A Test to Destruction (12 page)

Allen went away, to return and say, “Captain Kidd has the Lewis gun team, just inside the wire, sir.”

“He’s mad,” muttered Phillip, as they went back to the right flanking company.

They sat on a fallen tree.

After some minutes a hare came lolloping over the field towards the wood. It sat up, ears erect, just inside by the first trees. It crouched in shapeless fear; sprang up and rushed away into the wood. He tried to light his pipe. The tobacco was packed too tight. He pulled out the mouthpiece, and as though with great care fitted vulcanite and bowl into the blue velvet spaces of the case. He must do it properly, before drawing the Parabellum from its holster. When this was done, his mouth now being dry, he stood up, conscious of sweat drops under his arm-pit. Then with a flash of hare-fear he saw figures moving towards the line of barbed wire. Faces turned to where he stood beside an oak trunk. The line of dim figures stopped. German voices. They had found the gap.

“
Vörwarts
——”

“Rapid fire!” His voice sounded weak and reedy.

Rifle reports rang in the ear. Dim figures were jumping sideways. He heard the Lewis gun rattling. There were shouts, screams, a slow dissolving of movement. It was over.

“Pass word down, patrol going out! Quietly does it, men,” for they were jubilant. “Pass the word down, patrol is going out!” He didn’t want to be shot by Kidd. They waited. Then a voice in front said, “Shut up, you bastards! No bloody kamerade stuff to Bill Kidd!”

Phillip went out with Allen to the wire. Wounded Germans were lying on the ground, some twisting about. “Shoot the bastards,” he heard Kidd’s voice saying.

“No! Leave them! D’you hear?”

“Keep your wool on, old boy! I’m not wasting ammo. on Huns, although they did bayonet some of my wounded in the Bird Cage,” came the drawl from the other side of the wire.

“What about identification?”

“I’ve got it taped, old boy. Sergeant, cut off a couple of those shoulder straps, and give them to Captain Maddison.”

While Phillip wrote a report small fires were being started to boil canteens. Smoke was hanging in the mist when the hare rushed back again. Shots were heard and the thuds of stick-bombs to the left. The flanking Lewis gun opened up. The sergeant with the waxed points on his moustache ran up, red-faced. “They’re coming, sir! They’re in the wood on the left!”

*

Later that morning, south-west of where Phillip and his men were retreating, the Commander-in-Chief motored in his black Rolls-Royce flying Union Jack pennant on bonnet to see Sir Hubert Gough, over whose
château
at Villers Bretonneux hung the banner of the Red Fox. There he learned to his surprise that the troops of the Fifth Army were already
behind
the line of the Somme river.

That night the Field-Marshal wrote in his diary,

From Villers Brettoneux the Commander-in-Chief went on to his Advanced Headquarters at Dury, a few miles south of Amiens.

From Dury he returned to G.H.Q. at Montreuil, whither the Commander of the Second Army had been invited to meet him.

Chief of Staff of General Sir Herbert Plumer also wrote a description of this meeting between Haig and the Commander of the Second Army. He was Major-General ‘Tim’ Harington.

“Listen to this!” said Richard sitting in his armchair of green Russian leather. It was a bitterly cold night; his coke fire, halved by extra fire-bricks, burned dully. It was his last free evening before resuming duty with the Special Constabulary. “Can Prussian effrontery go further? Here in the evening paper is a copy of the Kaiser’s telegram to the Kaiserin, Hetty!

“He makes no mention of Peronne, you will be glad to hear. Still, we must hope for the best, old girl. According to the map in the paper, the whole line is going back to the positions held before the Somme battles.” He put the paper before his face, suddenly overcome by the thought of the ‘wild boy’, who——

“I’m just going out for a little while,” he heard her saying.

*

That Saturday night in the officers’ mess of the 3rd or Militia (reserve) battalion of the Gaultshire Regiment at Landguard Camp, sixty miles north of London, songs were roared out around the piano. A long list of officers to report for overseas at Victoria station the next morning, without leave, was pinned on the green baize board. These had already departed; the singers were those who now awaited with tremendous zest and excitement tomorrow’s list. Already 800 other ranks had left, most of them half-trained boys of 18½ years, sent overseas under emergency powers granted by parliament to the War Cabinet.

Hetty had not gone next door to play her nightly game of cards with her father—that selfish old man, in the thoughts of Richard, who invariably kept his distance by addressing his father-in-law as ‘Mr. Turney’. Dreading what Dickie would say if she had told him where she was going, Hetty had dared to go down to the High Street, to pray in the Roman Catholic church, to burn three candles for Phillip, her brother Charlie’s boy Tommy, and her younger daughter’s friend Robert Willoughby, all somewhere in France.

The escape of the 2nd Gaultshires from the Bois de Gurlu was ragged as it was hurried. Germans were advancing through the centre of the wood. As they got through to open space a machine-gun began to fire blindly into the thinning mist. The bullets passed over their heads. There was no attempt to give covering fire; they fled, to be met with rifle fire from unseen troops lining a road in front of them. They went prone, the firing ceased, and Bill Kidd's voice was heard shouting through the mist, “Don't be such bloody twotts! Come on, you crab wallahs.” They went on, to see Kidd talking to a major of Pioneers, who with “an assortment of semi-noncombatants”, as Kidd said later, had come up from the Canal. “That's where we're due, old boy. I've got all the dope from ‘Spectre', and was on my way to tell you.”

He and Phillip examined a map. “About there.” Bullets were now buzzing past. “We ought to get a move on, old boy. If the fog lifts, we'll be in full view of Jerry, as the ground slopes up from here.”

“Where's ‘Spectre'?”

“Over there, across the Canal, just this side of the river. Christ, that sounds like the bridge being blown!” An echoing
rumble had come from the west. “We'll have to swim for it, old boy!”

“How far is it?”

“Couple of miles or so. We ought to get cracking.”

“Well done, Bill.”

They had gone about a mile, in artillery formation, when a Staff officer ordered them to extend north of a village on the crest of the slope. Then he galloped away west. They rested, while Phillip saw with alarm that the mist was thinning. Scouts reported that the brigade on the left was withdrawing, so he gave the order to go back.

They crossed over the railway and came to the Canal, which had deep concreted sides. Below lay stagnant water. To Phillip the Canal looked to be unfinished, like its section farther north, which passed through the old Hindenburg Line of 1917. Which way? Where was the bridge? Then above the mist thinning overhead two Fokker biplanes roared, firing down at them. When they were gone a small bright light was left hanging in the sky.

“Get over as fast as you can, men!”

Troops of other battalions were coming up to the bank. He heard the voices of Yorkshire and Northumberland. Some slid down the concrete and started to wade, holding rifles above helmets. Shouts for help came, the water was too deep.

There was a bridge lower down, a breathless scout reported, by the village. They turned about, coming to rubble heaps, and beyond was the bridge. Woolly bears were now bursting above where they had left. They crossed over with indifference.

A couple of hundred yards beyond the bridge stood ‘Spectre', with the Brigade-major, who was giving directions to the mixed-up men of various battalions. He told Phillip to go on to the river Tortille, get across it, deploy a couple of hundred yards west of it, and dig in. “Any troops coming back may try to pass through you. Take command of them.”

When they got there, the bridge across was down. “Those twotts of Sappers again,” remarked Kidd. Some of the poplars beside the bridge had been tipped over by the blast; upon these they crawled above scummy water. When they came to the new line they flopped down, exhausted.

“Get some head-cover up, men. Jerry will have light machine-guns.” Phillip told the wing company commanders to form
defensive flanks before going back to his post a hundred yards behind the new line—the remains of a mangold clamp. Could the cooks boil up some sort of soup, to kill the taste of bully beef? There were no dixies. He spent the night going among the men in their shallow scooped-out cubby holes.

It was a cold night, stained by the glow of flares far behind them, and the pink mists of fires. The battalion was now made up of remnants of seven or eight different units. They suffered from thirst, and chewed slices of mangolds. Rumours came from nowhere: there was to be an armistice: Haig had shot himself: the French Government had fallen.

Weary challenges were called out in the darkness, to be met with enquiries. “Are you the Seaforths? Have you seen the Second South Africans? I'm looking for the Leicesters, sir. Can you tell me …?” Sussex, Herts, Northumberland Fusiliers—soon the whiskey bottle was empty.

“It's my idea there's a spy about,” said one elderly lieutenant, who wandered in, wearing pince-nez spectacles. “He asked me who I was, and when I told him Tunnelling company, he said ‘Please me by doing an allez, you base wallah', in a gutteral voice.”

“Sounds to me like the one and only Bill Kidd, mein prächtige kerl! Had he a swashbuckling manner, and a hoarse, whiskey voice?”

“You speak German?”

“About six words.”

“Who are you?”

“Fred Karno's Boy Scouts. D'you mind not shining that torch in my eyes?”

“Where d'you come from? What are those men doing in German uniform, anyway?”

“Oh, let me introduce you to our mascots, Sauer and Kraut!”

“I'm not satisfied! You've got a German pistol!”

At this point Bill Kidd came up and said in a cockney voice, “Cut out the paraffle, old boy, and bring up some more ammo. We want it!” He spun a Mill's bomb in one hand, like a googly bowler practising with a cricket ball before beginning an over.

“I was only asking.”

“And I'm giving you an order!”

When the darkness thinned shells began to fall. Then came the fog-muffled popple of a German machine-gun, slow and
deliberate. Some time later, by the louder noises on the left it appeared that the Germans were advancing. Orders came to remain where they were and make a stand. They yawned and dozed. The water-party came back from a village (ruined) a mile behind them with no water in the petrol-cans.

When the fog thinned they saw they were on a long slope ending to the west in a grassy fringe which was the beginning of the 1916 battlefield. To left and right small groups of khaki figures were moving up the slope.

The order came to withdraw: the entire northern wing of the Fifth Army was by then overlooked by the enemy on a hill near Peronne. This meant accurate shelling and destruction of all positions; so back once again. They came to a railway, and crossing over took cover at the edge of a burnt-out wood, with one year's new undergrowth pushing through tangles of rusty wire. Phillip sent a runner to ‘Spectre', to say they were in position, ‘in Railway Wood'. Two hours later the runner returned with an order to remain there and hold on ‘at all costs'.

*

On Palm Sunday morning the London terminal stations of Waterloo and Victoria were thronged with khaki figures. Some were accompanied by women of all conditions and ages—mothers, sweethearts, concubines, sisters, and—rising to the occasion—more than one prostitute hopeful of enduring love. The faces of the women revealed every kind of expression; all shared one emotion. A few showed forced cheerfulness; others, with set faces, pretended to be calm—well-dressed women, these. All were staring beyond the moment, bracing themselves for the coming moment of farewell, determined not to let down their men—many of these from the middling suburbs. The majority, ill-fed, permanently anxious since childhood, had the strained white faces of respectable working class women. A few showed tear stains, as, irregular in breathing, they felt the shadow of death upon the parting.

The parting came sooner than expected. No civilians allowed past the barriers to the platforms! Military police barred the way. Little cries were stifled behind strained faces which assumed a mask of courage, even of gaiety, here and there; but among the less inhibited women of the soldiery there was sobbing unrestrained, with little attempt to put on a brave face. They stood with children in arms wailing, as pressure increased before
the gates of wood and iron, guarded by elderly porters and young women, wearing red ties, all trouser'd, cap'd, and tunic'd, beside old ticket collectors with long coats and more formal stiff hats. The screech of boilers at pressure arose under the black-painted glass roof, where a few pigeons and sparrows were flying, plumage dulled by soot and smoke. Goodbye, goodbye! Clear the gates! Make way!

Hour after hour, morning, noon, and night, the troop trains left for Dover and Folkestone; while, on the other side of the station, hospital trains began to glide in with their quiet loads of wounded. No reporters came to ask questions.

*

That night General Pétain arrived at Advanced Headquarters in the Château at Dury to see Sir Douglas Haig. The British Field-Marshal explained the situation. The British Third Army under General Byng was confident of holding on to the First Army near Arras with his left, while his right was yielding ground in an orderly manner to conform with the Fifth Army withdrawal. Nine fresh Divisions were on their way from the North. With these he hoped to strike a blow southwards if the Germans penetrated to the region of Amiens. Meanwhile the outcome of the present situation depended on what the French would do in the Fifth Army Area south of the Somme.

*

The German advance appeared to have gone past Railway Wood on the left flank, while the attack in front had been repulsed. The question was, What to do—go back or stay where they were? Leaving Bill Kidd in command, Phillip, having cut himself a thumb-stick, and accompanied by an Irish orderly to whom he had taken a fancy, set off along the railway track, which curved around the edge of the wood, eventually to cross a road. They went on up the road, which rose before them, hoping soon to be able to look around. Phillip saw what looked like a platoon retiring from the line three hundred yards away, and hurrying after them, ordered the subaltern in command to turn about and report to Major Kidd in the wood. Then going on up the road, suddenly from a ditch beside a haystack Germans jumped up, one firing at him from a few feet away. The report rang in his ears, the flash knocked him over, and he found himself lying on the road impersonally curious as to whether or not he was dying, so strange was the feeling. Then he knew when he was
helped to his feet what had happened: for the cloth around the left breast pocket of his trench coat was hardened as though scorched, the bullet must have passed under his arm as he started at the sudden appearance of the Germans. In relief at being alive, with O'Gorman his runner, he exclaimed, “Ha, mein prächtige kerl, ist mittagessen fertig, bitte?” which was about all the words he had learned from his German nurse of long ago.

This drew laughter, and a question in English, “Eggs and bacon and orange marmalade, with tea or coffee, which is it, Herr Hauptmann? First may I say what you are from, what regiment I mean?”

“From a Composition battalion, Herr Offizier. All kinds—Jocks, Irish, Midlanders, North Country—the Plum and Apple Jam battalion, the men call it.”

This brought more laughter, as a tin of Plum and Apple jam was held up, one among several pork-and-bean tins which the German squad had been eating under cover of the haystack. “Much bean, no pork! Hunt the Slipper, yes, you may find it in one of your games, but find the pork, where is it?”

“It's one of the mysteries of the war, Herr Offizier! Have you tried our Plum and Apple jam?”

“Ja! It is goot, yes?”

“For the first year, but after that——” More laughter. He began to feel light-headed and hoped they would not notice that he was trembling.

An officer came down the road on a horse; they jumped to attention. A few sharp words—Phillip thought he must be a staff officer by the way the young German
leutnant,
who wore the silver-black riband of the Iron Cross in his second button-hole had stiffened himself to attention while being spoken to.

The morning passed timelessly for Phillip, as he watched the preparations for an attack. Companies appeared, all the men wearing light grey puttees (he thought that they must be short of leather in Germany, no more knee-high boots). Many carried light machine-guns as they loped along the road, perfectly grouped in sections. At a certain moment they deployed, no orders were apparently given. The line advanced and lay down, another followed and also lay down; then teams of mules appeared—captured British donks by the look of them—hauling light trench mortars and heavy machine-guns on sleds, and boxes of ammunition also on sleds. Meanwhile Fokkers were flying
overhead, circling as though awaiting the signal to advance. Ahead of the first line patrols were going forward in staggered groups. At a certain moment they extended also in staggered line, while the aircraft turned west, flying low, apparently to bomb and machine-gun the British line of defence. The German artillery had been firing for several minutes before this happened, gun shells screeching overhead and the heavier big stuff moaning up into the sky. White lights burned low above the horizon, the artillery ceased, and with the increased hammering of machine gun and rifle fire he suddenly felt depressed and miserable. To end the war like this—perhaps never again to see Westy, and all because he had been unable to delegate, because he must do everything himself and behave like a Lone Scout, instead of a real Commanding Officer …

*

General Humbert had already arrived at Fifth Army Headquarters at Villers Bretonneux, near Amiens.

Only two of the promised French divisions arrived, and without artillery. The infantry of one of these two divisions, after 15 hours in lorries and a 20-mile march, had only 80 rounds per man.