Death of a Hero (50 page)

He took Fanny home in a taxi, and held her hand, gazing silently in front of him. At the door of her flat he kissed her:

“Good night, Fanny dearest. Thank you so much for having dinner with me.”

“Aren't you coining in?”

“Not tonight, dear. I'm dreadfully sleepy – bit tired, you know.”

“Oh, all right. Good night.”

“Good night, darl – ”

The last syllable was cut off by the sharp closing of the flat door.

Winterbourne walked back to Chelsea. The street lamps were very dim. For the first time in his life he saw the stars plainly above Piccadilly. In the King's Road he heard the warning bugles for an air raid. He got into bed, extinguished the light, and lay there listening, wide awake. To his shame he found the shell-fear come back as the Archies opened up, and he started each time he heard the thud of a bomb. They came closer, and one crashed in the next street. He found he was sweating.

Elizabeth did not get back until three. Reggie and she had taken shelter in the Piccadilly Hotel. Winterbourne was still awake when she came in, but did not call to her.

His leave came to an end, and he spent five weeks of vague routine at his depot. He hated coming back to barrack-room life, and did not like the men he was with. They were all Expeditionary men, but strangely different from what they were in the line. Most of the comradeship had gone; they were selfish, rather malicious to each other, and servilely flattered the N.C.O.'s who could get them passes. They seemed to think about nothing except getting passes out, so that they could meet girls or go to pubs. They grumbled ceaselessly. Some of them occasionally told hair-raising War stories, which Winterbourne thought quite probable, though he refused to accept their evidence as conclusive. He always remembered one story, or rather episode, related by a Sergeant in the Light Infantry:

“We 'ad a bloody awful time on the Somme. I shan't forget some of the things I saw there.”

“What things?” asked Winterbourne.

“Well, one of our orificers laid out there wounded, and we see a German run up with one of those stick-bombs, pull the string, and stick it under the orificer's head. 'E was wounded in both arms, and couldn't move. So 'e 'ad five seconds waitin' for his ‘ead to be blowed off by that bomb sizzlin' under 'is ear. We 'adn't time to get to 'im. Some one shot the German, and then some o' our chaps picked up a wounded German orificer and threw 'im alive into a burning ammunition dump. 'E screamed something 'orrible.”

From the depot he was sent to the Officers' Training Camp with two days' leave. He managed to get Fanny and Elizabeth to meet and
lunch with him on the day he left. They both saw him off from Waterloo, and then parted outside the station.

The months of dreary training in the cold, dreary camp dragged by. He had two days' leave in the middle of the course, then “passed out” as an officer, and was sent on leave again, with orders to wait until he received official notice of his appointment.

Elizabeth and Fanny both admired the cut and material of his cadet's uniform, which was exactly like an officer's except that it bore no badges of rank and that he did not wear the shoulder-strap of his Sam Browne belt. He looked ever so much smarter in his new officer's clothes, with the little blue chevron, marking service overseas, sewed on his left sleeve. They both quite took to him again, and during his month's leave gave him a good time. Fanny thought him still an excellent lover. Only, instead of gay and amusing talk “in between”, he sat heavily silent, or drank and talked about that boring, awful War. It was such a pity – he used to be such a charming companion.

This leave came to an end too. He was gazetted, and went to his new regimental depot, situated in wooden huts on a desolate heath in the North of England, a place swept by rain and wind, and deadeningly chill in the wet winter days. The other officers were sharply divided into two sections or sects. Wounded survivors from the early days of the War, now on Permanent Home Service; and the newly-gazetted officers, with a sprinkling of wounded on Temporary Home Service. They ate in one large mess-room, but had two common rooms, which seemed to be tacitly reserved for each of the two groups, who scarcely ever mingled. Only the cadets from Sandhurst were admitted into the more exclusive room.

There was very little to do – parading with the Company, inspection, a little drill, orderly officer occasionally. There were so many new officers waiting to go overseas that the quarters were uncomfortably crowded, and there seemed to be almost as many officers as men on parade. He got the impression that infantry subalterns were cheap as stinking fish.

At last he got his orders to proceed overseas – France again, though he had hoped for Egypt or Salonika. He had two more days of leave and a quarrel with Elizabeth, who found him writing a loving note to Fanny on the morning he arrived. He went off in dudgeon and spent the time with Fanny. He saw Elizabeth again on the afternoon of the day before
he left, and patched matters up with her. She was now furiously jealous of his spending nights with Fanny, but “forgave” him. She said that the War had affected his mind so much that he did not know what he was doing; and anyway, as he was going out again at once, they might as well be friends. They kissed, and he went off to keep a dinner engagement with Fanny.

His train left at seven the next morning. He got up at five-thirty, and kissed Fanny, who woke up and sleepily offered to get him coffee. But he made her lie still, dressed hastily, made himself some coffee, found he could not eat anything, and went back to the bedroom. Fanny had fallen asleep again. He kissed her very tenderly and gently, not to wake her; and softly let himself out of the flat. He had difficulty in finding a taxi, and was horribly worried lest he should miss his train and be suspected of overstaying leave. He got to the platform one minute before the train started. There was no porter to carry his large valise, but he managed to get into a carriage just as the train started. It was a Pullman, so crowded with officers that he hadn't room to sit down, and had to stand all the way to Dover. Most of them had newspapers. The news of the crushing defeat of the Fifth Army was just coming through. They were being sent out to replace losses. He thought of something which had happened the night before…

Fanny had insisted on his coming with her for a couple of hours to a party of the intelligentsia given by some one with chambers near the Temple. As they passed Charing Cross Station, Winterbourne bumped into a man from his own Company who had just arrived by the leave train.

“Go on with the others, Fanny dear. I'll catch you up. Anyway, I've got the address.”

He turned to Corporal Hobbs, and said:

“Are you still with the old lot?”

“No; I left 'em in November. Got trench feet at Ypres. I was supposed to be court-martialled, but that was washed out. I've got a job at the Base now.”

“You're lucky.”

“You've heard the news, I s'pose?”

“No; what?”

“Well, we heard there's a big surprise attack on the Somme. We're retiring, and our old Division is s'posed to have copped it badly – smashed to pieces, the R.T.O. said.”

“Good God!”

“I think it must be true. All leave's stopped. I just managed to get away before the order came. There were only about ten men on the boat. Lucky for me I went down early.”

“Well, so long, old man.”

“I see you're an officer now.”

“Yes, I'm just going out again.”

“Best of luck to you.”

“Best of luck.”

He found the man's chambers. There were about ten people present. Winterbourne knew some of them. They had also heard the news of the battle through a man in Whitehall, and were discussing it.

“It's a bad defeat,” he said. “I'm told that the highest authorities think it adds another year to the war and will cost at least three hundred thousand men.”

He said it carelessly, as if it were a matter of casual importance. Winterbourne heard them constantly using the phrase “three hundred thousand men”, as if they were cows or pence or radishes. He walked up and down the large room apart from the others, thinking, no longer listening to their chatter. The phrase “Division smashed to pieces” rang in his brain. He wanted to seize the people in the room, the people in authority, every one not directly in the War, and shout to them: “Division smashed to pieces! Do you know what that means? You must stop it, you've got to stop it! Division smashed to pieces!”…

13

W
INTERBOURNE listened intently. Yes, it was! He turned to his runner:

“Did you hear that, Baker?”

“Hear what, sir?”

A plane droned gently and distantly in the still air, and then very faintly but distinctly:

Claaang!

“There! Did you hear it?”

“No, sir.

“It was one of the heavies falling into M—. You'll hear them soon enough. But come on, we must hurry. We've a long way to go if we're to get back before dark.”

A year, almost to the day, after he had gone into M – for the first time, Winterbourne was returning to it as an officer in command of a company.

From London he had proceeded direct to Etaples, where he remained for several days under canvas on the sandy slopes among the pines. Large numbers of officers were being sent out, and they had to sleep four to a tent. Winterbourne thought this a luxurious allotment of space, but the other three subalterns, who had never been to France before, complained that there was not enough room for their camp-beds and that they had to sleep in their flea-bags. Winterbourne had not troubled to bring a camp-bed, knowing how few opportunities there would be to use it.

There was very little to do in Etaples, even with the more extended opportunities of an officer. They messed in a large, draughty marquee, but there was a camp cinema where he spent part of each evening. There were numbers of Waacs at the Base, and he noticed that many of them were pregnant. Apparently there was no attempt at concealment; but then the birth-rate was declining rapidly in England, and babies were urgently needed for the Next War. He observed that the cemetery had doubled in size since he had last seen it from the train a few months before. That Ypres offensive must have been very costly. Such acres of wooden crosses, the old ones already battered and weather-stained, the new ones steadily gaining on the dunes. And now there was this smashing defeat on the Somme. Haig had issued his back-to-the-wall Order, there was unity of Allied command under Foch, and America had been frantically petitioned to send reinforcements immediately. And still the front daily yielded under the pressure of repeated German attacks. It looked like being a longer War than ever.

At Etaples he was allotted to the 2/9th Battalion of the Foddershires, and left to join them with about fifteen other subalterns, most of whom had never been in the line. He found the battalion on rest in a small village about twenty miles behind M –. They
belonged to one of the Divisions which had been smashed to pieces, and the battalion had suffered severely, losing most of its officers (including the Colonel) and the greater part of its effectives. The new Colonel was an ex-regular Corporal who had obtained a commission early in the War, and by dexterity and martinet methods had risen to the rank of Acting Lieutenant-Colonel. He was not a fighting soldier, but an expert trainer. He had the bullying manner of the barrack-square drill-instructor, and his method of “training” was to harass every officer and man under his command from morning to night. After a week's “rest” under this commander, Winterbourne felt nearly as tired as if he had been in the line. The subalterns who had never been under fire were exhausted and dismayed.

However, it must in justice be admitted that Colonel Straker was faced with appalling difficulties, and Winterbourne would have sympathized with the man if he had not so obviously been trying to push his own professional career in the Army at the expense of every one he commanded. The old battalion was a wreck. It had four of its officers left, one of whom was the Adjutant; a few of its old N.C.O.'s and a sprinkling of men were there, mostly signallers and headquarters men. Not a single one of the Lewis gunners remained. Two companies had been captured, and the remainder had fought a way out with terrific losses. The gaps had been filled chiefly by raw, half-trained boys of eighteen and a half, many of whom were scared stiff by the mere thought of going into the trenches. To secure an adequate number of N.C.O.'s the Colonel had to promote nearly every man who had any experience of the War, even transport drivers who could scarcely write their names.

Winterbourne had expected to go into the line at first as a supernumerary officer under instruction, and to pick up his duties by watching others and always going about with them. To his dismay, but also a certain amount of flattered vanity, he found himself immediately appointed as acting commander of B Company. But it was inevitable. Several of the new officers were mere boys; others volunteers from the Army Service Corps – perfectly competent at their own job but quite ignorant of trench warfare; and others again were “keymen” from business houses, reluctantly yielded to the “combings out” of 1917. Winterbourne had four subalterns under him – Hutchison, Cobbold, Paine, and Rushton. They were all good fellows, but three of them had seen no service whatever, and the fourth had been in Egypt only.

When Winterbourne inspected his company on the first day, his heart sank within him. He felt it was monstrous to send these scared-looking boys into the line without a proper stiffening of more experienced men. It would have been far better to spread them out. They cleaned their buttons perfectly, drilled very neatly, turned right or left with an imitation Guards stamp, and trembled when an officer spoke to them. But they were mighty raw stuff for the job ahead of them. Winterbourne thought of his own greenness when he had first gone into the line, and his heart sank lower as he thought of his own utter inexperience as an officer. He had a very sketchy idea of how a company was run in the line. Of course, he had heard and carried orders, and had been roughly schooled in company organization – on paper – at the Cadet School. But that was very different from assuming the responsibility for a hundred-odd men, most of them frightened boys who had never seen any but practice trenches and never heard a shell burst. Well, the only thing was to carry on, and do his best…