Love and the Loveless (17 page)

The next day, while he was censoring mail, Phillip read an account of what had happened in a letter by Sergeant Rivett to Downham, still apparently at the Training Centre. He considered that, if it fell into enemy hands, Rivett’s letter would give away the whereabouts of the company. So he blacked out about the raid on the Fifth Army balloons, laughing while he did so as he imagined bloody old Downham trying to make out what it was all about.

The sports were held the next day. The main event, devised by Phillip, was a bit complicated. It was called the
Inter-Section
Relay Jerusalem Cuckoo Leapfrog race. Four riders, one representing each section, set off, to jump each fence: and having done this, each was to await the arrival, if any, of his No. 2 jockey, over the same fence. There they were to exchange mules, and the “Number Ones” to set off for the second fence, on the other side of which each would dismount again, await to exchange with his Number Two, and so on round the course. Mules would not as a rule jump; it was hard to make them go at more than an obliging trot, so, as Sergeant Rivett wrote again a few days later to Major Downham, ‘the fun was fast and furious’. So was the Sergeant’s style, thought Phillip.

His eye skated down the blue roneographed foolscap page … responsible for the capture of BULLECOURT … will jump off at two minutes before Zero hour and will advance at rate of 100 yards in 2 minutes … strong bombing party will push Eastwards … before the barrage lifts … special attention being paid to the Sunken Roads running N.E. in U. 22, where strong
parties of the enemy are liable to be met with … One battalion and two companies of the Brigade will push forward at Zero hour plus 2 hours and 15 minutes under an artillery barrage to the 3rd Objective … 1 Brigade will be in reserve in the valley North West of MORY … Order re Tanks will be issued later … Tanks will follow the Infantry as closely as possible, but the Infantry will not wait for the Tanks … The 2nd Australian Division will attack on the right—boundaries as shown on the attached sketch.

*

“That’s a bloody fine way, I don’t think, to send out Battle Orders, ‘Provided the wire is sufficiently cut’ scratched out in pencil so bloody carelessly that anyone can read the words! I bet that’s the work of some fat little rotter from Eton sitting on his bottom and living off the fat of the land. The staff all over!” said Pinnegar. “There’ve been half a dozen attacks on
Fontaine-les-Croiselles
already, and local assaults on Bullecourt, and every one a wash-out!”

“How deep are those belts of wire, Teddy?”

“Anything up to a hundred yards.”

“What part do the sections play?”

“Overhead covering fire from the railway embankment, then move forward with the third wave. Stay in the first objective, under Brigade order,
If
we get there.”

“Where do you go?”

“Remain with Jack at company headquarters, under the railway embankment.”

“Where’s Brigade battle headquarters?”

“At l’Homme Mort. What’s the idea of all the questions?”

“I just want to know.”

“I said, What’s the idea?”

“Oh, just in case you’re all knocked out.”

“You’re a bloody fine Job’s comforter! Anyway, you’re only the transport wallah. You do damn-all in the attack. A.T.O. doesn’t count in seniority for command, you know.”

“Of course I know. But it’s just as well to know, Teddy.”

*

A yellowhammer was building a nest in the bank near the cookhouse. He went to see how it was getting on. But with no
real
interest, because, while quite content with life, he was not in English country.

The new leaves on the hedgerow bushes, the pricking green of
barley and oats in the fields, swallows flittering about broken barn walls, twittering happily—everything was seen a little apart, as though through thin glass. The war did not worry him, the coming attack gave a feeling of excitement, as something to be felt apart from himself. It was a comfortable feeling that he was out of the actual fighting, an interested spectator. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the fine spring weather.

By May Day there were three eggs in the rootlet cup lined with hair from mules’ tails. Jules the chef came out of his cooking shelter and smiled at Phillip. He, too, was watching the nest. “We call the yellowhammer a scribbling lark in Gaultshire, Jules. See, the eggs are all scribbled on, as by a wet copying ink pencil.”

“Very pretty, sir. Dinky little bird. I love it!”

Phillip saw a new Jules. He was kind. “Many fellows come to see it, sir. They wouldn’t think of hurting it. Nice boys!”

Back at company headquarters, Pinnegar was huffing at a paper just come in. “Same old tripe,” he said.

“May I see?”

“I don’t care what you do.”

At 3.10 hours two days later the servant pulled at Phillip’s leg under the camel-hair bag and said, “Get up, sir,” quietly. He was awake at once, and after a cup of gun-fire tea, thick and sugary, went to the wheatfield on the 110-metre line enclosed within a single strand of wire against trespass. Zero hour was at 3.45 a.m. About 3.44 a.m., in the hush of darkness beginning to give way to a spectral pallor in which he could see the wire of the reserve line across the sunken road as a blackish mass, a lark rose
in song above him. It was followed by another, and a third; and he waited, with the stillness of expectation, while the singing grew faint and shrill as the birds flew towards the paling stars. There was a great ragged orange flash, oval and instant, from the four 9.2 howitzers in the chalk quarry on his right, and while the flash went through his eyes into his mind the sky became one great raging sea of light. Hundreds of batteries were firing. The 18-pounders were far in front, in the shallow open valley through which he had passed many times while taking limbers, in the dusk, to the railway embankment; 60-pounder counter-battery guns stabbed whitely beyond the sunken road, merging into the orange belches of howitzers—6-inch, 9.2, and 12-inch behind him, under the crest. Thousands of great fingers of light were flickering to the zenith, while the earth shook and rumbled with one continuous drumming reverberation. And through the intense exhilaration of this massive light and sound, while red, green and golden rockets arose from the ragged line of fire where shells were bursting, he heard, faint and high and thin, seeming to him to be like the jingling of frailest silver chains, the songs of larks.

Then it was over; and he heard, through the comparative silence, the solid hammering of machine guns. He went back to the lines; and shortly after 9 a.m., returning to the battery in the chalk pit, was told, ‘Back on the first objective’, and thought,
Provided
the
wire
is
sufficiently
cut
… higher authority must have overruled the divisional general, who must have seen enough of uncut wire at Gallipoli.

Later in the morning, walking wounded began to limp back. They said the attack had failed halfway to the first objective, and no reinforcements were to go up. There was the usual black pessimism of shocked troops who had gone over for the first time. One man who arrived, with a shrapnel ball through his left calf, while lying down, said that Mr. Montfort had been killed, while Mr. Fenwick had been hit while going to help Sergeant Butler. It was on the edge of the sunken lane. Mr. Fenwick had a leg blown off. Sergeant Butler had been hit in the throat. Mr. Fenwick was in a shell-hole. He had helped him put a twister above it, to stop the bleeding.

“Where was Mr. Fenwick when you saw him last?”

“In the shell-hole, sir, near Sergeant Butler, on the edge of the sunken road. And our dog, Little Willie, was wiv ’im, sir.”

“Did Little Willie go over with you?”

“I don’t know, sir. I only found ’im beside Mr. Fenwick.”

“Where exactly is the sunken road? Wait a moment, I’ll get my map. Have a cigarette. Tea’s coming. I won’t be gone very long.”

He returned with 51 b S.W. It showed part of the Hindenburg Line which had been captured ESE of Arras, below the main Arras-Cambrai road running straight as an arrow, and below the arrow, three downland tracks, scarcely roads, by which farm produce looked to have been taken to the cathedral market town. One of the lower roads, in peacetime, had passed through Neuville Vitasse, Henin, and Croiselles on the way to St. Quentin, and a railway had served the same country, keeping to lower levels but passing by Croiselles. He knew his way about that village, because he had explored it, and part of the glacis in front of the Hindenburg Line, at the beginning of April. It had been blown up by the Germans retreating to their
Siegfried
Stellung.

*

During that April exploration the Germans had been dropping a few shells into the ruins, searching for 18-pounders hidden in it. A battery commander had cursed him for showing himself; he had wandered on down to the embankment, looking at the skyline of the Hindenburg Line, apparently peaceful, but strong with invisible fear and steel. To test himself, he had walked across a road, where British troops were hidden, with the intention of getting as close as he could without being fired upon. A strange lightness of spirit possessed him, as though his body existed no more. He had felt that no harm would come to him; but being shouted at, had turned back, to be cursed by a major, dirty and angry, who asked him what the hell he thought he was doing? Didn’t he bloody well know he’d draw fire upon the men in the front line?

*

“Exactly where was Mr. Fenwick lying when you last saw him? Can you pin-point the place on this map? Croiselles is there. There’s the Sensée brook going under the road. Further along is the sugar factory, or what’s left of it. Now the land begins to rise, see? Those lines mark the heights. That’s the seventy-metre line, that’s a track branching off towards the Hindenburg Line, up a gentle slope, seventy-five metres—eighty metres. Now do you see that darkish mark, looking like a wire-worm? That’s where the waggon track has been worn down, making a sunken lane.”

“That’s the place, sir! Almost on the top of the rise! I just saw Jerry’s wire three hundred yards away, before we had to get into the prone position, sir. Jerry’s fire was real terrible, coming from all directions. But we was all right while we lay down. So Mr. Fenwick shouted to us to crawl into the sunken lane. When we got there, we saw it was swep’ by indirect emma gee fire from Bullecourt, a mile east from where we was. Bullets wasn’t cracking like, but going pss-pss, four or five guns together, like ’ail the bullets was goin’ past! From a distance, you see, sir. They was all on a droppin’ tra-jectory.”

“I don’t expect they’ll be firing, now the attack’s stopped. Ah, the cook’s brought us some tea! Well done, Cookie. I’ll see if I can get some rum from the quarter bloke.” He poured two spoonfuls into the tea, then gave the jar back to the C.Q.M.S.

Soon afterwards, having seen that particulars of the walking wounded had been taken for the company War Diary, he left the C.Q.M.S. in charge, and followed by Morris, rode through St. Leger and down towards Croiselles. Poor old “Darky” must be found, and if possible brought back later on by stretcher bearers. The thing to do was to find the place where he was in daylight, and then organise and lead up stretcher bearers to arrive in the village as soon as dusk fell, before the German patrols went out. Even then, like as not they wouldn’t fire. He remembered their decency at Loos, on the Sunday when the line broke and the New Army divisions left the battlefield, and he, lying with some of the wounded, had been told he could go back by a German colonel, after some of the men had been given brandy, and their wounds bandaged. Also on July the First, in front of Ovillers, the same decency had been shown.