Pass Guard at Ypres Page 3

  Within forty-eight hours, therefore, of their arrival in the Railway Wood sector, “C” Company found themselves well equipped with lime, spades and pickaxes, making their way trenches filled with semi-somnolent or cursing members of their sister battalion and out into the low fields immediately behind the ridge along which the front line ran. There was plenty to do, and the sooner they got on with it the better, as it was a hot day and the corpses stank; there seemed to be about eighty in Freddy Mann’s sector alone, some lying separately, some in little groups of three or four, one or two mere skeletons covered with ragged bits of uniform, but most of them in the state of decomposition that one would expect after a month’s exposure. Rather pleased at having something to do which, however indirectly, might be considered as helping to win the war, Freddy Mann, after walking round his allotted area with Sergeant Mitchell and Corporal Sugger, who ducked incessantly, talked about South Africa and moved stealthily towards the trenches whenever he could, got his platoon going and found sufficient occupation in siting graves and advising as to the methods and processes of interment. His assistance was in some demand, for there is a peculiar technique attaching to the burying of semi-decomposed bodies under active service conditions, and each case has to be treated, as it were, upon its merits. The chief difficulty arises in regard to the moving of the body to the grave, when dug. Even if it is in one piece when found—and this cannot be assumed—no small degree of skill is often required to preserve its entirety during the process of transfer. A too sudden pull at a boot, and a leg may come off in your hand, as the angry flies rise up around your face. A careful balancing of trunk and limbs upon two spades is sometimes effective, but there is always even then the chance that the head may drop off and roll along, a grisly mass of clotted hair, blackened flesh, maggots, protruding bones and teeth, to come to rest before your feet. Nor does the solution of these problems overcome all difficulties: there remains that question of those little groups, sometimes of three or four, sometimes of two alone, which must either be buried together in an almost shapeless heap, or separated by tearing limb from limb, hand from windpipe, sorted out into what is British and what is German by what signs are still available and laid in pieces, one by one, in due order in separate graves. The thoroughly conscientious member of a burial party will adopt this method, but it takes time, and when the corpses are more closely intertwined and a shell or two has fallen near, there is a temptation to adopt the simpler course. This, for example, was a case in point. Freddy Mann stood for a moment regarding the two bodies which Corporal Garside had asked him to inspect. Thigh to thigh and breast to breast they pressed against each other: behind the neck of one a bayonet stuck out a clear six inches, and the ribs of the other were pierced by the rifle which its owner had pressed downwards with redoubled force when making his headlong plunge. Which, in that welter of maggots and buzzing flies, was the flesh of the Englishman’s hand and of the German’s throat? Whose were those crooked fingers, lying apparently by themselves beside the pouch? Where was the Englishman’s left arm? Come to that, where was the upper part of the German’s head? It had to be gone into, and it was not exactly a pleasant job. He felt almost inclined to think, as he bent down, that he’d had about enough of this for one afternoon: the stink seemed if anything to be worse in the clearer evening air. There they lay, gazing at him, those two bloody fools who’d run upon each other’s bayonets and expected him to bury them, and they wanted a grave each, he supposed, but what the devil did it matter if . . .

  “Hullo! Still at it?”

  Freddy Mann looked up and saw by him an officer of middle height, about twenty-five years of age, dark, with stern and clear-cut features, but with a cheerful enough expression. He was standing in a negligent attitude, toying with his pistol and watching the proceedings with an apparently amused interest.

  “Hullo—er—”

  “Harvey—you know Harvey—that’s me—met you at B.H.Q. last night. First Battalion—God’s own. How’s things?”

  “Yes—er—I remember.” Freddy Mann straightened himself and paused a moment. “Is there—?”

  “No.” George Harvey anticipated the question. “Nothing I want. Just strolled out to see how things were going. Nothing to do for an hour or so. Going on patrol tonight, so I thought I’d just stretch my legs. Pleasant job.”

  He looked round.

  “Got some of ’em cleared up, anyway. Good thing, that. We wanted ’em out of the way. Bit of a set-to, these two seem to have had.” He nodded his head indifferently towards the rotting and twisted corpses. “Got each other fair, they did. May 25th show, that was. Bols’ crowd. Fusiliers. Most of ’em got scuppered then. Don’t wonder. Of all the bloody awful shows. What yer going to do with them?”

  “Just wondering, matter of fact. Toler says bury them separately when possible, but—”

  “Shove ’em in together, if I were you. ‘In death they were not divided,’ you know. Make it up between ’em, they will, when they’re pushing daisies. Yes, poor swine, they got their packet. Wonder we didn’t, all of us.”

  “Were you there?”

  George Harvey nodded.

  “In with Bols, our crowd. Came up from Flammers in the afternoon, and struck it fair. Shoved off at 12, left our dinners on the boil, got along God knows how to G.H.Q. line—you know—that bit along by Hell Fire Corner—got tied up in the wire there waiting for the Suffolks, then pushed up to Witteport and waited for the 80th. 80th came along about midnight, bless their hearts, dropping fellows all the way: 500 odd they dropped that day. However, they got here, cursing like mad, and we all got settled in, linked up with the Cavalry in Zouave Wood, dug in all nice and comfortable and happy, and here we are. Devil of a show that was: close call, if ever there was one: sort of thing we’re always having here. Damned thankful, this city ought to be to us. When I think of what I’ve done for Wipers—”

  He waved a hand toward the towers of Ypres, now tinged with the setting sun.

  It was difficult, Freddy Mann thought, to know how far to take him seriously. He spoke always with that slightly cynical smile, but rather grim expression.

  “You’ve seen a good deal here then?”

  “Most of it, old son. Here or hereabouts, on or off all the time since October. Good shooting season, if ever there was one. All the time just hanging on. And we were told when we got here we were going through to Menin.”

  He laughed, as he squatted on a little hillock on the ground.

  “That feller”—he pointed to a skeleton—“he probably thought he was going through to Menin. He was one of October’s lot by the look of him. But most of ’em learnt their mistake over there—round there by Gheluvelt and Polygon Wood. That’s where they learnt, October 31st. We were practically done that day. The Worcesters, they were all that saved us. Lanax himself thought we were done. God knows how we hung on.”

  “What was it like?” The question, Freddy Mann knew, was a schoolboy question, doubly ridiculous when asked as now, within a few hundred yards from the German lines. But it was peaceful now in comparison. Harvey had seen the flames of war.

  “What was it like? Like—oh, hell—you’ll know one day, soon enough probably—like anything else in this blasted war. No reserves—that was what was the matter there. Brigadiers in shell holes, just behind the line. Cooks in the firing line. Horses’ heads flying all over the place and no guns or shells; you know—the ordinary sort of thing—what it always is like—been like ever since. Just the same last month, with gas thrown in. And we’ve lost a lot of ground since then. Decent city, Wipers was, in those merry days; drinks about and things. Damned poor place now.”

  “Why do we keep it?—that’s what I can’t understand. This Salient—”

  “You aren’t the first to ask that, old son,” said George Harvey cheerfully. “And I don’t suppose you’ll be the last. Some say it’s to keep the Belgians in, some say because G.H.Q. don’t know we’re here, or it’s the only place they’ve got maps of. All I kn
ow is we do, and it’s damned well time you fellers came out to help us.”

  “Wasn’t our fault we didn’t come before.”

  “No, and I’ll believe that.” George Harvey got up and placed his hand on Freddy Mann’s shoulder with a kindly smile. “And you’re young enough now, seems to me, some of you. How old are you?”

  “Nineteen. Left school last July.”

  “Mm.” George Harvey grunted. “Bit of a change to this. You—” He looked warmly at Freddy Mann, then stopped. “Good chaps, your chaps, what I’ve seen of them. Harry, he’s one of the best. And Robbie, that’s a chap I like. Doesn’t talk. That’s the sort.”

  He looked towards Robinson, quietly supervising and helping his burial party in the adjacent field.

  “Glad you’ve come, you know. It’s bucked our fellows up, all this ‘K.1’ business. Suppose you’ve come out to do the trick.”

  “Well, anyway, to win the war.”

  George Harvey nodded, but the smile was hardly visible this time. He looked towards Ypres, and Freddy Mann followed his gaze.

  “That’s all we’ve done so far, save Ypres. We talked like that, last year. September 10th I crossed. But that’s all we’ve done so far. Nine months—that’s all there is to show.”

  He paused. The twilight was coming on, and the stumps of trees and towers were beginning to get indistinct in the distance. An occasional early starlight rose and fell.

  “Damned big, you know, this war. In England you see it as a whole. Here it’s only little bits. This bit, for example, that’s all I know. And all these fellows,” he pointed to the unburied dead, and the graves of those just buried. “All they’ll ever know. Stands for a lot does Ypres. Devil of a lot to the Southshires, anyway. He hasn’t got it yet, the Hun, and he’s tried damned hard. This job, for example—it was touch and go.”

  He pointed to where the German bullet-proof shelters faced Ypres on the reverse side of the trench near where they were standing.

  “See that?”

  Freddy Mann nodded.

  “You know what that means?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damned near, I tell you. Just those fields, then there’s Ypres. And the Boche was in this trench.”

  He looked again at the huddled mass at their feet, for which Corporal Garside and his men were digging their common grave.

  “He was hanging on, that feller. Straight through the throat he got him. Never a dog’s chance, either of ’em. Well, anyway, he didn’t win the war, but he was doing something hanging on.”

  The night was falling. Nights at Ypres were ghostly.

  “Better pack up now and get along. I’ve got to shove off to this patrol. Bit chippy now. Come and have a tot to keep the cold out. May come again tonight, the Hun, for all I know. But it’s safe so far, is Wipers. It’s a rum place, Ypres. Come on!”

  He moved a few steps, laughed a trifle nervously, and nodded to the corpses.

  “Come on. Those fellers’ll stay on guard.”

  CHAPTER V

  Stand-to. So far, all O.K., but they’d had a lively time. They’d only got into the line the previous night, and the Colonel, the Skipper, and the German artillery and snipers hadn’t given them much peace since they arrived. He himself had done what he could within the time. He’d been round his three dug-outs and two sapheads and got his sentries posted and reliefs told off, and he’d found the way to B.H.Q. in Cambridge Road, which wanted a little doing in itself, and he’d managed to get a look at his wire from No Man’s Land. That was the great thing, as Townroe was always ramming down their throats at Aldershot, and those fellows of the 1st Battalion—get out into No Man’s Land at all costs, and see for yourself what things are like. Judging from the time he’d spent there, assing about with Robbie in front of their platoon sectors, it wasn’t a particularly cheerful place, and he didn’t seem to have done much there except tread on the stomach of a dead Boche, lose his prismatic compass and get his hand half bitten off by a rat about the size of a full-grown rabbit that came up to him as he was lying “doggo” in the grass. Still, he’d been there, not this time as a novitiate in training, but in his own right as officer commanding that sector of the front. Sixty yards from the corner of Railway Wood to Witteport Farm he held that night, and so far he’d held it safe. That, it seemed to him, was doing the thing that mattered. Nothing in front. He raised himself a fraction to peer through the mists that lay heavy upon the fields towards a jagged line of stakes just discernible in the fading moon: nothing in front but those armed forces which to him and those with him must needs stand as the powers of death and evil. And there, with Ypres and the sea behind them, he and his platoon were stationed, with a job, the nature of which he understood, to do. Robbie was on one side of him, Malcolm upon the other, and beyond them on either side the vast curve of the British line bent almost upon itself round Ypres. And round the rim of that tortured curve and beyond it, to the marshes in the north and the mountains in the south, men were ranged as they were ranged here, bayonets pointing to the east, ready for what the dawn might bring. As at Railway Wood, so at Boesinghe or Hill 60 or La Bassée or Verdun or the Vosges, men were sweating blood, sniping and being sniped, prowling like starving beasts of prey, and occasionally from the hours of darkness plucking some curious moments of an unexpected peace. Here at least the night was quiet now, as it gave place to the coming day: star shells still flickered unevenly, but the dawn was breaking fast; fields and farms were more distinct, and beyond the trees the towers of Ypres had already caught the rays of the early sun. That first night of straining vigil was nearly over; dusk changed to grey; the mists began to lift along the fields, and behind them at last Ypres stood clear in the light of morning against the sky. “Stand down”: a sniper’s rifle cracked, and the day of warfare had begun again. But the night was over, and so far he had not betrayed his trust.

  CHAPTER VI

  “Soldiering,” remarked Private Bamford, as he turned a heavy eye upon the other occupants of the dugout and slowly rolled and lit a cigarette. “This ’ere soldiering ain’t what it used to be.”

  Private Derek Rossiter, ex-undergraduate of Trinity, put down his pencil and leaned forward with interest. “To what in particular do you take exception?”

  “Eh?”

  “What’s the matter with the bloody war?” in the same well-bred, even tones.

  “You’d know, Mr. Rossiter, if you’d seen South Africa.”

  “ ’Is name’s Brains,” from the irresponsible Bartlett. “Go on.”

  “I knows respect, me lad, where respect is due. And that’s more than can be said for some. Well, in South Africa,” he continued, “we soldiered proper. But ’ere, for a month we’ve been in this bloody country with this ’ere battalion, and not one bloomin’ Boche ’ave I or any of us seen. Crawling up and down these trenches, living in these ’ere dug-outs, keeping your buttons and yer side arms dirty—that ain’t soldiering. Look at the officers, too—I asks yer, look at them.”

  “What’s the matter with ’em?” from the mild, middleaged, and evidently much married Private Beard. “Nice well-spoken cheery lot. Bit wild at times, but most of ’em ain’t married. None the worse for that.”

  “That’s as may be, but where’s their swords? Married or not, an officer ought to wear ’is sword. ’Ow can yer ’ave discipline if officers don’t carry swords? Tunics, too. Captain ’Arry ’e’s taken to wearing a Tommy’s tunic in the trenches—dirty one at that. My officer ’e talked o’ doing the same, but I told ’im it wouldn’t do. All wrong, all this ’ere mix-up, yer know, in this ’ere ‘K.1.’ And there’s officers ought to be in the ranks, and fellers in the ranks that should be officers—same as you, Mr. Rossiter. It’s all of a piece, seems to me—all mixed up. To ’ave fellers in the ranks talkin’ same as you do, it ain’t in accord with army ways.”

  “Suppose not. But this is a new army and a new war, you know. This, my venerable Denis, is the war for civilisation, the war to end war, as our martial S
kipper has told us with such verbal embellishment. New wine in old bottles—you know.” Rossiter took up his pencil again.

  Private Bartlett whistled. “That’s talk, that is. Lumme, Brains, yer can’t ’arf talk. That’s got yer, grandpa. Ain’t got much, I’ll lay, to say to that.”

  Private Bamford looked a little helpless for a moment.

  “ ’Tain’t I’m growsing, exactly.”

  He paused a moment.

  “All this talk, for example—look at that. Talk about winnin’ the war, yer know, and all that sort of thing. It’s unsettling. Course we wants to win the war, but we wants to do it quiet like and natural. Ought to ’ear what some of them 1st Battalion fellers are sayin’ about the way our fellers are foolin’ about in this ’ere sector—chucking bombs about, crumpin’ when there ain’t no need to crump, mucking up the line generally. Captain Corra, ’e warn’t too pleased.”

  “Ah, he should welcome our enthusiasm.”

  “P’raps he should, but ’e don’t. Takes the war as it comes, ’e does, and goes along quiet with his job. Look at ’im and then at the Skipper, volunteering for this, suggesting that, looking round for trouble generally. Take that sap-’ead business on Tuesday, when we all of us nearly stopped a packet—that was due to ’im.”