What was it this time? he wondered.
“C Company, eyes right.”
He swung his head and found himself gazing straight into a single, glittering eye.
It was Ritchie-Hook.
A guide had been posted to lead the battalion to their parade ground. They formed close column of companies, ordered arms, stood easy. Brigadier Ritchie-Hook was standing beside the major.
“Glad to see you all again,” he roared. “I expect you want breakfast. Get cleaned up first. You are all confined to camp. We’re at two hours’ notice to go overseas.”
The major saluted and turned to face the battalion he had so briefly dominated.
“For the time being this is our battalion area.” He said: “I gather it won’t be long. Guides will show you where to clean up. Battalion, shun. Slope arms. Fall out the officers.”
Guy marched forward, ranged himself with the other officers, saluted and marched off the parade ground. The battalion was dismissed. He heard the non-commissioned officers break out into a battle of orders. He was dazed. So was the major with the black mark against him.
“What does it mean, sir?”
“I only know what the brig said as we marched in. Apparently there’s a complete as-you-were. He’s been fighting the War Office for days to keep the brigade in existence. As usual, he’s won. That’s all there is to it.”
“Does that mean things are better in France?”
“No. They’re so bloody well worse that the brig has got us all accepted as fully trained and ready for action.”
“D’you mean we’re off to France too?”
“I shouldn’t get too excited about that if I were you. The Regular Battalion got turned off their ship just as they were sailing. I rather feel in my bones that it may be some time yet before we go to France. There’s been a lot happening over there while we were hunting parachutists in Scotland. It appears, among other things, that the Germans took Boulogne yesterday.”
Four
Apthorpe Immolatus
I
Nine weeks of “flap,” of alternating chaos and order.
The Halberdiers were far from the battle, out of sight and hearing, but delicate nerves stretched to them from the front where the Allied armies were falling apart; each new shock carried its small painful agitation to the extremities. Chaos came from without in sudden, unexplained commands and cancellations; order grew from within as company, battalion and brigade each rearranged itself for the new unexpected task. They were so busy in those weeks with their own home-building, repairing, rearranging, improvising, that the great storm that was shaking the world passed overhead unnoticed until the crash of a bough set all the hidden roots again vibrating.
First, the task was Calais. No secret was made of their destination. Maps of that terra incognita were issued and Guy studied the street names, the approaches, the surrounding topography of the town he had crossed countless times, settling down to an aperitif in the Gare Maritime, glancing idly at the passing roofs from the windows of the restaurant-car; windy town of Mary Tudor and Beau Brummell and Rodin’s Burghers; the most frequented, least known town in all the continent of Europe. There, perhaps, he would leave his bones.
But it was only at night that there was time for study or speculation. The days were spent in ceaseless, ant-like business. In the move from Penkirk much had been lost, objects such as anti-tank rifles and aiming stands which no man could covet or conceal; among them Hayter, who went on his course of Air Liaison and was not seen again among the Halberdiers. Various regular officers, too, had proved medically unfit and left for barracks or the training depot. Guy found himself back in the Second Battalion and still in command of a company.
It was far different from “taking over” in normal conditions. When Ritchie-Hook spoke of his brigade as being at two hours’ readiness to move into action, he was, indeed, “shooting a line.” It was two days before it could take over its routine duties in the Area. These were arduous, for parachutists were hourly expected at Aldershot as at Penkirk. Standing Orders kept almost every man on duty every hour of the day. And first the men had to be collected. None had deserted but most were lost.
“You don’t know what your battalion was?”
“First it was one and then another, sir.”
“Well, which was the first?”
“Can’t say, sir.”
“Do you know who commanded it?”
“Oh yes, sir. C.S.M. Rawkes.”
Few of the conscripts knew the names of their officers.
When they joined, Rawkes had said: “I am Company Sergeant-Major Rawkes. Take a good look so you’ll know me again. I’m here to help you if you behave yourselves right. Or I’m here to make your life hell if you don’t. It’s for you to choose.”
They remembered that. Rawkes drew up the leave roster and detailed the fatigues. Officers, for men who had not yet been in battle, were as indistinguishable as Chinese. Few men, regular or conscript, had associations beyond their company. They knew of the Earl of Essex’s Honorable Company of Free Halberdiers, they were proud to be dubbed “Copper Heels” and “Applejacks,” but the brigade was a complex and remote conception. They did not know where the biffs came from; they were one of the hindmost wagons in a shunting train. A kingdom was lost in Europe and somewhere in the Home Counties a Halberdier found himself with his leave stopped, manhandling stores for another move.
Guy in D Company was short of a second-in-command and a platoon commander, but he had Sergeant-Major Rawkes and Quartermaster-Sergeant Yorke, both elderly, experienced and, above all, calm assistants. Ten men were unaccounted for; one man had broken camp; the company roll had been sent to Records; G. 1098 Stores were arriving.
“Carry on, sergeant-major.” “Carry on, color sergeant.” And they carried on.
Guy felt giddy but protected, as though the victim of an accident, dozing in bed, scarcely aware of how he had got there. Instead of medicine and grapes they brought him at regular intervals sheaves of paper that required his signature. A great forefinger, capped by what looked like a toe-nail, would point out the place for his name. He felt like a constitutional monarch of tender years, living in the shadow of world-respected, inherited councilors-of-state. He felt like a confidence trickster when at last, at noon the second day, he reported D Company as all present and correct.
“Good work, uncle,” said Colonel Tickeridge. “You’re the first to report in.”
“The senior N.C.O.s really did everything, sir.”
“Of course they did. You don’t have to tell me that. But you’ll have to take all the rockets when things go wrong, whether it’s your fault or not. So take the occasional dewdrop in the same spirit.”
Guy was a little shy of giving orders to the two platoon commanders who had so lately been his fellows. They took them with perfect correctitude. Only when he said: “Any questions?” de Souza’s drawl would sometimes break in with: “I don’t quite understand the purpose of the order. What exactly are we looking for, when we stop civilian cars and ask for their identity cards?”
“Fifth columnists, I understand.”
“But surely, they would have identity cards? They were issued compulsorily, you know, last year. I tried to refuse mine but the policeman positively pressed it on me.”
Or: “Could you please explain why we have to have both a lying-in fire-picket and an anti-parachute platoon? I mean to say if I was a parachutist and I saw all the gorse on fire underneath I should take jolly good care to jump somewhere else.”
“Damn it, I didn’t invent these orders. I’m just passing them on.”
“Yes, I know that. I just wondered if they make any sense to you. They don’t to me.”
But whether orders made sense or not de Souza could be trusted to carry them out. Indeed, he seemed to find a curious private pleasure in doing something he knew to be absurd, with minute efficiency. The other officer, Jervis, needed constant supervision.
The sun blazed dow
n, withering the turf until it was slippery as a dance-floor and starting fires in the surrounding scrub. Routine was resumed. On the fourth evening of his command, Guy marched his company at nightfall into the training area where the place names are incongruously taken from Central Africa, the memorial to a long-departed explorer; “the heart of the Apthorpe country” as de Souza called it. They performed an exercise of “company in the attack,” became entirely intermixed, extricated themselves and bivouacked under the stars. A warm night, smelling of dry furze. Guy made a round of the sentries and then lay awake. Dawn came quickly, bringing momentary beauty even to that sorry countryside. They fell in and marched back to camp. Rather light-headed after his sleepless night Guy marched in front beside de Souza. From behind them came the songs: “Roll out the barrel”; “There are rats, rats, rats as big as cats in the quartermaster’s store”; “We’ll hang out the washing on the Siegfried line.”
“That sounds a little out of date at the moment,” said Guy.
“Do you know what it always makes me think of, uncle? A drawing of the last war, in one of the galleries, of barbed wire and a corpse hanging across it like a scarecrow. Not a very good drawing. I forget who did it. A sort of sham Goya.”
“I don’t think the men really like it. They hear it at Ensa concerts and pick it up. I suppose as the war goes on, some good songs will grow out of it, as they did last time.”
“Somehow I rather doubt it,” said de Souza. “There’s probably a department of martial music in the Ministry of Information. Last-war songs were all eminently lacking in what’s called morale-building qualities. ‘We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here, because we’re here,’ and ‘Take me back to dear old Blighty,’ ‘Nobody knows how bored we are and nobody seems to care.’ Not at all the kind of thing that would get official approval today. This war has begun in darkness and it will end in silence.”
“Do you say these things simply to depress me, Frank?”
“No, uncle, simply to cheer myself up.”
When they reached camp, they found all the evidences of another “flap.”
“Report at once to the orderly room, sir.”
Guy found the battalion clerk and Sarum-Smith packing papers; the adjutant, telephoning, waved him into the presence of Colonel Tickeridge.
“What the devil do you mean by taking your company out at night without establishing a signal link with Headquarters? Do you realize that if it wasn’t for Movement Control having made their usual balls-up, the whole brigade would have upsticked and off and you’d have found the whole camp empty and bloody well serve you right? Don’t you know that any training scheme has to be sent in to the adjutant with full map references?”
Guy had done this. Sanders was out at the time and he had given it to Sarum-Smith. He said nothing.
“Nothing to say?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Well, see that D Company is ready to move by twelve hundred hours.”
“Very good, sir. May we know where we’re going?”
“Embarking at Pembroke Dock.”
“For Calais, sir?”
“That’s about the wettest question I’ve ever heard asked. Don’t you even follow the news?”
“Not last night or this morning, sir.”
“Well, they’ve chucked in at Calais. Now go back to your company and get a move on.”
“Very good, sir.”
As he returned to his lines he remembered that, when last he heard, Tony Box-Bender’s regiment was at Calais.
II
For a fortnight the Halberdier Brigade got no mail. When Guy at length heard news of Tony it was in two letters from his father written at an interval of ten days.
Marine Hotel, Matchet
2nd June
My dear Guy,
I do not know where you are and I suppose you are not allowed to tell me, but I hope this letter will reach you wherever you are to tell you that you are always in my thoughts and prayers.
You may have heard that Tony was at Calais and that none of them came back. He is posted as missing. Angela has made up her mind he is a prisoner but I think you and I know him and his regiment too well to think of them giving themselves up.
He was always a good and happy boy and I could not ask a better death for anyone I loved. It is the bona mors for which we pray.
If you get this, write to Angela,
Ever your affec. father,
G. Crouchback
Marine Hotel, Matchet
12th June
My Dear Guy,
I know you would have written to me if you could.
Have you heard the news of Tony? He is a prisoner and Angela, naturally I suppose, is elated simply that he is alive. It is God’s will for the boy but I cannot rejoice. Everything points to a long war—longer perhaps than the last. It is a terrible experience for someone of Tony’s age to spend years in idleness, cut off from his own people—one full of temptation.
It was not the fault of the garrison that they surrendered. They were ordered to do so from higher up.
Well, now our country is quite alone and I feel that that is good for us. An Englishman is at his best with his back to the wall and often in the past we have had quarrels with our allies which I believe were our own fault.
And last Tuesday was Ivo’s anniversary, so that he has been much in my thoughts.
I am not quite useless yet. A boys’ preparatory school (Catholic) has moved here from the East Coast. I can’t remember whether I told you. A charming headmaster and his wife stayed here while they moved in. They were very short of masters and to my great surprise and delight they asked me to take a form for them. The boys are very good and I even get paid! which is a help as they have had to put their prices up in the hotel. It has been interesting brushing up my rusty Greek.
Ever your affec. father,
G. Crouchback
These letters arrived together on the day when the Germans marched into Paris. Guy and his company were then quartered in a seaside hotel in Cornwall.
Much had happened since they left Aldershot eighteen days before. For those who followed events and thought about the future, the world’s foundations seemed to shake. For the Halberdiers it was one damned thing after another. An urgent order came through Area Headquarters on the morning of their departure that the men were to be fortified for bad news. It was bad news enough that they were moving to Wales. They embarked in three ancient heterogeneous merchantmen, and hung hammocks in their dusty holds. They ate hard tack. During the warm night they lay anywhere about the decks. Steam was up; all communication with the shore forbidden.
Colonel Tickeridge said: “I have no idea where we are going. I had a talk with the E.S.O. He seemed surprised we were here at all.”
Next morning they disembarked and saw the three ships sail away empty. The brigade split up and went into billets by battalions in neighboring market towns, in shops and warehouses that had stood empty for nine years since the slump. The units and sub-units began home-building, training, playing cricket.
Then the brigade reassembled at the docks, re-embarked in the same ships, shabbier still now, for in the meantime they had been ferrying a broken army across the Channel from Dunkirk. There was a battery of Dutch gunners, without their guns, ensconced in one of them. Somehow they had got on board at Dunkirk. No one seemed to have a place for them in England. There they remained, sad and stolid and very polite.
The ships resembled blocks of slum tenements. Guy was occupied mainly in the effort of keeping his stores and men together. They disembarked for an hour’s physical training, a company at a time. For the rest of the day they sat on their kitbags. A staff officer arrived from far away and produced a proclamation which was to be read to all troops, contradicting reports spread by the enemy, that the Air Force had been idle at Dunkirk. If British planes had not been noticed there, it was because they were busy on the enemy’s lines of communication. The Halberdiers were more interested
in the rumor that a German army had landed in Limerick and that their own role was to dislodge it.
“Hadn’t we better dispel that rumor, sir?”
“No,” said Colonel Tickeridge. “It’s quite true. Not that the Germans are there yet. But our little operation is to meet them there if they do land.”
“Just us?”
“Just us,” said Colonel Tickeridge. “So far as anyone seems to know—except, of course, for our Dutch chums.”
They were at two hours’ notice to sail. After two days orders were relaxed to allow troops in formed bodies ashore for training and recreation. They had to remain within sight of the mast of their ship, which would hoist a flag to summon them in case of immediate sailing orders.
Colonel Tickeridge had an officers’ conference in the saloon where he explained the details of the Limerick campaign. The Germans were expected with a fully equipped mechanized corps and ample air support and probably some help from the natives. The Halberdier Brigade would hold them off as long as possible.
“As to how long that will be,” said Colonel Tickeridge, “your guess is as good as mine.”
Provided with a map of Limerick and this depressing intelligence, Guy returned to his huddled company.
“Halberdier Shanks, sir, has put in a request for leave,” said Rawkes.
“But he must know it’s no use.”
“Urgent compassionate grounds, sir.”
“What are they, sergeant-major?”
“Won’t say, sir. Insists, as his right, on seeing the Company Commander in private, sir.”
“Very well. He’s a good man, isn’t he?”
“One of the best, sir. That is to say of the militiamen.”
Halberdier Shanks was marched up. Guy knew him well, a handsome, capable, willing man.
“Well, Shanks, what is the trouble?”
“Please, sir, it’s the competition. I must be at Blackpool tomorrow night. I’ve promised. My girl will never forgive me if I’m not.”