The Golden Virgin (33 page)

“You know, the entire future of Britain and the Empire depends
on the success or failure of the coming battle. The flower of the British nation, all the ardour, guts, and intelligence of a generation which has volunteered to do its damndest for what it believes in—Great Britain, and all that the
Pax
Brittanica
stands for throughout the world—under the proud words
Ich
Dien
—is gathered here in Picardy. I must empty my bladder. Don’t go away.”

When he came back to the shelter he said, “How old are you, Phillip? Twenty-one? God, to be twenty-one again! The world in 1906, when I was up at Wadham, was from everlasting to everlasting, as Traherne wrote in his ‘Immortal Wheat’ passage. Now at twenty-nine I am a wreck, mental and physical. Do you know why? Shall I tell you?” He poured himself more whiskey.

“Steady on,” said Phillip, putting out a hand to take the bottle. “Please don’t have too much. I give you my word that I know that dug-out was very deep, if that’s any help.”

“Oh, I’m not thinking of that. Why didn’t you go and see my people at their pub in Lime Street, as you promised me when I was hit in front of Le Rutoire Farm last September? Does not your word mean anything to you? Or haven’t you got a word?”

“I saw your letter from the Duchess of Westminster’s hospital on the ante-room board, in which you wrote that you were hoping soon to rejoin the battalion, so I thought it wasn’t necessary.”

“You didn’t forget?”

“No, of course not!”

“Well, well, well,” muttered “Spectre”, staring at nothing. Phillip thought that he looked dreadfully ill. “I suppose Frances told you? No need to pretend, my lad. You don’t know? Well, here it is. I’ve been in love with her, my cousin once removed, since I came down from Oxford in ’09. Nothing doing.”

He looked at his mug of whiskey. On impulse Phillip took it, and put it at the other end of the table.

“You know,” went on the other, apparently not noticing, “I had a hell of a job to get back here again. I wouldn’t have had the hope of a snowflake in hell if ‘Nosey’ Orlebar hadn’t been at the War House. He got me posted to the seventh battalion, as second-in-command. Then I was offered a battalion.”

“May I be excused, Colonel? I must empty my bladder.”

He took the mug with him and swished the whiskey away. When he returned, “Spectre” West with elbows on table was saying to himself, “Bompity-bompity-bompity-bompity! A cricket ball would have done the trick. How many steps leading down? Bompity-bompity-bompity! How many bompity-bomps?”

“I can only repeat that the Mills’ reports were muffled and soft, but then I was standing six or seven yards away from the shaft. I could feel them, remote and dull, to be far under my feet, allowing for the fact that they were only Mills bombs.”

“That’s the kind of objectivity I want! Chalk is soft stuff, of course, and absorbs an explosion. If those dug-outs are more than seven to eight yards below the surface, then only a 12-inch or 15-inch howitzer shell can blow them in. And in confidence, mind!—as is everything I’m saying to you—there are only sixteen really heavy guns on the Corps front. One 15-inch and three 12-inch on railway mountings, and twelve 9.2’s. Sixteen heavies to poop off at dug-outs possibly eight metres deep underground, in soft, shock-absorbent chalk, honey-combing half a dozen lines of trenches along three thousand five hundred yards of Corps front. Divide three thousand five hundred by sixteen, and you have one dug-out-busting howitzer or gun to every two hundred and twenty yards of front. Multiply that a mile for depth, for raking back, that’s one heavy shell for one-eighth of a square mile. In that area will be scores of machine-gun teams down in those deep dug-outs, each team of which has practised bringing up its guns and mountings in pieces, to fit together as soon as the bombardment has lifted. Where will their targets be then? Six hundred yards distant from the muzzles of their Spandau guns! I tell you Fourth Army is MAD!” he shouted, banging the table with his fist. Then he uttered a long sigh and lay down on his bunk, face to the wall.

Phillip took the bottle from the table, and going outside, hurled it into the air. Then climbing out of the communication trench he walked beside it on his way to the line. Hearing the voice of the Brigadier coming down the trench, and since it was against orders to walk over the top, he cleared off before questions could be asked. Thank God he’d chucked away the bottle in time.

There were four sections of eight men under a corporal in his platoon. Each section had rehearsed its particular and detailed function, for almost every moment of the assault, during the many practice advances, before he had joined Captain Bason’s company.
Every man knew what to do, how to do it, and the precise time it should be done; but now, for the final exercise before the Generals, the time-table had been changed.

At Zero minus 8 minutes the first of six waves was to advance upon the fluttering line of flags held by distant figures representing the final barrage, in order to cross three hundred yards of ground by Zero. There was sixty yards between each wave, and the pace had to be set so that the last wave rose out of the earth at the moment that the flags stopped fluttering: when a more distant fluttering indicated that the guns had raked back upon the second objective at the moment when the leading infantry wave was five hundred yards away from the German front line.

Lt.-Col. West was addressing the assembled officers of the battalion.

“On our right,” he said, indicating two straight lines of pegged white tape, “lies the Bapaume road. Across the Bapaume road to the north-west, lies La Boisselle. It will be attacked by the North Country division, but not directly. Mine craters lie between our lines and the fortress of La Boisselle, and the area of these craters, as many of you are aware, is known as the Glory Hole. The Glory Hole won’t be attacked directly. Columns of troops will pass on either side of it, and bomb their way into La Boisselle, which is a maze of trenches and dug-outs. Lewis-gun teams and batteries of Stokes guns will support them. So much for our right flank.

“Now I come to our own problem.

“As you know there is a salient around La Boisselle, pushed out like a great fist, half a mile wide, forming a re-entrant into our lines. Machine-guns on the end knuckles of this fist can sweep across all the lower ground of Mash Valley over which we have to advance. Their fire, as things stand now, can take us in enfilade, at precisely one hundred and eighty degrees. From Y Sap, which is at our end of the German fist, machine-gun batteries can fire right across our line of advance.”

All eyes were fixed on the speaker’s face.

“Likewise the southern knuckle of the fist, at the far end of the Glory Hole, is able to enfilade the advance there. That is what you all know.”

Lt.-Col. West paused.

“Well, gentlemen, I have some news for you! Both knuckles of this fist are to be sent sky-high, from two mines packed with about fifty thousand pounds of ammonal apiece, at Zero hour. The mines will not only destroy the Boche’s flanking m.g. fire, but will
throw up many hundreds of tons of chalk. This chalk will drop around each crater. The dropped tons of chalk will be in the way of all enfilade fire. The crater lips will be about fifteen feet high, enough to do the trick. Thus our flanks, in the coming assault, will be secured.”

The commanding figure looked at his watch, took their salutes, fastened his wrist by the swivel on his belt, then rode away with his adjutant.

*

Deployed upon the rolling downland three brigades of four battalions each, with subsidiary companies of engineers and pioneers, waited for a rocket to splash its yellow plumes against the blue summer sky, signal that the imaginary barrage had started. Distant flags began to waggle.

A second rocket burst on high, to fall in red rain, denoting that 45 minutes had passed and it was now Zero minus 15 minutes.

The brigade-major cantered up to Lt.-Col. West and said, “The Brigadier wishes to emphasize that on no account will the times of advance be exceeded, sir,” then he cantered four hundred yards away to the next battalion of his brigade. Far away other mounted staff officers were to be seen, cantering.

The troops waited.

At Zero minus 8 minutes, the first wave got up, and moved in line towards the faraway flags. Although it was early morning, the heat of the sun was great. Soon dust was arising above the extended lines of men moving forward. They were followed by groups of companies in diamond or artillery formation. Six hundred yards farther back the supporting battalions, in lines of columns, moved forward meticulously in time with the plan of advance, thirty-three yards to the minute. Aeroplanes on contact patrol flew overhead.

Upon the field, junior staff-officers with printed tables and stopwatches beside them checked the rate of advance.

“God’s teeth,” muttered “Spectre” West, “they knew better than this at Waterloo.”

The sight of the waves and the masses of waves following was exhilarating to the young inexperienced officers and their men who, although ordered to be silent, gave to one another small greetings with hand and lift of chin. They had been told to imagine that they were carrying, beside their rifles, water-bottles, entrenching tools, and haversacks, an assortment of spades, bandoliers of ammunition, picks, rolls of barbed wire, pigeon
baskets, electrical-buzzer gear, drums of telephone wire, water-cans, sandbags filled with bombs, and other gear; and such was their ardour and enthusiasm that they imagined what they had been told. Metallic discs were stitched between their shoulder blades; coloured ribbons tied to their shoulder straps.

*

Each man of Captain Bason’s company, plodding astride a mock Bapaume Road made of white tape, had a red ribbon tied on his left shoulder. The three other companies of the battalion wore blue, yellow, and green ribbons; while every rifleman with wire-cutters had a white bow tied upon his right shoulder—the bridegrooms, Bason called them.

Bridegrooms of death, thought Phillip.

Unimpeded, irresistible, the division went forward in six waves, up slowly rising ground to the final objective, a large white notice board on which was painted in black letters

SITE OF POZIERES

While strict silence had been observed and no whistles had been blown, occasional cigarette-smoking had been observed by the brass hats; so the attack must be made again. More dust arose with a greater heat; sweat, flies, boredom, and thirst. The gilded staff lost its pristine glamour in the eyes of the once-ardent. Then the whisper went round that the Field-Marshal himself was coming to watch the rehearsal.

There was the C.-in-C.’s pennant, carried upright by a first-class warrant-officer of Dragoon Guards, an object of mahogany, bristle, and brass with the appearance of one who had never been boy or man but always a figure of impersonal military power. The spit-and-polish of this equestrian figure was such that Phillip thought of him as altogether inhuman. He wore brown riding boots so straight in the leg and so polished that they looked as though before coming on the field they had been kept in a showcase: as in fact they had been—breathed upon, boned, saddle-soaped, boned and waxed and boned and polished, boned again and waxed again and polished until they resembled brown lustre glass. Behind rode an awe-ful figure, grey-moustached, keen of eye—Sir Douglas Haig. With the group of generals, a little in rear, rode a svelte, sallow young man with imperturbable manner
more Eastern than European, with eyes both cervine and calculating, a two-legged deer of the oases who had somehow come to stand beside the British lion, immaculate in uniform with gorget patches and brassard of G.H.Q.

*

Peasant
cultivateurs,
whose roots and tillered corn had been crossed again and again, ceased to pause in their work of hoeing down the rows of beet-sugar and mangolds, as they struck at thistle and spurrey with feelings of violation, of outrage, for the destruction of their crops. The soldiers from office, factory, and machine shop considered these morose individuals to be hardly more animate or intelligent than the roots they tended.

There was one exception. While “A” company was resting near the notice board for the third time, a short fat Frenchman in peaked cap, dark coat, and trousers clumsily tucked into black leather leggings, showing laced ankle boots of
glacé
kid below, appeared out of nowhere with a gun under his arm and an angry expression on his face nearly covered by thick black beard and whiskers. Judging by the string bag stuffed with red-legged partridges and other smaller birds slung on his shoulder, he had been having a successful day. He was, moreover, equipped for comfort. He was complete with rolled cape, leather wine-bottle, cartridge belt, and
La
Vie
Parisienne.
A thin unhappy-looking setter with over-worked dugs quivered behind his heels.

“Hullo, cock, how’s yourself?” cried a wag.

“Pah!” With indignation the French sportsman surveyed the soldiers lying down on his land. “Les autres Boches,” he announced to himself.

At that moment a yellowhammer flew over the grass. The
tireur
followed it with eager eyes. It lit on the board, and sang in a small, flint-chip voice. The
tireur
raised his gun—
crack!
The brown-and-yellow bird dropped as to a puff. Breast feathers floated in the air. There were ironical cheers from the men as the small body was picked up and the sportsman strode away, towards a wood, followed by his bitch and a cry of, “Next time, Pah, ’ave a go at Fritz!”

Phillip picked up two of the breast feathers and put them in his pocket book, beside a poppy and a marigold picked in Tara Valley. He was keeping them to send home in the next letter to his mother.

*

Back at camp, rumour spread like a chill. The Colonel had been removed from his command.

“Have you heard anything, Captain Bason?”

“Straight from the horse’s mouth, otherwise our one and only Wigg. He has honoured us by visiting the mess—complete with red tabs, crown, and spurs. Blimey, some people know their way about, all right! But why the ‘captain’ all of a sudden? Cheer up, old sport!”

Phillip left the letter he was writing and went with Bason to the mess marquee.

“Your pal has mucked himself up good and proper this time,” said Ray, with some glee.

“What happened, skipper?” asked Phillip, feeling weak.

“You ought to know, he confided in you, didn’t he?” Bason could not help saying.

While they were discussing it, Major Kingsman came to see Bason. Captain Paul was with him. The three walked up and down side by side, a hundred yards from the lines, talking together for several minutes.

*

The battalion officers had not dined together in mess since leaving England, until the previous night. For this second and final occasion before returning up the line for the Show, as it was now called, a special dinner had been arranged in a marquee, with champagne, provided by the C.O. The occasion had been much looked forward to, a grand send-off in the spirit of Eat, Drink, for tomorrow—the Break-through! And then the news about Colonel West leaving, and Major Kingsman commanding the battalion. Would the old C.O. be present? And would he now pay for the fizz? asked Ray. Beaucoup fizz was what he wanted; lashings and lashings of the stuff. And all buckshee.

The dinner took place. Major Kingsman, after His Majesty’s health had been drunk, proposed the toast of the Regiment. Then he read an apology for absence from Lt.-Col. West, who said that to his very great regret he would not be leading the battalion into action. He knew, however, that they would give whole-hearted support to their new Commanding Officer, and do their damndest to get the Hun out of France, and so play their part in bringing Victory to the Allied Arms. He himself would be taking part in the offensive with his own regiment, to which he would be on his way, to serve in any capacity that he was ordered, when his Farewell Message was being read by his good friend and comrade-in-arms, Major Kingsman.

He wished them God Speed, and Good Luck.

There was prolonged cheering as Major Kingsman sat down. Beside him was Captain Paul. Toasts were drunk to “Spectre”, by which name he was by now generally known, in the wine he had provided. But it was not the old colonel they cheered, so much as their thoughts of the Great Push that was imminent.

*

Major Wigg, sitting on the other side of the C.O., drinking his seventh glass of gin and lighting his second cigar, was a more refined sardonic self, as befitted the gilded frame of his self-portrait as a G.S.O. 3. He never drank champagne, he explained, it was bad for his liver. He was a man of gin. To those beside him—Captains Milman, Paul, Thompson, Cusack, and Bason—he gave the inside information.

A man of manners on occasion, Major Wigg, now a guest, withheld his personal views and spoke objectively, although in a dry tone of voice as befitted one on the staff of Army, with a comprehensive point of view.

The rate of advance, “Spectre” had complained, was too slow, and it began too far off. The German front line should be rushed, he had most considerately explained to a mere G.O.C. Army, from close up behind the barrage. Army’s plan, he maintained, was based on a fallacy, that “the opposition would be wiped out by the preliminary bombardment”. Even if this “wiping out” were feasible, and he had reason to doubt it, Field Service Regulations made the principle of the assault after bombardment perfectly clear: the phrase used was “rush the position”. The Regulations also laid down that troops, even under the orders of junior commanders, seeing an opportunity to get in quickly, should start off under their commander’s own initiative, and “others were to co-operate as soon as possible”. That was the principle of successful attack in all wars, and this war was no exception, the “mushroom colonel” had argued.

Putting down his damp cigar, and choosing as though carefully a cigarette from his gold case, Major Wigg continued, in a voice of gravel, “Our would-be military genius went on to say that he had heard that the Field-Marshal himself had suggested that the advance should be made in small rushes. This view of the Field-Marshal—our late schoolmaster was kind enough to lecture his seniors, who by this time were wondering why Old Man Rawly had put up with such damned insolence for so long—was based on the ‘historic principle’ of overcoming the enemy’s unformed resistance speedily at close quarters, before it could cohere into
resistance. With the usual sweat bedewing his brow, ‘Spectre’ went on to say, ‘The Field-Marshal’s suggestion, I understand—and I say it with the very greatest respect, and in humble duty’—for all the world as though he were the P.M. before H.M., and about to kiss hands—‘has been rejected by the Fourth Army Commander.’ His very words. So,” concluded Major Wigg, with satisfaction, “Mr. Bloody West’s goose is cooked.”