During the last conversation I had with him he told me he had no fear of death and felt fully equipped for any task he might be called upon to perform.
In every circumstance his consideration for the welfare and comfort of his men came first.
His men loved him, and I am expressing not only my own sympathy but theirs too. In dying for what the Empire now seeks to uphold, he was among many who paid a great price. We commit the souls of our brothers who have fallen to the mercy and safekeeping of God.
When he read the letter back to himself, Stephen underlined the word “every.” “In every circumstance …” It was true. In a few months Ellis had won the respect of his men because he was not afraid, or, if he was, he did not show it. He had become a good soldier, for all that it had helped him.
Stephen was tired of writing such letters. He noticed how dry and passionless his own style had become. He imagined what effect the letter would have on the distraught widow who opened it. Her only son gone.… He did not wish to contemplate it.
For the last week before the attack, Jack’s company was switched to the deep mines below the Ridge, where they laid tons of ammonal in specially prepared chambers.
Two days before the attack itself the work was completed, and Jack emerged exhausted into the sunlight. Evans, Fielding, and Jones came up after him. They stood in the section of the trench at the tunnel head and congratulated one another on their efforts. They were instructed to report to Captain Weir before being officially dismissed, and they made their way along the duckboards toward his dugout.
“There’s a rumour of home leave for you, Jack,” said Fielding.
“I don’t believe it. They’ll make us dig to Australia first.”
“There’s certainly no more digging we can do here,” said Evans. “It’s a warren under there. I’d be happy just to get back down the line into a nice soft bed with a glass or two of that wine inside me.”
“Yes,” said Fielding, “and maybe one of those French girls to follow.”
Jack was beginning to think that the worst of the war might be over for him. He allowed himself to picture the hallway of his house in London with Margaret waiting for him.
Weir came along the boards to meet them. He looked happier than usual. He was wearing boots and a tunic and a soft cap. As he came closer to them, Jack noticed that some of the sandbags on the parapet had not been properly replaced from the day when the infantry had gone over them. He tried to warn Weir that he was not properly covered. Weir climbed on to the firestep to let a ration party go past and a sniper’s bullet entered his head above the eye, causing trails of his brain to loop out on to the sandbags of the parados behind him.
His body seemed for a moment unaware of what had happened, as though it would carry on walking. Then it fell like a puppet, its limbs shooting out, and the face smashing unprotected into mud.
———
Word reached Stephen the next night from an intelligence officer called Mountford. He was in his dugout in the reserve line, where he was acting as liaison between headquarters and the men who would be in the second wave in the morning. Mountford delivered the news briefly. “I believe he was a friend of yours,” he said. He could see from Stephen’s face that there was little to be gained from staying.
Stephen sat still for a minute. The last time he had seen Weir had been to push him head first on to the floor of the trench. That had been his final gesture. For some minutes he could think of nothing but Weir’s hurt, reproachful expression as he picked the mud from his face.
Yet he had loved him. Weir alone had made the war bearable. Weir’s terror under the guns had been a conductor for his own fear, and in his innocent character Stephen had been able to mock the qualities he himself had lost. Weir had been braver by far than he was: he had lived with horror, he had known it every day, and by his strange stubbornness he had defeated it. He had not conceded one day of his service; he had died in the line of battle.
Stephen rested his elbows on the rough wooden table. He felt more lonely than ever in his life before. Only Weir had been with him into the edges of reality where he had lived; only Weir had heard the noise of the sky at Thiepval.
He lay on the bed, dry-eyed. Soon after three in the morning the mines went up and shook the bed where he lay. “The explosion will be felt in London,” Weir had boasted.
The telephone rang, and Stephen went back to the chair at the desk. Throughout the small hours of the morning he relayed messages. By nine o’clock the Second Army was on the ridge. Elation edged the voices he spoke to: something, at last, had gone right. The mines had been colossal and the infantry, using methods copied from the Canadians, had stormed through. Celebration seeped into the wires.
Stephen was relieved at noon. He lay down on the bed and tried to sleep. He could hear the unrelenting bombardment continue on the German lines. He cursed his fortune that he could not go in behind it. Now, to answer Gray’s hypothetical question, now he would have taken life without compunction. He envied the men who could fire down on to the hopeless enemy, men with a chance to sink bayonets into unguarded flesh, men with the opportunity to pour machine-gun bullets into those who had killed his friend. Now he would have gone killing with a light heart.
He tried to think that victory on the Ridge would bring pleasure or vindication to Weir, but he could not imagine it. He was merely an absence now. Stephen thought of his puzzled, open face, its chalky skin patched red with blood vessels broken up by drink; he thought of his balding skull and shocked eyes that could not contain his innocence. He thought of the pity of the flesh gone back underground without knowledge of another human body.
All that night and the next day he lay unmoving on the bed. He did not speak when Mountford came back to try to rouse him. He turned away the food that was brought to him. He cursed himself for his last act of impatience toward Weir. He hated the selfishness of his feeling, because he felt more sorry for himself than for his dead friend. He could not help it. Like all the others, he had learned to dismiss death from his thoughts; but he could not shake off the loneliness. Now that Weir was gone there was no one who could understand. He tried to make himself cry, but no tears would come to express his desolation or his love for poor mad Weir.
———
On the third day Colonel Gray came to see him.
“Success at last,” he said. “Those tunnellers did a wonderful job. Mind if I sit down, Wraysford?”
Stephen was sitting on the edge of the bed. He had made an effort to stand up and salute when Gray came in, but Gray had waved him back. He gestured to the chair at the table.
Gray crossed his legs and lit a pipe. “The Boche didn’t know what hit them. I was never a great believer in the sewer rats, giving the enemy little craters to fortify, but even I would be forced to concede that they did their job this time.”
He carried on talking about the attack for a few minutes, apparently taking no notice of the fact that Stephen did not reply.
“Our chaps were in reserve,” he went on. “Not needed. Some of them were a bit disappointed, I do believe.” He sucked on the pipe. “Not many, though.”
Stephen ran his hand back through his unkempt hair. He wondered whether Gray had been sent or whether he had decided of his own accord to visit him.
“Stanforth,” said Gray. “He looks like a typical English staff officer, doesn’t he? Fat, complacent, ill informed. Forgive me, I have nothing against the English, as you know, Wraysford. The appearance is misleading in his case. He’s a very thorough planner. I believe he has saved many lives in this attack.”
Stephen nodded. A sense of interest was beginning to penetrate the blankness of his grief; it was like the first, painful sensations of blood returning to a numbed limb.
Gray kept on talking and smoking. “There’s a rather delicate matter coming up concerning our noble French allies. They are experiencing difficulties. A certain, how can one put this, reluctance is spreading. The removal of the dashing Gen
eral Nivelle has helped. Pétain appears a little more thrifty with their lives, but it’s alarming. We understand that two-thirds of the army has been concerned in some way, with perhaps one division in five seriously affected.”
Stephen was curious to hear what Gray said. The French army had performed better than the British in comparable circumstances and shown formidable resilience. Mutiny seemed unthinkable.
“Stanforth will ask you and Mountford to go with him. This is a completely informal meeting. The French officers concerned are on leave. It’s just something that’s been arranged by friends.”
“I see,” said Stephen. “I’m surprised this is allowed. We hardly ever meet the French.”
“Quite,” said Gray, with a small smile of triumph. He had made Stephen speak. “It’s not allowed. It’s just lunch with friends. And while I’m here. You look a bloody mess. Get a shave and a bath. I’m sorry about your sapper friend. Now get up.”
Stephen looked at him blankly. His body was without energy. His gaze fastened on to the pale irises of Gray’s eyes. He tried to draw strength from the older man.
Gray’s voice softened when he saw that Stephen was trying to respond. “I know what it means when you’re left alone, as though no one else has shared what you have. But you’re going to have to proceed, Wraysford. I’m going to recommend you for an MC for your part in the action at the canal. Would you like that?”
Stephen stirred again. “No, I certainly would not. You can’t give tin stars to people when there are men who gave their lives. For God’s sake.”
Gray smiled again and Stephen had the feeling as often before that he had been played like an instrument. “Very well. No decoration.”
Stephen said, “Recommend one, but give it to Ellis or one of those men who died. It might help his mother.”
“Yes,” said Gray. “Or it might break her heart.”
Stephen stood up. “I’ll go back to headquarters and change.”
“Good,” said Gray. “If you falter now you’ll rob his life of any purpose. Only by seeing it through can you give him rest.”
“Our lives lost meaning long ago. You know that. At Beaucourt.”
Gray swallowed. “Then do it for our children.”
Stephen pulled his stiff limbs out from the dugout and into the summer air.
———
When he looked about him to the trees and the buildings that were still standing, and to the sky above them, he could still feel something of the binding love he had experienced in England. He was able to compel himself to act, though he feared that the reality he now inhabited was very fragile.
He wrote to Jeanne almost every day for a time, but then found he had nothing to say. She replied with accounts of her life in Amiens and told him what the French newspapers said about the war.
He went in a car with Stanforth and Mountford to Arras, where they met two French officers called Lallement and Hartmann in a hotel. Lallement, the older of the two, was a plump, worldly man. In peacetime he had been a lawyer attached to the civil service. He ordered numerous wines with lunch and ate several partridge, which he tore apart with his hands. The juice ran down his chin and on to a napkin he had tucked into his collar. Stephen watched in disbelief. The younger officer, Hartmann, was a dark, serious-looking man of perhaps twenty years old. His expression was inscrutable, and he seemed unwilling to say anything that might embarrass his senior officer.
Lallement talked mostly about hunting and wildlife. Stephen translated for the benefit of Major Stanforth, who surveyed the Frenchman with some suspicion. Mountford, who could speak French, asked him about morale in the French army. Lallement assured him, as he wiped the gravy from his chin, that it had seldom been better.
After lunch Lallement questioned Stanforth, through Stephen, about his family in England. They had a friend in common, an elderly Frenchwoman who was related to Stanforth’s wife. From there Lallement turned his questioning to the British army and how they viewed the state of the war. Stanforth was surprisingly frank in his replies and Stephen found himself tempted to censor them. He presumed Stanforth knew best, and in any case Mountford might have noticed any alterations.
Stephen, who was not used to intelligence-gathering operations, even such informal ones, wondered when they were going to find out about the collapse of French morale and the extent to which its armies were affected. By teatime he had given a detailed account of the movements of most of the divisions in their part of the BEF and a picture of the low state of the men’s spirits, which successes at Vimy and Messines had lifted only for a time. Depression had begun to sink into the army’s bones, particularly among those who knew of the prospects of the major offensive at Ypres.
Lallement wiped his mouth finally on his napkin and suggested they go to a bar that a friend had told him about near the main square. They stayed till ten o’clock, when Stephen was dispatched to find the driver of Stanforth’s car. He found him asleep on the back seat. By the time they said good-bye to the French it had started to rain. Stephen looked back at Lallement and Hartmann standing together beneath the dripping colonnade.
———
He visited Jeanne again in August and September. They went for walks about the town, though he resisted her suggestion that they should spend an afternoon in the water gardens.
She told him she was worried by his listlessness. It was as though he had given up hope and was allowing himself to drift. He said it was hard not to, when the attitude of the people at home to what they had endured was one of indifference.
“Then be strong for my sake,” she said. “I am not indifferent to what happens to you or to any of your friends. I am not impatient. I will wait for you.”
He was encouraged by her. He told her what he had felt when he was on leave in England, when he had stood by the field.
Jeanne said, “You see! There is a God, there is a purpose to it all. But you must be strong.”
She took his hand and held it tightly. He looked at her pale, imploring face.
“Do it for my sake,” she said. “Go back, go where they ask you. You are lucky. You will survive.”
“I feel guilty that I have survived when all the others are gone.”
He returned to brigade headquarters. He did not want to be on the staff. He wanted to be back with the men in the trenches.
He managed only to exist.
His life became grey and thin, like a light that might at any moment be extinguished; it was filled with quietness.
ENGLAND
1978–79
Part Five
“Any progress?” said Elizabeth to Irene during her weekly visit.
“Not really,” said Irene. “He says it’s proving more difficult than he thought. He’s still working at it, but your grandad seems to have covered his tracks pretty well.”
Two months had passed since Elizabeth had given Bob the diary and she decided she would have to find other ways of making contact with the past. From his officer’s handbook she discovered which regiment her grandfather had been in, and attempted to trace its headquarters.
After a series of telephone calls and unreturned messages she found that the regiment had ceased to exist ten years earlier, when it had been amalgamated with another. The headquarters was in Buckinghamshire, where Elizabeth drove one Saturday afternoon.
She was met with suspicion. Her car was searched thoroughly for bombs and she was made to wait for an hour before a young man eventually came to see her.
He was the first soldier Elizabeth had ever met. She was surprised by how unmilitary he seemed. He had the attitude of most clerks and small officials: regimental documents were held somewhere, hard to reach, confidential; there was not much chance.
“The thing is, you see,” said Elizabeth, “that my grandfather fought in this war and I would like to find out more about it. People don’t always appreciate what sacrifices were made for them—still are made for them—by the armed forces. All I would need is a list of names
of people in his … battalion, company, whatever it was. I’m sure an organization as efficient as the army must keep good records, mustn’t it?”
“I’m sure everything’s in order. It’s a question of access. And confidentiality, as I’ve explained.”
They were sitting in a little wooden guardhouse near the main gate. The corporal folded his arms. He had a pale, unhealthy-looking complexion and short brown hair.
Elizabeth smiled again. “Do you smoke?” She held the packet across the table.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said, leaning across to accept a light. “I can let you have a look at the regimental history. That should give you some names at least. Then you can follow it up from there. Of course, I don’t suppose there’s many of them still alive.”
“We must waste no time then,” said Elizabeth.
“You wait here. I’ll have to go and get you a pass.”
He left the room and a very young man with a rifle came to stand guard, in case, it seemed to Elizabeth, she should attack.
The corporal gave her a piece of card with a safety pin, which she attached to her chest, and took her inside a large brick building. He let her into a room with a plain deal table and two hard chairs. It looked to Elizabeth like the kind of place in which interrogations took place. He handed her a heavy volume bound in red cloth and stood in the corner watching her as she leafed through it.
Prominent among the names revealed by the regimental history was that of a Captain, later Colonel, Gray. Elizabeth wrote down various other names on an envelope that was in her bag. There was apparently no chance of the corporal’s finding, let alone revealing, any addresses. She thanked him effusively and drove back to London.