The Death of Hope Read online

  The War to End All Wars

  - Book Four -

  The Death of Hope

  Andrew Wareham

  Copyright © 2020 Andrew Wareham

  KINDLE Edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored, in any form or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter One

  “Mr Orpington! A pleasure to see you. When were you released from hospital?”

  “Four weeks ago, sir.”

  The young second lieutenant spoke with a slight slur, his left upper lip thick with scar tissue that extended across his cheek, under the eye and round to the ear. His whole face was slightly lopsided, the scarring tugging at his right cheek and lips.

  “I had feared that you might never return to active service, Orpington.”

  “I was lucky, sir. Three in the belly that missed liver and kidneys and everything important. They hurt, nothing more. The one across the face took longest to heal, sir. Only just back to chewing solid food. They wanted me to go back to hospital for another operation, or two or three, to reduce the scar tissue. I’ve had enough of hospitals! I was passed fit for service three days ago and was permitted to join your 8th Battalion, sir. Might be an advantage of the scar, sir, giving me a bit of leeway, you might say, the base-wallahs a bit nervous of the warrior returning to battle. Seems to be the way the bloody fools think in England, sir! I know I am an extra – but only for a week or two, I expect!”

  Richard grimaced. They had lost no officers in the three days they had been in the line. He was surprised, had expected some of the youngest to be rash in exposing themselves above the parapet. They were due to go raiding that evening and would repeat over other days; they would certainly lose men.

  “You are very welcome, Orpington. I am flattered and very pleased that you asked to join me. We made a good team together in the 3rd Battalion. For the while, until you join a company, which, as you say, is inevitable, I think the best thing is for you to be my doggie, as we used to call it in the Navy. The Adjutant is worked off his feet and the Major is busy as hell – I can make damned good use of a man with your experience and knowledge running chores for me, thinking as well as passing messages. Introduce yourself to Major Vokes and arrange your dugout with him – I think Captain Hawkeswill has a spare bunk in his and it’s conveniently close to me.”

  Orpington tried to smile, achieved an unattractive grimace and marched off to find the Major, exchanging salutes with Sergeant Major O’Grady as he left.

  “Sure and I never expected to see that young man back again, sir. A good young officer and will be welcome, I cannot doubt.”

  “Badly scarred up, ‘Major. Pity for a youngster of his age – he cannot be twenty yet. Not going to be easy smiling at the girls.”

  “That I don’t know, sir. Any lass who turns her back on him for an honourable wound, well, he will be better off without her.”

  “Easy enough for us old men to say, ‘Major. For a youngster it’s likely to be hard, nerving himself to be seen in society.”

  “So say the greybeards, sir.”

  Richard Baker was reminded that he was not yet twenty-one, by a matter of days, and was colonel of his battalion. Not the youngest in the BEF, he had been told – there were two other twenty year olds with battalions of their own in the Trenches.

  “Best he should be made up, do you agree, ‘Major?”

  “He has the experience in the line, sir, and stood his ground at Neuve Chapelle. He will make the grade, sir. Lieutenant immediately, captain in a month or two. Higher than that? Who knows, sir?”

  The sergeant major evidently saw no great military genius in the boy. Richard would not venture to disagree – O’Grady was soldiering before he went to school.

  “I’ll speak to the Brigadier now.”

  The telephone system cooperated and Richard had a clear line, could hear all that Brigadier Braithwaite had to say. At least a half of calls had to be abandoned because of the buzzing and crackling that drowned their voices.

  “Young Orpington is back from hospital, sir, and asked to come over to us in 8th Battalion. He’s still only a second lieutenant. Permission to raise him, sir?”

  “By all means, Baker. Good lad, that one. Well done of him to come back – with his wounds he could have looked for a depot posting in England. Easy to argue that he had done his share. Now, these raids tonight… Are you sure you must go out with them?”

  “The only way to know what’s facing us is to get a look at them, sir. I need to get across there once at least. Add to that – it’s our first venture into action. I want the boys to know that they are to follow me. Like you, I am to lead my battalion. I am not to be nothing more than the figure in the background who gives out the orders. If the time comes that we have to stand firm against an advance, then they need to know that I will be there at their front, as you were last autumn.”

  Braithwaite was flattered, had to agree that he had been well to the front in his day.

  “Don’t like it, Baker! No choice but agree to your actions. Don’t leave me having to write a letter to your little Primrose, young man!”

  “Last thing I might wish, sir! I much hope that I shall be able to write my own letters, sir… Not easy, is it? Writing home and trying to say that all is well and she must not worry and knowing that she is an intelligent girl and well capable of reading all that is unsaid. The more I reassure her that nothing can go wrong, the greater her worries must become!”

  “Just so, Baker! I sat down for an hour with pen and paper last night, trying to write home. Well, not a try as such, I finished a letter and sent it off. Wasn’t happy with it, didn’t say enough and couldn’t say too much. Not so hard for you young men – I’m no spring chicken and taking a wife at my age is no small matter… Glad I did though. Fine lady, Mrs Brigadier! Thing is, Baker, poor gel’s been widowed once already – not that her first was much of a loss! Knew him – she was pushed by her parents into marrying at sixteen, because he had money. Best thing that could have happened to her when he died five years later. Put all his cash, everything he had got, into a gold mine, the damned fool! Stuck a twelve-bore shotgun in his mouth – must have been messy – when the mine failed, the vein or seam or whatever they call it came to a sudden end and the shares fell to a penny from five pounds the week before. Funny thing was, six months later they dropped another shaft or somesuch a couple of hundred feet lower and there it was again, richer than ever. When probate came through the shares were higher than before. My clever lady sold out at their peak!”

  Richard was amazed, as he must be, wondering quite why he should be
told such detail of the lady’s finances and history.

  “Back in ’05, that was, Baker. Stayed single for damned near ten years and then decided to marry me, of all people! Known her for years, of course, her family lived close to mine. Always admired her, from a distance, second son and all that, no way for me to marry. Best thing ever happened to me – there I was suddenly in the market for a wife when my brother died and she snapped me up just like that. That’s why I want to make sure she ain’t worried by the letters I send back. Tell her everything’s fine and dandy, she’s too sensible to believe that! Write the truth, that the Trenches are a bloodbath, and she’ll be thinking I might be caught up in the slaughterhouse. Not easy!”

  “Same here, sir. You know how clever my Primrose is – far more so than me! She will read all I have to say and understand a damned sight more than I want her to, whatever I do. Still, I sent one off to her yesterday. Ought to be well. Is there any progress on extra Vickers for the battalion, sir?”

  “None! Bloody fools are considering machine gun regiments, so they tell me. To bolster up the line where needed and provide backing to advances. Plans are for as many as eighty guns to be rushed into action and provide a concentration of firepower to stop any onslaught. An advance will be across no-man’s-land in ten minutes at most – how are they going to march a regiment into place in that time? They argue that no advance takes place without a preliminary softening up by the artillery, so they will have hours to place the guns – marching them up into a massive bombardment!”

  It sounded more than normally foolish, even for the staff.

  “Apparently French is in favour of the scheme. He believes that the massed machine guns will be able to cut down any attack and leave a gap for the cavalry to exploit. He has laid down that there is to be a brigade of cavalry waiting to the rear of the machine gun regiments whenever they are deployed. Smith-Dorrien is arguing against him and Haig and his pals in the newspapers in London are stabbing both men in the back, as normal. Complete bloody shambles, Baker!”

  Richard was not at all surprised. The high command had been distinguished solely by its incompetence in the first year of the war. That it should be carrying on in the same vein was only to be expected.

  “Any prospect of French actually getting up to the front, seeing the reality of this war, sir?”

  “None! He prefers to take the long view – no sense to confusing himself by seeing the fighting ground close up. Haig is the same, of course. He got too close to the machine guns at Le Cateau and didn’t like it at all! You won’t see him within ten miles of the front line again!”

  “We need only fighting soldiers up here, in any case, sir. No place for the staff!”

  Braithwaite agreed, ended the call by telling Richard to take no unnecessary risks that night.

  “Pointless, saying that to you, of all men, Baker! Try not to kill yourself!”

  There was no gain to protesting, to saying that he would do no more than the situation demanded of him – the Old Man was convinced that he loved nothing more than the smell of German blood and would take any risk to spill more of it.

  “All in hand, Paisley?”

  His batman seemed slightly offended by the question – everything was always ready.

  “Yes, sir. Your trench knife is sharp; iron club with its handle rebound; revolver cleaned and loaded with six. Got six of them new Mills bombs for meself, sir, and put a sharp on me own bayonet, what I thinks is better than that old trench knife. Got me own pair of wire cutters besides, what were going spare when we happened to have a few minutes at Calais, sir.”

  Richard remembered they had been in company with a detachment of Engineers for a while, waiting for their transport.

  “What else did they lose, Paisley?”

  “I would not be knowing that, not for sure, sir. I did notice the ‘Major to be talking to others of his ilk - Papist Sinn Feiners, without a doubt – and to be passing four bottles of the good Scotch across. What they put in his direction, I would not know, but he is not one to be getting the worst of any bargain, that is for sure!”

  A good Orangeman, Paisley, which did not stop him from sitting and smoking and talking with O’Grady whenever they had a few minutes free. Things might be different when the war was over; for the while they were easy friends.

  “I gather you are coming with me tonight, Paisley.”

  “Where else should I be, sir? With respect, sir, I was sticking a bayonet in wogs and them Boers when you was still in baby frocks, sir. I maybe ain’t so very nimble as I was, sir, but for running a few yards and hopping in and out of a trench, sir, I can still be doing that. In any case, sir, terrible tedious it can be, sitting about in a dugout and polishing boots and such – I need a little of what they might call light relief, sir.”

  “Who am I to argue, Paisley? Which raiding party am I best to go with?”

  The colonel’s batman was a privileged soldier – not merely a servant. He was expected to have opinions and to make them known to the colonel and him alone. The ordinary rules did not apply to this one of all the men in the battalion. In return, he would never break a confidence, would keep his mouth tightly closed in the company of all others, careful even in anything he said to O’Grady. Normally, his advice would be worth listening to.

  “Mr Draper might benefit from having his hand held, sir. Been talking bold and undaunted all morning, sir. Bold Brennan on the Moor is as nothing to that one, sir.”

  “Heard one or two of the lads singing that, Paisley.”

  “Fine old song, sir. Very popular among the lads from the south of the land, sir, down around Cork, for some reason.”

  More than a third of the battalion was made up of Irish volunteers, as was the case for the whole of the Army.

  “Trying to talk himself into it, do you think, Paisley?”

  “I am not to be commenting on any officer, sir. Not my place, sir. That said, you might feel well-advised to be treading on his heels and keeping him pointed in the right direction, sir.”

  “Windy, not just nervous, you would say?”

  “Don’t like the feel of him, that’s for sure, sir. What was he before he came across to us, sir?”

  Most of the captains had transferred to the new battalion on promotion. Two, to Richard’s knowledge, had taken postings in their existing rank to get out of garrison troops, one from Ireland, the other from Gibraltar; they could have stayed far distant from the Trenches for the whole of the war, had chosen to go into danger. He could not remember offhand where Draper had been, walked the few yards to the adjutant’s dugout.

  “Hawkeswill, what was Draper before he joined us?”

  “Captain in the Hampshires. His people permitted him to transfer across to us because of our need for some experienced officers in the rank. To an extent, sir, it was a favour to you, bearing in mind the respect you are held in. His battalion was on its way to Gallipoli. I have an application from him to move again, back to the Hampshires, the 5th Battalion who are bound for India. Says that he would prefer to return to his original regiment having lent us the benefit of his experience.”

  Hawkeswill’s voice was dry, in the extreme.

  Richard noted that Draper had avoided Gallipoli and was now endeavouring to remove himself from the Western Front.

  “My word. A much-travelled gentleman. Forward the request to Brigade with no comment… Not until tomorrow, thinking on it – I may have something to say after tonight.”

  “Yes, sir. What do I do with this new officer, Orpington, sir?”

  “Put him on our roll. We will need replacement officers sooner or later and he is competent. He is made full lieutenant, by the way. Issue one of the spare rifles and pouches to him.”

  There was a rack of eight rifles on the back wall, taken from the wounded and three dead the battalion had lost in its first days. The clumsy and the careless had shown their heads and had suffered; they had lost nobody in the previous twenty-four hours, the lesson having been dri
ven home to the remainder of the men.

  “There is a shortage of firewood and of coal, sir. We have had sacks of coke sent up instead.”

  Richard gathered from Hawkeswill’s expression that there was a problem.

  “Coke gives off gas, sir, when it is burnt. Eight men in a dugout, sleeping with the door closed and the cracks stuffed with rag to prevent the cold air getting in, could easily all die from the poisoning if they kept a fire in all night.”

  “Forbid coke fires in the dugouts. Tea fires to be outdoors. What’s the chance of extra blankets?”

  “Thousands of them in the QM stores at Calais, sir. They won’t release them, keeping a stock against urgent need, sir.”

  “Impossible to run a raid on the stores. Need more than a bottle of Scotch as well… What would it cost to get two thousand issued to us?”

  “That would have to be authorised at high level, sir. An ordinary sergeant couldn’t do it. It would need cash in an officer’s pocket. Gold sovereigns, at that. At least a hundred, sir, at a guess. Big money, according to the whispers. I don’t know who could do it – never been involved.”

  Richard nodded and returned to his own little den where he called for O’Grady and outlined the problem.

  “And are you having a hundred or more of gold sovereigns about ye, sir?”

  “Yes. My father pressed them upon me, one of the last things he did before we parted in London. He said he knew nothing of soldiering and the Army and less of France; he did know human beings, he said, and was prepared to bet that a purse of gold coins would come in handy, one way or another.”

  “What’s the time now, sir?”

  “Ten thirty.”

  “Time for me to make my way to Brigade and back again, sir, with an hour or two to spare before we must be busy tonight, being as I shall be at your shoulder, naturally enough. I have an acquaintance there who can achieve a deal of things, when spoken to face to face. If it is possible, he will know. If not, well I shall not argue with him. It is the sort of thing that if he cannot do, most likely none at all can.”