhing or still. He became aware of two sets of held-up arms, and from him came a hysterical cry
Mein
prächtige
kerl
s
!

Tonks came up. The two prisoners were young and small, with oversize coal-scuttle helmets. Tonks said, lifting back his tin hat, “Would you believe it, sir, that’s what’s been pushing our boys around!”

The dog was tearing at its own intestines, its muzzle was bloody, it was yelping. Then he saw a wounded German turning over to draw a pistol. He shot him in the head, then took a pot shot at the dog’s head. He missed, felt wretched because the
bullet had broken the lower jaw. Its screams were unnerving; he shot it from two feet, it rolled about, and went limp. “Message dog,” said Tonks. “Poor sod,” as he took the pistol from the dead German. “I’ll have that,” said Phillip. It was a Parabellum, with a leather wallet of ammunition. He gave his Webley to Tonks. Meanwhile men were beginning to scramble out of the end of the communication trench and coming towards them in the mist. He placed some in an arc around the exit to give covering fire if necessary.

All had happened so quickly and easily that it seemed scarcely to be over. But a salvo of whizzbangs scattering chalk brought back the need to hustle.

“Quick, you fellows!”

They were the survivors of three battalions, from both Bird Cage and Aviary.

“You take charge, corporal! To the Quarry! Now you! You! You! Back you go. Keep together under the senior N.C.O. Sort yourselves out later on. Now you! You! You!” He waited for the last men to come out. To his immense relief, ‘Spectre’ was among them.