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  A SUMMER FOR WAR

  A MALCOLM MACPHAIL WW1 NOVEL

  Darrell Duthie

  A Summer for War: a Malcolm MacPhail WW1 novel

  By Darrell Duthie

  Copyright © 2021 Darrell Duthie

  Darrell Duthie asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in 2021 by Esdorn Editions, the Netherlands

  ISBN 978-94-92843-210 (trade paperback edition)

  ISBN 978-94-92843-203 (e-book edition)

  Cover design by JD Smith Design

  Interior design and typesetting by JD Smith Design

  Cover photographs acknowledgement: Canada Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada: A shell bursting in the village of Vimy. France, May 1917 (PA-001289); Canada Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada: Wounded and prisoners coming in. France, November 1916 (PA-000855)

  This book is a work of historical fiction. The names, characters, events and dialogue portrayed herein are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, except where they are an acknowledged part of the historical record.

  www.darrellduthie.com

  Also by Darrell Duthie in the Malcolm MacPhail WW1 series

  Malcolm MacPhail’s Great War – (1917-1918)

  My Hundred Days of War – (1918)

  A War for King and Empire – (1915-1916)

  Vicissitudes of War – (1916-1917)

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Map of the Douai Plain

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  Map of Arleux and Fresnoy

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  PART THREE

  Map of the Battle of Hill 70 and Lens

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  Books in the Malcolm MacPhail WW1 series

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  26th of April, 1917

  Fort George, northwest of Neuville-Saint-Vaast, France

  The general looked up with what might have been annoyance. ‘Wait there, MacPhail,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I mumbled, my head hurriedly retreating through the low, heavily timbered doorway.

  As I stood waiting outside his room in the central chamber of the dug-out, I shuffled uneasily from foot to foot. Rarely a day passed that I didn’t speak a word or two with him, so on the face of it there was no reason for a dry throat and the terribly awkward leg work. Yet I’d been summoned at a moment’s notice. Conscious I had nothing of any importance to report – the division’s dispositions had barely changed, and the general was surely aware of that – it left me to speculate uselessly about other explanations for my required presence.

  He certainly hadn’t called for me to discuss the logistics of a forthcoming operation. If there was to be an operation – although that seemed inconceivable as we’d only just finished bouncing Fritz off Vimy Ridge two weeks before – I would hear about it through the normal chain of command. Which meant it had to be something else. As the junior man on his staff, the possibilities seemed limited. Few of them could be construed as especially positive. I sighed. I’d hear soon enough. Audible through the open doorway, Captain Ferguson of the intelligence section was wrapping up his report.

  ‘Finally, sir, the PPCLI report the Germans blew the tower off the Méricourt church. They say both the steeple and the roof are blown.’ The general’s reply was too soft to hear, but brief, the news of another Northern European church in ruins so common as to be commonplace. There was some comfort in the fact Ferguson had even bothered to mention it; I wasn’t the only one on the staff scraping the bottom of the barrel for something of interest to present to the divisional commander.

  While the captain apprised the general on the full extent of the afternoon’s damage to ecclesiastical property by our God-fearing adversary, my eyes went in search of the colonel. If there was something nasty awaiting me the presence of the senior staff officer, the GSO1, Lieutenant-Colonel Hayter, was to be expected. He dealt with personnel matters and most things nasty. I was mildly surprised I hadn’t spotted him in the room with the general, for he was usually at his side. A quick glance around the chamber now confirmed he was neither there, nor in any of the adjoining alcoves.

  At the sound of footsteps I turned my attention again to the open doorway.

  Ferguson appeared through it. He acknowledged me with a curt nod. To my questioning look, he responded with an affirmative bob of his head. I smiled politely and stepped through the narrow entranceway, ducking as I did so. Fort George was a sizeable redoubt, but having painfully experienced its low ceilings and profusion of hard wooden beams on more than one occasion, stooping was as much second nature as a matter of survival.

  The General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 3rd Canadian Division, Major-General Louis Lipsett, was seated behind a small, simple wooden table of a kind one saw everywhere behind the lines.

  Pulling myself erect I was conscious of him observing me. With as much decorum as I could muster, I stepped forward a couple of paces to the table and came stiffly to attention.

  The general’s cap lay bottom up on the table. The rest of the tabletop was empty save for a neatly ordered pile of paper and a teapot. ‘Lieutenant MacPhail,’ said the general evenly. Gingerly he took a sip from his cup, steam still rising from it.

  ‘You called for me, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes I did. At ease, Lieutenant.’ This was followed by a long silence in which he said nothing, engendering in me an opposite reaction.

  ‘I don’t have much to report, sir,’ I said in a rushed breath. ‘The company of the 8th Field Engineers have completed their move, but otherwise the division is as it was.’ I hesitated, looking at him for some hint of what he had in mind. There was none. ‘Unless there are new orders I should be aware of, sir?’

  Lipsett smiled to himself and put down his cup. He knew very well I was on a fishing expedition. Decisively he shook his head. ‘No, Lieutenant, the division is remaining where it is. There are no plans at present. However, for you on the other hand –’

  I stiffened. ‘Sir?’

  Lipsett placed his hands on the table, and his expression turned serious. ‘I’ve always thought it important that my officers are well-rounded, prepared for a broad range of duties. General Byng has made no secret of the fact he strongly encourages this. I’ve no use for an officer if he’s not able to adapt to new and changing circumstances. And above all to keep his wits about him.’

  ‘Sir,’ I said. In this instance the least said the better.

  ‘With the Vimy show behind us, you’ll have noticed a certain lull in t
he division’s operations.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Which makes this an excellent moment to expose you to some other aspects of staff work. As it happens an opportunity has come along.’ Lipsett rummaged through his papers briefly before extracting what appeared to be a signals sheet. Distractedly he glanced at it. ‘The 7th Brigade will be exchanging liaison officers with the 5th Brigade.’ He looked up. ‘I’ve decided to send you along.’

  A frown formed on my face. I guess I should have been thankful. Half the division were out every day, rain or shine, on working parties building roads over a muddy Vimy Ridge and onto the Douai Plain beyond. That was a backbreaking task I had no particular desire to experience. But contrary to what the general thought, I did have some experience doing liaison work. Beyond several harrowing late night excursions to reconnoitre the enemy wire, I’d ended up liaising between two battalions from two different divisions in the midst of a major attack at the Somme. It had left me holed in two different places; on occasion my shoulder still ached at the memory.

  General Lipsett must have sensed something of what I was thinking – he’d recruited me from my hospital bed after all – for he condescended to explain further. ‘You won’t be at the front, MacPhail, you’ll be at headquarters. But as 2nd Division is adjacent to us, as I’m sure you’re aware, it’s important we keep each other informed. Obviously, the colonel and I are most interested in hearing about anything that might bear on the division’s current or future operations.’

  Suddenly the whole idea seemed a lot more palatable. Hanging around one of the 2nd Division’s brigade headquarters couldn’t be that taxing. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, with a bounce in my voice.

  Had I been just that little bit more alert, I would have realized there was little point in liaising about the state of our joint road-building efforts.

  ‘You may report at the 5th Brigade headquarters at the railway embankment dug-outs near Vimy station,’ said the general. ‘You’re expected tomorrow morning.’

  27th of April, 1917

  Vimy, France

  On the far side of Vimy Ridge, and several hundred yards northeast of the battered remains of the village which gave it its name, were a series of dug-outs whose proprietor had recently changed. These were not the grand German divisional dug-outs we’d found in Farbus. They’d had beer gardens in a Swiss motif, and a porch on which to pass the time, while inside broad staircases led down to the lower levels where high-ceilinged, neatly painted chambers clad in wooden wainscoting and filled with fine leather chairs revealed themselves under an electric light. The railway dug-outs were far simpler. They were dug into the high earthen embankment of the railway to Lens, a whole series of them which had once housed legions of Bavarians tasked with defending the ridge. Having summarily evicted the Bavarians, our sister division had quickly put them to its own use. One of the biggest of these dug-outs – a former medical post I later learned – was in an underpass, not far from the station. It was there, I was told, that the staff of the 5th Brigade had set up camp.

  Approaching on a narrow country road early that morning, the blueish-grey mass of Vimy Ridge behind me, and the embankment off my right shoulder, I spotted a rail junction ahead. It was precisely as the map showed it; the line continued northwards to Lens, while a spur branched left to cut across to the west. Before the junction the road dipped as it approached the railway at an angle. Reaching the railway, it jogged sharply to the right, passing through the embankment and underneath the tracks by way of a stone-lined arch.

  That would be the spot, I figured. I was pleased I’d made the entire journey with nary a wrong turn. Another man was walking ahead of me and since leaving the village I’d been steadily gaining ground. I could see now that he was wearing a greatcoat and he looked like an officer. He might very well be the other liaison officer from the division, from the 7th Brigade. What our hosts were to make of two of us I don’t rightly know.

  I hastened my step with the intent of overtaking him when a whirr in the air caught my ear. It didn’t so much catch my ear as seized me in a constricting vice, freezing me to the spot, my forehead pulsing. A shell!

  Instinctively (and wholly unnecessarily) I ducked. I say unnecessarily as I don’t think in nearly three years of war there had been a single documented case, nor even a trench rumour, of a man escaping a shell merely by ducking. The shell roared past not far overhead, tearing at the sky as it did so. Only then did I leap away to the side of the road where the blackened remains of a tree beckoned. Where one shell was to be found, others would soon follow – Fritz was wearisomely predictable that way. As I landed in the dirt I heard the shell burst with a deep thud. When finally I turned to look, the telltale black plume was hovering in the air north of Vimy, only a few hundred yards behind.

  Then, as if to confirm my fears, another round screeched over very low.

  I glanced down the road. The officer ahead of me had also taken shelter, although he probably realized like I did that a few furrows in the earth, or even a tree stump, was shelter barely worthy of the name. While the enemy’s efforts were plainly directed at the village, it wouldn’t have been the first time a worn-out barrel threw up a short. I stared down the road at the rail bridge, eyeing it carefully. That might stop a shell or two, I thought, noting the thick stonework. A shell whistled over. I glanced again at the overpass. It couldn’t have been more than 100 yards away. I could run it in a minute. Less.

  I got to my feet and put on a sprint.

  Nearing the officer I began to shout: ‘C’mon. Run for it!’ I was up to him before he reacted. He looked at me in surprise, then began to hoist himself awkwardly upwards. He wasn’t the lieutenant from the 7th Brigade I was anticipating but a major I didn’t recognize at all. Breathing heavily, I bent at the knees and reached out an arm to help him out of the ditch.

  He seized it. Once he was standing firmly on both feet we began to run. The air shrieked as another shell tore overhead.

  The weather had softened remarkably these last few days and it was beginning to feel like spring. It had been a long, harsh winter, and not only because of the fighting. Tucked in the crook of my elbow was a trench coat, which somehow I hadn’t dropped. The major was still wearing his and probably wished he wasn’t. Despite the encumbrances we made good progress.

  Winded, more from the excitement than the exercise, we came to a halt in the shadow of the overpass stonework. The shells were coming in rapid succession now, no less terrifying for the many feet of brick, earth and train rails above our heads.

  Of average height and lean physique, the major’s most remarkable features were his pert little moustache, doleful blue eyes, and sagging dark bags under those eyes. The bags made him look as if someone had taken a few swings at him – either that or he’d been up several nights running. He was scrutinizing me and my tunic sleeve with interest. ‘Thanks,’ he breathed.

  Graciously I bowed my head and followed it up with a smile.

  With that the major’s demeanour lost some of its seriousness. ‘I’m guessing you must be Lieutenant MacPhail, the liaison from the 3rd Division,’ he said in a friendly tone. The divisional patch on my sleeve was a sure-fire giveaway, but before I could confirm he added: ‘Follow me.’ He led me through a doorway in the embankment I hadn’t noticed earlier, and down a long flight of solid wooden stairs. The air was cool and smelled of damp. I could hear voices below.

  ‘By the way, I’m Clark-Kennedy, the Brigade Major,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Welcome.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Pleased to meet you,’ I called out after him.

  We stepped down into a substantial room lit by a whole cathedral’s worth of candles. From the bulbs hanging from the ceiling – approvingly I noted it was possible to stand without fear of whopping my head against some beam or other protrusion – I could see that the Bavarians hadn’t needed candles. But since their departure no one had gotten around to re-connecting the electricity. Far more important than light, the telephones we
re definitely working. I heard an orderly speaking into one. ‘164th R.I.R.,’ he was saying, plainly parroting the person on the other end of the line. ‘Yes, sir, I’ll be sure to pass it along.’

  ‘Is that news from the patrol?’ asked Clark-Kennedy. He’d heard it as well.

  ‘Yes, sir. They encountered three of the enemy and brought a body back for identification,’ replied the soldier. ‘I was to tell you he was with the 164th Reserve Infantry Regiment, sir.’

  The major glanced back at me. ‘You’ve come at a busy moment, Lieutenant. As it happens, you caught me returning from the brigadier at Les Tilleuls. We’ve only just established our advanced headquarters here, so everything’s still a bit rudimentary I’m afraid.’

  At this I rubbed at my chin, if only to disguise my surprise. While I had more or less expected the brigade commander to be on hand to greet me as General Lipsett’s emissary, I certainly hadn’t expected to be reporting at an advanced headquarters. The announcement that I found myself in one came as somewhat of a shock. Advanced headquarters were invariably for one thing, and one thing alone.

  ‘164th Regiment,’ mused Clark-Kennedy, thinking about what the signaller had said. ‘It appears almost certain we’ll be up against them.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘In the forthcoming operation.’

  I coughed uneasily. ‘Forthcoming operation, sir?’

  ‘I thought you knew. Why do you think you’re here?’ He looked round, then found what he was searching for on a nearby table and passed me a sheaf of typewritten pages. OPERATION ORDER 141 was printed at the top of the first page.

  ‘”Instructions for attack on Arleux Loop,” sir?’ I said hesitatingly, reading the title of the order aloud. No one had said anything about an attack being in the works, least of all General Lipsett. Quite the opposite in fact. Lipsett had made it clear our division had no such plans. Or had he? I racked my brains, trying to recall his exact words.

  Either way, I was certain he’d said nothing whatsoever about an attack by the 2nd Division. I should have known there was more to it than a simple exchange of officers. Enquiringly I looked at Clark-Kennedy.