Josh had been resting for five days. It had been good to relax and chat of normal things; he’d seen Oswald, who told him he’d met Edie and Lucy recently, and then he’d shot off somewhere in a hurry. He’d had hot meals from the canteen, bought cigarettes and tobacco and had a good scrub down and washed his clothes to get rid of the lice. He was bothered about his feet, which felt spongy, but the nurse who looked at them just said try to keep them dry. He’d laughed at that and remarked easier said than done; she’d agreed that it was and given him some extra talcum powder to put inside his socks. But he felt in better spirits for being clean and fed and wrote a letter home to tell them everything was fine and that a rumour was going round that the enemy was losing heavily.
He had heard that the British army, including the Canadians, had lost a lot of men over the summer and early autumn during the earlier Ypres battles, though he didn’t mention that. It also worsened his concern over Stanley. The Germans had massacred a British line near Passchendaele; there had been several battles in that region over the last few months and he knew that Stanley’s battalion had been heading in that direction. It was shortly to be his platoon’s destination too, as soon as they received their orders.
The command came sooner than expected; the next day they were directed on to lorries on the first stage of their journey to the battlegrounds where, they were told, the ultimate prize – capturing the village of Passchendaele – would be waiting.
They were directed towards the trenches only recently vacated; most of them had been blown apart by shells and needed to be repacked with sandbags and duckboards. Many of the working party, the trencher men, were sickened by what they found and could be heard retching as they dug their spades into the wet ground, even though stretcher bearers and working parties had been there before them to rescue who or what they could find.
‘I think this might be the final battle of Ypres, sergeant.’ Henry Warrington came to speak quietly to Josh. ‘I gather that Haig will pull back whether we take Passchendaele or not. I … erm, I’ve written a letter home.’ He tapped an envelope in his hand. ‘If I give it to you – you know, in case I don’t make it – will you post it for me? I sent one from the canteen, but …’
Josh nodded. ‘Yeh, course I will, sir.’ He took it from him and slipped it into his top pocket. ‘I’ll give it back to you when we’re done here.’
Henry grinned back at him and put out his hand to shake. ‘I’ve been glad to have you by my side, Josh, and not fighting me as you once suggested we might.’
‘Did I?’ Josh laughed. ‘I wanted to fight everybody when I was a lad,’ he admitted. Then he became serious and his grin slipped. ‘But now I’ve had a bellyful and I’m done wi’ fighting for ever if we get out of here in one piece.’
Henry tightened his grip. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Let’s be sure that we make it.’
Oswald had a regular driver, Corporal Tommy Morris of the RAMC. When he first met him and enquired if he knew Stanley and Josh Morris, Tommy told him he was a cousin: his father was one of the brothers of their father Tom.
The two of them got on well together. Tommy was not only an expert on motor engines and dynamos but also a fearless driver, and took many shortcuts over land instead of roads in order to reach either a field ambulance station or a CCS in half the time it would normally take, so that Oswald could quickly set up the X-ray machine to locate the broken fragments of bullets or shrapnel lodged inside the injured men, and the medical officer would then direct them to the nearest place where they had more surgeons and facilities to remove them.
Both of them had an unerring instinct to turn up where they were needed and both also acted as stretcher bearers when necessary. Now, though, they were in the middle of an argument and rank didn’t immediately play a part.
‘We’re not needed in Passchendaele,’ Corporal Morris complained. ‘It’ll be too bloody, too messy and too muddy. I’ll never get ’lorry through and you don’t want us to turn it over and lose your precious machine, do you? We’d be better going to a base hospital.’
‘It’s not my machine,’ Oswald roared back. ‘If it belongs to anybody it belongs to Marie Curie and I defy you to tell her that we must take it where it’s needed!’
Corporal Morris continued to argue but Oswald would have none of it. In the end he shouted at him. ‘Right! I’ll drive the damned lorry myself,’ and proceeded to climb into the cab. ‘It’s not that far from here.’
‘You don’t know how to drive,’ Morris claimed, ‘and besides, I’ve got ’keys.’ He patted his pocket triumphantly.
Oswald jumped down from the lorry. ‘I’ll know how by the time I get there. Give me the keys and that’s an order. I’m pulling rank, corporal, and I’ll put you on a charge if you refuse.’
Corporal Morris’s mouth dropped open and he handed over the keys. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘Probably not,’ Oswald admitted. ‘I wouldn’t want to see you in front of a firing squad.’ He looked at him squarely. ‘Are you coming or not?’
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ Tommy Morris took back the keys. ‘Somebody’s got to look after you. I was warned you were a nutty boffin, and now I know it’s true.’
Oswald glared at him but hid a grin. It was true he probably would have turned the lorry over, and as they lurched over ruts and rubble and wrecked roads towards the outskirts of the village and he saw the boggy land with its deep potholes and craters where men and horses could lose their heavy gun carriers, he knew that the corporal’s concerns were justified.
It was dark by the time they reached the canteen that had been set up in a small wood, well away from the front line but within sound of any battle that was expected. General Haig wanted the prestige of finally wresting the Passchendaele Ridge away from the Germans and this, it seemed, might be his last chance. He had brought in the Canadians under General Sir Arthur Currie, who had his own ideas of a battle strategy; Currie was a commander who stayed with his men out in the field and knew of the obstacles that had to be overcome.
The canteen was being run by the YMCA and they were given hot soup and sausages and hoped for a quiet night, though they both doubted that would be possible, which was confirmed by a Canadian soldier with an injured foot in a temporary splint who had been left behind by his division.
‘Our units are up there on the western flank with the French,’ he said. ‘You’ll hear fireworks before long. I wish I could have been there with them.’
You might find you were pleased not to be, Oswald thought. Not everyone will come out unscathed. There had been thousands killed in the battles across Flanders and the bombardment of Ypres had been going on since July; they were now at the beginning of November. Three months, he considered, and for what?
They slept in a hut until early morning and as a cold dawn was beginning to show across the horizon Oswald heard the first explosions of the artillery offensive; he looked out of the door and saw the sky redden and then turn black and then yellow. He sniffed. No smell as yet, but he was almost sure the yellow was a gas cloud.
‘Come on, corporal.’ He shook Tommy Morris by the shoulder. ‘Time we were off.’
‘No breakfast again,’ Tommy mumbled. ‘I’m going to complain to my quartermaster about unfair working conditions.’
Oswald smiled. What was it about the Morris clan that kept them so cheerful?
The canteen was open and they grabbed a bacon sandwich and a cup of hot coffee that they gulped down before moving off. The reverberations of explosions and artillery gunfire were deafening, and they knew that they would be more useful in this battle as stretcher bearers and first-aiders than endeavouring to use the X-ray machine. ‘We can use the lorry as an ambulance to get the injured to a hospital,’ Oswald said. ‘This is going to be another almighty gruesome battle.’
An hour later they were approaching the immense battle area. The British field guns were firing, as were the Canadians’; the Passchendaele Ridge was being assaulted from all sides and yet the enemy in a final desperate attempt to save their line were answering back. The ferocious gunfire, the shouts of armed men and the barrage and clamour of explosives was overwhelming.
‘It’s sheer slaughter.’ Oswald couldn’t keep the anguish from his voice as Corporal Morris parked. ‘So many men. Such carnage.’ He went to the rear of the vehicle and pulled out the folded canvas stretcher that had been allocated to them. The X-ray machine was of no use here. It was physical help that was needed now.
Henry rang the gas bell violently and insistently. He’d seen the insidious yellow cloud released from the enemy’s gas cylinders heading towards them before he’d heard the gunfire, and he prayed that the masks and respirators would suffice to help them breathe and that the toxic substances would not penetrate. The medics and officers had been warned that German scientists were constantly working on various poison gases, and their British counterparts were working to find a deterrent. One of the suggestions put forward was that the soldiers should make a flat pack of mud, something that was readily available, wrap it in a cotton handkerchief and place it inside their respirators, so that if attacked by gas they would be able to breathe through the mud. Not all the soldiers complied, but many did, including Henry and Josh.
The unit had already endured hours of artillery fire, yet in the latest communication Henry had been told this would be the final Allied offensive against the German stronghold of Passchendaele, the highest point of the Salient; the Canadians were in position and they were prepared to risk all to take it.
So this was it: now or never, do or die, the final assault. Each of them with his own thoughts, fears and palpitations, Captain Henry Warrington and Sergeant Joshua Morris simultaneously blew their whistles, and at the signal the combatants, no longer men and boys, charged, yelling, shouting and guns blazing, over the top.
Oswald and Corporal Morris joined the stretcher bearers and RAMC men to assist the injured and carry them to the first-aid post that was built within a trench; some of the men were past requiring any assistance, and those who were barely alive had to be left behind as orderlies, stretcher bearers and uninjured men moved across the stricken ground. Those with lesser injuries were prioritized. Others, with minor injuries, dragged themselves and their comrades to a safer place where they would wait for assistance.
Some of the men were screaming that they couldn’t see and that they were on fire and Oswald made them his priority. ‘Swill them down with water,’ he yelled to the orderlies in the first-aid post. ‘Wash their eyes and take off their jackets in case they’re contaminated. And wear your gloves; don’t touch them with your bare hands.’
He didn’t know what kind of poison gas had been used; chlorine laced with phosgene that attacked the lungs, or mustard gas that burned, or a combination of both, but whatever it was it could soak through garments and burn the skin beneath. It was worth the risk of catching a chill in the November air to avoid the blisters and pus that would come later if contaminated clothes were left on. If the respirators had worked the soldiers would avoid the agonizing effects of having their lungs stripped apart and their eyes blinded. The soldiers who were not injured ran towards them to help lead them towards the medics.
All the stretcher bearers ran with their masks firmly in place and their heads down to collect the injured; they were all at risk from the bouts of artillery and sniper fire that was still coming from the ridge. Oswald wondered if the German soldiers were as sick of the war as the Allies were and wanted to go home as badly. He guessed that they were, and did; and the dying would be leaving behind families and loved ones just as the Allies were.
By the afternoon the guns had stopped but for some occasional sporadic sniper fire; both sides of the conflict were collecting their dead and injured. It was starting to rain again, making bad conditions even worse.
An injured soldier with a head wound was being carried back for attention and called out to Oswald and Tommy, ‘There’s an officer over yonder trying to find his way,’ he shouted. ‘He’s not from my trench. I think he’s been blinded.’
Oswald looked towards where he was pointing. The stretcher bearers had been over that area and he thought they’d picked up everyone alive, but the soldier was right: a figure was staggering and struggling to right his mask and heading towards a deep shell hole full of water.
‘I reckon he’s been blinded,’ Corporal Morris said, starting to run. ‘He’s disorientated.’
They ran towards him. ‘Keep your gloves on,’ Oswald said again to Corporal Morris as they approached. ‘Hang on, soldier,’ he shouted. ‘We’re coming.’
The officer turned towards his voice. He was covered in mud from falling, his mask had slipped and his hands were shaking violently.
‘Captain,’ Oswald said, ‘let’s get you back to first aid.’ He fumbled to adjust the officer’s mask to protect his eyes and larynx though he feared some damage had already been done, then took hold of his elbow with his gloved hands. ‘Take off your coat, sir, and then we’ll get your injuries seen to.’
‘What! I can’t. I can’t see. It’s the gas!’
‘I know.’ Oswald carefully unbuttoned the officer’s greatcoat, helped him off with it and trailed it by his fingertips through the mud. ‘Have you any other injuries, sir? Can you walk?’
‘No. Yes. I can walk.’ He reached out for Oswald’s arm to guide him. ‘Help me to get back to my men. I’m Captain Warrington. I must see – find out – if they’re injured or killed. What hell is this? The shells. Have you seen my sergeant? Will you find him? Find my sergeant. The gas. I can’t see.’ His speech was jumbled and incoherent.
Oswald led him back towards the first aid post whilst the corporal ran towards another injured soldier. How could they help them all? There were men crying out for assistance whilst crawling across rubble and out of potholes towards their dead comrades and how, in all things miraculous, he pondered, did he chance upon Henry Warrington when there had been hundreds of men swarming out of the trenches to fight for their lives? He looked back towards the ridge that had been fought for and it was all but flattened. There was no church spire either. But there was a British flag fluttering there. Passchendaele had been captured; but at what cost.