Now, Coulter did not come into the loft, only to put his head through the hatchway. ‘Excuse me, sir – the C.O. wants to see both of you right away, sir. He wants to see all the officers. It seems as if there’s something up.’
Garrett looked calmer, full of some sort of relief. The Battalion was leaving Percelle first thing the next morning for the front lines at Lully, near Barmelle Wood and Queronne, an area which had been under heavy fire for the past six or seven weeks.
For the rest of that day the atmosphere of the farm changed, and the yard and the orchard and the lane leading down from the village were full of men moving about, shouting orders, carts arrived, two advance motor buses came, were packed up, left again. The farm dog wandered about and was repeatedly pushed out of the way, until it retired behind the stables.
Hilliard thought that the men were relieved, as Garrett had been, no matter what might be to come: they knew where they were now, were able to immerse themselves in physical activity with a clear end in view.
He noticed that Franklin was everywhere, supervising everything, though he seemed to be in no hurry and his face showed no interest in what went on. He would be a good officer under fire, efficient and cool-headed. But Hilliard disliked him more than ever.
Garrett had ordered the evening meal to be put back by an hour because there was so much to be done, they would not be eating in the officers’ mess until after nine. But Hilliard’s platoon had finished earlier, there were only the tents and kitbags to be put up just before they set off the following morning.
He found Barton.
‘I’d like to walk down to the orchard.’
‘Say a fond farewell!’
‘Why not?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Hilliard?’
They both turned. Hilliard walked back towards where the Adjutant was standing, outside the stables.
‘Either you or Barton will have to be on foot tomorrow. There aren’t enough horses for everyone.’
‘Harrison’s gone off on that gas course, though.’
‘There still aren’t enough, too many are needed for carrying.’
‘I see. Well, Barton had better ride in that case, sir.’
‘I’d prefer it if you did. You know the form, you can keep an eye on things. We’ll probably be stopping overnight at Feuvry.’
‘Yes.’
‘All right.’ Franklin turned and strolled back towards the farmhouse.
But when Hilliard told him, full of annoyance, Barton only smiled. ‘I don’t mind marching. I’d prefer it, actually. I did walk 800 miles down through Italy with my brother a couple of years ago, you know.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Ah!’
‘He could perfectly well have asked someone else.’
‘But he didn’t, that’s all there is to it.’
‘He’s making bloody sure we don’t waste time tomorrow chatting together.’
‘Don’t be so touchy – you’ve got a thing about this. And would we, in any case? We’d both have too much else to do and we know it and Franklin knows it.’
Hilliard let out a long breath. ‘You’re too good natured,’ he said.
‘I ought to be more like you.’
‘Perhaps I just plump for a quiet life.’
‘No.’
He looked at Barton, walking beside him with his odd, loose gait. The Battalion barber had shorn him up the back of the neck but he had not managed to prevent the front hair from falling in a thick ledge over his forehead, so that he looked as though he held his head at an angle, that the front might suddenly tip, unbalancing him.
‘Well,’ Barton said. It was simply an expression of contentment.
They had come through the copse into the orchard, and were following the bank of the stream. The sky was mulberry coloured, over the church.
Barton stopped. ‘I can smell something.’
There were no sounds except the song of larks and blackbirds and the trickle of water over flint-stones.
‘Can’t you smell it?’
‘Burning? Yes, I can now.’
They looked around the orchard. Nothing.
‘It’s probably the camp kitchen.’
‘We’re too far away and there’s no wind. Besides, it’s a different sort of smell.’
‘I can’t see anything. I suppose the farmers must burn things. It’s autumn – bonfire time.’
They moved on. The stream flowed under a small wooden footbridge and then curved away slightly. If they were not going to be late, they ought to turn back here.
‘I can still smell it,’ Barton said. Then they both caught sight of the fine line of smoke, rising from behind the sycamore copse, a hundred yards or so ahead, nearer the church.
‘It is a bonfire.’
‘No.’
Barton began to run, his legs covering the ground remarkably quickly, so that Hilliard was well behind, going through the thick grass. He heard a shout.
As far as they knew nobody had seen or heard the plane come down. Indeed, there had been very few planes over this area at all during the past few weeks and when one did appear it had seemed unreal, a distant reminder of war.
This one, a small German monoplane, had smashed nose forwards into the field immediately behind the copse. It was badly charred at the front, like some ungainly bird which had been half shoved into an oven. The smoke was dying away, the plane might have been here since early that morning.
‘What do we do?’
‘Go back and report it. Though one of the farmers probably has already. But we’ll have to check.’
It looked an ugly plane. They were about to turn away.
‘Good God,’ Barton said. He had gone much closer and now he stopped. Hilliard moved up to his side.
The pilot was still strapped into his seat but he had slid forward and down. His head was bent over to one side and the eyes were open, looking over in the direction of the trees. He had a plump, young face, with high cheekbones, and the flesh of it was quite undamaged. His front teeth protruded slightly, to rest on the bottom lip. But Hilliard saw that the rest of his body, up to the chest and arms, was almost burned away. He wondered why the plane had not gone up in flames completely and, as it had not, why the man could not have scrambled out.
‘We shall have to report it,’ he said. He had a sudden feeling of acute reality, he was back, now, in the world where such things happened, were normal. This was the first dead man he had seen since his return from France and there would now only be all the rest who were to follow. He felt the old, heavy sensation in his stomach, misery and fear and anger, compounded but also slightly deadened.
But he was used to it. Barton was not. Glancing at his face now, Hilliard recognized in another what he himself had known, the first time he saw a corpse in France. There were only a limited number of responses he could make. He remembered the one that the Sergeant who was leading him up the trench they called Pall Mall had made, when they came upon a heap of perhaps forty bodies piled up together, bloated and black, unburied for weeks, for this part of the line had been particularly bad, there had been a large number of casualties and no time to do anything about them.
He had said, ‘Mind your feet, sir.’
Perhaps Barton was being broken in gently, after all. He did not look as if he thought so. His face had not gone paler but more darkly flushed under the already sunburned skin; he said nothing. Hilliard thought that he would do anything now, anything at all, for him not to have to go, not to see any more of it: he was almost beside himself in a rush of dread on Barton’s behalf.
It had gone much darker, the birds were quiet. The smoke still plumed up from the engine of the German plane, there was the faint tick-tack of cooling metal.
‘Come on.’ Barton jerked his head up. ‘We’d better go back.’
‘David …’
Barton stopped, glanced back. He said, ‘No. It’s all right.’
They both began to run.
/> Much later, in the apple loft, where all their things stood about in cases and bags, waiting to be moved, he said, ‘Pity, I shan’t be able to think about it in the same way now. I shan’t remember the orchard without remembering that bloody plane.’
‘I suppose we shouldn’t have gone back for a last look. It’s generally a mistake, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, no,’ Barton turned the lamp down. ‘After all, it had to start somewhere, didn’t it?’
Part Two
‘Mounted officers should avoid passing and re-passing infantry more than is absolutely necessary.’
And so they had only seen one another twice that day, at the second halt early in the morning and then as the Battalion was going into Feuvry, and Hilliard happened to ride by. He had passed Barton and then glanced back over his shoulder, seen his expression and frowned. Barton knew at once what he thought. John saw that he was more affected by the sight of this town than he had been by the dead German pilot in the burned-out plane, and he was shocked.
But until then he had enjoyed the march from Percelle, though it had taken him a long time, more than an hour, to relax, in his position behind B Company, for he was anxious in case he should overlook anything for which he was responsible, in case, through his fault, something went wrong.
The hard feeling of the road under his feet pleased him and he did not mind that it was hot and dry, with the line of the horizon shimmering and shifting ahead. He had spent so much of his life walking. The year before he left school he had gone with his younger brother to the Camargue, they had taken tents and lived on bread and cheese and walked for miles every day over that flat, pale, sinister countryside.
He enjoyed the sight of the men moving together, enjoyed the sound of their singing.
‘The men are lucky,’ Hilliard had said, ‘in some ways they’re better off than we are. In some ways, I envy them.’
‘What do you envy?’
‘They get along, they have one another the whole time. They’re all friends. Don’t you notice that? It’s easier. They just get along.’
‘Don’t we?’
‘It isn’t the same.’ Hilliard had hesitated, unable to explain, that this friendship of theirs, so immediately, simply achieved, was rare, could not be taken for granted, or seen elsewhere. Among the officers there was not the natural camaraderie to be found among the men. They had so much work to do individually.
The men were singing.
Captain Sparrow
Captain Sparrow
From Harrow
on the Hill,
We’ve got him with us still
Captain Sparrow.
And he …
Captain Sparrow was riding a long way behind.
‘The length of an average march under normal conditions for a large column is fifteen miles a day. INFANTRY USUAL PACE. Yards per minute – 100. Minutes required to traverse one mile – 18. Miles per hour including short halts – 3.’
The sun shone. Later on in the day, when they hit the main road to the front, they found it crowded with horses and motor bicycles and men.
‘What is it, Hughins?’
‘Only the usual, sir. Blisters. They feel like mushrooms.’
‘Oh.’ Barton remembered what you did with blisters, how you took off shoe and sock, and burst them carefully or, better still, got someone else to do it for you, and then covered the place up with clean lint. They had always been getting blisters, as children.
Hughins was loosening his boot gingerly, trying to screw the thick sock around inside. For who could sit here at the roadside halt with bare feet, and have his blisters pricked delicately by someone with a clean needle and a steady hand, who had lint to spare?
‘Nothing a nice hot mustard soak won’t put right when we get to the hotel! And I rub them with rum as well – works wonders, sir.’ Hughins seemed old to Barton, old enough to be his father, though he could not be. He was a handsome man, but he had warts on his chin.
‘Well – let me know if they get any worse.’
‘Oh yes, sir, I’ll shout. I could do with a nice week in hospital. Or even a ride on a horse!’
They lay on their backs and their faces burned darker than ever in the mid-day sun and their cigarette smoke plumed gently upwards, wavering blue.
ADVANCE!
He enjoyed marching. He did not mind how far they had to go, did not have blisters like Hughins. Did not think ahead. They passed through a village in which people were still living and some girls waved to them from windows.
The men sang.
You would like it here. The autumn has really come now. We passed by a canal and along its bank most of the poplars were quite bare, the water was still and clogged with all the yellow leaves. The splendid thing about marching is, you just have to go. You assume someone else knows exactly where. There’s always someone over you who knows more than you do and you’re not in any way responsible, so you point yourself in the direction indicated and off you go.
Perhaps I’m lucky, having done so much walking in the course of my life already. Anyway, I’m glad of the training, now!
John has to ride today. Though I think he enjoys it – in fact I’m sure he does, and certainly better than I would, I always feel very insecure on the back of a horse. But John rides about and he is tall and has a good seat, he relaxes and looks over the tops of all our heads. I must say, today I feel like one of the men and he is one of the officers! Still, I’m perfectly happy. I get on well with our platoon. Now the field kitchen is coming up, I shall have to put this away. There are so many butterflies here, the summer has kept them going. John has just gone by, but without a chance of speaking. They are much concerned with watering the horses, in weather like this. Roly would enjoy seeing it all.
‘I wouldn’t mind having a shilling for every letter you’ve written since I first met you, Barton.’
He had wished, then, for some way of conveying the idea, the knowledge of his family, complete and whole, to John Hilliard, of bestowing it like a nugget, something to be held out in the palm of his hand. There they are, take them! For when he talked about them all, perhaps he got it wrong, perhaps John received no true picture of how it was. Just as he himself could not imagine the coldness in Hilliard’s family, the distance that seemed to exist between all of them.
‘It’s different for you. You find things easier.’
Did he? Yes, he supposed so. Certainly he found this friendship easier, he had accepted it at once, even as he recognized its rarity. It had startled him. He had stood in the apple loft at Percelle and heard the footsteps of the man they had all talked about and who had now come back, Hilliard, whose name had been mentioned in despatches and had been wounded, who was only a year older than he was and about whom the C.O. thought so highly, whose belongings were here in this room he had already come to think of as entirely as his own. He had been curious, apprehensive for some reason. What will he be like?
Then, John Hilliard’s head had appeared in the space at the top of the ladder, the pale hair and the very long neck, he had looked across at Barton, a quick, cautious look. Then at once it had been all right, and more than that. He did not know what. But whatever it was, he took it much more in his stride than John, whose face looked uncertain so often, who glanced at him and then away again quickly, as they were walking. Barton felt the need to reassure him.
‘Goodbye, Dolly, I must leave you …’
It is all just as you would imagine it, today, they sing all the right songs. You would hear them and nod and smile to yourself, and fit us into one of your pigeon holes, we are behaving as soldiers in France are all supposed to behave, marching and singing Dolly Grey. Though nobody at all sings Tipperary, I have not heard it once since I came out – it seems to be an invention from home. You really would like the sight of John riding his horse, that would please you.
‘Do you always tell them everything you think and feel? In your letters?’
‘Yes,’ Barton had said. For why
not? What else should he do? What was there to be kept back?
John had frowned, unable to understand.
I think you would want me to look as good as he does but I never could. I’m simply a sack of potatoes in a saddle. A little while ago a Troop of Lancers trotted down the road in the opposite direction. We stared like small boys. They looked quite amazing, they glittered in the sun like all the soldiers in all the armies of history, and the feet of their horses made so little noise as they hit the ground. Not like ours, pulling carts and so forth. I wish you could all have seen them.
The countryside began to change. There were fewer valleys and fewer trees and many of them were split by shells. It was drier, with a different kind of dryness. There seemed never to have been any water here at all. The fields were full of old shell craters, and the sides of the roads were covered in white-grey dust from all the passing of carts and horses and motors and men.
B Company were singing verses made up by Fyson to a hymn tune, and the verses became more obscene and libellous as they went on, until Barton called out a warning, not because he minded but before anyone who did mind should hear them, and for a time after that they marched in silence, their ranks uneven. They were tired. He called to them to close up. He thought they resented him. Hughins was limping.
Behind, some of A Company had taken up ‘Dolly Grey’.
They heard the whine and crash of a shell, coming out of nowhere, and the whole column ducked, though they did not stop marching, and the shell was not near. One of the horses had shied into a ditch and was being spurred out. Barton felt suddenly anxious.