The Passing Bells (57 page)

“It would only be a gesture. You want me, Robbie.”

“Yes. I want you.” He held her silently, gently stroking her back, the curve of a hip. Then he said: “I didn't tell you about Dennis. He's in Ottawa . . . flying instructor. Got shot down last April near Abbeville and walked away from the crash. He might not be so lucky next time. I'm glad he's in Canada.”

“So am I,” she murmured.

“He wrote me a long letter . . . about Canada . . . the people. . . . Quite a different world. You know, I'd already decided that I couldn't go back to England. If this war ever does end, I want a new sort of life. I'd go to Toronto . . . or west to Vancouver. I wrote my wife that and asked her for a divorce . . . Be the best thing for her, too. What she really wants is a respectable sort of chap who stays home, makes lots of money, and votes Conservative. We were never a good match.”

She pulled back from him, her breasts resting lightly against his chest.

“Will she give you a divorce?”

“I don't know.” He began to caress her nipples, tracing the rosy circles with his finger tips, the taut buds. “I hope to God she does, but Catherine could deny it out of pure spite.”

“It won't matter,” she said, her voice husky. “I don't care. I'll go with you, Robbie . . . live with you . . . married or not.”

“You might regret that one day, Alex.”

“Never . . .”

Never . . . never
, she thought, moving her body in a slow rhythm with his. And not because of this, not the feel of him inside of her, the pleasure mounting in gentle spirals. It went beyond passion. Their lives had meshed and become one. She would go with him wherever he went and live with him without shame. And Mama and Papa? They would never understand why, never comprehend that her need for him was inextricably woven with his greater need for her.

“I love you, Alex. . . .”

“Yes,” she said, “yes . . . yes.”

Martin noticed a certain chill as he walked into the brigade headquarters in Bazentin village. One of the officers who had always been friendly and generous with information pretended to be too busy to say hello. The HQ, with its tunnels and rooms cut into the chalk hill behind the ruins of the village, was located in one of the deep German galleries captured in late August. Two brigades had their headquarters there, as well as a signaling company, a dressing station, and stored supplies of all kinds. It made for a crowded, noisy place, the tunnels and rooms lit by electric lights which burned day and night.

“Is the colonel too busy to see me?” Martin asked.

The officer who was usually so talkative began to shift papers around on his tiny desk.

“Afraid he is, yes.”

“All I need from him is a pass to go up to the line.”

“Out of the question. Sorry . . . Perhaps tomorrow.”

“I'm sure you know how difficult it is for me to come this far. As long as I'm here . . .”

The officer half-turned his back and toyed with a field telephone. “Look, Mr. Rilke, I'm sorry, but—”

A heavy gas curtain serving as a room divider parted and Fenton peered through the opening.

“Oh, for God's sake,” he said wearily, “you couldn't shoo Mr. Rilke away with a broom. Come on in, Martin.”

Fenton's section of the dugout contained a desk, maps pinned to the chalk walls, one chair, and one canvas cot. Fenton drew the curtain back into place and then sat on the edge of the cot and rubbed his eyes.

“I was trying to get some sleep.”

“Sorry,” Martin said, straddling the chair. “I didn't mean to wake you.”

“I said I was
trying.
You didn't wake me. So you want to go back up to Delville Wood, do you?”

“If at all possible.”

Fenton nodded slowly and groped for a tin of cigarettes among the disordered blankets.

“I'm afraid you are suddenly
persona non grata.
Received a crisp directive to that effect from Corps yesterday. If you are spotted in battle area, you are to be escorted to the rear. Anyplace beyond Albert is out of bounds to you, old boy.”

Martin lit a cigar and then bent forward to light Fenton's cigarette.

“There's nothing in Albert for me to write about, Fenton. The Salvation Army runs canteens in Albert. I might as well be in Biloxi, Mississippi, as far as writing about the war is concerned.”

“That might not be a bad idea . . . Biloxi, Mississippi, I mean. Some of your by-line stories in Yank papers came to the attention of our military mission in Washington. They cabled their shock to London. . . . Gruesome descriptions of British fighting in August—”

“They weren't gruesome descriptions.”

“No, I'm sure they weren't. Just Martin Rilke being graphic about the attacks on Thiepval.”

“That's right.”

“How'd you get them past the censors?”

“Gave them to a fellow AP man going back to the States.”

Fenton smiled ironically and flipped ashes at his feet. “Naughty boy. Not playing by the rules, are we? The articles were an embarrassment to the General Staff. Thiepval should have been captured on July first. Here it is damn near the end of September and the place is still a boil in our flanks. Downright humiliating to be reminded of their failures. You are not supposed to mention the names of places, either . . . just ‘somewhere on the Somme.' Isn't that right?”

“I suppose so.” Martin shrugged.

“And soldiers aren't ‘blown up' . . . or ‘torn apart by a shell' . . . they don't ‘sit screaming in shell holes.' Soldiers simply ‘fall.' “

“I take it you read the articles.”

“No. I don't need to read them. I was there, remember? Sir Julian read me the juicier bits over the telephone. He was madder than a raped baboon. Well, can't blame the gaffer. Wully Robertson raised hell with Haig, Haig raised hell with Rawlinson, and Rawly jumped all over Uncle Julian.”

“And now you're jumping on me.”

“Right. I don't know who you can jump on.”

Martin studied the ash on his cigar. A fifty-center. One of the few luxuries he permitted himself. He did not disturb the ash, but let it flake away on its own.

“Storm in a teacup, Fenton. I sent those articles out past the censors deliberately. For American consumption only. Tried to bring home to them the reality of this war over here. They may be drawn into it themselves one day, and they have a right to know what twentieth-century battle is all about. The fact is, American papers didn't give it much of a play. Everyone in the States is more concerned about Pancho Villa shooting up New Mexico again than they are about a few thousand Tommies dying for fifty yards of French real estate. I guess it just didn't make any sense to them.”

There was heavy shelling going on. British eight-inch and French 105's hitting Delville and High Wood a mile away. The volcanic explosions could be felt rather than heard—a trembling in the walls, a fine haze of chalk dust.

“Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, either, Martin. Well, what the devil . . . I'll pretend I never saw you, but stay out of my area from now on. I'm acting brigade commander now. . . . Being brevetted to brigadier general until they dig up a real one from the reserve and ship him out here—kicking and screaming, no doubt. Anyway, I've got five battalions under my rather loose command—the Royal Windsors, Green Howards, and some throw-together battalions with everything in them but the Girl Guides. We're to go over at dawn to the west of High Wood with three other brigades and probe for Flers behind the tanks.”

“I heard about it. That's why I'm here.”

“Of course you heard about it,” Fenton said bitterly. “No one can keep his mouth shut in this army. Every whore in Amiens knows more about high-command strategy than I do.” He squashed his cigarette out on the chalk floor and drew another from the tin. “They have a few tanks left from the fifty they shipped over, so they're giving them another try. Rotten terrain. Steep and muddy and peppered with old shell holes. Fragile bloody things, these tanks. Break down if you give 'em a sour look. But I can see their potential. If they could move as fast as a man can run . . . and had the power to go up a hill . . . we'd be on the Rhine in two weeks.”

“Americans are interested in tanks,” Martin said lamely. “An American invented the caterpillar-tread tractor . . . Uncle Benjamin Holt.”

“Bully for Uncle B.,” Fenton said dryly.

On the Somme, Sept 21, 1916

Observations and Reflections. And a cold wet day it is. My observation point in a sap covered by a camouflaged tarpaulin is reasonably dry, although there is mud on the bottom of the sap up to my knees. Intense British and French artillery fire whacking High Wood, the shell bursts reflected by the rain causing a sheet-lightning effect across the crest of the stump-dotted hill. Same effect can be seen to the east at Delville Wood and Longueval. Appear to be more than four brigades committed to this assault. Have even seen cavalry along the Contalmaison-Bazentin road, troopers and horses black with rain. Cavalry suffer greatly from exposure. Theory behind having these English hussars and Indian lancers standing about in the rear must be tied in with morale factor, possibly to give infantry moving up to the line the feeling that a breakthrough is in the works—that they have only to chop a few holes through the German trench system and hordes of horsemen will burst through like rockets and ride “into the blue,” as Haig so quaintly puts it. No “blue” ahead of me, just dancing flames and muddy, pocketed ground. No German return fire. They will be, as always, deep in their bunkers with tons of ferroconcrete and sandbags blunting the blows. When the barrage lifts and the British infantry go forward, they will emerge, as they always do, and cut the attack to pieces. This has been the pattern since the first day, and no one has yet come up with a plan that alters that depressing scenario.

In trench—2nd Royal Windsor Fusiliers. Sangfroid not an expression that fits the American temperament—certainly not the American military temperament. Lee may have had sangfroid, but Grant didn't, nor any other general I can think of. American military men have always been hat slappers, sword benders, tobacco spitters, and high cussers. Charles Greville has sangfroid. He stands in exposed position on top of parados and scans High Wood with binoculars. Cool as ice. I feel like shouting, “Hey, that's my cousin standing up there.” Brave but dumb. Lots of German stuff coming this way now. Machine-gun bullets crack as they pass over the trench. Charles has sangfroid. He steps down into trench and scribbles notes for the runners. Sending two more companies across—as ordered by Brigade HQ. Timetable for attack must be met. He is writing out death notices for a few hundred men. His hand doesn't tremble, his face shows no expression at all. Must ask him one day what he was thinking.

German counterbarrage heavier than anyone expected. Trench rocks, bags of sand fly. . . . Bits of wire . . . bits of men trapped out between wire. Someone shouting, “Tanks are catching it good an' proper.” Cockney voice, sounds almost pleased. . . . Shorthand becoming unreadable. No point in

P
ARIS
(
AP
)
December 12, 1916.
Martin Rilke of the Paris bureau of the Associated Press has been released from the Hôpital St. Antoine after suffering severe wounds on the Somme front in September. He is recuperating satisfactorily at St. Germain en Laye outside Paris.

18

Jacob Golden crossed the Champs-Elysées against a swarm of traffic, smiled affably at shouting taxi drivers, and ignored the blare of Klaxons. On reaching the sidewalk, he straightened his bowler hat, smoothed the moleskin lapels of his overcoat, and strolled into the glittering lobby of the Hôtel Monceau, swinging his cane with the jaunty air of the born
boulevardier.
He ordered a Dubonnet at the bar, speaking to the barman without the slightest trace of an English accent. A British colonel standing at the bar drinking whiskey asked him in halting pocket-dictionary French if he knew of a place in Montmartre where the “
jeunes filles dansent . . . à nu
, don't you know.”

He replied in halting English, giving the man directions to a place on the boulevard de Clichy where the only things naked and female were the chickens dangling from hooks in the window. It was the finest poultry shop in Paris and he hoped the colonel enjoyed the visit.

He had nearly finished his aperitif when he saw the burly figure of Claude Lenard enter the bar and sit at a table in a dim corner. Picking up his glass, he strolled casually over to him and sat down.

“Good afternoon, Claude.”

Claude Lenard, Socialist editor, had been a lifelong friend of Keir Hardie and Jean Juares. His cause in ruins, his very freedom in constant jeopardy, he looked slowly and suspiciously at every person in the bar before grunting a reply.

“Let me buy you a drink, Claude.”

“It is not necessary, Golden.”

“Perhaps it isn't, but it is normal. Men do not come into this bar just to sit.”

The tiny eyes, almost lost in the massive face, the bush of beard and mustache, flickered. The great head nodded.

“I will take a beer.”

“A brandy and soda. This is not a
syndicaliste
bar, Claude. When in Rome and all that.”

The editor glanced bitterly at the cherry-wood-paneled walls and the elegantly carved rosewood bar, with its copper, not zinc, top.

“I do not belong in such a capitalist place.”

“No,” Jacob replied blandly, “and the special police wouldn't think to look for you here. This is the safest possible spot for us to talk. This may come as a shock to you, Claude, but you're the image of Ravenot, the munitions tycoon.”

“So I have been told,” the old man said dryly. “Very well, as long as I am Ravenot, order me a brandy and soda—an Armagnac and soda.”