Sally Spencer: Blackstone and the Great War

Mick nodded his head. ‘Yes,’ he said, in a wheeze.

‘I’m telling you all this for your own good,’ Blackstone said, as the boy returned to his seat and gingerly massaged his wrist. ‘With the attitude you’ve got now, you won’t last a day at the Front.’

But even as he spoke the words, he knew Mick probably wouldn’t listen. That was the trouble with lads like him. And that was why — though they didn’t even realize it — they were already walking dead men.

At a speed which would have made a lethargic snail ashamed, the train chugged through the flat French countryside.

The view from the window offered little in the way of distraction. Occasionally, there would be a gnarled old peasant leading a nag which was all skin and bone. Once in a while, the train would pass through a small station, and offer a brief glimpse of the village, battered by war, which lay beyond it. Other than that, the locomotive could have been travelling through a land which the world had quite forgotten.

This total lack of any sort of drama — this absence of anything to fire the gung-ho spirit — soon began to have an effect on the young soldiers, and their animation drained away, to be replaced by a kind of bored stupor.

That was what war was like, Blackstone thought, observing them. It could be excruciatingly painful, and it could be bowel-movingly terrifying. It could even — when you realized that there was a good chance you were not going to die that particular day — be a joyous experience, an orgasm of relief. But mostly, as these lads were starting to discover, it was mindlessly boring.

They reached the railhead — a shabby little station which, pre-war, would have been lucky to see a dozen passengers a day — as darkness was falling. A couple of the boys stood up with obvious relief that the cramped journey was finally over, and stepped out into the corridor to stretch their legs, but a bellow from one of the sergeants posted there soon had them scurrying back to their seats.

Another half an hour passed painfully slowly before the sergeant opened the door.

‘If you look out of the window, you’ll see half a dozen sergeants standing on the platform holding up paraffin lamps,’ he said. ‘You’re to muster in front of the third lamp from the end. Got that?’

‘Yes, Sarge,’ the young soldiers said, in unison.

The sergeant turned to Blackstone. ‘You’re being met,’ he said. Then, out of deference to the fact that the man he was addressing was a civilian — albeit a middle-aged one in a shabby suit — he added, ‘Ain’t that right, sir ?’

‘That’s right,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘Well, the best thing you can do is to try and keep out of the way until your liaison makes himself known to you,’ the sergeant said.

‘He’ll recognize me, will he?’ Blackstone asked, with a smile.

‘You’ll stick out like a vicar in a brothel,’ the sergeant said, flatly.

Yes, I suppose I will, Blackstone thought.

The sergeant turned smartly on his heel, and left the carriage.

‘I never thought it would be like this, Sid,’ Mick said to his pal, then glanced quickly at Blackstone to see if he had somehow managed to cause offence.

‘No, I’ll bet you didn’t,’ the Scotland Yard man agreed.

The soldiers picked up their kit, climbed out of the carriage, and lined up in front of the third lantern from the end.

Blackstone followed, feeling odd that he should be a part of all this, and yet, strictly speaking, no part of it at all.

Once the men were in more or less orderly lines, a sergeant major who had been observing the whole spectacle blew his whistle, and the men fell silent.

‘You will be marched out to the reserve trench, where you will be issued with gas masks and rations!’ he barked. ‘Any questions?’

‘Could we please have something to drink, Sergeant Major?’ one of the soldiers murmured.

‘What was that, lad?’ the sergeant major asked, rounding on him.

‘It’s. . it’s just that we haven’t had anything since we left the port,’ the soldier told him.

‘Is that right?’ the sergeant major asked. ‘Well, you poor lad! That’s such a touching story that I’m finding it hard to fight back the tears!’

‘I only wondered. .’ the soldier said weakly.

‘It’s not your job to wonder !’ the sergeant major said harshly. ‘It’s your job to obey orders .’ He ran his eyes over the ranks of recruits. ‘You’re in the army now. You eat and drink when you’re given the opportunity, and you don’t whine when you’re not.’ He paused for a second, then added, ‘Any more questions?’

And the silence which answered him was almost deafening.

Looking along the platform, Blackstone saw a small group of officers who had arrived on the same train, and who had been met by a young second lieutenant. The officers, he noted, were not asking for something to drink. But then they didn’t need to — because an orderly, with a tray of drinks in his hand, had already satisfied that requirement.

The second lieutenant — who couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-one — noticed Blackstone standing there, and detached himself from the group.

‘Are you the chap from Scotland Yard?’ he asked, brusquely.

‘Yes, I’m the “chap” from Scotland Yard,’ Blackstone agreed.

The lieutenant seemed outraged by the response.

‘I’m the chap from Scotland Yard, sir !’ he barked.

‘Are you?’ Blackstone asked, in a bemused tone. ‘I thought I was the copper. Still, I do get confused easily, so you’re probably right.’

‘Now listen here, my good man. .’ the lieutenant blustered.

‘And there’s no need to call me “sir”, even though, strictly speaking, I probably hold a higher rank in the police than you do in the army,’ Blackstone interrupted him.

‘I. . I. .’ the lieutenant began.

‘Are you my escort?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Your escort?’ the lieutenant repeated, as if he could hardly believe the cheek of the man. ‘You don’t have an escort . You’re to march with the men to the reserve trench, and once you get there, you’re to find an officer to report to.’

Well, that certainly put him in his place, Blackstone thought.

Following the bobbing paraffin lamps which the sergeants held up in front of them, the new arrivals marched through the dark suburbs of the town and soon were out in open countryside.

For the first mile or so, they heard little but the tramp-tramp-tramp of their own boots, though occasionally one of the men would cough or whisper something to the man nearest to him. Then, as they got closer to the front, they heard a low rumbling sound — the sort of noise a great beast might make as it lay there, slowly dying.

They marched on, and the sound grew louder and angrier, and now there were sudden flashes of light exploding through the darkness.

The sergeant at the head of the column stopped, and turned around.

‘Ten minutes tobacco rest!’ he bawled.

Some of the young soldiers took off their packs before sitting down, but the majority simply sank awkwardly to the ground with the packs still in place.

They had already learned a second important thing about war, Blackstone thought — it wasn’t just the fighting which was exhausting, it was the whole bloody business!

He was lighting up a cigarette when he heard a voice to his left say, ‘I’m sorry about what happened earlier. I should never have been so bleeding rude to a man who could probably half-kill me without even breaking into a sweat.’

‘You should never be so bleeding rude to anybody at all, Mick,’ Blackstone said.