Andrew Wareham - The Death of Hope

Sergeant Major O’Grady permitted himself a smile. The East African campaign was already renowned as worse than the Trenches for disease and living. It was unsuccessful as well.

“I might just let the whisper be heard, sir?”

“If you would be so good, ‘Major. Insufficient evidence to place a clever man before a court. He is not to get away with his shyness, even so.”

“The men will be pleased with that, sir. All done on the quiet, no scandal to mar the battalion’s name and the evildoer most thoroughly punished, sir. As good as a book by Mr Dickens, sir!”

Richard had avoided Dickens as far as he could – not a difficult task at Dartmouth. He knew of A Christmas Carol but no more. He was not surprised that O’Grady had read more than him – he was an able man in many ways, especially now that he was on the wagon.

“Must bring a book or two out with me, ‘Major. I do get a little of free time most weeks, might enjoy losing myself in a book, anything to get me away from the Trenches for half an hour!”

“All work and no play, sir – not good for any of us.”

There was no Mess in the lines, nor could there be. Some of the dugouts were a little larger and enabled the officers to form a card school. There were at least two ongoing games of bridge, competition ferocious between the junior officers. Richard suspected there was a poker table as well, the game fashionable in London before the war. He had no objections to bridge, regarded poker as potentially dangerous – the young men were wild, naturally in the circumstances, and might lose sums vastly in excess of their income. He could do little about it, however. He could not join either game, being the merest novice at bridge and forbidden from gambling with his juniors.

“Not too much gaming among the men, I trust, ‘Major?”

“Crown and Anchor is a commonplace, sir. Banned, of course, which means they hide the dice when I come near. Some of the men play pontoon all day, every day, for pennies and the winnings fairly even among them. A couple of solo whist schools, sir, very keen they are, but again, only pennies. No cardsharps that I have heard of, sir. Other than that, the odd wagers you hear of, sir – men betting how many they can pick off with their rifles in a week, that sort of thing.”

“Sharpshooters? Have you picked out our snipers yet?”

“Just the one lad who might be sufficient of a shot, sir. I do not know he has the mind for killing, sir. It takes a strange sort to be a sniper, sat up and looking to kill all day, every day. I am thinking we may have to do without a battalion sniper as such until a new body comes in.”

“Pity. If there should ever be an attack on our lines, a sniper can be handy.”

“Word is of the opposite, sir. Likely to be us marching shoulder to shoulder off to kill the foe, sir. Provided we can pass through the wire.”

Richard shrugged.

“Depends on the artillery, sir. If they bombard and it is sufficient, then we pass through the gaps they have cut. If not, then it is to be Neuve Chapelle all over again.”

That did not lie in their hands. They could only hope.

Richard slept badly that night, waking every few minutes to artillery fire coming onto targets in no man’s land. He gave up and walked up to the first line of trenches two hours before dawn.

“’Morning, Harris. What’s up?”

“Hun’s having a panic, sir. Wetting his knickers! Calling down artillery every time a sentry sees a shadow by the looks of it. They didn’t like your raids, sir!”

Captain Harris was young and determined in his hero-worship.

“Where are they dropping their shells?”

“Just this side of their own wire, sir. A few overs closer to us – we will be out making repairs later in the week, by the looks of it.”

“No concerted attempt to cut our wire?”

“No, sir. Just the occasional small shell falling into the wire. Nothing into our trench, sir.”

“Fire a flare. Let’s take a quick look at what’s going on.”

The short lived bright white light showed nothing, no signs of raiders coming in retaliation.

“I wonder why not, Harris. We killed and wounded anything up to sixty of theirs last night. Not like the Hun to sit back and take whatever we throw at them… Pass the word, Harris. No dawn stand-to this morning. Wouldn’t mind betting we get a concentrated bombardment on the trench just when they would expect all the men to be out of the dugouts. It’s what I might do, anyway.”

If that was the case, it was a near-certainty as far as Harris was concerned. He sent the message out by his runners, down the trench on either side.

“A minimum of sentries and an officer to each company to be at the lip of the trench, close to a dugout. The men to be ready to come out if necessary. Heads down away from the entrances.”

A cloudy morning delaying the dawn and then heavy gunfire from behind the German lines.

“Get down!”

Ten minutes of concentrated barrage from several batteries of medium guns and field artillery, landing in and around the first line, almost no unders and only a few over.

“Good shooting, Harris!”

“Nothing bigger than a hundred pounds, I would say, sir. Mostly far lighter.”

Richard agreed.

“One battery of five or six medium guns. The rest three inch field artillery. Their seventy-sixes, I think. Divisional artillery, not Corps or Army.”

A single battery began to respond from their rear.

“Eighteen pounders attempting counter-battery fire. If we have a balloon up for observation, it might be successful. Not otherwise.”

“I have heard that they are experimenting with aeroplanes, sir. Using them to observe for artillery. Using signalling lamps, like the Navy does.”

“Could work…”

They were interrupted by a shell landing feet away from the entrance to the dugout, the noise almost deafening.

“Lucky one, Harris! A little closer and we would have taken the blast through the doorway.”

“Two feet between earache and the Pearly Gates, sir!”

Richard laughed. It seemed an apposite comment.

“Coming to an end, I think, Harris. Time to poke our noses outside, see what is happening.”

The trench itself had taken some damage – the men would be digging for much of the day to rebuild parapets and walls and replace duckboards.

“The buggers hit the sump, sir! Pump’s a goner! We will be flooded out before the end of the day if it starts to rain.”

“Bloody nuisance that will be. Is the telephone intact?”

Quick examination said that the wire was cut, would have to be replaced.

“I’ll go back to my own dugout and start the ball rolling. What of casualties?”

Ten minutes loud noise and the expenditure of thousands of pounds on high explosive had left one man with a cut arm from flying debris. The dugouts were effective protection, provided the men were inside them.

“Hawkeswill! We need a pump for Harris’ company, quick time. Smashed by a shell. What’s the word from other companies?”

“Major Vokes is putting the list together, sir. All minor. E Company lost most of their duckboards. Looks as if they had been repaired previously and the whole lot fell to bits, sir.”

“Put in the requisition. Urgent – they can’t be left to wade in the mud and crap under the walkways.”

“Yes, sir. Brigade calling, sir.”

Richard took the telephone.

“Just a Hate, sir. Retaliation for the raids, I suspect. I cancelled stand-to this morning in case. We took almost no casualties as a result. Need a water-pump and two hundred yards of duckboards, sir. That’s at six feet wide. Six hundred boards, sir.”

Braithwaite might not have been capable of calculating to such complexity.