The Golden Virgin (36 page)

Crown Prince Rupprecht stated that increased railway traffic had been noticed behind the British front on the Somme, together with many new artillery emplacements and assembly trenches; while camps had been built near Albert and on both sides of the Roye-Montidier railway, well to the south of Field-Marshal Haig’s back-areas.

General von Below proposed that, should the attack on the Somme materialise, the British forces should be let through into a large salient or pocket, and there be encircled by attacks driven into the flanks.

The Crown Prince Rupprecht then informed the Kaiser that agents’ reports had spoken of a British attack about Whitsuntide (11 June) but it had not materialised. This had puzzled his Intelligence Staff until they had received a report of a speech by Lloyd George, the British Minister for Munitions, to owners and workmen of munition factories on 2 June, where Lloyd George stated,

The Crown Prince Rupprecht commented, “It certainly docs so speak; it contains the surest proof that there will be a great British offensive in a few weeks.”

The speech of the Minister of Munitions had been reported in London morning newspapers of the 2 June; copies of which in due course had gone to Holland, and thence to Germany.

The Crown Prince Rupprecht went on to say that, according to a report of an agent at The Hague, the British attaché there said that the offensive in the West would begin at the end of the month.

*

On 24 June, he wrote in his journal,

On 26 June,

On 27 June,

On the night of Thursday, 29 June, the weather cleared, and for miles up and down the Valley of the Ancre thousands of little fires burned in the darkness, below the sight of the Germans on the high ground above. From far and near came the sound of singing under the stars. Before one of the fires Phillip sat beside Sergeant Jones, dreamy with flames, his spirit happy with these men who looked to him for almost everything. He thought—as was true—that they were proud of their “Old Sticks”, because he was the only officer in the battalion who had been in an attack before: he would know
what to do, and they would follow him anywhere, Sergeant Jones had told him.

The fires died down, the stars moved westwards, water-birds and frogs called and croaked in the marshes; and under a shimmer of gunfire the men crept into their bivvies and slept their last sleep before the battle.

*

In the morning the sun shone into the valley. Flying was again possible, though at times low cloud dragged across the wide and gently swelling downland. The bombardment continued, though not so intensely, as supplies of shell, owing to the postponement by two extra days, were limited. Early that morning the Germans stood to in their trenches, and fired their machine-guns, while their artillery put down a barrage in no-man’s-land. This was soon known among the waiting troops: faces at times were serious.

Phillip wrote two letters to his parents; one to be sent off—“good luck to Father’s allotment, tell him not to trench too deep, or he may find himself in Australia, after all”—the other to be posted if he were killed, thanking them both for a very happy life, and concluding that they must not worry when they heard that he had come to the deep, deep sleep.

*

“Company to parade in battle order at ten o’clock, sir!”

Now the period of suspense was over. For Captain Bason and his company officers it had meant much work, in detailing and instructing ration-and water-parties (all water in 2-gallon petrol tins); in checking equipment, examining maps, instructing N.C.O.’s. signallers and runners, for each man had his detailed instructions for the assault. The times of the artillery lifts had, together with the signals by Very light and rocket for the gunners, the code words of companies and neighbouring units to be transmitted by visual signalling lamps, by flags, discs, shutters, fans, pigeons, ground-sheet-patterns for the R.F.C. contact patrol aeroplanes—all these had been learned by heart, for nothing must be written down, in case of capture.

Months of training, lecture, rehearsal; of working parties under the Engineers for the digging, sand-bagging and roofing over of pits for guns, scores of guns, hundreds of guns, in orchards, woods, and on the open hillside; fatigue parties unloading shells and mortar bombs at hidden dumps; carrying parties humping up barbed wire, trench ladders, wire-netting to be laid over assembly trenches and
covered with grass—all was done with now, as in the last night of June the company paraded silently, while the croaking of frogs in the wide marshes of the Ancre became insistent.

In the courtyard of the farm he shook hands with Cox left in reserve, called his platoon to attention, and marched off along the road leading to Albert, followed, at 100-yard intervals, by the three other platoons of Captain Bason’s company. Each platoon pulled two ropes hooked to a little two-wheeled hand-cart in which were the Lewis guns and drum buckets.

He carried a rifle, and wore the same makeshift leather equipment, in lieu of khaki webbing, as the men. Like them, he was in fighting order: bayonet in scabbard, entrenching tool, water bottle, steel helmet, rolled groundsheet and haversack in place of pack on back.

In his haversack were towel, soap, shaving kit, message book, spare socks. In the mess-tin, covered by khaki cloth, was the “unconsumed portion of the day’s ration”, with two cheese rations, hard wheaten biscuits, tin of bully beef, and a selection of small pieces of cake, chocolate, lozenges of meat extract, and a tin of café-au-lait. The rest of his mother’s parcels he had had to leave behind—feeling that he was abandoning her with them.

In his left breast pocket was a small khaki Bible, covering the heart, gift of the Church Army hut at Querrieu. Round his neck hung, on a leather boot-lace, a small
papier-maché
identity disc, with his name, rank, and regiment, and religion, C. of E., for burial purposes. On the bootlace hung the ebony and silver crucifix his mother had given him in 1914.

The regimental device was stencilled in white on the front of his helmet, while on the left side the divisional colours were painted. These were repeated in a small rectangle of two-coloured cloth, sewn on the back of his tunic, centrally below the collar. A white riband on his left shoulder strap indicated his company. Thus docketed and tagged, he was, as Bason said, all ready for the Summer Sales.

Like the men, he carried two gas helmets and a pair of tear-gas
goggles, field dressing, and iodine capsule. In addition, together with other company officers, and N.C.O.’s, he carried four flares.

The flares were to be burned in answer to long blasts on the klaxon horns of R.F.C. contact patrols, which meant,
Where
are
you?

*

The night of 30 June 1916 was fine in the valley of the Ancre, and fairly quiet. Cries of water-fowl came through the darkness as the column frequently halted in the traffic congestion.

The last hues of sunset were congealed upon the north-west rim of the earth above which arose a steely haze of light. Phillip wondered, as he leaned on his rifle, if this was the glow of the midnight sun, the distant rays in space rising millions of miles beyond the horizon of the battlefield. How small it must all seem to the sun, which had looked upon so much life and death on the planet. Everything was vast to one human brain, but to the sun, how small. A few miles farther on—across the slag-heaps of Loos—onwards to Flanders—over the Channel—beyond the South Downs and the North Downs—even upon London Bridge—thousands of human eyes were seeing a different sunset, each pair of eyes with different sets of thoughts. So there was seldom ever complete agreement. It was a terrifying thought, a revelation of man’s puny helplessness behind the great machines he made to ward off his fate, or to preserve it for awhile, with howitzers and high explosive. Where was God in the actual scheme of things? His Son had failed to alter the scheme; He had died on the Cross, condemned to death by the makers of iron; and all God’s Mother could do was to stand below the Cross and grieve; and later, to be erected as a Virgin with the Babe in her arms, to ward off the Abyss—into which, originally, both had fallen. It was all right for Father Aloysius to talk; but it was a fairy story.

He quivered with terror of death, waiting to enter the dead town of Albert, with its ruins blanched repeatedly by white stabs of field guns and bulging yellow fans of howitzers.

They moved on slowly. They halted and shuffled on. At last they were over the old double-track railway-crossing and into the outskirts of the town. Many of the walls of the buildings were standing, but roofs gaped and window spaces showed blackly, in the ear-ringing white stabs of 18-pounders among the ruins.

Other streams of traffic were converging upon the town, which was filling up everywhere with the rolling grind of wheels and the tramp of boots, shadowy with infantry columns side by side
with files of led pack mules and horses pale-marked on their flanks. Each paleness was an oblong wooden box slung in a stirrup leather, holding two field-gun shells. Movement of foot, wheel, and hoof was continuous, and most strange without the sound of one human voice, a descent of the hosts of the dead into the Underworld.

No palm of hand glowed with concealed fag, no jokes were made during the halts: all was earnest, and curiously unreal.

The main roll of traffic went away to the right through the town, following the Rue de Bapaume. The platoon marched straight on, passing under the red-brick mass of high walls and shattered roofs above which the Golden Virgin leaned down from the campanile, high over the street, gleaming in every gun-flash.

From the cellar of the last rubbled house came a glint of light. Above it was the dump, where the platoon had to take up three picks, twelve shovels, and six pairs of wire-cutters, to be given to those men already chosen to carry them; while others were given two sandbags and two Mills bombs each, with additional tools, bundles of sandbags, and barbed wire twisted on two-handled stakes. Two men were given a dixie of hot soup to carry, on a pole.

Looking in the cellar through a grating level with the street, Phillip saw four officers within, seated at a table, playing cards by candlelight. A whiskey bottle and glasses were on the table. Coloured pictures of adorable girls from English magazines were on the walls. The inmates of another world were leaning back in their chairs smoking and throwing down cards. O fortunate inmates! Probably they were field-gunners off duty; their battery was among the ruins, their guns under roofs of timber baulks and sandbags. If only he were one of them! Then he thought of his men; pray God he did not let them down.

Beyond the church was a wooden bridge over the river, then a track across low ground marked by a line of hurricane lamps painted black with small green spots stretching away up the gentle slope of Usna Valley to the horizon of flares.

*

Along the front to be assaulted, of more than twenty miles, from the river Somme in the south, to Fonquevillers in the north—opposite the most powerful German fortress of Gommecourt Park and village—fourteen British infantry divisions were moving into the line. Hundreds of columns were a-foot, on routes marked by tapes, posts, and lanterns.

There was little enemy shelling in retaliation to the usual British night bombardment; but on the northern wing of the attack, from behind the fortress of Gommecourt Park, its wood and village, two divisions, the London and the North Midland, suffered many casualties as their assembly trenches were blown in. Elsewhere only slight enemy shelling “confirmed the belief that the seven-day preliminary British bombardment had done its work”: that trenches and dug-outs were levelled, wire shot to pieces or buried; the garrisons, cut off from relief and supply, demoralised.

*

At Ovillers Post, where two tracks crossed, the Brigade-major was standing near the entrance leading down into the ground.

“Who are you?”

He acknowledged Phillip’s reply with relief, and asked what had caused the delay.

“Held up on the road into Albert, sir, and again up the track. The men found the weights somewhat heavy, sir. Shall I lead on?”

“Yes, yes, of course. You know your assembly trench, and your duties. Good luck,” he added, as an afterthought, as he waited tensely to check the next platoon.

“All the best,” added another voice. It came from Paul, now second-in-command of the battalion.

The flares from the German lines in front cast pale shadows of laden men. Overhead the copper driving-bands of heavy howitzer shells, spinning up into the height of the sky, made bass dronings, while under them 18-pounder shrapnel, shedding sparks of burning fuses, tore screaming away east, to burst as red stars pricking the horizon, while yet the 9.2-inch howitzer shells were below wallowing-point at the tops of their curves, eight miles up.

*

“With so much stuff going over, it will be a cake-walk,” said the Adjutant to Phillip, as he followed Lt.-Col. Kingsman round the line of the battalion front. To each platoon commander the C.O. read a message from the Fourth Army Commander; after which Captain Milman, cheerful and dapper as ever—“Little Marmaduke” to the men—told Phillip that Zero hour was at 7.30 a.m., the intensive bombardment to begin an hour earlier.

Watches were synchronised. They were already advanced by one hour on Greenwich Mean Time, as the new Summer Time had begun in the B.E.F. at 11 p.m. on 14 June.

“Soup will be up shortly,” said Captain Bason. It would keep hot for some hours, he added, in the new containers.

“There’s one container for each platoon. The C.O. thinks that hot pea soup will be more staying than rum. See that it’s dished out to your blokes about ten minutes before the guns let rip at half-past six, will you, old sport?” He went on to say that the rum was to be kept for later on in the day, when they were at their final objective. “What do you think of Rawly’s message? He’s changed his tune somewhat, hasn’t he?”

Phillip did not say what he thought: that “Spectre” had been right.

When Bason had gone he put the rum jar beside his rifle, and telling his men to get some shut-eye, seated himself on two petrol tins containing the platoon’s water for the next forty-eight hours, closed his eyes and tried to sleep—one of nearly three and a half thousand temporary British infantry officers, of the rank of captain and below, in the assembly trenches cut in chalk.

*

Phillip sat on the petrol tin, repeating one of the verses of
Into
Battle,
in order to fortify himself against the fears that hovered on the borders of his mind.

Try as he might to hold himself firm in this belief, a persistent picture arose before him, crying as it were upon him with angry edges, of the poet bursting with a stock-whip into the room of another undergraduate, furnished with oriental silks and cushions: a man who did not play games, but was an “aesthete”, whose father was a Bombay merchant-banker named Sassoon, and a friend of King Edward the Seventh.

Then there was the case of another
nouveau
riche
Jew who had been ragged in the Cavalry Barracks at York during May 1915, and who had committed suicide, about the time that he himself was being ragged at Heathmarket by Baldersby, senior subaltern in the first officers’ mess he had joined. Baldersby had led on the pack of subalterns while blowing a hunting horn, before they had stripped him naked and beaten him. Had Baldersby suspected himself of having Jewish blood?

For Father said that Grandfather Turney was a Jew, who had taken the Gaultshire name of Turney, and then made friends with some of the real Turney family and so bluffed people that he was English. That was rot, anyway, for Cousin Polly’s Grannie was
Gran’pa’s cousin, and she had said that Gran’pa’s forebears had farmed in Gaultshire for centuries. In spite of this, Aunt Victoria Maddison had persisted in declaring that the reason why Father did not get on with Mother was because she had Jewish blood, and therefore belonged to a world entirely different from that of the English Maddisons.

At the same time, Father hated the Germans, although his own mother had been German. As for Aunt Victoria, she was very religious, and a Protestant, and yet she disliked, even feared, all Catholics; she even thought that they were barred from Heaven. Yet Jesus had been a Jew! And He had, moreover, certainly ragged some people, and with a whip—the local bankers sitting in the Temple!

Phillip looked at his wristlet watch; it was getting on for half-past one: in five hours the guns would open up. Quick! Quick! He must settle his mind now: if he did not, Fear would tear him apart: if the worst happened, and he broke down, he would have to shoot himself. If only he had dared to tell his fears to Father Aloysius, when he had had the chance!

But what were his fears? He must know them, if he was to master them.

Julian Grenfell hunting Philip Sassoon; the cavalry subalterns in York hunting Otto Beit’s son; Baldersby hunting himself; himself hunting Albert Hawkins. Ah, the missing link! Albert Hawkins! Now the chain was complete! Albert Hawkins waiting behind the garden fence to see Mavis, long ago! “Go on, Peter, give him a good lesson!” Albert Hawkins had stood still and let himself be hit by Peter Wallace until his face was woeful with tears and his new butterfly tie spoiled by his own blood.

That was far worse than what Baldersby had done; anyway, he had deserved the ragging he had got at Heathmarket, for his conceit and bad manners. Why then was he worried because a high-spirited poet had merely cracked a stock-whip at someone he did not like? He had been only nineteen at the time; it was some years before
Into
Battle
had been written: had he, too, perhaps grieved in retrospect when he thought of how he had bullied the man who ‘was not English’, and who now, by the irony of fate was, as Kingsman had told him, Aide-de-Camp to Sir Douglas Haig; while Julian, and young Beit, and Albert Hawkins, and Peter Wallace, lay in their graves?

Phillip prayed for forgiveness; then he got up and went to see how he might help his men, each in a separate loneliness.

Summer stars shone over the battlefield, owls called in the woods above the marshes of the Ancre; while away in the west, trains loaded from the pit-heads around Béthune were rolling southwards to Paris, hauling trucks of coal for the hotels, factories, power-stations and living rooms of the Gay City, at the rate of one train every half hour of the day and the night.