The First Casualty (38 page)

‘Had you been hoping to speak to me, Captain?’

‘Yes, sir, I had.’

‘Still snooping about?’

‘That’s right, sir. Still snooping. Although I hope shortly to draw my conclusions.’

The colonel lapsed into thought for a moment. A soldier was warming a can of meat on one of the pocket-sized oil stoves the troops called a ‘Tommy’s cooker’. Hilton waded across the mud, leaned forward and sniffed the contents of the can. Grimacing slightly, he turned back to Kingsley.

‘Did you ever look about yourself, you know, at all of
this
and wonder, does anybody really give a damn about a police investigation? ‘

‘Yes, sir, many times.’

‘You’re an excellent soldier by all accounts, why don’t you transfer? Do something useful.’

‘I prefer being a policeman, sir.’

The colonel looked genuinely perplexed.

‘Extraordinary,’ he muttered under his breath, then added, ‘Can’t talk now, you understand. Busy.’

‘Yes, sir. I can see that. Would you mind if I followed you back?’

The moment the artillery officer had been hit, Kingsley had known that his investigations would be delayed. He fully understood that he would not be able to conduct an interview with Colonel Hilton while the fate of two companies of the colonel’s battalion hung in the balance. Wearily, Kingsley concluded that he would have to trust once more to luck and retrace his steps to the artillery line in the hope that, once Hilton had done his duty by his men, he would be able to speak to him. Assuming, of course, that he and Hilton survived the trip.

‘Well, you’re a useful fellow,’ Hilton replied. ‘I know that from how you took command of that trench raid the other night. But are you any good at keeping quiet?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m very good at keeping quiet.’

‘You’ll need to be. The damned shelling’s dropped right off, just when we could have done with a bit of noise cover. Always the same with shelling — like taxis, when you don’t need one, you see hundreds. The moment we leave this hole we’re a very easy mark for that damned machine gun. There is a covering ridge but it’s a good fifty yards back. Until we reach it we shall have to make our way very, very slowly.’

The colonel meant what he said. He and Kingsley crept out of the shell hole and began to inch forward, lying flat on their faces, chins resting in the cold mud. Scarcely daring to breathe, and agonizingly aware of every tiny sound they made, including their own heartbeats, which seemed to thunder treacherously in their chests like kettledrums. Knowing that any noise that attracted the attention of the ever-vigilant Germans, peering into the night from within their sandbagged machine-gun nest, must bring instant death.

In many places the British and German trenches were barely fifty yards apart; nonetheless, Kingsley knew that Staff insisted that the area between the two armies should be regularly occupied and charted. And so, on every night of the war, that long, thin stretch of mud that ran south through Belgium and France was alive with young British, Canadian and Anzac officers lying flat on their faces, reconnoitring a strip scarcely two hundred yards long, and yet the terrifying task took almost all night to complete. If, indeed, it was completed.

On this occasion Colonel Hilton was forcing the pace somewhat, although it did not appear so to Kingsley as he inched his nose and chin through the mud. They crossed the fifty yards of swamp to the covering ridge in less than ninety minutes, at a fairly reckless speed considering they were under the nose of a German machine gun, but they needed to move fast if they were to have any chance of reaching real safety before the dawn light made further movement impossible.

Beyond the shallow ridge they were able to raise themselves up into a crouch and begin to make their way back up the blasted slope and across the Langemarck — Gheluvelt Line. They were moving at a stooped scuttle now, gaining in confidence with every step, pausing only when the Very light star shells forced every living thing either to freeze or die. The ground was becoming a little more populated. They came across stretcher-bearers and retreating wounded, so they knew they must be approaching the British lines proper.

Just then, almost within sight of home, the German guns opened up once more in earnest.

‘Take cover! ‘ Hilton shouted and together they dived into the nearest hole.

FIFTY

Waiting it out under fire

There now began one of the most miserable days of Kingsley’s life. Like thousands of other men hiding in thousands of other holes on that mutilated plain, he was forced to sit tight in the midst of a full-scale artillery bombardment. Most of the shells were landing further up the slope from where Kingsley and the colonel had been heading, but enough were dropping short to make movement impossible. In a hole a man was pretty safe from everything except a direct or near-direct hit, but if he were to venture above ground he would be putting himself in the path of the lacerating side-blasts of every shell that landed within a hundred metres. He would be slashed to pieces within moments. There was nothing to do in such circumstances but to dig one’s hole as deep as possible, jam one’s helmet on low and sit it out. This Kingsley and Hilton did, scooping down into the puddle in which they stood and clawing up handfuls of sopping mud. With some effort they managed to extend their shelter to about three and a half feet in depth, before settling down together, waist deep in water, facing each other, knee to knee, to wait for the storm to lift.

Fortunately, for the time being at least, the rain had stopped.

Sitting out a bombardment was one of the most testing experiences of all for a soldier, and one that in itself left many strong men no longer in full command of their senses. To lurk within the stinking earth while all around it shook and moved; to be constantly showered with broken metal, rock and clods of clay, conscious that at any moment one was likely to be buried, possibly alive, and confined to oblivion: such an arbitrary threat came close to defeating Kingsley’s courage. The cannonade grew more swollen with the dawn and the whistles, bangs, throaty roars and constant clatter and clanging of falling debris seemed to shred his nerves by degrees with the coming of the day.

It was not a hurricane barrage of the kind known to the troops as drumfire, rather a plodding, heavy bombardment which grew slowly in intensity as the day progressed. Some conversation was possible between the most immediate blasts, and the colonel, who could see that Kingsley was shaken, took the opportunity to try to comfort him.

‘You mustn’t think about it, Captain,’ he said. ‘That’s the way we old sweats get through these things. Don’t dwell. If you dwell, you go mad. Fellows sit stewing, getting obsessed with meaningless rituals. They start thinking that if they don’t complete some silly song a hundred times or tap their knees a certain way, or get so many pulls at a cigarette before it burns their lips, then the next shell will be theirs. I’ve known men disobey orders just so they can get through some insane mental task they’ve set themselves, thinking it’s all that stands between them and the next blast. Don’t think that way, old boy. Drives a man nuts. Believe me, I have sat in holes just like this one and watched men go mad in an afternoon.’

Kingsley was shocked at the colonel’s perception. He had indeed begun to count the beats between blasts of certain types and distance, imagining that an order was developing which was known only to him and which he was bound to follow. The notion lacked all logic but nonetheless he could feel himself being drawn into the obsession, thinking that if he did not construct the pattern between each shell in his head, then the one he failed to note would kill him. It was like the times when he had flown in aeroplanes and had become convinced that if he personally stopped concentrating on keeping the machine aloft, it would fall out of the sky.

‘You’re right, colonel,’ Kingsley said. ‘I was beginning to…dwell. Thank you.’

‘Have to try to think about something else. And don’t let anybody see that you’re scared, that’s the most important thing.’

‘Why?’

‘Making the effort to look brave takes your mind off being scared. Everybody feels it. Same as whistling a happy tune.’

‘Are you scared, sir?’

‘Me? Scared? Of course not. I’m in a small, shallow hole under heavy bombardment from a battery of German howitzers, why on earth would I be scared? Ridiculous notion!’

The colonel smiled and they both laughed and Kingsley felt grateful to his older companion for sharing a little of his courage.

‘Shall we sing together?’ the colonel suggested. ‘I fancy a sing-song.’

‘Well, if you wish. Certainly.’

Kingsley was still deeply unnerved by the shelling all around him and was happy to try any method that might help him get through the ordeal.

‘
It’s a long way to Tipperary
,

It’s a long way to go
, ’

the colonel began in a rich, full tenor.

‘
It’s a long way to Tipperary

To the sweetest girl I know!
’

Kingsley took up the tune and together they sang ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’, ‘Fred Karno’s Army’ and ‘The Quartermaster’s Stores ‘.

Soon they could faintly hear other voices joining in. Kingsley was struck by the strangeness of it all: a landscape full of little holes in which men crouched, singing cheerful songs, while death fell all around them from the sky. He found his mind drifting back to the conversation he had had with Captain Shannon at the Hotel Majestic about the bizarre nature of modern war. It would be difficult to imagine a more bizarre situation than the one in which he currently found himself.

Eventually they sang themselves hoarse. It had certainly made Kingsley feel a little better, and so, in a conversation interrupted constantly by massive blasts of ordnance, he turned his mind once more to his investigation.

‘Sir,’ he began, ‘seeing as how we’re stuck here for the time being, perhaps I might speak to you again about the death of Viscount Abercrombie?’

‘What? Still harping on about that, eh? I wondered why you’d turned up again,’ the colonel replied. ‘Oh well, Abercrombie’s as good a topic as any, I suppose. I was going to suggest we discuss cricket.’

‘Colonel, were you aware that, while he was staying at Château Beaurivage, Viscount Abercrombie had tried to lay his hands on a green envelope?’

‘Really? No, I hadn’t heard that, but then I don’t issue them.’

‘Why do you think he might have wanted such a thing?’

‘To send a letter that he didn’t want the army to read, I imagine.’

‘As colonel, you would have the job of censoring your soldiers’ mail, is that right?’

‘Just the officers’, not the men’s. Horrible job. Loathsome. Can’t stand the idea of reading another chap’s letters but it has to be done. You’ve
no idea
the indiscretions some of these lads blurt out. They tell their girlfriends positions, strengths, battle orders! As if any decent girl would be interested in that sort of thing anyway.’

‘Did you ever have cause to censor Captain Abercrombie’s mail, colonel?’

‘Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I did.’

‘You never mentioned it to me.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘Did you not think it might be relevant?’

‘Not really. I consider it absolutely central to my duties as censor
never
to discuss the contents of the letters I am forced to read. It’s quite bad enough having to look at someone else’s private correspondence without chatting about its contents afterwards. Imagine what a cad I’d feel.’

‘I should like to ask you about that letter now.

‘You can ask. Let’s see how far we get, eh?’

‘Was it because of this letter that you visited Abercrombie at Beaurivage ?’

‘Yes, it was. I wanted to tell him personally that I’d blocked it. I wanted him to withdraw it voluntarily, otherwise I’d be compelled to refer it to Staff.’

‘Refer it to Staff. I thought it was your policy never to discuss the contents of the mail you read with anyone?’

‘Unless it involved matters affecting security. I would have thought that was pretty bloody obvious, Captain. Otherwise what would be the point of censoring the letters at all?’

‘You felt Abercrombie’s letter represented a breach of security?’

‘I found it…disturbing and I wanted him to withdraw it voluntarily.’

‘And what did he say to that?’

‘He told me to go to hell. First thing he
did
say, as a matter of fact.’

All this conversation was punctuated by the fearful blasts of high explosives that were going off above and all around the scratch of ground in which they sheltered. Kingsley was grateful that he had something solid to occupy his mind, for he felt that he had never in his life been in a more nerve-racking situation.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to tell me what was in this letter, Colonel.’

‘I’d really very much rather you asked them at Staff. They have it now.’

‘I have reason to believe that they don’t any more, Colonel. It’s my supposition that Abercrombie’s letter has been destroyed.’

‘Good thing too, if you ask me. The chap wasn’t himself. Shell-shocked. It would be a rotten shame if he were remembered only for some damn-fool notions knocked into him by German shells.’

‘What damn-fool notions, Colonel?’

The colonel shrugged.

‘Well, you’re a policeman, so I suppose I have to tell you. He wanted to resign his commission.’

‘To go into the ranks?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! The man was a viscount, how could he possibly have gone into the ranks? No, he wanted to chuck the army altogether. He’d
turned against the war
. Do you understand, Captain? The man who wrote ‘Forever England’ wanted to resign his commission because he was against the war! Decided it was wrong and wicked and
all
the usual stuff which we
all
feel most of the bloody time, but that still leaves three million German soldiers sitting in France and trying to get to Britain! What did he expect us to do about
them
while we’re all chucking it in just because we lost a pal or two?’

‘Was that in his letter? The loss of his friend?’

‘Oh, the loss of every damn friend. A generation! A generation of
golden boys
. All the usual bloody clichés. Did he think we’d honour them by giving up? I’ve lost a son, we’ve all lost sons, and the best memorial we can build for them is to kill as many Germans as we can and to win the war they died in.’

Kingsley was about to reply but instead he waited. Throughout their talk each of them had been entirely alive to the shrieks and whistles of descending shells all around them. Kingsley had very soon learned to identify which noise signalled an approach that would land more closely than the rest and what sort of blast would follow. He and Hilton were listening to just such an approach now, both of them knowing that the whistle which their minds had picked out unbidden signalled that this time they were well and truly underneath one.

Hilton drew his knees in close to his chest and put his fingers in his ears. Kingsley did likewise and held his breath through the long, plodding seconds that marked the passage of the descending shriek. He thought he heard Hilton wish him luck and then the missile struck.

Kingsley found himself lifted up and somersaulting, but not through air, rather through earth. It was as if the ground had become a solid but shifting sea and Kingsley was being sucked under by an approaching wave. He rolled over and over inside the mud, entirely helpless, one small element in a mighty cataclysm.

Then the movement stopped, at least outside Kingsley’s body it stopped. Within himself, every nerve and cell seemed to be in violent motion. He had been utterly shaken as if by some giant’s hand, and now he was so disorientated that he had no real sense of his own form.

And yet he knew he was alive. And that he was buried. Buried alive.

Struggling to concentrate his rattling brain whilst his trapped body convulsed with the mud that filled his mouth and ears, desperate to expel it from his throat but having nowhere but solid mud to expel it into, Kingsley understood one thing. He must somehow ascertain which way was up. In the few seconds of struggle that remained to him, in which direction should he attempt to force his body?

Kingsley had been fighting the dirt, trying to push each of his limbs in a different direction, but now he forced himself to stop. He remembered his fencing master: ‘In a fight,
think
.’

He had been holding his breath when the blast had occurred, and there was still some air in his lungs. He had perhaps ninety seconds left to him. He forced himself to count out ten of them in stillness.

Surely there must be some means of ascertaining which way was up?

Those few seconds saved his life for in them, even through his blocked ears, he could make out a sort of thudding, a heavy pattering, like a rain of mud. Kingsley knew that he was listening to a great balloon of mud and rock that had been hurled into the air by the blast and was now falling back to earth. That way was up, and it could not be far, for the earth in which he was entombed would dull the sound in no time.