Two Storm Wood, page 10
‘The CO had it right,’ he muttered, as they were preparing to send out a wiring party. ‘Minor operations are futile in this sector. Defences set too deep. He told Third Army in no uncertain terms, but that lot always have to learn the hard way.’
Haslam had never been party to Rhodes’s thinking. The commander spent hours closeted with a handful of senior officers and NCOs, dispatch riders coming and going at all hours, but Haslam had no idea what it was all about. He spent his days overseeing kit inspections, practice drills and bathing rosters. As if that were not enough, he sensed scepticism in the way the men dealt with him, a touch of impatience, as if the pips on his shoulders had no business being there. He had not been tested in action, he supposed, had not proved his fitness to lead. It probably did not help that he had arrived four months late at the battalion, thanks to breaking a leg during officer training. And now there was the incident with Private Farrer: Haslam had been in charge of the carrying party and he had almost lost a man without the enemy firing a shot.
He climbed onto a fire step and peered at the dark forms of a wiring party as they crawled out of the comms trench and disappeared among the craters. It was a starless night, the flicker and rumble of distant guns barely enough to disturb the stillness. He knew he should rest, eat something, but he was too wound up, the shock and fear of the battle humming inside him, a single thought growing and hardening like a stone in his gut: I can’t do this.
He jumped when Private Ingham appeared at his side. ‘Sir? The CO wants to see you right away.’
Making his way to Battalion Headquarters, Haslam imagined all the things he might have done wrong that day. Had he chosen the wrong route to Beck House? Should Private Farrer’s ammunition box have been carried by two men, rather than one? Had he allowed the carrying party to become too spread out? The fact was, from the moment he climbed out of his trench he had not been thinking about anything except staying alive. It had taken every ounce of his willpower to get that far.
Headquarters had been set up under a sturdy brick building – a factory or a church – which had been cut by shellfire to no more than shoulder height, the east-facing wall shored up by a rampart of sandbags ten feet thick. Two sentries had been posted outside. Steps led down into a vaulted interior, lit by paraffin lamps. Stacked crates, a well-swept floor, notices pinned to the walls – the space had an orderly feel after the muddy ruination above. Haslam pictured Rhodes behind a desk, an icy stare as he passed sentence. The commander was easy on his men, they said, and hard on his officers. What could a negligent subaltern expect? What kind of punishment or humiliation? Whatever it was, Haslam hoped Amy and her family would not get to hear of it.
The centre of operations was in the far corner of the cellars, but Rhodes was not there. The regimental sergeant major looked up from the telephone and nodded towards a passageway on his left. ‘Down there, sir,’ he said, without getting up.
Haslam tried to straighten out his filthy uniform and banged on the frame of an iron gate, over which a canvas had been draped for privacy. The gate swung open. Rhodes’s batman, Private Burgess, stood on the other side, holding a freshly polished boot in one hand. He stepped back to let Haslam pass.
Rhodes was standing in front of a basin, shaving with a cut-throat razor. His tunic and shirt were off, braces hanging loose by his sides. It was the first time Haslam had seen him out of full uniform. Obscured only by his undershirt, his shoulders and arms looked massive, like a circus strongman’s. A few inches behind his left ear, Haslam noticed a curved white scar the size of a penny, where the short-cropped hair did not grow – some old boyhood wound.
‘I understand you speak German,’ Rhodes said, without turning round.
‘German? Not exactly, sir. I’ve—’
‘Can you or can’t you?’
Haslam removed his cap. ‘I’ve some practice at reading it. Prayers, sacred verse, hymns.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Private Burgess shake his head, as if at the sheer hopelessness of his answer.
‘So you could understand it, if you heard it?’
‘Well, if it was sung, sir, yes. I expect I could.’
Rhodes looked at Haslam for the first time, the trace of a smile on his lips. ‘Well, we’ll have to see if we can organise a choir.’ He wiped the razor on a washcloth. ‘You can go now, Burgess, thank you.’
Private Burgess put down the boots and left, leaving Haslam and Rhodes alone. Haslam hoped it was not a bad sign. He could already picture himself at some listening post in no-man’s-land, a few yards from the German wire. Men crawled across on their bellies at dead of night, hoping for some overheard scrap of intelligence. Often they did not come back.
‘The division’s moving in three days. South to the Somme and the Ancre.’ Rhodes began shaving his throat with slow upward strokes. ‘It’ll make a change from this sideshow.’
Haslam was surprised to hear the Ypres Salient called a sideshow. For months it had been the main focus of British operations.
Rhodes did not wait for him to object. ‘The Salient is important for political reasons: the last piece of Belgium we hold. But the Somme’s where the war will be decided. That’s where the Huns will make their play.’ He wetted the razor and tapped it against the side of the basin. ‘If we have to fight, we may as well fight where it counts, don’t you think?’
Haslam had heard discussions of this sort in England, in the staff common room, at dinner tables: military strategy debated by men whose knowledge of war was limited to what they had read in the newspapers. He had found it repulsive and absurd, but with Rhodes it was different. He was not a man who spoke for the sake of speaking.
‘Why the Somme, sir?’
‘Because the Hun’s objective is Paris. Reach Paris and the war is over, in their book. It’s how they won in 1870, and nothing’s changed. From their present positions the shortest distance to Paris is from the Somme. So the final breakthrough must come there.’
‘You seem very sure, sir.’
‘Because I am. When a German talks of victory, he talks about parading down the Champs-Elysées. He can hardly conceive of one without the other. You only have to listen to them talk among themselves.’
‘Prisoners, you mean?’
‘What did you think?’ Rhodes turned his attention to his top lip. Unusually for an officer, he did not have a moustache, though regulations had demanded it for most of the war. Out of uniform, he could have been just another soldier. ‘We used to have a German speaker, Captain Miller. But he was wounded at Femy Wood. You’ll take his place, help with interrogations, et cetera.’
‘I’ll do my best, sir.’
Haslam instinctively ducked as the thud of a distant detonation shook the room, narrow threads of dirt falling onto the floor. The razor froze in Rhodes’s hand, then resumed its work.
‘You look like you could manage a drink. In there.’
Against the wall, incongruous in the setting, stood an armoire, painted eggshell-blue. Crosses of tape had been stuck to each pane of glass for protection. Inside, Haslam found a bottle and some tin mugs. The bottle was clear and had no label.
As he poured, the neck rattled against the lip of the mug.
‘I’ll join you,’ Rhodes said. He was watching in the mirror.
Haslam’s cheeks burned. It was hours since the attack, but he was still shaking. He poured again, this time holding the mug hard against the neck of the flask, although that only made the rattling softer. He could not look Rhodes in the face as he handed him his drink.
Rhodes took a mouthful and went back to shaving. Haslam gulped down the spirit. It had a harsh, resinous taste, but there was some comfort in the heat of it.
‘You know, it’s all right to be frightened,’ Rhodes said.
‘Frightened, sir? I was just—’
‘You’d be mad if you weren’t. Or suicidal. Take a seat, go on. We’re not on parade.’
There was a chair in the corner with an upholstered seat. Haslam sat down. Instead of discipline, Rhodes was showing him kindness. Under the circumstances, it felt as miraculous as his appearance in no-man’s-land.
‘Can you sleep?’
‘Usually, yes, sir.’
‘That’s a good sign.’
‘It’s the rest of the time that’s a struggle. As soon as I open my eyes, I start …’
‘Go on.’
Haslam wished he had kept his mouth shut, but it was too late now. ‘I start thinking I’m going to die. I’m waiting for it to happen: the sniper round, the shell, the order to attack. Every hour it doesn’t happen only brings me closer to when it will.’ Haslam hung his head. ‘I’m scared pretty much all the time. Not much of an example to the men.’
Rhodes reached for a towel and began wiping the soap from his face. ‘And you think it’s different for me, because I’ve a crown on my shoulder?’
‘You, sir?’
‘I wake up every morning, just like you, thinking I may not see another. I’m frightened by that possibility because it’s a real one. I recognise that fear and acknowledge it. Then I put on my uniform and get on with my day.’
Haslam shook his head. ‘But today, on that horse. You must have known you were taking a—’
‘The Huns had stopped firing – small arms, at any rate.’ Rhodes slung the towel over his shoulder and picked up his drink. ‘Learning the sound of enemy weaponry can be useful. I recommend it. Each type is quite distinctive – like a …’ He thought for a moment. ‘Like an organ stop, if not as melodious. On this occasion they’d been silent for several minutes, long enough to tell me their forward positions were taken. Either way, the operation wasn’t as risky as it might have seemed.’ He sat down opposite Haslam. ‘Of course that’s strictly between you and me.’ There was a gleam in his eye. ‘No one else has to know, got it?’
‘Of course, sir.’
Rhodes reached over with the bottle and refilled Haslam’s cup. ‘Eau de vie, local produce. Decent whisky’s too expensive, and army rum’s poison.’
‘Agreed, sir.’
Haslam took another mouthful. The alcohol was already dulling his senses. Still he could not stop thinking about Private Farrer, the look of uncomprehending terror, the sense that he had felt of utter helplessness. He wondered if Rhodes was telling the truth.
‘I think you’d have done the same thing in my place,’ Rhodes said. ‘You’d have done what was needed to save that boy.’
Haslam shook his head. ‘I’m not so sure. I’m not sure I care that much.’
‘You will, though. You’ll understand in time.’
‘Understand, sir?’
For a moment Rhodes was lost in thought, then he got up and pulled his shirt off the back of his chair. ‘An officer must put the welfare of his men above his own, without hesitation. He must ask nothing of them that isn’t necessary, and that he isn’t prepared to do himself. He must never expose them needlessly to danger. And his men must know this, see it and be in no doubt – because for such a leader they’ll do anything.’ He began buttoning his cuff, energy in his every movement, though he could not have slept for the best part of two days. ‘In other words, he must be like a father to his men.’ He looked at Haslam. ‘The way a father should be, at any rate.’
Another distant thud shook the building. This time Haslam did not stir. It was suddenly clear that Rhodes knew all about him: his work, his upbringing, even his character. Haslam had begun to feel that he was invisible, irrelevant, but it seemed he could not have been more wrong.
‘The metaphor isn’t perfect.’ Rhodes looked in the mirror as he knotted his tie. ‘My father put us all in danger, trusting that God or Providence would protect us. It cost him his life, and our mother’s too.’
Haslam had heard things about Rhodes’s family: fragments of rumour that passed among the men, unattributed and unconfirmed. Rhodes had grown up in India. His parents had been Christian missionaries. They had been attacked by bandits and cut to pieces. Rhodes, a boy of seven or ten – Haslam had heard several versions – had witnessed their deaths from a hiding place. It was only one of the stories they told about him, and not the most fantastical. Something about the way Rhodes conducted himself seemed to feed men’s imaginations.
‘Tell me, why the Manchesters?’ he asked as he buttoned up the front of his shirt. ‘Not your neck of the woods, is it?’
‘My father served in the regiment,’ Haslam said. ‘About thirty years ago now. I thought it couldn’t hurt, following in his footsteps.’
Rhodes nodded. ‘In my case it was an uncle, about the same time. I suppose it’s quite possible they knew each other.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is, sir.’
‘He never mentioned it? My uncle’s name was William.’
Haslam shook his head.
‘You could ask him perhaps.’
‘My father?’ Haslam looked into his glass. ‘I can’t. He’s dead now.’
Rhodes hesitated. ‘I’m sorry. Recently, was it?’
Haslam shook his head. ‘A while now. He didn’t raise me anyway. I don’t even remember him that well.’
‘I see. That’s how it was, eh?’ For a moment Rhodes was lost in thought, as if Haslam’s upbringing had been a matter of much speculation until then. ‘So, orphans the pair of us then.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You weren’t actually in an orphanage?’
‘Yes, I was, sir. For a couple of years.’
‘That so? And yet …’ Rhodes picked up the bottle and looked at it. Most of the eau de vie had gone. ‘When you put in for a commission, your application was supported by none other than Sir Evelyn Vanneck.’ He shared out the rest of the bottle. ‘How does an orphan end up with connections like that?’
Rhodes sat down again, his cup in both hands, leaning forward on his elbows. Haslam told him the truth. Told him how he and Sir Evelyn’s niece had become sweethearts, how they had become engaged a few days before he left for France, how he had met Sir Evelyn once on a sunny day in Cambridge.
‘And did her family accept you, just like that?’
‘No.’ Haslam found himself laughing. In the past, the recollection had always made him angry. ‘They weren’t keen – Amy’s mother in particular. Of course they were too polite to say so to my face, and I was too naïve to see it, at first. But I might as well have had the mark of Cain. That’s the kind of people they are.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
‘It was different once I’d got my commission of course. They couldn’t object then, not openly. One is expected to support the troops, no matter what their background.’
‘I see.’ Rhodes sat back. ‘So by joining up you rendered yourself bullet-proof, socially speaking.’
‘You could say that.’
‘And that’s why you did it?’
‘Yes, sir. That and …’
‘You were more afraid of the Vannecks – of what they might think of you – than you were of the Germans?’
Rhodes laughed. Haslam felt his face grow hot. What if his commanding officer could read him as well as he read the enemy? ‘Yes, I suppose I was, sir. In a way.’
‘And you were a schoolmaster, reserved occupation and all that. So you had a choice, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Haslam considered telling Rhodes the truth about the whole affair, a truth he had not shared willingly with anyone, not even Amy. He had the irrational feeling that Rhodes would appreciate the confidence, perhaps even value it.
Haslam had signed up in the autumn, leaving the school a month into the new term. A few days before that, the headmaster had ushered him into his study ‘for a chat’. Safely behind his desk, he had begun by apologising for having placed Haslam in an impossible position: one where he had to choose between the interests of his pupils and a natural desire to serve his country in the war – a dilemma that was to be resolved by terminating his position forthwith. Haslam had been too shocked and bewildered to protest. He had walked out of the school then and there, not stopping to collect his hat or coat, leaving even his music behind. Nothing had prepared him for this catastrophe: the sudden loss of his position, his livelihood, the only place that had ever felt like home. He had kept his views on the war to himself, knowing they would not play well with the other staff, still less the governors. The headmaster was no jingoist in any case. Only recently he had gone out of his way to underline Haslam’s value to the school, as if to forestall any patriotic urge to enlist. Now Haslam was suddenly dispensable. What had he done wrong? What had he said?
He had walked on and on, with no sense of where he was going, his thoughts in a tumult of rage and fear. What would he do now? How would he support himself? He could not apply to another school without references from his old one, and would references be forthcoming? Everyone would assume that he was simply trying to evade military service, that he was a coward – not the type of man to command respect, even from schoolboys. Why should they respect a man who did not respect himself?
Edward had found himself at the end of the terrace where Amy’s aunt had her house. It was the middle of the afternoon; too early for Amy to have returned from her work at the telephone exchange. He decided to wait, intercept her on the street and tell her what had happened.
Standing there on the corner, his panic had slowly ebbed away, to be replaced by a clear vision of the way ahead. He would be called up for the army and would refuse to go. He would declare himself a conscientious objector and face whatever treatment came his way. As an able-bodied man, he would likely be sent to prison for the duration of the war – perhaps longer, depending on the mood of his captors and the nation. He would suffer for what he believed, but a test was overdue. Principles were easy when they cost nothing.
