Death of a Hero (47 page)

The nightly gas bombardments became worse than ever, and Winterbourne sometimes spent twelve hours a day in his gas-mask. They used their respirators so frequently that a new set had to be issued.

Since Evans was now temporarily in command and had only Thompson to help him and about forty men available for work, they did only one shift, which Evans and Thompson took on alternate nights. As company runner, Winterbourne carried all messages between the Company and Battalion H.Q. On the other hand, Evans always let him rest on the nights when he himself was not on duty. Winterbourne was profoundly thankful for these nights off. His winter cough, aided perhaps by microbes communicated by lice, had evolved into a sort of tertian ague. Every third night he had alternate fits of sweating and shivering. It was much pleasanter to lie down even in a damp cellar than to go up the line feeling utterly weak and feverish.

He was sleeping soundly alone in the runners' cellar, oblivious to the zwiing, PHUT, of the gas shells outside, when he was awakened by Henderson, the other surviving runner, who came stumbling down the cellar stairs in the darkness. Winterbourne lit a candle for him. Henderson had just taken off his gas-mask, and stood rumpled hair and a pale, scared look.

“What's up?” said Winterbourne “what's the matter?”

“Thompson's killed.”

“Good Lord! The only other officer! How?”

“Whizz-bang.”

“How did it happen?”

“The Boche put up an attack tonight. Thompson took us off work, and told us to line a trench. He was standing on top, and told me to get into the trench. A whizz-bang burst just beside him. He died in five minutes.”

“O God! Did he say anything?”

“Yes, he was perfectly conscious and calm. He told me how to get the men back. He sent best of luck to Evans and you and the S.M. And he made me take a couple of letters from his pocket to send to his wife and mother. He was horribly mangled – right arm and right leg smashed, ribs broken, and a great tear in the side of his face. He made me promise to make Evans write home that he was shot through the heart and died instantaneously and painlessly.”

“Damn! He was a nice chap. One of the best officers we had.”

The inner gas-curtain was lifted, and Evans's servant stumbled in, taking off his mask.

“Report at once, fighting order, Winterbourne.”

Winterbourne hurriedly put on his boots and puttees, struggled into his equipment, snapped on his mask, and jog-trotted over to the officers' cellar through the now familiar hail of gas shells. He was amazed and distressed and ashamed to find how much his flesh instinctively shrank when a shell dropped close at hand, how great an effort he now needed to refrain from ducking or cowering. He raged at himself, called himself coward, poltroon, sissy, anything abusive he could think of. But still his body instinctively shrank. He had passed into the final period of War strain, when even an air-raid became a terror.

Evans was laboriously writing. The large cellar looked very cellar-like and empty, with one man in place of the six who had lived there less than a fortnight before.

“You know Mr. Thompson's killed?”

“Yes, sir. Henderson told me.”

“I can't carry on as a Company by myself with less than forty available men.” Evans spoke bitterly. “There's a chit from Division complaining that we are doing far less work than a month ago. They don't seem to know there's been a battle, and that we're worn out and reduced to a third our strength.”

He was silent, re-read his despatch, folded it, and handed it to Winterbourne.

“Take this down to Batt. H.Q. I've marked it Special Urgency. Make them get the Colonel up if he's asleep. If he questions you, tell him our position. I haven't seen him for three weeks. And refuse to leave without an answer.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And, Winterbourne.”

“Sir?”

“There's another chit here somewhere urging us to get two volunteers for Infantry commissions in each Company. Henderson's going – he's a stout little tyke. The other volunteers are that filthy cook's-mate and the sanitary man. Idiotic. I won't recommend them. But I want you to volunteer. Will you?”

Winterbourne hesitated. He didn't want the responsibility; it was contrary to his notion that he ought to stay in the ranks and in the line, take the worst and humblest jobs, share the common fate of common men. But then, he had consented to be a runner. And then, he was sorely tempted. It meant several months in England, it meant seeing Fanny and Elizabeth again, it meant a respite. He was amazed to find that he didn't want to leave Evans, and suddenly saw that what he had done in the past months had been chiefly done from personal attachment to a rather common and ignorant man of the kind he most despized, the grown-up public-school boy.

“What are you hesitating about?”

“Well, sir,” said Winterbourne whimsically, “I was wondering how you'd get on without me.”

“Balls!” said Evans. “Besides, at this rate, I shan't last much longer. Now, shall I put your name down?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He afterwards regretted that “Yes.”

Evans's sharp note brought an abrupt change in their lives. They exchanged places with one of the other Pioneer companies in a quieter section of the line. Evans marched his forty men down as one platoon, and they passed successively the four platoons of the relieving Company. The men exchanged ironical jibes as they passed.

Their new quarters were a great improvement. They were joined by a Captain, who took nominal command, and two subalterns. But no men. There appeared to be no men available. They lived in shelters and dug-outs in the Reserve line. Winterbourne, Henderson, and two other runners lived in a two-foot shelter just outside the officers' dug-out. Winterbourne was now officially Company runner. He lived one fortnight in the line, and one at Battalion H.Q. The sacking bed at H.Q., the comparative absence of shelling, the better food, the rest, made it seem like paradise. He did not know that his application for a commission had been passed at once, and that he was being looked after.

Two days after they got to their new quarters, in the line, Evans's servant poked his head excitedly into the runners' shelter.

“Winterbourne!”

“Yes.”

“You're to come at once. Mr. Evans is sick.”

“Sick!”

Winterbourne found Evans leaning against the side of the trench, a ghastly green pallor on his face.

“Whatever's the matter, sir?”

“Gas. I've swallowed too much of the beastly stuff. I can't stand it any longer. I'm going to the dressing-station.”

“Shall I get a stretcher, sir?”

“No, damn it, I'll walk down. I can still stand. Take my pack and come along.”

Every few yards Evans had to stop and lean against the trench wall. He heaved, but did not vomit. Winterbourne offered his arm, but he wouldn't take it. They passed two corpses, rather horribly mutilated, lying on stretchers at the end of the communication trench. Neither said anything, but Evans was thinking, “Well, gas is better than that,” and Winterbourne thought, “How long will it be before some one puts me there?”

He finally got Evans to the dressing-station, supporting him with his right arm. They shook hands outside.

“You'll get your commission, Winterbourne.”

“Thanks. Are you all right, sir? Shall I come down with you further?”

“No; go back and report that you left me here.”

“Very good, sir.”

They shook hands again.

“Well, goodbye, old man; best of luck to you.”

“Goodbye, sir, goodbye.”

He never saw Evans again.

When Evans had gone, Winterbourne's interest in the Company suddenly evaporated. He did not know the new officers, rather disliked the Captain, and of course was not on the same footing with them as he had been with Evans. Henderson left for England to be trained as an officer. Winterbourne felt lonelier than ever. And he realized with disgust and horror that his nerve was gone. His daily trips were really
very easy – about a mile and a half, a few gusts of machine-gun bullets and about thirty or forty crumps on the road each way. The Germans had discovered some tanks hidden behind a slag-hill round which he had to pass. They shelled it with heavies. Winterbourne now found that he had to force himself to walk forward to them and through the area where they were bursting. It was worse at night. One night he did what he had never done before when carrying a message – waited ten minutes for the shelling to quiet down.

That ten minutes, curiously enough, saved his life. He heard several shells fall in and around Company H.Q. just as he came along the trench. One of them had fallen plump on their fragile shelter and blown it to pieces, instantly killing the runner, Jenkins, a boy of nineteen, who was lying there. If Winterbourne had not lingered that ten minutes on the road, he would inevitably have been killed too. He felt very guilty about it. Perhaps if he had come back the boy would have been sent back with a return message. But no, if there had been a return message it would have been his job.

He lost his blanket, ground-sheet, and pack. The runners were transferred to a similar shelter twenty yards further on. Winterbourne hated to pass the smashed shelter. He always thought of Jenkins and his absurd boyish grin. Jenkins had been errand-boy and then assistant to a grocer in a small provincial town. A most undistinguished person. He had a solemn respect for
John Bull
and its opinions. Otherwise he wasn't solemn at all, always cracking rather pointless jests, and grinning his boyish grin, and hardly ever grousing. Winterbourne regretted him.

At Battalion Headquarters, Winterbourne tried to read, and found it impossible. He discovered an old number of
The Spectator
with an article on Porson, written by a man he had known. He had to read the article before he remembered who Porson was, and found himself puzzling over quite ordinary sentences like a ploughman. He threw the paper down in despair, and got permission to go to an estaminet. They had no wine, and spirits were forbidden. He sat there drinking the infamous and harmless French beer, and droning out sentimental songs with the other Tommies. He got into the habit of bribing the Q.M.S.'s clerk to give him extra rum. Anything to forget.

At the end of one of his fortnightly periods at Battalion H.Q., Winterbourne went as usual to the R.S.M.:

“Winterbourne, D Company runner, returning for service in the line, sir.”

The R.S.M. turned over some papers, pursing up his lips:

“Let me see, let me
seeee.
Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Here we are: 31819 Private Winterbourne, G. Yes. You're returning to England on Friday for the purpose of proceeding to an Officer Cadet Corps. Report to the Orderly-room at four (pip emma) on Thursday for your papers, and draw iron rations from the Q.M.S. Will report to R.T.O. at Rail Head before eight (ack emma) on Friday, and will be struck off the strength. Got that?”

“Yes, sir. Will you give me a chit to show them in the line, please?”

“No. Today's Wednesday. You'd better stay here, and I'll send up the runner who is taking your place.”

“Very good, sir.”

The boy who was taking Winterbourne's place was delighted to get the job. He was a quick-witted youth who had been trained as an elementary-school teacher, and thanked Winterbourne as if the new job had been his gift. He was killed by a bullet as he climbed out of the communication trench with his first message. Winterbourne began to feel as if he had made a pact with the Devil, so that other men were always being killed in his stead.

For the remaining two days he was virtually excused duty. He was allowed to go to the baths each day, and got himself clean and free from lice. He received absolutely new underclothes, not the worn, soiled garments full of dead lice usually issued at the baths; was given new puttees and trousers in place of his soiled, torn ones, and handed in his rent leather jerkin. He had a sacking bed, and slept twelve hours a night. Already he was a different being from the dazed and haggard man of the Hill 91 days.

He wanted very much to go to England, and yet his chief feeling was that of apathy. Now that his orders had come, he felt he would just as soon have stopped where he was. Why prolong the agony? If he stayed, he would either be hit sooner or later, or become a battalion runner, a much better and less anxious job than that of an Infantry subaltern. Still, might be worth while, just to see Elizabeth and Fanny again…

It was hot midsummer weather. He wandered out along the straight French road, with its ceaseless up and down of mechanical transport and military traffic. The Military Police and armed pickets suspiciously
turned him back. He found a little hedgeless field of poppies and yellow daisies, and sat down there. The heavies were firing with regular deliberation; overhead the white shrapnel bursts pursued an enemy plane; from the far distance came a very faint “claaang!” as a shell smashed into M—. it was so strange to have unmuddy boots, to sit on grass in the sun and look at wild flowers, to see one or two undamaged houses, not to be continually on the alert. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his doubled fists under his chin, staring in front of him. His body was rested, but he felt such an apathetic weariness of mind that he would have been glad to die painlessly there and then, without ever going back to England, without ever seeing Elizabeth and Fanny again. His mind no longer wandered off in long coherent reveries, but was either vaguely empty or thronged with too vivid memories. It seemed incredible that only seven months or so had passed since he had left England – more like seven years. He felt, not so much self-contempt as self-indifference. He did not despise George Winterbourne he merely wasn't interested in him. Once he had been extremely interested in himself and the things he wanted to do; now he didn't care, he didn't want to do anything in particular. Directly the military yoke was lightened and he was left to himself for a few hours, he was aimless, apathetic, listless. If he had been told there and then that he was discharged from the Army and could go, he wouldn't have known what to do except to stay there and stare at the poppies and daisies.