Malcolm MacPhail's Great War Read online

  Peering off across No-Man’s-Land I felt like I was staring into a well, straining to see the bottom. ‘How can you tell if it’s an officer in this light, Corporal? How can you see anything, for that matter?’

  ‘Your eyes will adjust, sir. Watch for the helmets of the others. They always straighten up momentarily if an officer passes.’ The corporal may have been barely twenty, but he’d learned a few things along the way. ‘And if you look through the wire, there – a hair to the right of the entrance – they’re silhouetted for a second as they duck to enter the dug-out.’

  Within half an hour I had a chance to test his story. I saw four or five helmets bob up, one after the other, along the length of the trench. The soldiers opposite us were a disciplined lot: Prussians, of course. And then for a brief moment I saw a figure stooping, and illuminated as promised by the light from the dug-out. He was slipping his helmet under his arm and he looked like he was carrying a case. It was his rigid bearing that gave him away. He was an officer all right.

  We staked out the dug-out for another three miserable hours, but saw nothing else. By the end, I was wet and cold, and I couldn’t care less whether the entire German General Staff turned up out of the blue. The reconnaissance was inconclusive. Something was going on over there in that dug-out, but what? I was going to need a new strategy. The thought led me back to my conversation with the field-marshal. He’d said very little, but enough to know there was a good chance we were heading for an even bigger mess.

  CHAPTER 2

  6th of October, 1917

  Château Villers-Châtel, Villers-Châtel, France

  ‘Why the frown, sir?’ My assistant was asking.

  ‘Thinking, that’s all, Sergeant.’

  ‘About the offensive at Ypres? The attack on the 4th at Broodseinde went well, sir. The German losses were reported as very heavy.’ I didn’t contradict him.

  The Aussies, together with the New Zealanders and the Brits, had surpassed themselves. They’d grabbed another chunk of the crucial ridge line surrounding Ypres.

  ‘The casualty count might have been in our favour, Smith, but we lost heavily as well. And you realize Passchendaele and its ridge are still to come. Apparently, it’s been pouring non-stop ever since the attack at Broodseinde. The whole area’s barely at sea level to begin with, and seeing as how all the bombardments have destroyed the irrigation channels, it must be one big, muddy cesspool by now.’

  ‘Perhaps the field-marshal will call off the offensive? Due to the weather.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, without much conviction.

  Once, life at Château Villers-Châtel had been very pleasant, I thought, as I gazed at the crowded confines of the small, elegant room I shared with Smith and two other officers. We arrived only yesterday at our new divisional headquarters, and already I had visions of sitting out the war here. The realist in me knew better. As Smith correctly deduced, my surprise encounter with the field-marshal was still fresh in my mind.

  My office was on the first floor, not far from the grand wooden staircase leading downstairs into the main hall. Our room was painted a delicate robin-egg blue and with its fancily-adorned ceilings, and graceful French doors leading to a balcony, was absurdly dainty compared to the four oafs who presently occupied it. Cramped into this space were four matching army desks and chairs, and half a dozen filing cabinets. The chipped walls were plastered with the maps and paperwork so vital to running a modern war, none of which added to the charm.

  A captain entered the room, sat down, and threw me a surly look.

  ‘Afternoon, Tibbett. Shouldn’t you be out counting guns while Fritz is eating?’ I asked. I knew how much he disliked the casual informality that pervaded the Corps. In the absence of any real entertainment, bugging Tibbett was one of my few diversions. When we first met, his disapproval of me, written so obviously on his face, had only led me to redouble my light-hearted efforts to rile him.

  Paul Tibbett was English, not that I held that against him. It was his air of condescension that I really hated, as if I were a lucky sod just to be breathing the same air. No doubt it stemmed from some insecurity; the result of a flawed childhood, or other such drama. Frankly, I didn’t care. His spectacle-endowed clerk’s face was soft, round and meek, much like his voice – unless he had something important to say. And then every sentence concluded by pitching irritatingly higher, as if to underscore his undeniable superiority. To top it off, he was a teetotaler, and that was never a positive sign in my book. He did have one redeeming quality; he was a competent enough divisional Counter-Battery Staff Officer. Not that I ever gave him the satisfaction of admitting it. Secretly, I entertained myself by dreaming he was a German spy, infiltrated into our ranks with the sole purpose of ruining our good spirits. That was patent nonsense, of course; no German I’d ever met possessed so little humour.

  To his right sat his colleague, Lieutenant Benoît DuBois, whose brow now furrowed in apparent deep concentration. I could see from the strains on his mouth, he was holding back a laugh.

  Benoît was a French-Canadian from Trois-Rivières. I’d shared more bottles with him than I cared to remember. He was a bear of a man and, if anything, that tired cliché did him an injustice. I’d known plenty of bears who would have thought twice before taking on DuBois.

  He had curly brown hair, a trifle long by army standards, and a rough, friendly face set on oxen-like shoulders. His arms hung like lamb joints from each side of a well-toned chest and well-fed belly. All this was anchored on wide hips, and two lithe, powerful legs. If anyone was a lumberjack it would have been DuBois. Why he was a counter-battery officer, and not out with the infantry, was a great mystery. I asked in a round-about way, on several occasions, and got no more than shrugs and jokes in return. If I was in some elite front-line German regiment, I would have cut tail and fled at the mere sight of Benoît barreling down upon me.

  Benoît’s years in the army had done little to lessen the expressive, almost nasal, Québécois accent that seasoned both his English and his French. I found it utterly charming, although it didn’t always make him easy to understand. British officers hearing him speak for the first time regularly did a double-take, glancing at his uniform again, just to see if they’d made a mistake. On the other hand, I’d seen French officers do much the same. I considered him a good friend.

  By the time Benoît got around to suggesting lunch I was famished. I was slightly self-conscious my reputation in certain circles as the glutton of the division wouldn’t be done much good if I led the charge. So, I sat and ignored the gurgling coming from my abdomen. Tibbett looked up after one particularly egregious rumble, but didn’t dare say anything.

  As we rose to leave, I said, ‘Keep at it, Sergeant,’ to Smith, who was putting the finishing touches on the day’s intelligence summary. ‘I’ll be back forthwith,’ I lied. I had absolutely no intention of rushing the highlight of my day.

  As we approached the officer’s mess I knew we were in luck. My nose seldom led me astray and it told me that Madame Jeanne was running the ovens this afternoon. She was an elderly French lady who, once or twice a day, came to the château to cook. I never found out the genius responsible, otherwise I would have put him up for a medal.

  I was on my very best behaviour with Madame Jeanne. For her part she seemed genuinely pleased I was so enthusiastic about her cooking. As it was, army food had improved a great deal since Verdun and the Somme. Perhaps the generals were taking to heart the truthful old saying that an army fights on its stomach. More likely it was simply a case of fewer mouths to feed.

  ‘Messieurs, avez-vous envie de manger? Un peu de nourriture?’ she questioned as she approached. Were we interested in a little food? It was one of those rare times my high school French rose brilliantly to the occasion. Madame Jeanne wielded a huge ladle and was pushing a trolley atop of which rested a monstrous, black, cast-iron casserole.

  ‘Oui, un peu plus (yes, a little more),’ I responded, smiling at my own pathetic joke
.

  Benoît rattled off several sentences, of which I think I understood three words. I glanced over at Mme. Jeanne. She looked equally puzzled, but in a mist of steam, she began ladling out a thick brown sauce chock full of what looked like mushrooms and carrots, with a meaty chicken thigh on top.

  ‘Le coq au vin,’ she said, by way of explanation. Chicken with wine didn’t begin to describe the rich aromas that were wafting up from my bowl. With the huge chunk of crusty white bread and large tumbler of red country wine that followed, for a long moment I was intensely happy to be in France. I relished these moments. They were few and far between.

  DuBois sniffed at the wine skeptically and took a mouthful. ‘Pas mal, pas mal,’ he said, after swirling it noisily around in his mouth.

  ‘Of course it’s not bad,’ I said. ‘You’d drink anything, anyhow,’ I told him with a twinge of guilt. I knew I was referring more to myself than to him.

  He ignored me. ‘What I don’t understand, Mac, is why you’re so worried. The offensive is going well,’ he said, returning to our discussion of the morning. ‘I remember how we tunnelled under that ridge near Ypres…’

  ‘Messines Ridge.’

  ‘Right. And put nineteen mines under the Boche trenches. It blew them to smithereens. There were almost 10,000 killed. They could hear the explosions in London.’

  I shrugged. ‘Sure, but that was in June. Now it’s October, it’s become one huge painful slog in the mud and Haig is searching for reinforcements. Surely you recall Ypres, Benoît? Do you want to return? That’s why I’m worried.’ After the elation about Messines it had been all downhill. The war cabinet debated. The army’s preparations moved at the pace of maple syrup in January. And the German Fourth Army – forewarned – littered the countryside with hundreds of impregnable concrete pill-boxes. The offensive didn’t even resume until the last day of July. Then, the August rains began: the heaviest in years.

  He lifted his head to stare across the table at me. Sensibly, he then returned to his food. ‘This is the food I keep telling you about, Mac,’ he managed to spit out, with a full mouth, slurring his th’s like they were d’s, and food sounding like foot. ‘La cuisine de ma grand-mère,’ he exclaimed with delight. A thick trickle of sauce ran down into his beard. Her cuisine or not, his manners would have appalled his grandmother.

  With a napkin I brushed at my own clean-shaven face to give him the hint. Facial hair, especially moustaches, were de rigeur in the BEF. Almost every officer, senior or otherwise, had one. Beards were less common. DuBois, living life to the fullest, had both. General Currie, like me, was moustache-less. He probably didn’t have a clue what was or wasn’t “de rigeur”. As for me, I couldn’t care less about army etiquette, I wasn’t senior anyhow, and I certainly wasn’t going to make myself a bigger target for a German sniper by growing an irritating lap of hair on my lip. Naturally, in the dry, warm comforts of an HQ there was no risk from snipers; a fact that was not lost on most senior officers.

  ‘You should have seen them, Benoît,’ I was saying, ‘they stood there in their gold braids and red caps, with their proper names and polished manners, doing absolutely nothing to help. Most of them couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag. And Field-Marshal Haig…’

  ‘Ah hum,’ said a voice I recognized. ‘I thought I might find you here.’

  General Lipsett had come from the rear. I was caught with my proverbial pants down, or more accurately, with a mouth full of semi-mutinous talk and a half-eaten chicken bone.

  ‘Sir,’ I managed to choke out.

  ‘We’re going ahead tonight,’ said Lipsett.

  ‘Yes, sir, most definitely. I’m heading down there after dusk,’ I replied.

  ‘Good. You’ve got me intrigued whether the Germans are up to something near this dug-out of yours.’

  ‘I hope I’ll have an answer for you, General, after tonight.’

  ‘Well, I’ll hear tomorrow, either way. Good luck. In the meantime, enjoy your chicken, gentlemen. And MacPhail...’ I looked up at him. ‘You might do well to remember our earlier discussion.’ Then he disappeared as rapidly as he came.

  I exhaled, a deep, long, frustrated sigh.

  Benoît stared at me inquiringly.

  ‘You remember I told you about my candour with that dim-wit of a colonel from GHQ last week?’

  ‘Wixley-Wexley?’

  ‘Almost. Whatley-Wigham. Anyhow, afterwards the general reminded me that a certain decorum and discipline was expected of officers – particularly those who wished to remain on his staff.’ Benoît shook his head understandingly.

  The aerial photographs at Corps HQ hadn’t revealed much more than my reconnaissance; the enemy was adding to his artillery. And there’d been a few heavy bombardments recently. It wasn’t much to go on, but if an attack was coming, I wanted to sound the warning well in advance. So, I took my suspicions and paper-thin evidence to the major and argued we should send a raiding party in the hope of capturing some prisoners, and maybe some documents. He took it to the colonel and soon the whole question was in General Lipsett’s hands. To my surprise, Lipsett quickly agreed; he didn’t want to get caught off guard any more than I did. It was commonly thought the Germans would hit back hard after their whipping at Hill 70.

  Smith and I were going to the line tonight. If the raid went well, we’d return with some useful intelligence early tomorrow morning.

  ‘Well, Benoît,’ I said, as we drained the last drops of our wine. ‘Unfortunately, I see no alternative but to return to our fight against the Hun, and in your case, Tibbett. When you’re starving in some stink-hole in Ypres, you’ll remember this meal.’

  He grinned. ‘You worry too much, Mac. I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ he said. He rose and I followed.

  I wasn’t going to ruin his mood, so I said nothing. Benoît wouldn’t have seen danger standing on the edge of a cliff. But after what I heard from the field-marshal, I sure did.

  As we passed through the doorway into the main hall, I turned on a whim and returned back through it. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I called out over my shoulder.

  A minute or two later, I re-emerged, to be greeted by a hoot of laughter from DuBois when he saw the plate heaped with food I was carrying.

  ‘So, you couldn’t resist,’ he said. ‘You’re thin now, but you’ll be bigger than me if you keep eating like this.’ At 200 pounds and six foot two, I’m not exactly a lightweight, even if DuBois thought otherwise.

  ‘No, no, it’s not for me,’ I replied.

  We climbed the stairs and entered our office. Smith looked up as I walked to his desk, and I placed the dish in front of his nose without a word. From the astonished look he gave me, I knew his gratitude would go far. That was just as well, seeing as how he wouldn’t be sleeping much in the next day or two.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I said, ‘Eat up. There’s work to be done.’

  I sat down, and began to review the latest reports from the line, scrutinizing the aerial photos with particular care. ‘Sir,’ interrupted Smith, ‘you ought to see this… the day’s intelligence summary from 2nd Division.’

  I read it quickly. Almost at the bottom, I spotted it: TRAIN MOVEMENT WAS ABOVE NORMAL YESTERDAY AFTERNOON… UNUSUAL TRAIN MOVEMENT WAS ALSO NOTICED ALL DAY – TRAINS GOING IN BOTH DIRECTIONS.

  ‘Additional train movements, eh? Yes, the Germans could be moving in reinforcements,’ I said.

  ‘Our raid tonight is looking increasingly important, sir.’

  ‘Yes, yes it is.’

  It was pointless to dwell on that now. Yawning dramatically for Tibbett’s sake, I stood up, and announced I was going to take a nap. ‘Finish that off, Smith, then I suggest you do the same. You’ll need your wits tonight. Come to think of it, Tibbett, perhaps you should rest also.’ With his weary groan in my ears, I beat a hasty withdrawal.

  I bunked in the château’s round tower, one of two that flanked the central hall of the L-shaped grey stone house. Since moving in, I’d had almost
no time to admire my quarters. There wasn’t much to admire: two metal-framed beds filled most of the room, and a wooden trunk, containing the bulk of my earthly belongings, was pushed underneath one of them. The room itself was a peculiar pie-slice shape, with the end bitten off due to the staircase running up the middle. A quaint rectangular window at shoulder level offered a nice view of the trees to the back and some welcome light. As I crawled into bed, the thought came to me that I hadn’t even seen my bunk-mate. With the hours I was keeping I might never.

  Dinner was a more subdued affair than lunch – Mme. Jeanne wasn’t there, she must have been at home cooking for her grandchildren – and I only picked at my food. Even DuBois noticed.

  ‘Are you feeling alright, Mac?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure, Benoît, full from lunch, that’s all,’ I said. I smiled at him uneasily.

  Deep down, I was apprehensive. I wouldn’t be going out with the raiding party, but in the front-line trenches anything can happen. I knew that all too well. And I was very conscious that due to my zealousness – there was no other way to describe it – some of the men crawling out through the wire tonight might not return. It was a solemn thought, and it didn’t do much to awaken a healthy hunger.

  With dinner behind us, I said good-bye to DuBois, and headed out the main door where Sergeant Smith was waiting. A stately driveway looped into a large cul-de-sac before the main entrance. As always, there were several vehicles parked outside, not always neatly, and there was a tent from the days of a field ambulance company, pitched incongruously off the right wing. Rain, little care, and the feet of a legion oblivious to the charms of a château had left the grounds noticeably down-at-heel. A car with driver stood idling at the bottom of the stairs. We quickly descended and got in. The driver asked: ‘Are we ready, sir?’ and I replied: ‘We are.’ With that, and in a spiral of smoke, we set off.

  ‘You okay, Smith?’ I asked, after we’d driven for a couple of minutes, surprised my chattily-predisposed assistant hadn’t said a word.