The Beauty and the Sorrow (57 page)

One of the dead pilot’s colleagues is buzzing around above them, seeking revenge.

Something stirs in de Nogales. Perhaps it is because of the dead man’s beauty, or perhaps (as de Nogales puts it himself) it is because he feels respect for an honourable and fearless enemy, an officer and a Christian like himself, but he cannot bring himself to leave the body there as prey for the desert dogs. Drawing his revolver he forces a man to load the body on his camel and take it back to Abu Hureira.

There de Nogales ensures that the pilot is given a proper burial. It is impossible to get hold of a coffin in a hurry so he wraps the dead man in his own cloak. He also takes off the little gold cross he has worn since he was a child and pins it like a medal on the dead man’s chest.

WEDNESDAY
, 25
APRIL
1917
Alfred Pollard writes a letter to his mother

What keeps him going is the same hope that leads the generals to persist with their plans and attacks: the belief that although his own side is suffering severely, his opponents are suffering even more. So it is just a question of time, of holding out a bit longer, just a bit longer. Then the enemy’s front will collapse and the war will be decided, won, finished. (The use of the term “push” derives from the same mentality: all that
is needed is a decisive “push” and the Germans will be forced to their knees.) The planned German withdrawal in France back to the Hindenburg Line is interpreted—not without some justification—as a sign of weakness.
^f
Pollard’s unit is one of those that has followed on the heels of the Germans. On one occasion he led his company up on a hill and for the first time in almost three years he suddenly found himself looking out over a spring-green landscape that was almost completely untouched by war. He really believed at that moment that they were on the threshold of victory, that they had only to push a little bit more, a little bit more. He was genuinely frustrated when the news reached him that his unit was to be relieved—now, when the end was so close. “However, orders are orders and have to be obeyed.” His company, down to only thirty-five men, marched back along muddy roads. The spring sun was warm enough for them to take off their tunics.

At the beginning of April when the British army launched yet another offensive, this time at Arras, Pollard was back at a base camp recovering from an injury of a banal kind: he had tripped in the dark and sprained his foot badly. He wanted to take part in the offensive at any price and quickly returned to the part of the front where his battalion was waiting to be sent into battle. And, once again, his task has been to lead patrols into no-man’s-land.

Today he is writing to his mother about his latest exploits:

I had a most exciting adventure in a Hun trench the other day. I cut through their wire and got into their trench thinking it was unoccupied, but soon discovered it was full of Huns and consequently had to beat a hasty retreat. I got out all right fortunately. I hear a rumour that the Brigadier has recommended me for a bar to my M.C. in consequence of this little business so if you keep your eyes glued on the paper you may shortly see my name in it. Don’t think I’ve been taking any unnecessary risks because I have not. I’ve merely done what I’ve been asked to do.

Well, dear old lady, although out of the line we are still away from civilisation. By the way I have received another box of new records but cannot play the wretched gramophone until those governor springs arrive so please hurry them up.

Best of spirits and having a good time. By the way, I have killed another Hun. Hurrah!

SUNDAY
, 29
APRIL
1917
Alfred Pollard stops a German attack at Gavrelle

The fierce firestorm up on the forward line is not enough to disturb his sleep. He is woken instead by a messenger, who has brought him a very terse order: he is to organise cover for the flank
immediately
. Pollard leaps out of his bunker: “There was no time to enquire what had happened. It was obvious that something had gone wrong. I must act at once.”

The strange thing is that when he gets out into the clear spring sunshine everything is absolutely quiet. There is neither the sound of exploding shells nor even any rifle fire. The apparent calm serves only to make him even more uneasy. Pollard feels his heart begin to pound. His instincts tell him they are in deadly danger. He starts scanning the trenches in the forward line. Everything seems to be in order on the right. He looks to the left. Suddenly he sees it: over there, about a mile away, there is a German counter-attack under way. No soldiers can be seen moving but he can hear the characteristic sound of hand grenades—
Bang! Zunk! Zunk! Zunk!
—and see the small grey clouds of smoke left by the explosions.

This continues for five minutes.

Then the utterly unexpected happens.

The positions that are under direct attack seem to be holding firm, but some of the British troops manning the trenches alongside have started to run—away from the enemy. The panic is spreading quickly and a dense crowd of men is fleeing across the field.

Then Pollard sees that the German counter-attack is rapidly rolling forward through the gap that has been left, through the connecting trenches, towards the second line and straight towards the position he is in. At a moment like this, with German storm troops only minutes
away, a brave but more averagely constituted man would have considered it sufficient to organise a defence quickly and then await the inevitable clash. The German force is a strong one, at least a company, possibly a whole battalion.

But Pollard is not average.

At first the sense of shock almost makes his knees give way and he is forced to grab hold of the edge of the trench to avoid falling over.

Then the curious feeling came to me which I have described before that I was no longer acting under my own volition. Something outside myself, greater than I, seemed to take charge of me. Acting under this mysterious influence I ran forward.

First of all, he manages to stop some of the panicking men and he positions them in shell holes with orders to shoot—it does not matter if they hit anything or even take aim. Then he draws his revolver. Gun in hand, with three men behind him, armed with no more than six hand grenades, he prepares to charge towards the Germans in the connecting trenches. And he does this giving hardly a thought to the fact that his enemy is possibly a hundred times more numerous.

He gives his small party some rapid instructions. Pollard will go in front and the three men are to follow him with hand grenades primed. Whenever they hear him fire his revolver they are to throw a grenade so that it lands about fifteen yards in front of him and beyond the next bend in the trench.

They set off.

They run forward.

For the first hundred yards they see no one. All is clear and they move on quickly. They meet a solitary British soldier, “the fourth member of my little army.” They carry on along the empty connecting trench.

After just another hundred yards Pollard rounds a corner and sees a German soldier, bayonet fixed, coming towards him. Pollard fires. He sees the German drop his rifle and collapse, hands clutching his stomach. Two hand grenades fly over Pollard’s head towards the next bend. Another German appears. Pollard fires again and this one falls in a heap, too. The hand grenades explode. He sees a German turning back but he also sees several other Germans pushing forward. He fires again. More
hand grenades sail over his head and detonate:
Bang! Zunk!
The remaining Germans withdraw.

At this stage, with the German attack turned back against all odds, a brave but more averagely constituted man would have considered his work done, particularly since all the hand grenades were now finished.

But Pollard is far from average.

His blood is up, and he feels “a thrill only comparable to running through the opposition at Rugger to score a try.” He rushes after the fleeing Germans in the connecting trench. He catches glimpses of figures in field grey, fires and misses. Finally, he comes to his senses and begins to organise the defence. His speciality is hand grenades and to his joy he finds heaps of them left behind by the Germans. Pollard prefers the German stick grenades to the British version, partly because they can be thrown further and partly because they have a more powerful explosive charge and make a considerably louder bang—purely psychologically, the noise is very important. They take with them as many as they can carry.

Within no more than ten minutes the Germans have pulled themselves together sufficiently to mount a counter-attack. The fighting takes the form of a duel with hand grenades. Grenades fly through the air in short arcs. Explosion follows explosion. Dust and grey smoke hang in the air. Pollard removes his helmet so that he can throw better and after a while he also rips off his gas-mask bag.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
When German grenades land between their legs they pick them up quickly and hurl them over the side of the trench. The Germans, shaken and taken by surprise, obviously have no idea that they are facing only four isolated men. But anyway, space is so tight down in the depths of a connecting trench that only two or three men at a time can take part in the fighting. If the Germans had thought to climb out and advance over the flat ground alongside the trench, Pollard’s little troop would have been overcome in a matter of minutes.

The supply of captured grenades is shrinking fast. One of Pollard’s men notices this and asks whether it is time to start pulling back. Pollard refuses: “I’m not going back one foot, Reggie.”

Then everything goes quiet.

The Hun attack has ceased as suddenly as it had started. They count their hand grenades—they only have six left. He and a couple of his
soldiers go back along the connecting trench to collect the grenades they had left behind. On the way they meet men from Pollard’s company moving forward to assist them. Thus strengthened, they repel the next German counter-attack without too much difficulty.

Everything goes quiet again.

Pollard spends the rest of the afternoon organising the defence of the connecting trench.

Things remain calm.

As night approaches, they are relieved. Pollard is utterly exhausted by then. As they are marching back they pass through a belt of poison gas but he is simply too tired to put on his gas mask. By the time they get back to the cookhouse wagons he feels very sick, but a cup of hot tea eases the worst of his nausea.

TUESDAY
, 1
MAY
1917
Willy Coppens spends four and a half minutes over Houthulst

He is guilty of over-estimating himself, of that there is no doubt. Even though his plane has still not had its forward-firing machine gun mounted, which means he is completely reliant on his observer’s armament, Willy Coppens has decided that he is going to fly deep into enemy territory and find an opponent to shoot down. Coppens feels virtually “invulnerable” today. It has something to do with his confidence in his own ability—he is now a competent pilot even though his combat experience is limited—but it also has something to do with his confidence in his machine: a Sopwith 1½ Strutter, the fastest and most modern aircraft type Coppens has ever flown.
^g
They cross the front line at Ypres and for once everything is quiet in the shell-shattered swathe of country around that shell-shattered town. A little to the south there is a British offensive going on at Arras, and right down on the Aisne there is a battle still raging around Le Chemin des Dames.
^h
Their flight path takes them north-east. At a height of just over 3,000 metres they pass over Langemarck and the old battlefield of 1914. As the plane flies in over the great forest of Houthulst Coppens finally sees what he is looking for. He catches sight of four German single-seaters; they are below him but have started to climb in his direction. As he tries to manoeuvre into a position to attack, he keeps a careful watch on them—so careful that he does not see four other enemy planes creeping up from the opposite direction.

A classic beginner’s mistake.

Coppens remains oblivious until the first clattering salvo strikes home.

Probability is the enemy of fighter pilots in this war: there are simply too many things that might go wrong. The aircraft are easily combustible, the construction fragile, the engines weak, protection non-existent and the armament unreliable. They have no parachutes.
ⁱ
The fact that aircraft engines must be hand cranked and do not have a starter motor means that there is nothing to be done if they cut out in the air. (The usual altitude for air combat is between 3,000 and 6,000 metres. It is always cold at that altitude, which as well as giving constant discomfort to the pilots in their open cockpits can also easily lead to engine failure because of problems with the cooling and lubrication systems.) It is not only the sudden silence after a crash that Coppens finds distressing; the sudden silence when an engine cuts out in the air is almost as bad.

Few if any combatants were faced with such appalling odds against survival as Allied pilots in the late spring of 1917. People talk with horror of “Bloody April.” With the help of technically better machines, improved training and new tactics, the German air force has slowly achieved superiority in the air. This superiority is peaking just now, during the Arras offensive. During the past month the French pulled back many of their badly mauled squadrons in order to rebuild them, but the British chose to continue the battle in the vain hope that superior numbers would make up for technical and training deficiencies.
^j
The result has been a massacre. Great Britain has lost one third of all her fighter planes in the last month. On average, a British fighter pilot has only seventeen and a half flying hours before being killed.