As an officer used to obeying regulations, I was armed only with a pistol; officers were supposed to give orders for rifles and Bren guns to be fired, not themselves to be equipped seriously to shoot. The Germans coming down through the trees were now almost upon us: still there was no one firing. I thought I should clamber out of my useless trench and crawl to one of the forward section positions where I could myself get a Bren gun working. I had got some way when more grenades started landing; I threw myself — or was propelled — into a snowdrift. I lay there immovable for a few seconds until there was someone jerking at the lanyard of the pistol round my neck; it was a German with a sub-machine gun. I made it possible for him to remove the lanyard and pistol from round my neck; but how in God’s name had I got into such a situation — and one which I had even thought desirable? The experience was unbearable. I had to get away.
My platoon were being rounded up and put in a line ready, presumably, to be marched down into the valley as prisoners and across the German lines on the further ridge. I thought I would hang back, perhaps helping one of the wounded — there were the two or three who had been in the tent — and then at the end of the line I might find a chance to dodge away. The rest of E Company should by that time have realised what was happening and Mervyn would be coming up with the reserve platoon to counterattack. If there was firing, I could pretend to be hit by a stray bullet and then roll over down the slope. It seemed unimaginable that I had ever thought I might like to be taken prisoner! I felt deep shame. I had been mad. I should be mad no longer.
There was a wounded man who needed to be helped. I murmured to him that we should try to get away. We were at the end of the line being chivvied by a German with a rifle and bayonet bringing up the rear. There began to be bullets flying about both from the Germans on the further ridge and from some of our E Company behind. I clutched my chest and fell. The German who had been following us came and prodded me with his bayonet. I got up quickly. But I was feeling that the whole of my life hung on these moments; if I did not get away now I would never get away from being a dishonourable fraud — someone who had just wanted to get into the war for the sake of propriety and then be taken prisoner. And would it not also look as if I were under the influence of my father? There were now more mortar bombs landing and I determined to do another and more spectacular death scene, rolling over and over down the slope like a snowball or a Shakespearean actor. This I proceeded to do. I rolled on and on till it seemed I might be overdoing it; I came to rest with my head against a rock. There I thought I should stay, no matter who came after me or what happened.
I wrote later in my diary that I was not afraid; that there were some lines of T. S. Eliot going through my head — ‘And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker, and in short I was afraid.’ But I did not think I was: perhaps I was saying these lines like a mantra to stop myself being afraid — to put myself into the hands, as it were, of the eternal Footman. What has stayed in my memory is my taking careful interest in the crystalline formation of the rock an inch or two from my eyes; the taste of the ice-hard snow as I nibbled at it. How beautiful were these sensations! To be savoured as long as possible. At some distance ahead of me there was a genuinely wounded man who had dropped out from the line of prisoners and was lying in the snow; it seemed that he had been watching me and he was now calling out for me to help him. I wanted to tell him to shut up; couldn’t he see I was dead? Then I could see the German who had prodded me with his bayonet coming down the slope towards me; surely this time he would not just prod me. He had been decent enough the first time; was it not justifiable to shoot escaping prisoners? He came very close with his gun pointing down at me and I remember looking up at him: he was a big, healthy man with a round face. Then there was a thump and a bang, and he fell down. It appeared that it was not I who had been shot, but the German, who lay in the snow a yard or so in front of me. He grunted for a time, then appeared to die.
What had happened, I became aware, was that Mervyn, coming up with the reserve platoon from behind, had seen the tail end of the prisoners being marched off over the hill and bringing up the rear a lone German who then branched off down the slope; so Mervyn had shot him — an extraordinary shot, I realised later, some 200 yards with a standard Lee-Enfield rifle. Behind my rock I waited till everything seemed quiet; then I stood up and waved; and after a time Mervyn, whom I had recognised, waved back. I set off towards him plunging through the snow.
I could not afterwards be sure that the German would have shot me; but he would have had either to do that or to leave me; it was too late for him to prod me into the line of prisoners again; his colleagues were disappearing into the valley. And why had he taken such trouble to come after me, except to make sure that I was dead? I had certainly put myself in a position where he would have been justified in shooting me. So it seemed that Mervyn had saved my life.
Some fifty years later, when Mervyn and I were having lunch together and talking of old times, I asked him — ‘But how did it look to you? Did you see me behind that rock? Did you recognise me when I stood up?’ And Mervyn said — ‘No. I’ve never told this to you or to anyone before, but in fact when you stood up I thought you were another German, and I had you in my sights. But then, I just didn’t want to do any more killing.’
So perhaps Mervyn had saved my life twice: once by doing his most remarkable shot, and then by not wanting to do any more killing.
I suppose it is inevitable that I should have come to think that by this incident my life was changed. Some half-hidden part of myself had emerged and rejected a part of the person I had been becoming — the part that had felt that war, duty, could be seen in terms of personal convenience. I had discovered shame; most unusual! And the demands of honour? Indeed, one does not talk about such things! But in my first experience of fighting almost the whole platoon for which I was responsible had been taken prisoner, and in a manner which I had once imagined desirable for myself. It was true that in the event I had gone to some pains and risk to escape; but then I had been saved by the grace of — what? — the skill, care, coincidence, of another? And so what should I learn from this? That if one risks what one feels is necessary then luck may be on one’s side? But would not one day some act of restitution be demanded of me?