Churchill began to walk up and down before them, tramping his way through the gluey film of mud covering the field. It would rain soon, he thought. These men deserved hot drinks, a warm meal and a good stiff brandy. He would keep this brief.
‘I’d like to offer my congratulations, gentlemen,’ he began, his voice coarser than usual. ‘You have earned the admiration of your officers. And soon you will win the gratitude of the nation.’
He cleared his throat. ‘We are not from the same background.’ It hardly needed saying. He was the product of unbelievable privilege and patronage; most of the men were the rough-arsed offspring of the tenements or coarse country boys. ‘Nor the same branch of the services. As you discovered on my first day.’
There was a chortle. He had tried to drill the battalion on his arrival, but had used arcane and confusing cavalry commands from his South African days. That had not gone well. It had taken him some time to win their confidence, but he was certain he had it now.
‘Yet we find ourselves here, in the same boat, as it were. Facing an enemy who seems to know more about us than we do about them. That has to change. Our job . . .’
He looked back towards his HQ. Two young adjutants were struggling over the uneven earth, holding a large wooden packing case by its rope handles.
‘Our task,’ Churchill continued, ‘is to reverse that imbalance. To go out and capture as many of the enemy as we can and turn them over to our finest minds for interrogation. To help weed out any spies in the area. You are the ones chosen for this. You must turn to your task with vigour.’ He paused and took a breath. Time to turn the volume up. ‘We have all lost friends and colleagues. Two officers out of five in my mess have gone. Now, though, we must look forward. Do not look back. Gather afresh in your hearts and spirit all the energies of your youth. Bend anew together for a supreme effort over the coming weeks. The times are harsh, the need is dire, the agony of the British Empire seemingly infinite.’ He now affected a bulldog growl. ‘But the might of Britain will prove irresistible. She will prevail. We are the vanguard of the Allied cause and we must march forward as one man.’
He noticed, with no small pleasure, that his chosen six were standing even straighter than before. Major-General Furse, his commanding officer, had admonished him for the ‘softness’ of his approach. There had been no extended field punishments and no executions since he had taken command. But he was convinced that there were better ways to inspire the men than being a martinet. Lead by example, for instance.
The junior officers, annoyed at having to act as coolies to the men, dropped the packing case at the side of Churchill. ‘Sir!’
He looked at the two boys. The battalion had suffered appalling losses at Loos before his arrival. Two-thirds of the officers were new. Polite Scottish lads – often only just at regulation height – with a spirit well removed from the legendary belligerence of their countrymen. William Wallace would have little use for them. Churchill’s job would be to change that. ‘Take off the lid.’
The pair struggled with their clasp knives and eventually managed to lever off the top planks. They peered inside. ‘Step back, gentlemen, please,’ Churchill instructed. ‘These are not for the likes of you.’
He reached into the case and extracted a piece of dense, hard wood one foot long. ‘A billy club,’ he said, dropping it to the ground. ‘Old police issue, I suspect.’ Now he pulled out a shorter version, which swelled at one end. ‘Scotland Yard’s finest. Truncheon.’ He dropped that, too. ‘Ah, now, a lathi, used for cane fighting. Not heavy enough for our needs. Now this, a jungle club.’ He held up a club with a paddle-shaped head. ‘From Burma, I believe.’
Churchill stepped back. ‘Gentlemen, I appealed to my friends and acquaintances in the House for any batons or clubs that might be used in close combat. Souvenirs and the like, which might serve our purpose.’ He had also appealed for some decent beef, champagne and Rioja, but he wasn’t going to mention that. ‘There are axes and knobkerries, too. I am sure you will find something to your liking in here. Help yourselves.’
Churchill picked up the police truncheon from the ground. It was chipped and gnarled from use. It must have been fifty years old or more. He slapped it into the palm of his hand. Yes, that would do nicely. ‘I’ve got mine,’ he said, as the six men rifled through the weapons. He swished it through the air, miming concussing an unsuspecting Fritz.
‘You’re nae goin’ out, are you, sir?’ asked one of the subalterns, a chubby-faced lad of nineteen. ‘On the raids?’
Churchill pointed the bulbous end of the truncheon at him and narrowed his eyes. ‘Not a word, lad. Not to anyone. And especially not within earshot of Major-General Furse. If Clemmie finds out, I’ll be blaming you, and I’ll have you strung up from one of yon trees.’
The young man looked so horrified, Churchill burst out laughing.
‘Sir. Colonel.’
It was a corporal from his HQ, breathless from the run over such sticky ground.
‘Yes, what is it?’ Churchill asked, his good mood evaporating as quickly as it had arrived.
‘Telephone call, sir.’
That might be news from GHQ at St Omer of Haig’s impending inspection of the entire Guards Division, of which Churchill’s battalion formed part. It was the final part of his inspection before Haig’s anticipated promotion. He wasn’t particularly keen on a visit; on his arrival in France Haig had been cordial, but not much more. Churchill was well known to be a supporter of Sir John French, a man whose star was falling rapidly to earth. ‘Who is it?’
The corporal looked at the paper in his hand. ‘I was to say it’s a Mr Sherlock Holmes, sir.’
Watson, with a hastily recruited dressing gown thrown over pyjamas, ran out into confusion and cacophony. Above him there was an agitated flock of German biplanes, the black crosses livid on the underside of the lower wings. They were turning and diving like the bees at the entrance to one of Holmes’s hives. Their target was clearly the lorry park to the east of the CCS, and already thick columns of oily smoke were rising, fusing together into one bulbous black cloud. It looked as if a giant insect out of H. G. Wells’s imagination was bestriding the countryside.
Around him came the pop-pop of small-arms fire. The pack store, a locked wooden hut where soldiers’ kit was stored, had been wrenched open. It appeared that every patient who was mobile had grabbed a rifle from it, burst out into the open and was taking aim at the Albatroses. The rapidity of the fire reminded him that when they first encountered the BEF in France, the Germans were convinced the British had machine guns. He could see, just over the treeline, the very upper dormer windows of the monastery, which had been thrown open. Men were leaning out, shooting revolvers futilely but magnificently into the sky. A handful had made the slate roof, and they, too, were taking pot shots.
Watson felt a real surge of pride at this group of men scattered across the CCS, many bandaged, some on crutches, others who had crawled from their beds, all determined not to let the marauders have it all their own way.
Even as he peered into the sky, one of the aggressors faltered, falling slightly. He gave a hoarse cheer.
It was only as it performed a twisting acrobatic that Watson realized the aircraft was not hit. The pilot had noticed the pinpricks being aimed its way. It was like a big dog suddenly becoming aware that it had fleas. Now it was going to scratch.
With a flip that Watson thought might rip the wings off the biplane, it flattened out and headed straight for the CCS. Now the hornet-like buzzing of its engine stood out from the general mêlée of sound. Behind the propeller, lights winked, like semaphore signals: interrupter machine guns, synchronized to fire through the propellers. Watson watched, as frozen as any statue, as a dust devil swirled across the grounds of the hospital and churned its way through a group of patients who were left collapsed in its wake.
Still the others fired, and the angry machine banked, turned and started another run, the nose winking again, the angry engine note singing in his ears.
‘For God’s sake, sir, get down.’
Brindle, his driver, was sprinting towards him, his long limbs splaying as he did so, and launched himself into a rugby tackle on Watson just as the ground exploded around them.
He hit Watson full force amidships and the pair of them crashed down into the mud. The air was punched out of Watson’s lungs and a sharp stab in his side told him a rib might have gone.
As the plane soared overhead he could hear the popping of the guns above the screaming engine. The prop wash engulfed the entwined pair in wet leaves. A Humber ambulance’s petrol tank ignited at the entrance, the vehicle bucking as it was lifted in the air by the explosion. It came down and split into two, broke-backed.
At a signal none of those on the ground could discern, the attackers all broke off the assault in the same instant. A last bomb was tossed, detonating with a loud crump, and the planes regrouped, their buzzing diminishing as they deserted the scene, wings wagging in the aerial equivalent of a loud guffaw. It was little consolation that one of them was trailing an oily plume and appeared to be losing height.
Around him more fuel tanks exploded, and the air filled with black specks and an acrid, rubbery stink. With some difficulty Watson rolled Brindle off him. ‘You all right?’
‘Leg,’ he said groggily.
Watson scrambled to his knees. A bullet had severed something significant in the driver’s thigh and blood was pumping from the wound like claret from an uncorked cask.
He could see panic rising in Brindle’s eyes at the size of the pool forming on the ground beneath him. The colour fled from his cheeks, leaving a grey pallor.
‘I’m going to die.’
‘Yes, you are,’ said Watson, taking the cord from his dressing gown. ‘Just not today.’ He carefully positioned the tourniquet and pulled it tight until the flow reduced to a trickle.
‘One thing we’ve got a lot of, Brindle, old chap,’ he said calmly, ‘is spare blood.’
A shadow fell over his face and he stood, feeling a catch in his ribcage as he did so. Something had gone in there, all right. Sister Spence was a few feet away and she looked down at his sodden pyjamas, darkened with blood, in some alarm. ‘Not mine,’ he assured her, pointing to his driver.
Sister instructed two stretcher-bearers to load up Brindle.
‘He needs a transfusion,’ said Watson. ‘I’ll prepare the tent. Have you seen Miss Pippery?’
‘You’d better come with me,’ said a stony-faced Sister Spence.
She was lying on a cot-bed in one of the bell tents. Someone, perhaps one of the several nurses that surrounded her, had cut open the top of her uniform. It had revealed a mound of pink froth. The foaming mass looked like an aerated blancmange, but, along with the sickly whistle coming from her chest, it confirmed that Miss Pippery was dying.
The nurses parted and Watson kneeled down, ignoring another protest from his ribcage. He gripped her left hand. In the right she was holding her cross.
‘I’m not scared,’ she said in a whisper.
‘No, of course you’re not.’
‘You believe me, don’t you?’ she implored.
‘Yes.’
‘Have they sent for the padre?’
He glanced over his shoulder. Sister Spence, her face a pale mask, nodded.
‘Morphine?’ he mouthed at Sister.
Another inclination of the head.
‘He’s on his way,’ Watson confirmed to Miss Pippery.
She tried to take a deep breath, but more bubbles appeared and there was that hideous whoosh of free air. ‘I’ll prepare the way,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘For Mrs Gregson. I’ll tell God she is a good woman. Her work over here. She should be judged on that. Not . . . not the other things.’
He squeezed harder. ‘I’m sure she will be grateful.’
‘Don’t mock me.’
He leaned in closer. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘Will you tell her?’
Watson was painfully aware he had no saliva. He tried to keep his voice normal. ‘Of course.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘For lying.’
Lying, had she said? Or dying? Watson stroked her forehead. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’
‘I told you I never left the sergeant alone in the transfusion tent. But I did. Just for a second. Well . . . a few minutes. Lieutenant Metcalf asked me outside for a chat. About . . .’
He waited, letting her marshal her fading reserves. There was blood on her lips now. He used the sleeve on his jacket to dab the pink flecks away.
‘. . . my foxtrot.’
There was commotion behind him. The RC padre had arrived. Watson stood to give him room. He bent down to catch her words as her lips moved.
‘Very persuasive. The lieutenant is. And Captain de Griffon. Charming. Very nice. For a toff. Who knew they could be so . . . so normal? I’m sorry. About leaving the sergeant. I thought I would get into trouble. Be sent away.’
‘None of that matters now, Alice.’
A cloud of pain crossed her features. The shock of the bullet’s impact was wearing off quickly. Her stunned nerves were coming alive once again. Even the chemical blanket of morphia couldn’t hold back the pain. She, too, realized what was to come. ‘Would you go now, Major? And leave me with the padre?’
‘Of course.’
Watson gave a final squeeze of her hand, turned and walked out into the late afternoon drizzle, turned his face to the sky and, with the water stinging his face and merging with his tears, silently raged at heaven and all its monstrous works.
Watson had the luxury of one of the giant beer vats to himself. Filled with hot, soapy water up to his chest, he sat on one of the wooden blocks that had been sunk into the enormous half-barrel. He was not in tip-top shape. If he were a racehorse, he’d either be withdrawn from the race or face Lord Lockie’s fate. His body ached from neck to ankle, his knee throbbed and his left ribcage had a livid purple bruise on it and was tender to the touch. He needed it strapping.
After leaving Miss Pippery, he had seen to Brindle and his transfusion and then assisted with the other casualties until Torrance had ordered him away. By that time his pyjamas and dressing gown had been soaked in blood, rain, saline and more blood. He had given them to the orderly for burning.