PART THREE
ADAGIO
[ I ]
The draft, under orders to proceed overseas on Active Service, without delay, paraded again, in full marching order, at three-thirty.
Number two in the front rank was 31819, Private Winterbourne, G.
They had been “sized” that morning, so each man knew his number and place. They fell in rapidly, without talking, and stood easy, waiting for the officers, on the bleak gravelled parade ground inside the bleak isolated citadel. Their view was rectangularly cut short either by the damp grey masonry of the fortress walls or by the dirty yellow brick frontals of the barracks built in under the ramparts.
They numbered one hundred and twenty, and had been under orders to proceed overseas for more than a week, during which period they had been forbidden to leave the citadel under threat of Court Martial. All sentry duties were performed by troops not in the draft, and five rounds of ball ammunition were issued to each sentry. These exceptional measures were the result of nervousness on the part of the Colonel, who had been censured for what was not his fault—two men had deserted on the eve of the departure of the last draft, and two others had to be substituted at the last moment. “Does the old mucker think we’re going to run away?” was the comment of the draft, wounded in their pride, when they accidentally found this out.
A stiff coldish wind was blowing soiled-looking ragged clouds and occasional gusts of chilly rain over a greyish winter sky. The men fidgeted in the ranks, some bending forward to ease the strain of straps, some throwing their packs a fraction higher with a jerk of their shoulders and loins; one or two had taken the regulation step forward and were adjusting their puttees or the fold in their trouser legs. Winterbourne stood with his weight on his right leg, holding the projecting barrel of his obsolete drill rifle loosely in his right hand; his head was bent slightly forward as he gazed at the gravel expressionlessly.
The draft had been parading for various purposes all through the day, when they thought they would be free to idle and write letters. The canteen had been put out of bounds to prevent a possible drunken departure. The parades had included two kit inspections and several visits to the Quartermaster’s Stores to draw new winter clothing and other objects for use overseas. Consequently, in their mood of restrained excitement, they had become rather irritated and impatient. The fidgeting increased under the reproving gaze of the N.C.O.’s, and the rather boiled-looking glare of the Regimental Sergeant-Major, a military pedant of exacting standards; nothing, however, was said, since movement is permitted at the “stand easy.”
The mood of the draft was not improved by a sudden flurry of cold rain, which swept across the parade-ground in a long moaning gust, at the moment when three or four officers came out of their Mess.
“Draft!” came the R.S.M.’s warning bellow.
The hundred and twenty hands slipped automatically down the rifles, and the men stood silent and motionless, looking to the front, and trying not to sway when the pressure of the rising gale suddenly increased or suddenly relaxed.
“Stand still there! Stand Steady!”
There was a slight bulge in the front of each of the short service-jackets, where two field dressings in a waterproof case and a phial of iodine had been thrust into the pocket provided for them, inside the right-hand flap.
“Draft!—Draft! ’Ten’shun!”
Two hundred and forty heels met smartly in one collective snap at the same time that the rifles were sharply brought to the sides. The draft stood to attention, gazing fixedly to the front. A man unconsciously turned his head slightly in trying to catch a glimpse of the approaching officers out of the corner of his eye.
“Stand still that man! Look to your front, can’t you?”
Silence, except for the moaning wind and the crunch of gravel under the officers’ boots. The Colonel and the Adjutant wore spurs, which jingled very slightly. The Colonel acknowledged the R.S.M.’s salute and his “All present and c’rect, Sir.”
“Rear rank—one pace step back—March!”
One—two. The hundred and twenty legs moved mechanically like one man’s.
“Rear rank—stand—at—ease!”
The Colonel inspected the front rank, and took a long time, fussing over various details. A man with cold fingers dropped his rifle.
“Ser’ant ’Icks, take that man’s name and number, and forward the charge with his Crime Sheet!”
“Very good, Sir.”
The front rank stood at ease while the Colonel inspected the rear rank less minutely. It was beginning to get dark, and he had to make a speech. He stood about thirty yards in front of the draft with the other officers behind him. The youthful Adjutant held his riding crop against his right thigh like a field-marshal’s baton. The Colonel, an eccentric but harmless half-wit who had been returned with thanks from France early in his first campaign, was speaking:
“N.C.O.’s and Men of the 8th Upshires! Er—you are—er—proceeding overseas on Active Service. Er. Er. I—er—trust you will do your—er—duty. We have wasted—er—spared no pains to make you efficient. Remember to keep yourselves smart and clean and—er—walk about in a soldierly way. You must always—er—maintain the honour of the Regiment which—er—er—which stands high in the records of the British Army. I—...”
A very faint murmur of “muckin’ old fool,” “silly old mucker,” “struth!” came from the draft, too faint to reach the officer’s ears, but the alert R.S.M. caught it, though without distinguishing the words; and cut short the Colonel’s peroration with his stentorian:
“Stand still there! Stand Steady! Take their names, Ser’ant ’Icks!”
A short pause, and the R.S.M. shouted:
“P’rade again at four-fifteen outside the Armoury, in clean fatigue, to hand in rifles. Mind they’re properly clean and pulled-through. An’ no talking as you walk off p’rade.”
The Adjutant had been talking to the Colonel, and saluted as his superior departed. He walked over to the R.S.M.
“All right, Sergeant-Major, you and the other N.C.O.’s not in the draft may fall out. I’ll dismiss the men.”
“Very good, Sir.”
The Adjutant walked over to the draft, and stood with his right hand on his hip. He spoke slowly but without hesitation:
“Stand at ease. Stand easy. You can wash out what the R.S.M. just said. Leave your rifles in the racks, but try to leave ’em clean or I shall get strafed.... I’m afraid we’ve chased you about a bit under the new intensive scheme of training, but it’s all in the day’s work, you know. I’m sorry we’re not going out as a unit, but battalions are being broken up everywhere for drafts. When you get out, don’t forget to look after your feet—you get court-martialled for trench feet nowadays—and don’t be in a hurry to shove your heads over the top! I’m due to follow you myself soon, so I expect we’ll all be in the next push. Good-bye. And the very best of luck to you all.”
“Good-bye, Sir. Thank you, Sir. Same to you, Sir. Good-bye, Sir.”
“Good-bye. Draft, ’shun. Slope arms. Dis-miss.”
Simultaneously their hands tapped the rifle-butts in salute, as they turned right.
The draft confusedly moved over the darkened ground to the barrack room, chattering excitedly:
“What’s the next thing?”
“P’rade at eight-thirty to move off at nine.”
“Who said so?”
“It’s in B’tallion orders.”
“Silly ole mucker old Brandon is, give me the fair pip he did with ’is ‘walk about soldierly’—yes! up to yer arse in mud.”
“Bloody old c——”
“Yes, but the Adjutant was all right.”
“Oh, ’e’s a gentleman, ’e is.”
“Makes all the difference when they’ve bin in the ranks theirselves.”
“Wonder what it’ll be like in the line?”
“Wait till y’get there and see.”
“I reckon we’ll be there this time to-morrow night.” “Shut up, Larkin, and don’t get the wind up.”
“I ain’t got the wind up.”
“I say, Corporal, Corp’ral! What time do we p’rade to-night?”
“Ask the Ord’ly Sergeant.”
“Tea’s up, boys. Come on!”
They fell in again at eight-thirty. The night was very dark, with a cold damp gusty wind from the west. All the N.C.O.’s were on parade, carrying lighted hurricane lanterns which moved and flitted and stood still in the darkness like will-o’-the-wisps. The draft were in full marching order, without rifles and side-arms, wearing their greatcoats. Their excitement occasionally broke through the military restraint and rose from a whisper to a loud hum, which would cringe abruptly under the R.S.M.’s “Stop talking there!” It took a long time to read the roll-call by the flicker of the lantern. At the sound of his name each man clicked his heels, “Here, Sir.”
“31819, Winterbourne, G.”
“Here, Sir.”
“That’s the lot, Ser’ant-Major, isn’t it?”
“That’s the lot, Sir.”
“Move off in five minutes.”
“Very good, Sir.”
The draft stirred restlessly in the darkness. Winterbourne looked to his left and noticed how the line of shadowy figures disappeared into the night—he might have been at one end of a line stretching to infinity for all he could see.
“Draft! Draft! ’Ten’shun! Slope arms! Move to the right in column of fours—form fours! Form two deep! Form fours! Right! By the right—Quick March!”
They found themselves immediately behind the regimental band, which struck up one of the Mark III marches supplied to Army musicians. The draft knew it well—“How can I draw rations—if I’m not the ord’ly man?” They marched over the familiar parade ground, out through the postern, over the swaying draw-bridge, where the sentry presented arms.
“By the left. March at—ease. March easy.”
The band had ceased playing. They were descending the long winding hill road to the village and the station. As they went along they were joined by civilians, mostly girls, who were waiting in ones and twos. The girls called to their men in the ranks, and they, emboldened by excitement and this momentous change in their lives, dared to answer back. March discipline relaxed, and the draft was already marching raggedly as it passed the first houses of the village. After the dense blackness of the hillside, the light from the few gas-lamps was dazzling.
The band struck up again. Although it was past ten, the whole village was awake and in the street to watch them go by. The loud brass music reverberated from the house fronts. The draft were amazed to find themselves for a moment the centre of public interest; for so long they had learned to consider themselves fatally insignificant and subordinate. Voices came from all sides: “’Ullo, Bert! Good-bye, ’Arry! Hullo, Tom! Good-bye, Jack!” Winterbourne in the front rank, looked behind; he noticed that some of the girls had broken into the ranks and were marching with their men, clinging to their arms. They appeared to be enjoying themselves greatly. An exceedingly ragged company surged excitedly through the village, intoxicated by the sounding brass and the cheers and other attentions of the inhabitants.
The civilians were not allowed on the station platform. As the draft marched through the open gate, with a picket of military Police on either hand, there was another chorus of “Good-bye, Bert! Good-bye, ’Arry! Good-bye, Tom. Good-bye, Jack! Good luck. Come ’ome soon. Good-bye. Good luck. Good-bye.”
They piled into the waiting troop-train, which was to pick up other drafts on the way. Twelve to a carriage. Winterbourne managed to get the window-seat next the platform. The Adjutant came up.
“Winterbourne. Winterbourne.”
“Sir?”
“Oh, there you are. Looking for you. The R.T.O. says you go to Waterloo, and then proceed to Folkestone, he thinks.”
“Thanks very much, Sir. It’s so much less tedious when you know what you’re doing and why and where you’re going.”
“You ought to have a commission. You’ll easily get one in France.”
“Yes, but you know why I wanted to stay in the ranks, Sir.”
“Yes, I know, but men like you are needed as officers. The casualties among officers are terrifically high.”
“All right, I’ll think about it, Sir.”
“Well, good-bye, old man, the very best of luck to you.” “Thank you. And to you.”
They shook hands, to the impressed horror of the N.C.O.’s.
The crowd had gathered outside the railings by the forepart of the train, where they were not masked by the station buildings. The band was drawn up in front of them, on the platform. The train gave a warning whistle. The band struck up the Regimental March, and then Auld Lang Syne, as the train slowly steamed out of the station; they played their instruments with one hand, and ludicrously waved the other hand to the draft crowded in the moving windows. A long wavering cheer went up. The red faces of the soldiers on the platform were all turned slightly upwards, and their mouths were open. Their right arms were raised above their heads. In a blare of band music, cheering and shouting, the cheering draft drew out of the station.
Good-bye, Bert. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Tom. Good-bye, Jack. Good-bye.
The last person Winterbourne saw was the little Colonel, standing at the extreme end of the platform under a gas-lamp, standing very erect, standing rather tense and emotional, standing with his right hand raised to his cap, standing to salute his men proceeding on Active Service.
He wasn’t a bad little man; he believed intensely in his Army.
[ II ]
In fifteen minutes the excited chatter over fags dwindled to the monotony of an ordinary railway journey. The men were tired, for it was already long after Last Post. They began to drowse. One man in the far corner from Winterbourne was already asleep. The racks were full of overcoats and equipment. Under the Anti-Aircraft Regulations the curtains of the train windows were closely drawn.
Winterbourne felt entirely unsleepy. He ceased talking to the man beside him, and drifted into a reverie. His mind slid backwards and forwards from one theme of thought to another. Already he found it difficult to read or to think consecutively. He had reached the first expressionless stage of the war soldier, which is followed by the period of acute strain; and that in turn gives place to the second expressionless stage—which is pretty hopeless.
The real test was beginning. Like everybody who had not been there, he was almost entirely ignorant of life in the trenches. Newspapers, illustrated periodicals, almost useless. He had heard a lot of tales from returned wounded soldiers. But many of them either blathered or were quite inarticulate. Here and there a revealing detail or memory. “And all the time I was delirious after I was wounded, I kep’ seein’ them aeryplanes goin’ round and round and then makin’ a dive at me.” And the little Cockney: “Struth! I got me tunic and me trowses all ’ung up in Fritz’s wire, an’ I couldn’t get orf. Got me pockets full o’ bombs, I ’ad, as well as them stick-bombs in paniers. One of the paniers was ’ung up too, an’ I ses to myself I ses: ‘If you drop them muckin’ bombs, Bert, you’ll blow yer muckin’ ’ead orf.’ And there was old Fritz’s machine gun bullets whizzin’ by, zip, zip. I could see ’em cuttin’ the wire—and me cursin’ and blindin’. Blimey! I wasn’t arf afraid. But I got me muckin’ blighty, anyway.”
Where did he meet that amusing little Cockney? Ah, yes, in the depot the day after he joined. There had been several soldiers just out of the hospital in the barrack room, all swopping yarns. Winterbourne’s mind reverted to himself, and the past dreary months. He had been unfortunate in the N.C.O.’s of his training battalion—old regulars, who had been bullied and driven in their time, and thought they’d escape being sent out to France by zealously bullying and driving the new drafts. No doubt they were paying off some of the old army grudge against civilian contempt for the mercenary soldier. They particularly hated any educated or well-bred man in the ranks, and delighted to impose painful or humiliating tasks on him. George remembered the man who “took particulars” of his religion.
“What are yer? C. of E., Methodist, R. C.?”
“I haven’t any official religion. You’d better put me down as a rationalist.”
“Garn! What’s a muckin’ rationalist? Yer in the Army now.”
“Well, I haven’t got one.”
“Bloody well find one then. Yer’ll want suthin’ over yer muckin’ grave in France, won’t yer? An’ yer’ll bloody well be in it in six months. No religion! Strike me muckin’ pink!”
An amiable hero. In his zeal for religion he got Winterbourne sent on all the dirtiest and longest Sunday fatigues, until in self-defence he had to put himself down Church of England. There was, of course, no religious compulsion in the Army; that was why Church Parade was a parade.
Winterbourne smiled as he thought of the ludicrous scene. It had been none the less painful. His gorge rose at the memory of the filth he had tried to remove from the Officers’ Mess Kitchen—filth which had been left there untouched by fifty less scrupulous “fatigues.” The kitchen was inspected every day.
He looked at his hands in the concentrated light of the railway carriage. They were coarsened and chapped, ingrained with dirt impossible to remove with ice-cold water. He thought of the delicate hands of Fanny and Elizabeth’s slender fingers.
On parade the officers never swore at the men, the N.C.O.’s rarely, whatever they might do off parade. It was an offence under King’s Regs. The Physical Training Instructors were, however, an exception. They sometimes displayed an uncouth humour in their objurgations. There were time-honoured pleasantries, such as “Yer may break yer muckin’ mother’s ’eart, but yer won’t break mine!” There was the Bayonet Instructor, a singularly rough diamond from Whitechapel, who in mimic bayonet fighting at the stuffed bags, loved to give the command:
“At ’is stummick an’ goolies, Point!”
This gentleman, offended at the awkward posture of a rather plump recruit doing the “double knee bend,” had apostrophized the unfortunate man:
“’Ere, you, Frost. Can’t yer get down like a muckin’ soldier, and not like a bloody great pross what’s bein’ blocked?”
Winterbourne smiled again to himself. The road to glory was undoubtedly devious in our fair island story.
From Reveille at five-thirty until Lights Out they had been driven and harassed and bullied for weeks to the strain of: “Look to yer front there!” “’Old yer ’eads up, can’t yer, all them tanners was picked up on first p’rade.” “Smith, yer got them straps crossed wrong—if yer do it again, I’ll crime yer.” And over the voices of the various sergeant-instructors shouting to their squads, boomed the R.S.M.’s inevitable: “Stand still, there! Stand Steady.” Just like the South Foreland light-ship in a fog. The fatigue of continual over-exercise and of the physical and mental strain was severe to men fresh from sedentary lives, or stiff from the plough and the workshop. For the first weeks especially they were sore all over, and sank into heavy unrefreshing sleep at night. Winterbourne bore it better than most. His long walks and love for swimming had kept him supple. He could not raise weights like the draymen or dig like the navvies, but he could out-march and out-run them all, learn every new movement in half the time, dismount a Lewis gun while they were wondering which way the handle came off, score four bulls out of five, and saw immediately why you made head-cover first when digging in. But he too felt the fatigue. He remembered one perfectly awful day. They had been drilled and marched and drilled and inspected from dawn to evening of a baking autumn day; then at seven there had been three hours of night operations. At twelve, they were all awakened by a false Fire Alarm, and had to turn out in trousers and boots. Winterbourne had taken over his shoulder the arm of a man who was too exhausted to run unassisted on the parade grounds. The N.C.O.’s yelped them on like sheep dogs.
It was not the physical fatigue Winterbourne minded, though he hated the inevitable physical degradation—the coarse, heavy clothes, too thick for summer; the hob-nailed boots; the plank bed; horribly cooked food. But he accepted and got used to them. He suffered mentally, suffered from the shock of the abrupt change from surroundings where the things of the mind chiefly were valued to surroundings where they were ignorantly despised. He had nobody to talk to. He suffered from the communal life of thirty men in one large hut, which meant that there was never a moment’s solitude. He suffered because he brooded over Elizabeth and Fanny, over the widening gulf he knew was dividing him from them, and suffered abominably as month after month of the war dragged on with its interminable holocausts and immeasurable degradation of mankind. The world of men seemed dropping to pieces, madly cast down by men in a delirium of homicide and destructiveness. The very apparatus of killing revolted him, took on a sort of sinister deadness. There was something in the very look of his rifle and equipment which filled him with depression. And then, in the imagination, he was already facing the existence for which this was but a preparation, already confronting the agony of his own death. Horrific tales—alas, only too true—were told of companies and battalions wiped out in a few instances. N.C.O. after N.C.O., as Winterbourne got to know them better, assured him that they were the only men—or almost the only men—left alive from their platoons or companies. And it was the truth. The proportion of casualties was undoubtedly high in infantry units. It was, perhaps, selfish of Winterbourne to worry about his own extinction when so many better men had already been obliterated. He felt rather ashamed and apologetic about it himself. But it is human to recoil from a violent death, even at twenty-two or -three....
The train began to slow down at a large junction, and he returned to his present surroundings with a start. The other men were asleep. Well, all the training and presenting arms and saluting by numbers were over and in the past. They were on Active Service. It was an immense relief. Now, henceforth, he would be facing dread realities, not Regular Army pedants and bullies. As Winterbourne once remarked, one of the horrors of the war was not fighting the Germans but living under the British.
After picking up more drafts, the train went on, grinding its way heavily through the silent darkness. The men were all asleep. He noticed the carriage was getting stuffy and headachey with foul air. Some one had shut the windows and ventilators while he was day-dreaming. That was the old bother—whether in huts or barracks they would try to sleep in foul air. He softly slipped the window open a couple of inches—better already. Wonder why they like a fug? Mental and moral fug, too. Poor devils. All brought up to touch their hats to the gentry, do what they’re told, and work. Sort of helots. Yet they’re decent enough, got character, but no intelligence. That’s the real war, the only war worth fighting, the battle of the intelligence against inertia and stupidity and... Still, the intelligence is not always defeated, we’ve got here somehow. Yes! and look where we are!
His mind half-sleepily ran off along a familiar track. What’s really the cause of wars, of this War? Oh, you can’t say one cause, there are many. The Socialists are silly fanatics when they say it’s the wicked capitalists. I don’t believe the capitalists wanted a war—they stand to lose too much in the disturbance. And I don’t believe the wretched governments really wanted it—they were shoved on by great forces they’re too timid and too unintelligent to control. It’s the superstition of more babies and more bread, more bread and more babies. Of course, all wars haven’t been mere population wars. ’Course not—Greek city states, mediæval Italian republics, wars of petty jealousy; naval wars for commercial advantages—Pisa, Genoa, Venice, Holland, England; the sport of Kings, eighteenth-century diversion of the aristocracy; wars of fanaticism, Moslems, the Crusades; emigration wars like the irruption of the barbarians.... There may be commercial motives behind this war, jolly short-sighted ones—they’ve already lost more than they can possibly gain. No, this is fundamentally a population war—bread and babies, babies and bread. It’s all oddly mixed up with the sexual problem we were battling with so brightly when this little packet of trouble was dumped on us by our virtuous forebears. It’s the babies and bread superstition. You encourage, you force people to have babies, lots of babies, millions of babies. As they grow up, you’ve got to feed ’em. You need bread. We all live from the land. England, and the rest of the world after it, went crazy with the Industrial Revolution—thought you could eat steel and railways. You can’t. The world of men is an inverted pyramid based on the bowed shoulders of the ploughman—or the steel-tractor—on the land. It’s the hunger and death business again. “Increase and multiply.” Damned imbecility of applying to over-populated and huge nations the sexual taboos forced on a little crowd of unhygienic Semitic nomads by sheer force of circumstance. Think of their infantile death rate! Breed like rabbits or vanish. Doesn’t apply to us. We’re a sacrifice to over-breeding. Too many people in Europe. A damn sight too many babies. The people could be made to see, are beginning to see it—but the hurray-for-our-dear-Fatherland people, and the priests and the fanatics and the timid and the conservative, won’t see it. Go on, breed, you beauties—breed in column of fours, in battalions, brigades, divisions, army corps. Wait till the population of England is five hundred million and we’re all packed like herrings in a tub. Lovely. Wonderful. England über alles. But there comes a time when there isn’t enough bread for the growing babies. Colonize. Why? Either grow more food or produce more things to exchange for food. England’s got huge colonies. Germany very small ones. The Germans breed like tadpoles. The British breed like rather slower tadpoles. What are you going to do with them? Kill ’em off in a war? Kind. Humane. Kill ’em off, and grab land and commercial advantages from the defeated nation? Right. And what next? Oh, go on breeding. Must be a great and populous nation. And the defeated nation? Suppose they start breeding harder than ever? Oh, have another war, go on having ’em, get the habit. Europe’s decennial picnic of corpses....
Yes, but why so sentimental? Why all this fuss over a few million men killed and maimed? Thousands of people die weekly and somebody’s run over in London every day. Does that argument take you in? Well, the answer is that they’re not murdered. And your “thousands who die weekly” are the old and the diseased; here it’s the young and the strong and the healthy, the physical pick of the race. All men, too, and no women. That’ll set up a pretty nice resentment between the sexes—more sodomy and lesbianism. Loud cheers, we’re winning. Yes, but going back to murder—people are murdered all the time, look at Chicago. Look at Chicago! We’re always patting ourselves on the back and looking smugly at wicked Chicago. When there’s a shoot-up between gangs, do you approve of it, do you give the winning side medals for their gallantry, do you tell ’em to go to it and you’ll kiss them when they come back, do you march ’em by with a brass band and tell ’em what fine fellows they are? Do you take the gunman as the high ideal of humanity? I know all about military grandeur and devotion to duty—I’m a soljer meself, marm. Thanks for all you’ve done for us, marm. If violence and butchery are the natural state of man, then let’s have no more of your humbug. Violence and butchery beget violence and butchery. Isn’t that the theme of the great Greek tragedies of blood? Blood will have blood. All right, now we know. It doesn’t matter whether murder is individual or collective, whether committed on behalf of one man or a gang or a state. It’s murder. When you approve of murder you violate the right instincts of every human being. And a million murders egged on, lauded, exulted over, will raise a legion of Eumenides about your ears. The survivors will pay bitterly for it all their lives. Never mind, you’ll go on? More babies, soon make up the losses? Have another merry old war soon, sooner the better....
O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Thank God I have no son, O Absalom, my son, my son!
Winterbourne nodded uneasily asleep. He started awake as the train slowed down at London Bridge, and not at Waterloo. Where am I? Railway station. Oh, of course, on a draft going out to France....
The draft were turned out at London Bridge, and collected in two ranks on the platform, yawning, stretching and adjusting their equipment. The draft conducting officer, a mild, brown-eyed young man on home service after being wounded, explained that they had nearly three hours to wait. Would they like to go to a Soldiers’ Canteen and get some food?
“Yes, Sir!”
They marched through the empty muddy streets. It was about midnight. Some one began to sing one of the inevitable marching songs. The officer turned round:
“Whistle, but don’t sing. People asleep.”
They began to whistle “Where are the lads of the village to-night?”
Winterbourne found himself crossing the Thames and looked once more at the familiar townscape. He noticed that the street-lamps had been dimmed further since he had left London, and that the once brilliantly-lighted capital now lay cowering in darkness. The dome of St. Paul’s was just faintly visible to an eye which knew exactly where to look for it. The man next to Winterbourne was a Worcestershire ploughman who had never been to London and was most anxious to see St. Paul’s. Winterbourne tried hard to show him where it was, but failed. The ploughman never did see St. Paul’s—he was killed two months later.
Curious to march through this unfamiliar London—everything the same, but everything so different. The dimmed street lights, the carefully blinded windows, the rather neglected streets, the comparative absence of traffic, the air of being closed down indefinitely, all gave him an uneasy feeling. It was as if a doom hung over the great city, as if it had passed its meridian of power and splendour, and was sinking back, back into the darkened past, back into the clay hills and marshes on which it stands. That New Zealander sketching the ruins from a broken pile of London Bridge seemed several centuries nearer.
The foolish words ran in Winterbourne’s brain as the men whistled the tune with exasperating pertinacity. It was curious to be so near to Fanny and Elizabeth. He wondered vaguely what they were doing.
“No, not there! No, not there!”
He had sent Elizabeth a telegram from a station on the way up, but probably it had not reached her.
They crowded into the Canteen, and ate sandwiches and eggs and bacon, and drank ginger-beer. It was too late for beer. Our temperate troops didn’t need beer at that hour of the night.
About 2 A.M. they marched back to the station. To Winterbourne’s surprise and delight Elizabeth and Fanny were there. Elizabeth had received his telegram, although it was after hours. She had rung up Fanny, and they had gone to Waterloo together, only to find that the train with the Upshires draft was not there. Fanny had used her charms upon a susceptible R.T.O. and he had told them where to go, so there they were. All this Elizabeth poured out in a rapid, nervous, jerky way. While Fanny just clutched Winterbourne’s left hand and pressed it hard, saying nothing. They had about ten minutes before the train left. The draft-conducting officer noticed that Winterbourne was speaking to two women, “obviously ladies,” and came up:
“Get in anywhere you like, Winterbourne, only don’t miss the train.”
“Very good, Sir, thank you,” and saluted smartly.
“D’you always have to do that?” asked Elizabeth with a little giggle.
“Yes, it’s the custom. They seem to attach great importance to it.”
“How absurd.”
“Why absurd?” said Fanny, feeling that Winterbourne was somehow hurt by the contempt in her voice. “It’s only a convention.”
The whole train was filled with different drafts of soldiers who had been ordered into the carriages. Only Winterbourne and the two girls were left on the platform, except for the R.T.O. and one or two other officers. As often happens in railway partings they seemed embarrassed, with nothing to say to each other. Winterbourne simply felt dull and uneasy, tongue-tied. He was saying farewell perhaps for the last time to the only two human beings he had really loved, and found he had nothing to say. He just felt dull and uneasy, dully remote from them. He noticed they were both wearing new hats he hadn’t seen, and that skirts were being worn much shorter. He wished the train would go. Interminable waiting. What was Elizabeth saying? He interrupted her:
“Is that the new fashion?”
“What?”
“Shorter skirts?”
“Why, yes, of course, and not so very new. Where have your eyes been?”
“Oh, there were only village women where I’ve been. I haven’t seen a properly dressed woman since my firing leave.”
Tactless! He had spent those few days with Fanny. Dear Fanny. A good sort. She had thought it an awful lark to go on a week-end with a Tommy. She was dreadfully sick of the Staff. Only it was inconvenient that the only decent hotels and restaurants were out of bounds to Tommies. Fanny felt quite democratic about it. Elizabeth hadn’t cared. She lived with a kind of inner intensity which kept her from noticing such things.
They were silent for seconds which dragged like minutes. Then they all began to say something together, interrupted themselves, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.” “What were you going to say?” “Oh, nothing, I forget.” And then relapsed into silence again.
Winterbourne found he was slightly intimidated by the presence of these two well-dressed ladies. What on earth were they doing at two o’clock in the morning, talking to a Tommy? He tried to hide his dirty hands.
Damn the train! Won’t it ever go? He felt uncomfortably hot in his great-coat and began to unbutton it. The engine whistled.
“All aboard!” shouted the R.T.O.
Winterbourne hastily kissed Fanny and then Elizabeth.
“Good-bye, good-bye, don’t forget to write. We’ll send you parcels.”
“Thanks, ever so. Good-bye.”
He made for the compartment where a door had been left open for him, but found it full. The luggage van piled with the men’s rations was next door. Winterbourne jumped in.
“You’ll have to stand!” exclaimed Fanny.
“Why, no. There’s plenty of room on the floor.”
The train moved.
“Good-bye.”
Winterbourne waved his hand. He felt no particular emotion, merely an intensifying of the general depressingness of things. He watched them receding, as they waved their hands. Beautiful girls both of them, and so smartly dressed.
“Be happy!” he shouted, as a valediction, in a sudden gust of disinterested affection for them. And then lost sight of them.
Fanny and Elizabeth were both crying.
“What did he shout?” asked Elizabeth through her sobs.
“‘Be happy!’”
“How curious of him! And how like him! Oh, I know I shall never see him again.”
Fanny tried to comfort her. But Elizabeth somehow felt it was all Fanny’s fault.
Winterbourne sat on his pack in the joggling van for about ten minutes. It was almost dark. The guard was trying to read a newspaper by the light of a dim oil lamp. The soldiers who had to see that the rations weren’t stolen were already lying on the floor. Winterbourne buttoned up his coat, turned up the collar, arranged a woollen scarf on his pack to make a pillow, and lay down on the dirty floor beside them. In five minutes he was asleep.
[ III ]
It was not nearly dawn when they reached Folkestone. The drafts from various units were now amalgamated, but still remained under their own officers. They were marched through the dull little town and bivouacked in a row of large empty houses, probably evacuated boarding-houses, fitted up with the usual inconveniences of small English hotels. They washed and had some breakfast. All rather dismal.
At seven they were marched to the quay, and then marched back. The officer had mistaken the word “eleven” for “seven.” So they had to wait again. It was their first introduction to the curious fact that much of the War consisted in waiting about and in undoing things which somebody had ordered in error or through mistaken zeal. The men, sitting on their packs in the empty room, were eagerly and vainly discussing their immediate future—which Base Camp would they go to, which unit would they be drafted to, what part of the line. Winterbourne went over to the uncurtained window and looked out. Drifting heavy clouds, a moderately rough, dirty-looking sea. The Esplanade was practically deserted. The shelters looked dilapidated; most of the glass in them was smashed. The unused gas lamps looked somehow desolate on their rusting standards. Another wounded town, dying perhaps. Depression, monotony, boredom. He looked at his wrist-watch. Still more than two hours to wait. Now that the inevitable had occurred, he was very impatient to get into the front line. The only interest he had left was a consuming curiosity to see what the War was really like.
Curse this hanging about! He drummed his fingers on the window-pane. The men in the room went on talking, aimlessly, foolishly, talking to no purpose. Winterbourne wondered at his own lack of emotion. All his past life seemed a dream, all his vital interests had become utterly indifferent, his ambitions were dissolved, his old friends seemed incredibly remote and unimportant, even Fanny and Elizabeth were unsubstantial, graceful ghosts. Depression, monotony, boredom—but a peculiar sort, a strained, worried exasperated sort. For God’s sake get a move on. It’ll never end, so for the love of Mike let’s get it over. Let’s catch our little packet. We know our numbers are up, so let’s get them quickly.
One of the men was whistling:
“What’s the use of worry-ing?”
What indeed? But can you help it? You, cheery idiot, are worrying just as much as any one else. Villiers’ torture by hope. If you were quite certain that your number was up, you’d have at least the tranquillity of resignation. But you’re not quite certain. Even in the infantry men come back. With a really healthy wound you might be out of the line for six or nine months. That was called “getting a blighty one,” if you were lucky enough to get sent back to England—“Blighty.” The men were discussing blighties. Which was the most convenient blighty? Arm or leg? Most agreed that if you lost your left hand or a foot, you were damned lucky—you were out of the bloody War for good and you got a pension and a wound-gratuity. Winterbourne stood with his back to them, looking out of the window; the ghosts of past summer visitors thronged the Esplanade. Left hand or a foot. Live a cripple. No, not that, not that, my God. Come back whole, or not at all. But how those men love life, how blindly they cling to their poor existences! You wouldn’t think they’d much to live for. No beautiful and smartly dressed Fannies and Elizabeths. Oh, they have their “tarts,” they’ve all got a girl’s “photo” in their pay books—and what girls! Tarts for Tommies. Cream tarts for Tommies.
He turned away abruptly from the window and sat down to clean his buttons. Always keep yourself clean and smart, and walk about in a soldierly way....
His mood changed and his spirits rose as they marched down to the docks. Only twelve hours had passed since they left and yet it seemed a tremendously long time. Winterbourne realized that the monotony, the imbecile restrictions, the incredible nagging of military pedants, had been crushing him into a condition of utter stupidity. He regretted deeply that he had been kept in England so long. At least you were doing something real in France, and there was movement....
Troops were pouring along the quay, and mounting the gangways on to three black-painted troopships. Winterbourne recognized the ships as old friends—they were pre-war Channel packet-boats transformed. Huge notices were displayed on the quays: “No. 1 Ship, 33rd Div., 19th Div., 42nd Div., 118th Brigade.” An officer with a megaphone shouted: “Leave Men to the Right, Drafts to the Left.” Another megaphone shouted: “First Army Men, Number 1 Ship.” “Third and Fourth Armies, Number 3 Ship.” “Captain Swanson, 11th Seaforth Highlanders, report to R.T.O.’s office immediately.” It was rather stirring—animated and efficient as well as bustling.
The draft went on board, and were shepherded to one end of the upper deck. The whole ship was swarming with leave men returning to France. Winterbourne gazed at them fascinatedly—these were the real war soldiers, fragments of the first half million volunteers, the men who had believed in the War and wanted to fight. They made a kind of epitome of the whole army. Every arm of the service was represented—Field Artillery, Heavies, dismounted cavalry, gunners, sappers, R.E. Sigs, Army Service Corps, Army Medical Corps, and infantry everywhere. He recognized some of the infantry badges, the bursting grenade of the Northumberland Fusileers, the Tiger of the Leicesters, the Middlesex, the Bedfords, Seaforth Highlanders, Notts and Jocks, the Buffs. He was immediately struck by their motley and picturesque appearance. He and the other draft troops were all spick and span, buttons bright, puttees minutely adjusted, boots polished, peaked caps stiffened with wire, pack mathematically squared, overcoat buttoned up to the throat. The leave men were dressed anyhow. Some had leather equipment, some webbing. They put their equipment together as it suited them, and none of it had been shined or polished for months. Some wore overcoats, some shaggy goatskin or rough sheepskin jackets. The skirts of some overcoats had been roughly hacked off with jack-knives—not to trail in the deep mud, Winterbourne guessed. The equipment which still weighed so heavily on the shoulders of the draft seemed to give the real soldiers no concern at all—they either wore it unconcernedly or chucked it carelessly on the deck with their rifles. Winterbourne was charmed. He noticed with amused scandal that the bolts and muzzles of their rifles were generally tightly bound with oiled rags. Winterbourne looked more carefully at their faces. They were lean and still curiously drawn, although the men had been out of the line for a fortnight; the eyes had a peculiar look. They seemed strangely worn and mature, but filled with energy, a kind of slow enduring energy. In comparison the fresh faces of the new drafts seemed babyish—rounded and rather feminine.
For the first time since the declaration of War, Winterbourne felt almost happy. These men were men. There was something intensely masculine about them, something very pure and immensely friendly and stimulating. They had been where no woman and no half-man had ever been, could endure to be. There was something timeless and remote about them as if (so Winterbourne thought) they had been Roman legionaries or the men of Austerlitz or even the invaders of the Empire. They looked barbaric, but not brutal; determined, but not cruel. Under their grotesque wrappings their bodies looked lean and hard and tireless. They were Men. With a start Winterbourne realized that in two or three months, if he were not hit, he would be one of them, indistinguishable from them, whereas now in the ridiculous jackanapes get-up of the peace-time soldier he felt humiliated and ashamed beside them.
“By God!” he said to himself, “you’re men, not boudoir rabbits and lounge lizards. I don’t care a damn what your cause is—it’s almost certainly a foully rotten one. But I do know you’re the first real men I’ve looked upon. I swear you’re better than the women and the half-men, and by God, I swear I’ll die with you rather than live in a world without you.”
Winterbourne moved a short distance away from the draft and watched a small group of leave men. One, a Scotchman in the uniform of an English line regiment, was still wearing his full equipment. He was leaning on his rifle, talking to two other infantrymen, who were sitting on their packs. One of them, a Corporal with scandalously untrimmed hair and a dirty sheepskin jacket, was lighting a pipe.
“An’ wha’ y’ think?” said the Scot in his sharp-clipped speech, “when ah got hame, they wan’ed me ta gae and tak’ tea wi’ th’ Meenister and then gie a speech at a Bazaar for Warr Worrkers.”
“Ah!” said the Corporal, “did you tell ’em—puff—all about the wicked Huns—puff—and say that what we want in the line is more tiled bath-rooms and girls and not so many woollen mufflers and whizz-bangs?”
“Ah did not; ah said ‘gie me over that bottle o’ whiskey, wumman, and hauld y’ whist.’”
“What Division are you, Jock?” said the other man.
“Thirrty-thirrd. We’ve bin spendin’ a pleasant summer on th’ Somme, and we’re now winterrin’ at the Health-resorrts o’ Ypres.”
“We’re forty-first Division. Just on your left in the Salient. We came up there a month ago from Bullycourt.”
“Bullycourt’s a verry guid place to get away from....”
Winterbourne could not listen any further—a zealous N.C.O. herded him back to the draft. He went unwillingly. He had been waiting eagerly for the men to get away from their time-honoured jests and speak of their real experiences. He was disappointed that these men talked in such a trivial and uninteresting way. He felt they ought to be saying important things in Shakespearian blank verse. Something adequate to their experience, to the intensity of manhood he instinctively felt in them and admired so humbly. But, of course, that was ridiculous of him. He felt that at once. Part of their impressiveness was this very triviality, their complete unconsciousness that there was anything extraordinary or striking about them. They would have been offended at the suggestion. They were ignorant of their own qualities. As Winterbourne himself rapidly merged with these men and became one of them, he lost entirely this first sharp impression of meeting a new, curious race of men, the masculine men. It was then the other people who became curious to him. He found that the real soldiers, the front-line troops, had no more delusions about the War than he had. They hadn’t his feeling of protest and agony over it all, they hadn’t tried to think it out. They went on with the business, hating it, because they had been told it had to be done and believed what they had been told. They wanted the War to end, they wanted to get away from it, and they had no feeling of hatred for their enemies on the other side of No Man’s Land. In fact, they were almost sympathetic to them. They also were soldiers, men segregated from the world in this immense barbaric tumult. The fighting was so impersonal as a rule that it seemed rather a conflict with dreadful hostile forces of Nature than with other men. You did not see the men who fired the ceaseless hail of shells on you, nor the machine gunners who swept away twenty men to death in one zip of their murderous bullets, nor the hands which projected trench-mortars that shook the earth with awful detonations, nor even the invisible sniper who picked you off mysteriously with the sudden impersonal “ping!” of his bullet. Even in the perpetual trench raids you only caught a glimpse of a few differently shaped steel helmets a couple of traverses away; and either their bombs got you, or yours got them. Actual hand-to-hand fighting occurred, but it was comparatively rare. It was a war of missiles, murderous and soul-shaking explosives, not a war of hand-weapons. The sentry gazed at dawn over a desolate flat landscape, seamed with irregular trenches, and infinitely pitted and scarred with shell-holes, thorny with wire, littered with débris. Five to ten thousand enemies were within range of his vision, and not one would be visible. For days on end he might strain his eyes, and not see one of them. He would hear them at night—clink of shovels and picks, the scream of a wounded man, even their coughing if there happened to be a cessation of artillery and machine-gun fire—but not see them. In the two hours following dawn in “quiet” sectors there was sometimes a kind of truce after the feverish work and perpetual firing during the night. After morning Stand-down the front-line troops snatched a little sleep. At such a time the silence was eerie. Twenty thousand men within a mile, and not a sound. Or so it seemed. But that was by contrast. In fact, there was always some shelling going on—heavies firing on back areas—and generally in the distance the long rumble which meant a general engagement....
The soldiers, then, were not vindictive. Nor, in general, were they long duped by the war talk. They laughed at the newspapers. Any new-comer who tried to be a bit high-falutin’ was at once snubbed with “Fer Christ’s sake don’t talk patriotic!” They went on with a sort of stubborn despair, why they didn’t quite know. The authorities obviously mistrusted them, and forbade them to read the pacific “Nation” while allowing them to read the infamies of “John Bull.” The mistrust was unnecessary. They went on in their stubborn despair, with their sentimental songs and cynical talk and perpetual grousing; and it’s my belief that if they’d been asked to do so, they’d still be carrying on, now. They weren’t crushed by defeat or elated by victory—their stubborn despair had taken them far beyond that point. They carried on. People sneer at the war slang. I, myself, have heard intellectual “objectors” very witty at the expense of “carry on.” So like carrion, you know. All right, let them sneer.
The troopships crossing the Channel were escorted by four plunging little black torpedo-boats. Submarines in the Channel. A merchant ship had been sunk that morning. Winterbourne had thought he would be apprehensive—on the contrary, he found that he scarcely thought about it. Nobody bothered about a little risk like that. They made for Boulogne, and the soldiers cheered the torpedo boats as they turned back from the harbour entrance.
In his inexperience Winterbourne had assumed that they would at once entrain for the front, and that he would spend that night in the trenches. He had forgotten the element of waiting, the deliberation necessary in moving vast masses of men about, which made the slow ruthless movement of the huge War machine so inexorable. You hung about, but inevitably you moved, your tiny little cog was brought into action. And this, too, was strangely impersonal, confirmed the feeling of fatalism. It seemed insane to think that you had any individual importance.
The docks at Boulogne were crowded with materials of war, and the whole place seemed English. Notices all in English, the Union Jack, British officers and troops everywhere, even British engines for the trains. The leave men were roughly formed into columns and marched off to entrain. Every one wanted to know where his Division was. The R.T.O.’s dealt with them swiftly and efficiently. The drafts were also formed into a column and marched up the hill to the rest camp. They were in good spirits, and the inevitable Cockney humourist was in action. As they went up the hill, a poor old French woman came out of her cottage and began rheumatically and wearily to pump water. She did not even look at the passing troops—much too accustomed to them. The Cockney shouted to her:
“’Ere we are! War’ll soon be over now; keep yer pecker up, Ma!”
They spent the night under canvas at the Boulogne rest camp. From his tent Winterbourne had an excellent view of the Channel and the camp incinerator. His first duty on active service was picking up dirty paper and other rubbish, and dumping it in the incinerator. They were told nothing about their future, the Army theory being that your business is to obey orders, not to ask questions. Winterbourne fumed and fretted at the inaction. The other men speculated interminably as to where they were going.
The tents had wooden floors. The men drew a blanket and waterproof ground-sheet each, and slept twelve to a tent. It was a bit hard, but not impossible to sleep. Winterbourne lay awake for a long time, trying to get some order into his reflections. His attitude was plainly modified by that day’s experience. Was there a contradiction in it? Did it imply that he now supported the War and the War partisans? On the contrary, he hated the War as much as ever, hated all the blather about it, profoundly distrusted the motives of the War partisans, and hated the Army. But he liked the soldiers, the War soldiers, not as soldiers but as men. He respected them. If the German soldiers were like the men he had seen on the boat that morning, then he liked and respected them too. He was with them. With them, yes, but against whom and what? He reflected. With them, because they were men with fine qualities, because they had endured great hardships and dangers with simplicity, because they had parried those hardships and dangers not by hating the men who were supposed to be their enemies, but by developing a comradeship among themselves. They had every excuse for turning into brutes, and they hadn’t done it. True, they were degenerating in certain ways, they were getting coarse and rough and a bit animal, but with amazing simplicity and unpretentiousness they had retained and developed a certain essential humanity and manhood. With them then to the end, because of their manhood and humanity. With them, too, because that manhood and humanity existed in spite of the War and not because of it. They had saved something from a gigantic wreck, and what they had saved was immensely important—manhood and comradeship, their essential integrity as men, their essential brotherhood as men.
But what were they really against, who were their real enemies? He saw the answer with a flood of bitterness and clarity. Their enemies—the enemies of German and English alike—were the fools who had sent them to kill each other instead of help each other. Their enemies were the sneaks and the unscrupulous; the false ideals, the unintelligent ideas imposed on them, the humbug, the hypocrisy, the stupidity. If those men were typical, then there was nothing essentially wrong with common humanity, at least so far as the men were concerned. It was the leadership that was wrong—not the war leadership, but the peace leadership. The nations were governed by bunk and sacrificed to false ideals and stupid ideas. It was assumed that they had to be governed by bunk—but if they were never given anything else, how could you tell? De-bunk the World. Hopeless, hopeless....
He sighed deeply, and turned in his blanket wrapping. One man was snoring. Another moaned in his sleep. Like corpses they lay there, human rejects chucked into a bell tent on the hill above Boulogne. The pack made a hard pillow. Maybe he was all wrong, maybe it was “right” for men to be begotten only to murder each other in huge senseless combats. He wondered if he were not getting a little insane through this persistent brooding over the murders, by striving so desperately and earnestly to find out why it had happened, by agonizing over it all, by trying to think how it could be prevented from occurring again. After all, did it matter so much? Yes, did it matter? What were a few million human animals more or less? Why agonize about it? The most he could do was die. Well, die then. But O God, O God, is that all? To be born against your will, to feel that life might in its brief passing be so lovely and so divine, and yet to have nothing but opposition and betrayal and hatred and death forced upon you! To be born for the slaughter like a calf or a pig! To be violently cast back into nothing—for what? My God, for what? Is there nothing but despair and death? Is life vain, beauty vain, love vain, hope vain, happiness vain? “The war to end wars!” Is any one so asinine as to believe that? A war to breed wars, rather....
He sighed and turned again. It’s all useless, useless to flog one’s brain and nerves over it all, useless to waste the night hours in silent agonies when he might lie in the oblivion of sleep. Or the better oblivion of death. After all, there were plenty of children, plenty of war babies—why should one agonize for their future, any more than the Victorians thought about ours? The children will grow up, the war babies will grow up. Maybe they’ll have their war, maybe they won’t. In any case they won’t care a hang about us. Why should they? What do we care about the men of Albuera, except that the charge of the fusileers decorates a page of rhetorical prose? Four thousand dead—and the only permanent result a page of Napier’s prose. We have Bairnsfather....
He gave it up. Time after time he reverted to the whole gigantic tragedy, and time after time he gave it up. Two solutions. Just drift and let come what come may; or get yourself killed in the line. And much anyone would care whichever he did.
[ IV ]
They paraded at nine next morning, were casually inspected by an officer they did not know, and told to stand by. At eleven they drew bully beef and biscuits, and were ordered to parade again in half an hour, ready to move off. Winterbourne’s spirits rose. At last they were getting somewhere. He would be in the trenches that night and take his chance with the rest. No more fiddle-faddle.
He was mistaken. They entrained at Boulogne in a train which crawled interminably, and they de-trained at Calais. They were simply transferred to another Base.
The Base Camp at Calais was desperately over-crowded. It was filled with new drafts sent over to make up the losses on the Somme, and new columns of men kept pouring in daily from England, faster than the over-worked Staff could allot them to units. They were crowded into hastily erected bell-tents, twenty-two to a tent, which is closer than you can squeeze animals, and about as close as you can squeeze men. There was just room to lie down, and no more. Nothing to do after parade, except to moon about in the frosty darkness or lie down in one’s little slice of space, or play crown-and-anchor and drink coffee and rum while the estaminets were open. The town of Calais was out of bounds, except to men with passes. And not many passes were granted.
The weather grew daily colder. The misery of the interminable waiting and the over-crowded tents and the lack of anything to do, was not thereby alleviated. Every morning huge greyish columns of men undulated over the sandy soil, and were drawn up in long lines. An officer on horseback shouted orders through a megaphone. Nothing much happened, and they raggedly undulated back again. Yet they drew nearer to the mysterious “line.” They were given large jack-knives on lanyards. They were given gas masks and steel helmets. They were given service rifles and bayonets.
The gas masks were still the old flannel diving bell variety soaked in chemicals. They had a sharp, acrid, inhuman taste, and if worn too long had been known to produce skin eruptions. The drafts were given constant gas drill, and had to pass five minutes in a gas chamber, containing a concentration of the old chlorine gas sufficient to kill in five seconds. One man in Winterbourne’s lot lost his head and tried to tear off his mask. The instructor leapt at him, shouting curses through his own mask, and with the help of two of the men held him until the doors were opened. Winterbourne noticed that the gas had tarnished his bright brass buttons and the metal on his equipment. Their clothes reeked of the gas for a couple of hours.
They carefully cleaned the long steel bayonets, and examined the short wood-enclosed rifles. Winterbourne’s had a long groove cut by a bullet on the butt, and the bolt showed signs of considerable rust—obviously a rifle picked up on the battle-field and re-conditioned. Winterbourne wondered who was the man from whom he inherited it, and who would inherit it from him.
The days and nights grew colder and colder. Morning and evening rose and sank in blood-red mists, and at noon the sun was a cold bloody smear in a misty sky. Ice formed on the dykes, and the water taps froze. It became more and more difficult to wash, and shaving and washing in the ice-cold water became an agony. Their skins chapped as the light north wind breathed sharper and sharper cold. There appeared to be no baths, and they could not remove their clothes at night. To sleep, they took off their boots, wrapped themselves in an overcoat and blanket and shivered asleep, huddling together like sheep in a snowstorm. Most of them caught colds and began to cough; one man of the draft was taken to hospital with pleurisy.
And still day after day passed, and they were not sent to their units. Monotony, depression, boredom. By four it was dark, and there was nothing to do until dawn. The canteens and estaminets were thronged. Winterbourne luckily discovered that the pickets could be bribed, and several evenings went into Calais to dine. He bought a couple of French books and tried to read—in vain. He found he was unable to concentrate his mind, and fell into a deeper depression. There were few parades, and he had plenty of time for brooding.
They passed Christmas Day at the Base. The English newspapers, which they easily obtained a day or two late, were filled with glowing accounts of the efforts and expense made to give the troops a real hearty Christmas dinner. The men had looked forward to this. They ate their meals in huts which were decorated with holly for the occasion. The Christmas dinner turned out to be stewed bully beef and about two square inches of cold Christmas pudding per man. The other men in Winterbourne’s tent were furious. Their perpetual grumbling annoyed him, and he attacked them:
“Why fuss so much over a little charity? Why let them salve their consciences so easily? In any case, they probably meant well. Can’t you see that drafts at the Base are nobody’s children? The stuff’s gone to the men in the line, who deserve it far more than we do. We haven’t done anything yet. Or it’s been embezzled. Anyway what does it matter? You didn’t join the army for a bit of pudding and a Christmas cracker, did you?”
They were silent, unable to understand his contempt. Of course, he was unjust. They were simply grown children, angry at being defrauded of a promised treat. They could not understand his deeper rage. Any more than they could have understood his emotion each night when “Last Post” was blown. The bugler was an artist and produced the most wonderful effect of melancholy as he blew the call, which in the Army serves for sleep and death, over the immense silent camp. Forty thousand men lying down to sleep—and in six months how many would be alive? The bugler seemed to know it, and prolonged the shrill melancholy notes—“Last post! Last post!”—with an extraordinary effect of pathos. “Last post! Last post!” Winterbourne listened for it each night. Sometimes the melancholy was almost soothing, sometimes it was intolerable. He wrote to Elizabeth and Fanny about the bugler, as well as about the leave men he had seen on the boat. They felt he was getting hopelessly sentimental:
“Un peu gaga?” Elizabeth suggested.
Fanny shrugged her shoulders.
Two days after Christmas their orders came. They were taking off their equipment after morning parade when the Orderly Corporal pushed his head through the tent flap:
“You’ve clicked!”
“What? How? What y’ mean?” said several voices.
“Goin’ up the line. Parade at one-thirty ready to move off immediate. Over you go, an’ the best of luck!”
“What part of the line?”
“Dunno, you’ll find that when y’ get there.”
“What unit?”
“Dunno. Some o’ you’s clicked for a Pioneer Batt.”
“What’s that?”
“Muckin well find out. Don’t f’get I warned yer for p’rade.”
And he was off to the next tent. The men began talking excitedly, “wondering” this and “wondering” that futilely as usual. Winterbourne walked away from the tent lines, and stood looking over the desolate winter landscape. Half a mile away the tent lines of another huge camp began. Army lorries lumbered along a flat straight road in the distance. It was beginning to snow from a hard grey sky. He wondered vaguely how you slept in the line when there was snow. His breath formed little clouds of vapour in the freezing air. He pulled his muffler closer round his neck, and stamped on the ground to warm his icy feet. He felt as if his faculties were slowly running down, as if his whole mental power were concentrated upon mere physical endurance, a dull keeping alive. Time, like a torture, seemed infinitely prolonged. It seemed years since he left England, years of discomfort and depression and boredom. If the mere “cushy” beginning were like that, how endure the months, perhaps years of war to come?
He experienced a rapid fall of spirits to a depth of depression he had never before experienced. Hitherto, mere young vitality had buoyed him up, the élan of his former life had carried him along through the days. In spite of his rages and his worryings and the complications and boredoms, he had really remained hopeful. He had wanted to go on living, because he had always unconsciously believed that life was good. Now something within him was just beginning to give way, now for the first time the last faint hues of the lovely iris of youth faded, and in horror he faced the grey realities. He was surprised and a little alarmed at his own listlessness and despair. He felt like a sheet of paper, dropping in jerks and waverings through grey air into an abyss.
The dinner bugle call sounded. He turned mechanically and joined the men thronging towards the eating huts. The snow was falling faster, and the men stamped their feet as they waited for the doors to open, cursing the cooks’ delay. There was the usual animal stampede for the best platefuls when the door opened. Winterbourne stood aside and let them struggle. The expressions on their faces were not pretty. He was practically the last in, and did not fare well. He ate the stewed bully, hunk of bread and soap-like cheese, with a sort of dog gratitude for the warmth, which was humiliating. He scarcely even resented the humiliation.