Other Paths to Glory (24 page)

‘An’ I never went back to the pits neither, though there were jobs waitin’ in ‘em in 1919. I went up to Lord Riding - not to his agent, mind you, to the old man himself - an’ I said I’d served with his son. Captain Ashley that was, an’ I wouldn’t go down the pits, never again. I wanted a job in the open, by myself if possible.

‘An’ he said “Why, are you afraid of the dark?” An’ I said “A miner’s never afraid of the dark. It’s because there aren’t any of my mates left, that’s why.” An’ he said “Weren’t you a poacher before you were one of the Poachers?” An’ I said “Yes”, an’ he said “Well, now you’ll be a keeper” an’ I was one of his keepers for fifty years, nearly, right down to two or three years ago.’

Mitchell remembered the tractor and trailer he had seen bumping across the fields sloping northwards from Bully Wood and Hameau village that very morning - fields where Bill Hayhoe and George Brett and Herbie Bidwell, and all the rest of “D” Company had vanished in the half-light.

And H. J. V. Bellamy.

‘There was a Bellamy in “D” Company, I’ve been told - a second lieutenant, wasn’t there?’

‘Bellamy? Bellamy?’ Hayhoe screwed up his face. ‘Can’t say as I remember him. I knew ‘em all once, but it’s a long time ago, y’know … I do remember that in “D” Company they were all proper toffs - that’s what we called them then - ton’s, I do remember that. You ought to ask Mr Faversham, he’d remember him, sure to.’

Hayhoe turned to survey the British trenches on his left.

‘There he is now - with the Colonel. Mr Faversham, sir!’

He swung back to Mitchell.

‘We’d best go over to ‘em. Mr Faversham’s not so quick on his legs now,’ he confided.

Mitchell followed him back down the path between the parapets of concrete sandbags to where Butler stood straight-backed beside a kindly-looking old gentleman supporting himself heavily on two sticks.

‘Mr Faversham, sir, this is Captain - ‘ Hayhoe faltered, ‘Captain -‘

‘Lefevre. Royal Tank Regiment.’

‘I recognise the badge.’

Faversham’s eyes lit up with impish good humour.

‘How do you do, Captain? I gather from Butler here that you are about to take up the responsibility of conducting us from here on - to be photographed in the interest of public relations and army recruiting … though how Hayhoe and I are likely to attract young men to the colours I must confess I fail to see.’ He chuckled. ‘Not with tales of our famous victories, I fear.’

‘Sir…’ Mitchell floundered for a reply. ‘B-but they
were
famous victories.’

‘They didn’t feel like it at the time, though, dear boy - but then I was generally too frightened to notice, I suppose - and don’t you snort like that, Hayhoe.’

‘I was thinking you were a good play-actor, sir.’

‘Ah, now
that
may be. But then most of us were play-acting - pretending to be soldiers. There wasn’t really very much choice, you had to pretend to be brave. In fact the only time I told my company commander I was scared he thought I was pulling his leg. He thought it was a great joke - “That’s the spirit”, he said. I must say I didn’t see the funny side of it at all. But I pretended I did.’

Mitchell summoned up his own courage.

‘We were just talking about the battle of Hameau Ridge, Mr Hayhoe and I -about “D” Company. Did you know Harry Bellamy, by any chance?’

‘Harry Bellamy?’ Faversham looked at Mitchell curiously. ‘Do you know the Bellamys, then?’

‘I was down in Elthingham a few days ago - ‘ Mitchell was about to embark on an elaborate lie when he realised that he didn’t even know whether the Bellamy family was still in possession of their ancestral domain ‘ - that’s where the family lived in 1914,1 believe.’

‘That’s right - good shooting country there. But the Bellamy fortune was founded on the coal mines up north - squires who became capitalists during the nineteenth century, they were. All nationalised in 1945, of course … Did I know Harry Bellamy? For a brief time - just under two years - very well. Being in the same battalion is like being in the same family, if it’s a good battalion - and ours was, wasn’t it?’

Hayhoe nodded vigorously.

‘The best. I never served in a better one.’

‘No, not the best,’ Faversham shook his head slowly in disagreement. ‘We were rank amateurs, beginners. If we’d been driving instead of fighting, we’d have had big “L” plates front and back at Hameau Ridge. I commanded a company in 1918 when we breached the Hindenburg Line on the St Quentin Canal - ‘

‘Bellenglise?’ The name came out involuntarily.

‘That’s right.’ Faversham’s eyes were bright. ‘You’ve read about it?’

‘My - I had a relative in the West Mercians.’

‘Yes, they were in the division. That was the finest thing I ever took part in - a famous victory, if you like, dear boy. Except no one in England has ever heard of it, that is. But a famous victory all the same.’

‘More famous than the capture of the Prussian Redoubt on Hameau Ridge?’ said Butler.

‘Accident, mere accident. Colonel. At Bellenglise we knew what we were doing. But Hameau Ridge was a triumph of incompetent gallantry.’

‘Incompetent?’ Butler frowned. ‘That sounds a little harsh.’

‘But true. The North Berkshires and the Poachers were supposed to cause a diversion - I rather think we were a sort of forlorn hope to annoy the Germans… But before we’d even got started they caught the North Berks in close order while it was still pitch black - shelled the stuffing out of them so that we had to reinforce them with “D” Company before they started.’

Faversham caught Mitchell’s eye.

‘That was Harry Bellamy’s company, dear boy, and that was the last I saw of Harry.’

‘What happened to them?’

Faversham spread his hands.

‘Lord knows. They didn’t get to the wood, that’s certain. Their colonel was dead before they moved - direct hit on battalion HQ - and the tanks hadn’t kept up with them. I’d guess they got on the wrong axis between the village and the wood and went on over the top, slap into the German reserves. In the dark no one knew what was happening - I never knew what was happening even
yi
broad daylight in those days, most of the time. We did meet up with some Berkshires who’d got lost and they went into the wood with us. The rest of them probably ran into our own bombardment once they were over the crest.’

‘But your battalion did a pretty competent job in the wood,’ observed Butler gently.

‘Well, I suppose you could say we were in our element there. Snap-shooting in the half-light, we were originally the Gamekeepers’ Rifles, you know. It was pretty much every man for himself. But I was hit quite early on - what would you say, Hayhoe?’

Hayhoe nodded.

‘It was like you say, sir. The lads could shoot a treat, quick like. I mind what Tanner said afterwards - Rifleman Tanner. “There’s a few brace of Jerries won’t goose-step no more, corporal” he said to me.’

‘Initiative, but no experience,’ agreed Faversham, ‘that’s what we’d got. And more than our fair share of luck. That’s what took Bully Wood and the Prussian Redoubt.’

Mitchell could contain the vital question no longer.

‘Did you carry a shotgun, Mr Faversham?’

Faversham smiled, and then sighed.

‘So you’ve heard of our affectation, have you?

‘Yes, dear boy, I did. Half a dozen of us subalterns did - I rather think it was Harry’s idea, too. I bitterly regretted it afterwards.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t shoot any Germans - and I lost an exceedingly fine weapon even though I wasn’t badly wounded.’

‘You lost - ‘ Mitchell’s voice cracked. ‘You mean a special gun?’

‘That’s right. Lost it when I was knocked out by a lump of chalk - the adjutant warned me something like that would happen. He was all for stopping it, but the Colonel rather liked it. I think he thought it added a touch of distinction to a rather vulgar occasion. So I lost my Holland and Holland for nothing.’

Mitchell swallowed.

‘Your Holland and Holland.’

‘Lovely thing. Present from my father on my eighteenth birthday - that’s what comes of giving boys presents too good for them … But poor old Harry went out with an even better one - a Charles Lancaster.’

He smiled sadly.

‘Everything Harry Bellamy had was the best: Savile Row uniforms, Zeiss field-glasses, gold cigarette case and hip-flask, Charles Lancaster shotgun. He was worth a fortune on the hoof - we used to warn him that if the Huns ever heard about him they’d mount a special offensive. He said they’d only get it after he’d been killed, so it didn’t worry him. Which they did, I suppose, poor fellow. But he didn’t play-act at being brave. It was the real thing with him.’

‘B-but you know he carried the Lancaster on the day he was killed?’

‘Know?’ Faversham seemed puzzled. ‘How do you mean?’

‘You moved out at night - and he was in a different company.’

Faversham nodded.

‘Oh, I see what you mean … Well, as it happens I packed up his kit afterwards - all our servants were killed or wounded. He’d had a pair of guns, of course, in a beautiful leather case with brass corners, I remember. One was still in it - Number 1. Number 2 was always his favourite. Made me sad to think some German had got it by then.’

THE PALE GOLDEN
leaf took several minutes to drift past Mitchell. First it was caught in a sluggish back-current which took it in a slow circle; then it snagged on a waterlogged willow branch which in any ordinary October would have been well below the surface. But the little Ancre was low for the time of year, full of hazards for the falling debris of autumn; the little leaf would be trapped long before it was ready to sink. Nothing from these quiet headwaters would carry any message downstream to Albert, or beyond Albert to Corbie, where the Ancre joined the Somme and headed for the far-off sea. That other October it had been very different…

Somewhere in his mind, he was sure of it, was that thing Charles Emerson had found. It was there, but he couldn’t find it, no matter how he ransacked the facts.

…That other October the Ancre would have flowed high and fast, fed by drenching, torrential downpour…
would have
flowed high and fast if it had been able to flow at all - if its banks hadn’t been shelled out of existence and its course hadn’t been choked with the bodies of men and animals and the wreckage of their equipment, until the whole valley had become one vast swamp, an inland lake of mud and water…

The answer was there, but the only discovery he had made so far had been about himself, and it was hardly a palatable one.

It was Charles Emerson he was thinking about, and this was Emerson country, so it wasn’t surprising that it was an Emerson theory he found uppermost in his mind. Indeed, this was the ideal moment to put it to the test - that there was always a spark of pure intuition which distinguished the true historian from the competent researcher. If they were right about what had happened a few days before then something had sparked Emerson: stumbling unexpectedly on a new piece of truth he had instantly recognised it for what it was. But if it were so then Paul Mitchell lacked the spark, seeing nothing except disjointed, inconclusive facts.

‘Time’s up,’ said Audley from behind him.

So soon? thought Mitchell; his half-hour alone by the stream had passed like a dream, his thoughts drifting and circling as helplessly as the leaf in the cross-currents of the past forty-eight hours.

‘Our time too, Paul - it is almost up,’ said Nikki.

She looked at her watch.

‘This time tomorrow the meeting will have started.’

‘Between whom?’

Audley shook his head.

‘Don’t ask - she doesn’t know and nor do I, even if I could make a damn good guess. The rule with Neutral House meetings is that nobody talks outside and nobody asks questions. It isn’t even Ted Ollivier’s business, all he does is to make sure it stays private.’

‘Then how do you know it’s starting so soon?’

‘Because French Security has already started the handover count-down. From now on the other two sides’ll be moving men in, vetting the place, and Ollivier’s men will gradually pull out. And as they pull out they clamp down on the outer ring, so they can jump on anything they don’t like that moves in a twenty-five mile radius. It’s a routine count-down procedure now.’

Mitchell shivered at the word. Count-downs launched rockets to the moon, but they also blew the horizon apart with their mushroom clouds: they were starter’s orders for progress or armageddon. So they were the right words for a secret summit, which could lead to either of those things.

‘And we are a long way from Bouillet Wood here, Paul,’ said Nikki. ‘What is so special about the Ancre that we should come here?’

The Ancre …

Nothing special about the Ancre. A sleepy little river bottom, with its lagoons and reeds and water-grass, and its villages nestling in the ridge-folds on either side: Hamel and St Pierre Divion, Beaucoun and Grandcourt and Miraumont. It looked for all the world as though nothing had ever happened, or could ever happen, along this quiet stream.

‘This is where Emerson came last week.’

‘Why here?’

‘Because this is where we slogged it out with the Germans, October, November, January, February -‘

The most terrible place on the whole Western From, worse even than Passchendaele, where the mud had been like a beast which gulped living men in the darkness: how could he tell them that about this gentle place?

‘This is where he thought we finally won the battle, when we made them pull back to the Hindenburg Line.’

She frowned at him.

‘But the Poachers weren’t here.’

So Audley had told her, as he’d said he would.

‘No, they weren’t.’

‘And it is the Poachers who matter - the man with the gun, Sous-Lieutenant Bellamy, and the men with him who disappeared, they are the ones who matter most of all.’

‘ “D” Company,’ said Audley.

‘”D” Company, yes. Supposing they had taken the Prussian Redoubt - would that not interest Professor Emerson?’

‘But they didn’t take it. The other companies took it, we know that. And they came through Bouillet Wood to do it. As far as we know Bellamy’s men never even entered the wood.’