III
I am not going to tell you all about that attack, only so much of it as affects this history, which is the history of a man and not of the war. It was a one-battalion affair, and eventually a failure. D Company was in reserve, and our only immediate task was to provide a small digging-party, forty men under an officer, to dig some sort of communication ditch to the new line when taken. Burnett was told off for this job; we took these things more or less in turn, and it was his turn. And Burnett did not like it. We sat round a single candle under a waterproof sheet in a sort of open recess at the back of the front line, while Egerton gave him his orders. And there ran in my head the old bit about 'they all began with one accord to make excuse.' Burnett made no actual excuse; he could not. But he asked aggressive questions about the arrangements which plainly said that he considered this task too dangerous and too difficult for Burnett. He wanted more men, he wanted another officer—but no more could be spared from an already small reserve. He was full of 'the high ground on the right' from which his party would 'obviously' be enfiladed and shot down to a man. However, he went. And we sat listening to the rapid fire or the dull thud of bombs, until in front a strange quiet fell, but to right and left were the sounds of many machine-guns. As usual, no one knew what had happened, but we expected a summons at any moment. We were all restless and jumpy, particularly Harry. For a man who has doubts of himself or too much imagination, to be in reserve is the worst thing possible. Harry was talkative again, and held forth about the absurdity of the whole attack, as to which he was perfectly right. But I felt that all the time he was thinking, 'Shall I do the right thing? shall I do the right thing? shall I make a mess of it?'
I went out and looked over the parapet, but could make nothing out. Then I saw two figures loom through the dark and scramble into the trench. And after them came others all along the line, coming in anyhow, in disorder. Then Burnett came along the trench, and crawled in under the waterproof sheet. I followed. 'It's no good,' he was saying, 'the men won't stick it. It's just what I told you ... enfiladed from that high ground over there—two machine-guns....'
'How many casualties have you had?' said Egerton.
'One killed, and two wounded.'
There was silence, but it was charged with eloquent thoughts. It was clear what had happened. The machine-guns were firing blindly from the right, probably over the heads of the party. The small casualties showed that. Casualties are the test. No doubt the men had not liked the stream of bullets overhead; at any moment the gun might lower. But there was nothing to prevent the digging being done, given an officer who would assert himself and keep the men together. That was what an officer was for. And Burnett had failed. He had let the company down.
Egerton, I knew, was considering what to do. The job had to be done. But should he send Burnett again, with orders not to return until he had finished, as he deserved, or should he send a more reliable officer and make sure?
Then Harry burst in: 'Let me take my platoon,' he said, 'they'll stick it all right.' And his tone was full of contempt for Burnett, full of determination. No doubts about him now.
Well, we sent him out with his platoon. And all night they dug and sweated in the dark. The machine-gun did lower at times, and there were many casualties, but Harry moved up and down in the open, cheerful and encouraging, getting away the wounded, and there were no signs of the men not sticking it. I went out and stayed with him for an hour or so, and thought him wonderful. Curious from what strange springs inspiration comes. For Harry, for the second time, had been genuinely inspired by the evil example of his enemy. Probably, in the first place, he had welcomed the chance of doing something at last, of putting his doubts to the test, but I am sure that what chiefly carried him through that night, weak and exhausted as he was, was the thought, 'Burnett let them down; Burnett let them down; I'm not going to let them down.' Anyhow he did very well.
But in the morning he was carried down to the beach in a high fever. And perhaps it was just as well, for I think Burnett would have done him a mischief.
VII
So Harry stayed till he was 'pushed' off, as he had promised. And I was glad he had gone like that. I had long wanted him to leave the Peninsula somehow, for I felt he should be spared for greater things, but, knowing something of his peculiar temperament, I did not want his career there to end on a note of simple failure—a dull surrender to sickness in the rest-camp. As it turned out, the accident of the digging-party, and the way in which Harry had seized his chance, sent him off with a renewed confidence in himself and, with regard to Burnett, even a sense of triumph. So I was not surprised when his letters began to reveal something of the old enthusiastic Harry, chafing at the dreary routine of the Depot, and looking for adventure again.... But I am anticipating.
They sent him home, of course. It was no good keeping any one in his condition at Egypt or Malta, for the prolonged dysentery had produced the usual complications. I had a letter from Malta, and one from the Mediterranean Club at Gibraltar, where he had a sultry week looking over the bay, seeing the ships steam out for England, he told me, and longing to be in one. For it took many months to wash away the taste of the Peninsula, and much more than the austere comforts of the hospital at Gibraltar. Even the hot August sun in the Alameda was hatefully reminiscent. Then six weeks' milk diet at a hospital in Devonshire, convalescence, and a month's leave.
Then Harry married a wife. I did not know the lady—a Miss Thickness—and she does not come into the story very much, though she probably affected it a good deal. Wives usually do affect a soldier's story, though they are one of the many things which by the absolute official standard of military duty are necessarily not reckoned with at all. Not being the president of a court-martial I did reckon with it; and when I had read Harry's letter about his wedding I said: 'We shan't see him again.' For in those early years it was generally assumed that a man returned from service at the front need not go out again (unless he wished) for a period almost incalculably remote. And being a newly married man myself, I had no reason to suppose that Harry would want to rush into the breach just yet.
But about May—that would be 1916; we had done with Gallipoli and come to France, after four months' idling in the Aegean Islands—I had another letter, much delayed, from which I will give you an extract:
'I never thought I should want to go out again (you remember we all swore we never should) but I do. I'm fed to the teeth with this place (the Depot, in Dorsetshire); nothing but company drill and lectures on march discipline, and all the old stuff. We still attack Hill 219 twice weekly in exactly the same way, and still no one but a few of the officers knows exactly which hill it is, since we always stop halfway for lunch-time, or because there's hopeless confusion.... There's nobody amusing here. Williams has got a company and swanks like blazes about 'the front,' but I think most people see through him.... My wife's got rooms in a cottage near here, but they won't let me sleep out, and I don't get there till pretty late most days.... Can't you get the Colonel to apply for me? I don't believe it's allowed, but he's sure to be able to wangle it. Otherwise I shall be here for the rest of the war, because the more you've been out the less likely you are to get out again, if you want to, while there are lots who don't want to go, and wouldn't be any earthly good, and stand in hourly danger of being sent.... I want to see France....'
I answered on a single sheet:
'All very well, but what about Mrs. P.? Does she concur?' (I told you I was a married man.)
His answer was equally brief:
'She doesn't know, but she would.'
Well, it wasn't my business, so we 'wangled' it (I was adjutant then), and Harry came out to France. But I was sorry for Mrs. Penrose.