John Buchan - The Collected Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

I had another man who wasn’t what you might call normal, and that was Wake. He was the opposite of shell-shocked, if you understand me. He had never been properly under fire before, but he didn’t give a straw for it. I had known the same thing with other men, and they generally ended by crumpling up, for it isn’t natural that five or six feet of human flesh shouldn’t be afraid of what can torture and destroy it. The natural thing is to be always a little scared, like me, but by an effort of the will and attention to work to contrive to forget it. But Wake apparently never gave it a thought. He wasn’t foolhardy, only indifferent. He used to go about with a smile on his face, a smile of contentment. Even the horrors—and we had plenty of them—didn’t affect him. His eyes, which used to be hot, had now a curious open innocence like Peter’s. I would have been happier if he had been a little rattled.

One night, after we had had a bad day of anxiety, I talked to him as we smoked in what had once been a French dug-out. He was an extra right arm to me, and I told him so. ‘This must be a queer experience for you,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it is very wonderful. I did not think a man could go through it and keep his reason. But I know many things I did not know before. I know that the soul can be reborn without leaving the body.’

I stared at him, and he went on without looking at me.

‘You’re not a classical scholar, Hannay? There was a strange cult in the ancient world, the worship of Magna Mater—the Great Mother. To enter into her mysteries the votary passed through a bath of blood—I think I am passing through that bath. I think that like the initiate I shall be renatus in aeternum —reborn into the eternal.’

I advised him to have a drink, for that talk frightened me. It looked as if he were becoming what the Scots call ‘fey’. Lefroy noticed the same thing and was always speaking about it. He was as brave as a bull himself, and with very much the same kind of courage; but Wake’s gallantry perturbed him. ‘I can’t make the chap out,’ he told me. ‘He behaves as if his mind was too full of better things to give a damn for Boche guns. He doesn’t take foolish risks—I don’t mean that, but he behaves as if risks didn’t signify. It’s positively eerie to see him making notes with a steady hand when shells are dropping like hailstones and we’re all thinking every minute’s our last. You’ve got to be careful with him, sir. He’s a long sight too valuable for us to spare.’

Lefroy was right about that, for I don’t know what I should have done without him. The worst part of our job was to keep touch with our flanks, and that was what I used Wake for. He covered country like a moss-trooper, sometimes on a rusty bicycle, oftener on foot, and you couldn’t tire him. I wonder what other divisions thought of the grimy private who was our chief means of communication. He knew nothing of military affairs before, but he got the hang of this rough-and-tumble fighting as if he had been born for it. He never fired a shot; he carried no arms; the only weapons he used were his brains. And they were the best conceivable. I never met a staff officer who was so quick at getting a point or at sizing up a situation. He had put his back into the business, and first-class talent is not common anywhere. One day a G. S. O. from a neighbouring division came to see me. ‘Where on earth did you pick up that man Wake?’ he asked.

‘He’s a conscientious objector and a non-combatant,’ I said.

‘Then I wish to Heaven we had a few more conscientious objectors in this show. He’s the only fellow who seems to know anything about this blessed battle. My general’s sending you a chit about him.’

‘No need,’ I said, laughing. ‘I know his value. He’s an old friend of mine.’

I used Wake as my link with Corps Headquarters, and especially with Blenkiron. For about the sixth day of the show I was beginning to get rather desperate. This kind of thing couldn’t go on for ever. We were miles back now, behind the old line Of ‘17, and, as we rested one flank on the river, the immediate situation was a little easier. But I had lost a lot of men, and those that were left were blind with fatigue. The big bulges of the enemy to north and south had added to the length of the total front, and I found I had to fan out my thin ranks. The Boche was still pressing on, though his impetus was slacker. If he knew how little there was to stop him in my section he might make a push which would carry him to Amiens. Only the magnificent work of our airmen had prevented him getting that knowledge, but we couldn’t keep the secrecy up for ever. Some day an enemy plane would get over, and it only needed the drive of a fresh storm-battalion or two to scatter us. I wanted a good prepared position, with sound trenches and decent wiring. Above all I wanted reserves—reserves. The word was on my lips all day and it haunted my dreams. I was told that the French were to relieve us, but when—when? My reports to Corps Headquarters were one long wail for more troops. I knew there was a position prepared behind us, but I needed men to hold it.

Wake brought in a message from Blenkiron. ‘We’re waiting for you, Dick,’ he wrote, ‘and we’ve gotten quite a nice little home ready for you. This old man hasn’t hustled so hard since he struck copper in Montana in ‘92. We’ve dug three lines of trenches and made a heap of pretty redoubts, and I guess they’re well laid out, for the Army staff has supervised them and they’re no slouches at this brand of engineering. You would have laughed to see the labour we employed. We had all breeds of Dago and Chinaman, and some of your own South African blacks, and they got so busy on the job they forgot about bedtime. I used to be reckoned a bit of a slave driver, but my special talents weren’t needed with this push. I’m going to put a lot of money into foreign missions henceforward.’

I wrote back: ‘Your trenches are no good without men. For God’s sake get something that can hold a rifle. My lot are done to the world.’

Then I left Lefroy with the division and went down on the back of an ambulance to see for myself. I found Blenkiron, some of the Army engineers, and a staff officer from Corps Headquarters, and I found Archie Roylance.

They had dug a mighty good line and wired it nobly. It ran from the river to the wood of La Bruyere on the little hill above the Ablain stream. It was desperately long, but I saw at once it couldn’t well be shorter, for the division on the south of us had its hands full with the fringe of the big thrust against the French.

‘It’s no good blinking the facts,’ I told them. ‘I haven’t a thousand men, and what I have are at the end of their tether. If you put ‘em in these trenches they’ll go to sleep on their feet. When can the French take over?’

I was told that it had been arranged for next morning, but that it had now been put off twenty-four hours. It was only a temporary measure, pending the arrival of British divisions from the north.

Archie looked grave. ‘The Boche is pushin’ up new troops in this sector. We got the news before I left squadron headquarters. It looks as if it would be a near thing, sir.’

‘It won’t be a near thing. It’s an absolute black certainty. My fellows can’t carry on as they are another day. Great God, they’ve had a fortnight in hell! Find me more men or we buckle up at the next push.’ My temper was coming very near its limits.

‘We’ve raked the country with a small-tooth comb, sir,’ said one of the staff officers. ‘And we’ve raised a scratch pack. Best part of two thousand. Good men, but most of them know nothing about infantry fighting. We’ve put them into platoons, and done our best to give them some kind of training. There’s one thing may cheer you. We’ve plenty of machine-guns. There’s a machine-gun school near by and we got all the men who were taking the course and all the plant.’