Читать книгу No Hero—This - Warwick Deeping - Страница 10

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To be lonely, yet never alone, save at night when I snuggle down into my flea-bag! Hitherto I have not been conscious of being a separative and solitary soul, but this almost communal and crowded life presses too closely upon one’s sacred self. There are times when I feel that we men hate each other. A crude and elemental cheerfulness may conceal irritations and secret repulsions. I dare say we vex each other in that crowded little mess. I know that Sanders irritates me, his very foul pipe and the way it smells and bubbles, and the peculiar habit he has of covering his mug with one hand when there is whisky in it. Does he expect one of us to take surreptitious drinks from his wretched little tin pot?

Also, it is possible that I feel challenged by his competing with me for Frost’s favours, though all the active competition comes from him. He is both stupidly subservient and aggressively complacent, and he does not appear to see that Frost dislikes him, and that his servility increases that dislike.

Sometimes there are squabbles in the mess. Makins has a tart tongue and uses it, and he and Roberts bicker. Makins is not well, and is looking very yellow.

He complains of Sanders’s pipe, and I support him. Sanders becomes flatly ironical.

“Makins has got a liver, but you’re a Fanny, Brent. So refined and squeamish.”

He tries to stroke my head, and I give him a push that sends him backwards off the bench. The three of us laugh, but Sanders gets up swollen and raging. He makes a grab at me, but Frost happens in, and the storm is stilled.

“What’s the trouble here?”

Roberts says that it is Sanders’s pipe which is more foul than any incinerator. Frost sniffs and looks at Sanders.

“I agree. Burn it, Sanders, and try the canteen.”

I have had no letters yet, and I am hungry for news, and for a sense of contact with Mary. Even a letter from her will make me feel her presence. Frost’s wife writes to him twice a week, and I get to know when he has had a letter from her. He seems softened, and suffused with some secret satisfaction.

But I feel so unsure of things, and the peaceful and domesticated creature in me yearns for permanence and a corner that I can call mine. This passion to preserve and possess an individual something becomes concentrated in my little dug-out. I fit up shelves, and a small hanging cupboard contrived out of an ammunition box. I line the corrugated iron roof with newspapers supported on string. I have Mary’s photo pinned up on the sandbags above my bed. I like to retreat to this little cell of my own, and sit with the ground sheet that covers the door drawn back, and watch Imbros and the sea, and the coming and going on the road below. These moments of apartness seem to soothe and strengthen one, and I can dream of the future when all this fear and unrest shall have passed away.

Fear! Yes, fear is never far away. It seems to alternate with a terrible apathy that grips all of us, for this is a dead and a decaying show.

I am sitting here reading my first letter from Mary when a huge howitzer shell grazes the cliff and bursts on the beach below. I see men scurrying and throwing themselves flat. There are sudden screams.

I am on duty, and I push poor Mary’s letter into my pocket, and go down to deal with the mess, feeling shaken and sick.

Poor Makins is more yellow, and becoming fretful with it. He has jaundice, but refuses to plead sick. In the mess his quick tongue tires us. He has become strangely unfriendly to me, and I do not understand his unfriendliness until he comes and sits by me on the beach.

“How is Frost’s new pet feeling?”

I smile off the insult, for Makins cannot rub me on the raw; I like and respect him too well. Also, he is a sick man, and refusing to surrender to his sickness, and the poison in his blood colours his moods.

He puts his head into my dug-out that evening, and apologizes to me.

“Sorry, Brent, I was such a swine.”

“That’s all right, old man. It’s not you, but this accursed place.”

For, our world is a sick world, flyblown and diseased. Hundreds of men are coming down through the ambulance with dysentery and epidemic jaundice. The troopers of the yeomanry who were on the Gigantic with me seem to stand the conditions less well than these tough and undersized little Lancashire weavers. The C.O. of one of the other ambulances says to Frost during Bridge that if the rate of evacuation goes on we shall not have enough men to hold the line. Not one man in twenty is completely fit, and the prevailing depression seems to lower everybody’s resistance. So poor is the condition of some of the infantry that if a man knocks his hand against the wall of a trench a septic sore results, a stagnant and chronic point of inflammation that will not heal.

Frost comes into my dug-out before dinner, and sits down on my bed.

He says, “I’m sending Makins off.”

I tell him that the decision is kind and wise. Frost is so much less hard than he seems.

“Makins has done damned well, and much of it on his nerves. A month or two in Egypt will put him right.”

I ask Frost whether he has ever been sick.

“No, not for a day. It doesn’t seem to happen to me, Brent. There are only about a dozen of us in the whole Division who haven’t been either sick or wounded since we landed.”

“Are you proud of it?”

“What’s there to be proud of? Might I not have welcomed something that would have taken me home?”

Makins has gone. He walked up to the ambulance at the top of the cliff, and we all went with him to see him off.

We are building a new mess of stone and sandbags and corrugated iron, for there are disturbing rumours as to the roughness of the weather here in winter. The sea has been behaving like a comfortable cat purring on a cushion, but I wonder what will happen to our dressing-station if Oceanus becomes angry with us for trespassing on this precarious ledge of earth. One bad gale and a night of hungry waves might wash away our little improvisations.

My third letter from Mary; also two parcels. I had run out of my particular tobacco, and in one of the parcels I find two half-pound tins of it.

Bless her!

A windy sunset over Imbros, followed by a keen night brittle with stars. We put on greatcoats in the mess, and draw the canvas curtains, but the sound of the sea grows more and more insistent. The wind is getting up, and our wretched shelter flaps and rocks. The waves seem to be washing quite close to the mess, and Frost puts down his cards and goes out. I follow him.

The sea is tumbling up in great rollers. There are dark hollows in the earth road, and we stand and watch sections of soil sliding down into the spume. The dressing-station stands at the top of a three-feet earth wall, and already the wash of the waves is splashing against the foot of the wall. If that wall should go, and the sandbags be undermined, the whole dressing-station will dissolve.

There is nothing that we can do, but Frost and I sit up till nearly midnight to watch the earth wall and its facing of stones. One small section of it slides down, but the main portion holds. The wind has dropped with the same suddenness with which it had risen, and the sea retreats. For the moment the danger is over.

Next morning we inspect the damage and confront the danger of our being washed out. The shore is littered with boulders and pieces of rock, and I suggest to Frost that if we collect all the available stone and build a rough wall or ramp it will break the scour of the sea. He is a little sceptical, but he agrees to the experiment, and places me in charge of a working party. It is warm and still and sunny after nature’s attack of hysteria and the men enter into the job with zest. One or two of them take off socks, puttees and breeches and recover boulders from the shallow water. I shed my tunic and work with the men.

I hear the remark passed, “Mr. Brent’s a bit of a surprise-packet,” and I feel flattered.

But there is one person who scoffs, Sanders. He is orderly officer for the day, and he comes and stands at the top of the wall, with his belly stuck out, and his swarthy, fat face smeared with irony.

He calls me Balbus, and Canute, and asks me whether I think our pebble ramp is going to stop a winter gale.

I like Sanders less and less. He seems so ready to hope that I shall make a fool of myself.

Our wall grows. About twelve o’clock Colonel Thomas, the A.D.M.S., pays us a visit, and finding us at work, comes down to talk to me. He realizes the danger to our site, and such moderately shell-safe sites are rare in the Peninsula. He does not crab the experiment, but encourages us, and gives us some advice. Also, he seems to approve of an officer turning to with his coat off.

“Well, try it, Brent, try it. If you can muzzle the sea, we’ll get you mentioned in despatches!”

He has a jocund and pleasant sense of humour, and we go on with the work.

There has been a sudden and remarkable change of heart in Sanders. Apparently he has realized that a scoffing scepticism is not good policy, and that my attempt to thwart the sea has brought me favour. This does not suit his inclination to remain with the Ambulance while I, his chief competitor, am pushed on to a battalion. Next morning I find him in fierce competition with me, strutting up and down, giving orders to the men, ordering a stone to be moved here, another to be dumped there. But he does not take his tunic off, nor do the men pay very much attention to him. They seem to regard me as the prime architect and man in authority.

I see Frost up above, standing outside his dug-out and watching us. When I go up to wash before lunch he says to me with a dry smile, “So, Sanders thought your egg was a rather good one.” He appears to have no illusions about Sanders, and at lunch I ask Sanders if he is willing to be christened Balbus Junior, but he does not seem to appreciate the joke.

He says, “I’m first and foremost a surgeon. One has to think of one’s hands.”

This is an aspect of life upon active service which the patriots and the sentimentalists at home are not likely to discover. They expect us all to be competing for the leading of forlorn hopes, whereas much of the competition is the possession of some better hole. Hence, the more generous spirits are penalized, and as Frost confesses to me, even among heroes a man with a good job is a dog with a bone. He may have to teach himself to snarl at other dogs who are eager to relieve him of it.

A M.O. from one of our battalions comes down to be evacuated with dysentery. He has a highish temperature, but is almost maudlin in his cheerfulness. He says, “I feel lovely. Alex for me.”

This gives me furiously to think. One of the duties of a Field Ambulance is to supply medical officers, temporary or otherwise, to replace casualties, and as this casualty has occurred in our Brigade, I suppose our ambulance will have to find a substitute.

We are at tea when an orderly appears with a chit from Divisional Headquarters. Frost reads it, sniffs, and glances at Sanders.

“You are to report to the O.C. of the 7th North Lancs.”

Sanders looks sick.

“Me, sir?”

“Yes. Get your kit packed. The 7th are out in rest. You’ll find them in the Gully.”

“How shall I manage about my kit?”

“I’ll detail a couple of men to carry it for you.”

Sanders finishes his tea, but I can feel that he is seething with resentment against me, and God forgive me, but I am glad that I am to be left in this more comfortable and secure place a little longer.

The new mess is finished. It has two windows and a fireplace and we move into it like house-proud women. I am told that it inspires bitterness in some of the infantry who pass to their so-called rest billets along the cliff. But, after all, why should we not exercise forethought and make ourselves comfortable? Exposure to the weather does not make for efficiency.

The A.D.M.S. has come down to dine and play Bridge. We are in the middle of the first rubber when something arrives with a terrifying crash on the iron roof of the mess. We all duck, and then look at each other and feel foolish. Frost gets up with a fierce face, rushes out, but I realize that he has no chance of discovering the objector who had hurled that missile from the cliff above. Frost finds fragments of it lying in the road. Some jealous soul had lobbed an empty rum-jar on to our offending roof.

The war as it concerns us grows more and more stagnant. Both officers and men feel exiled and forgotten here, and there is much bitterness and criticism. As Roberts says: “We are just a ruddy lot of amateurs,” but from what I hear and see these amateurs would have made good had the staff work been more intelligent and active. This Territorial Division has a record to be proud of and, judging by Frost’s ambulance, these Territorials are the first people who have impressed me with their efficiency.

We are receiving very few wounded, many sick, and hardly any shells. An enemy ’plane comes over early most mornings, surveys our scene, is shot at and returns safely home. We are afflicted most strangely by a peculiar phenomenon, dropping bullets at night. It would appear that the Turk has so many rounds to dispose of, and he fires his rifle into the air, and the bullets descend on us. One can hear them plopping into the sea. Frost has a spent bullet through the roof of his dug-out and it bounces on the table beside his bed. A man in the 2nd Ambulance is killed in his sleep. Hardly a night passes without a casualty coming in as a result of these bullets dropping out of the air.

The A.D.M.S. orders us to spread a layer of shingle on the roofs of our quarters, and we are reinforcing the men’s dug-outs with wire netting and earth.

Whenever I go out at night I wonder whether I shall receive one of these Turkish offerings through the crown of my cap!

Our world has a social life of its own. We have guests to dine with us, and we go out to dine and play cards. The Football League flourishes. We pay and receive calls. The bright lads from Divisional Headquarters go out in a boat and bomb fish for dinner.

We are full of rumours. Tipson, or Tippie as he is called, is our arch rumour-monger. He comes along to us most days from the 2nd Ambulance, bringing with him his characteristic enthusiasm for the latest news. He is the first person to assure us that the Peninsula is to be evacuated, and that we are all going to Jerusalem. Tippie’s imaginative interludes are welcome to us in this sick and stagnant world. We wish to believe what we want to believe.

Bulgaria has joined the Central Powers.

For us this denotes the prospect of more shells, and an absence of eggs. I hear that our breakfast egg has been Bulgarian.

Our breakfasts are gargantuan, porridge, eggs and bacon, masses of toast, tinned butter and marmalade. I marvel at the way the A.S.C. feeds us. I am beginning to believe that they are the most efficient people on our side, and with full bellies we may yet win the war.

I have had a strange experience. Frost and I walked over to call on the officers of the new Stationary Hospital that has been erected on the plateau. It presents itself against the dun-coloured earth and the blue sky as an acre of white canvas. Its site has been wired in, and the Red Cross flag is flying. This hospital is in full view of the Turks, but when one passes within the wire fence one has the feeling of being in a sacred acre, serene and secure.

We look over the hospital and have tea in the officers’ mess. They tell us that one solitary shell has fallen in the hospital bounds since the tents were put up, and that the Turks had apologized for the discourtesy. The shell had been intended for a battery farther back.

The Turk is a gentleman.

When Frost and I leave this sanctuary he pauses outside the fence and looks at Achi Baba.

“Did you get that extraordinary feeling of peace, Brent?”

“Yes.”

He goes on to say that after this war the world will have to found some educative centre like this hospital, a core of sanity and peace in the apple of international mistrusts and discords.

Yes, such a conception should be inevitable.

I am glad of my friendship with Frost. He is merciful to me, and I do not find his almost fanatical thoroughness too heavy for my courage. Moreover, I gather that our life under the cliff is calm and mild compared with what it was in the more strenuous days of the offensive. I suppose the human element enters into the relationship of senior to junior as in everything else, and that it is easier to be efficient and somewhat courageous in the service of a man whom one likes and respects. In wanting Frost to think well of me I am helped into thinking well of myself.

The younger officers do not understand him, or the loneliness of a man in authority. I think the rank and file understand him better, and that his authority presses less heavily on the humbler individual. An officer’s responsibilities are tuned to a higher note, and the strain may be more exacting.

I like these Lancashire men. I fancy that they are apt to regard a southerner with suspicion, and to expect from him airs and graces, but if they decide that you are not smeared with snobbery, they become your friends. Spencer, my batman, is quite paternal in his attitude. He brings me early morning tea, and is quite fussy about my underclothing. I even suspect him of airing it before the cookhouse fire. His favourite adjective is champion. He applies it to all things and situations. The morning is champion, and so is his small boy at home.

The N.C.O.s are a very intelligent crowd. I fell into talking economics in the dressing-station with Sergeant Simpson, and he soon had me out of my depth. We have one corporal who produces poetry. He presented me with a copy of one of his poems, typed on the orderly-room typewriter by some sympathetic and accommodating clerk.

The weather has broken. There is more rain than wind, but the rain is a deluge. We watch our sea-wall and are relieved to find that it curbs the wash of the sea. Frost and I sit in the mess and write letters home and listen to the rattle of rain upon the roof. It seems to be a world of running water; we can hear it gurgling down the cliffs.

Frost says that the tame stream in the Great Gully will become a torrent, and that people who have not taken precautions will be washed out.

About ten o’clock the deluge ceases and we go out on a tour of inspection. There are puddles in the dressing-station, but no falls of earth. We visit the terraces where the men are housed and find that, thanks to the drainage trenches that have been cut, the men’s dug-outs have not been flooded. Our own quarters are lower down the cliff, and Frost flashes his torch into his dug-out; but for a puddle or two it is dry and clean. We go to look at my cell. Frost turns his torch on my bed, and I see that it is a smother of yellow slime. A hole in the sandbags is still spouting this foul mess over my bed. It has run down over Mary’s photo. The floor is a yellow bog.

I stand in silent disgust and sorrow, but Frost is moved to strange anger.

“What a damned dirty trick of Nature to play.”

It is as though the inward tension and repression that he has suffered for months breaks out against the impartial and callous beastliness of this world.

“You had better shift into one of the other dug-outs. There is a wire bed in No. 2.”

He turns back the flap of my valise and finds that the yellow muck has oozed into the flea-bag.

“You’ll want some blankets.”

But I am looking at the slimed and obscured picture of my wife.

Is this an omen?