There was a loud roar behind him, and the narrow trench was suddenly lit by a brilliant orange glow. Pauli turned to see the great balloons of ignited fuel ripping a hole through the white fog. The flame throwers were systematically burning out the dugouts all along the support trench. Poor devils – even a bayonet in the guts is better than that.
They hurried on; the earth was firmer behind the support trenches and the fog much thinned. Crossing the sunken road that the British had used for their supplies and reinforcements, the Germans chased across the open ground. No one was firing at them now. To the left was a forest of tree stumps, the trunks short, broken, and bared white like pencil stubs. To the front of them the ruins of a village, with only waist-high walls remaining. The church had been devoured by the war: its relics and valuables stolen, its doors and pews chopped into firewood, the roof collapsed, its lead improvised into drains for waterlogged trench-lines, and its tower reduced to rubble by artillery fire to deprive the British of an observation post.
Behind the village were twenty or thirty brown-clad soldiers, British service troops without rifles, an officer wearing the badges of the Royal Engineers, and two men carrying wooden crates. At the first sign of the Germans they raised their hands in the air. The Germans, in too much of a hurry even to rob them, pointed back the way they’d come. Reluctantly the British shambled off to the east, walking slowly, in the hope that a counterattack would free them before they got to the German rear.
In the ruined village was a mobile bath unit. It had been abandoned hastily by men who’d left behind parts of their uniforms, towels, webbing and even a rack of Lee-Enfield rifles. But even the sight of clean hot water and the wonderful fragrance of disinfectant and soap did not halt the advancing Germans.
They pressed on. Pauli was fit and strong, but the pace was wearing. He sniffed the air. Was it gas? And if so what type? Not mustard gas anyway. That was the one most to be feared, but the plan of attack said that the artillery would only put mustard into British rear areas, into which the Germans would not advance. So it couldn’t be mustard. Could it? He stopped and bent down to prod loose a clod of earth and sniff at it. Foolhardy, but it was what was expected of men in the storm companies. He started running again and swung his gas mask round to the front of his belt as he ran. Soon they slowed: the pace was too demanding even for young, fit bodies, and there was no sign of the enemy.
Walking now. The girl came back to his mind. The house was empty, she said, her parents visiting her grandmother. They’d kissed and ended up in bed. First time for Pauli and first time for the girl. What a fiasco. All his sexual fantasies shattered by two minutes in bed. The girl had cried. I’m still a virgin, she’d said. Then, her mood changing, she’d laughed. Well, it wasn’t funny for him. He’d fled from the house with only the stockings around which to weave stories for his fellow soldiers. But by the time he’d got back to his company, he had no wish to mention her to anyone. There was no one to whom he could confide his story. He was in love; he wanted her too much to talk about her. What a fool he’d been. If only he’d let the relationship develop at its own pace. Then perhaps he wouldn’t have got the letter telling him that she never wanted to see him again. He blamed himself unceasingly: a girl you meet in church doesn’t expect to be treated like a whore.
Twice they were halted by pockets of determined resistance: fierce Scots veterans whose rapid, accurate rifle fire caused severe casualties among the by-now careless Germans. Soon the regiment’s trench-mortar units arrived, and after a relentless pounding the Scotsmen came out, calling, ‘Kamerad!’
By this time it was late afternoon and already the wintry daylight was beginning to go. They moved on again. They were all more cautious now, and tired. On the left, the bugler for the next company was sounding rally. Pauli stopped and his bugler did the same. Time for reforming, and a moment for the fleet of foot to recover their breath and the slower men to catch up.
A runner from Battalion Headquarters told him to consolidate his position and take possession of a British twelve-inch howitzer battery several hundred metres to the west. They found it without trouble. Hauptmann Graf was already there. His men were energetically plundering the enemy stores.
The captured battery was a revelation to the German storm troops. The Germans were trying on the superb sheepskin coats that the British supplied to their sentries, and there were many who wanted one of the fine leather jerkins. More than one fellow was striding around in British officers’ hand-sewn leather boots. In the officers’ mess were all manner of forgotten luxuries, including Stilton cheese, smoked salmon, and a dozen unopened cases of Scotch whisky.
Pauli looked around with interest and apprehension. These were specially selected and well-trained soldiers. Given the order, they’d abandon their booty and continue the advance. But what of the ordinary German conscripts behind them? What would they be doing tonight?
Pauli decided that such conundrums were best left to the generals. He went to report to Captain Graf. ‘It’s disgraceful,’ said Graf. He took off his heavy helmet. He was a jug-eared little man, gnomelike: a homosexual it was whispered. But homosexual or not, Graf was a fearless soldier, respected by every man in the regiment. ‘Shells were ready and fused. I blame the officers. No attempt to disable the guns: dial sights in position, breech blocks in full working order. It’s disgraceful.’
‘Yes,’ said Pauli, amused that Graf should be so indignant about the enemy’s lack of soldierly dedication.
‘Cowards.’
‘We must have come five kilometres,’ said Pauli. ‘There’s never been a breakthrough like this before.’
Captain Graf grunted. He was smoking and holding in his hand a gold-coloured tin of fifty English cigarettes. ‘Try one,’ he said and offered the open tin.
Pauli lit one up and, after breathing out the smoke, said, ‘If the advance has been the same all along the battlefront, we must have captured a huge piece of ground.’
‘Like them?’ said Graf. ‘English cigarettes: damned good.’
‘Yes,’ said Pauli. He’d never smoked anything so delicious. He studied the pale tobacco appreciatively and decided that if he ever became rich enough he’d smoke such cigarettes all the time. In the sandbagged shelter behind Graf, one of the men had found a gramophone and was winding it up. ‘Do you think we’ll go all the way to the coast, Herr Hauptmann?’
‘The coast?’
‘The war is won, isn’t it?’
‘Look at those stores, Winter,’ said Captain Graf, turning to look at the German soldiers gobbling the captured food. ‘Last week I severely punished four of my men who’d ground up horse fodder to make flour. They said they were hungry. They were, of course. We are all hungry. We ration out the shells to our artillery. We don’t have enough rubber to make more gas masks.’ He blew smoke. ‘Have you seen what’s in that mess hut, Winter? Food for the rank and file. Tinned beef, plum jam, good white bread, that yellow English cheese. Did you see how much of it there is? They told us the English were starving, didn’t they?’ He sniffed. ‘No, the war is lost, Winter. The courage of our young men and our meagre supplies of shells and bullets can’t prevail against this sort of plenty.’
‘The war is lost?’ said Pauli. Captain Graf was a tough regular officer from a good regiment, not the sort of fellow who was easily discouraged.
‘The war is lost,’ said Graf. ‘No matter how much ground we occupy, we cannot win.’ The gramophone started playing ‘Poor Butterfly’. For a moment the two officers listened to it. ‘Get your casualty returns sorted out. The infantry will be close behind us. They’ll pull the storm companies back later tonight, or before first light in the morning.’
Pauli looked to where Koch and other men of his company were sitting on the ground, too exhausted even to join in the plundering. How could the war be lost? It wasn’t fair; it just wasn’t