The First Casualty Read online

  ‘We are Fred Karno’s army, the ragtime infantry.

  We cannot fight, we cannot shoot, what bleedin’ use are we?

  And when we get to Berlin we’ll hear the Kaiser say,

  ‘Hoch, hoch! Mein Gott, what a bloody rotten lot are the ragtime infantry. ’‘

  ‘What is your name, Private?’ the officer asked.

  ‘Hopkins, sir.’

  ‘Well, Private Hopkins, I shall give you one last chance to save yourself from a very great deal of trouble. Pick up the tunic you have discarded and put it on.’

  Hopkins stared at the officer, his lip quivering. He said nothing. The officer could hesitate no longer: to offer further quarter would be to condone mutiny.

  Hopkins was arrested and marched away, still wearing only his underwear.

  SIX

  A visit to the prison governor

  Kingsley was sentenced to two years’ hard labour and dispatched in chains to Wormwood Scrubs. It was there that the violence which he had known awaited him since first he had been arrested finally began in earnest.

  ‘A lot of your old pals live here, Inspector sir. Isn’t that jolly?’ the warder gloated as Kingsley was stripped, searched and disinfected. ‘And they’s all most anxious to see you again. Oh yes they is. Most anxious. Planning quite a welcome party some of ‘em is, I’ve ‘eard, quite a welcome.’

  Kingsley was kitted out in a filthy and flea-ridden prison uniform and told that he was to be brought before the governor.

  In order to get there the warder conducted Kingsley on the longest possible route, parading him in chains across the floor of the main hall of the prison. At the sides of the huge hall numerous steel staircases rose up to connect the grilled walkways which were stacked up, tier after tier, towards the roof. It was a perfect amphitheatre in which a sacrificial beast might be displayed. Those prisoners who were out of their cells stared down and jeered; some spat, and one or two tin mugs were thrown. Some warders even unlocked cell doors to allow inmates with a particular interest a first glimpse of the new house guest.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the warder repeated, ‘all jolly old pals most anxious to reacquaint themselves with you, sir.’

  Kingsley had not expected sympathy from any quarter but he was nonetheless taken aback by the venom he encountered. It seemed that the prison staff considered him as loathsome a figure as did the inmates, and with a shiver of fear Kingsley realized that he would not be able to look to them for protection against the vengeance he must now expect from those criminals who had once been his prey.

  A voice rang out from the growing din.

  ‘They should have sent you straight to Passchendaele, you malingering bastard!’

  Kingsley knew the name of course, who didn’t? Just one more obscure village whose existence for centuries had been known only to those who lived there and to the cartographers of the Brussels Bureau of Ordnance, but which now and for evermore was burned into the hearts of mothers, wives, sons and daughters the length and breadth of Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Just one more French village whose name, against all odds, would be written in stone in a thousand other villages and towns, on sombre monuments throughout Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth. Passchendaele, that elusive prize which lay just a few hundred blood-soaked yards beyond the Ypres salient.

  ‘I did not send your brothers to Belgium!’ Kingsley shouted into the din and was rewarded with a slap across the face from the warder.

  ‘We have a policy of prisoner silence here, Mr Kingsley sir,’ the warder said, although he had to shout himself in order to be heard above the cacophony.

  Kingsley’s mind reeled, and not as a result of the blow. Could it be that they were blaming him for the national tragedy that was decimating their communities? Kingsley was a shrewd judge of human nature and no stranger to the numerous hoops through which a man’s conscience will leap in order to apportion blame to anyone other than himself, but he truly had not expected this. It defied all logic. He wanted to scream that he alone amongst that crowd was blameless. That he alone was attempting in his own small way to stop the war. But Kingsley was fast learning that within the collective madness that gripped the nation any attempt at rational argument was useless. Worse than useless, for clearly it provoked rather than defused strong emotion. Now that he was brought so low he was discovering that his greatest asset, his intellect, was the thing most likely to see him torn apart by the mob.

  Finally Kingsley found himself in the governor’s office, standing on the threadbare Axminster, waiting while the governor himself sat behind his great oak desk making an elaborate show of ignoring Kingsley and continuing to work through the papers that lay before him.

  After a silence which lasted fully five minutes the governor spoke to Kingsley, although he still did not deign actually to look at the prisoner.

  ‘I see that this war ‘offends your logic’,’ he said, turning the pages of the court reports in an old copy of the Daily Telegraph. He held the pages by a corner, gripping them disdainfully between his thumb and forefinger as if the very newsprint itself might infect him with the bacillus of cowardice and effete intellectualism.

  Kingsley was coming to regret having used the word ‘logic’ to explain his position at his trial. It had been widely reported and seemed to have had a particularly incendiary effect, being held up as clear evidence of the innate snobbery and moral corruption of the pacifist mind. On the other hand, how else could he have answered the damn-fool questions he had been asked? And why should he apologize for being right? There was no other word that so clearly summed up his objections.

  ‘Yes, sir. It offends my logic.’

  ‘You consider patriotism illogical?’

  ‘No, but neither do I think it a sufficient excuse to act in an obscenely illogical manner.’

  ‘In an obscenely illogical manner, SIR!’ bellowed the warder who stood behind him, bringing his nightstick down hard on Kingsley’s shoulder.

  ‘In an obscenely illogical manner, sir,’ Kingsley repeated, through gritted teeth.

  ‘You don’t think it a sufficient excuse?’ the governor parroted in exasperation. ‘What excuse does an Englishman need for patriotism? What the hell are you talking about, you bloody prig?’

  ‘Slaughtering millions of men in pursuit of no discernible strategic or political goal seems to me both illogical and obscene, no matter how honourable the sentiments behind it.’

  ‘Our goal is victory.’

  ‘That may well be our goal, sir, but I believe it is a deceptive goal.’

  ‘You believe we cannot win? Is that why you won’t fight?’

  ‘I do not think that ‘winning’ is the issue any more. To my mind it is self-evident that any so-called ‘victory’ will be as destructive for the victor as for the vanquished. Every nation involved will be left exhausted and crippled.’

  ‘Good God, man! You speak as if you believe it doesn’t matter whether we win or the Germans do!’

  ‘Logically I do not think that it does very much.’

  The governor leaped to his feet, shaking with sudden rage. He scrambled around his desk, knocking over his inkwell in his haste. Coming before his prisoner, the governor suddenly raised his fist and Kingsley thought for a moment that he would strike him.

  ‘You swine! You bloody swine, sir! Pacifist is one thing, traitor quite another! You are a bloody traitor.’

  Kingsley remained silent, knowing that once more he had provoked far more anger than was necessary. He had had his say and nobody had listened. Now he was in prison. Why keep saying it? Once more he had failed to shut up and was paying the price for his intellect and his ego.

  ‘My son fell at Loos,’ the governor spluttered. ‘He led his men into the teeth of the German machine guns. Those Hun bastards mowed him down at a distance of two hundred yards! Him and virtually every man that followed him! And you stand there and tell me that it doesn’t matter whether the Germans win or we do.’

  Kingsley mana
ged to resist the temptation to reply. It was a hard lesson for him to learn and he was learning it much too late. Only days before, even that morning, he would have been unable to resist answering. He would have been unable to stop himself from insisting that the death of the governor’s son was not his fault. It was the man’s own fault. It was the government’s fault. It was every person’s fault who failed to protest at the insanity of the war. The one person whose fault it was not, was him.

  Now the governor was holding the photograph of his son in front of Kingsley’s eyes. Kingsley had seen the photograph before. Not that particular picture, not that actual son of that actual father but numerous other near-identical ones. It was the same as ten thousand photographs, a hundred thousand. Millions. You saw them everywhere, on people’s mantel shelves, in their lockets, on top of pianos, crowded together on occasional tables and in the black-edged pages of the newspapers. Always the same picture. A young man in a photographer’s studio, his expression held stiffly so as not to blur the image as the light entered the shutter. Officers would often be sitting, their gloves and sticks upon their knees; other ranks would stand, perhaps in pairs or groups of three, brothers, cousins. Pals. Sometimes the livelier souls would have placed their caps at a jaunty angle, and occasionally the figure might carry a gun or wear a sword. But despite these small differences, all the photographs were essentially the same. Young men frozen and stiff in life just as they would shortly be frozen and stiff in death.

  Beyond the photograph Kingsley could see the governor’s face, contorted with fury.

  ‘Does my son’s death offend you, Mr Kingsley? Does it bother your intellect? Do you find its scale inappropriate? ‘

  Kingsley did not reply.

  ‘Answer me!’ the governor barked. ‘Does it offend you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kingsley answered. ‘As a matter of fact it does.’ Once more Kingsley thought that the governor would strike him but instead he retreated back behind his desk and began mopping up the ink he had spilt.

  ‘Take him away,’ he said, his voice faltering. ‘Get the bastard out of my sight.’

  SEVEN

  A welcome dinner

  While Kingsley was spending the first evening of his sentence at Wormwood Scrubs, Viscount Abercrombie was taking his first dinner with the officers of his new battalion. A formal dinner had been arranged to welcome new arrivals. It had been rather a splendid evening, considering the circumstances under which the banquet had been organized. The battalion cooks, in conjunction with the various officers’ servants, had put in a heroic effort, scouting far behind the lines on bicycle and on foot, back beyond the devastation, back to where as if by magic the world was normal again. A world where there were crops in the fields, animals in the pens and fresh butter every morning. It felt so strange to venture outside the land of mud, to cross that blurred line only an acre or so wide which ran north/south through Belgium and France and travel to where the world was in colour once more. To cross in a few short steps from a brown and grey existence to one of vivid greens, reds and yellows. To purchase (at exorbitant prices) good clean wholesome things and carry them back across the thin divide, back into the hell that man had created. But carry them back they did and, with the addition of what their masters could donate from the food parcels they had received, a magnificent dinner was prepared.

  There had been two types of soup, roast goose, roast pork, a magnificent salmon and to follow cherry tart and treacle pudding, plus cheese, water biscuits and savouries. Decent wines had been acquired, also port, brandy and Scotch whisky. Viscount Abercrombie’s welcome contribution had been an enormous box of very large and very fine Havana cigars.

  ‘I sent my man to Fortnum’s for ‘em,’ Abercrombie explained loudly as he sent them round with the port. ‘I said I want ‘em big as Zeppelins! Big as a Hun hausfrau’s howitzers!’

  Abercrombie was different now to how he had been at the Lavender Lamp Club. A little louder and a little coarser. He was wearing his mask.

  The dinner had taken place in a ruined school hall which had been requisitioned as the officers’ mess. Many candles had been lit and a portion of the regimental silver had somehow been brought out of storage in order that the loyal toast might be made in fine silver-plate goblets instead of the usual tin mugs. The candlelight twinkled on the shiny service as every man stood and saluted the King Emperor.

  Prior to the loyal toast the colonel had made a hearty speech of welcome to those officers who had joined the battalion since last it had campaigned.

  ‘Some of you fellows are still wet behind the ears and some of you are old lags come to us from disbanded formations elsewhere on the line,’ he said. ‘Either way you are East Lancs now and I hope you’re as proud to be with us as we are to have you!’

  There was much cheering at this, in which Abercrombie joined enthusiastically. Opposite him at the table, across a centrepiece artfully contrived from paper flowers arranged in an upturned German helmet, sat Stamford, the young subaltern whom Abercrombie had befriended at the Lavender Club. Stamford was not cheering. Looking rather sad and serious, he was trying to attract Abercrombie’s eye, as he had been doing all evening with little success.

  ‘Now, as you all know,’ the colonel continued, ‘we don’t hold with snobbery in this battalion. Officer and man, we’re all in this together. However, I would like to offer a special welcome to one particular officer. You have all heard of Viscount Abercrombie, of course. Something of a hero at the Somme, but then we’ve got a fair few of that sort amongst us and we certainly don’t crow about it, eh? A medal or two’s all very fine until you see how many those damn Staff wallahs have on their chests and realize it’s all rot anyway!’

  Hardly surprisingly, there was renewed cheering at this and some banging of spoons, over which the colonel was forced to appeal for silence.

  ‘What we’ve never had amongst us before, however, is a published poet, of all the damn things, and a famous one to boot. Now I have to say that as a rule I don’t hold much with poetry. To be quite frank, I think pretty much everything written along those lines since Tennyson has been absolute bilge. Complete tommyrot. However, I don’t mind telling you that I make an exception for the work of our brother officer here. ‘Forever England’ really moved me. I remember when I first heard it, it brought tears to my eyes.’

  ‘But then again, sir,’ Abercrombie interjected boldly, ‘so does mustard gas!’

  There was huge laughter at this quip, in which the colonel was happy to join.

  ‘Damn right, Captain. Damn right. And most poetry is bloody gas, if you ask me. Well anyway,’ the colonel continued, ‘there you are. Well done and all that, and since by reputation you fight even better than you write, let me say, Abercrombie, that we are proud and excited to have you amongst us. What’s more, from the chitter-chatter I’ve heard from various WAACs, lady drivers and nurses about the place, and God’s blood, can’t they chatter!’ — more laughter at this, of course — ‘they’re pretty proud and excited to have you amongst us too! Eh? Eh? Lucky dog, Abercrombie! Why, even my own damn wife has written telling me to be sure to get you to sign a copy of your damn book!’

  ‘Happy to oblige her ladyship, sir!’ Abercrombie said, making a small bow from his seat. There was still more laughter at this and a voice called out that fellows should be careful not to let Abercrombie near their sweethearts, for he would no doubt steal them away.

  After this, the colonel called for silence and his expression became more serious.

  ‘Now I know, Abercrombie,’ he said, ‘that like many other fellows around this table you have come to us because your previous mob was pretty badly shot up and had to be disbanded after the last big show. Most of the Pals’ outfits have gone that way and most of us have seen many chums and fine comrades go with them.’

  Abercrombie nodded. Perhaps it was the memory of his departed comrades that caused his hand to shake a little and upset a glass, which fortunately he had only that minute drained to t
he dregs.

  ‘But the sad demise of the London Regiment (Artists Rifles),’ the colonel said, ‘has been the 5th Battalion East Lancs’ gain. So good, that’s it. Well done you. Honoured to serve with you and well done all.’

  Somebody began to beat the table at this and there was prolonged applause, with all eyes centred on Abercrombie, who stared at his untouched cheese plate and smiled shyly as if to say that he wished they would not make such a fuss.

  When the applause had finally subsided it was possible for the colonel to finish his speech, which was a surprise to his audience who had thought he’d already finished it.

  ‘Now I don’t think it’s any secret that things are hotting up around here,’ he said. ‘Brigade has been brought up to strength and you’ve all seen the amount of ordnance that those damned noisy fellows in the Royal Artillery seem to be stockpiling. Well, if there is to be another show soon, and I don’t think I’m giving away any intelligence secrets when I tell you that it seems pretty ruddy likely, I could not wish to go forward with a finer body of men. Enjoy yourselves tonight, for tomorrow we are back in the line. Gentlemen, the King.’

  The company rose to their feet and raised their glasses to George V, and soon afterwards the party began to break up. It had been a wet summer and most of the officers present had not slept in a dry bed for weeks, so they were naturally anxious to make the most of their last night in billets, even though for the most part this small luxury represented little more than a straw mattress on the floor of a ruined cottage.

  Abercrombie, who had only that day arrived from England and was hence not so anxious to sleep, went outside to smoke a final cigar in what had once been the village street. It was there that Stamford was finally able to speak to him.

  ‘Hello, Alan,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t call me Alan, Lieutenant. My name is Captain Abercrombie.’