The First of July(90)

The adjutant had raised his eyebrows.

If the gunners had failed to cut the wire, soldiers would die as dancing men, trapped and twitching in its coils, so it had to be true.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


Harry, France,

June 30, 1916


IT WAS ALL WIRE TALK at dinner, with the C.O. making no attempt to stop them. Harry was with his new company, replacing a man who’d been killed two weeks before. Dinner, with the battalion commander and three subalterns, consisted of some kind of fatty pork stew. It was all a long way from Amiens.

Their new colonel was trying hard to be in good spirits. He was short with a reddish moustache, recently promoted from major. A scared man, out of his depth, Harry thought and, for a few seconds, felt sorry for him. They had been ready to go on June 29, but the foul weather had delayed the attack and the C.O. had to cope with over a thousand men and officers, few of them very experienced soldiers, all tensely waiting for what they knew was coming. The continuous shelling of the German lines by their own artillery was, in the colonel’s view, a mistake, and now it had stretched out a further forty-eight hours.

“Impossible to sleep,” he’d said when he welcomed Harry. “They’ll run out of ammunition if this goes on much longer. Which would be something of a relief.” He gave a short, loud laugh.

“The first of July,” the C.O. said. “Thank God.”

He poured out some brandy and handed each officer a small glass.

“The wire’s not cut, of course, not all along, and the Germans will be ready and waiting after our week of explosive announcement with those bloody guns.”

He poured himself another drink. It was increasingly obvious he’d had several before they arrived.

Despite the mood in the room, it was clear that the company commander and two of the platoon commanders couldn’t wait to go. The third, a boy, looked apprehensive. He was eighteen, no more, and had joined his regiment only three weeks earlier. He had gone on exercises with the whole division at the rear and been out on patrol a couple of times, he explained, as if accounting for a misdemeanor to a housemaster, but the second time had been a fiasco and they had lost three soldiers. He blamed himself, he’d said miserably; they were good men. Harry thought what he was sure the boy was also thinking: that such an inexperienced subaltern shouldn’t be here. But now that he was, he must at least act the part and reassure his troops.

“Do you think they’ve cut the wire? sir?”

“I think the gunners know what they’re doing,” Harry said, in what he hoped was a persuasive tone.

As he walked back to his billet to ready himself for the morning, he could hear the men, out of sight but shuffling like tethered horses in the darkness. Then, a single voice singing an old tune, “Oft, in the Stilly Night.” Instantly and achingly, it brought back his night walks in New York and the ever-wakeful Irish of the Lower East Side tenements.

There were two letters waiting for him. One was from his lawyers, confirming his recent instructions. The other was from Isabelle. His servant, a new man, Welsh and efficient, brought him some strong tea and he sat down to read it. Abbotsgate seemed so very far away.

Dearest Harry,

I hope all still goes well with you. Here we follow the news in the paper and hope that you are safe and not in the thick of any fighting. Too many local boys are killed or injured and I was glad to hear you are at headquarters because I always imagine that to be out of the reach of the Germans, but of course I know little.

To see the photographs of destruction in the newspapers is very shocking and for me painful. As a Frenchwoman by birth I weep for my poor country and hope this time the Germans can be kept from reaching Paris. Who would have thought, when we first knew each other, that you would be there, defending my country, and I would be here, caring for your estate?

I don’t like to think of you carrying unnecessary burdens at such a time so I must speak now. I have your recent letter and it goes beyond saying that I am so very grateful that you have left the unentailed part of Abbotsgate to Teddy in your new will. This removes all fear that I had for Teddy’s future should anything happen to me. Thank you.

But then you say that you want to make it clear that this is not because you assume he is your son, but because it is the right thing to do, and this I was horrified to read. No. No. You have made a terrible mistake, Harry. Of course Teddy is not your son. He was a very early, very frail baby, who fought for life, I was seriously ill and the doctors said we would lose him. His early birth was not some device to deceive your father, if that’s what you somehow came to believe. He was, is, your brother, your father’s son. Not yours. I cannot bear it that you thought this for so long. Why did you not ask me?