Chapter 4
‘Lieutenant-Colonel Gallagher is here, in étaples?’ I ask, surprised.
The captain looks as if I’ve wafted a dead trench rat under his nose. ‘Not here. Across the bridge in Le Touquet, of course.’
‘Ah,’ I nod. ‘Of course.’
‘I suppose you might as well come back with me,’ he sighs, pulling the swagger stick from under his arm and examining his miniscule moustache in the reflection of the silver knob. ‘I assume there’s nothing here to delay you.’
It’s not a question.
I follow Captain Beddowes, as he finally introduces himself, out of the hut and through the dusty acres of the dunes.
We don’t talk much as we cut around a cheerful rabble of men queueing for the shower stalls, and then dodge a motorised ambulance on the main road towards the bridge.
The captain’s silence suits me fine. I’m not only curious as to why the colonel wishes to see me, I’m also puzzled by what Gallagher is actually doing here, on the northern coast, when the battalion he commands – the battalion I belong to – is over 120 kilometres away in the Somme Valley.
As we near the little bridge that spans the river Canche and divides the towns of étaples and Le Touquet, two guards step forward as if to challenge us.
The morning sun is blinding and turning the estuary into a sparkling silver thread.
It isn’t until the last moment that the soldiers see the pips on our sleeves.
One breaks into a smarmy smile and waves us through.
‘It’s all right, Lionel, they’re officers,’ he says to his mate, and salutes. ‘Sergeant Dennis Paterson, at your service. Do head on over, sirs. Lovely day for it.’
With its gorgeous beaches and luxury hotels to serve as their billets, Le Touquet is reserved for officers only.
A privilege that is strictly enforced by this petty little checkpoint on the bridge.
The common soldier must make do with the mouldy huts, leaky tents, cold showers, and ear wax-peppered porridge of étaples.
Still, we’re all in this together, right?
Officers and Tommies fighting for the common cause?
Well, German machine guns and snipers’ bullets don’t discriminate anyway.
We head down to the seafront, Beddowes gradually unstiffening as the miles pass.
At one point he proudly waves his stick in the direction of the town park and informs me that, after his duties typing up reports and running errands for the colonel are complete, he’ll often lend a hand down there, digging up a spud or two.
‘They’ve planted this enormous potato crop, you see?’ he says, lifting his chin. ‘Right in the middle of the park. It’s used to help feed the sick and injured. I like to do my bit, of course.’
‘Commendable,’ I nod.
He gives me a sideways look and says drily, ‘Naturally, I’d prefer to be among you young fellows, right at the heart of the action.
When I think of the hell those Jerry devils are unleashing on the poor Frenchies down at Verdun?
Well, I feel like throwing a rifle over my shoulder, marching right into Berlin, and hanging that damned Kaiser from the nearest lamppost.’
‘Then why don’t you?’ The question slips out before I can stop it.
‘Oh, I would,’ Beddowes blusters. ‘I would, if only my lungs weren’t in such rotten shape.’ He taps the silver end of his stick very lightly against his chest. ‘Bronchitis as an infant. Left a permanent weakness. My curse, but there it is... Ah, and here we are.’
It’s not to one of the grand hotels but to a commandeered seaside casino that Captain Beddowes has delivered me.
Without a wheeze from those ‘rotten lungs’, he hurries across a sweeping driveway and up the steps of a fine three-storey building.
I follow him between soaring columns and into a marble-tiled entrance hall.
The pure dazzling white of the place almost hurts my eyes.
In a large salon off to the right, I see wounded officers in pristine pyjamas reading newspapers while nurses flit between their beds, straightening covers and delivering cups of steaming coffee.
‘This way.’ Beddowes guides me up a flight of stairs to a set of large double doors immediately off the landing. He knocks and we stand awkwardly either side, waiting for the summons.
‘Come!’ a voice barks at last.
We enter a big room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a plush purple carpet.
Probably the softest thing my army boots have ever walked upon.
Sunlight streams between long golden curtains and makes a constellation of the cutglass chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
Directly below this sits a toad of a man, dwarfed by his high-backed chair, stubby fingers laced over an ample stomach.
Beddowes approaches and salutes. ‘Lieutenant Wraxall, sir.’
‘Aye?’ The colonel fixes me with a beady eye. ‘Ah yes. At ease, Wraxall. At ease.’
Fierce, bald, short of breath, the red-faced colonel sits behind what looks like an old blackjack table, its green baize worn, the betting boxes now only the ghostliest of outlines.
I step forward, all the while imagining what this room must have been like before the war.
Duchesses in priceless tiaras and foreign princes rubbing shoulders with conmen and chorus girls, fortunes lost on the spin of a wheel.
Now it is lives that are staked at this table, the bets of old men paid for in young blood.
He catches me eyeing the papers in front of him – diagrams of what appear to be troop movements, aerial photographs of the German lines, memos with phrases that leap out at me: calculated risk, continuous bombardment, acceptable casualties – and with an annoyed croak, the colonel sweeps the entire collection into a folder, which he thrusts into Beddowes’ hands.
‘So, our hero is returned,’ he says, a smile hitching up the corners of his walrus moustache.
‘Lieutenant Stephen Wraxall, in the flesh. Well, most of it anyway!’ He guffaws, pointing a finger at my absent ear.
‘We have a first-rate fellow here, Beddowes. Mentioned in dispatches. Fought off a Boche raid on his trench almost single-handed. Bagged himself a young Jerry, to boot.’
He laughs again and mimes firing a bullet into my heart.
I’m not sure if he expects me to play along and swoon to the floor.
All I can picture at this moment is a pair of startled blue eyes and lips murmuring the word Kamerad.
Meanwhile the colonel reaches for the tin cup standing at his elbow and takes a long swig. I can smell the brandy from here.
‘Shame about your platoon, though,’ he says, resurfacing. ‘Pretty much wiped out, I hear? Well, well, spilt milk and all that. But let me think. Yes, I knew your CO, didn’t I? Captain Phillip...’ He snaps his fingers at Beddowes. ‘Now what was the chap’s name?’
‘Danvers,’ I murmur.
‘What’s that?’ He glances up from under beetling brows.
‘Danvers,’ Beddowes says quickly before I can repeat the name.
‘Danvers! That’s it. Damned fine soldier. Balliol man. Knew his father well. A pity, but he died honourably, no doubt, and that must be a comfort to his mother.’
I think of the black-edged card in Michael’s mother’s window.
Had his sacrifice been a comfort to her?
I doubt it. But Gallagher is right about one thing: Captain Phillip Danvers had been a fine soldier.
Although a little gruff and world-weary when I met him on my first day at the Front, he had cared deeply for the men under his charge and I had learned more about soldiering from him than from a dozen bullying sergeants at Sandhurst. A shame that I can only think of him now as a shattered figure lying in the snow-spotted earth outside our dugout.
‘Anyway, onward, ever onward,’ Gallagher grunts. ‘We have a batch of ripping new recruits for you, Lieutenant. Fresh boys from Blighty that need taking on down to Maricourt and sorting out. Give him the list, Beddowes.’
The captain takes a neatly-folded paper from his pocket and hands it to me. ‘Your new platoon,’ he says. ‘They’re all here, in étaples. You’re to travel down with them and see that they’re safely delivered to Captain Gordon Hunter Jackson.’
‘Your new CO,’ Gallagher puts in. ‘Splendid chap. A Scot, I think, but no worse for that. Mild-mannered to look at him, but they say he fought like a tiger at Marne. Old Major Dumfries saw Jackson with his own eyes walk through a blaze of machine gunfire to rescue one of his boys who’d got caught up in some barbed wire.
Carried the man back like a babe in arms. Heroes like that saved Paris, you know. ’
I do know, I think to myself. But what do you know of it, Colonel?
‘He sounds remarkable.’ My gaze returns to the list. ‘So these men are all fresh recruits? And you want them dispatched straight to the Front? No further training?’
Usually any new arrivals would be stationed here for a few weeks, to be ‘toughened up’ by those brutal Bull Ring instructors.
The puffy face on the other side of the desk glares at me.
‘No time for any of that. Big things are in the offing, young Wraxall. All part of the reason I’m up here meself.
Meetings with the top brass, don’t you know.
Even talk of me having a private chinwag with General Haig himself.
’ The old military toad preens at the idea of an audience with the Commander of the entire British Expeditionary Forces.
Lost in this daydream, he almost hops out of his chair when Beddowes gives a soft cough.
‘Ah. But that’s need-to-know stuff, and all you need to know is your orders.
Gather up these men and start south the day after tomorrow.
I’ll be joining you as soon as we’re wrapped up here. ’
My eyes skate down the list. All unfamiliar names. But then my old platoon had been strangers to me at first. Life in the trenches has a way of forging friendships fast.
‘Let’s hope more than one of you survives this time,’ Beddowes says with a sly smile.
The colonel hasn’t heard the remark but he sees the look on my face. ‘What is it, Wraxall? Something up?’
‘No, sir. Not a thing.’
‘Good, good. Oh, and you might as well select a soldier-servant from that list. Some suitable Tommy to see to your needs at the Front. Get you your grub, wash your uniform, all that sort of thing.’
A soldier-servant. Someone I can keep close by and watch over as best I can. A chance, perhaps, to make amends for those harsh words on the train.
‘I’d prefer a chap I already know,’ I say quickly. ‘Like these men, he’s a private just arrived from Blighty. I got talking to him on the way over and... well... He’s... That’s to say, he’s made a good first impression on me and I think we could get along together very well.’
Gallagher nods. ‘Always important to find a Tommy you can be at ease with. The rest of his duties can be learned on the job, but a good officer always knows when he clicks with the proper servant. All right, what’s the blighter’s name?’
‘McCormick,’ I say. ‘Daniel.’
‘But this is very irregular,’ Beddowes objects. ‘Why not choose from the list? I mean, is the man even in our regiment?’
The colonel turns a cold amphibian eye on his staff officer.
‘If he isn’t, he can be transferred. You’ll sort the paperwork, Beddowes.
And you can wipe that silly look off your face while you’re at it.
If you didn’t spend half your life pushing paper and licking stamps and instead saw some real action at the Front, you’d understand these things.
An officer needs a man he can trust at his side.
And our hero here trusts this McCormick. Ain’t that right, Wraxall?’
Trust him? I barely know him. But I’m glad anyway that I’ve managed to rescue him from those sadists who run the Bull Ring.
‘Oh, one last thing before you go,’ the colonel says. ‘Do you still doodle?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m sorry?’
He huffs. ‘Doodle, man. Doodle!’ He snatches up a pencil and mimes a scribble across the baize table. ‘Draw, sketch, doodle ! I remember the fellow...’ He snaps his fingers and Beddowes whispers the late captain’s name again. ‘Yes, yes, Danvers. He told me once you were something of an artist. So?’
‘In my spare time, I suppose I still—’
‘Excellent. But you are accurate, yes? You can draw what is actually there and a chap with half a brain can recognise it for what it is? What I mean, Wraxall, is that you’re not one of these “Modernists” the Continentals love so much.
Like that blasted dago who paints all the nude women with their heads turned about and their bits in all the wrong places? ’
‘You mean Picasso, sir?’
‘That’s the dauber.’ The colonel bangs his fists on the arms of his chair, as if the master of Modernism had personally offered to paint him with all his bits in the wrong places.
‘You know what I personally think about these oddballs?’ he says, staring about as if they could be listening in.
‘Pansies, the lot of ’em! Sodomites! Degenerates!
Had more than a few limp-wristed blighters back at the old school.
Took a good deal of caning to thrash that sort of thing out of ’em. ’
I swallow hard. I saw such things in my old school too. Masters beating pupils who’d been found together in a moment of intimacy. Boys thrashed bloody for their sins. At least my father never raised his hand to me for my ‘impurity’ – only sent me off to war.
‘If I found one of the dirty devils in my battalion, know what I’d do?
’ Gallagher continues. ‘Court-martial the filth on sight! Dig ’em out and have ’em shot at dawn, right in front of the entire company!
Then wipe the killing bullet clean of his damned blood.
None of this hard labour nonsense. Bullet, done.
Can’t have sexual inverts in any decent man’s army, ain’t that right, Lieutenant? ’
The colonel sits back, a little breathless from his rant, while Captain Beddowes casts me a cool gaze.
All I can do is nod. ‘Right you are, Colonel. Right you are.’