A Test to Destruction (15 page)

He lay there in dejection, his back against a hay bale which had fallen off a waggon, his mouth foul with saliva, body sweating at moments for no reason, arms and legs like independent even mutinous lumps, utterly reluctant ever to get up again, his back as though broken across, heavy-aching when motionless and painful when he moved. Then he saw a Staff officer approaching, one of many who had been about in the town that day asking questions, taking notes, conferring among themselves: a sight inducing feelings of contempt verging on hostility, feelings the more impotent because he knew they were of his own weakness. He knew that familiar figure, but who was it? He worried that he could not recall the name, or where he had seen it, yet he knew the figure well. Was his memory going? He
must
remember, for the figure was coming to speak to him. He ought to get up, but he had not the power, he felt like crying because he could neither move nor remember.

The approaching man was about forty-five years of age, of stocky build moulded softer by office work, flaccid with too much food, inclined to testiness from too much pipe smoking of strong tobacco. And now, enlivened by events, his confining desk-work reduced to a few notes, a bow-fronted figure was moving in a new freedom, swinging a walking stick—a sight the more remarkable because it was of a world beyond the general feeling of lassitude and disintegration in the civilian-vacant town of Albert-sur-Ancre on that Wednesday afternoon of 26th March, 1918.

Phillip, lying between two slabs of fallen brickwork, saw the rim of the moon, one orbit short of its full gleam, moving up through the pocked and splattered brick walling of the Church, with its grey stone coigns; then almost with a start he recognised upon the approaching figure a pair of junior infantry officer's
knickerbockers of the kind of serge material in the tailors' shops in early 1915. He knew those lower legs, thick at ankle and rising steadily thicker to the knees and enwound by puttees the tapes of which encircled the top of the calves and not the ankles as became a mounted staff officer. Those knickerbockers, puttees, and pointed yellow boots had been worn by the orderly officer of the day when he had squirmed and struggled and thumped his way past trouser'd legs on the floor after one guest night; one pair of boots, puttees, and knickerbockers amidst forty or so pairs of brown shoes below creased slacks on the parquet floor of the ante-room of the officers' mess in Godolphin House, Heathmarket, in June 1915, after a subaltern's courtmartial and consequent mass-ragging of his naked self, squirming below yarring voices and lambasting arms because he was an outsider; and when all was over, it was Brendon who announced with amused contempt, ‘Maddison as a soldier
non
est
',
a remark the more cutting in retrospect when Phillip had come to realise its truth.

Was dear old Bagshott-Brendon wearing his old knickerbockers, instead of his usual shining field boots and spurs, to conciliate the troops like, it was said, Haig wearing an ordinary driver's issue coat?

“Wonder what he's after,” asked Kidd, as the three policemen went by. “Looks as though Old Shotbags thinks he's on the front at Brighton, twirling that tanner walking stick.”

He wondered as he lay there whether he would get command pay of 5s. a day, for the period of his being the C.O. Acting captain, 12s. 6d. a day, plus 2s. 6d. field allowance. One pound a day, not bad. Then there was his office pay, with the rise of £10 due at Ladyday, it would be £100 per annum. He was getting £350 a year! What tremendous luck, he had £100 in War Loan, and about £70 at Cox's. He must send some cash to Mother, £10, for a present, as soon as he could get near his valise; if it hadn't gone west. Well, it wasn't a bad war, taken all round. He drank more whiskey-water out of his bottle. Not a bad war at all!

They continued to lie there. A draggle of troops came down the Bapaume road, passing through the Square, some to hesitate before Battle Police halting them to ask questions, and directing them to the Stragglers' Post, a wired compound on the Amiens road. Motor-cycle despatch riders thudded and bounced across the cobbles, pulled up, asked where this or that unit was, and went away, no wiser. Sparrows hopped around, pecking at biscuit fragments thrown out by the resting men. Then shells, with reassuring long-drawn descents denoting extreme range, began to raise pink and black spoutings above the ruins.

Phillip sent off the Fusilier to find out what was happening. He returned after an hour to say that a major commanding a scratch force had told him that the Germans were over the river higher up, by Mill Causeway, and were ‘pouring down through Thiepval Wood'.

After discussing this with Kidd, Phillip decided to leave a Lewis gun post with one company behind the ruins of the cathedral wall, to cover the left side of the Grand' Place. The other
companies to get over the stream, by the iron footbridge which still stood, and line the bank to form a defensive flank facing up the valley.

“Meanwhile we may as well get some tea for the chaps, Kidd. Tell Sauer and Kraut to get a fire going.”

The smoke of the fire drew various figures to it, hopeful of at least a mug of char. Before the dixie came to the boil a runner arrived from West's Force, with cheering news: the battalion was to proceed to BRESLE, there to refit and await the arrival of reinforcements. While tea was being dished out, an officer in a burberry came up and said, “My God, have you heard the news? Paris is in flames from bombardment by new, long-range guns! The German cavalry is almost into Amiens! All the supply railways go through there, so we're just about scuppered!”

“Wind,” retorted Kidd. “And—piss!”

“My God, you'll soon see! There's thousands and thousands of fresh Germans coming down the road!” He pointed northeast.

“And they'll all be bloody lucky if any get back again, and don't you forget it! Hi, you, come here! See here, I don't know who you are, or what rank you are, but if I see you talking like that to anyone else, I'll put a bullet into your backside!”

They were drinking tea when there arrived the swishing whoop of a shell simultaneously with a crack overhead and a burst of yellow smoke which hung there during the clatter and crash of masonry—the almost forgotten woolly bear, German h.e. shrapnel. When the smoke had cleared the leaning figure on the broken campanile was not to be seen.

“What did Bill Kidd tell you? Golden Virgin has come down! The bloody war's going to end this year! And we'll be relieved this very night, I'll bet a hundred francs to a centime on it!”

The windy officer came back, and eyeing the tea, asked if he might consider himself attached to the battalion.

“So you're lost, eh, my son? Nasty questions to follow, what? Blime, I can't get over the old gel coming down all of a sudden like that! There's something in it, or my name isn't Bill Kidd!”

“What are you doing here?” asked a voice behind them. Phillip turned, and saw Brendon with his myrmidons.

“Don't be so damned silly,” replied Kidd.

“Stand up!” The A.P.M. pointed with his stick.

Kidd remained where he was, resting an elbow on the ground.

“Stand up, you!”

“Why don't you come and join us?” asked Kidd. “Or perhaps you've shot your bags, old boy?”

Phillip went up to Brendon. “This officer is over-strained, Major Brendon. He was taken prisoner in the Battle Zone, he escaped, and has been in action ever since. Then I was taken prisoner, and for two days he commanded the battalion, until I got back.”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“My name is Maddison. I spoke to you at Maricourt the other day, remember?”

“Good God, man, I've spoken to thousands of men like you during the past few days!”

“Also, sir, we served together as junior subalterns, with the ‘Cantuvellaunians' at Heathmarket in the summer of 'fifteen.”

“Maddison, did you say? The name is familiar.”

“I recognised those breeches and boots when you came past here earlier on. You wore them when you were in Captain Rhodes's company.”

“Ah, I've placed you now! You're the young pup who was ragged for misbehaving yourself in the Belvoir Arms! Yes! And you stole my horse at Ypres last October!”

“I borrowed it, Major.”

“What are you doing here?”

Phillip showed him ‘Spectre's' letter.

Brendon gave it back with a mildly ironic air. “I think that's all I want to know. Oh yes, you were adjutant of the Gaultshires, I had a saucy chit from you about a pig—at Senlis, wasn't it?” Brendon now assumed a manner reserved for what he called pukka sahibs, genial and fruitily mellow. “Odd how we always manage to run across one another, what? Yes, I remember that dossier, quite a relief in the masses of paper we wretched G.S.O. Twos have through our hands. At least you fellows are spared the paper side of a war. We burned tons of dam' paper when we left those blasted cold huts at Moislains. Have a cigar?” He opened a large leather case.

“Thank you, Major.”

They were puffing away when a motorcycle thudded up. Brendon read the message.

Half-way through he remembered to say, “Do forgive me,” in his sahib-to-sahib voice. He read it again. “H'm. I shall
have to ask you for help, Maddison. The Sappers who were to have blown up the Canteen can't be located, so I've got to see that the hut and all stores are destroyed. Can you let me have a dozen men?”

The door of the E.F.C. was guarded by a corporal of the A.P.M.'s staff. “Got to be done, my boy, but a waste of good stuff, what?” He took aim with his revolver at a bottle of Martell's Three Stars on a shelf, and missed. The M.P.'s looked at each other, and the sergeant gave Phillip a guarded look of appeal. Brendon tried again, causing another hole to appear well above the row of bottles.

“Did you clean my revolver after its last use?” he said to the corporal, who was also his soldier-servant. Sometimes, when speaking to his inferiors, Brendon referred to this man as his valet, to give the impression that he had his services before the war.

“Certainly, sir!”

“Well, it doesn't look much like it.”

He broke it, spun the barrel, snapped it to again and clicked the trigger rapidly. “As I thought, the striker mechanism hasn't been oiled. There is a six-pound pull at least on this trigger, it shouldn't be more than four.”

While Brendon was slipping back the cartridges, Phillip said, “Why not leave all this for the Alleyman? A drunk German is as good as a casualty.”

Brendon dropped in the sixth .45 shell, raised the Webley, and took aim at the bottle. The bullet was thrown higher than the others. It seemed so funny to Phillip that he began to sway with suppressed laughter.

“What's the joke?” Brendon cocked an eye at him. Phillip, imagining Brendon as a fiddling Nero, exploded. His laughter ended as abruptly as it had begun. It was tragic, really. Nobody knew what they were doing, or what it was all about, British or Germans. Not to hurt the other's new feelings of semi-respect for himself he replied, “I was thinking of the Staff's respect for good brandy, sir.”

“Well, it has to be done, my boy!” Brendon aimed again, a bottle dropped in pieces. “That's better!” He handed the pistol to his servant to be reloaded. Hardly had this been done when the door banged open and the M.P. on guard bawled, “There's Germans all along the skyline, sir!”

Brendon and his redcaps were soon gone. The sound of bugles playing a march, and singing, floated down from higher ground. Phillip, before going back to the rest of the battalion, seized a hoe-handle, one of several new poles in bundles against a wall of the canteen. He decided also to take a case of whiskey. As they walked across the square, two men carrying the wooden box, bullet streams were swishing by overhead. They appeared to be coming from the high ground of Méaulte from the south, and to be crossing with other flights from the north, from ground rising steeply above Aveuluy wood. Some struck the cobbles, to whine up and sing away into the marshes.

Bill Kidd proposed a rum ration right away. When this had been dished out, water-bottles were topped up with whiskey. They were then ready for anything.

“Why not go up and meet the bastards, old boy? Better than growing mushrooms on the seat of our pants down here.”

They set off along the Bapaume road, Phillip leading, using the hoe-handle as a walking stick. The column was little more than the strength of three platoons. He and Kidd were each carrying 2,000 rounds in bandoliers slung across their shoulders. The Germans came on in column. Extending on both sides of the road, and lying down, the Whiskey Fusiliers opened fire. The Germans scattered. Walking along the line to give out bandoliers, Phillip found most of the men asleep. He had to prod them with the hoe-handle.

“We must get back, Bill. No point in dossing down here. This good pull-up for carmen is too noisy.”

Eighteen-pounder shells were now bursting white four hundred yards ahead of them. While the men were being kicked awake by N.C.O.s and senior privates, the range was shortened.
Swish
—
crack
!
fifty yards away, the rattle of shrapnel balls into the ground. “Our own guns are on to us. Come on you crab wallahs, do an allez!”