Gunner Kelly (11 page)

The Maxwell family has lived at Duntisbury Manor, in Duntisbury Chase, Dorset, since the Reformation. From the time of Marlborough the first-born son of the house with
out exception has served the sovereign as a soldier, invariably rising to command a distinguished regiment of cavalry or battalion of infantry, and often retiring from a higher command still.

‘Robert Julian’s’ poems were nothing exceptional in the Maxwells
; most of the soldiers among them were considered by their colleagues to be ’brainy‘, and army gossip and gaps in their recorded service indicate a remarkable range of interests, from the collection of antiquities in Italy and Greece to friendship with Dar
win and Huxley. At the same time, the Maxwells traditionally devoted much of their lives to the service of the family estate, of which the Manor was the centre and the surrounding farms of Duntisbury Chase the greater part, which pursuit was not in those d
ays incompatible with a military career.

Herbert Maxwell differed from his ancestors only in joining the Royal Artillery. After his father’s death he was brought up by his mother, but with help from her brother, Major William James Lonsdale, who had
lost a
n arm commanding a troop of field-guns at Mons in 1914, and who looked after the estate at his brother-in-law’s request until 1917 and thereafter until his nephew’s majority, retiring to Bournemouth then, where he died in 1934. Herbert was educated, as his
father had been, at Wellington, and, as his uncle had been, at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned in 1932, serving subsequently with pack-guns on the North-West Frontier and later with the Home Forces, latterly as an instructor in G
unnery at the School of Artillery, Larkhill, not far from his beloved Duntisbury Chase. He was a devoted—

The sheet ended there, and Benedikt looked up, to receive the next one.

Husband? There had been no mention of wife and children yet—

—student of symph
onic music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and officers who served with him remember his books on musicology, his portable radiogramophone apparatus dismantled for carrying in steel cartridge-boxes, and his box of gramophone records.

On the out
break of war in 1939 Maxwell left the School of Artillery— the Commandant later remarked that he all but cut his way out of Larkhill—and returned to take command of a troop in his old regiment, which was one of the first artillery formations to go to Franc
e in that autumn, and one of the last to leave, via Dunkirk in June 1940. Awarded the Military Cross for gallant and above all effective conduct as one of his regiment’s Observation Post officers in actions from near Brussels all the way back to Ypres and
then to Nieuport, he remarked of this period long afterwards that if there were a military manoeuvre more difficult to do well than a fighting retreat, he had yet to see it; and that while it was not a test he would choose, nothing revealed the quality of
units and formations more clearly than did a lost battle—not even the debilitating stalemate they had endured between September and May.

Soon after returning to England with the remnants of his troop, Maxwell was appointed General Staff Officer Grade III L
iaison at Divisional Headquarters. He said of this period afterwards that it was his most entertaining and unrewarding military job: all he had to do was stand about pretending that he knew what was going on, until called upon to dash off on a powerful mot
or-cycle to talk to some senior officer who knew even less than he did.

By the end of 1940 the division of which Maxwell’s regiment formed a part was back to full strength. But for many months the war was conducted without the help of what its officers and
men considered to be the best regiment in the best division in the British Army. Early in 1943 the command of Maxwell’s troop fell
vacant and he returned to it, however— which was correctly recognised by members of the regiment as a sure sign that their l
ong wait would soon be over.

The second sheet ended on that note of high expectation, but Benedikt was beginning to become confused again. This was all very interesting, the ancient history of the Maxwells—or, at least, it would have been very interesting to Papa, whose guns had been the best ones in his beloved
Division Afrika zur besondern Verfügung
—the immortal goth Light—and who, come to that, knew exactly how Major William James Lonsdale had felt at Mons, and afterwards. But where did it all fit into the modern history of Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith and Duntisbury Chase?

In March the division sailed to Algeria, to join the First Army in its assault on Tunisia. Herbert Maxwell promptly fell ill with a bad case of dysentery, and so missed the spoiling atta
ck by the Germans across the Goubellat Plain south-west of Tunis. The attack was launched with their customary élan and professionalism in an area where the British forces were not well deployed for defence. However, when the German armour made contact sou
th of Medjez-el-Bab it had the misfortune not only of encountering two of the most capable of the British divisions (one arriving and the other about to depart), in a sector where a single brigade might have been expected, and there were not only more Brit
ish regular officers per square mile than anywhere else in North Africa, but also the new British 17-pdr anti-tank guns which matched the fearsome and much admired German 88s—

Papa
would
like this—to be characterised as ‘fearsome and much-admired’ would make his day—his month—his year—

—fearsome and much admired 88s. Even so, the Germans inflicted casualties, and when the uproar died down there were promotions. Herbert Maxwell thus returned afterwards to the command of a battery in another regiment.

After t
he inevitable end in North Africa, where the struggle had become unequal, there was another distressing period of inaction for Major Maxwell, during which the division was called on to reinforce other formations, and when trained and experienced units seem
ed on the verge of disintegration. Maxwell nevertheless held his battery together, and was rewarded by transfer, sailing to Italy in February 1944 as Second-in-Command of his original regiment.

The Italian front was static for a while, and the guns were in
the comparatively quiet Garigliano sector. But in May the regiment formed part of the great concentration of artillery supporting the Eighth Army’s third and final attack across the Rapido, past the dominating height of the Montecassino Abbey. The crossin
g was difficult and casualties heavy among all ranks, but particularly among officers. More than one Commanding Officer of an artillery regiment was disabled by nebelwerfer fire on brigade headquarters—

There had been a slow change in the narrative, Benedikt noted, as he reached for the next sheet. It had moved gradually from the generalised second-hand, with memories recalled ‘long afterwards’, to exact recollection which could only come from first-hand experience: the narrator had not been in Larkhill or Dunkirk, but he had crossed the Rapido under that nebelwerfer barrage—

—at this time. Maxwell was promoted and transferred again, this time taking command of a regiment.

The family record was unblemished, though with guns this time, rather than horsemen or sweating infantrymen. But what command was there for little fierce Becky, in her turn?

This was when I knew him—

The confirmation of his guess so quickly warmed Benedikt, rousing his confidence and his interest—

This was when I knew him, as far as
a subaltern officer in action on his gun-position ever gets to know his Commanding Officer, whose place is either at Regimental Headquarters or with the infantry most of the time; we never had a regimental officers’ mess within range of the enemy; and as f
ar as a temporary officer in a regular regiment of artillery dared to know his superiors—

This hadn’t been written, either: it had been taped or taken down in shorthand from someone long afterwards … someone highly literate and discerning, with a trained mind and memory, recollecting not only his memories of long ago, but also the facts and impressions which a young and inquiring mind had soaked up in combat, to fit him for his ‘temporary’ career.

Papa had been just like that.

He looked up at Colonel Butler. “Who wrote this, Colonel? Or can’t you tell me?”

Butler gazed at him with a hint of approval, as though he understood what lay behind the question. “I don’t suppose it matters if you know, Captain. At least … let’s say it’s one of our most distinguished and enlightened High Court judges. Somebody I’d like to come up before if I was innocent—and not if I was guilty. Okay?”

He was a fine-looking man, and dressed well in a horsey sort of way. In wet weather in action he wore breeches and riding-boots with hi
s battledress blouse. His nickname … though not to anybody as junior as I …was ‘Squire’—he had served once, some time, with the son of one of his tenants, who called him that instead of ‘sir’, and the name stayed with him. In fact, they said that between D
unkirk and the Tunisian campaign he spent every leave down on his estate in Duntisbury Chase, so it wasn’t inappropriate… . But I know that all the regular officers, who in our regiment occupied all the captaincies and above at the beginning of the Italian
campaign … they all thought very well of him, as a horseman and a gentleman, as well as professionally—the old-fashioned order, if you like—and the other ranks worshipped him. As for the subalterns … and by now they were entirely temporary officers … they
trusted his calm competence, and responded to him as … as an elder brother, perhaps— quite terrifyingly exacting in the line but always friendly.. .. It isn’t true to say that we would have died for him, because you don’t think of it like that—you may hav
e to die, it’s always a possibility, because that’s the nature of war, but no one wants to. But he was the closest one I came to who might have made me think like that, if the choice had been put to me. Which it wasn’t, thank God! Where was I, though? It’s
the facts you want—Montecassino, yes … Well, the regiment performed quite adequately there, and when they gave him his DSO we were all well-pleased for him, even though some of us had been a bit miffed in the past because all the gongs went to the regular
s, by custom, because they needed them professionally, and we were going back to civilian life afterwards, and wouldn’t need such things… . But when he got it we were perfectly content—and he made it plain, of course, that he regarded it as a form of congr
atulations to the regiment for doing its job properly.

The last sheet came to him.

But he didn’t get any more promotion during the war, as I recall—because he was already quite young for his rank, the way the army conducts its arcane affairs …But there wer
e the divisional reunions, and I used to see him there, off and on, and from below the salt we all watched his progress, the way one does … I think he was a brigade major in one of the few undisbanded divisions in ‘46, and then he was a half-colonel again,
as GSO I in the British Army of the Rhine—we cracked a bottle of champagne over that, I do
remember … In fact, that’s when we realised where he’d been at one stage, between campaigns—on one of the short war-time courses at the Staff College … Which shows
that they’d got some sense—and that legged him up to Brigadier General Staff eventually, and finally Major-General as Second-in-Command, BAOR—missiles, and things, which he was quite bright enough to handle … But that would have been when Duntisbury Chase
was pulling him away, with his retirement coming up—CBE, naturally … though we would have voted for a K—a knighthood … But then that never was Maxwell style: do your duty and keep a gentlemanly profile—’fear God and honour the King‘—and make sure everyone
below you is all right, that was his style … Also there was some family trouble—daughter and son-in-law killed in a smash somewhere… never met his wife, bit of an invalid—blissfully happy marriage though, they say … But there was this little granddaughter
they were bringing up—something like that, anyway… . That’s all—I’m not going to pronounce on the manner of his passing, because that may conceivably become my business one day, and I shall reserve my views on that until then, just in case.

He handed back the full collection to the Special Branch man—or, as he noticed when the man replaced them in the folder, perhaps not the full collection.

“Yes, there is more.” Colonel Butler had observed his glance at the folder. “There is the recollection from an aged general, whose GSO III he was, and a letter from a headmaster, on whose board of governors he served, who knew him well more recently, and a conversation in the
Eight Bells
which was taped ten days ago surreptitiously by a plain-clothes detective, not long after his death—the local taxi-man talking to the local ne’er-do-well, with occasional mumblings from his retired groom, who could think back as far as his father and his uncle. But they all simply confirm what the judge said in their own different ways.”

Behedikt nodded. “He was a well-respected man.”

“More than that. Perhaps a glance at the first page of what the Vicar said at the funeral might help you. Andrew?” The Colonel paused. “Did you meet the Vicar on your tour, Captain?”

“No sir.”

“Aye … well, it’s too small to maintain a clergyman of its own now, the village. But it’s a Maxwell living, and the old General paid out of his own pocket for a retired priest to look after the parish.”