Andrew Wareham - The Death of Hope

“Of course, sir. We could do with a rum issue, sir. Buck up the men’s spirits.”

“Speak to your Sergeant Major, Baker. If he can’t arrange that, there’s something wrong.”

“It was worth a try, sir.”

“So it was. I shall see what may be done. Send me a report on that boy, Michaels, was it?”

“Yes, sir. A good MC, sir, and two riflemen at his side as well.”

“Mentions for them. I shall do what I can for the boy. Pity he used Mills Bombs. French don’t like them.”

“Impossible to blow up a bunker with a bayonet, sir.”

“Nonsense, Baker. To the willing mind, nothing is impossible!”

Fotherby permitted a smile, gave permission to his juniors to laugh.

“Communications trenches, sir.”

“Ah, yes. Haven’t got any and you need them. I shall get a labour battalion up at soonest. They should start work tonight.”

“Labour battalion, sir? New one on me.”

“Hired them in, just arrived. Chinks. Coolies. From China. You know, the yellow buggers with the slant eyes?”

Richard did know who Chinese were, saw nothing wrong in Fotherby’s description of them, perfectly normal in ordinary conversation.

“They say there are hundreds of thousands of them going spare in China, sir. Cheap, as well. Good idea to pick up a few thousand. I read somewhere that the Americans did the same when building their railways. San Francisco is supposed to be full of them.”

“Didn’t know that, Baker. Never been there, of course. Not been to China, either. Regiment was sent to South Africa, wasn’t available when the Boxer business blew up. Pity. Good little campaign, that one. Nice and tidy. Not to worry. I should be able to lay my hands on a good number. Get them to dig a proper zigzag forward.”

There had been a problem in the early days of the trenches, the unwary digging in straight lines which a bullet could traverse end to end.

“Get the telephone wires in as well, sir. Useful thing to have up in the second line.”

“So it is. Get yourself settled in, Baker. The General wants us to keep pushing forward. It might be possible elsewhere, won’t be here. Get yourself comfortable for the winter.”

The German trenches were far better constructed than the British. Concrete had been used in places and the drainage system actually worked. Reversing the trench was a nuisance but the end product was more comfortable, the dugouts deeper and larger than the British and timber lined, making them far less muddy. The bunks were equipped with thicker mattresses as well, although just as full of lice as the British. They fumigated the dugouts and carpeted their floors with thousands of dead insect corpses. At least as many survived, hidden away and emerging to greet the new occupants.

The Medical Officer was worried about the possibility of typhus, which apparently was carried by some sorts of lice, or ticks, perhaps… bugs of some sort, certainly. Not the right sort for these trenches, it seemed, typhus and enteric and its various subspecies all staying clear for the winter.

“Always a chance of cholera, sir. Dysentery is a certainty, of course. I shan’t be happy when the winter influenza strikes, as it always does. Living in cold and damp conditions with too little of heating and poor food makes the men vulnerable to all of the infectious diseases. Still, not as bad as the Crimea, and that was worse than the Boer War. They say the Peninsula was appalling – losses of twenty to sickness for every one killed in battle. We are running no more than three to one in ordinary weeks. Of course, whenever there is a push, the figures do show a change…”

“So, Doctor, what you are saying is that we must take care of the men over winter. Disease will be the enemy.”

“Very much so, Colonel. Not so bad for our men now that they have had a blankets issue. All of them have two at least now of the new, thick, fleecy sort. Some picked up a third, of course, from the casualties.”

Richard had not considered that. He wondered how the dead men’s blankets had been shared out, had a quiet word with O’Grady.

“Done by the sergeants, sir, in the companies. The oldest and the youngest are the ones most needing to sleep warm in the nature of things. They dished them out as was right, sir. Where they could, they sent a couple to the sickbay, sir.”

“Best I know nothing about the business?”

“You have played your part, sir, as the men know. Not the details, as goes without saying, it’s just that everybody knows you fiddled it somehow, sir. Not just a mad bugger when it comes to a fight, which they like, as is only natural; an officer who looks after the men as well, which is not quite so common.”

Richard shrugged, it had not been his intention to make a name for himself as a kind-hearted gentleman. It could do no harm.

O’Grady left, wondering why the man was chuckling. Richard chose not to enlighten him.

‘All because I did not fancy the Old Man disinheriting me. And one thing coming on the heels of another and each forcing me further down the same road. If the Old Man had put me in an office, out of harm’s way, with a promise of a half share when he was gone, I would have been perfectly happy. As it is, I am a colonel, in the Trenches, my name in the newspapers, and a fiancée waiting for me… Better write, I put nothing on paper yesterday. Mustn’t have her worrying more than is inevitable, far too good a girl to do that to her.’

He called to Paisley for tea and sat to composition, admitting that the battalion had been involved in the big battle, because he could not deny it, and trying to find some way of twisting the truth, short of outright lying, to suggest that he had been well out of harm’s way. He suspected she might not believe him. The house at Wells-next-the-Sea served for a good half page – had she seen it, did she like it? He believed that part of Norfolk to be most handsome, healthy as well with the North Sea airs. They could bring up a family there in comfort, he did not doubt. He was stricken by doubt – should he mention a family to an unmarried girl? Was it proper to discuss such matters with her? He dismissed his doubts – anything could be said to Primrose, and by her.

He spent a pleasant hour, longer than he suspected he should have taken from the business of the battalion, rose refreshed from the desk a considerate German officer had left behind and which was now his. A real desk, with drawers and a small cupboard, not the packing case or door laid across two boxes he was used to. He expected it was official issue, German trenches for the use of. Say what you liked about Prussian militarism, they were better at running the minutiae of war.

“Paisley, is this to be our bunker for the duration?”

“Yes, sir. It ain’t the biggest but it’s well set up and has a little one next door for a servant what is convenient indeed. Whoever the Hun was had this built knew how to look after himself, that’s for sure, sir. Got a little flywire meat safe in here, for keeping an opened tin of bully clear of flies, sir. Good for milk, as well. Add to that, if you looks to the wall on the left, there’s a rack for pistol and belts and such, sir. On the right, there’s hooks up to hang a spare tunic. Got electric cables coming in as well, but they ain’t connected to nothing no more so no use to us. Your bunk’s clean as well, sir. Didn’t see no bugs to it when I chucked his blankets out, for not wanting to sleep where a Hun’s been, for not knowing what diseases he might have, them being known for strange habits, as you might say.”

Richard gravely agreed – one heard all sorts of tales about the Germans and could not take too many precautions where they were concerned.

Primrose, accompanied by her mother, the older lady making a rare excursion from her London home, was visiting at Wells. Her new father-to-be, who she rather liked, was to meet the pair at the hotel close to the single wharf on the inlet and was next day to escort the pair to examine the house he had closed on. They progressed fairly quickly on the express to Norwich, remarkably slowly on the coast line that trickled between the resort towns of Cromer and Hunstanton, stopping at most villages in between.