A Pattern of Shadows blog

terryfairhead — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:19:25 +0000

PETER Northern France – Friday, 21st August BELGIANS RETIRE ON ANTWERP – FRENCH NEAR METZ GERMAN FORCE ENTERS BRUSSELS (Headlines in the Daily News and Leader) The sun was still some way below the horizon as Peter’s patrol set out from Mauberge towards the Belgian border. There was no doubt now the Germans had taken Brussels and would be heading towards them. It could surely only be a matter of time before they made contact with the enemy’s advance guards. Peter tried to avoid analyzing his feelings. He was apprehensive; perhaps even a little afraid, as they probably all were, but he knew it was something he would become used to. He remembered the feeling from his boxing days; it was always at its worst when he climbed into the ring and before the fight actually began. Once the fighting started, it vanished, having served its purpose; it had, as now, made him sharp and alert. So far, they’d seen nothing and heard nothing suspicious, which was just as well, for Brussels was still some fifty miles away. Even the Germans shouldn’t be able to move that quickly. But now, there was something; a strange rackety noise somewhere above them and getting louder. Lieutenant Lawrence heard it and halted the patrol. He was looking up into the sky when Peter took his place alongside him. “There it is, Sir.” He pointed at the aeroplane just crawling out from a low, fluffy cloud, its wings bathed in a golden glow from a rising sun still hidden from the watchers on the ground. They all peered at it for a moment, just a few hundred feet above them. “What do you think, Sergeant; those look like crosses to me? Is it a Boche; shall we take a pot at it?” Lawrence, rather surprisingly leading the patrol, was one of the reserve officers who had joined them at Aldershot shortly before embarkation. He was a thickset, fit-looking man Peter judged to be in his mid-thirties. He seemed experienced enough, but this tendency to defer decisions to subordinates on occasions was vaguely worrying. “I think it might be one of ours, Sir. It looks like an Avro to me.” “But what about the crosses, man?” Peter had his field-glasses out now, focussing them on the machine above. “They’re part of the Union flag, Sir; the cross of Saint George. It’s the only bit that stands out from this distance; definitely one of ours.” “Pity,” Lawrence snorted, “we could have done with the practice.” He continued to scowl up at the sky. “What’s he doing over there anyway? That’s the French front he’s heading for. If he’s British, he should be looking out for us.” For a few more moments, he watched its slow progress away from them. “Useless things in my opinion; he’s probably no idea where he is.” He wheeled his horse around as if angry. “Let’s get on with it.” Peter motioned the patrol to move forward, his confidence in his officer not improved by the incident. Still, at least they were on the verge of something happening; something beyond the surreal events of the last few days. They’d moved out of Le Havre an hour before dawn two days ago. The train was gloomily waiting at the station to take them, they thought, somewhere north – no one seemed to know for certain. The engine, its massive wheels and connecting rods revealed by the absence of a platform, was quietly puffing away in a rising curtain of steam. Behind it were a couple of first class carriages and then a long line of cattle trucks stretching away down the line. They looked damp and uninviting in the shadowless, pre-sunrise, half-light. “They must think we’ve got a bloody hell of a lot of horses,” someone behind Peter remarked. “Where are our sodding carriages?” “Those are our carriages,” Peter said. “Can’t you see that sign on the side of each one? Eight horses or forty men is what it says. Not particularly luxurious perhaps, but there seems to be plenty of straw.” “Eight horses or forty men? What a bloody cheek. Should be the other way round.” “All right, Crosby.” Peter had identified the speaker now. “Just shut up and get on. I’m sure the French authorities did their best to find you a Pullman.” Some of the horses took even less kindly to the trucks than Crosby. He at least did what he was told. The big draught animals had, in the main, to be manhandled on. Peter watched as pairs of sweating grooms linked arms and pushed the great creatures in through openings too low for them. For the whole of the journey, those horses would barely be able to raise their heads. Once in, they looked forlornly out through their prison bars as if pondering their human handler’s betrayal. They weren’t Peter’s animals but, as he turned away to walk to his carriage at the front of the train, he felt a shared guilt for their incarceration. The feeling though did not last the walk back as the men now crowded in their trucks began to make mooing noises. By the time he clambered on board and all the men it seemed had joined in, he found he was grinning broadly. Peter tried to amuse himself during the journey by calculating their top speed, although speed was hardly the most appropriate word. During one of the frequent stops in the middle of the countryside, he was able to get out and pace the distance between two telegraph poles. Using this, he estimated that at no time, while he was awake, did they exceed fifteen miles-an-hour. Most of the time, they went a good deal slower; slow enough indeed, for some of the men to sprint up to the engine to collect hot water in their Dixies for a brew-up. It took them twelve hours to travel the 150 miles to their eventual destination which turned out to be Maubeuge, close to the Belgian border. It was a nondescript little town with a square and cobbled streets and yet another enthusiastic, flag-waving crowd of apparent anglophiles. They marched out of the town, tired and hungry, as the sun was setting, to fields on the outskirts where the horses could graze and undergo their final grooming of the day. The men and NCOs bivouacked in the open, sustained by cold rations and hot tea. The officers found billets in the town. It was, Peter felt, the real start of the campaign. The next morning, patrols fanned out to the north. The aeroplane had crept away, the noise of its engine no longer even faintly in their ears. They moved cautiously forward through the long avenue of tall poplars. Off to the right a small herd of Friesians looked up from their grazing as the troop passed and, chewing thoughtfully, watched it go. The dawn chorus was over, but Peter could still hear a residue of bird noise: magpies screeching, wood-pigeons calling, blackbirds singing. Intervening somewhere to the distant left he picked up the faint sound of a flock of sheep disturbed by something – a fox perhaps, or was a sheep-dog rounding up its charges? For a moment it reminded him of home; it reminded him of Alice. But there were other noises too as the sun threatened to edge its way above the horizon and burn through the thinning mist hanging over the woods ahead. These noises Peter felt rather than heard as though the vibration from their source had travelled to its absolute limit and had all but lost its energy. He looked back at the rest of the troop half-anticipating someone might be signing to him that they too had heard or felt something. No one gave any indication though. Most of them were looking out left or right. Only Coppard looked straight ahead. He nodded in acknowledgement and gave a half-grin when he caught Peter’s eye, but it was clear he’d heard nothing out of the ordinary. Peter looked forward again, just in time to see Lawrence raise his arm to halt the troop. A couple of the horses snorted as if in disgust at having to stop and there was some stamping of hooves on the hard-baked dirt road. After a few moments though, they settled and they were left with just the sounds of the countryside. “Do you hear anything?” Lawrence had his head cocked to one side as Peter came up alongside his officer. “I’m not sure, Sir. I thought there was something just before we stopped – a sort of rumble – but a long, long way off. It was difficult to tell while we were on the move.” “Ye-es, there was something a bit out of the ordinary. Can’t hear it now though.” Lawrence shook his head. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd we’ve not encountered anybody, friend or foe, on this patrol?” “I don’t know, Sir. We’re a bit off the beaten track here and we’re in the heart of the countryside. Maybe the Belgians don’t get up this early.” Peter opened his map as he spoke. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Lawrence looking at him. “You may be certain the Germans do. If they really have taken Brussels, as the rumours suggest, they’re less than sixty miles from our base in Maubeuge. Their patrols could be at least twenty miles ahead of the main army. Where would that put them?” Lawrence peered at the map. Peter ran his gloved finger across the map. “Well, Sir, we’re just here in front of this wooded area. Brussels is here and twenty miles south, heading towards us, is just here.” He moved his finger to the new position. “That would still put their advance units about twenty miles away.” “Mmm!” Lawrence continued to look at the map, his hand caressing his lower lip uncertainly. “Well, in that case” he said at last, “we shouldn’t run in to any of them until we’re through the wood and to the north of that little town. Is it where I think it is? I can’t quite make it out. Save me getting my reading glasses out will you Sergeant?” “Yes, Sir. It’s the one that was mentioned in the briefing this morning. It’s called Mons.”

A Pattern of Shadows Blog

A Pattern of Shadows blog