Andrew Martin - The Somme Stations

Dawson looked up and said, ‘It’s not the same as reading half of the world’s best books , you know.’

Re-filling my own glass – Dawson, who’d seemed miles away, had barely touched his – I said, ‘I’d stick to the Railway Magazine if I were you. But Alfred… How did one of yours end up getting burnt in the stove at Spurn?’

‘Eh?’ said Tinsley, setting down his glass, ‘How do you mean?’

I thought: If he’s lying, he’s doing it pretty well.

The English Ships came, and Tinsley got stuck in, but Dawson was still in his daze.

‘Look alive,’ Tinsley said, and Dawson started eating.

The grub seemed to revive him, and when we’d finished eating, Dawson was all for quitting that particular basement, and finding another with a bit more life to it. So we paid the bill, and walked up into the dark street.

This one offered no other estaminet, I was sure – just the tall houses, looking tense, waiting for another shell to come flying in. But there was no indication of the battle going in the east, save the occasional rumble of what sounded like thunder, and a faint discoloration on the sky. I looked along the road, and a little old man had appeared there. The males of Albert generally were little old men, or blokes otherwise crocked – they’d have been in the French army otherwise. But this bloke was in uniform, even though he carried a very un-military carpet bag.

We stood near the street corner, and Dawson and Tinsley were after drifting around that corner. Tinsley was prattling about cigars: ‘The time for a cigar is after dinner,’ he said, ‘and we’ve had dinner so it’s time for a cigar.’

Well, he was already canned. Dawson was jingling the change in his pockets while puffing on a fag. His cap was tipped right back, and a line of insect powder showed luminous in the crease of his tunic.

‘Just want to take a peek around the corner, Jim,’ he said.

He sloped off, and the little old man was coming up fast. He wore a uniform at least a size too big for him, and of a washed-out, greyish colour. It featured a black brassard with lettering on it, but he wasn’t a military policeman. As he approached the white light of the lamp, he spoke, and it was a hard Yorkshire voice.

‘Who’s that man, bringing the King’s uniform into contempt?’

It was the bloody Chief.

‘It’s Dawson,’ I replied, being in a state of shock, ‘the bloke you had a run-in with…’

‘Might have bloody known.’

‘Chief,’ I fairly gasped, ‘what…?’

I meant ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Where’ve you just come from?’ ‘What’s this queer sort of uniform you’re wearing?’ and ‘Why have you bloody shrunk ?’ Shaking his hand, I read the lettering on the brassard – read it out loud in my amazement: ‘VTC’. Was it some part of the army? But the Chief was sixty-five. He couldn’t be with the colours. He couldn’t be at the front either, but he damn near was.

‘Volunteer Training Corps,’ said the Chief, and he looked sidelong, embarrassed. As he moved his small, scarred, gingery head, his cap seemed to stay still, being too big for him.

‘But… what’s in the bag, sir?’

‘Don’t “sir” me. I’m not an officer, am I?’

He indicated the three stripes on his arm. I smiled at him, and it was the first time ever that I’d been amused by the Chief without also being nervous.

‘You’ve just the two,’ he said, indicating my own stripes. ‘Your missus’ll be up in arms about that, I suppose. She’ll be storming the bloody War Office.’

The Chief was trying to address me after his old fashion, but he wasn’t quite up to it. Then I recalled that he ought to have known that the business on Spurn had held back my promotion.

‘Didn’t you get my letter, Chief?’

‘ What bloody letter?’

Behind me, Alfred Tinsley was returning from around the corner.

‘Just had the nod from Dawson, Jim,’ he said. ‘He’s found a likely place down there. Will you come along now or shall we see you later?’

This was a pretty half-hearted sort of invitation. Were the pair of them fleeing the Chief? Then again, it would be obvious to anyone that the Chief and I had a lot to talk about and so might be better left to ourselves.

I said to Tinsley, ‘Right-o, we’ll see you shortly.’

The Chief was eyeing me. ‘The army’s given you a pair of shoulders at last.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I know how to stand now.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, lad,’ said the Chief. ‘Look, for Christ’s sake, let’s get a belt of booze.’

So I indicated the estaminet I’d just come out of.

When we came to the bottom of the stairs, the woman didn’t hold up the little blackboard for the benefit of the Chief. She could immediately see that here was a man who didn’t really eat, but lived on smoke and alcohol. I asked her for a bottle of white wine, and took the Chief over to the table I’d quit ten minutes before. The bar was a brighter, bluer place now, with a few more Tommies in, and a stream of chatter and clinking glass.

‘How long have you been out here?’ I asked the Chief, pouring wine.

‘Getting on for a fortnight,’ he said, taking a box of cigars from his tunic pocket.

‘And before that you were in York?’

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘worse luck.’

Again this sounded a wrong note. The old Chief didn’t go in for that self-pitying tone. I thought again of the letter I’d written him – the one I’d given to Oamer for posting at Romescamps. Had Oamer deliberately kept it back? He certainly wouldn’t have forgotten to deliver it. Then again letters from the front very often went astray, as did letters sent to the Chief. Any communication without the immediacy of a bullet could take its chances as far as he was concerned. I’d seen him start the fire in the police office with unopened correspondence.

‘The Volunteer Training Corps,’ I said, taking a pull on the wine (which showed no advance on the earlier bottle). ‘I think I’ve vaguely heard of it.’

‘Aye,’ said the Chief, lighting his cigar, and pushing the box over to me. ‘Well don’t strain yourself trying to remember. We’re a sort of home defence militia,’ he continued, blowing smoke. ‘We stand about in the middle of York looking out for Zeppelins… Investigate reports of German spies.’

‘Why aren’t you an officer?’ I said.

‘ Officer ,’ he said, with contempt.

The Chief was working class by birth. That’s why he’d lit his own cigar before passing the box over to me. He was a fist fighter of old (hence the state of his nose), but not by Queens-berry Rules. He’d risen within the police but that didn’t signify socially. He could be a chief inspector whilst remaining true to himself, whereas he would have to have become a different man altogether if he’d been a commissioned army officer. Consequently, he’d stopped at sergeant major in the York and Lancaster regiment – out in the boiling desert with General Gordon and all those other red-coated lunatics. After his thirty years with the colours, he’d been in the Reserves for as long as possible, but now he was reduced to balloon-spotting in this funny rig-out.

At least he was still on the big cigars, though. Lighting up my own Marcella, I asked again, ‘What’s in the bag, Chief?’

‘Cigarettes,’ he growled, and I knew the explanation for this, and the whole question of what he was doing in Albert, would have to wait.

‘Look here,’ he said. ‘The Somme battle – your lot were in on the start. What sort of show is it?’

‘Well, I’ve seen some pretty warm times,’ I said, blowing smoke, and feeling like a fraud.