*
At twenty years of age, Caspar Railton looked thirty. Tall, like his father, he had already grasped the nettle of confidence. Everyone could detect natural leadership within five minutes of being with him. The striking blue eyes were now filmed with fatigue; his hair, usually blond and lank, was dirty, and sticking to his scalp; while the characteristic nose twitched, much in the way his late uncle’s, The General’s, nose had moved at the scent of trouble, a fox, the enemy, or a pretty woman.
Caspar had seen to the platoon first, making sure his sergeant found them a good billet for a few hours, then issued the ammunition, followed by rations. He gave special orders concerning any replacements, and said he would be round to see the men himself, shortly. Asking Sergeant Martin to get him a new batman was almost an afterthought, just as he was leaving to join the other platoon commanders in the old stone house once the home of some peasant smallholder.
Evans, the man who had been with him ever since he joined the regiment, had caught a piece of shrapnel in the spine late in the afternoon.
Now, Caspar shaved out of a mess tin, peering at his face in a tiny cracked piece of glass that hung against the stone wall next to a highly-coloured painting of Christ. The Saviour’s finger pointed to a radiant bleeding heart projecting from his chest.
A heart just did not look like that, Caspar thought. He should know, having seen one about a week ago. Some poor fellow, with a great rent in his chest from a hunk of shell, and his heart, literally, in his hands, still pumping the life from him. The heart did not look like Jesus’ heart at all.
A sharp rap at the half-open door announced Sergeant Martin. One of the other subalterns, also carrying out his ablutions, called for the NCO to enter, and Martin barked out, ‘Private Crook, sir. Volunteer for batman, sir.’
Caspar hardly looked up. ‘Know your duties, Crook?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Right. You look after my kit, and always have your own near at hand – especially your rifle. In the field, you stay close to me. You’ll have to be sharp and keep your eyes open. You’ll be my runner when there’s action. Oh yes, and you’ll help the other officers’ servants with meals. Up to it you think, Crook?’
‘I reckon, sir.’
At last Caspar lifted his head and looked at the young soldier. ‘Don’t I know you, Private Crook?’
‘Billy Crook, sir. Martha Crook’s son: Redhill Manor. Known you, on visits, all me life, sir. Rode with you an’ all…’
‘Good Lord!’ Caspar’s face split into a wide smile. ‘Billy Crook!’ The sight of the lad brought back a flood of happy memories – Redhill in high summer, and in the winter. Heavens, young Billy had scrumped apples with them, and – as he said – they had ridden together. ‘Good to have someone from Redhill here, Crook. Now, clear up that stuff, would you,’ waving towards his shaving gear, ‘then go and join the other servants in the kitchen. Help get some food ready.’ He turned to Martin, ‘Platoon settled in, Sarn’t?’
‘Sir! All settled down nicely.’
‘Right. Use the time to rest, but make sure all weapons are cleaned. Carry on, Sarn’t.’
‘Sir!’ There was another great clap of thunder, almost overhead, as Sergeant Martin left the cottage.
Billy got on with the work, washing and drying his officer’s badger brush and the cut-throat razor – stowing them away in their velvet-lined box.
Then, taking his own pack and rifle with him, Billy went through into the little kitchen.
The other two officers’ servants greeted him like an old friend, accepting him at once. They appeared to get on well, though they were as different as chalk and cheese. ‘Dasher’ Dance, a regular soldier, around thirty years of age, knew the ropes; the other, Donald – Billy was never to discover his surname – was short with pudgy hands, thick lips and a slight lisp. Donald seemed fond of touching both ‘Dasher’ and Billy – on the arm, or shoulder, most of the time. ‘Dasher’ did not seem to worry; mainly, it seemed, because Donald was such a good cook. ‘Makes hard tack and bully beef taste like it come out of the Ritz Hotel,’ ‘Dasher’ said.
Donald was certainly a dab hand with the rations. ‘Foraging’s the first thing you have to learn, Billy. Even when Jerry’s around and all hell’s breaking loose, you keep your eyes open. Anything that’ll come in useful, you grab. Like these spuds. “Dasher” pulled them out of a little garden last night, when the shells were falling all around. Keep the peepers open, you’ll soon catch on.’
As well as the potatoes, they managed to find onions, and Billy also discovered that both men carried in their packs, numerous small tins containing all kinds of things used to make the rations more palatable – saffron, cloves, and an inexhaustible supply of curry powder.
On that night, Donald concocted a kind of hash out of the potatoes, onions and bully beef, while ‘Dasher’s’ contribution took the form of liberal sprinklings of curry powder.
Billy thought the result to be most tasty, and the officers approved heartily of the hash.
‘Congratulations,’ Caspar Railton called out. ‘Excellent meal though I detect Dance has been at it with the curry powder again.’
The thunder rumbled over the plain during the evening, and later the rain came – a deluge, sweeping in from great towering black clouds, driving down on the old dry roofs, creating small streams in the cobbled streets.
Just before midnight, Second Lieutenant Railton called Billy in and told him to prepare the kit for a quick departure. It was while Billy wrestled with the buckles, webbing and leather that one of the other officers returned from inspecting his own platoon, soaked from the sudden summer storm.
‘Company Commanders’ meeting with the CO in ten minutes. Be our turn next.’ He shook the rain from his trench coat. ‘Don’t like the way things’re shaping up, Caspar. The General’s been here, in Le Cateau, and up on the ridge, by the Roman road. Don’t like the sound of it.’
‘They don’t like the sound of it,’ Billy repeated to the other two when he was back in the kitchen.
‘Nor do I,’ ‘Dasher’ spoke from the pinnacle of his long military experience. ‘Don’t like generals clambering about the countryside in Jerry’s direction. Don’t like it at all.’
‘What you think, then?’ Billy shivered.
‘Dasher’ shook his head with the gravity of a man who expected to hear only bad news. ‘I think there’s a chance we’ll be told to stand fast. That I do not like. We’re out-numbered and out-bloody-gunned.’
A couple of minutes later, the three young officers were shrugging into trench coats. Caspar Railton told Billy to get back to the platoon and tell Sergeant Martin that he wanted them standing by in half an hour. ‘Take my kit up to the barn with you.’ He looked serious. ‘And your own, of course.’ Billy asked what was happening, and Caspar gave him a friendly grin. ‘That’s what we’ll find out, Crook. Either we’re moving back, or we’re staying here to meet Jerry head on.’
Back in the barn there was a lot of activity, which appeared to become more frantic after Billy Crook delivered his message to Sergeant Martin. Half an hour later, with the platoon in battle order and rifles loaded – ‘Safety catch on,’ the Sergeant went to each man, just to be certain – Mr Railton appeared, his map case slung at his side, face set, with a slight crease in his brow, accentuated by the strange shadows flung around the barn from the oil lamps which had been lit as soon as darkness fell. They had hung what looked to be old blankets over the doors and the one small window, to prevent the light from spilling out into the pitch black. The rain had stopped, and the air seemed fresher than before; yet still, in the distance, thunder fought its own battle among the clouds.
Caspar told them to carry on smoking, then began to speak.
In a couple of minutes they knew the worst. ‘Two Corps is to make a stand around the old Roman road, running between Le Cateau and Cambrai – south-west of where we are now,’ Caspar began. ‘For those of you who tend to get mixed up with compass
bearings, that’s roughly off to the left of here.’ There was some nervous laughter.
‘We’re leaving very soon,’ Caspar told them, ‘and together with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, we’ll be guarding the right flank. We’ll have artillery support from at least three batteries, while the Thirteenth, Nineteenth, and remainder of Fourteenth Brigades will be to our rear. The job is to kill the enemy, and hold up his advance for as long as we can. Then, we shall also withdraw – leaving him with a bloody nose, we hope. Jerry’s had it his own way for long enough, according to General Smith-Dorrien. Now we have to give him a little surprise.’ Billy had a feeling that Caspar Railton did not wholly believe what he was saying.
‘Now…’ Caspar scraped some lines on the wall with a piece of stone, improvising a map. ‘You’ve all had a look at the kind of country we’ll be fighting in. Bloody flat and without much cover. There’s higher ground to the east, and we might be ordered to move up there. But the plan is for us to get out of Le Cateau itself as quickly as we can. It’s in a hollow, as you know, and therefore damned dangerous. We’ll be moving off around dawn. Any questions?’
The men looked at one another and muttered, but nobody spoke up.
‘I have just had a thought,’ Railton went on. ‘It’s the 26 August today, and that’s the anniversary of the Battle of Crécy, when our forefathers won a victory in France, against great odds. Those of you who believe in omens should take heart, because I can’t pretend the morning’s going to bring easy soldiering. Jerry’ll be tired, but he’s out there in strength, with a lot of artillery.’
*
They moved off just after five o’clock, before dawn, climbing the slight rise to the left above the town, boots and puttees soon becoming soaked in the wet grass.
At about half-past five, in the gloom of the early morning, the various platoons began to form up on the near side of the straight grey road running between Le Cateau and Cambrai. It was already getting light, but the heavy rain of the previous night had brought down a thin almost eerie mist, which hung low across the fields and the cross-roads to their left, chilling the bones. Billy Crook, keeping close behind Caspar Railton, sniffed the air with a countryman’s instinct. The mist would thicken a little when the sun came out, then it should lift into a brilliant day.
Jerry could come over the fields, and they would probably not see him until he was less than a couple of hundred yards away.
Sound carried, even in the damp early air, and Billy heard the rattle of harness, and the metallic sound of the artillery pieces being set up behind them. The occasional whinny of a horse brought back memories of mornings like this at Redhill, and he wondered if young Mr Caspar was having similar thoughts.
At last, Caspar Railton stopped, ordering Sergeant Martin to see that the three sections of his platoon fanned out to take up positions close to the cross-roads themselves. To his surprise, Billy saw that Sergeant Graves was with them. Graves caught his eye, giving him a friendly nod.
The ground on their side of the road sloped down into a small ditch, and from where Billy stood – as Caspar gave his orders – you could make out a fork to the right, and, behind that, the town of Le Cateau, just visible in the thin hanging mist.
As the men of Caspar’s platoon began to line the ditch, Billy saw the same thing happening at intervals along the road to his left, on the other side of the cross-roads, as far as the visibility allowed. That would be the right hand section of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, he reasoned. Their own platoons, towards Le Cateau, were lost in the mist.
‘Right.’ Young Mr Caspar turned to him. ‘We’ll have to place ourselves somewhere towards the centre of the platoon. Over here, I think,’ he pointed, starting to walk towards the ditch as he did so. ‘Not much cover. Bit of a natural parapet. You’ll have to dig yourself some kind of hollow, but keep near me, Billy. The Company Commander has his headquarters about a hundred yards down the road on our left. I might have to send you back there if things get difficult. Oh, and remember, if I catch it badly, or get killed, Sergeant Martin’ll take over. If that happens, you whizz off straight down to the Company Commander. Understand?’
Billy murmured a quick, ‘Sir!’ wondering at his officer calling him by his Christian name; then he went forward, dropping on his knees against the shoulder of the ditch, carefully placing his rifle so that he could easily grab it. Billy at least knew about guns, and was able to shoot as well as the next man, for there had been plenty of practice at Redhill.
He began to dig a small hollow into which he could get his shoulders, and so make a natural firing position, scrabbling at the earth with his hands after loosening it with his bayonet. Soon he became aware of Mr Caspar using a small knife. Without a word, Billy stopped his own digging to assist his officer, working so hard that he was sweating by the time it was done. The rain had made little difference to the earth, baked solid by the previous weeks of sun.
Caspar thanked him, and started to walk down the line, as Billy continued to dig for himself. It was just then that the German artillery barrage began.
For a few seconds, Billy had no idea of what was going on. First, a terrible rushing sound hit his ears – like a train, he thought at the time – looking up confused – with the idea of a train turning into an aeroplane. The rushing sound doubled, then trebled, and he was aware of Mr Caspar flinging himself onto the ground, face downwards into the grass. The great sound above was split by a distant series of noises, like far-off Roman candles.
Then came the solid, sharp, and all too dangerous explosions: great crumps which made the earth shake and his eardrums go numb. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a series of brilliant red and orange flashes but, when he turned, they had changed to big flowers of smoke and dust.
‘Look to your front,’ Sergeant Martin’s voice, quiet and calm, echoed, with the same words instantly repeated down the line.
Caspar Railton had rolled over and was already running towards his parapet next to Billy. Then came more explosions. There was a reek of smoke in the air, and now the mist seemed to thicken with clouding from the detonating shells.
‘Blast!’ Caspar was beside Billy again, his revolver in one hand, the lanyard drooping from the butt. ‘Look to your front!’ his voice almost angry. ‘Bloody Jerry knows we’re here. They’ll come straight out of the mist when this is over.’
‘Wha…?’ Billy started, his voice drowned by an earthquake of explosions as the German guns poured shells around the position.
Behind, there were cries, and the horrible sound of horses terrified or in pain. Then, in the midst of the madness, came the solid Whu-whump… Whu-whump of their own batteries returning fire.
‘Buggers’re ranging in on our guns,’ Caspar muttered. ‘Watch your front, lad, they’ll come at us any minute.’
But that was for later.
Time ceased to mean anything from the moment the first shells landed behind them. Life was, in a way, suspended, or dropped into an unfamiliar country, where death and mutilation were the only currency.
Billy Crook had no idea of how long they waited, out there on the road, as the constant roar and crump went on and on, and the British guns cracked back. Then, suddenly a new noise burst through the din of the barrage: a sharper, less formidable sound; a crackling, and the unfamiliar ta-ta-ta-ta-ta of machine-guns. In some ways, Billy dreaded this new noise more than the earth-trembling explosions, for the rifles and machine-guns were more accurately directed.
At first, the small arms’ fire came from their left. Then, suddenly, it started on the right, and he heard Caspar breathe, ‘They’re here. Somewhere. Keep your eyes skinned.’
The mist was just starting to lift: a pearl background, with golden reflected light, as the sun tried to break through. Then he saw his first Germans – three of them: dark fuzzy shapes, coming through the haze about one hundred and fifty yards to their front, on the far side of the road. He checked the scale on his backsight, slipped off the safety-catch
, and tucked the Lee Enfield into his shoulder. In the few seconds this took him, the whole front had become filled with growing shapes – a long, ragged line of infantry moving forward, straight towards the road.
‘Can I fire, sir?’ he whispered.
Caspar opened his mouth, but a volley of rifle shots broke out around them, and there was no need to ask or reply. Billy had one figure in his sights. He squeezed the trigger, felt the harsh kick of the rifle against his shoulder and the smell of cordite in his nostrils, as the figure leaped into the air – a St Andrew’s Cross for a second – silhouetted against the sky, then falling, and nothing.
By the time his first target had dropped, Billy Crook had jerked at the bolt action and reloaded. He fired again four times in quick succession, knowing that at least three of the shots found their mark. Then he became oblivious to the sounds around him: the crack after crack of other rifles, the constant pounding of the guns to the rear, the continued roar and crash of German shells.
After the first advance, and the hail of bullets put down by the men on the ridge, the shadowy grey figures did not come walking; but crouched or slid, creeping on their bellies like snakes.
Billy stopped counting after his sixth kill, there were so many of them, rising from the ground only a few yards away, or crawling almost to within spitting distance. They came again and again during the morning, and you only knew time was passing because the sun grew hotter and higher in the heavens. The noise and obvious dangers – the thud of bullets hitting the ditch, or sharding the road – became the natural pattern of the day. For Billy Crook, the world was reduced to what he could see over the foresight of his rifle; while the sounds of nature became the chirp of the machine-gun, the screech of the wounded, the bark of rifles, and the quaking thunder of the guns.
In one short lull, Billy eased himself back, and saw that Caspar Railton, who kept talking for most of the time, had acquired a rifle and ammunition from somewhere and was busy reloading. Billy wondered where the weapon came from; then, looking around, saw the decimation of his comrades.