Andrew Wareham: End to Illusion

A captain of the Norfolks sought out Richard.

“Cowplain, sir. Acting in command. Lost the colonel and the major last night. Colonel’s dugout is in the second line of trenches, sir. I can take you to it.”

There was a pair of hurricane lamps, sufficient to work over the documentation needed.

“The salient we occupy is just a half-circle, sir, sticking out a bit towards the German lines. There was an old road just here, sunken down a bit, made a natural line to hold when the movement came to an end. Useful in its way, sir, for keeping an eye out on what’s going on in Hunland. They don’t like it much. Third time they’ve tried to straighten us out. We have a battery of sixty pounders registered to our front and have a telephone line to them. As well as that, Corps keeps eighteen pounders on our call. We have put in for extra Vickers Guns, but haven’t got them.”

“Lewises?”

“Two per company, sir. Saving our neck, too.”

“Have you been raiding?”

“Not from the salient, sir. Too well watched at night.”

“We might change that. Thank you, Captain.”

The dugouts were deep and wet and the trench itself had a foot of mud to its bottom.

Richard surveyed the construction in the first light, deciding what must be improved.

It was a simple U, twelve feet deep and fifteen broad with a firing step some four feet below the forward edge with stairs leading up at intervals. The bottom was boarded, the timbers raised on three foot pilings to be out of the worst of the mud. There was a deeper hole, a sump, carved out at their mid-point with a small petrol pump and hoses; in theory, rainwater collected and was pumped away to reduce flooding in bad weather. The pump was small and the sump not especially large.

“Captain Hawkeswill! First job. Another pump, two or three if possible, hand or petrol, and when you’ve got it, or them, dig extra sumps. Try to dry this bloody mess. What do the dugouts look like?”

“Holes, sir.”

Richard shoved his head inside the nearest, saw duckboards to the floor and beams and boards to the ceiling but bare earth walls.

“We want more timbers to line those walls. Make them drier. Fewer bad chests, with luck. Beg, borrow or steal extra firewood and coal. We want tea buckets permanently on the go. Where are the latrines?”

“A quarter of a mile back, sir. Inconvenient if we get dysentery here.”

Richard shrugged. Any such cases must go back to Doctor Pearce at the Aid Post.

The machine guns were mounted and there was a sufficient apron of barbed wire – one shortage that had been remedied over the summer.

“Sergeant Major O’Grady!”

“Sir!”

O’Grady was well within hearing range of his colonel.

“I have heard tell of a Mills Bomb?”

“In issue these couple of months, sir. Not general issue yet. I shall see what might be possible.”

“Excellent! We could really use an extra Lewis or two, you know.”

“We happen to have some, sir. The Norfolks left some behind, having too many now that they were so short of men.”

Richard kept a straight face. He had brought two cartons of a dozen bottles of Scotch with him, had left them in O’Grady’s care against need. It seemed likely they had been put to use. The Norfolks could realistically write off the bulk of their equipment as lost in their little battle; there would probably be other items tucked away out of his sight, to remain unknown to him.

“How do we stand for shell damage to the trench, ‘Major?”

“Almost none, sir. No attempt was made to destroy the trench. Looks like the aim was to take it, to give the Hun a salient instead.”

“Logical. Convenient, too. Set some men to drawing a plan of the area to our front, ‘Major. Preparation for raiding, aiming to start the night after next.”

“That can be done, sir. We shall be needing the tools for raiding, sir…”

“Get them.”

That would probably take the remainder of his whisky.

The remainder of the day was spent in painstaking instruction of the officers. All of them knew the theory of trench warfare; the actuality was disconcerting.

“Heads down. Watch your fronts from behind cover, peering out sideways. Do not expose yourselves – there will be snipers. Have you identified your best shots? Set your people out under cover. Watch for activity and kill it!”

The same words, time after time, the junior officers finding their excitement waning in the face of reality. They took their first casualty that afternoon.

There was a yell of ‘stretcher-bearers’ and a scurry of activity along the duckboards. Richard was close to the scene, stood back, out of the way as four men came running carrying a fifth prone on the rough litter.

“Who?”

“Prendergast, sir. Who else would it be?”

Major Vokes gave the disgusted answer.

“How?”

“He saw the wire to his front was drooping flat to the ground, blown off its posts by a small shell, by the looks of it. He stood up to put it back in place, sir. Lasted ten seconds before he took a bullet.”

“Bloody idiot! What state is he in?”

“Smack in the belly, sir. Depends on what is ripped up. If it’s just a bit of intestine punctured, he might well be back here in three months. Should it be liver or kidneys or whatever, he probably won’t live. Question of luck when you get one in the guts, sir. In India we used to call them a passport Home.”

“Born stupid and never learned any better, that lad. Talking of which, where is Wincanton?”

They found the young officer in the second line with a party from his company, clustered about a Lewis Gun and learning how to field strip and clean the little machine gun.

“Tricky business, sir! I shall get it right soon, sir!”

“Let us hope you may, Mr Wincanton. Is your revolver loaded, by the way?”

The boy was puzzled by the question, pulled the gun from its holster and studied it in amaze.

“Oh! It is not, sir. How did you know?”

“I guessed, Mr Wincanton. Load it now and tuck it away.”

Vokes was running out of patience with the young gentleman.

“If that boy has brains, sir, he sits upon them!”

“Clever but bone idle, Major. Incapable of thinking for himself after nineteen years of inanition. Never rely on him to do the right thing.”

Simon sat at his desk, smiling at his assembled officers.

“Going out tomorrow morning, gentlemen, on the tide. Four days patrol to the Broad Fourteens, primarily to exercise the half-section, get us used to working together. I would be more than a little upset was Lancelot to show inefficient in front of her junior ships.”

The assembled officers shook their heads at the prospect. Canning spoke for them when he assured Simon that the ship had turned over a new leaf.

“The hands are aware that we know what happened and why, sir. If anything, they are relieved that the secret is out. They know that there will be no official action, no courts, sir. I am sure they will all pull together now. Lancelot will be far more effective a ship.”

McCracken agreed.

“More the thing now, sir. They are relieved it is all behind them now, sir. They hope to get on with fighting the war, sir, rather than each other.”

Higgins was puzzled, he had not noticed anything wrong.

Midshipman Waller knew the rules and stayed silent, waiting to be directly addressed before he opened his mouth.

Simon gave a brief set of instructions, within reason content that the ship was now effective.

“I shall be in the depot ship most of the afternoon, meeting with the other three captains. Can’t really cram them into my little cabin here. First day out, exercise your departments, be sure that they are on top of all routines. Mr Rees, work your gun crews, if you please, and speak with Mr Canning about any who need be replaced, for any reason. We shall then spend a couple of days – and nights – in evolutions with the others. Everything on top line.”