A Cellist Soldier Read online

  ‘Yes sir,’ would have been the enthusiastic response. Sometimes men just laid a cape over themselves and scraped any loose earth over it and fell asleep. Earth was the best friend and shield.

  Shell holes gave some deeper protection and a crawl trench could be quite quickly dug to enable communication and some safe passage between sections occupying them. ’Straighten the line here sir, you’ll need to dig that Lewis in as well and dig a comms trench to it otherwise the Lewis team will be isolated.’ The Old Man instinctively knew how to use his machineguns even though he had begun his service before their full introduction. ‘Get them dug in to waist depth at least, with some sand-bags above.’

  He was conscious of everybody.

  A Lewis gun planted on top of a mound of earth was certain to attract attention before long, even being seen from a spotter aircraft. But if they weren’t sited somewhere that would give good observation, they could not do their job.

  Jack and Ben sat in a shell scrape as they called it. They had hollowed out more of the original hole. “We must be the point section here,” said Jack, screwing up his already tight face more.

  “But it’s so quiet,” responded Ben.

  “Yes, but we don’t know anything do we. It’s quiet now but it might not be in five minutes.”

  Ben nodded, looking down at his rifle. He pulled the small lever in front of the trigger to release the magazine, checked the four rounds inside, then eased the heavy bolt up and back to extract the round from the chamber. There was always a round in the chamber ready to fire. A minor skirmish could happen at any time. He replaced it in the magazine.

  The chamber was a well-oiled metal void with no hint of mud or rust. Some men, when cleaning their rifles, were content to put a film of oil on the woodwork and metal on the outside, hardly daring to remove the bolt or pull the barrel through.

  Some even released a round accidentally with trembling fingers which were meaning to release the magazine catch. It was a chargeable offence, an accidental discharge and if someone was killed or badly injured, the culprit would get a good beating as well from his comrades. Of course some would be happy to be injured with a ‘Blighty one’ that was not self-inflicted. The opposite happened as well with some men releasing the magazine when they meant to pull the trigger, rendering the rifle useless after firing only one round at the point it was probably most needed.

  It was an instrument of some beauty, the .303 Lee– Enfield rifle, the smooth grained woodwork, the stock and butt which felt so good, the little compartment for the cleaning materials conveniently cut into the end of the butt, the black metal parts, heavy bolt and chamber; the sound it made when the bolt was lifted and ratchetted back then forward to pick up a round from the magazine and feed it snugly into the chamber, ready to fire.

  Ben hefted the rifle, almost lovingly. The weight and solidity of the weapon spoke of quality and a reliable mechanism which didn’t jam too much as long as it was kept free of mud and ice. The expert marksmen could work, fire and change the magazine when its five rounds were emptied and fire again, up to sixty rounds a minute. Ben looked up at the clouds scudding with a sort of spring gaiety around the sky. Rain would change everything about this balmy late March morning. Enemy action would turn it into hell. But now all that was needed was to enjoy the moments of calm.

  Other weapons were being cleaned, but only half of the total number at any one time. The Lewis was on top of their crater on lookout. They took it in turns on sentry duty with the machine gun, though some were more able to fire it than others. The dedicated team of which two had their Lewis gun badges had to clean it, at night when it was not needed for look-out duties.

  Drum magazines contained forty-seven rounds and the bigger ones ninety-seven. Loading the magazines, storing them, keeping them mud free and carrying them into battle was every soldier’s job. At least it was now that every section had a Lewis gun. Before the team had been five strong. But they created a target all huddled together so now it was more a section weapon and the team was cut to three.

  Men lounged around. They dozed and cooked a little bully on their individual soldier’s stoves. There was nothing like the luxury of dry mud, sun and nothing flying through the air that would kill them.

  “So what about this big push then, Corp?” asked Ben, calling across the crater.

  The Corporal was sitting on his own, on a rock, of which there were not many amongst this excoriated earth. Smoke curled upwards from his pipe which he was obsessed with. He spent hours playing with it and thinking with it. As if it was doing the thinking for him.

  He dragged on it now and a furnace erupted inside its great bowl. Where he got the tobacco was a mystery, but everyone had a way of getting stuff. Those that could work the system or knew the right NCOs did.

  “You communicating with the Hun again, aren’t you?” observed Jack. “No one’s gonna miss your smoke signals. How we gonna conceal ourselves when you stoking that thing up. I’m sure they know about the ‘big push’.”

  The corporal, Fred, thought some more and looked into the bowl, as if it was a witches cauldron. “Sure they do. That’s why we gonna keep ’em guessing.”

  Other men paid scant attention, though their ears were tuned in. The Lewis team were half-eyed on the opposite bank of the shell-hole. Alfred and John, a pair of friends, who did everything together. They looked like farm hands and sat cooking in the middle a few feet from the Corporal. A frightened new recruit lay doggedly behind the Lewis.

  “Yea, they keeping us guessing an all,” said Ben, jerking his head back towards his own side.

  “Who’s that ‘they’, you talking about Ben?” asked another, something of a loner, whose name was Ernest. He called himself that as well and invited mockery for it, seeming unwilling to go for the shorter more familiar Ernie. “My mumma called me that so I ain’t gonna change it now,” someone had heard him say in the bunker when he thought he was only speaking to the young Lewis gunner. Despite his sometimes naïve attitude he was a married man with children who had been called up from the reserve list and seemed to feel hard done by for being in France having left his family at home. Unlike the last of the section, Bert, a regular who had been involved since 1914 and seemed to take everything for granted. He was like an anchor to the section.

  “‘They’, my good old Ernest, is them generals,” said Bert.

  “Oh, well we could be here for a long time then.”

  That sank the section into silence and the Corporal looked into his pipe, unable to counter the comment.

  Times like this were when men sorted some things out between them, verifying rumours or amplifying them; then setting things in stone in their memories, whether they were true or not. But they didn’t talk about the bad things. Hence they didn’t talk about the Old Man’s death. They didn’t share feelings about it. That was not the soldier’s way.

  “Generals are all bastards,” said Ernest. “Never see any of them blowed up right in front of your eyes.”

  “Some have been blowed up,” commented the Corporal.

  “How do you know?” asked Jack.

  The Corporal shrugged. “I suppose they would have been,” he said defensively, but he had only been out in France for a week, so everything he said was taken with narrowed eyes.

  “But you never seen them here, in the front line have you?” demanded Ernest.

  “They have been here, well in the front line,” said Ben, with certainty in his voice.

  Few had evidence of it, but somehow there was a knowledge that generals were soldiers too, though very distant ones. Senior NCOs were closer. The Old Man was the closest. He was always wandering through the trenches. Everyone talked of him when they had seen him and hoped they might do so again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The new man arrives

  All was confusion. The big push was off or delayed and the battalion went back into reserve. They went back without joy in their hearts to a billet that was also joyless.

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bsp; “The Old Man would never have stood for a place like this,” commented Jack as they surveyed the broken, almost roofless small barn, that was allocated to the section. Underfoot many years of cow dung, had been trodden, dried, then mixed with rain, mud from other boots, then dried again.

  But now it had started raining afresh.

  “Maybe we could get a fire going in the middle, a real fire,” said Ernest.

  “Yes, you can’t do a real fire in a building that’s got a roof but I bet Sarge would allow it here,” Ben agreed with an edge of excitement in his voice

  “Yea and we could catch a chicken and have us a real meal,” said Ernest hopefully. There were some very skinny looking hens pecking about in the debris of the abandoned farm buildings.

  The Corporal sucked on his pipe which for once was black and empty. “Can’t see Sarge agreeing it,” he said dismally. “I’ll ask him though.”

  The uncertainty in his voice made the section doubt that the asking would take place. They settled as best they could, looking for the driest piece of floor, easing kit off wet shoulders, but laying their capes down on the dung pack first.

  “Go on then, go and ask him,” challenged Jack.

  “Let’s get ourselves settled first,” the Corporal replied.

  Everybody wanted something to give comfort. “Where’s the fucking straw?” complained the Lewis gunner, Alfred. He was moody and taciturn but that went unchallenged because of the expertise on his gun. Then they all suddenly fixated on the comfort of straw.

  “He would never agree a fire if we had straw in here,” challenged the Corporal.

  “They got straw next door,” complained Ernest, a man destined never to be happy in life.

  “So what do you want, fire or straw?

  “Corp, right now we want food!” injected Ben.

  This put an end to the bickering. The Company was billeted in buildings grouped around a small village square. The whole Battalion was there. Each company had its cookhouse, from which smells wafted outwards, drawing men in, impatiently. But they had to wait until the cook sergeant made a signal, usually banging mess tins together.

  They had heard the signal. The stew was ready. There might be fresh bread also for dipping in the stew. There would be rum issue afterwards. Joy, hardly dimmed by the drizzling rain, abounded. Mess tins were yanked out of dirty webbing. A quick inspection deemed them satisfactory for use even if they had mud and stains from food created in the trenches still in them. Those who wished could rinse them from a jerrycan of water before presenting them to be filled, hopefully to the brim. Most ignored the water.

  Slinging their weapons, including the Lewis; they ran. “First in the queue, Corp,” shouted Jack.

  The Corporal just sucked on his pipe, worrying at its lack of fire. He was last up, sitting in the departing dust stirred from against the walls where the soldiers had started to establish a home to return to.

  They brought the smell of hot food back with them to help make it home.

  “There’s a parade tomorrow,” the Corporal commented between mouthfuls. He had seen the Platoon Sergeant and the intelligence had been passed on.

  None of the section responded. The importance of this did not surpass the meal. Time out of the trenches was a time for training, eating and sleeping. A parade was not normally part of it.

  Food, a haze of smoke and the satisfaction of rum, overcame the smell and clamminess of wet clothing and brought sleep. They didn’t need sentries.

  Deep sleepers awake with sluggishness. Bodies unfold unwillingly in the morning, clothing creased by sleep sticking to them. No uniforms were removed for sleep, exhaustion usually robbed them of any willingness to do anything except lay down and surrender. That morning it was the Platoon Sergeant who woke everybody, marching up and down the mud street between the barns where the sections were billeted. “Let’s be ’avin’ you; parade at zero eight hundred, rifles cleaned, shaved and breakfasted before then.”

  He looked into the cowdung barn with a mouth turned down in disdain. The section coming out would hardly be clean and tidy. They had not received any new uniform or personal equipment resupply yet.

  Men murmured themselves into wakefulness and scrambled things together.

  “C’mon, corporal get your men moving, new RSM joining today.” The Sergeant grinned. He knew this news would get everybody out. It made his job a whole lot easier.

  But it created confusion. Ernest sat straight upright, which was not easy for such a lanky thin man who never seemed to eat enough to keep his body upright and always moved about the trenches hunched, to avoid having his head taken off. “Not this quick, surely Sarge, Old Man hasn’t been gone more’n a couple of days.”

  “Do you know how important an RSM is to a battalion, you silly carrot headed buffoon?” shouted the Sergeant. It was an unnecessary jibe, which took Ernest by surprise and made him jump up without another word, though all the others knew he would complain bitterly for days afterwards. Small things seemed to get under his skin while the others merely laughed them off. He was conscious of his ‘carrot’ coloured hair but men generally didn’t rib him about it.

  Men, still befuddled by sleep, drifted towards the village square, some dragged their rifles behind them. It was a very different Battalion to the one on display in the photograph taken only three days before.

  On arrival, a strange sight greeted them. A figure was standing in front of a small monument that adorned the centre of the village. He was diminutive. He carried under his left arm a pace-stick, of the kind only used on the parade grounds of military depots and barracks. The only use of these pace-sticks was to measure the length of a soldier’s marching stride. The official length was twenty-eight inches. The pace-stick was in fact two pieces of wood, hinged by brass at one end with a slotted bracket enabling it to be set open to that exact distance. The user could then march beside a man or group twirling the opened stick and measuring their exact step to ensure it was in line with regulation.

  Before many men could register the pace-stick and its incongruity in this environment, broken beyond repair and very far from any parade ground, a strange sound escaped from the figure, causing it to jerk and tremor somewhat. It was a sound they were to hear again and many likened it to a cockerel being strangled at the beginning of its crow.

  “What the fuck!” Men just gaped, some stopped suddenly.

  There was a moment, a tiny stillness like the indefinable moment before a dawn. But this was not a bright dawn and finally the figure spoke words; or rather bawled them in a falsetto tone. “GET THOSE RIFLES AT THE SHOULDER. I WILL INSPECT EVERY WEAPON ON THIS PARADE AND ANY THAT ARE NOT CLEAN WILL INCUR EXTRA RIFLE DRILL FOR THE OWNER.” His head moved around to take in the gathering throng. Then he added in lower but equally menacing tone. “And that will be at the double!”

  Needless to say by the time the inspection was complete almost the whole battalion was in for extra drill. Little more than a glance at rifles attracted a very limited list of derisory comments; insufficient oil, far too much oil, rust, dirt. Those not detailed off would be on fatigue party to prepare the midday meal.

  During the inspection there was a strange lack of officers on parade. Perhaps they were hiding behind some broken buildings or still ensconced in the best house in the village that would have been designated the ‘Officers’ Mess,’ too afraid to venture out. Yes most officers were afraid of an RSM. But as the inspection was drawing to a close and names in every company for the extra parade, or perhaps names not on it, were taken; they began to gather at the periphery. As if reacting to the RSM’s new regime, they quickly shuffled themselves into three ranks. The Commanding Officer of the Battalion took up his position three paces in front of the front rank which consisted of the ‘field’ officers, those holding the rank of major and some of the more senior captains such as the Quartermaster.

  When the RSM spotted the officers, he curtailed his inspection, leaving only a few men of the Headquarters Company to be
done, who gratefully re-assembled their rifles under the eye of the Headquarters Sergeant-Major. The new RSM stalked with measured pace, probably of exactly twenty-eight inches, across towards the officers. Being small in stature the pace made him stretch a little which made men snigger at the comical appearance of it. He halted in front of the Commanding Officer, saluted and exchanged words for what seemed like several moments. Then he saluted with great emphasis and let out a screeched; “SAAR.” He turned sharply right and sticking his chest even further forward he marched like clockwork to the side. After a few paces as was customary, he turned to face the parade and bawled; “SAAR MAJORS, CARRY ON.”

  “He’s like a fucking puppet,” commented Ben from within the ranks of Alpha Company.

  “More like a muppet,” adjoined jack.

  “What’s a muppet?” asked Ernest innocently.

  “The mother of all puppets,” suggested the Corporal.

  “Exactly,” said Jack.

  Puppets, traditionally without a brain, dancing to their master’s tune, were figures of fun. But there was a suspicion that the new RSM might have an actual brain; which made him an exceptionally dangerous puppet.

  The war had a terrible momentum of its own. Sometimes that slowed to allow humanity to creep back into the souls of men, as supposedly when they were out of the line. If that had not happened men would have surely gone mad. Any changing of the balance, for individual gain or twisted corporate good could have a disastrous effect on the men at the bottom of the food chain.

  The officers did join their companies and platoons eventually but the RSM had neatly usurped their normal duty of inspection, leaving them to listlessly address the men, telling them there was nothing they could tell them; before scurrying back to the Officers’ Mess, probably for coffee.

  After administering the extra rifle drill in such a manner that some men collapsed exhausted, the Battalion were allowed to crawl away with one question on their lips. Ernest expressed it. “Why the fuck…?”