‘I never dreamt, a week ago, that we’d be almost as far as Roisel now,’ Balan said. ‘We’re well beyond the old front line.’
‘Yes, when you think how hard we’ve fought over every bloody inch… Coming all this way, and so fast – it’s like we’ve been given seven league boots. Let’s just hope we catch up with the bastards before they disappear down into their new rat holes.’
‘All this,’ said Balan, ‘the Germans retreating, it bodes well, doesn’t it? They’re on the back foot. And this horrific mess’ – he gestured around him – ‘their reputation internationally will be ruined. What country will want to know them now?’
‘Granted, but it’s a shrewd move. They’ve shortened their line by miles. And they’ve got all the high ground, all the tactical advantage. Our offensives will be bloodbaths. It’s no improvement for us at all. It’s just a new stalemate.’
‘We just wait to see who can hold out the longest,’ Balan sighed.
‘Precisely. Business as usual.’
On they advanced, having to change course often to avoid the areas where it was just too wet and muddy to pass. The winter had been the most bitter and unforgiving of the war so far, freezing the ground to solid quartz and turning their spirits black with the misery of it all. But the thaw had made things even worse, transforming the bruised and battered battlegrounds into a morass of flooded trenches and shell holes filled with putrefying mud and dank, lingering clouds of poison gas – and long dead corpses. If any man strayed from the narrow duckboard paths, a ghastly end awaited: being sucked down silently into the foul, corrupted earth, as if caught in the tentacles of some unseen monster.
Eventually, dusk softened the sky and the men of their company stopped talking, their steps growing heavier. It was time to make camp. But there was no hope of a cosy billet; as inviting as the empty buildings and stables looked, they were likely to conceal further booby traps. They would have to bivouac outside.
At least it would all be over soon. They were due to be relieved tomorrow, thank God. They all needed a proper rest, the sort that didn’t involve drill or fatigues – digging, hauling barbed wire and supplies back up the line – which is what the British Army normally meant by ‘rest’. Of course, you had to keep up a show for the brass hats, but he’d see to it that the men got a proper breather. They needed pomme frites, fried eggs and beer. That would make them happy as sand boys. They didn’t demand much from life. And it was just as well, for life offered them little in return. Meanwhile maybe he and Balan might make it to Arras, or even Amiens, have a hot bath and a decent dinner.
But they must make it through tonight first. And along with a place to make camp, they had to find a supply of fresh water. Robert despatched men to see what they could discover, and a little while later one returned to say he’d come upon a small, isolated farm with a small well that the Germans had somehow overlooked. But the old French farmer had chained it up and was refusing to unlock it.
Robert ordered the man to lead them to the farm, then waited on horseback while Balan remonstrated with the farmer, a wizened little man with unkempt grey hair sticking out from beneath his hat. His wife stood tremulously behind him. Voices began to be raised, and the farmer peered around Balan at Robert.
‘Capitaine!’ he called. ‘Please! Monsieur! Je vous en supplie!’
Grim-faced, Robert dismounted. The farmer approached, pulling his cap from his head.
‘You do understand, Monsieur, that you will be paid for your assistance?’ said Robert in French, before the man could speak.
‘Please,’ the Frenchman said. ‘The Germans took everything – our cows, chickens, all the stores we had left over for the winter. We’ve almost nothing left but the water in the old well. And often it runs dry.’
Robert put his hand on the farmer’s shoulder and guided him a few steps away.
‘You see all these men?’ he enquired in English, gesturing towards his men. ‘These exhausted, hungry and thirsty soldiers?’ The man nodded. ‘Well, Monsieur, these men have left their families, their homes and their occupations, given up their security and all they hold dear to come to fight for you and your countrymen in your hour of need.
‘They’ve sat in a sea of mud and filth for the past month, while the Germans have attempted to blast them to pieces. Half of my men are dead; and not a single one of these soldiers left standing here before you has not personally experienced injury or loss.’ He lowered his voice to a near whisper and bent down close to the Frenchman’s ear. ‘War means sacrifice, Monsieur, for all of us. Now you unlock this bloody well or I’ll break it open myself, take you by the scruff of your miserable neck and throw you down inside. Do you understand?’
The man, if he didn’t follow every word, at least understood the sentiment, and nodded balefully.
‘Good.’ Robert patted the farmer’s shoulder. ‘Now fetch the key, there’s a good chap.’
The Frenchman scurried back into his dilapidated farmhouse, swearing at his wife, who skittered back into the shadows.
‘Blasted French are even worse than the Germans,’ Balan observed. ‘When I was an enlisted man the peasants would rob us blind: watered down beer at sky high prices, stale bread. The men believed every second one of them was most likely a German spy – reckoned the farmers were signalling to the enemy when they ploughed their fields a certain way or turned their windmills one way as opposed to the other.’
The farmer emerged once more and set about unlocking the well, his dirty fingers fumbling with the rusty padlock. Finally it fell to the ground, and the men raised a cheer.
An hour or so later, the men and horses settled, a fire trench and latrines dug, Robert finally sat down with Balan and Stanley, another subaltern from their company, ready for whatever Milligan had managed to cobble together for dinner. Milligan came in with chicken stew. The flour for the recipe had, perforce, been replaced with rice and powdered biscuits, but it still tasted far more delicious than anything prepared in a mess tin had any right to taste. They fell upon it, famished.
‘Leeks!’ Robert exclaimed, examining his plate more closely in the light of the paraffin lamp. ‘Milligan, where the devil did you procure leeks?’
‘There was a vegetable patch along the way, sir. Very badly tended.’ Milligan sniffed. ‘I found a few stalks of rhubarb too. I thought you gentlemen might like them stewed with rice pudding for afters.’
They all laughed. Milligan’s resourcefulness had reached legendary status by now. ‘Ah, Milligan, where in heaven’s name would we be without you?’ said Robert.
Milligan smiled modestly. ‘I’ll fetch in your wine, sir,’ he said. ‘Will it be the burgundy or the claret tonight?’