“Well, yes, very often; but they haven’t the strain of responsibility. Yes, you are right though; and it’s less concentrated for the C.O., still less for the Brigadier, and so on back to the Commander-in-Chief; and still further to men who have never seen a trench at all.”
“I dare say,” said Edwards; “but, as the phrase goes, ‘What are you going to do abaht it?’ Here’s Jim. Old Muskett’s going to send me a nag at five, so I’m going out after tea. Will you be in to tea?”
“Don’t know.”
As I tightened my puttees preparatory to mounting the great Jim, Edwards started his gramophone; so leaving them to the strains of Tannhäuser, I bestrode my charger and steered him gracefully down the garden path, under the brick archway, and out into the street.
Myself on a horse always amused me, especially when it was called an “officer’s charger.” Jim was not fiery, yet he was not by any means sluggish, and he went fast at a gallop. He suited me very well indeed when I wanted to go for an afternoon’s ride; for he was quite content to walk when I wanted to muse, and to gallop hard when I wanted exhilaration. I hate a horse that will always be trotting. I know it is best style to trot; but my rides were not for style, but for pleasure, exercise, and solitude. And Jim fell in admirably with my requirements. But, as I say, the idea that I was a company-commander on his charger always amused me.
I rode, as I generally did, in a south-easterly direction, climbing at a walk one of the many roads that led out of Morlancourt towards the Bois des Tailles. When I reached the high ground I made Jim gallop along the grass-border right up to the edge of the woods. There is nothing like the exhilaration of flying along, you cannot imagine how, with the great brown animal lengthening out under you for all he is worth! I pulled him up and turned his head to the right, leaving the road, and skirting the edge of the wood. At last I was alone.
In the clearings of the wood the ground was a sheet of blue hyacinths, whose sweet scent came along on the breeze; their fragrance lifted my spirit, and I drank in deep breaths of the early summer air. I took off my cap to feel the sun full on my face. On the ground outside the wood were still a few late primroses interspersed with cowslips, stubborn and jolly; and as I rounded a bend in the wood-edge, I found myself looking across a tiny valley, the opposite face of which was a wooded slope, with all the trees banked up on it as gardeners bank geraniums in tiers to give a good massed effect. So, climbing the hill-side, were all these shimmering patches of green, yellow-green, pea-green, yellow, massed together in delightful variety; and dotted about in the middle of them were solitary patches of white cherry-blossom, like white foam breaking over a reef, in the midst of a great green sea. And across this perfect softness from time to time the bold black and white of magpies cut with that vivid contrast with which Nature loves to baffle the poor artist.
“Come on, old boy,” I said, as I reached the bottom of this little valley; and trotting up the other side, and through a ride in the wood, I came out on the edge of the Valley of the Somme. I then skirted the south side of the wood until I reached a secluded corner with a view across the valley: here I dismounted, fastened Jim to a tree, loosened his girths, and left him pulling greedily at the grass at his feet. Then I threw myself down on the grass to dream.
My thoughts ran back to my conversation with Edwards. Perhaps it was best not to think too hard, but I could no more stifle my thoughts than can a man his appetite. Responsibility. Responsibility. And those with the greatest responsibility endure and see the least; no one has more to endure than the private soldier in the infantry, and no one has less responsibility or power of choice. I thought of our last six days in the trenches. When “A” Company were in the line, the first three days, we had been bombarded heavily at “stand-to” in the evening. In Maple Redoubt it had been bad enough. There was one sentry-post a little way up Old Kent Road; by some mistake a bomber had been put on duty there, whereas it was a bayonet-man’s post, the bombers having a special rôle in case of the enemy attacking. I found this mistake had been made, but did not think it was worth altering. And that man was killed outright by a shell.
In the front line “A” Company had had several killed and wounded, and I had had to lend them half my bombers; as I had placed two men on one post, a canister had burst quite a long way off, but the men cowered down into the trench. I cursed them as hard as I could, and then I saw that in the post were the two former occupants lying dead, killed half an hour ago where they lay, and where I was placing my two men. I stopped my curses, and inwardly directed them against myself. And there I had to leave these fellows, looking after me and thinking, “He’s going back to his dug-out.” Ah! no, they knew me better than to think like that. Yet I had to go back, leaving them there. I should never forget that awful weight of responsibility that suddenly seemed visualised before me. Could I not see their scared faces peering at me, even as now I seemed to smell the scent of pear-drops with which the trench was permeated, the Germans having sent over a few lachrymatory shells along with the others that night?