4.25 A.M.
The previous evening Robert had taken Levitt down and introduced him to the men. There were seven of them in the trench with a lance corporal in command of two mortars. Seven more men and a sergeant were on rest in a bay where they’d made themselves a very comfortable dugout with a brazier. Robert had done no more than make the introduction—spoken briefly to the sergeant and the corporal and left them. This was normal procedure when there were no specific firing instructions and the front was quiet. Now, Robert stood outside the Stained Glass Dugout (for that is what they called it, in honour of Devlin’s collection) and looked down to where the trench had been.
It was gone. In its place there was a hole.
All of this could be seen and not seen. Robert’s eyes watered in the cold air. The smoke from the bursting shells collected light and dispersed it over the battlefield. Fires had been started wherever anything was dry enough to burn. The crater itself was spotted with fires—some around the rim, others down its sides and in its depths. Men were woven with smoke like whirlwinds of dust. Everything moved slow-motion—even things that fell seemed to float. The shells, for the most part, were bursting in the air, just as if the stars were falling all together. There was a lot of noise but none of it seemed to be connected with what one saw. The driven, ceaseless pounding of the guns (from both sides now) had nothing to do with the bursting of the shells and the bursting of the shells had nothing to do with the thudding of the earth beneath one’s feet. Everything was out of sync.
Robert slid and stumbled down towards the crater thinking that surely one of his men at least had survived. But the trench where they had been did not exist. He began to walk north-east, which is to say towards St Eloi where the whole town was blazing on the horizon, but after three hundred yards or so he gave that up. It was madness. The trench itself and all the communication trenches were clogged with dead and wounded and stretcher bearers trying to go the other way so Robert finally decided to make instead for the Battalion Signals Office thinking it might serve as a natural magnet to anyone of the men who might have survived. This meant turning back the way he’d come and striking off on an angle almost directly westward.
The dark was pitted with holes and he kept falling down. He fell down once and put his hand in someone’s face. He apologized—even though he knew the man was dead. In another hole there was a rat that was alive but trapped because of the waterlogged condition of the earth that kept collapsing every time it tried to ascend the walls. Robert struck a match and caught the rat by the tail. It squealed as he lifted it over the edge and set it free. Robert wondered afterwards if setting the rat free had been a favour—but in the moment that he did it he was thinking: here is someone still alive. And the word alive was amazing.
The distance Robert had to go was just about a quarter of a mile—a distance he could have walked, under normal circumstances, in about seven minutes and run in one-and-a-half. This time it took him over an hour.
5.30 A.M.
Robert couldn’t get through to his O.C. for orders. Most of the wires were down and the few in use were constantly being commandeered by Battery Commanders and other senior officers. The Signals Office, in a farmhouse, was as busy as a stock exchange in a falling market. Dawn had begun to break and men were being poured up the communication trenches from the rear. There was a horse-railway, too, leading back to Wytsbrouk and flat-car-loads of wounded were being drawn away by huge black horses or pushed along the track by walking wounded. The whir and rattle of the wheels was constant.
The Germans had started putting over 5.9s by now and sixty or seventy shells had landed while Robert waited to send his message. Luckily, their range was off and the shells were landing to the left of the farmhouse. One or two came fairly close and everyone dived for the floor with a clatter of falling tin hats and tea mugs. The shells could be heard in the air when they got about four seconds distant from you.
Standing up after one of the closer calls, a bright young man with popping eyes turned to Robert and gushed at him: ‘Isn’t it marvellous!’ Robert nodded vaguely and walked away. Afterwards, he saw the young man going up to several others—including a Lieutenant Colonel—and saying the same thing: ‘Isn’t it marvellous! Isn’t it absolutely marvellous!’ Robert went out and stood with his back against the wall and smoked a cigarette.
6.10 A.M.
Robert got lucky. His company commander, Captain Leather, arrived from Wytsbrouk on one of the flat-cars, bringing with him a section of men, four trench mortars and a carrying party with a quantity of ammunition.
‘There you are, Ross! Good for you!’ said Leather, as he slid from the still moving car and crossed the barn yard. It was just as if the meeting had been arranged for weeks. Robert scanned the cars to see if he’d brought another subaltern with him, but he hadn’t. Robert’s stomach sank as he realized he was going to be put in charge of whatever scheme had brought Captain Leather forward. Leather beckoned him into the Signals Office and consulted a map. He wanted Robert to explain the situation. ‘Just so,’ he kept saying, as Robert pointed out where the mines had been blown and what he could guess about the state of the trenches he had visited in the dark. Leather even said ‘Just so’ when Robert explained that he hadn’t been able to locate his men and that he feared they had all been killed. Then Leather studied the map in silence for a moment and finally said: ‘Here we go, then’ and laid down the purpose of the new guns. Gun beds would have to be put in ‘here and here’ and ‘there and there.’ Here and there was all right—but there and there was a death trap. Robert pointed out that the second set of positions was more than likely at the far edge of the crater nearest the German lines. Leather said: ‘Just so’ and seemed very pleased. Robert felt constrained to silence.
He wanted to advise Captain Leather of the state Levitt was in…he wanted to request another junior officer…he wanted to say the forward positions were crazy…he wanted to say that guns would sink in the mud. But he didn’t say anything. He just went out with Leather into the cold and was introduced to a Corporal Bates who was in charge of the men. When this had been done, Leather took him aside and turned his back on Bates and said in a very pleasant way: ‘I think you should know that most of these men are trouble-makers, Ross. You know what the Mortar Squads can be like. We seem to get all the worst. But they should be all right once you get them into action. I’ll be down the line as soon as I can—but I have to check on the other two batteries.’ ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Robert—and saluted. He felt condemned. ‘Good for you,’ said Leather, who then gave a little wave of his hand at Bates and went inside for a cup of tea. Robert distinctly heard him being greeted. ‘Isn’t it marvellous!’
7 A.M.
With the section and the carrying party combined there were twenty-two men as well as Robert and Corporal Bates. Bates was all right. He was stocky and round and came, like Regis, from Regina. ‘Well, well, well!’ he kept saying. ‘I ain’t seen a place since home with so few trees.’ And later—‘Honest, sir! This is worse than the cyclone of 19-0-12.’ And—‘Honest! It’s worse’n a Wascana flood!’ Robert liked him because he seemed to be genuinely overawed by the battlefield, whereas most of the men said nothing or were less impressed. It took them just exactly half-an-hour to go the distance. It was fully light by now, though the sky had filled with snow clouds—but at least the shell holes could be avoided. Those that already existed at any rate. Those created along the way by the continuing bombardment claimed two lives, but Bates just yelled out: ‘Don’t you stop for nothin’ or I’ll shoot youse myself!’ Robert believed him and hurried forward with his Webley drawn lest he fall and have to defend himself from his zealous corporal. He led them to the Stained Glass Dugout, thinking if he could only get to some place he recognized he could pull himself together before the ordeal of putting in the gun beds.
7.30 A.M.
Levitt was stony calm. It was almost disconcerting. He only complained that Robert said he must remove his grea
tcoat. It could not be worn going through the mud, since it would tend to drag him down and might even cause him to drown. Then Robert did what he knew he must and turned the lesser assignment over to Levitt. Rodwell came to the door of the dugout to see them off.
‘See if you and Poole can’t get the brazier going again,’ said Robert. ‘Then we can have some tea when we’re back.’
Rodwell nodded, looking dour. ‘I wish those clouds would go,’ he said. ‘Then it might freeze—and get us out of this beastly mud.’
Robert noticed he was caked with fresh, wet clay to his waist.
‘What’s the news with you?’ he asked.
‘Same’s you,’ said Rodwell. Every last one of his men was dead.
8.15 A.M.
When they reached what remained of the forward trench they found it so shot up and so cut off from the rest of the line that none of the dead or wounded Robert had encountered there in the dark had yet been moved. They were sitting, squatting, lying everywhere you had to walk. Not a single man was on his feet. One man lay alive on a stretcher while at either end the stretcher bearers curled like caterpillars—dead. All the walking wounded had departed; these that were left must wait perhaps to the end of that day before anyone would come to get them out. In the meantime Robert and the others had to press forward. That was the rule. No one went back—even for a dying comrade. Only someone wounded could stay with another wounded man. Here, there were one or two who leaned side by side sharing a cigarette or who tried to dress one another’s wounds but most were sitting separate, staring into space. No one spoke. The dead all lay with their faces in the mud or turned to the walls of the trench. This was the only way they could be told apart from the wounded. All were a uniform shade of grey. Even their blood had lost its colour. The air was green with the mist of dissipated body warmth. And dark. The trench was like a tunnel with a black heavy layer of smoke as its roof. The barrage was bursting to the rear and seemed to be a long way off. Robert’s footsteps and the water oozing from the wrung-out earth fell into puddles loud as clocks.
All at once there was a blast of cold air.
Robert stopped.
Bates came forward and squatted beside him.
The end of the trench had been completely rolled back and the earth folded over, packed with bits of timber and corrugated iron. There were also sizzling braziers, wheels, tin hats, and blasted sand bags—backs that must’ve been men; boots and rifles and someone’s hand. Robert dared not look at the earth. He wished he was myopic. He was glad he wore gloves.
The ‘fold’ was maybe five feet high and over it—beyond it in the open—lay the crater. All they could see from where they lay was the distance they had to go. A hundred and fifty yards. One hundred and fifty paces, Robert thought. Seconds, if I could run it. He and Bates crawled to the lip beyond the shelter of the trench. Robert scanned the edges with his field glasses looking for footholds. There were corpses—but not as many as Robert had imagined. Maybe only a dozen scattered around the sides. The bottom was filled with water. He could see the water rising. There was no way of knowing how deep it might be—or would get. The whole of St Eloi district was well below sea level. Before the age of dikes it might have been an inland sea.
Bates did not look at the terrain. He looked at Robert. Here was an unknown quantity—a child in breeches with a blue scarf wound around his neck whose job it was to get them out and back alive. This—to Bates—was the greatest terror of war: what you didn’t know of the men who told you what to do—where to go and when. What if they were mad—or stupid? What if their fear was greater than yours? Or what if they were brave and crazy—wanting and demanding bravery from you? He looked away. He thought of being born—and of trusting your parents. Maybe that was the same. Your parents could be crazy too. Or stupid. Still—he’d rather his father was with him—telling him what to do. Then he smiled. He knew that his father would take one look at the crater and tell him not to go.
The gun beds would have to be cut at about ten feet below the opposite lip. How was quite another question. Here was the all too familiar case of an officer—(Captain Leather)—standing to the rear with a map and a theoretical crater in his mind and making use of it in a fine imaginative way that had nothing to do with the facts. A crater was just a hole in the ground. It might be ninety or it might be three hundred and ninety feet in diameter. Twenty or eighty feet deep. What did it matter? A hole in the ground was a hole in the ground. In a battle they only had one use. You got your mortars into them and started firing.
Robert thought; in an hour—two hours at the most, I will have done this. Everything that’s going to happen will have happened. I will be back in the dugout drinking tea with Rodwell and the toad and I will be sending a runner to say this has been done. It will be over.
‘Are you ready, Bates?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Do you see that thing that looks like a ski pole?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘We shall head for that.’
‘Yes sir.’
Robert told Bates to wait until he was over the edge and had found a foothold before coming out to join him. The men were not to follow until the route and its safety had been established.
‘Yes sir.’
Robert lay out flat and started to swim on his belly through the mud. There was nothing left of the snow just here. It had all been blown away. He cursed his gas mask which was in a canvas bag around his neck. It kept sliding under his chest and pressing up against his breast bone. His field glasses beat against his ribs. The back of his neck was like a board—waiting for the shot that would kill him. Everyone said you didn’t hear that shot. They said if it got you it was silent. How the hell did anyone alive know that?
He had to turn his back on the crater in order to get his legs over the lip. He could see Bates watching him—chewing at a thumb nail. He jack-knifed. Then he just let himself go and began to slide towards the bottom.
The gas mask came up under his chin and he thought it was going to break his neck or puncture his windpipe. He was clutching at the passing earth, desperately trying to slow his fall and bring it to a stop. He’d known it would be wet—but not like grease. Nothing he grabbed at held. He even inadvertently grabbed at an outstretched hand and sent one of the corpses sliding past him, head first into the water. At last his knees struck something hard. It was a Lewis gun embedded in the earth. Robert gave a cry of pain. It felt as if his knee caps had been torn away. But his fall was over. He was more than halfway down the side.
Robert rolled over and dragged himself to a sitting position with the gun sticking out between his legs. He rubbed his knees. The pain was excruciating. He looked but could not see Bates which meant that Bates could not see him. In fact, there was no one he could see except the dead man down by the water with his arms stretched out and his head beneath the surface. Very slowly Robert stood. The Lewis gun was so far embedded he could push himself upright against it. This gave him a sort of ledge to stand on, so long as he could maintain his balance.
He must get somehow to where he could be seen so he could signal to Bates and the others to come down and join him. He began to edge his way along like a mountain climber, leaning in against the face of the crater with his feet turned out, using his heels to squelch-cut footholds in the clay. He bit against the pain in his knees. He was mostly afraid he would slip and drown. Being shot seemed the least of his troubles. The clay was so oily all he had to do was press his fingers against it to produce a putrid sweat of reeking water. Turning his head from side to side as he went, at last he saw Bates come over the edge to his right at an alarming distance above him. More than twenty feet. Robert saw him slide to the Lewis gun—saw that he had landed on his feet and proceeded on his own way.
One by one, the men came down after Bates without incident. They, too, landed on the Lewis gun and started across the face of the crater. Those who were carrying the mortars lowered the parts on ropes to their partners below. Those carryi
ng shovels rattled down free style with the shovels clanking above their heads.
Still there was not a sign of the enemy. Not even shrapnel fell in their vicinity. Robert was nervous of this ‘silence’—thinking that at any minute the ridge might spring up—alive with Germans. If it did there wasn’t a chance in a million of survival. They would just be sitting ducks and that would be the end of it. Robert was the only one armed—except, of course, for the fact of the mortars but these were useless until they’d been assembled and put in place.
Robert was now directly below the ‘ski-pole.’ Luckily, the gradation here was not so steep as it had been where they came down. Robert clambered up quite easily until he was within an arm’s length of the rim. Beyond the rim was the last twelve yards of No Man’s Land and then the German trenches. The beds could be cut where he stood. It was not too bad a position, from a mathematical point of view. Robert looked down and gave a wave to Bates. This meant the sappers could come up and commence their digging. Then he turned and examined the thing they had thought was a ski pole.
It was a ski pole.
8.50 A.M.
Four men were digging. A second shelf had been begun six or seven yards to the left of the first, where Robert was sitting. No one spoke, Robert looked down and saw that one of the gunners was throwing clods of earth into the pool below—like a child in High Park on a Sunday afternoon.
He got his notebook out and a broken stub of pencil and, gauging the angle of the crater’s edge, he began his calculations. He became so engrossed he was barely aware of the fact the barrage had ceased. He was halfway through his geometry when his ears popped and the silence poured in.
The gunner down below had already thrown another lump of clay. It landed in the water like a bomb. Everyone stood still, except that each man leaned in automatically against the earth at his shoulder. The silence could only mean one thing. The Germans were going to attack. All at once—a bird sang over their heads. Someone swore, as if the bird had given them away.