Pass Guard at Ypres Read online

  “Of course you will, of course, of course. Good lad. Get on with that bombing of yours. That’s the stuff. Put some life into it. Tell the men about it, you know. Tell ’em about Messines and—the Cause, you know. We’ve got good enough bombs now. Kill anything within thirty yards. But that isn’t enough—bombs aren’t enough alone. It’s the belief behind that’s wanted. Just try to believe, my boy—believe—believe—let your sword be a sword of faith.”

  “I——” Freddy Mann stopped. Again, why argue? He only knew that British and Germans fought in the same manner, lived in the same manner, bled equally when wounded, stank and rotted the same in death. And this, after all, seemed about all that it was worth while to know. Perhaps the spirit of one was of God, and one the Devil. Perhaps the British soldier’s life was hallowed in sacrifice, his regiment a holy thing. Perhaps, perhaps not, why argue?

  “I’ll carry on, sir, and do the bombing. It doesn’t matter, as far as the bombing is concerned, whether I believe or not.”

  “But, my boy——”

  “You can’t believe without thinking, and I don’t want to have to think. It was thinking that made me go mad that night. I don’t want to go mad like that again.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Is there nothing you believe in?”

  “No.”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  “Now, mark you, lads, what you want to remember is that there’s only one good German, and that’s a dead ’un. Remember that.”

  Freddy Mann, standing by himself at the end of the field, watched with interest the red-faced Sergeant-Major Sugger putting the latest class of recruits through the first stage of bayonet instruction. He had during the last few weeks grown more or less accustomed to Sergeant-Major Sugger, more accustomed, perhaps, than Sergeant-Major Sugger had to him. It had at first been something of a shock to see the braggart so thoroughly established in a post of honour at the depôt, and Freddy Mann’s first instinct had been to make some short but sufficiently clear statement on his military record to the Carchester authorities. But nothing, after all, was to be gained by that. Sergeant-Major Sugger was what he was, and in his heart of hearts Freddy Mann, his own ideals now dead, rather admired the manner in which he had “got away with it.” That lucky piece of shrapnel that had got him as Harry had appeared round the traverse had just saved the situation: he had been carried down the Menin Road that night in the state of helplessness that he had striven to attain, and Carchester, as he had shrewd reason to suspect that it would, had taken him at his own valuation. There were few Private Bamfords about, few who were his equals at the game, and those few whom he had found were soon to their mutual advantage in league with him. Get the Regular N.C.O. to the regimental depôt, and his path is easy.

  Sergeant-Major Sugger soon established himself on parade ground and in the sergeants’ mess, and proposed now and for the duration to remain there and pass on to the youth of the country something of his spirit of martial valour. After all, why worry? If it were not him, it would be somebody else probably of his sort who would stand there twirling his moustache, every now and then seizing a rifle and bayonet and making some showy lunge at a red patch on a swinging sandbag, and mouthing like a gramophone the doctrines and exhortations that enable a man the more efficiently to strike steel through bone and flesh. Good old Sugger. That was exactly what Robbie had always said he would be doing in the second summer of the war. That’s how they had pictured him, talking just like that.

  “That’s where you want to get ’em, me lads —there by the patch. Ain’t no use ticklin’ ’em, or takin’ a bit o’ cheek. Good and proper in the middle, then get yer foot on the carcase—carcase, mind—and get it out clean, with a jerk like this.”

  Out came the steel from the sacking.

  “Red up to the ’ilt, that’s what yer want to see. Inch or two o’ red ink, that ain’t no good. Red up to the ’ilt, and there’s one bloody Boche the less—same as what we used to do.”

  He was, after all, so much of the spirit of the place. From Colonel downwards, they all taught this, and, it was to be presumed, believed in what they taught. Had he himself taught differently as he trained his bombing squad?

  “And, mark you, the sooner it’s done the sooner it’s over, and you’ll all be back at ’ome again. Kill ’em off and get it over quick.”

  The sun suddenly shone out and threw the scarlet patches that marked heart and lungs upon the sandbags into sharper relief.

  “Get ’em there, and there, like this.”

  Sergeant-Major Sugger lunged again, driving his bayonet through the dummy’s heart. The sand poured out.

  “Imagine that’s his guts. Only a swine’s guts, after all.”

  Was he worse than others?

  “That’s yer job, me lads, to kill ’em off. That’s the first job of any Britisher today.”

  The General had said the same thing in his lecture to the officers of the depôt the week before. Freddy Mann watched the group, standing attentive, rifles in hands, in the peace of the summer afternoon, and smiled. Was Sugger the only humbug and hypocrite? Weren’t they all the same?

  “That’s how we treated ’em when I was there. That’s how we stopped ’em up at Ypres—I tell you, lads, at Ypres. . . .”

  But at that Freddy Mann came forward. He was, after all, in charge of the parade. He came quickly forward, and spoke to Sergeant-Major Sugger in a low tense tone that others could not hear.

  “You can leave Ypres out of it. Don’t taint Ypres with those lies of yours, or . . .”

  “What d’you mean, sir?” Sergeant-Major Sugger stepped back.

  “Leave Ypres alone, I tell you. You know the reason. Tell them any other lies you like, but you’d better leave Ypres alone.”

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  He was rather sorry that he had to take this road. He had no particular objection on other grounds to marching through the countryside of France at the head of a hundred ill-assorted N.C.O.s and men, some raw recruits, some grizzling and gloomy Regulars, some cowed or semi-mutinous conscripts. They had given him an efficient enough sergeant-major in Sergeant-Major Masters, when they had entrained him and his staff at Boulogne and told him to get them along to Bavinchove, and go to Watten. Sergeant-Major Masters was marching along in a determined manner at the rear, keeping them well together and taking no chances with the man lurching along without rifle under close arrest in front of him. He’d got them along without much trouble; not that, with Sergeant-Major Masters and his own experience, trouble would have mattered much to him. When that Irishman played up at Abbeville it hadn’t taken more than a minute to get him fixed, and he didn’t think that anybody else would try it on.

  Drafts usually moved about France in these days in some such way as this. They were sorted out at “The Bull Ring,” clapped into steel helmets, hung round with respirators and equipment and sent packing by a business-like major to their destinations. They were bundled from R.T.O. to R.T.O., fed by reluctant quartermaster-sergeants on the way, and billeted in a countryside that went about its work and regarded them with complete indifference except as a source of a few extra francs in return for the outbuildings that they hired. The taking of the draft was nothing, but Freddy Mann wished that his way had lain along another road. It was on just such a day as this that they had marched two years ago through the Forêt d’Eperlecques to Watten; and it was to Watten that they were marching now. The forest, as then, was green and peaceful; kids were playing in the little street of Ganspette as they were playing on that day when he and Robbie had strolled out after the day’s march and given them chocolates as an aid to a halting conversation.

  In Watten, too, it seemed most likely, everything would be the same. He knew before he saw her that Madame Fouquière would be sitting before her door, watching a battered straw hat in the little plot in front of her and noting with approval that its owner was bent well down upon his work. He guessed that she would regard their approach
with a large impassive stare, following them with her eyes as they marched towards the estaminet. He knew the barn that they would occupy; the worst barn into which, being junior, he had had to put his platoon when they first arrived. He almost hoped that it would remain at this, that he might stay his night there, sleeping where he could and pass, still a stranger, to the east. But she called him as he stood with head averted upon the further side of the road.

  “Come here, mon Bébé.”

  “How did you know that I am Bébé?”

  “Sit down, where you used to sit. I knew.”

  Freddy Mann hesitated. The Sergeant-Major had gone on, and was entering the farmyard to the billet.

  “He will arrange. Sit here. Are these your men?”

  “Yes—no.”

  “And yours are there?” She pointed to the east.

  Freddy Mann nodded.

  “They are not alive now?”

  “Just one or two.”

  Madame Fouquière continued her knitting, impassive and unmoved. “Sit as you used to sit. And you?”

  “Oh I got knocked out last year: shoulder, you know. Lasted the devil of a time, but it’s all right now. Just on my way back, you know.”

  “Back there. Yes, I know. And those men?”

  “Just men I’m taking up. A draft.”

  Damn the ennemies oreilles and the warnings about spies. She was Madame Fouquière, and this was Watten. If she wished it he would sit and talk. But he wished he had not come. How the past was round them!

  “Are they good soldiers?”

  “Fair to average—not like ours. Wish I could have the old crowd here instead.”

  “That does not happen, when once they go that way. You did not know that when you went?”

  “No.”

  “You know then, now. I wonder if this time you will return. Ypres may have to keep you.”

  “Yes. It’s got a good many. It’ll probably get me, too.”

  “And once you wanted so to go there. You knew so little, mon bébé. Let me see, you are older now. That girl?”

  Freddy Mann shrugged his shoulders.

  “Another?”

  “Yes.”

  “A marrmine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bonne chance. What you can take of life, that take. You are still young; you may not have much more. Your friend?”

  “He is there. He is a captain now.”

  “He is not dead, then. Pierre is dead, and Rupert. Que voulez-vous? There are some that live. And France lives yet. Are you still glad to fight for France?”

  Freddy Mann did not answer. Madame Fouquière would have known, if he had told a lie. He sat and watched the sun setting over the hills, and listened to the guns to the left. Oh God, the memories of this place! If only he could get away. Suddenly he threw away his cigarette and rose.

  “Sorry, Madame. Afraid I must get along. I——”

  “Stay here. You will go tomorrow. Sit quiet now and sleep tonight. Tomorrow you shall go to Ypres.”

  “Damn Ypres. Why is it always Ypres? You were right, you know, about that. It’s always Ypres.”

  “For us, Verdun. For you—yes—it is always Ypres. Till God brings rest, it will be Ypres for you. Why curse, mon bébé? If you live, you live. If not, it is to Ypres that you will give your life.”

  “That’s all very well, but——”

  “Why curse?”

  She sat still knitting, while the shadows lengthened and flashes began to appear in the eastern sky. Finally she rose.

  “Come in and rest. Why curse? You will not choose. Life or death, it will be for Ypres, not you, to choose.”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  You do not usually feel a peace steal over you if you move from the quiet countryside of France, through Steenvoorde, Abeele, Watou and on past Poperinghe to Ypres, particularly if every step of the way is dogged by ghosts that walk beside you and speak to you, first one and then another, of broken hopes and dreams that have ended in awakening. You will not as a common rule walk lightly, when you pass the gaunt asylum where the shiver passes down your spine, greeting the towers that loom before you as sign-posts to point you on the way you needs must go. You may glory in the unceasing roar of guns, that pour forth their tons of charged metal from hidden places where once three doled-out rounds a day were fired. You may, if you are made of the soldier’s fibre, exult in thought of what is coming, but whatever else it be, it will not be peace that speaks to you as you pass on through Ypres, to the root of a tree whose topmost branches you used to see, with the dead sniper in them, on the skyline, to a lake the capture of which once stood as the end of all achievement, and on through the scattered bricks of Hooge. But to one of a thousand who have trod that way to join as the smallest drop in the waters the tide that is setting east to victory there may have come some knowledge that makes those other evils round, the insistent threat even, of that death with which a man is always juggling, seem of little import.

  There may be little to live for, the smile that is half a sneer may be firmly set upon the lips, the long lines of those who toil up the hill and through the mud-drenched fields may appear but so many puppets drawn by invisible wires to a blind and senseless end, and you may laugh to think that the salvation of a few heaps of bricks, of what was once a city, could ever have appeared to you to be a thing worth while to achieve. There may be nothing else within your heart but some vague desire for a vengeance to be reaped before a bullet comes: yet, even so, you will walk your way more easily if you know that it is to your own that you return, that a friend of friends awaits you in some dust-strewn cellar, oozing dug-out or square of concrete in the middle of a wilderness of waste and ruin.

  “I always thought you might come back to Wipers.” Robbie spoke with that slow unemotional voice that Freddy Mann knew so well. “But it’s damned funny, coming back to us.”

  “Damned good luck.”

  “Vicke may have had something to do with it. They say he tries to work it with his officers. Anyway, here you are. Maisey shoved you in “C” Company as soon as he knew. Jolly lucky, too, that we’ve still got Bamford for you.”

  “What’s he been doing in the meantime?”

  “Swinging it, doing damned good things in the trenches, getting promoted and broken, talking about South Africa and rum and you. And now he’s where he was. So are we all, more or less—not quite.”

  “No.”

  Freddy Mann looked out of the door of the emplacement through the driving rain upon the hills to his right and an interminable expanse of mud upon either side of them.

  “Shoved on a bit. Must have been odd, taking Bellewarde.”

  “It was: just walked along through it, then got stuck up here by Clapham Junction. Lost a good many, but we got as far as this.”

  “What’s the game now?”

  Freddy Mann helped himself to a whisky and tried to find a match sufficiently dry to light a cigarette.

  “Inverness Copse and Glencorse Wood. Lord knows after that. We’ve got to take over from the Lancs up there tomorrow. They’ve had the hell of a dusting today.”

  “What’s happening elsewhere?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Nor I. They say they’ve got on to Langemarck, but——” Robbie stopped.

  “Nobody knows anything, you know—we’re just stuck here in the mud. Know where ‘C’ Company is, and that’s about all I do know. Swimming somewhere, that’s all we’re doing. Still, I suppose it’s all in the right direction. Ypres is further away, that’s something.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s all right. It’s still there. You needn’t bother to go to look for it. Suppose you came that way today?”

  “Yes—same old way, but I kept to the road at Hell Fire Corner. Rather jolly passing Hooge.”

  “Remember our do at Hooge two years ago?”

  Remember—Freddy Mann looked at Robbie. Was he man or more that he had not changed? That night of the flare attack had seemed the end of things: a
nd he’d had the Somme since then, and La Bassée, and Messines, and this. Since August 1st, this——

  “Fattened us up for this show pretty carefully. But it hasn’t gone too well. This filthy weather——”

  “What do the men make of it?”

  “What do they say they make of it in England?”

  “Oh, victorious troops—always cheerful—advance singing to the attack—driving all before them—you know the sort of thing.”

  “So they still tell lies?”

  “Wallow in ’em.”

  “Mm. Like to come and see?”

  “Yes.” Freddy Mann got up. He wanted to get out again. He had a platoon, as in the old days, men to work with, even if not those for whom he had learnt to care.

  “Suppose there aren’t many now that I know?”

  “Damned few. Mitchell’s here and Bartlett and good old Harris, but Bettson’s gone, and Field, and——”

  One by one, as Company Commander and subaltern wallowed along the line, Robbie poured out names of men, some remembered, others forgotten. No, few enough were left.

  “The Somme got those who got away from Ypres last year. Would have got anybody, the Somme. Damned bad show, the Somme.”

  “Bad as this?”

  “No, not as bad as this. Even the guns can’t fire here—slip about in the mud. Mules and ration parties get drowned here if they leave the duck boards. There’s a gun buried somewhere by Stirling Castle, and Lord knows how many Maltese carts and G.S. waggons. Nothing’s ever been as bad as this. Here’s your fellows. Come in. This way—back to the game again.”

  Freddy Mann walked along the line of shell-holes, each fringed by a few sodden sandbags. He greeted one by one the little groups of men leaning as best they could against the sloping sides, mackintosh sheets over their shoulders and sacking and bits of rag round their rifles. In the twilight and the drifting mist and rain it was difficult to find one’s way. From time to time Freddy Mann stumbled over dead horses, half-buried bodies, strands of wire and water-logged stretches of empty trenches. The reek that he remembered so well lay over the hillside like a miasma, a concrete thing that filled his eyes and throat. The bursts of shelling and machine-gun fire passed unnoticed. Once a heavy shell plunged harmlessly into the soft earth a few yards from them, half burying Robbie and himself; once, as he moved towards the top of the ridge, he felt the wind of a sniper’s bullet on his cheek; once he passed a group of stretcher bearers, sprawling over a few broken pieces of wood and canvas, head downwards in liquid mud. Before him, as he walked, loomed indistinctly the dark masses of Inverness Copse and Glencorse Wood, with the starlights rising between the outer trees and the jets of fire spouting from their foot, to mark where the front line lay; and here, a few yards from where he stood, a road, marked by torn poplar trees, ran downhill through the darkness, to Hooge and Ypres. “Back to the old game”: yes, that was all that there was to it after all. They might be strangers, all but Robbie, with whom he had come to play it, but it was the old game that he was called to play, with the dancing lights around him in a circle, and behind him the shell of a city that had marked him for her own.