The Golden Virgin (37 page)

*

At 2.45 a.m., Berlin time, the German Reserve Regiment in its battle headquarters underground at Contalmaison, three thousand yards behind La Boisselle, reported a portion of the British Fourth Army Commander’s message, which had been sent out by field-telephone to the troops under his command. The message had been picked up by the Moritz overhearing post in the German lines immediately south of La Boisselle.

This message told the German commander that the general offensive was to begin that morning.

Orders were given for the machine-gun garrison to evacuate the
festung,
or strong point known to the British as Y Sap. Under the
festung,
as the Germans knew, was the mine driven by the 179th Tunnelling Company, to be touched off just before Zero hour, to pile up around its crater lips loamy earth high enough to obstruct the otherwise perfect field of fire of machine-gunners across the bare, open ground of Mash Valley.

The German machine-gunners were now waiting well away from Y Sap, in deep dug-outs behind the trench running east and parallel to the Bapaume Road, thus facing Mash Valley at right-angles, well beyond the mine area.

*

The steely light above the north-west horizon, beyond the valley of the Ancre and Athuille wood, had scarcely begun to fade when a new light, as of an electrified and glowing energy, began to rise in the north-east, over the Bapaume Road and the fortress of La Boiselle. Soon larks were rising above no-man’s-land, eager to see the sun.

With the lark-song came the hot soup containers, each slung
on a pole borne on the shoulders of two men. Phillip saw his sergeant, and told him to dish it out at 6 a.m.

*

The larks, small of impulse, had long since dropped to feed and rest among the poppies and marigolds of the open land (where still the grey stubble of the 1914 corn harvest was to be seen in places) when the sun rose above the serrated rim of the east. One whole hour and a quarter had to pass before the concentrated bombardment started. Never did time knot so tightly within the human diaphragm. Phillip tried to take interest in the outward scene, but his thoughts were of home. Would the morning be fine on the Hill, so clear and sunny and green in the early mornings of summer? At home they would still be sleeping. In the Valley of the Lyn the amber waters would be running cold and clear. Summer in England! It was as though he saw through thick plate glass soon to shatter into splinters that would pierce all his body.

At a quarter to six Pimm brought a mug of hot tea, with the remark,

“Proper day for a race, sir.”

Heathmarket, Godolphin House,
The
Belvoir
Arms,
trainers on the Severals, strings of bloodstock walking back to stables. Soon the July races, Rolls-Royce and Daimler, old gentlemen and young officers, society girls in summery hats—just the same in England, goodbye, goodbye.

He must talk about horses, to keep his mind from fastening upon death’s bitter dark in the spoke-burning sunshine. High up in the blue, a flight of scout aeroplanes was flying towards the east. For a moment he felt heavy as stone.

“Yes sir, as I was saying, when the baskets are opened——”

Baskets? Why must he talk? For God’s sake leave me alone.

“—up they all flies, sir——”

“What, horses? Oh, you mean pigeons. I see. How many have we got, did you say?” At all costs, keep the fox gnawing his guts under his cloak hidden.

“Four birds, two blue chequers, a red chequer, and a mealie. Nice lookin’ birds, sir, all fed. Now as I was saying—up they all flies, and ’eads for ’ome after a few circles, to get direction. Some knows it at once. I can, myself, tell a good bird by the eye it has. Would you credit that I can tell a bird’s powers by its eyes, sir? Or its many eyes, for a pigeon has three in one, sir. Just you take a look at Jimmy here’s eye, see the orb and circles, sir, two circles there be, one for range and t’other for intelligence, and locked up in
the apple, sir. But it’s in the ’ollow bones of the wings where their lungs extend to, that there’s the sense of homing, sir, though some say it is inside the skull, or the little bones in the ears, filled with spirit and a hair bubble, sir.”

“Spirit? What sort of spirit?”

“There’s no telling, sir, but Sergeant Jones thinks it’s like the hair bubble in a joiner’s level, keeps the bird on a level keel, and magnetically on the course for ’ome.”

What rot it was, a bird flying magnetically.

“How very interesting. Now I think I ought to go and see Sergeant Jones. Keep an eye on the water cans,
and
the rum, and see that no one touches it, or the rum jar.”

The platoon sergeant had spent part of the night straightening up part of the trench wall, digging at great and continuous speed. He had removed, he claimed, seven cubic yards, from ground level down, in the four hours of darkness, picking and shovelling without help, and leaving the wall as plumb as any mason would want to see it. At the end of the self-imposed task Sergeant Jones was as fresh and cheerful as at the start.

“Gives a bit more room for the boys to stretch out in like, you see, sir!”

Thereupon Sergeant Jones’ manner changed; he became confidential, almost intimate, as with a slight knock of the back of his hand on Phillip’s ribs, as though he were still a Devon small-holder striking a bargain, he said, “Yurr!” while lifting his nose to suggest a withdrawal out of hearing by the others. His speech, too, changed in places, back to the Devon brogue.

“It be one of the bombers, sir, Howells. His pluck’s left ’im, sir. ’Owells never had much, but what there was has gone and left ’im.”

Phillip had particularly noticed Howells because he had a look of cousin Willie about him. He was a young soldier with delicate face and features, and large brown eyes which usually were reflective, even sad.

“He be down yurr, sir.”

Howells was lying back against the bottom wall of the meticulously plumb trench, looking as though he had been hit. His face under the sun-burn was a greenish-white. His eyes stared fixedly. Other men were standing and sitting on the floor of the trench, smoking, talking, or with arms folded, resting.

“What’s the matter?” said Phillip, stooping down beside Howells, Had his face looked like that, before advancing up
through L’Enfer wood to the crest of Messines in October 1914? What would have been the best way, then, to help him over his terror? “I think we all feel pretty bad, Howells. So don’t feel that you’re all alone.”

The large eyes showed blue-white as they looked at him. Phillip bent down to hear what was said. Howells had to swallow several times before he could speak. “I can’t go on, sir. I feel bad.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen, sir. I gave a wrong age, please sir!”

“Are you thinking of your mother, Howells?”

“Sort of, sir. I feel all giddy and sick when I stand up, and my legs give way, sir.”

“You’re not the only one, Howells. Try not to think about anything, that’s the best thing, I find. I’ve been just like you, the first time over. Anyway, if you feel too awful, stay here in the trench when we go over the plonk. I know how you feel; I am scared stiff myself, and look to all you chaps to help me. Can’t you think of how you will be able to help them with your grenades? They may make all the difference. We need your help, Howells.”

The boy seemed not to be hearing. He stared sickly in front of him. Sergeant Jones again beckoned Phillip with his nose. “He’s got on a bullet-proof vest, sir, that’s part of the trouble. He bain’t got the frame vor carry that and his clobber, as well as his sand-bag of thirty-two Mills bombs, sir. He was crying, coming up the Green Track last night.”

“I’ve told him to stay behind, if he can’t face it, sergeant.”

“Yes sir,” said the sergeant, absently. Then, “The others don’t like him, sir. They say he won’t muck in with them, as us says, sir. He’s greedy with his parcels, and won’t share and share alike.”

“That’s because his mother sent them, sergeant. It’s fatal to imagine your mother in everything from home.”

“Us be all in this together, sir.”

“But Howells doesn’t feel in it yet. He’s still very young. What he needs is friendship, not scorn.”

“Yes, sir?”

“How are the others?”

“They’ll do, sir. They don’t believe all they’ve been told about a walk-over, you know. Some talk about the old Colonel being right on Jerry’s deep dug-outs, sir. Others say us be starting too far back. But you know what talk is. They say ‘a leary cart maketh the most noise,’ dont’m? But they won’t let ’ee down, sir.”

“I only hope I don’t let you chaps down!”

“No fear of that, sir. The men know a proper officer when they see one.” How easily taken in they are, thought Phillip, while Sergeant Jones went on, “Only they say it’s a long way to go, sir.”

So they know it, too, thought Phillip. As though he had read his thought, small-holder Jones came near, and lifting his nose up in beckoning, struck him with the back of his hand on the ribs and said, “Yurr! The men’d rather get close up to Jerry while ’e’s keeping ’is ’ead down, like. Then again, with all the clobber they have to carry, sir, they feel they can’t get down quickly to give covering fire, if it’s needed, and then get up again. It be worryin’ of them, like.”

Phillip wished that Jones would keep his distance. He came as it were under his guard. He must pretend not to be affected, lest he hurt Jones’ feelings.

“What is a leary cart, Farmer?”

“That’s what us calls a butt, sir, wi’ nothing in it.”

“I see. I feel a bit leary myself, so how about dishing out the soup?”

“Very good sir.”

Sergeant Jones turned away and said, “Corporal Nolan, tell off two men from each section to fetch along the canteens for themselves and their butties, we don’t want no bunching. And keep some soup for me, and the officer. Get a move on!”

Then turning to Phillip, Jones struck him again—a purely involuntary action observed and adopted since childhood in the West Country—and said, “Yurr! I was going to say, the men don’t like there being no rum issue before we go over the plonk, sir.”

“The C.O. thinks it best kept for later, when we’ve got to our objectives.”

“That’s a long way for ajar of S.R.D. to walk, all the way to Possyairs. ’Twill be a pity if it don’t arrive, and a miracle if it do, sir,” said Sergeant Jones; while Farmer Jones looked up and pointed. “See all they starlings, zur, flyin’ as though nought was happening out of the usual! Tes early for they birds to be gathering, don’t ’ee reckon?”

A long loose flock of small dark birds, flying strongly, passed about six hundred feet over no-man’s-land, going north.

“I wonder what can have disturbed them?”

“I’ve a-got it!” cried Sergeant Jones, “it be the petrol shells what have driven they birds out of Fricourt Wood! See the black smoke a-goin’ up? They’ll burn any Jerries up they trees, won’t ’m tho! My Gor, it must be gettin’ on for the time for the guns to
start!” He jerked about in his excitement, balancing his weight on his feet.

“Any moment now,” said Phillip, looking at his watch, and feeling himself unstable.

Why was Jones grinning at him fixedly? He could not look at the watch any more, but only stare back at the small, lean, brown face. He wanted to say that he needed rest, but his tongue felt as though it would only clack dry if he spoke. Jones was more successful in trying to say something. Hoarsely, with his involuntary back-handed nudge, “Yurr! What about they soup containers? I mean to say, do us leave them yurr? Or do us have to take ’em with us?”

At that moment, from behind, an enormous furrow seemed to be opening in the sky, a vast unmusical wind-sound, followed by a small flat concise
pop,
from the 12-inch naval gun firing on its multiple-bogie railway mounting thirteen miles behind Albert. The report had travelled through the morning air slower than the velocity of the shell.

Not all of the shells fired during the preliminary bombardment reached the German lines. Some burst either just beyond the muzzles of gun and howitzer, or in the barrels themselves. These prematures were due to defective workmanship. In peace-time about one-third of a steel-ingot in a British foundry was rejected—the outer metal, nearest the air—but since early 1915 this had been reduced to one-fifth. Thus some of the steel had lost its temper, and crystallised after cooling in the foundry. Invisible hair-cracks had opened in it; and when such steel formed a
shell-casing the terrific pressure of the flames of detonated cordite striving to expand penetrated the cracks and burst the casing prematurely, either while still in the bore or on leaving the muzzle.

In some of the 6o-pounder guns, for counter-battery work, prematures occurred owing to the shrapnel heads, called fuses by the troops, coming off in the bore. Worse were the 4.5-inch howitzers, which so frequently burst their shells two barrel-lengths from the muzzle that the crews of such batteries told one another that they belonged to the Suicide Club. Not only were the fuses dangerous, but owing to the cordite in the cartridges not always being burned out, but remaining in the bore, flashes occurred during re-loading.