I
The night had been clear and frosty, and rime still furred the debris and dead branches that carpeted the little wood. But the sun shone from a cloudless sky, giving shadows to the shivered trees and colouring pale orange their dead, barkless trunks. Rawley interpreted the sunlight as a good omen. He paused for a moment by the grass-grown track that bordered the wood, and then, taking his courage in both hands, crossed it boldly and followed a half-obliterated footpath that would bring him to the Bapaume Road.
He experienced a pleasurable feeling of excitement and exhilaration that was fostered by the keen air and bright sunlight, and he strode rapidly up the gentle slope. At the top he came in sight of the road. It was less than three hundred yards from him, running straight in either direction till it topped a slope and disappeared. Half-right on the rising ground lay the ragged brick heaps of a shattered village and, glowing redly in the sunlight, the rusty upturned nose of the tank they had passed on their night march. Half-left, in a hollow, lay another ruined village, beyond which the road rose over a trench-scarred slope and disappeared.
He reached the road and turned left down it towards the village in the hollow. A G.S. wagon was ambling towards him, and as it passed, the driver dropped his hand and jerked his head like a mechanical doll. Rawley returned the salute and strode jauntily on. The incident had given him confidence. It was good to move above ground again in daylight, and he revelled in this new-found sense of freedom. He reached the village in the hollow, which his map told him must be La Boiselle, and looked about him with interest. Huge mine craters lay on both sides of the road, mighty pits in the chalk, forty, fifty, and sixty feet deep. This must be the old no-man’s-land of 1915 and pre-July ’16, he thought; and those crumbling trenches on the slope he was ascending were the old British Line. He trudged on up the slope, and on the crest paused as a new world came into view.
Below him lay a town, a battered little town, but beautiful in the clear air and sunlight. The red-brick walls and chimneys glowed warmly in the morning light, and the surrounding country was green with that green of grass and leaves that was so restful after the ash-grey growth, pounded chalk, and bare clay of the devastated area. A tree-bordered road ran like a taut white tape up the green slope beyond, and the trees at the top stood out clear-cut and toy-like against the clear pale sky. A tall, brick church tower, rosy in the morning light, rose proudly from the clustering roofs and chimneys, and the bent and gilded figure at the top glittered like a heliograph above the countryside. He had no need to consult the map; this could only be the famous Hanging Virgin of Albert.
He walked on and reached the first houses. Most of them were shuttered and deserted, and many were tileless. He turned up a narrow street and found himself in the shell-pocked square at the foot of the gashed church tower, with the flashing figure with outstretched arms poised like a diver above him. A green staff car and a flying corps tender stood on the broken pavé. He stopped a Tommy and asked him if there were a canteen thereabouts, and the man directed him up a street to the right.
A young A.S.C officer came in as he was making his few purchases. He nodded and said, “’Morning, padre. Glad to see you are patronising our canteen.” Rawley offered a cigarette, and they left the canteen together. “You are not teetotal, I hope, padre,” said the young officer, as they stood in the street. “Come along to the mess and have a drink.” They went a few yards up the street and entered a café that had been abandoned by its owners. “Well, what is it to be, padre—whisky, vermouth, or mother’s ruin?”
Rawley chose whisky. A Tommy brought in a bottle and a tantalus. “Well, happy days!” said the A.S.C. officer, raising his glass. “You in the town?” he added conversationally, a few moments later.
“I just came to buy a few things,” answered Rawley, guardedly.
“Better stay then, and have a spot of lunch with us.”
“Well, that’s awfully good of you,” agreed Rawley.
The other officers came in for lunch, and Rawley was very guarded during the meal. He kept carefully to the role of a conscientious chaplain, ignorant of military matters, and rather worried and anxious about the keeping of army regulations. He learned among other things that this was a Mechanical Transport mess, that they were Army troops, and that there were several Labour Corps units in the neighbourhood engaged in clearing up the old battlefield.
“Well, it’s not often we have a padre in the mess,” said the A.S.C. captain. “It must be months since we had one here. I’m afraid you will find us rather a Godless lot, padre. But if you want to arrange a church parade, go ahead by all means.”
Rawley was glad to learn that there were no real chaplains in the neighbourhood. “Thank you,” he said. “But I haven’t called professionally, so to speak—and besides, as you are not in my parish, I’m afraid I’m cadging a lunch under false pretences. I—I feel rather guilty, eating up others’ rations.”
The captain laughed. “That’s all right, padre. Don’t you worry about that. We always have several rations in hand. We feed all the odds and ends in the neighbourhood. Our ration strength bobs up and down like a temperature chart, and when in doubt, we bung on a couple.”
Rawley suddenly determined on a bold stroke. He sighed. “Rations always worry me,” he said. “I cannot cope with all these forms. When I was first on my own I was attached to one unit after another, and every time they changed I went without rations. The new lot said I could not draw them for two days, and I ought to have let them know earlier, or drawn from the other lot.” He sighed again, rather pathetically. “Of course, you people always know when troops are moving and all that, but nobody ever tells a padre anything, and I never knew they were moving till they were actually gone.”
“Bad luck, padre,” said the captain. “Have some more beer; it’s French, but wet. So you went without rations?”
Rawley nodded. “But I got tired of that,” he continued, with an air of gentle pride in his own astuteness. “And so I went to the senior chaplain about it, and he arranged for me to draw rations from Bapaume.”
“Bapaume! That’s a goodish step!”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Rawley. “But I had to get them from there; it was something to do with Corps and Division and Army. I didn’t understand it, but there it is.”
“Good old red tape!” commented the captain.
“Of course, it would be much more convenient to draw them from someone in Albert.”
“Why not?” said the captain. “I should, if it’s nearer. No good tramping miles for nothing.”
“I might ask,” said Rawley, doubtfully. “But I expect I should not be allowed to—Army instead of Corps, or something.”
“Why ask?” said the captain. “I should just attach myself to somebody, and leave it at that.”
“But wouldn’t there be some regulations or something?”
“You’re too conscientious, padre,” grinned the captain. “Take my advice and never ask anybody in the army for anything that you can get yourself. When you’ve tried and can’t, then it’s time enough to chase the brass hats. What the deuce does it matter to anyone where you draw rations from! You are entitled to rations, and common sense says draw them from the most convenient place—whether it’s Army, G.H.Q., or the bloomin’ War Office itself. I would just fix it up on your own and say nothing to nobody.”
Rawley assumed an expression of worried indecision.
“How many rations do you want?” asked the captain.
“Two—only two. Myself and my man.”
“Can your man come in here for them?”
“Oh, yes!”
The captain lit a cigarette. “Well, send him along. I’ll draw them for you.”
“That is very good of you,” said Rawley. “But, well—really. Supposing when they go through these indents, or whatever you call them, they found my name and—well, wouldn’t there be a dreadful fuss?”
The captain laughed. “We don’t put your name down, you know, padre. But don’t you worry. They can’t check my indent. It’s never the same two days together. We get so many odds and ends passing through—and between ourselves we don’t go short. Of course, it ought to go in forty-eight hours in advance, but you send your fellow along tomorrow, and it will be all right.”
“That’s awfully good of you,” said Rawley with real gratitude.
“Not a bit. But, let me see, two rations are pretty small. Your chap had better draw for three days at a time, and come every third day. If you come with me presently, I will show you where our quarter-bloke hangs out, and I will tell him your fellow will be coming along tomorrow.”
II
It was a very elated young padre who, later that afternoon, swung out of Albert up the Bapaume Road. He marched along confidently and whistled as he walked, but the tunes were not hymn tunes, and some half-hour later, as he approached a pile of debris in a little wood, it was not by accident that the tune was “Old Soldiers Never Die.”
Alf’s face, in the light of one candle end, wore a relieved look. “Got back all right then, chum!” he said. “I’ve been as nervous as a blinkin’ cat the ’ole time you been away.”
Rawley put his few purchases on the rickety table. “Yes, here I am again—all present and correct.”
Alf was turning over the tin of polish, soldier’s friend, brilliantine and toothpaste. “Is this all you got?” he asked gloomily. “Didn’t yer git no grub?”
“We don’t want any,” answered Rawley, as he took off his belt.
“P’raps not now, but we bloomin’ well shall afore long.”
Rawley shook his head. “No. We are going to draw rations,” he said, with a mysterious smile.
“Rations! Here—get out! What d’yer mean rations?”
“What I say. The padre has arranged to draw rations for himself and servant from an M.T. unit in Albert. We draw three days’ rations every third day.”
“Garn!” exclaimed Alf derisively. “What, an’ rum ration as well, I reckon,” he added sarcastically.
“And rum ration as well,” repeated Rawley. “When there is one.” And he told Alf what had happened.
Alf sat on his bunk and rubbed the back of his neck in a characteristic manner. “Well, that’s a proper knock-out. Drorin’ rations!” Suddenly he looked up with a serious face. “Who’s going to drore ’em?” he demanded.
“You are,” said Rawley. “And you start tomorrow.”
Alf shook his head. “No, I ain’t. Not me. I’d never get away with it. An orficer might, but not a ruddy gunner. No, chum, you’ll ’ave to draw ’em.”
Rawley pointed out that it would excite comment for an officer to draw rations, even though he were a padre, that the risk was small, and that since he himself had taken the greater risk in asking for them, Alf might do his bit, and take the lesser.
Alf was only half convinced. “And besides, I can’t go like this,” he added triumphantly.
“No—you aren’t fit for C.O.’s parade at the moment,” Rawley conceded. “But we will soon alter that. Hair cut, shave—by the by, did you have a moustache or were you clean shaven? Before you took French leave, I mean.”
“I ’adn’t no moustache,” said Alf sulkily.
“Well, we will give you one now, then. A good, walrusy, Old Bill moustache. You can wear my old breeches; your cap will just pass muster—for a padre’s servant, that is. The difficulty is your tunic; I’m afraid that’s beyond repair. I suppose the only thing to do is to try to steal one.”
Alf rubbed the back of his neck. “Look ’ere, chum, do you really mean I’ve got to go?”
Rawley nodded. “I am afraid so, Alf. We can’t afford to chuck away a chance like this.”
Alf nodded gloomily. “You don’t think they’ll cop me?”
“When we’ve rigged you up with that moustache I honestly think that the chances of anyone recognizing you are about one in a million. I tell you, I found it as easy as pie—and so will you. Don’t talk more than is necessary, that’s all.”
“All right, chum, I’ll go.” And then he suddenly brightened and smacked his thigh delightedly. “Blimy! Drorin’ rations—ain’t that a scream!”
“And now we have to think out about that tunic,” said Rawley.
“You leave that to me, mate. As soon as it’s dark we’ll go out. You show me where there’s some troops, an’ if I don’t come back wiv a tunic or somethin’, I’ll eat my hat.”
Alf kept his word, and later that night he returned to the cellar, wearing a soldier’s greatcoat that effectively concealed his disreputable tunic. Then Rawley set to work with scissors and comb, and before they turned in for the night their preparations were complete for drawing rations on the morrow.
They walked into Albert together. Rawley had decided that this was best. It would enable him to point out the position of the M.T. unit and thus avoid the necessity of Alf asking questions of other troops; and it would give Alf confidence. And Alf gained confidence rapidly. No one gave them a second glance as they crossed the square beneath the shattered tower of the cathedral. Rawley with his slightly hunched shoulders, rather ill-fitting tunic, and clean-shaven face looked a typical padre, and Alf with his shaggy moustache, shabby cap and greatcoat with a sandbag rolled up under one arm looked the typical old soldier who, by reason of bad feet or wounds, has been given a light job as batman to a town major or padre.
Rawley walked back and waited for Alf on the Bapaume Road. Half an hour later Alf reappeared with a broad grin and a well-filled sandbag. “Everything in the garden’s luvely,” he said as he came up. “I jes said I’ve come for Capting Parker’s rations and the quarter dished ’em out like a bleedin’ lamb.”
“Good,” said Rawley. “But don’t you forget to salute me in public. We have got to be careful about details.”
III
Fresh meat and vegetables were such luxuries that for the two days following that first drawing of rations food filled the entire horizon. They vied with each other in thinking out new methods of cooking, and the hours between meals were devoted to the preparation of the next. It was the one topic of conversation and of thought. But soon the novelty wore off, and Rawley found the time hang heavy on his hands. In the old dug-out in the centre of the devastated area he had had to get his supplies by craft or by stealth, and although he had bitterly cursed the necessity it had provided an object in an otherwise objectless life. The necessities of living had occupied the mind and the body. But now there was nothing to occupy either. The bare means of living were provided, and apart from the duties of cooking, eating, and drawing water from the well, body and mind lay fallow.
After his long sojourn as an outcast in the deserted battlefields, that first walk into Albert, decently clean and clothed, had seemed a heaven of delight; but after three or four visits, on those alternate days that he was not cook, the delight faded. It was dull walking about aimlessly, with nothing to do and with nothing constructive to occupy one’s thoughts. He envied the men he saw about him. No doubt they were cursing the war and wishing themselves back in civilian life, but they were doing something; they had some object to which they were striving—if it were only to get the job done and go home. He realized bitterly that it is better to have an unpleasant job than no job at all. And at first the risk he ran of arrest as a spy or deserter had given a zest to his walks abroad, but now he was so familiar with his surroundings and moved about so freely and without question that the danger seemed almost negligible, the more so since he had learned that his old division had moved northwards from the area.
He had borrowed a magazine from the M.T. Mess and had read it from cover to cover. He had no books. Quite suddenly it occurred to him that there was nothing to prevent him from going into Amiens to buy some, and he asked himself why he had not thought of it before. It was a splendid idea; and he grew as excited as a schoolboy at the prospect of being in an undamaged, civilized town, and of looking at the windows of real civilian shops. And Alf’s suggestion that it might be a bit risky only added zest to the adventure.
IV
He set out on the following morning, leaving Alf shaking his head dolefully in the cellar. His intention was to walk to Albert and try to pick up a lorry or car, but he had barely set foot upon the Albert road before a lorry rumbled up behind him coming from the direction of Bapaume. He asked the driver if he were going anywhere near Amiens. The driver was: he was going through Amiens to Flixecourt. Rawley climbed up into the broad front seat, and the lorry rumbled on its way.
It was one of those bright, mild days that come sometimes early in the year and give a foretaste of spring. Even the rubble heaps of the old battlefield looked almost friendly in the cheerful light, and as the lorry topped the rise by the old British front line, Rawley saw again as he had seen on that first morning walk the Hanging Virgin of Albert flashing golden in the sunlight.
The lorry rumbled on through the narrow pavé streets of the town, across the square that, by reason of the levelled buildings surrounding it, was twice as large as its pre-war self; swung left-handed into the narrow street where the tangle of twisted metal in the shattered Schneider factory resembled a gigantic bramble bush, crossed the bridge over the grass-grown railway and climbed the hill beyond. The shattered roofs and splinter-pocked walls of the houses had been left behind. Trees bordered the road. Real trees: not splintered stumps of dead barkless wood, but trees with branches overhead already budding with the promise of spring. The road switchbacked undeviatingly across the low hills, and occasionally to his left, when the hedgeless plough-land dipped in widening curves to a transverse valley, he saw across the countless furrows some peaceful tree-embowered village in the Ancre valley below. Rawley, on the front seat of the moving lorry, enjoyed it all as a schoolboy enjoys his first homecoming.
The country became more wooded, villages more frequent. Woods, red with young shoots, nestled in the folds of the ground, and at times bordered the road. One fleeting glimpse he had of Amiens cathedral, grey and sunlit in the distance.
The driver slowed at last, where a broad road diverged to the left. “I’ll have to drop you here, sir. I go straight on, and lorries aren’t allowed in the streets of the town anyway.”
Rawley climbed down and took the left-hand road. Presently it became a broad boulevard with trees and a cycle track on either side and houses. He reached the iron bridge over the Somme and saw the city before him, tree-shaded quays by the river, and the old houses rising to the great grey bulk of the cathedral.
He walked down the Rue des Trois Cailloux feeling rather like one treading the streets of fairyland. The civilians, particularly the women and girls in pretty frocks, and the shops containing groceries, high-heeled shoes, fish and game, feminine hats, toys, silk stockings, gramophones and pianos, chocolates, and carpenters’ tools, seemed as though they must have been transported from some happy land of fancy, so remote were they from the splintered wood and bricks, mud, filth, and desolation of his recent surroundings.
He wandered slowly through the streets like a spirit revisiting the scenes of its earthly life, watching, as it were from a distance, the busy passers-by, lingering at the shop windows, and automatically returning occasional salutes. He remembered much of the city from his one previous visit, and he found that unconsciously he had begun to retrace his steps of that day not so very long ago that now seemed to belong to another life and another age. He went under the archway and stared across the cobbles at the glass door of the baths; he peered through the glass between the mounds of pastries into Odette’s tea-shop. He found the little restaurant where Rumbald, Piddock, Penhurst and he had had that riotous and rather scandalous dinner. In broad daylight in the narrow side street it looked shabby and depressing. And he went down to the canal and sat on the bench under the trees, where he had sat that night in the darkness, listening to the hum of hostile aircraft.
Here he ate the sandwiches he had brought with him. He had been sorely tempted to enter an hotel and order a good lunch. But prudence had prevailed. It would have been a shameful waste of his diminishing funds, and he had compromised with the temptation by promising himself tea in a tea-shop, which would be equally enjoyable but less expensive. He found a paper shop in a corner of the Place Gambetta, and bought an English newspaper and two paper-covered novels.
He turned into a tea-shop shortly before four o’clock. Several British officers were already having tea, but he found a little table in a corner. A French girl in a diminutive fancy apron came to take his order, and he was dismayed to find himself stuttering with embarrassment; but she was a self-possessed little lady and seemed neither flattered nor disturbed by the effect she had produced upon the shy young English padre. She brought his tea, and it was only some minutes later that he remembered the procedure, and rose, plate and fork in hand, to choose his cakes. The incident turned his thought to the tea-shop in Doullens, where he and Berney on their first meeting had chosen cakes together and had chaffed each other upon their choice. He returned to his lonely table with all his animation gone.
One or two other British officers came into the shop, and lastly a young chaplain. There were no vacant tables, and the man, after a brief glance round, came and sat down at Rawley’s little table. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. Rawley did mind, but he murmured politely, “Not at all.” Conversation with a real chaplain would have pitfalls, and he eyed the man covertly as the waitress came to take the order.
Evidently he had not been in France long, for he wore the black tie which had been discarded by most chaplains in the field. Not long ago, Rawley thought, he had worn the roman collar and black stock. He was probably rather green, and that was a point to the good. His own role, he decided, must be that of the old hand who discouraged the talking of shop.
The conversation opened in the English fashion with the weather. The man obviously wanted to talk, and Rawley let him talk. It would give Rawley a chance to finish his tea. When he tired of talking about himself, and began to display some curiosity about his fellow padre, then it would be time for Rawley to excuse himself and leave.
Meanwhile he sat and listened, putting in a word here and there to stimulate the flow. He might learn some useful points that would help him to sustain his role of a padre.
He learnt that his diagnosis was correct. The young clergyman had been in France only three weeks. He had reported to a Headquarters that he did not know the name of and had hung about for several days doing nothing. Then he had been billeted in Amiens, where he had met an older padre who was running a canteen and ministering to the needs of various details of troops in the neighbourhood. The older padre had then been ordered to report to a division in the Line and the younger man, not knowing what else to do, had taken over the canteen, which he was still running. He was enthusiastic and desperately anxious to be of use, but he had received no orders, and so he remained in the billet originally allotted to him, ran the canteen, and held a service whenever he could scrape together a congregation, which was seldom. He spoke to Rawley as an older and more experienced man. What should he do?
“One of the first principles out here,” said Rawley, “is not to go looking for trouble. It comes without any looking for. Just sit tight and do what you can. They have forgotten you, I expect. One fine day some brass hat will take his feet off the mantelpiece and have a look at the papers they have been resting on. Then he’ll discover you, and they will send you chits and things and bundle you off to some godforsaken spot. My advice is to sit tight and see what happens.
The young chaplain sighed. “It’s all rather different from what one expected,” he said. “Very different from a country parish. I am from Yorkshire. What part of the country do you come from?”
“The Channel Islands,” answered Rawley at a venture.
“Oh yes. Beautiful place, I’ve heard. Let me see, you are in the Winchester diocese, aren’t you?”
Rawley nodded and rose. “I must be getting back,” he said, and took his leave.