A Test to Destruction (42 page)

Up went the Very lights, scaling the edge of the sea; off went slabs of gun-cotton, mock shells of practice battle, tracers flicked away over the waves until stopped by a calm-spoken ‘Hen’ Sudley; down went the hot Irish whiskeys; up came the carpets; on went the hunt, scrums for waste-paper baskets across the parade ground and down passages outside the asbestos cubicles—even through some walls. The piano was surrounded, thumped by fists upon the upright case, the strings gave out twangings and occasional dumbness, being stuffed with papers, periodicals, and somebody’s boots, breeches, puttees, and tunic rammed in by a hitherto rather solemn red-headed subaltern combed out from the cavalry named Moynihan.

The owner of the clobber came in, swearing. He was a dark Jewish-looking fellow, wearing one wound stripe. Earlier that evening he had thrown a glass of whiskey and soda into the red-haired cavalry subaltern’s face. Royle had been drunk, of course, but just a little nasty with it.

Now he challenged Moynihan to a fight. Gloves were found, a ring made. There was but one blow, upon Royle’s chin: he staggered back, clawing the air and falling backwards all the way to the door, and beyond to the outer door, where, by the noise, he crashed over the threshold. But those who followed him could not find him. It turned out to be a put-up job; Royle had been
a music-hall knockabout before the war, and that was part of his ‘business’, arranged with Moynihan.

The party ended in a midnight bathe, fully clothed, Phillip leading half-a-dozen of the pack into the sea.

Phillip watched with others on the sea-wall. The submarines came in flying the Imperial German flag, red white and black, conning towers open and crews in white standing to attention upon the low decks. From each bow, rising at an angle of about thirty degrees, was extended a great jagged saw fixed to a cable which rose over the conning tower and sloped down to the stern—for cutting and passing through steel nets which were said to stretch from Dover to the French coast. But more immediately startling were the figureheads on the bows—Chinese dragons painted red and yellow, blue and white serpents, black wolves with open jaws, sharks’ heads, and even the profile of a red-faced laughing giant. They entered the harbour in line astern, two hundred yards between each craft. Some were rusty; they were of varying sizes; many of them had small quick-firing guns, but one, half as long again as the small fry, had what looked like a 6-inch gun. Not a movement among the crews, only the ribbons of their caps fluttering in the breeze; not a word from the onlookers as the U-boats went by in procession to surrender.

Such weariness; such sadness.

*

In the New Year the adjutant sent for Phillip and said, “The Colonel is asked to recommend the names of those officers who
may wish to make the Army their career. It means an abbreviated course at Sandhurst, and as you will imagine, giving up temporary rank and also a certain amount of seniority. Private means are not essential, the scale of pay as you know has been stepped up, and for an unmarried officer should not present much hardship. How do you feel about the Army as a career, Phillip?”

“I don’t think I’m really cut out for it, Denis.”

“I think I know how you feel. Lord Satchville, by the way, wants you to accompany him tomorrow as his galloper, and to make notes of what happens when he addresses the disaffected troops at Ipswich. Odd, isn’t it, how the Old Man’s fame has spread?”

It was a matter of pride to the Gaultshires that their Colonel had succeeded where Generals had failed in the matter of pacifying other camps over demobilisation. The feeling was that the Frocks in Whitehall, eager for five more fat profiteering years in office, had rushed the Khaki election on slogans calculated to snatch votes, such as ‘Hang the Kaiser’, ‘Make Germany Pay’, and ‘Homes Fit for Heroes’, while failing to prepare for demobilisation; not only were there no new homes for heroes, but no concerted plans for the change-over from war to peace. Coal miners had gone, certainly, and classes for heavy industries, but for the great majority of those in other trades, particularly among the youngest soldiers, there was Sweet Fanny Adams; while many who had jobs waiting for them could not get away. It was the old free-for-all, catch-as-catch-can situation over again, summed up in the cynical soldier-phrase, ‘F—k you, Jack, I’m all right’.

Battalions were not going on parade; temporary colonels were usually on leave, eager to get back to the City, or the pickings of the Disposals Board sales, while the going was good and the shortages lasted. Some soldiers attempted to form Soldiers’ Councils, to take over command; their complaints were justified; who could speak for them? A name was passed about, ‘Lord Satchell’, which became in the Eastern Command a legend, a token of hope. Wisely the great man, who had been a Governor of one of the Indian States, and had deputised for the Viceroy for one period—the bearded Viking famous as sportsman and rowing blue—Grand Master of Freemasonry—was called to Eastern Command to put the case for the need for patience to
the hundreds of thousands of Jacks who wanted to go home to the mis’es and the nippers.

“Will you be going, too, Denis?”

“Too much work here, old boy. You leave for Ipswich at ten ack emma tomorrow, by Rolling Royce.”

*

The character of Lord Satchville had been formed by a single-minded generosity directed upon the problems of others, to simplify their sense of duty. His courtesy was childlike in the pristine sense of the word. It was like the most simple poetry, which concealed the most skill. His manner was invariably kindly, which might by some be taken for softness; his mouth behind the yellow beard was gentle. His great height and appearance helped. Once, on a route march which passed through the town, Phillip’s company commander, Major Sir James Poins, a pre-war 3rd battalion militiaman, himself a tall figure with out-brushed moustaches, had said to him, as they marched at the head of the battalion behind the Colonel on his charger: “Have you noticed that every time Satchers goes by a plate-glass window he looks at his reflection?” Company commanders did not ride on route marches; only three chargers were kept for C.O., Second-in-command, and Adjutant, in reserve battalions at that time.

“I hadn’t noticed, Jimmy.”

“Vanity holds him together.”

“What’s the difference between vanity and pride?”

“There’s a distinction, of course. But Satchers knows he cuts a fine figure, and relies on it.”

The amusing thing about that remark was that when Satchville had gone on leave, and Poins had taken the battalion, riding the C.O.’s horse, Phillip had noticed Poins looking at himself in the same plate-glass window when they marched down the High Street.

When the Colonel addressed thousands of men in a camp near Ipswich he asked them to come as near as possible, “for I want to tell you the situation as clearly as I can, in my own words.

“There are millions of men in the Forces, and I am one of them. I think most of us want to get home to our jobs, to live again with our families, to be with our friends and children. Some of you will recall the difficulties of forming so many of us into new
battalions, the hardships of living in fields, under canvas, which soon became seas of mud. You have lived through the greatest war in history, when millions like you have gone from their old lives to a strange new life, often beset with discomfort, and in some cases, hardship. These imperfect conditions arose through inexperience. But the character of our nation, which was formed by the overcoming of difficulties, whether it be a footballer who is determined to play better football, a mechanic who will do only his best work, a boxer who trains to win a contest, or a ploughman who takes pride in his horses and his straight furrows—the character of our nation has held us together in this terrible, and at times almost overwhelming period through which we have passed, leaving, alas, so many of our friends and comrades lying upon the field of battle.”

The Colonel paused, and blew his nose on a red bandanna handkerchief.

“Now we have a task before us, as a nation, a nation which is composed of us all, every man jack of us, to return our millions of soldiers, airmen, and sailors to a normal life of peace. It cannot be done in a few weeks. If ten thousand men go back to their homes and jobs daily, to send home a million men will take a hundred days. The machinery for demobilisation, and dispersal, cannot at the moment take a great many men, but as every day passes that machinery will be working smoother, expanding as it goes, until more and more men can be returned to their homes, after being given civilian suits, which are now being made during twenty-four hours of every day.

“To take the question of suits by itself: the factories all over Great Britain have been turning out bolts, or rolls, of serge cloth, dyed khaki and blue, for the Armies abroad and at home, and for our sailors. It isn’t easy to turn over, in the few weeks since the last bullets were fired, and the last shells have dropped upon the battlefields, to making cloths suitable for civilian life, now that peace has come.

“I am told, and I am only one of hundreds of junior officers commanding a battalion, that the Government wants every man to go back to a job, to help make articles for peaceful living, after more than four years of the factories pouring out materials for destruction. We do not want to see the long lines of men, waiting for work, that we saw before the war. We want better
conditions. I think if all of us are patient, and face the problems of peace as we faced them in war, we shall do better than by trying to do too much, too soon.

“It can justly be asked, who am I to talk to you like this? I can reply that I am a man like you, with his own problems, for I am not a soldier by profession, but by necessity, and have tried to do always what I have thought to be my duty. I, too, want to go to my home in the country, to see my new trees, now in their rows in the nursery, planted out, to replace those trees which have been thrown in the war. I want to walk over grass again, to see my old friends in cottage and farm, to talk with them, to do what I can to make their new lives happy, before my time comes to lie in the ground where my parents lie, and their parents before them. But meanwhile there is a duty, to be patient, to await one’s turn, which will come when most of my old friends and comrades in the Regiment to which I belong have gone home before me.

“The General Officer Commanding Eastern Command has asked me to come before you today, to speak to you. It remains for me to thank you for listening to me, and to wish you all good luck in the days that lie ahead for us all.’’

Cheering faces, waving arms; tears streaming down the Old Man’s face; Phillip tremulous before the massed emotion.

*

Temporary infantry officers were invited to stay with the Forces for a period of one year, at increased rates of pay; a captain would receive 18
s
. 6
d
.
a day, plus allowances. Phillip gave his name to Denis; and when next he went on leave, called on Colonel Vallum at the War Office, and was taken to lunch at the Naval and Military Club, where Phillip met again Major-General Mowbray, on leave from Cologne. Listening to the two great men talk, he learned much about the retirement of the German Armies from France, which Mowbray said was a marvel of foresight in preparation, and skill in withdrawal.

Phillip wrote the gist of it in his journal.