Jonathan moved his holster slightly and made certain that the respirator haversack was unclipped.
He heard Lieutenant Maxted giving orders to his N.C.O.’s, his voice very curt and severe. Nerves, perhaps, or even fear. Maxted had already seen enough in his young life to know what to expect. To dread.
Jonathan started as something tapped on his helmet and again on his shoulders. The next instant a heavy
downpour had begun, lashing at the crouching men, beating against the front of the trench, the noise loud and angry in the darkness.
He licked his lips. The rain was not merely uncomfortable, it was dangerous. Voices were cursing and blaspheming along the trench and he heard one of the light machine-guns being covered to protect it.
But the weather, the strain of waiting, and all the other discomforts were forgotten as with a great, unending roar the British artillery opened fire. Men pressed themselves against the streaming trench and covered their ears as the noise continued like one endless explosion. High explosive and shrapnel of every kind and calibre. In the searing red and orange flashes Jonathan consulted his watch again. It was just after ten minutes to four. Right on time, as Ross had said it would be. He forced himself to look at it, to try and estimate the fall of shot and the extent of the barrage. But it was impossible. The clouds which had opened their bellies as if to delay the attack were so low that he could see them glowing brightly in the bombardment. It was like being covered and surrounded by fire.
He became weary with the incredible din, his mind too dulled to grapple with anything. And all the while the rain hissed and rattled down like bullets. The trench was already filling with water, and most of its occupants were soaked to the skin.
When the bombardment stopped, the land over which the troops would have to advance would be so churned up by the heavy shell-fire that they would be slowed down even more by the craters and the mud. He knew
this gunfire would be audible even across the Channel in England. Somehow that made it seem even more unreal.
He tried to recall the quiet house and the night she had come to him. She would be at home now, remembering also. How had she explained her visit to London? She had said she had some days off due to her, but it would hardly excuse her absence, and he had no doubt that her father would take a dim view of the truth.
In the letter she had left at the house she had written,
I love you so much, my darling Jonathan
.
I’ll never leave you as long as you need me
. It was like hearing her speak, as they had so often in the nights which had gone so quickly.
The barrage continued without respite, and as the time passed and dawn came the sky remained as dark and threatening as night. Then men clapped their wet hands to their ears as, with one final roar, it all stopped.
Jonathan found himself listening as if he expected to hear the attack. The infantry climbing from the firestep and onto the parapet, the shrill of whistles, the advance into the heavy rain. He could hear the machine-guns now, rattling steadily: their gunners were probably unable to miss.
Independent artillery opened up to the rear and he saw the glowing explosions spurting beyond the German lines.
Wyke called to him, ‘Brigadier, sir!’
Jonathan took the handset and pressed it to his ear. He had not even heard it buzzing in its case.
‘Sir?’
Ross was as crisp as ever. ‘Attack’s begun. First
objectives taken. This bloody rain! If we get the chance to exploit this . . .’ He broke off as one huge explosion made the air shiver. Then he continued, ‘There are two cavalry divisions in reserve. Be ready to move, Jono!’
Jonathan handed over the handset, suddenly sickened at the minds that could still order horses into barbed wire and machine-guns.
If this rain got any heavier the tanks would be helpless to move, but cavalry were certainly not the answer. He thought of the young officer who had saluted him with his sword. Perhaps he was here too. No breastplate and shining helmet, only a hell of mud and wire unlike anything he had ever known.
While Harry Payne held a shaded torch for him he opened his map, even though it was etched onto his brain. Somewhere ahead was Pilckem Ridge and slightly to the right the beginning of the Gheluvelt Plateau. According to the map the front itself was crossed in many places by brooks: they would be rivers of mud if this continued. It would be hard going. Once across the main Menin Road they would divide the attack: Polygon Wood and then Passchendaele. After that, a smart left-wheel and on to the coast.
He thought of the Australian from Perth.
It can’t be done
. Now he was out there somewhere in the mud with all the thousands of others. For three miles’ gain at the very most.
The field telephone buzzed again. This time it was one of the brigadier’s staff officers.
‘Whenever you like, Colonel. Bring up your men. The second wave has just gone over. The support trenches are vacant. Good luck.’ The line went dead.
Jonathan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. On a wall at the Naval and Military Club in London there was a large framed reproduction of a scene at Waterloo: a young, red-coated officer waving his men to the attack. The painting was entitled
The Whole Line Will Advance!
and it had always stirred his imagination as a boy when his father had taken him to the club.
He said sharply, ‘Pass the word. We’re moving up. A Company will lead.’
He stared up at the hard, sharp line of the trench they had dug and would now have to abandon. How many more horizons?
Sections, platoons and companies began to trudge forward to find their way into the first line of communication trenches. Men bowed down by their weapons and kit. Men soaked through and caked with mud. Men who splashed through the narrow, uneven earthworks, looking neither right nor left or even at the clouds above them. Sometimes they had almost to crawl to keep below the defences where the sides had fallen away, and in other places the trenches were so deep that any heavy shell could bury them alive.
They had gone only about three miles when they reached the rear support lines, but at every slippery step they were aware of the mounting wrath of battle, rising in massive, separate explosions that deadened even the sharper clatter of rifles and machine-guns.
Another communication trench was reserved for walking wounded being sent back to a dressing station: a different army, bandaged, splinted, and bloody. They were clinging to one another like punch-drunk
fighters, but still managed to smoke their cigarettes as they went.
One had got into the wrong trench and was trying to force his way past the oncoming marines.
Someone called, ‘What’s it like, mate?’ The hatless soldier did not hear him but struggled on, his eyes staring from deeply-shadowed sockets. Beyond reach and reason.
Sergeant-Major McCann said angrily, ‘Well, it ain’t no bloody picnic, that’s pretty obvious!’
Surprisingly, there were those who could still laugh at his sour frustration.
Jonathan walked with some of the H.Q. platoon, and guessed that they were watching him. Reading their own fate in his reactions, perhaps. He thought of the small boy with his father at the club, and wanted to laugh. Or weep.
The whole line will advance!
The support lines of the sector allotted to the Royal Marines were well constructed but had been heavily damaged in an earlier artillery bombardment, and the H.Q. command dugout was like a slum.
An infantry major handed over the position to the marines with almost guilty haste.
‘We couldn’t dislodge them from the Gheluvelt Plateau.’ He jabbed the map with his scratched and muddy fingers. ‘The Jerries will counter-attack, so you’ll probably be needed in the front line a bit sooner than expected. My lads are being pulled back to rest and eat. I suggest you get your men fed whenever you can.’
Everyone ducked as a shell exploded in the air beyond the trench, and they heard splinters and shrapnel smacking into the mud and piled sandbags. The major indicated the remains of a copse or small wood. ‘German machine-guns there. Lost a lot of men trying to get through the wire. If you take over the front we’ll need more wire there too.’ He sounded doubtful, as if he thought marines unsuitable here.
Jonathan beckoned to Wyke. ‘Senior officers,
now
!’ Then he said, ‘We’ll manage.’
He turned to watch as his own men hurried past the dugout, weighed down as before but moving swiftly, aware of the nearness of danger. The air cringed to the shriek of artillery, the sharpest being some French seventy-fives far over to the right.
To Major Vaughan he said, ‘Light machines here, Ralph. I want the heavier one on our flank. Sentries on the firestep too.’
Another shell tore overhead and must have exploded near one of the communication trenches: great clods of earth and tree roots burst into the air and there were muffled cries, probably from some of the troops they had just relieved.
‘Hot soup, if you can. More use than rain-soaked food.’ He looked at McCann’s frown of concentration as he wrote in his little book, the way he grinned as he added, ‘Double ration of grog, too.’
When Vaughan returned with two breathless runners Jonathan said abruptly, ‘Take over, Ralph. I’m going to look over our position.’ He shook his head as Wyke began to follow. ‘No. Keep the team together.’
Payne pursued him, watching for deep holes or broken lengths of the duckboard that served to keep the trench dry and prevent noise in the night. The light was still more like dusk than day, and the air was filled with drifting smoke and the awful stench of rotting corpses exhumed in the last artillery barrage. Once, Jonathan stood on the firestep and peered at the next line, and the one beyond that. The front line was completely hidden in smoke and torrential rain, and beyond there was only the enemy. He could just make out the Plateau, and the telltale blink of machine-guns. Mud everywhere, corpses and human remains scattered like garbage, or discarded pieces of statuary broken in battle. In one bright flash he thought he saw someone moving, then he looked away, his stomach contracting. Rats, countless numbers of them moving busily amongst this carnage, oblivious as stray bullets sang through the air or ripped into the ground nearby. In a second flash he saw a face staring at him, but it was another corpse, a Tommy trying to get to the rear. Below his belt there was nothing left, and yet he was still able to stare as if he did not believe it.
Sentries leaning against the trench did not turn as he passed. Other men sat in the few remaining dugouts or beneath crude canvas sheets. A dead soldier lay on his back, uncovered, his eyes screwed up at the moment of impact. The rain had almost covered his boots and one arm, which had been trodden into the mud by hurrying infantrymen. A man abandoned by his comrades. Friends were vital in the trenches, but dead men were soon forgotten. They were things, not people.
He reached the sector where Vaughan had placed the new company from the missing Grenville Division. Young, worried faces beneath the steel helmets, eyes blinking with each savage explosion. Their commanding officer, Captain Alton, lifted a hand in salute and then dropped it. ‘Sorry, sir. My sergeant over there told me not to do that. A giveaway for snipers!’
Jonathan glanced at the sergeant in question and nodded in acknowledgement. The stripes on his muddy sleeves and the assured way he was standing amidst the chaos and the litter of death marked him down as an old sweat. One who would not break, no matter what. But there were precious few like him here.
He asked, ‘Where’s your other machine-gun?’
‘I was waiting to be told what . . .’
Jonathan interrupted curtly, ‘You command this company. Think it out, and
do
it
!’
He turned back along the line. God, he thought, I’m beginning to sound just like Beaky Waring.
Harry Payne splashed along behind him, lost in thought and yet aware of the nearness of danger.
He felt the rain running down his spine between his webbing and extra ammunition pouches. It was like ice, which made no sense. A few days ago they had been working in shirt-sleeves, sweating even. Payne thought of the house in Southsea, close to the barracks. So warm in his arms, so eager; and with her shyness gone she had wanted only to please him.
He had once thought of setting his cap at her, but he’d never been much of a one for anything serious. She had changed all that. He squinted at the colonel’s shoulders
as he strode along ahead of him. What about him, he wondered. How serious had it been for him?
Later they sat in the dugout consuming mess tins of soup which was surprisingly hot, although none of them could identify the taste.
More shells were bursting in and over the sector. The ground shook and writhed under the onslaught, but whistles were heard above the barrage. More men were going over the top, out into the torn battlefield and oblivion.
The rain, like the German counter-attacks, was unremitting. For two days the enemy tried to regain their lost positions and were fought off. At the front the infantry waited their turn, while in the support trenches the Fifty-First made ready to take over the line.
Jonathan had done what he could to prepare his officers and senior N.C.O.’s. That they would be in action was now beyond doubt. The only doubt was the final outcome.
He had reported to Brigadier Ross and had been told that the delay was over. Losses had been greater than expected, gains fewer than hoped.
Jonathan had asked without cynicism, ‘How many this time, sir – after two and a half days, I mean?’
Ross had given him that piercing look. He had not tried to lessen the blow, nor had he called him Jono.
‘Around thirty thousand, as far as they can tell. More reserves are coming up, but I don’t like this weather.’ A telephone had buzzed, and Jonathan had left him and made his way back to his men.
That night after dark, the Royal Marines moved forward and took over the line.
Alexandra Pitcairn stood by the open kitchen door and watched the rain dripping from the trees and drifting over the garden.