Death of a Hero (46 page)

“Wow! Put a sock in it!”

“Fuck off!”

“Ord'ly sergeants are cheap today!”

“Well, you fuckers got to report to yer officers at once. Op it.”

They ran up the broken stairs, pretending to poke their bayonets at him, and laughing, perhaps a little hysterically. The fat, good-natured little Sergeant went off, shaking his fist at them, shouting awful threats about the punishment awaiting them, with a broad affectionate grin on his face.

For Winterbourne the battle was a timeless confusion, a chaos of noise, fatigue, anxiety, and horror. He did not know how many days and nights it lasted, lost completely the sequence of events, found great gaps in his conscious memory. He did know that he was profoundly affected by it, that it made a cut in his life and personality. You couldn't say there was anything melodramatically startling, no hair going grey in a night, or never smiling again. He looked unaltered; he behaved in exactly the same way. But, in fact, he was a little mad. We talk of shell-shock, but who wasn't shell-shocked, more or less? The change in him was psychological, and showed itself in two ways. He was left with an anxiety complex, a sense of fear he had never experienced, the necessity to use great and greater efforts to force himself to face artillery, anything explosive. Curiously enough, he scarcely minded machine-gun fire, which was really more deadly, and completely disregarded rifle-fire. And he was also left with a profound and cynical discouragement, a shrinking horror of the human race…

A timeless confusion. The runners scattered outside their billet and made for the officers' cellar through the falling shells, dodging from one broken house or shell-hole to another. Winterbourne, not yet unnerved, calmly walked straight across and arrived first. Evans took him aside:

“We're going up as a company, with orders to support and cooperate with the Infantry. Try to nab me a rifle and bayonet before we go over.”

“Very good, sir.”

Outside was an open box of S.A.A., and they each drew two extra bandoliers of cartridges, which they slung round their necks.

They moved off in sections, filing along the village street, which was filled with fresh debris and ruins reruined. It was snowing. They came on two freshly-killed horses. Their close-cropped necks were bent under them, with great glassy eyeballs starting with agony. A little further on was a smashed limber with the driver dead beside it.

In the trench they passed a batch of about forty German prisoners, unarmed, in steel helmets. They looked green-pale, and were trembling. They shrank against the side of the trench as the English soldiers passed, but not a word was said to them.

The snowstorm and the smoke drifting back from the barrage made the air as murky as a November fog in London. They saw little, did not know where they were going, what they were doing or why. They lined a trench and waited. Nothing happened. They saw nothing but wire and snowflakes and drifting smoke, heard only the roar of the guns and the now sharper rattle of machine-guns. Shells dropped around them. Evans was looking through his glasses, and cursing the lack of visibility. Winterbourne stood beside him, with his rifle still slung on his left shoulder.

They waited. Then Major Thorpe's runner came with a message. Apparently he had mistaken a map reference and brought them to the wrong place.

They plodged off through the mud, and lined another trench. They waited.

Winterbourne found himself following Evans across what had been No Man's Land for months. He noticed a skeleton in British uniform, caught sprawling in the German wire. The skull still wore a sodden cap and not helmet. They passed the bodies of British soldiers that morning. Their faces were strangely pale, their limbs oddly bulging with strange fractures. One had vomited blood.

They were in the German trenches, with many dead bodies in field grey. Winterbourne and Evans went down into a German dug-out. Nobody was there, but it was littered with straw, torn paper, portable cookers, oddments of forgotten equipment, and cigars. There were French tables and chairs with human excrement on them.

They went on. A little knot of Germans came towards them holding up their shaking hands. They took no notice of them but let them pass through.

The barrage continued. Their first casualty was caused by their own shells dropping short.

Major Thorpe sent Winterbourne and another man with a written duplicate message to Battalion Headquarters. They went back over the top, trying to run. It was impossible. Their hearts beat too fast, and their throats were parched. They went blindly at a jog-trot, slower in
fact than a brisk walk. They seemed to be tossed violently by the bursting shells. The acrid smoke was choking. A heavy roared down beside Winterbourne and made him stagger with its concussion. He could not control the resultant shaking of his flesh. His teeth chattered very slightly as he clenched them desperately. They got back to familiar land and finally to Southampton Row. It was a long way to Battalion Headquarters. The men in the orderly-room eagerly questioned them about the battle, but they knew less than they did.

Winterbourne asked for water and drank thirstily. He and the other runner were dazed and incoherent. They were given another written message, and elaborate directions which they promptly forgot.

The drum-fire had died down to an ordinary heavy bombardment as they started back. Already it was late afternoon. They wandered for hours in unfamiliar trenches before they found the Company.

They slept that night in a large German dug-out, swarming with rats. Winterbourne in his sleep felt them jump on his chest and face.

The drum-fire began again next morning. Again they lined a trench and advanced through smoke over torn wire and shell-tormented ground. Prisoners passed through. At night they struggled for hours, carrying down wounded men in stretchers through the mud and clamour. Major Thorpe was mortally wounded and his runner killed; Hume and his runner were killed; Franklin was wounded; Pemberton was killed; Sergeant Perkins was killed; the stretcher-bearers were killed. Men seemed to drop away continually.

Three days later Evans and Thompson led back forty-five men to the old billets in the ruined village. The attack on their part of the front had failed. Further south a considerable advance had been made and several thousand prisoners taken, but the German line was unbroken and stronger than ever in its new positions. Therefore that also was a failure.

Winterbourne and Henderson were the only two runners left; and since Evans was in command, Winterbourne was now company runner. The two men sat on their packs in the cellar without a word. Both shook very slightly but continuously with fatigue and shock. Outside the vicious heavies crashed eternally. They started wildly to their feet as a terrific smash overhead brought down what was left of the house
above them and crashed into the duplicate cellar next door. A moment later there was another enormous crash and one end of the cellar broke in with falling bricks and a cloud of dust. They rushed out by the steps at the other end, and were sent reeling and choking by another huge black explosion.

They stumbled across to another cellar occupied by what was left of a section, and asked to sleep there since their own cellar was wrecked. Six of them and a corporal sat in silence by the light of a candle, dully listening to the crash of shells.

In a lull they heard a strange noise outside the cellar, first like wheels and then like a human voice calling for help. No one moved. The voice called again. The Corporal spoke:

“Who's going up?”

“Fucked if I am,” said somebody; “I've 'ad enough.” Winterbourne and Henderson simultaneously struggled to their feet. The change from candle-light to darkness blinded them as they peered out from the ruined doorway. They could just see a confused dark mass. The voice came again:

“Help! for Christ's sake come and help!”

A transport limber had been smashed by a shell. The wounded horses had dragged it along and fallen outside the cellar entrance. One man had both legs cut short at the knees. He was still alive, but evidently dying. They left him, lifted down the other man and carried him into the cellar. A large shell splinter had smashed his right knee. He was conscious, but weak. They got out his field-dressing and iodine and dripped iodine on the wound. At the pain of burning disinfectant the man turned deadly pale and nearly fainted. Winterbourne found that his hands and clothes were smeared with blood.

Then came the problem of getting the man away to a dressing-station. The Corporal and the four men refused to budge. The shells were crashing continuously outside. Winterbourne started out to get a stretcher and the new stretcher-bearer, groping his way through the darkness. Outside their billet he tripped and fell into a deep shell-hole, just as a heavy exploded with terrific force at his side. But for the fall he must have been blown to pieces. He scrambled to his feet, breathless and shaken, and tumbled down the cellar stairs. He noticed scared faces looking at him in the candle-light. He explained what had happened. The stretcher-bearer jumped up, got his stretcher and satchel of dressings, and they started back. Every shell which exploded near seemed to
shake Winterbourne's flesh from his bones. He was dazed and half-frantic with the physical shock of concussion after concussion. When he got back in the cellar he collapsed into a kind of stupor. The stretcher-bearer dressed the man's wound, and then looked at Winterbourne, felt his pulse, gave him a sip of rum and told him to lie still. He tried to explain that he must help carry the wounded man, and struggled to get to his feet. The stretcher-bearer pushed him back:

“You lie still, mate; you've done enough for today.”

11

T
HE battle on their part of the Front died down into long snarling artillery duels, gas bombardments, fierce local attacks and counter-attacks. Further south it flamed up again with intense preludes of drum-fire. What was left of the Pioneer Company returned to more normal occupations. So far as they were concerned, one great advantage of the battle was that the Germans had been driven from the long slag-hill, and from a large portion of Hill 91. By fierce counter-attacks the Germans regained much of the lost ground on Hill 91, but they never came anywhere near recovering the slag-hill. The ground they had lost further south made that impossible. Consequently, some of the worst features of the salient were at last obliterated, and they were no longer under such close observation or enfiladed by machine-guns.

They had a day's rest, and were then put on the cushy job of building a new track up to the southern fringe of Hill 91 across the old Front lines and No Man's Land. They were outside the range of vision of the German observation posts, and it was two days before the German airplanes discovered them – two days of comparative quiet. Then, of course, they got it hot and strong.

In clearing away the wire they made a number of gruesome discoveries, and examined with great interest the primitive hand-grenades and other weapons of 1914 – 15 which were lying rusting there in great quantities. Winterbourne took an immense interest in building this track, an interest which puzzled and amused Evans, especially since
this was the first time he had ever seen Winterbourne show any enthusiasm for their labours.

“I can't see why you're so keen on this bally old track, Winterbourne. It's one of the dullest jobs we've ever bad.”

“But surely you can see, sir. We're making something, not destroying things. We're taking down wire, not putting it up; filling in shell-holes, not desecrating the earth.”

Evans frowned at the phrase “desecrating the earth”. He thought it pretentious, and with all his obtuseness he had an instinctive resentment against Winterbourne's unspoken but unwavering and profound condemnation of War. Evans had a superstitious reverence for War. He believed in the Empire; the Empire was symbolized by the King-Emperor; and the King – poor man! – is always having to dress up as an Admiral or a Field-marshal or a brass-hat of some kind. Navydom and Armydom thereby acquired a mystic importance; and since armies and navies are obviously meant for War, it was plain that War was an integral part of Empire-worship. More than once he clumsily tried to trap Winterbourne into expressing unorthodox opinions. But, of course, Winterbourne saw him coming miles away, and easily evaded his awkward booby-traps.

“I suppose you're a
republican,”
he said to Winterbourne, who was innocently humming the Marseillaise. “I don't believe in Republics. Why, Presidents wear evening dress in the middle of the morning.”

Winterbourne nearly burst into a cackle of laughter, but managed to restrain himself. He denied that he was a republican, and admitted with mock gravity that Evans had put his finger on a serious flaw in Republican Institutions.

But his joy in constructing the track was short-lived. As they were finishing their second day's work he saw a battery of Field Artillery cross the old No Man's Land by the road they had built, and then bump its way over shell-holes to a new position. So even this little bit of construction was only for further destruction.

They went on to night-work again, and Winterbourne distinguished himself by pulling out of the ground a dud shell which the other men refused to touch, in case it went off. They crouched on the ground while Winterbourne tugged and strained to get it out, and Evans stood beside him urging him to go easy. Suddenly Winterbourne went into a series of gasping chuckles, and in answer to Evans's questions managed to jerk out that the alleged shell was a stump of wood with an iron ring
round it. The men returned sheepishly to their work. In reward for his heroic conduct Winterbourne was allowed to join a gang who were pulling up real duds embedded in
the pavé
of the main road, which had become available through the German retirement. They levered and tugged the shells up very gingerly, since the oldest duds are liable to explode if treated roughly. Winterbourne was glad when that little job was done.