A Summer for War Read online

  SCREECH.

  The legs of the chair grated on the rough planks as I sprang to my feet. Furiously I began laying out the relevant pages one beside the other on the table.

  ‘Malcolm?’ said O’Neill.

  I didn’t spare him a glance. I bent over the map, my finger tracing the coordinates I’d just read. ‘Bloody hell,’ I whispered.

  ‘What the devil is up with you?’ asked O’Neill.

  Ignoring him I raised my head. ‘Major!’ I bellowed.

  Seated at his desk in the corner Clark-Kennedy looked up. I think every head in the dug-out looked my way. They weren’t accustomed to a subaltern summoning the brigade major from across a room. If O’Neill’s eyes bulged any more I would have had to push them back in with my thumbs.

  ‘Sir! You need to look at this.’

  With a certain weariness a stalwart Clark-Kennedy got to his feet and slowly made his way over. He looked at me sternly, but said nothing about my manners. ‘Here I am, Lieutenant.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. But you need to look at this.’ I motioned at the first pile in my row of exhibits.

  ‘Yes, those are the brigade orders. I signed them myself... What exactly am I looking for, MacPhail?’

  ‘The final objectives for the brigade are not what is stated there, sir.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know that,’ he sighed. ‘That’s why there’s an appendix where they’ve been updated.’

  ‘The problem is, sir, what it says in the appendix is not what the 2nd Brigade says in its orders.’ I put a finger on both pages so he could see for himself. ‘You see, sir, in the brigade’s orders the 25th Battalion are to push out patrols to the sunken road from T.30.a to T.24.c. But nowhere does it say that’s the final objective. Yet the 2nd Brigade orders state quite categorically that not only do they expect the 25th to occupy that road, but their 5th Battalion will join up with them at that point.’

  Clark-Kennedy stared at the passages, then gave a brief nod. ‘Yes, I see what you’re getting at. It’s not pretty I’ll admit. But I wouldn’t worry overly, MacPhail. As you know, the 25th Battalion has already reported it is on its objectives.’

  I gulped. I was going to look like a proper fool if there was an innocent explanation. Or perhaps the barrister in me was nitpicking about some triviality that the men in the field understood perfectly well. This wasn’t even my division, and no doubt they had their own ways of doing things. Nevertheless, I couldn’t let it go.

  ‘It may be nothing, sir, but what I’m worried about is that the battalion thinks they’re on their objectives, while in fact they’re not.’ The major looked at me with a start.

  ‘If you’ll have a glance at this, sir,’ I said. ‘Leaving aside the discrepancies, the 25th Battalion doesn’t appear to have even seen the appendix. Their orders make no mention of the second sunken road. I’m afraid they believe their final objective is well short of that. They didn’t mention any coordinates in their message, did they, sir?’

  ‘No,’ said Clark-Kennedy, ‘let me have a look.’ He bent over and studied Lt.-Col. Bauld’s rolling but clear script. ‘Damn it,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I’ve told him a million times these things need checking.’

  I said nothing. I didn’t know who he was, but some member of the staff was in serious trouble. Not only were the brigade’s orders vague and unclear – General Lipsett would have had me staked to a post had I been the one to write them – no one had thought to double check the battalion orders. With only one battalion carrying out the brigade’s part in the attack, it was hardly too much to ask.

  ‘Get me the 25th Battalion,’ snapped the major.

  Across the room there was flurry of activity, a short pause, and then a reply: ‘The line’s down, sir.’

  ‘Brigade then.’

  ‘Sorry, sir, but all the lines are down.’

  ‘Of all the infernal luck,’ he muttered. ‘That bloody shelling of theirs. It’s neither heavy nor effective, but somehow they managed to hit our telephone lines all the same.’

  I nodded understandingly. ‘All it takes is a single lucky shell, sir. I’m sure the linesmen will have it patched up forthwith.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the major sourly, ‘but that leaves me in a bit of a spot.’

  ‘Sir?’ One of the other men approached waving a signals form. ‘A message came in before the lines went down. It’s from 2nd Brigade, sir.’

  Unspeaking Clark-Kennedy reached out a hand and began to read. When he was finished he cursed. The bags under his eyes were so pronounced they looked like the lip of a shell hole. ‘Your fears appear to be confirmed, MacPhail.’ He held up the message so I might read it.

  “Enemy troops are still reported to be collecting in SUNKEN ROAD T.30.A and T.24.C.” was all I could make out before he snatched it away and addressed the signaller: ‘As soon as the line’s up, copy this immediately to Colonel Bauld.’

  It was as I’d feared, the Germans were gathered in the very road the 2nd Brigade men expected to find the Nova Scotians.

  Captain Walker joined us. It was a big dug-out, but not nearly big enough to conceal that a serious problem had arisen.

  ‘We need to get this resolved,’ said Clark-Kennedy. Then to Walker: ‘I’ll explain in a minute, Captain, but I’m sending you back to the Quarries. However, first I must contact the brigadier.’ His eyes scanned round the dug-out before returning to the captain and me.

  ‘I’ll go, sir, if you’d like,’ I offered. ‘I realize you’re short-handed. You could send a runner obviously, but I know the situation. It might save some time and trouble.’

  He looked at me appraisingly, then nodded. With hindsight I should have kept my mouth shut.

  CHAPTER 3

  Late afternoon, 28th of April, 1917

  Les Tilleuls, France

  Crossing up over Vimy Ridge on the Lens-Arras road heading west, one climbs through a bleak, rolling landscape of churned earth and the scattered debris of battle. The pitted blocks of grey concrete from German bunkers and gun emplacements protrude from the earth like so many broken, jagged teeth. Major Clark-Kennedy had somehow corralled a car and a driver for me, for which I was grateful and, after only a couple of miles, Private Billings at the wheel announced that we had arrived.

  ‘This is it, sir. Les Tilleuls.’

  Sceptically I peered through the dirt-splattered window to the scene outside. We were close to the backbone of the ridge. Of the hamlet of Les Tilleuls there was little to see, save a muddy and rutted crossroads, which a week of fine weather had yet to dry out completely. Overlooking the junction was a single sentry at a well-flagged guard post opposite. Through some minor miracle the engineers and the working parties had transformed the shell-turned bog into passable roads once again, but the hamlet itself was beyond redemption; heaps of stone, masonry and wood were all that remained. The broken wheel of a limber lay abandoned on the embankment, and the remains of a horse – quite possibly from the limber in question – were submerged in the muck nearby.

  The interest of the 5th Brigade in Les Tilleuls lay not in the shattered remains of what they had seized only three weeks earlier, but what lay underneath: Les Tilleuls Cave.

  ‘Wait for me would you?’ I said to Billings. ‘With any luck, I won’t be long.’

  He nodded agreeably.

  Down a long and winding staircase, the entrance to which was cleverly hidden from sight (and shells), I descended into a remarkably large cavern where the air was cool and damp, but surprisingly fresh. Prior to our attack on Vimy Ridge this cave had been used as a headquarters by no less than two German battalions. I was greeted by a friendly lieutenant and I told him my business.

  ‘The brigadier, you say… You’d best follow me,’ he replied. With that we walked further into what turned out to be an astonishing labyrinth of echoing chambers. The flickering of candles danced on the chiseled walls while shadows played on the high arched ceilings above.

  ‘Remarkable,’ I said softly, my head twisting round to tak
e it all in. Prior to the Vimy show I’d been in many a tunnel dug in the chalk that underlay this entire region, but this cave had a feeling altogether different than those neatly carved passages. This felt somehow of another age.

  ‘A lieutenant of the division and his corporal captured six officers and a hundred other ranks down here during the attack on the ridge,’ said the lieutenant, noting my interest. ‘They went down those very stairs you did, just the two of them, armed only with revolvers, and somehow convinced the entire lot to surrender. The lieutenant’s been put up for an M.C.’

  ‘He deserves it,’ I said, shivering. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes.’ Nor, I thought, did I want to be in this officer’s shoes. Shell-proof it may have been, there was a penetrating chill to the air in Les Tilleuls cave that positively cut through bone and marrow.

  ‘He’ll almost certainly be in here,’ said the lieutenant, motioning that I should follow him. Before we could squeeze through the narrow entranceway, however, a captain emerged from it. As he turned to face us, the lieutenant stiffened.

  ‘What the dickens do you think you’re doing here, Jameson? The general’s about to dine.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ stuttered the lieutenant.

  Quickly I interrupted: ‘I’m afraid it’s on account of me, sir.’ The captain, a short, neat-looking man with thin fair eyebrows, the whisper of a matching moustache and an air of general seriousness about him, shifted his gaze to examine me. Having stared down a Maxim machine gun more than once I didn’t find this nearly as intimidating as I suspect he intended. It helped that the crown of his head barely reached my chin. ‘My name is MacPhail, sir. I urgently need to speak with the brigadier,’ I said gruffly. ‘I have an important message for him from Major Clark-Kennedy.’

  ‘The colonel might have called,’ he replied, a trifle officiously to my ear.

  ‘And undoubtedly he would have done exactly that, sir, were it not that the line is out.’

  ‘Yes, sir, that’s true,’ piped up the lieutenant named Jameson. ‘It’s been down for nearly an hour.’

  While the captain pondered this, I pondered the fact that his brigade had an important operation underway and it was curious – to say the least – that he didn’t appear to know communications with the front were broken. However, he and I were spared any further need to communicate when an irascible voice called out from the direction of the chamber. More important matters than the brigade attack were at stake.

  ‘Smythe? Is that you that I hear? Where the blazes is my dinner?’

  At this my jaw dropped. When I looked questioningly at Lieutenant Jameson, he was studying his feet in a manner that suggested he hadn’t heard anything. His reddening cheeks indicated otherwise. The captain meanwhile was paying no attention to either me or him, and had turned abruptly on his heel. Without a word he slipped back through the doorway. Unbidden I followed.

  I entered into a small room carved in the rock. ‘This isn’t the first time that’s happened,’ I heard the man in the room admonish the captain. If the tone in his voice didn’t alert me to who the man was, the crossed baton and sword on his epaulettes sure did. I had found the brigadier.

  Brigadier-General Macdonell, not to be confused with his popular cousin, Batty Mac – also a brigadier and commander of the 7th Brigade – was known as Long Archie. Seated at a table strewn with maps the longest part of Long Archie appeared to be his face. His bushy dark eyebrows were twisted into a deep frown. ‘What is so very challenging about serving my dinner on time?’ he snarled. ‘Can you explain that to me, Captain?’

  Captain Smythe began to stutter, much like Jameson had earlier. Fortunately for him his diplomatic skills were saved any further workout by the appearance of a cook, who bustled in carrying a steaming plate. Appreciatively I breathed in the aromas. It smelled good, and my own lunch suddenly seemed a distant memory. For his part Smythe glowered at the cook who sensibly ignored him, devoting his attentions instead to Long Archie. Judging by the brigadier’s expression, he was satisfied with the cook’s efforts for he said nothing further.

  Noisily I cleared my throat.

  The brigadier looked up, his eyes narrowing. What with the privations of a grumbling stomach I don’t think he’d actually noticed me skulking behind Captain Smythe.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry to interrupt your dinner, sir, but Major Clark-Kennedy sent me.’ I wasn’t sorry in the slightest, but it sounded better that way. ‘The lines are down and he wanted me to brief you on the latest developments from the attack.’

  ‘I see,’ Macdonell replied, and looked wistfully down at his plate. For a big man, with a face whose form reminded me vaguely of a watermelon, he had these curiously narrow slits of eyes. It was as if he was permanently squinting. Presently they were narrower than ever. The pupils had shrunk to hard little beads, and the beads were focused on me.

  ‘Please don’t wait on my account, sir,’ I said in my very best imitation of a placating minion.

  Macdonell dismissed my comment with a wave of his hand. I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest if he just began to eat. But amongst a certain generation that was not something one did. Mind you, many of my generation were rushing the trenches at Arleux – without dinner.

  ‘What’s your name, Lieutenant?’ he grumbled.

  ‘MacPhail, sir. Malcolm MacPhail.’

  ‘What is it you have to tell me, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Unfortunately there’s been some confusion with the orders, sir. The 25th Battalion appear to have stopped short of the final objective.’

  ‘They have? How is that possible?’

  ‘If you’d allow me, sir.’ I approached and went to stand beside him, carefully laying out copies of the operations orders in a semi-circle around his plate. It was all I could do not to linger – the best I could hope for was cold Simcoe pork and beans from a tin. Then I pointed out the discrepancies between the various instructions, much as I had done with the colonel.

  ‘So, you see, sir, I don’t believe the 25th Battalion was aware they should advance to the second sunken road. It appears they’re somewhere in the vicinity of the first road, some way from where they should be. As a result the 5th Battalion’s flank is completely in the air, sir. They sent a message not long ago asking where the battalion is.’

  ‘And you think the brigade orders are to blame?’

  ‘It would appear that way, sir,’ I replied. ‘They’re not terribly clear.’ I was more candid than I ought to have been, but I was caught up in the urgency of the moment, and mildly affronted by the mess some idiot on the staff had made.

  Long Archie didn’t reply. However, it didn’t escape my notice that he threw a withering glance in the direction of Smythe. Which was when it occurred to me that Captain Smythe must have been the very man who’d written those orders. Nevertheless, it was Macdonell’s brigade I reminded myself. Neither General Lipsett nor any of the brigadiers I knew would ever have allowed such important orders to go out in their names without a careful read themselves. And Captain Smythe was Macdonell’s man.

  ‘You’ll have to arrange a car to take us to the railway dug-outs,’ Macdonell said to Smythe, who began nodding vigorously. The brigadier took up a fork and with another sigh made a listless stab for the meat – no longer steaming – on his plate.

  ‘Sir, the Germans are liable to pounce on this opening,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Lieutenant, I’m very well aware of that,’ he snapped.

  ‘Naturally, sir. Only –’

  He stared at me. ‘Oh, spit it out, Lieutenant, whatever it is you have to say.’ Irritably he let the fork fall with a clatter.

  ‘I was just thinking, sir, to clear up the situation it would be helpful to send an officer forward immediately.’

  Macdonell said nothing.

  After a moment I mumbled: ‘If the companies in the line were aware of the situation, it might not be too late to do something about it, sir. That’s all.’ I was conscious the brigadier looked as inclined to st
ick his fork in me as his dinner.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ he said finally. ‘But who to send?’ He looked to Captain Smythe. Without so much as a second’s hesitation Smythe fixed his sights on me – which wasn’t entirely surprising as out of the corner of my eye I’d seen him glaring at me uninterruptedly for several minutes – and Macdonell’s gaze followed his.

  ‘Of course. MacPhail wasn’t it?’

  I could have said I wasn’t even from the 2nd Division; that I was only here in Les Tilleuls as the result of an officer exchange and a shortage of men at the advanced headquarters; and that my duties included sending regular reports back to my headquarters, something I couldn’t very well do trudging through the front-line trenches. I’m not sure my protestations would have mattered though. They certainly wouldn’t have mattered in my own mind. I would have felt like the very fool or shirker (the two often being synonymous, at least amongst the headquarters staff) I was always railing on about. On top of which it was undeniably my own dumb idea. Not for the first time this war my mouth was proving to be my own worst enemy.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied.

  ‘Good. Well, at least that’s settled then.’ A smug grin came to the captain. The glimmer of a smile also appeared on Long Archie’s face, though it soon disappeared as he took up contemplating his ice-cold dinner.

  Thinking back on it during the ride towards the front, I rued not having asked for a posting to the Q side of the staff when I had the chance. While it would have meant a military career dedicated to securing adequate supplies of replacement puttees, among other things, at least it would have spared me the hazards of liaising with testy brigadiers and their bumbling adjutants. Another positive aspect of the logistics of puttees was that it seldom required a trip to the front. In my four months on General Lipsett’s staff I’d seemingly done little else.

  CHAPTER 4

  28th of April, 1917, early evening