“The Loamshires are falling back there. They ought to be in position now,” said the Adjutant.
“I know. But where are they? They ought to have sent over.”
“All this air activity in front means they’ll come this way,” said the Adjutant.
“I hope so.”
The high school finished its exercise, took up formation in arrow shape and disappeared droning over the hills. Presently a reconnaissance plane appeared and flew backwards and forwards overhead, searching the ground like an old woman after a lost coin.
“Tell those bloody fools to keep their faces down,” said the Colonel.
When the aeroplane had passed he lit his pipe and stood in the mouth of the cave looking anxiously to his left.
“Can you see anything that looks like the Loamshires?”
“Nothing, Colonel.”
“The enemy may have cut in across them yesterday evening. That’s what I’m afraid of. Can’t get brigade?” he said to the signalling Corporal.
“No answer from brigade, sir. We keep trying. Hullo Lulu, Koko calling, acknowledge my signal, acknowledge my signal; Koko to Lulu over…”
“I’ve a good mind to push D Company over on that flank.”
“It’s outside our boundary.”
“Damn the boundary.”
“We’d be left without a reserve if they come straight down the road.”
“I know, that’s what’s worrying me.”
An orderly came up with a message. The Colonel read it and passed it to Cedric to file. “C Company’s in position. That’s all our forward companies reported. We’ll go round and have a look at them.”
Cedric and the Colonel went forward, leaving the Adjutant in the cave. They visited the company Headquarters and asked a few routine questions. It was a simple defensive scheme, three companies up, one in reserve in the rear. It was suitable ground for defence. Unless the enemy had infantry tanks and all the reports said he had not the road could be held as long as ammunition and rations lasted.
“Made a water recce?”
“Yes, Colonel, there’s a good spring on the other side of those rocks. We’re refilling bottles by relays now.”
“That’s right.”
A Company had been bombed, but without casualties, except for a few cuts from splintered rock. They were unshaken by the experience, rapidly digging dummy trenches at a distance from their positions to draw the fire when the aeroplanes returned. The Colonel returned from his rounds in a cheerful mood; the regiment was doing all right. If the flanks held they were sitting pretty.
“We’re through to Lulu, sir,” said the signalling Corporal.
The Colonel reported to brigade Headquarters that he was in position; air activity; no casualties; no sign of enemy troops. “I’ve no contact on the left flank…Yes, I know it’s beyond the brigade boundary…I know the Loamshires ought to be there. But are they? Our…Yes, but that flank’s completely in the air, if they don’t turn up…”
It was now midday. Battalion Headquarters ate some luncheon biscuits and chocolate; the Adjutant had a flask of whisky. No one was hungry, but they drank their bottles empty and sent the orderlies to refill them at the spring B Company had found. When the men came back the Colonel said, “I’m not happy about the left flank. Lyne, go across and see where those bloody Loamshires are.”
It was two miles along a side track to the mouth of the next pass, where the Loamshires should be in defence. Cedric left his servant behind at Battalion Headquarters. It was against the rules, but he was weary of the weight of dependent soldiery which throughout the operations encumbered him and depressed his spirits. As he walked alone he was exhilarated with the sense of being one man, one pair of legs, one pair of eyes, one brain, sent on a single, intelligible task; one man alone could go freely anywhere on the earth’s surface; multiply him, put him in a drove and by each addition of his fellows you subtract something that is of value, make him so much less a man; this was the crazy mathematics of war. A reconnaissance plane came overhead. Cedric moved off the path but did not take cover, did not lie on his face or gaze into the earth and wonder if there was a rear gunner, as he would have done if he had been with Headquarters. The great weapons of modern war did not count in single lives; it took a whole section to make a target worth a burst of machine-gun fire; a platoon or a motor lorry to be worth a bomb. No one had anything against the individual; as long as he was alone he was free and safe; there’s danger in numbers; divided we stand, united we fall, thought Cedric, striding happily towards the enemy, shaking from his boots all the frustration of corporate life. He did not know it but he was thinking exactly what Ambrose had thought when he announced that culture must cease to be conventual and become coenobitic.
He came to the place where the Loamshires should have been. There was no sign of them. There was no sign of any life, only rock and ice and beyond, in the hills, snow. The valley ran clear into the hills, parallel with the main road he had left. They may be holding it, higher up, he thought, where it narrows, and he set off up the stony track towards the mountains.
And there he found them; twenty of them under the command of a subaltern. They had mounted their guns to cover the track at its narrowest point and were lying, waiting for what the evening would bring. It was a ragged and weary party.
“I’m sorry I didn’t send across to you,” said the subaltern. “We were all in. I didn’t know where you were exactly and I hadn’t a man to spare.”
“What happened?”
“It was all rather a nonsense,” said the subaltern, in the classic phraseology of his trade which comprehends all human tragedy. “They bombed us all day yesterday and we had to go to ground. We made a mile or two between raids but it was sticky going. Then at just before sunset they came clean through us in armoured cars. I managed to get this party away. There may be a few others wandering about, but I rather doubt it. Luckily the Jerries decided to call it a day and settled down for a night’s rest. We marched all night and all to-day. We only arrived an hour ago.”
“Can you stop them here?”
“What d’you think?”
“No.”
“No, we can’t stop them. We may hold them up half an hour. They may think we’re the forward part of a battalion and decide to wait till tomorrow before they attack. It all depends what time they arrive. Is there any chance of your being able to relieve us?”
“Yes. I’ll get back right away.”
“We could do with a break,” said the subaltern.
Cedric ran most of the way to the cave. The Colonel heard his story grimly. “Armoured cars or tanks?”
“Armoured cars.”
“Well there’s a chance. Tell D Company to get on the move,” he said to the Adjutant. Then he reported to brigade Headquarters on the wireless what he had heard and what he was doing. It was half an hour before D Company was on its way. From the cave they could see them marching along the track where Cedric had walked so exuberantly. As they watched they saw the column a mile away halt, break up and deploy.
“We’re too late,” said the Colonel. “Here come the armoured cars.”
They had overrun the party of Loamshires and were spreading fanwise across the low plain. Cedric counted twenty of them; behind them an endless stream of lorries full of troops. At the first shot the lorries stopped and under cover of the armoured cars the infantry fell in on the ground, broke into open order and began their advance with parade-ground deliberation. With the cars came a squadron of bombers, flying low along the line of the track. Soon the whole battalion area was full of bursting bombs.
The Colonel was giving orders for the immediate withdrawal of the forward companies.
Cedric stood in the cave. It was curious, he thought, that he should have devoted so much of his life to caves.