Time at War (8 page)

We still had to wait while planes flew overhead and there was a huge artillery bombardment from guns just behind us such as there must have been, I imagined, in the First World War. Waiting with us were tanks with devices to clear mines and to bridge ditches; but the Engineers had first to go ahead to build a bridge that would carry tanks across the river. But the Germans were now returning the artillery fire, in particular on the Engineers who, while they were working, could have little protection. So bridges kept on being damaged before completion – and the waiting and shelling went on. This was the beginning of my first experience of large-scale warfare with tanks and planes and heavy artillery, and it was mind-numbing, like a tidal wave or the heart of a thunderstorm. One could not
know what was happening because one's senses were cut off: there was too much noise to hear, too much violence in the air to look. One just found what shelter one could – in ditches and by hedgerows – and then stayed within oneself until the cataclysm might pass. Accounts of war are usually told from the point of view of senior officers who have made the plans and issued the orders and then try to contact one another to find out what is happening. But they have little chance of knowing this until the storm subsides, the tidal wave has retreated; then they can observe what pieces of flotsam have been washed up here, what units of men or equipment have been carried by the hurricane and landed there. And reports can be written about what plan has succeeded in the face of what determined opposition. There will be not much about what has failed. But some order will be made out of what has been a vast display of anarchy. It is the anarchy, however, that remains in the mind of an individual involved. His concern will have been to endure.

I do not know how long we waited behind the river – a single day or two – one tried to close one's mind as one closed one's eyes and ears. There came a new noise into the tumult: a ghastly wailing in the air like the cries of a celestial creature being flogged. This noise came from a German weapon that we had not come across before – a Nebelwerfer, a large-calibre multi-barrelled mortar, the noise of which when fired was said to have been specially designed to strike alarm and dismay into the hearts of the enemy. And then one could anxiously try to trace the trajectory to see where a bomb would land.

In the evening of whatever day it was the information got through that there was at last one bridge ready, so we set off to move into position to form the second wave of the attack. But so much of the ground was churned up and blocked by stuck tanks that we were forced off the track into the sodden fields, and my memory is that eventually we waded the river hanging on to ropes.

(Sixty years later, however, there was a television programme about the crossing of the Rapido river, and one of the pictures was of the only bridge – so the commentator said – which the German artillery had not destroyed; and I was sure I recognised this bridge – a slightly skew-whiff but sturdy Bailey Bridge on props, with planks or tree trunks laid crosswise, and handrails to prevent at least humans sliding off. So had we made it to this bridge after all, or just watched tanks sliding off? Memory itself slips and wobbles.)

We crossed the river one way or another, but by now it was almost dark. So we had to dig in or find a place where others had dug in previously, then try to sleep before the Irish Brigade formed the spearhead of the major breakthrough in the morning. My platoon found an abandoned German defensive position where there might or might not be booby traps; in one of the dugouts was a badly wounded German who had been left and was evidently dying. While my platoon settled in I tried to attend to him and understand what he was saying. He clung to me and spoke imploringly about ‘Der Brief'. I found a letter that appeared to be to his wife or his sweetheart and I promised
to get it posted, which I said should be possible through the Red Cross. Then he died.

In the battles for Cassino, and of the Rapido river and the Liri valley that followed, there were numerous demonstrations of the fact that in Italy at least there was no hatred between front-line troops on either side – in fact, almost the opposite. John Horsfall, who became battalion commander of the 2nd London Irish later that day when our colonel was killed, tells in his book
Fling Our Banner to the Wind
of the camaraderie between German prisoners taken by the Irish Brigade and those escorting them back across the river which was still under fire; of German medical officers and orderlies glad to help with the wounded of both sides at the casualty clearing stations; even of a motor mechanic prisoner being enrolled by the transport officer of the LIR to help repair his battered vehicles. Insofar as there was any animosity felt by frontline troops, it was likely to be directed against politicians and senior officers at the base – who made such daft and ruinous plans and seldom seemed to learn from experience. But even towards them the feeling was more that we were all caught up in this wild maelstrom of human violence and history; there was no way of altering its overall style. All the individual could do was to get on with it, and wonder whether something might be done in future to prevent this savagery. In his book John Horsfall writes of the admiration he felt for the Germans who had held on and resisted at Cassino in spite of the bombings; such a sentiment was commonplace, as was the admiration of the Germans (so it was said later) for the Allied troops who
kept on attacking and being mown down almost in the manner of a First World War battle. But these views and emotions did not seem to be experienced by politicians and officers at the base.

The day after our crossing of the Rapido we were on stand-by all day to take the lead in the big push to the north. The starting time for this kept being, as usual, postponed. There were said to be not enough tanks yet across the river; the blocking-off of the monastery by smoke had to be renewed. When we had been crossing the river the smoke had often enveloped us like a low-lying fog; now, in the clearer morning air, the monastery floated like a celestial city above a fitful low-lying cloud. During the day we moved closer to our leading positions, but even with the smoke clearing it was difficult to make out anything of the larger picture. The Liri river was a tributary of the Rapido running into it from the north; the landscape of the valley was a pleasant one of low undulations and clumps of trees. All we knew of the battle was from what we heard, and endured, from what seemed to be the random violence of exploding shells and the wailing of the Nebelwerfers which we had christened Moaning Minnies. We learned that our commanding officer, Colonel Goff, had been killed by a shell from one of these while trying to see what lay ahead; also killed with him was the commanding officer of the tank regiment appointed to work with us. We had to dig new trenches to give us temporary shelter close to our starting point; the start was put back from three o'clock in the afternoon to 7.30 in the evening, and then to first light the next morning. So we
stayed in our shallow trenches for another night and listened to the Moaning Minnies and watched the fireflies that seemed to exist in a different dimension from that of the flares and explosions and tracer bullets – flickering like those particles that are said to exist for a millionth of a second and then disappear – while the violence was eternal. Then, at first light, there was the monastery again like the celestial city now ready to receive us.

Throughout the night we had been given extra rum rations: now we were told there would be a hot meal to send us off. When this arrived I was standing up in my shallow trench doling out portions of stew from a canister to men of my platoon who came crawling up with their mess tins; there had been an increase of machine-gun fire at first light, but one had stopped trying to work out where it was coming from or where it was going. When I had doled out the rations there was a bit left over in the bottom of the canister so I thought, reasonably, that the least risky thing for everyone would be for me to take a second helping for myself. I had reached out my hand to do this when I was given what seemed to be a gigantic slap on the wrist – an admonition from a celestial nanny telling me not to stretch? I realised that I had been hit in the wrist by a stray bullet or piece of shrapnel. The wound did not hurt much, but it bled, and the end of my arm hung limp. It seemed that a bone must have been broken. People from my platoon headquarters came to have a look. A field dressing was applied but did not stop the bleeding; it seemed that what was required was proper bandaging and a splint. There was a brief discussion about what I should
do; there was still no word or sign of the attack getting under way. I thought that at least I should go to company headquarters and let Mervyn know, and show the medical NCO what had happened. However, if I were a First World War hero, would I not tell no one and just stagger on? When Mervyn saw my wound he asked me to wait for a while because he needed me; but then, when the attack was still not ordered, he agreed that I should go to the medical officer at battalion headquarters and get the wound properly treated. So I left my sergeant, Sergeant Mayo, in charge of my platoon, and wandered off through the smoke and bits of flying metal. Then when I found the medical officer, Rhys Evans, he said there was no question of my carrying on; he gave me injections and dressed the wound and laid me on a stretcher until transport would be available to take me back across the river. The injections made me drowsy; perhaps it was then that I saw the Bailey Bridge that we crossed in my dreams. But I remember thinking – Should I be feeling grateful or guilty for that slap on the wrist as if it were from a celestial nanny? Or later – of course, both.

People who survive in battle while others die sometimes say that they feel guilty; but unless there are particular circumstances this seems senseless: the whole experience is one of it being totally out of one's control. The myth of the bullet that has one's name on it often seems appropriate, so why not an image of an unaccountable angel nanny? So long as one remembers that metaphors, however true, are not literal.

So I passed quickly through casualty clearing stations
and was ferried all the way back to a hospital near Naples, where I stayed for two weeks and had an operation to set the fractures in my wrist. And it was there that I learned, in a letter from Mervyn, that some time after I had left him the attack had finally gone in, and the battalion had taken its objective, but had sustained many casualties, including Sergeant Mayo and several of my platoon headquarters, who had suffered a direct hit from a mortar and been killed. And this was the reality, whatever metaphor one chose. Mervyn wrote –

Dear Nick, thank you very much for your letter. I had been looking forward to hearing from you which made it all the nicer. I am glad your arm is not too frightful. After you had gone I imagined that it was much worse than my first impression, and began to calculate how you would fare with one arm and, if it were your right arm (for I could not remember which it was), whether you would ever be able to shave with your left hand. Then I thought, well, he does some things with his left arm so maybe it will not be so bad. Really, though, do let me know that it will be quite workable again. Was it very painful? Do not say that your agony was acute and intense for I shall not believe you, but I am sure it must have been trying because it probably throbbed and kept you awake for days.

I do not know whether you thought me rather intense in not telling you to go back right away as I should have done. But really it was that I relied on you to such an extent that morning when we had so few fellows who I
knew would ‘go'. The show went extremely well. Jock and Desmond Fay both did very well. We lost Mayo, Henshaw, O'Reilly, Keegan and Cpl Williams. All these were killed during or soon after attack. As usual one didn't think a great deal about it at the time, but later the realisation begins to appal one. Michael Clarke was killed, Geoff Searles wounded rather badly in the arm, John Culverhouse and Terry O'Connor were also wounded but not too badly. Lovatt was slightly wounded. Sorry to give you all this rather depressing news but I thought you would like to know and may not have heard. And anyway that is what has happened.

You say you will be back soon. Do come as soon as possible, for really it is not so bad, and now I have no one with whom to carry on abstruse discussions on Morality and the Cosmos. So you see your presence is necessary. I will end up now in case I become too tedious. Really I feel I could write for ages because I can write to you in a manner that is impossible in writing to folks in England. Do write again. If I am your way I will surely find out your luxurious quarters. Well there you are. Yours, Mervyn.

I grieved especially for Mayo, who was a good and beautiful man. Close comrades inscribed on the cross of his hastily dug grave ‘The finest sergeant there ever was'.

When I was in hospital I began writing a poem about the battle of the Liri valley, which for some time I was quite pleased with. But reading it now I wonder if it gives as true an impression of the battle as perhaps the laconic
letter from Mervyn does. What is it about poetry: it prettifies tragedy? Makes palatable that which should be objected to and changed? Perhaps some prettification is necessary for humans to bear their predicament. Such questions have become my hobby-horses in later years. But then I have never considered myself a poet. However, this is one of the only two or three decent poems I ever wrote, so I reproduce it here because, all right, poetry is an effort to make something sacramental out of the obscenity of war. And one should try to see what does or does not work.

LACRIMA LIRI

The cornfields wave toward the sky
And from above the clouds reply
With smiles of gentle sleepiness.
Below, the summer sun's caress
Lies softly on the silent plains
And deep within the sunken lanes
The trailing thorns hang down to dream
And slowly in the silver stream
The leaves of weary willows drift
And sway to lazy winds that lift
The heavy heads of drooping trees
With tenderness of silken breeze.