“There may have been, but I didn’t see it,” he told me. “We were marching up to a fresh attack when the word reached us. We halted and drew in to the side of the road, feeling a trifle discontented on account of the cold. One felt warmer, you understand, while in motion. It was a raw day, being November. When the news had been confirmed, we turned back to the last town in search of billets. The chaps cracked a smile then, when they discovered that they were to have a solid night’s rest with a roof above their heads.”
I levered myself up in bed and stared at Charlie Wraith. Despite all that I knew of the Front, I found it hard to credit this utter lack of emotion. In the old days all our talk had been of when the war would end—how we would throw aside authority, cock our guns up and fire off salvo after salvo to the heavens. We had promised ourselves that we would go over the top for a last time as a kind of sporting luxury, and beat up the Hun just once more for luck to prove that we still had plenty of ginger left. The flying-men had asserted that they would head their planes in the direction of Boche-land and send them off unpiloted to put the wind up the enemy. Every mad prank had been imagined and discussed for making our celebration memorable and effective. From the Channel to Switzerland the Front should blaze and be clangourous. And this was actually how the greatest war in history bad fizzled out: they had drawn in to the side of the road, felt cold and turned back to the nearest town in search of billets. Had the Major told me that the men had shewn resentment, feeling that they had been baulked of an immenser victory, I could have understood that.
But this account of stoical indifference was astounding. I tried to put some of my surprise into words.
“If they weren’t glad, perhaps they were disappointed?”
“Not disappointed,” he said. “We’d been through too much to be either happy or sad. I think we’d got past feeling anything. We were sort of numb. I’m no good at expressing myself. Some of the married chaps sighed contentedly and whispered, more to themselves than aloud, ‘Well, that’s that.’ They meant, I suppose, that they’d be seeing their wives again presently. But most of us didn’t say a word; we just carried on as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.”
I think this picture of dumb subjection to duty made me realise more than anything the sheer cost of victory in spiritual energy to the men who bought it with their blood. While London, New York and Paris went mad, climbing lamp-posts, changing hats, dragging tin cans through the streets and converting themselves into impromptu jazz bands, these men, whose valour was being commemorated, pulled in to the side of the road, felt cold, and limped back to the nearest town in search of billets. They were “sort of numb.” They’d been through too much to feel either happy or sad. “Well, that’s that,” they had said, and thanked God for the luxury of a secure night’s rest and the comfort of a roof above their heads.
And yet, why I should have been so surprised I don’t quite know. The Major’s picture was consistent with everything I had learned of the fighting man—precisely what one might have expected. That I should have been surprised only proves to me how thoroughly normal and civilian we are beneath our khaki. Here am I, a few weeks out of the line, finding myself amazed at conduct which would have been mine, had I lasted. “Well, that’s that”—it sums up in a phrase the whole philosophy of the Front, which teaches:—“Don’t whine. Endure what you can’t alter. Get over the hard bits of the road by pushing forward. Never know when you’re licked. Never be elated when you’ve won. Whether you win or lose, don’t sit down; seize on to the next most difficult thing that you may conquer. For it’s not the winning or the losing, it’s the eternal trying that counts—And that’s that.” It is the “eternal trying” of my last fight that lives most vividly in my memory. We were in that murder-hole, you will remember, to the left of the Cambrai-Arras road. Our job was to smash the Hindenburg Line and to go as much further as our strength would carry us. Our objective was to be the ending of the war or, in the words of the Major, “Berlin or nothing.”
The night before the show the enemy made a last determined effort to knock us out. We had distinct orders not to retaliate; our first round was to be fired with the opening of the offensive. So we had to lie down in silence and take our punishment.
Shortly after sunset the trouble commenced. The enemy must have run forward a number of guns.
Without warning a tremendous bombardment opened up. It was as though the walls of Heaven were tumbling about our heads. In our narrow valley, where batteries were lined up like taxi-cabs on a stand, shells of every kind and calibre began to fall—whizz-bangs, incendiary, high explosive, gas. Shooting at random over so small an area so densely packed, it was almost impossible not to hit something. As darkness thickened, the night became lurid with burning gun-pits and ammunition. Against the dancing flames men could be seen, running, gesticulating and working like fiends to put the fires out. High above the whistling of the shells we heard the ominous throb of planes, and bombs commenced dropping. By this time we had struggled into our gas-helmets and lay crouched in little groups in the bottom of shell-holes. We were of no use. We had been forbidden to reply. We were simply waiting to be slaughtered.