The Somme (4 page)

Tom Everitt's platoon in ‘C' Company occupied a section of the ditch near the opening of a shallow communication trench running forward down the hill. The smashed entrance of a dug-out sheltered the platoon commander and his batman, revealed intermittently behind a flapping fragment of blanket. The officer, Higgins by name, confined himself to alternate draughts of brandy and blasphemy: the men outside could avail themselves only of the latter. Contrary to the accepted theory, they by no means ‘worshipped him,' and their dealings with him were confined strictly to business transactions. As an officer, Higgins was a privileged person evading, by virtue of his office, all the hard work and much of the discomfort. The danger, they admitted, he shared: certainly a man with the confidence and aplomb requisite to maintain a commission was a fool to do anything but accept one.

In the absence of brandy, Everitt redressed the balance by lurid grousing. How sick of it all he was, mere words could never tell, but recurring bouts of querulousness showed his nerves in rags. Why the devil couldn't Jim keep his infernal rifle to himself? That was the third time his laboriously erected rainproof shelter had collapsed beneath the assault of falling weapons. Had anyone a ruddy cigarette? Of course not; and his own were soaked and useless. Did that damned bumping mean ‘he' was coming over? (‘He' was the ‘Central Powers.') For Everitt's part, he should ‘pack up' if they did, and he recommended everybody else to do the same. He was too tired to do anything but curse. He cursed the rain, the mud, the Germans, the Allies, the Loamshires, the lice, the rifles, the ammunition, his friends, his enemies, his Creator, and all things created. What was the real balance of his emotions no one knew less than himself. In any emergency the force of example would doubtless have set him in common action with the others: there was no suggestion that he should be summarily shot for ‘dispiriting the troops.' For the rest, he was wet, tired, stiff, dirty, lousy, hungry and cantankerous.

Breakfast consisted of bully-beef, biscuits, bread, cheese, and jam, all of which were liberally besprinkled with mud immediately on disinterment from the haversacks where they had long been making merry with socks, rifle oil, towels and soap. The beef and jam were safe in tins, but the others emerged in various and unfamiliar disguises. The meal over, they returned to the futility of cleaning their rifles. It was impossible to find a spot free from mud, and a minute after cleaning they were clogged again. Grit in the bolt of a rifle makes it entirely useless, save as a peculiarly clumsy club; but rifles of course were rarely fired in the line. In the crowded trench the wonder was that no one had the good fortune to be accidentally shot.

Mutual recriminations were disturbed by a call for volunteers to carry ammunition to the forward trench. Everitt knew that any action was better than the idle estimation of the pitch of shells, and that the danger outside was less terrible face to face. With him went his friend Forsyth, ex-Civil Servant, bachelor, and confirmed humorist. His story of the simultaneous surrender of himself and a gigantic Prussian Guardsman is remembered by many to this day – their mutual disappointment and querulous debate, the spinning of a coin to decide the matter, and Forsyth's victorious return with a delighted prisoner. He had just an hour to live, but, not knowing this, his spirits were by no means daunted. Between them they lugged the box by its corded handles. The communication trench ran forward for perhaps two hundred yards, sometimes deep enough for welcome shelter, sometimes so shallow that they seemed gesticulating on a mound. Blocking the road lay some half-dozen dead Fusiliers, killed in yesterday's ‘operations.' Many had been thrown out of the trench, wherein they had evidently taken shelter, but upon these six it was impossible to avoid trampling. Each wayfarer thus stamped them further into the mud, and soon their bodies would be hidden. At one place they found a grave. On a fragment of board was scrawled in violet pencil, now smudged by the rain, the name and regiment of him who lay buried there. Humble garden flowers had been brought there to testify the love of friends. A bully-beef tin held them, pansies, cornflowers and coreopsis, gathered God knows where, perhaps dispatched in a parcel from home. This sudden patch of colour in the squalid desert hit them like a blow. So infinitely pitiful seemed those wilting flowers, sodden and drooping in the rain.

At a junction of trenches was a dump of ammunition, and there Everitt first heard the news. All this accumulation of material was for use that afternoon; the battalion was to ‘go over' after dinner. Hitherto Everitt had found his creed of confirmed pessimism an actual boon on active service: always prepared for the worst, any alleviation was doubly welcome. But this blank certainty was very different from the nebulous forebodings of half an hour ago. Everitt had had little enough experience, but he knew what ‘over the top' meant. Not rarely had he listened to first-hand narratives, and the details had impressed him. Pessimism implies a wilful imagination. Everitt knew only too well that cowards die many deaths. Hence, indeed, his present refuge from thought in action.

But apprehension would not be denied. It had actually come at last. In an hour or so he would be walking eastwards over that field. (It struck him as ludicrous that a man might go east and west together.) A trapped rabbit may be supposed to share his thoughts. He knew he should go with the others; he knew there was no conceivable escape. Unless, indeed, he caught one first. It was a matter of luck after all. Some died and some didn't, and neither skill nor strength nor courage availed a jot to shift Fate's finger. Already he knew enough to know there would be none of the excitement of a ‘charge': it would be a slow toiling in the face of machine-guns. Often on the butts at home he had wondered how men dared advance against modern rifles: it seemed incredible that any should survive. At all events he would know all about it soon – perhaps all about everything. If only he had a shred of enthusiasm to support him; if only he could drug himself to believe that this was the right and proper solution of a quarrel. And, talking of drugs, why could he not get drunk on rum? Didn't the Germans dope their men with alcohol?

A mind incurably argumentative saw many sides to every question, most of all to this great problem. How much was there to be said on either side! Certainly they both claimed the support of God and Justice. He was convinced that the men who ‘enjoyed the privilege of fighting for their country' were sick of the slaughter, victims driven helplessly forward by fire-eaters in safe places. Could they not call a truce – and hammer out some settlement? But Germany must be crushed. Ruthlessness could only be met with ruthlessness. In a little while he himself must be ‘ruthless' – he, a physical coward, half convinced that all killing was murder, hating even the aggression of outdoor games, careful to spare the beetle on the path. It was ludicrously impossible that he should grapple with a German. Perhaps he would encounter a like-minded foe: he pictured them philosophizing together on the ethics of the situation. If only it were all over, and he dead, or wounded, or a prisoner. And so back to the trench, with normal apprehensions growing to a numbing dread.

Their news was stale to ‘C' Company and for a time the talk ran on conjectures. It was obvious that ‘A' Company in the forward trench must, in the barbarous jargon of war, make up the first and second ‘waves,' but against rifle and machine-gun fire the rear is little better off than the van. They discussed the vile technicalities of barrages and the possibilities of a smoke-screen. The wiseacres declared that going over was nothing to repelling the counter-attacks. Hitherto Everitt had debated these things academically, after the manner of experts in Pall Mall, and he found it a very different matter to consider them in the light of cold facts, affecting him personally and inevitably. To break his sunny musings, there arrived a fatigue-party of an officer and six men, carrying bombs from ‘D' Company in the rear. They had started a dozen strong, but some fell by the wayside. ‘A rotten job,' some called it, others more tersely ‘a bastard.' An uncommunicative sergeant distributed the bombs, one for each man, with instructions for their stowage in great-coat pockets. Everitt's chief care was to see that the pin was tightly fixed, and his private resolve was to fling the bomb away at the first opportunity. In any attempt to use the thing offensively it would be just his luck to damage only himself. Certainly this looked like business, and he returned to meditation. Simultaneously he made two discoveries. One was a human arm in a corner of the trench, khaki-clad and neatly severed above the elbow. (The blood had drained away from it and the fractured bone reminded him grotesquely of a knuckle of lamb. The body to which it belonged lay outside the trench ten yards away.) The other was, that this was Sunday, ‘the day of rest and gladness, the day of joy and light, the balm of care and sadness, most beautiful, most bright.' At home they were squaring bayonets with the Sermon on the Mount, praying for the safety of loved ones, with roast lamb and green peas as a comforting background. For the owner of that severed arm they were imploring a ‘happy issue out of all his afflictions.'

At this moment Higgins emerged from his dugout. He was ever a man of few words, and his present purpose made brevity necessary. And these were the words of Higgins: ‘We go over at 2.45. You'll see “A” Company leave their trench, and all you've got to do is to follow them. Keep some sort of a line, and for God's sake don't bunch. If you do, they'll get you sure as a gun. Just keep your eye on me and follow my direction. Half-way over we've got to swing half-left, but it's only five hundred yards altogether and we ought to get there easily. There's no wire, and you'll find they pack up when we get close. Whatever you do, don't throw bombs about without orders – you'll only hurt your pals if you do, and it won't be necessary. Keep your rifles clean, ten in the chamber and one up the spout.' So that was that, and there still wanted two hours to ‘zero.'

Someone said that the objective was, appropriately enough, ‘Hazy Trench,' but the news was received without enthusiasm. Apparently the ‘blood-lust' was not yet roused, and it was unnecessary to hold back early starters. Orders came down the trench that the men were to make a ‘good meal,' and the instruction seemed to them a masterpiece of cynicism. It was absurd to devour food when a few hours might relieve a man from the necessity of any further exertions in that direction. ‘Like fattening ducks,' said someone. The old superstition of ‘Tempting Providence' raised its head. To build up strength for to-morrow seemed ‘asking for it.' Moreover, it was impossible to enjoy bully-beef dug out of a tin with a rusty jack-knife, and the biscuits and cheese made nauseous swallowing. Jam seemed strangely plentiful, and they wolfed it eagerly and undiluted.

The time drifted slowly; self-preservation directed another oiling of the bolt, but mud mocked men's efforts. Gradually Everitt found himself growing excited. His heart was throbbing unwontedly, and he found himself breathing quickly and swallowing often. He had never believed that a crisis could turn a man's stomach, but evidence was not wanting that some were ill indeed. He himself felt qualms within and a gripping pain that waxed and waned. Talk subsided, but as the time approached cigarettes glowed in larger and larger numbers. Everywhere men were lighting up, puffing and exhaling. It was vitally necessary to do something, and the mere mechanical movements of smoking were a solace. To read was impossible, for thought wandered continually in one direction.

Only half an hour more. Everitt began to believe that a much longer delay would drive him mad. Something whispered to him to start away now, alone. No longer did the tales he had heard of broken nerve seem incredible. He had read of men reduced by fear to trembling jellies of alarm, unable even to stand: others he knew had actually gone crazy.

Another damp cigarette and another futile oiling of the bolt. Suddenly he saw the man beside him reading with apparent absorption a small book bound in calf. Curious to see what could hold a man at such a time, he must needs stoop to read the title: ‘Thomas à Kempis! Imitation of Christ!' He knew that Myers was a devout Roman Catholic, and that it was his custom to read a chapter of the ‘Imitation' daily. The two were bound together by a love of books. They were chums in the section, and many a time they had drowned their troubles in fierce arguments on Francis Thompson. Religion they had tacitly agreed to exclude from these debates, for a devout Catholic and a pugnacious Agnostic could find little common ground. In Everitt's excuse it may be urged that he was roused to the tensest pitch of anxiety and apprehension. It exasperated him to see a man reading such a book at such a time. To him it savoured of cant. For the life of him he could not help crying: ‘What the devil is the good of reading that stuff? Why on earth spend your time that way?' To which Myers replied calmly, ‘Why not?' and finished the chapter.

‘Get ready,' said someone, and Thomas à Kempis was stowed away for a more convenient season. The cigarettes were glowing more strongly than ever, and a few men shook hands with shamefaced wishes for mutual good luck. Here again Everitt must needs sneer at the imbecility of such sentimentalism. As though it made any difference! But the other recognized the snapping of taut nerves and took compassion on a feeble vessel. Rifles, fully cocked and with fixed swords, were slung over the right shoulder, and each man carried two bandoliers of emergency ammunition. Battle-order had discarded packs. The pouches were left open for use, but up to the last moment Everitt could not believe he should meet any of the enemy hand to hand. The rain fell sullenly, and he saw Higgins pour the contents of his flask into a pannikin and drink it off at a draught. ‘Come along,' said he prosaically, and in a minute the trench was empty.

It was a difficult matter to scramble up those slippery banks, and each man stooped to help his neighbour. Every section had been instructed to leave the trench in single file at a chosen point, but, once outside, the whole Company formed a rough alignment. As Everitt straightened himself from helping a friend, he saw ‘A' Company emerging from their advanced trench two hundred yards ahead. Their line seemed curiously ragged, but as ‘C' Company left their shelter behind them they too gathered themselves into little knots and groups. In a few minutes they were rather in parallel columns than line, and the warning against ‘bunching' was unheeded. They had barely left the trench when there rose from the German lines a shower of variegated fireworks – Verey lights, red rockets, green rockets, clustered golden-rains. These were signals to artillery, and in less than a minute the devil's orchestra was in full chorus. From across the valley the barrage fell behind the front line, and so far forward there was little danger from the shelling. But the sudden fierceness and clamour of the guns was awesome to hear, particularly to men primed with tales of the Allies' immeasurable superiority in artillery. Save for intermittent shrapnel fire, no reply came from friendly batteries, and soon even this ceased. Apparently no artillery support was to be given. The ‘element of surprise' in a sudden midday attack was thought an ample protection.