Free Passions of War by Hilary Green Page B

when it was fully dark, the order was given to halt and fall out and the men stumbled into the fields and dropped to the ground. Tom slid off his horse and handed the reins to his batman. He felt almost as exhausted as the men and wrapping his greatcoat around him he prepared to lie down. Then he saw that Ralph was still on his feet, moving around among the men, exchanging banter and murmuring words of encouragement. He wondered if he should join him, but he was a newcomer, not a regular soldier, and he knew he did not have the rapport with the men that Ralph had. So he sat and waited until eventually his friend came back and sank down beside him.
    â€˜So this is war,’ Ralph grunted. ‘Not quite the way I imagined it.’
    â€˜I did try to warn you, after what I saw in Serbia,’ Tom replied.
    â€˜I know,’ Ralph said. ‘But then I assumed that – well, that it was a civilian’s view of things. I’m beginning to understand now.’
    Tom shook his head sadly. ‘This is only the start. I’m afraid, like the Yanks say, You ain’t seen nothing yet! ’
    â€˜Spare me the details,’ Ralph muttered. He pulled his coat over his head and was asleep almost at once.
    They were on the move soon after dawn next morning and late that evening they entered the village of Le Cateau. A halt was called as they reached the village square and Ralph was summoned to a briefing with the senior officers. The men dropped to the ground where they were, leaning against each other or any surface that came to hand, some of them already asleep. Tom was muzzy-headed from lack of sleep and his eyes stung with dust and sweat, but he took out his sketch pad and began to draw the faces of the soldiers around him: streaked with dirt, gaunt with hunger and exhaustion, but still amazingly indomitable in their expressions.
    Ralph returned after a short interval. ‘Thank God! We’re to stop here and dig in. Our orders are to hold the Boche back as long as possible.’
    â€˜That’s asking a lot,’ Tom said. ‘The men are exhausted. They fought all day at Mons, they’ve had very little sleep and now they’ve marched the best part of thirty miles.’
    â€˜Exactly,’ Ralph said. ‘They can’t walk any further, but they can lie in a field and fire their rifles.’
    A group of senior officers entered the square and Tom recognized General Smith-Dorrien. The men struggled wearily to their feet and the general mounted the church steps to address them.
    â€˜Men, this is where we stop retreating and make a stand. Our job is to hold the enemy back so that the rest of our forces have time to regroup. You held them off at Mons. I know I can rely on you to do the same here.’
    Tom felt a lump rise in his throat at the ragged cheer that greeted his words.
    Ralph’s company was deployed in a cornfield just beyond the village, with other units to left and right of it. The men got out their entrenching tools and dug shallow pits, as they had done at Mons. Tom scraped a hole for himself behind a stook of corn and unslung the rifle Ralph had given him. He knew he could not match the expertise of the infantrymen around him and he found it hard to imagine that he could attempt to take the life of a fellow human being in cold blood, but he was determined to share the danger and hoped to play some part in the action instead of being an observer. Ralph, having toured the lines, checking and encouraging, came to join him.
    â€˜Now what?’ Tom asked.
    â€˜Now we wait,’ was the reply.
    The brief hours of darkness passed and then with the dawn they heard the sound of conflict from the other side of the village and a detachment of Uhlans, the German cavalry, were seen galloping away. Soon after that the artillery, most of whom had succeeded in withdrawing with their guns from Mons, opened up and the German guns replied. The bombardment went on until midday,