Sergeant Nelson of the Guards (15 page)

The Schoolmaster goes on:

“We all hope to live through all this, don’t we? Yet every one of us is prepared to die if necessary.”

We say that we suppose so.

“Yet,” says the Schoolmaster, “I don’t suppose that many of us here care much whether there’s an afterlife.”

Hodge says: “There is an afterlife. I know it.”

For fifteen minutes, twenty men talk all at the same time, at the top of their voice. Afterlife: there is one, there isn’t one, there must be one, there can’t be one, there might be one, there is no proof of one, there are a thousand proofs of one, it says so in the Bible….

“No,” says the Schoolmaster. “We don’t know where anything will lead to. We are all, so to speak, under Sealed Orders. We all pretend to live merely for our own ends, but it doesn’t quite work out that way. If it did, we’d run away from the first threat of danger. We should live and die like animals, like rabbits. Nobody would ever go away from the safety of his own little place. No new things would ever be discovered. No new ground would be broken. Men would still be living in caves. No, there is something in men that makes them go beyond themselves. That is what makes us men. Right back in the
beginnings
, men had a queer instinct to
leave
something, to make
something
that should stay when they were gone. Some time ago a cave was discovered in which men had lived tens of thousands of years ago. On the walls of this cave there were pictures, very carefully dawn, of animals. Now why do you think those dead-and-forgotten savages, struggling naked in the very dawn of things, wanted to leave pictures?”

“It is a fact,” says Barker, “that if you give a feller a wall ’e’ll ’
ave
to
draw something on it, or write something. Step across the way and you’ll see for yourself. You don’t ’ave to go back no ten thousand years.”

When the laughter subsides, the Schoolmaster says: “Men are always struggling against something. But the end must remain unknown.”

“Mug’s game,” says John Johnson.

“I daresay that is what the Guards said in Nieppe Forest,” says the Schoolmaster. “But in their hearts I don’t think they believed it.”

“What ’appened in Nieppe Forest?” asks Barker.

“Oh … last war,” says Sergeant Crowne.

“I heard the story,” says the Schoolmaster, “from a Captain of
Engineers
…. It was one of the things that made me join the Guards, as a matter of fact. I could never tell the story half as well as he did, because he was there, and saw it happen, and felt awfully deeply about it. He was one of the first men to become an expert in chemical warfare, after the Germans started to go all out in 1918. He had been working at something for three days and three nights, and at last, he, a Corporal, and a runner paused to rest on the fringe of Nieppe Forest.

“It was a Summer night. The officer and the Corporal took their turn to sleep. The runner kept watch. The night passed …” The
Schoolmaster
becomes a little dreamy…. “I suppose it passed in a timeless flash. They lay there, between a deserted village and a dark forest. And so dawn broke.

“The Engineer says that he awoke, instinctively almost, just before dawn. So did the Corporal. They listened. There was silence. Birds began to sing—first of all one little bird perched on the wreckage of something a few yards away. They watched it. Then, they realised that the enormous German push was coming. They blinked themselves thoroughly awake. And then, in the distance, they heard a gentle
shup-
shup,
shup-shup,
shup-shup.
Men marching. They looked at each other. The noise came nearer. The men were marching into the village. They heard a terrific voice shout:
March
to
Attention!
Only one sort of soldier will march to attention through a deserted village. The Corporal said, in a hushed whisper: ‘The Guards!’ And so it was. My friend watched
them as they passed, dusty with a tremendous journey along those terrible roads; but marching as if it were a Saturday morning on the Square under the eye of the C.O…. left, right; left, right; left … left … left…. They marched into the forest, took up firing
positions,
and settled down, that mere handful of Guardsmen, to hold back the entire German advance.

“What they did in that forest has gone down in history. But much later my friend had occasion to pass that way again. He found them still lying there. There hadn’t been time to bury them. They had been wiped out to the last man. Even in death they still held their positions. Even their dead bones remained obedient to their will to stay unbroken.”

A silence.

“Grouse about regimental bull-and-baloney,” says Sergeant Crowne. “Go on, grouse!”

“All those lovely fellers,” says Barker. “It sort of seems a kind of waste …”

“No,” says the Schoolmaster. “An example of that sort has got to be lived up to. Look at Captain Scott, dying horribly, all alone in an awful desolation. He didn’t achieve what he set out to do. And he died. He said: ‘Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood,
endurance
, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale …’ They did. I don’t suppose anything could have been more eloquent. No man’s gallantry is wasted. In the last war, for instance, hundreds of letters came to Scott’s widow, saying that they could never have borne what they had had to bear without the strength that had come to them through Scott. Other examples can be futile. An example of pure courage never is. A true hero gives new power to all mankind. And if he comes of your own blood, it becomes impossible for you to let him down. And if he has worn your badge…. No. The traditions of the British Army may sometimes have given it a narrow mind, but they have never failed to make its heart very great.”

“Did Oi ever tell you about Brummy Joe?” says Bates.

“Brummy Joe. Them Guards would a been frit o’ Brummy Joe. They wouldn’t o’ held no positions if Brummy Joe’d been advancing again ’em. Eighteen stun seven and six foot three in his stocking feet. Mind yow, Joe’s got a belly as stuck out like a basin. They said: ‘One punch in the belly and Joe’s finished.’ Ah. But get there! I defy yow! Get near enough Brummy Joe to ’it ’im there. Joe Louis couldn’t with a telegraph pole. When Brummy was on the beer the coppers went about armed. Once, when they pinched old Brummy, they broke seven cruncheons on ’is pore head. One night when Brummy went into a ’am-an-beef shop for a samwidge, the man didn’t give Brummy enough ’am. Well, so old Brummy Joe picks up the ’am knife and cuts a slice off the man behind the counter. As true as I am sitting on this form, a lovely thin slice. Once, Brummy laid out nineteen Leicester boys in Chilliam’s Dance Palace with a guitar. Talk about Captain Scott!

“Do yow know Chilliam’s Dance Palace? Oi lived ten minutes’ walk away, in Parrot Close, when Oi was married the first toime, properly married. Oi ’ad a noice ’ouse there. Moi woife was noice. She didn’t loike me-ee. She fell in loov wi’ moi best friend. It was loike going to the pictures. Moi friend came to me and said: “Oi loov Teena.’ Oi says: ‘Yow do, do yow? And does Teena loov yow?’ ‘Yes,’ ’e says. So Oi says: ‘All roight, Jim. Yow are my best friend, and so Oi give ’er to yow.’ And so Oi pommelled ’im till ’e was black and blue, and Oi tells Jim straight: ‘Oi don’t loike to beat yow, Jim, but Oi don’t want the neighbours to talk.’ And so moi woife run off wi’ moi best friend, just like the pictures. Ah. She was a foine woman, but she didn’t loike me. Oi loiked ’er, but Oi didn’t loike ’er cooking, so Oi used to ’ave my meals at my mum’s ’ouse. And moi woife didn’t loike that.

“So then Oi fell in loov wi’ a loovly girl, and she ’ad a ’usband as ’ad deserted ’er, and Oi ’ad a woife as ’ad deserted me, so we couldn’t get married, so Oi became ’er Unmarried ’Usband. It’s all roight. The Army recognised it, and she gets moi money. It’s respectable and proper.

“Oi gave moi married woife all moi furniture. We got another place, a cottage. But whenever moi unmarried woife went out shopping, moi
married woife, as is jealous of ’er, used to wait for ’er and call ’er names in the street. And moi unmarried woife called moi married woife names back.

“Then moi married woife’s mother, as thinks the world of ’er, used to wait outsoide where Oi was working and follow me ’ome, and call me names. Then my own mum and dad used to come and troy and make peace, but moi mum never got along wi’ moi married woife’s mum, and they used to foight in the street outsoide moi ’ouse. And moi unmarried woife’s stepmother, as ’ates the soight of ’er, started wroiting anonymous letters to everybody about me. And moi married woife set Jim on me, and Jim used to wait for me to leave the ’ouse in the morning and pick on me, and Oi ’ad to pommel ’im. And then moi unmarried woife’s ’usband turned oop, and ’e started waiting for me too, and Oi ’ad to pommel ’
im,
only ’e was a rough ’andful and it took me some toime. So Oi ’ad to leave ’alf an hour earlier in the morning to attend to moi foights.

“One day moi unmarried woife made ’erself a new dress, and moi married woife waited for ’er and tore it off ’er back.

“The neighbours complained to the police about the disturbance. All the kids in the street enjoyed themselves and played Ring-o’-Roses round me whenever Oi went out. Moi mates started giving me
nicknames
, like The Mormon, and Ole King Solomon. Moi unmarried woife’s stepmother scratched moi face in the street, and moi married woife came along and ’ad a foight wi’ ’er; and moi unmarried woife came out an’ joined in, an’ all the kids started singing and dancing. That was on a Saturday noight. Moi unmarried woife ast me if loov was worth whoile, and ’ad ’ysterics and soom women came in an’ soothed ’er down. Oi didn’t get a wink o’ sleep. Oi made up moi moind to join the Foreign Legion. Then, on the Sunday, war was declared. Oi was on the doorstep o’ the Recruiting Office two hours before it opened. Oi loike war. War is noice: it gives yow a chance to ’ave a little peace.”

“And what’s all this got to do with Brummy Joe?” asked Sergeant Hands.

“Give me a chance to get a
word
in,” says Bates. “Oi ’aven’t started yet.”

But
Cookhouse
sounds. We snatch up our knives and forks and go to tea.

*

In the course of this meal—mug of tea, slice and a half of bread,
two-thirds
of an ounce of margarine, and a Cornish Pasty, which Barker describes as “all pasty and no Cornish”—Dale, of all men on God’s earth, does something silly.

He is at the foot of the table. He wants to attract the attention of Hodge, who is pouring tea out of a three-gallon bucket. He shouts. Hodge doesn’t hear, for a couple of hundred men are eating at the tops of their voices. There is an odd crust of bread lying ready to hand. Dale takes careful aim and throws it at Hodge. The crust misses our gigantic friend and—it is one of those things that luck alone can achieve; a thing beyond human skill, like the falling on its edge of a tossed coin—drops very neatly into the hand of the Company Quartermaster-
Sergeant
, who happens to be passing at the moment.

The Quartermaster swells. His chin comes up; his eyebrows go down. “Who done that?” he asks.

Dale, white as paper, gulps and says: “I did, sir.”

“Oh,
you
did. Do you realise that you’re a traitor to your country? Do you realise that you’re nothing better than a Nazi agent? Do you realise that if you took and blew up a power station, that wouldn’t be no worse than what you just now done? Do you realise that this is Bread? Do you realise that Bread is the Staff of Life? Do you realise that thousands and thousands of sailors and marines drown every second for this here piece of bread? Do you realise that this is sabotage? Do you realise that in wartime, there’s a death penalty for sabotage? DO YOU REALISE THAT THERE IS A WAR ON, YOU
HORRIBLE
MAN, YOU?”

“No sir,” says Dale, losing his head. “Yes sir.”

“What d’you mean, No sir, Yes sir? Are you a Hitlerite?”

“No sir.”

“Then what do you commit offences like this for?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Are you mad?”

“No sir.”

“Then why do you do things and not know you’re doing them, or why you’re doing ’em? Do sane men do that?”

“No sir.”

“Then you’re crazy, aren’t you?”

Dale twists his face into a sickly grin and shrugs his shoulders.

“Oh,” says the C.Q.M.S. “Laughing. You think it’s a joke, do you?”

“No sir.”

“Then what are you laughing at?”

“Nothing sir.”

“Laughing at nothing. Raving mad. You must be, or you wouldn’t chuck lumps of nourishing food about in times like these. Don’t let me catch you at it again. Carry on.”

Dale moodily eats his Cornish pasty.

“You should have nudged him,” says the Schoolmaster. “In a case like that, the shock weapon is to be preferred to the missile weapon.”

“What’s a shock weapon?” asks Dale.

As we walk back to the hut, the Schoolmaster explains. “A shock weapon is something with which you strike your enemy directly.”

“Like a cosh,” says Barker.

“Exactly. Or a bayonet. A missile weapon is something that throws things and strikes your enemy from a distance, like a rifle, or a crust of bread, or a bow-and-arrow. The development of armies depends upon the development of missile weapons. Now we are highly advanced. An aeroplane armed with bombs and machine guns may be described as a missile weapon. So may a tank. The missile weapon is reaching its maximum efficiency. The rifle is being supplanted.”

“Rifles have their uses,” says Corporal Bearsbreath. “They’re easy to clean, easy to use, and easy to carry. And when all’s said ’n’ done, a ·303 bullet in your tripes is just as good as anything else. I bet old Wellington would have been glad of a few short Lee-Enfield
magazine-rifles
, Mark Three.”

“I bet he would,” says the Schoolmaster. “After all, any man trained to use a Lee-Enfield can be pretty certain of hitting his enemy, at three, four, or five hundred yards. In Wellington’s day, when we carried the old smooth-bore musket known as Brown Bess, the Guards’ musketry would have made you laugh. We practised at a hundred yards, with six-foot targets shaped like French Grenadiers. In the best possible
conditions
, the old brown musket misfired four times out of ten. You had to ram a handful of gunpowder down the spout, and put in a wad, and a ball, and then pour powder on the place where the flint struck a spark, and then pull your trigger and hope for the best. Training was at a high pitch at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when a
Guardsman
could load and fire about eight times in a minute. A musket, then, was like a cheap cigarette lighter—a matter of flint and steel. The chief concern of the soldier, then, was to see that his musket misfired as seldom as possible. So the first shot, loaded into the musket at leisure, was the most valuable. You had to make the most of your first volley.