broken glass and some splintered palings. By the time he got to St.
Omer and stopped for lunch, no one seemed to have heard of it. By
tea-time, he was back at Divisional H.Q. And none too soon. A fresh
attack was to be made the following day. He went straight up to the
canal bank, where Kavanagh was as busy as ever, and dropped into his
work where he had left it. There was just the same thing to do, only
more of it. A desperate race against time was going on. It was evident
enough that this most enormously costly of all offensives must get
through before November finally rendered fighting impossible. There was
still some faint chance of a week or two of fair weather in October.
Fresh Corps were massed and flung into the struggle. Engineers, Labour
Corps, anyone who could throw a bomb or fire a rifle must do so. What
had been roads of stone _pavé_, had been so blown about with shell-fire
that they were a honeycomb of gaping holes, repaired with planks. More
and more searching were the barrages, denser the air fighting. Progress
there undoubtedly was, but progress enough?
Through the sleepless nights and desperate days that followed, Dormer’s
feelings toward Kavanagh were considerably modified. The fellow still
talked, but Dormer was less sorry to hear him. He even recited, and
Dormer got into the way of listening. They were now in an “Elephant”
hut. No dug-out was possible in that sector, where eighteen inches
below the surface you came to water. No tent could be set, even had
they wished for one. Their frail house was covered with sandbags, of
a sufficient thickness to keep off shrapnel, and presumably they were
too insignificant to be the object of a direct hit, but in order to
leave nothing to chance they had had the place covered with camouflage
netting. Outside lay mile after mile of water-logged runnels that
had been trenches, on the smashed and slippery parapets of which one
staggered to some bit of roadway that was kept in repair at gigantic
cost in lives and materials, guided by the lines of wire that either
side had put up with such difficulty, and which were all now entirely
useless, a mere hindrance to free movement. But they were “in” for a
long spell, and could not get away--did not want to, they were less
bombed here than farther back. Rations reached them, that was as much
as they had time to care about. Otherwise, the night was well filled
for the one with counting off the parties that filed past into this or
that attack, for the other in picking up those signal lines that had
been smashed by shell-fire during the day, and replacing them.
As that endless procession went past him once more, Dormer felt that
he now knew of what its component parts were thinking. Australians,
Canadians, Welsh, Scotch, Irish, English, they were thinking of
nothing in particular. Like the mules that went with them, they went
on because they couldn’t stop. Food and sleep each day was the goal.
To stop would mean less food and sleep, mules and men knew that much,
without use of the reasoning faculty. It had become an instinct. All
the brilliant casuistry that had induced men to enlist was forgotten,
useless, superseded. Even English soldiers were conscripts now, the
War had won, had overcome any and every rival consideration, had made
itself paramount, had become the end and the means as well.
A man like Dormer, accustomed to an ordered and reasoned existence, who
could have explained his every act up to August, 1914, by some good
and solid reason, was as helpless as any. Stop the War? You wanted
to go back half a century and alter all the political and business
cliques in which it had been hatching. To alter those you wanted to be
able to alter the whole structure of society in European countries,
which kept those cliques in power, was obliged to have recourse to
them, to get itself governed and financed. To do that you wanted to
change Human Nature. Here Dormer’s imagination stopped dead. He was no
revolutionary. No one was farther than he from being one. He only hated
Waste. He had been brought up and trained to business, in an atmosphere
of methodical neatness, of carefully foreseen and forestalled risks.
Rather than have recourse to revolution he would go on fighting the
Bosche. It was so much more real.
Somewhere about the point at which he reached this conclusion, he
heard, among the noise of the sporadic bombardment, Kavanagh’s voice:
“‘Now that we’ve pledged each eye of blue
And every maiden fair and true,
And our green Island Home, to you
The Ocean’s wave adorning,
Let’s give one hip, hip, hip hurrah!
And drink e’en to the coming day,
When squadron, square,
We’ll all be there,
To meet the French in the morning!’
That’s the stuff to give the troops, Dormer!”
But Dormer, although cheered, was not going to admit it. “You’d better
go and sing it to the Seventy-Worst. They go in at dawn!”
“Good luck to them. Listen to this:
“‘May his bright laurels never fade
Who leads our fighting Fifth Brigade,
These lads so true in heart and blade,
And famed for danger scorning;
So join me in one hip hurrah!
And drink e’en to the coming day,
When squadron, square,
We’ll all be there,
To meet the French in the morning!’
How’s that for local colour. Is there a Fifth Brigade in to-morrow’s
show? They’d like that.”
“I bet they wouldn’t. Anyhow, it’s silly to repeat things against the
French.”
“Man, it’s a hundred years old.”
“Like my uncle’s brandy.”
“You and your uncle!”
“I had an uncle once who had some brandy. It was called ‘Napoleon,’ and
was supposed to date from 1815. When he opened it, it was gone!”
“There you are. That’s your materialism. But you can sing a song a
hundred years old and find it’s not gone!”
“It’s not a bad song. Only silly!”
“Well, try something older:
“‘We be
Soldiers three,
Lately come from the Low-Countree,
_Pardonnez moi, je vous en prie_;
We be
Soldiers three.’
That’s nearer three hundred years old. That’s what fellows used to sing
coming back from Ypres in those days!”
“You talk as if we’d always been in and out of that mangey hole.”
They both leaned on their elbows and gazed out of the tiny aperture,
under the sacking, away over the sea-like ridges of pulverized mud,
into the autumn evening. Between the rain-clouds, torn and shredded
as if by the shell-fire, watery gleams were pouring, as though the
heavens were wounded and bled. They spilled all over the jagged
stonework of that little old medieval walled town, compact within its
ramparts, for the third time in its history garrisoned by an English
army. Kavanagh told him of it, but Dormer remained unimpressed. The
history of the world that mattered began after the battle of Waterloo,
with Commerce and Banking, Railway and Telegraph, the Education and
Ballot Acts. Previous events were all very well, as scenery for
Shakespeare’s plays or Wagner’s Operas. But otherwise, negligible. Yet
the interlude did him good. He felt he had brought Kavanagh up short,
in an argument, and he went to his night’s work with a lighter heart,
and a strengthened confidence in himself.
Of course, a few weeks later, the offensive was over, with the results
he had foreseen, and with another result he was also not alone in
foreseeing. Once back in rest, near Watten, he heard people talking in
this strain, in G. office:
“I suppose, sir, we shall go on fighting next year?”
“Um--I suppose we shall. But perhaps some arrangement may be come to,
first. There’s been a good deal of talk about Peace!”
That was the mood of Divisional Head-quarters. A growing scepticism as
to the continuance of the War. At the moment, Dormer missed the motive
at the back of it. Away from H.Q. while the Division was in action, he
had lost a good deal of ominous news. The talk about the transference
of German Divisions from one front to another was old talk. He had
heard it for years. He did not at the moment grasp that it had now a
new significance. Then something happened that put everything else out
of his head. He was not feeling too well, though he had nothing to
complain of worse than the usual effects of damp and loss of sleep.
Colonel Birchin had got himself transferred to a better appointment,
and his place was taken by a much younger officer, glad to take it as
a “step” up from a dangerous and difficult staff-captaincy. They had
been out at rest less than a week and Dormer had assumed as a matter
of course that he would be put in charge of organized sports for the
winter, as usual. But he was only just becoming sensible of the change
that had come over H.Q. Colonel Birchin used to have a certain pre-War
regular soldier’s stiffness and want of imagination (which Dormer had
privately deplored), but he had kept the Q. office well in hand. This
new man, Vinyolles, very amicable and pleasant, and much nearer to
Dormer’s new army view of the War (he was in fact younger than Dormer,
and than most of the clerical N.C.O.’s in the office), had nothing
like the standoff power of his predecessor. Also, the office, like
everything else, had grown, half a dozen odd-job officers were now
attached, and without wearing red, sat and worked with Dormer. So that
when Dormer went to show his Football Competition Time Table and his
schedule for use of the Boxing Stadium, he found that he had to explain
how these things were usually done. Colonel Vinyolles had no idea.
Dormer ought to have been warned. But his head was not working at its
very best. He had a temperature, he thought, and wanted to go and lie
down at his billet for a bit and take some aconite, a remedy he had
carried with him throughout the War. Colonel Vinyolles was quite nice
about the Sports, and just as Dormer was turning to go, said to him:
“Perhaps you can help me in this matter. I see your name occurs in the
correspondence!”
Of course, he might have known. It was the familiar _dossier_, as the
French called it, the sheaf of papers, clipped together, at the bottom
the original blue Questionnaire form that old Jerome Vanderlynden had
signed. At the top a fresh layer of official correspondence, “Passed
to you please, for necessary action.” “This does not appear to concern
this office.” “Kindly refer to A.Q.M.G.’s minute dated July 1916.”
And so on. Dormer knew quite a lot of it by heart and the remainder
he could have “reconstructed” with no difficulty. The only fresh
thing that had happened was a minute from the new chief of the French
Mission enclosing a cutting from a newspaper--a French newspaper of all
conceivable rags--from which it appeared that some deputy or other had
“interpellated” a minister about the matter, asked a question in the
“House” would be the English of it, Dormer supposed.
“What am I to tell the Mission?” Colonel Vinyolles was asking.
Dormer was not a violent man by habit, but he felt that he was
getting to his limit with this affair. He thought a moment, wanting
to say: “Tell them to go to the Devil!” but held it in reserve, and
substituted: “Tell them the matter has attention!”
“Thanks very much!”
Dormer went and rested.
The following day he felt no better and did not do much. He had the
Sports well in hand, and there was no movement of troops. The day
following that he felt queerer than ever, and jibbed at his breakfast.
He went along to see the D.A.D.M.S., always a friend of his, who put a
thermometer under his tongue, looked at it, shook it, looked at Dormer,
gave him an aspirin, and advised him to go and lie down for a bit. On
his way to his billet Dormer put his head into Q. office to tell the
Sergeant-major where he was to be found if wanted. He was called by
Colonel Vinyolles from the farther room. It was again full of people
he considered (as rank counted for less than experience) to be his
juniors. He could see something was “up.” They were all highly amused
except Vinyolles.
“I say, Dormer, I consider you let me down on this.”
“What’s the trouble?”
“Trouble! I’ve got a nice chit back, in reply to my saying ‘the matter
has attention.’ They say that any further delay is ‘inadmissible’ and
that they will be obliged to carry the matter higher.”
“Let ’em!”
“Oh, that won’t do at all. The General has seen this, and he wants to
know what you mean by it.”
“He ought to know by this time!”
“Captain Dormer!”
Of course he was wrong, but he felt rotten. It wasn’t Vinyolles’ fault.
He pulled himself together.
“Sorry, sir. I mean that the case has been going on for nearly two
years, and has certainly not been neglected. I think every one who
counts is familiar with it.”
He meant it for a snub for some of those chaps who were sitting there
grinning. He saw his mistake in a moment. Vinyolles was as new as any
of them, and naturally replied: “I’m afraid I have no knowledge of it.
Perhaps you will enlighten me?”
“It must have been June, 1916, when we first received the claim. The
late A.P.M., Major Stevenage, took it up as a matter of discipline,
but on investigation considered that it was rather a case for
compensation, as damage in billets. The French Mission insisted that
an arrest must be made, and I have made every possible effort to trace
the soldier responsible. But formations change so quickly, during
offensives especially, that it is impossible.”
“I see. What exactly did he do, to cause such a rumpus?”
At the prospect of having to retell the whole story, Dormer got an
impression that something was after him, exactly like the feeling of
trying to get cover in a barrage, and wondering which moment would be
the last. He put his hand to his head and found some one had pushed
a chair against his knees. He sat down vaguely conscious of the
D.A.D.M.S. standing near by.
“An officer of 469 T.M.B. was wounded and his servant was given two
mules, sick or wounded, to lead. He got to the billet mentioned and
seems to have taken a dislike to the horse-lines. He found one of
those little memorial chapels that you often see, in the corner of the
pasture, and knocked in the front of it to shelter the beasts. The
farmer didn’t like it and sent for the Mayor to make a _procès-verbal_.
By the time the Mayor got there, the Battery was on the move again.
It was about the time of one of those awkward little shows the Bosche
put up to contain us during Verdun. The Battery had been badly knocked
about, and the men were excited and made some sort of a scene! The
Mayor told his Deputy and his Deputy told some one at French G.H.Q.
It all keeps going round in my head. I don’t want to find the chap who
did it. He’s no worse than you or I. He was just making the best of the
War, and I don’t blame him. I blame it. You might as well crime the
whole British Army.”
What had he said? He fancied he had given the facts concisely, but was
not sure of himself, his head felt so funny, and he was aware that
people--he could no longer be sure who they were--Q. office seemed
crowded--were tittering!--Some one else was talking now, but he was not
interested. He rested his head on his hand and heard Vinyolles: “Well,
Dormer, you go along to your billet, and we’ll see what can be done!”
He got up and walked out. The D.A.D.M.S. was at his elbow, saying to
him:
“Get into this ambulance, I’ll run you across!” but he never got to
his billet. He got into a train. He did not take much notice, but
refused the stuff they wanted him to eat. After that he must have gone
to sleep, but woke up, under a starlit sky, with an unmistakable smell
of the sea. They were lifting him under a canvas roof. Now, from the
motion, he perceived he was at sea, but it did not seem greatly to
matter. He was out of it, he had cut the whole disgusting show. He had
done his bit, now let some one else take a turn.
* * * * *
Dormer had not been home on leave since early spring, and the leave
that he got for convalescence gave him not only some idea of the vast
changes going on in England, while he, in France, had been engaged in
the same old War, but a notion of changes that had gone on in that old
War without his having perceived them. He was let loose from Hospital
just before Christmas, at that unfortunate period when the public at
home were still feeling the reaction from the Bell-ringing of Cambrai,
were just learning the lengths to which the collapse of Russia had
gone and were to be confronted with the probable repercussion of that
collapse upon the prospects of the campaign in the West. There was no
escaping these conclusions because his own home circumstances had so
changed as to throw him back completely on himself. His father having
died while he was in France, his mother had taken a post under one of
the semi-official War organizations that abounded. The old home in
which he had grown up had been dispersed, and he found his only near
relative in his native town was his sister, a teacher by profession,
who had moved the remnants of the old furniture and his and her own
small belongings to a new house in one of the high, healthy suburbs
that surrounded the old town. She was, however, busy all day, and he
fell into the habit, so natural to anyone who has lived in a Mess for
years, of dropping in at one of the better-class bars, before lunch,
for an _apéritif_, and a glance at the papers. Here he would also
pickup some one for a round of golf, which would keep him employed
until tea-time, for he could not rid himself of the War-time habit of
looking upon each day as something to be got through somehow, in the
hopes that the morrow might be better.
These ante-prandial excursions were by far the closest contact he
had had with anything like a normal, representative selection of his
fellow-countrymen, since they and he had become so vitally altered
from the easy-going, sport-loving England of pre-War, and he had to
readjust his conception considerably. He soon grasped that there was
a lot of money being made, and a lot of khaki being worn as a cover
for that process. There was plenty of energy, a good deal of fairly
stubborn intention to go on and win, but a clear enough understanding
that the War was not going to be won in the trenches. And when he had
got over some little spite at this, his level habit of mind obliged him
to confess that there was a good deal in it. There were many signs that
those who held that view were right.
Sipping his drink, smoking and keeping his nose carefully in his
newspaper, in those bars lighted by electric light, in the middle of
the dark Christmas days, he listened and reflected. The offensives he
had seen? How had they all ended? How did he say himself they always
must end? Exactly as these chaps had made up their minds! Would he
not see if there did not remain some relative who could get him one
of these jobs at home, connected with supplying some one else with
munitions? No, he would not. He understood and agreed with the point
of view, but some very old loyalty in him would keep him in France,
close up to the guns, that was the place for him. He had no illusions
as to that to which he was returning. He knew that he had never been
appointed to Divisional Staff, had merely been attached. There was no
“establishment” for him, and directly he had been sent down as sick,
his place had been filled, some one else was doing “head housemaid”
as he had been called, to young Vinyolles, and he, Dormer, would go
shortly to the depôt of his regiment, from thence to reinforcement
camp, and thus would be posted to any odd battalion that happened to
want him. The prospect did not worry him so much as might have been
supposed. He felt himself pretty adept at wangling his way along, and
scrounging what he wanted, having had a fine first-hand experience
of how the machinery worked. He did not want to go into the next
offensive, it was true, but neither did he want the sort of job he had
had, and even less did he want to be at Base, or in England. Boredom he
feared almost as much as physical danger. Accustomed to having his day
well filled, if he must go to War he wanted to be doing something, not
nothing, which was apparently a soldier’s usual occupation. But he did
not feel his participation in the next offensive very imminent. He had
heard them all talking about “Not fighting any more,” and now here was
Russia out of it and America not yet in, and Peace might be patched up.
The most striking thing therefore that he learned was this new idea
of the Bosche taking the initiative, and attacking again. A new army
officer, his knowledge of the Western Front dated from Loos, and was
of allied offensives only. He had never seen the earlier battles of
Ypres, the retreat from Mons was just so much history to him. When he
heard heated arguments as to which particular point the Bosche would
select for their offensive, in France, or (so nervous were these people
at home) in England even, he was astonished, and then incredulous. The
level balance of his mind saved him. He had no superfluous imagination.
He had never seen a German offensive, didn’t want to, and therefore
didn’t think he would. As usual, the bar-parlour oracles knew all about
it, gave chapter and verse, could tick off on their fingers how many
German Divisions could be spared from the Eastern Front. He had heard
it all before. He remembered how nearly the cavalry got through after
Vimy, how Moorslede Ridge was to give us command of the country up
to Courtrai, how Palestine or Mespot were to open an offensive right
in the Bosche rear, not to mention all the things these Russians had
always been said to be going to do. This might be another of what the
French so well called “Canards”--Wild Ducks. He would wait and see.
He was impressed in a different way by the accounts that now began
to filter through, of what had been happening in Russia. Officers
shot, and regiments giving their own views on the campaign. That was
what happened when the Headless Man got loose! No doubt the Russians,
from all he had heard, had suffered most, so far as individual
human suffering went. And then, Russians were, to him, one of these
over-brainy people. Had anyone acquainted with his ruminations taxed
him to say if English people were under-brainy, he would have said
no, not necessarily, but brainy in a different way. Left to himself
he felt that all the opinions he had ever formed of the Russians
were justified. Look at their Music. Some of it was pretty good, he
admitted, but it was--awkward--beyond the reach of amateurs, in the
main. This appeared to him, quite sincerely, to be a grave defect. He
was conscious--more, he was proud--of being an amateur soldier, and
knowing himself to be modest, he did not fear any comparison between
the actual results obtained by English amateurs like himself, and the
far more largely professional armies of other countries. And now these
over-brainy ones had gone and done it. He knew as well as anyone the
hardships and dangers of soldiering, had experienced them, shared them
with the ranks, in the trenches. Why even in this beastly Vanderlynden
affair, it would have puzzled him to say if he were more sorry than
glad that the private soldier had never been brought to Justice. But
English--and even Frenchmen--as he had seen with his own eyes, if
they mutinied, got over it, and went on. It was only people like the
Russians that went and pushed things to their logical conclusion.