In the last week of September 2008, the English newspaper “Chard & Ilminster’ published a two-page feature article entitled “The Hero’s return’. It told the story of a journalist who had travelled from
The journalist had taken soil from the battle-site in a symbolic taking up of spirit, whereupon he had collected the essence of his Great grandfather’s life and his ultimate sacrifice in battle. When the hallowed soil from the battlefield was laid to rest, it was at the grave of the soldier’s widow whom he had left behind for war 92 years earlier and had never seen again. For the journalist, this marked a moment of amazing grace.
***
The Final day.
“They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning, we will remember them”.
Former army chaplain, the Reverend Tony Woodward presided with sensitivity and thoughtful words of compassion. He welcomed Walter Stacey home, then blessed his spirit and entrusted it to the bosom of the Lord. A lone Bugler sounded the emotionally charged Last Post as the soil I had brought from Cambrai slid between my fingers and sprinkled gently across the small rectangle of exposed earth on Bessie-Kate’s humble grave. A detachment of Army cadets stood rigid at attention as their officer, a young female lieutenant paid homage to Walters' now incorporated regiment, the
A stirring eulogy by Walters grandson John, my own Uncle, brought home the sadness and poignancy of the service. In a voice betaken by years of knowing and acknowledgement, John delivered words that effected all who attended, and captured everything that everyone else would liked to have said, had they been able to put their thoughts and emotions to words.
Arced around the gravesite a dozen or so of Walter’s descendants stood solemnly silent as John spoke of his grandmother’s tears and of the terrible costs of war. So many years had passed since we had all been in the same place at the same time; the ceremony had finally brought the scattered fragments of Walter’s family together again, just as it was always meant to be.
This day in September had been ten-years in the making; ten-years of knowing about Walter, and researching the battle. Ten years of writing short stories and screenplays, and alchemically changing my own life from one of fictional-conjecture, to one of meaningful-reality. I had stood beside my great-grandmother’s grave in an English country cemetery with members of my family I had never known before this day. I had spiritually re-united her with her long-lost soldier husband and them with an ancestor that barely one of them knew anything about. Powers beyond my own had summoned me to this day, and I had travelled the width of the planet to get here. Through the flat, chalky battlefield of first world-war
…but oh how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
***
September 6th, 2008
The
We headed out through Ilminster, then onto the A303 where I made up some lost time on the long, smooth road before it spat me onto the M3. Once on the motorway I screamed the bike to a hundred and ten where I could, and eighty-five where I couldn’t. Before long we turned off onto the M25, but we lost time again, as we slowly waded through the bumper-to-bumper traffic that skirted the edge of
We stopped for coffee at some highway services along the way where I bought the required GB sticker that I’d read somewhere I had to display on the bike somehow. We’d covered about a hundred and fifty miles in the last two and a half hours and time was still against us. We had a fast ride for the next part of the journey, but after a while, the bland high-speed motorway became monotonous, and boredom began setting in. When we reached the crest of the last hill leading down to the ferry terminal itself, a savage crosswind off the channel suddenly caught the bike and sheered it off to the left violently. The front wheel took a mind of it’s own for a split-second; skating on the slippery, white road-markings and jerking me back to reality and 100% interested again. Moments later we arrived at the French customs check a little wide-eyed, a little shaken, a little stirred and totally unprepared. I asked the official in the booth what he wanted from me, my passport didn’t even enter my head. By the time I knew what I was looking for I had a queue of cars behind me. He told me to move the bike out of the way to let them through. I moved the bike to one side and rummaged in the tank bag looking for our travel documents.
Eventually we both found our passports and handed them over. The French border guard took them, stamped them, handed them back and sent us on our way. The whole time myself and Claire stood there in full-face helmets wearing sunglasses. It occurred to me that he either wasn’t really bothered about border security, or that he thought we were just too stupid to be dangerous. As far as I was concerned though I had just slipped through un-challenged, and all of a sudden I felt like one of the secret-agent characters I’d created; then Smuggling came to mind. Within minutes we were checked into the terminal and joining our loading queue. We didn’t have to queue for very long though; we’d arrived with just minutes to spare.
With the bike duly parked and strapped onto the ferry’s vehicle deck, we made our way up to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks or four. Then we were off, and the white cliffs of
*
The sea wasn’t so much rough, just very rolly in all directions, and the ferry, despite it’s size pitched and rolled with every crest and every wave and every trough, and the bourbon I so carefully nursed likewise followed suit. We wandered drunkenly aft for a cigarette on the open deck, then lolled our way back like a couple of drunken sailors; laughing and staggering and spilling our drinks, before flopping into a pair of Rat-class seats near the bar where we stayed for the rest of the voyage.
As we approached the French coast the clouds moved away and the sun began to shine. The sea had settled now and the air was noticeably warmer and smelled sweet like Croissants and Red wine. Through the large fore windows of the ferry I saw the sandy beaches of
***
“Don’t forget to ride on the left.” Claire reminded me through the headsets we wore; then corrected herself. “No, no the right, it’s the right, don’t forget to ride on the right”
We came off the ferry along a three-lane route that ended up at a roundabout. A disaster just waited to happen as tourist jostled and changed lanes, frantically trying to get their heads around which way they were meant to be going. I took the first off-ramp, pulled over and had an anxiety attack. Just to make things worse I had taken us into an industrial estate, and now there were articulated Lorries all over the place driving on what should have been my side of the road. I drank some water, did some deep breathing and checked the map. When I’d gathered myself sufficiently, I pulled out onto the left -or maybe it was the right- side of the road, and headed south towards Cambrai in the Nord region of
A hundred kilometres of A26 motorway at 140kph saw us taking the turn-off for Lillers in no time at all, where I experienced having to pay a French road-toll officer. I stopped short of the booth and fumbled with a fistful of Euros, trying to make sense of yet another new currency I’d have to learn. I managed Bonjour, merci then au revoir before Lillers suddenly materialised in front of me, and I was pulling the bike over and parking it.
*
Tarmac and Cobbled streets; a market square. 17th century buildings mixed with new. Green-grocers, Butchers, big-windowed deli’s and tiny supermarkets all mixed together with umbrella Cafés and an old towering church; an open-aired lifestyle. A warm and friendly ambience filled the space, Mini-bikers and scooters buzzed here and there, and laughing carefree youths wearing flapping shirts and no helmets waved bonjour as they sped on by.
We needed to go shopping and we needed a place to stay, but not necessarily in that order. We walked towards the town square where we found the local supermarket or Shoppe as it’s called. We worked out that Thon was Tuna, and before you knew it we had a Tuna salad going on, with crusty French sticks and two bottles of Sauvignon. After a pathological search of the shelves, I eventually found a corkscrew, now all we needed was somewhere to put the tent up and we’d be sorted.
Ten minutes of riding on the wrong-side –or was it the right-side?- eventually took me a mile out of town where we found a green, green field, beside a small canal and a tall church spire. I took the bike into the field being mindful of that day I dropped it in a wet field in
*
Before long everything was stowed, riding gear was stuck back in one corner, luggage in another, Wine and food right in front of us facing the door; time for a proper glass of Wine then. “Where’s the cigarettes?” asked Claire. Bugger! Bad habit I know, but as we both smoke and intended eating, drinking and breathing that night, smokes were a must-have; there was nothing to consider. I locked the church spire as a landmark and rode off into the rain, vowing to Claire that I wouldn’t get lost and leave her all alone and fagless. I headed into town with no idea where to buy cigarettes. I noticed the Shoppe didn’t sell them, and neither did the petrol station we’d stopped at earlier.
I accosted a man in the street, “Cig-arro”? I said, seemingly blowing him kisses and talking in Mexican; but he realised what I was trying to say, and offered me a cigarette from his own packet. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind but I took it anyway, and over a smoke and an attempted “Parle vous Anglais” we agreed upon our mutual lack of understanding, and were both happy to leave it at that. We did work out though that I needed a Tobac, and lo and behold, there appeared one right across the road.
“Parle vous Anglais”? I attempted as I walked into the Tabac to buy my cigarettes. “No? Umm…bugger. Eh, doo packeto errr…Ben-son unt ‘edges. Bon ami”. Or something like that. “Merci, Au revoir”.
I got back to the tent in the pouring rain, gave Claire the cigarettes and regaled her with my tales of translational ineptitude. Then we ate, we drank, we smoked, we played celebrity heads, we looked at photos and then at the rain. We talked about this journey we were on. Then we drank and smoked some more and then we fell asleep. In the morning it was pouring rain again -or still- bucketing even, and the approaching sky was heavy and dark. Breakfast then. Leftover wine, cheese, cherry tomatoes, crusty French stick; all very nice and provincial. But it was still raining out there, and we still had further to go. We drank another glass of wine.
By ten o’clock we were out of wine, and by mid-day we were out of food. The rain had all-but stopped, so we packed the tent away and got ourselves moving quickly. The roads were still very wet, and the spray was saturating so the canvas side panniers got soaked, along with everything in them. We rode on into Cambrai, arriving all bedraggled at about three-ish. We needed a dry place to stay the night…we really needed a Motel. We quickly found the Hotel Beatus, booked ourselves in and ordered two more bottles of wine. We opened the wine; we spread our jeans, shirts, tops, socks and jackets all over the wall-heaters to let them dry. Then we ordered some dinner, drank some wine, and then wandered into town.
***
All was quiet on the Western-front; I was here and could see it with my own eyes. I’d made it to the place that Walter had died trying to get too, the town that the German army had held captive behind impenetrable concrete and barbed wire defences. It had been an important railhead town from where they had transferred troops and supplies up and down the western-front with absolute impunity. I was now standing where Walters’s enemy had once stood. I was right in the beating-heart of Cambrai
It was centred in the middle by a large bustling square; the buildings surrounding it on all-four sides being colourful four to five story terraces from a time gone-by. The town hall dominated the scene, it’s bell tower with moving figurines sounding oldie-worldy at the hour and the half-hour. The buzzing of modern retail and commercial business’s mingled easily with the heady dose of café society, infusing the air with a sense of neo-classical laid-back chic, or something equally as impressive.
*
Originally a walled-town built around the 14th century,
***
The battle of Cambrai was a pivotal conflict. The mobile all-arms combat strategy used here for the very first time to such great effect would bring about the military defeat of
At 6.20am on the 20th November 1917, the British forces launched a surprise attack on the German defences. Using newly developed artillery methods that did away with pre-registration shots, they unleashed almost a million shells on the unsuspecting enemy, smashing his defences and killing thousands of his troops. Charging through this chaos, was the entire British fleet of 374 Mk IV Tanks supported by six divisions of infantry, and five divisions of Cavalry. By 11am the Hindenburgh line had been breached, and the land-attack hailed an enormous success. In
On the first day, advances up to four miles were made; a battle-gain never before seen in the stalemate tit-for tat standoff of trench warfare. Walter was with the 7th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry; they in turn belonged to the 20th division of the Third army, under the command of General Haig. Formed-up on their right was the 12th division, and on their left, extending nearly six miles northward were half a dozen further divisions.
Upon the signal of a single gunshot the 20th advanced, and within an hour had captured LaVaquerie. The 12th Division took Lateau wood and dug-in, holding the extreme right flank of the advance, thus creating a safe passage for the Cavalry divisions to pass between themselves and the 20th Division. As morning turned into afternoon that day, the 20th division were ordered on towards Masniere, where they took the town in fierce building and street fighting. Further up the line, despite several of the Tanks being put out of action, Flesquiere had finally been taken in a bitter struggle, and elsewhere the advance was holding strong. The heights of Bourlon wood in the north however remained locked in a fierce battle that would last for days, and cost thousands of lives. By late afternoon, the Cavalry that should have charged on Cambrai were stuck on the wrong side of the canal after the British Tank ‘Flying Fox’ collapsed the bridge instead of securing it. By evening, the attack had reached its climax and had lost momentum. Cambrai remained firmly in German hands, and the initiative had been lost.
The British forces consolidated their position and established a holding line; Walter and the 7th Battalion formed a crescent-shaped battle front on the crest of the plateau above the village of Rue de Vigny. To their front, left and right the land fell away sharply towards the St.Quentin canal that swept a wide arc about them. Behind them, as their Captain had described on his hand-drawn battle-map was; ‘Flat ground. No cover”.
For several days, anticipation, uncertainty and machine-gunfire filled the air. The British Generals hadn’t planned on not actually capturing Cambrai, nor what they might do had they succeeded. Nor did they properly exploit the attack’s early gains, and thus drive a huge wedge between the enemy’s forces. A later enquiry would find that the Cambrai campaign was ill-conceived and poorly executed, and that although the initial attack was a huge success, the follow-up plan was non-existent, and the intelligence was flawed, as the enemy’s strength and response had been severely underestimated. On the morning of the 30th November -ten days after the battle had begun- the anticipated but still unprepared for German counter-attack arrived. Under the command of General Von Marwitz, the massive combined attack drove the British forces back over the very same ground they had advanced over on the first day. The 7th battalion was quickly surrounded on three sides, and in a fierce and frantic fighting withdrawal was virtually wiped out. Of it’s 406 soldiers; 12 officers and 332 other ranks were killed or declared missing at the end of the day. Walter was one of those missing, and somewhere beneath the soils of the plateau was where he still lay; waiting for me to arrive and collect him, and for our two separate journeys to at last become one.
***
The following morning arrived, and the road to Gonnelieu beckoned me on; today was when it really began. We had coffee at the Beatus Hotel and then packed-up quickly; then we stopped for croissants in town before riding out through the Gatehouse of Cambrai. We passed through Masniere, where I took photographs of the monument erected to honour the
The flat chalky farmland battlefield stretched out wide and open on both sides of us. I eased the bike along a narrow twisting road through tiny hamlets and around large French farm machinery that took up the entire road; then I came to a crossroads. To the left was the A26 motorway link to
We parked the bike by the church and went for a wander around, but there really wasn’t much to see here; just the church with it’s old spire, the local village hall cum library cum school, and an abandoned hotel and a mish-mash of houses. I remembered an old photograph I’d seen that had been taken here in 1915 when the Germans held the town; it still looked exactly the same. A horse-drawn cart went by, driven by a Frenchman wearing dark trousers, white shirt, dark waistcoat and beret. From his smiling, grey moustached mouth came ‘bonjour mes ami’s’ , then something else of which I could not make sense. We watched him drive away, looking in vain for the Onion-strings that I felt sure would be dangling there. Claire set the Camera on the tripod outside the church and I started talking, guffawing and getting my presentation all wrong. Cars and machinery drove by drowning out my audio, church-bells sounded –Ding-dong- throwing me off-cue. Through bloopers, bleepers, and technical flaws we managed to somehow stumble and bumble our way till eventually it was done. Then we walked back up to the field adjacent to the crossroads.
***
On the 20th November 1917, this was the Start-line for the Battle of Cambrai. This was where Walter had stood in preparation, where the tanks and artillery had been drawn-up in secret. This was the field in which the future of modern warfare had been born.
I wandered the field, looking across the open terrain towards the distant sight of Bourlon wood in the north where some of the bloodiest fighting had occurred. I scooped handfuls of soil and held them to my face to breath in the essence of where I stood. I took photographs. I picked up stones thinking they were relics of the past. I knelt down and listened for the rumble of Tanks and the heavy reports of almost a million shells being fired; but all was peaceful, and the view before me remained serene. Farmland and hamlets mingled quietly in an expansive panorama that took in the whole of the battlefield.
We did some more filming here. Me walking the ground in Walter’s footsteps. Me looking wistfully into the distance. Me looking at the Hamlet spire of La Vaquerie.
*
It was all about me, and if only I’d taken the time to pay attention instead of realising it in hindsight, I would have realised that the Hamlet of La Vaquerie was making Claire uneasy, noticeably so in fact, how did I miss it? I thought she just didn’t like me fiddling with the relic I’d found, but maybe it was the unseen watchful eyes of the place, or the haunted ghost-town feel that it retained. Maybe she just didn’t like the vibe in general, and I just didn’t get it.
Entering LaVaquerie was like entering another warp. Although having been completely rebuilt after the war, it felt so much older and claustrophobic too. The main road leading in was the same road leading out, and was barely wide enough for one car at a time, let alone a dozen tanks. The centre of the hamlet was formed out of little more than where two roads momentarily became one, and gave rise to the ancient church and it’s spire. The two narrow roads heading out from here each ran a mere fifty meters or so before simply disappearing into the surrounding farmland. They were dotted with small white and redbrick houses interspersed with steel gates holding back straw and stock animals. It was a farming community.
I went for a wander; and was standing beside a small farmyard, looking over the gate at a chicken pen when Claire came over with the camera and pointed to something. I looked down near my feet, and there, lying half-buried beside a tree was an artillery shell. We filmed me picking it up, and putting it down, and fiddling with this, and banging it on that. I was amazed at the weight of it, and waffled on about it for a while until a Frenchman came over with an alarmed look on his face. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but I did get the big explosion, still-live gesture. I gently placed it back in the ground and stepped away gingerly.
He guided us towards the information board out-side the church where I read about the death and destruction that had rained down on LaVaqueri, reducing it to a pile of bloody rubble and smashed bricks. I tried to explain my journey to him, but he had no idea what I was saying, and likewise me of him. Again I managed merci, au revoir, and shook his hand. He left us, and we didn’t see another soul the whole time we were there.
Claire wasn’t saying much by now, and she wasn’t freely filming like she had been so easily before. She wandered back to the bike and started playing with a cat there. I took the video camera and went for another walk. I filmed the information board, and the picture of the tank that had been destroyed nearby. I filmed the large farmhouse enclosure with it’s pock-marked walls. I filmed a striking whitewashed home, complete with brightly coloured hanging baskets and sleeping sheepdogs in the yard. I walked past the tiny football pitch with the broken goalposts, and the large stand of straggly Maize crops that they leaned against them. Here and there, I filmed the poppies. The whole time, not even a dog barked. Walking around LaVaquerie was like walking around a deserted Film-set. Any moment someone might have shouted ‘Action’ and a cast of extras in period costume would have invaded the scene, waving hello to each other and going about their daily business. Either that or the silence may have screamed havoc, and slipped loose the dogs of war.
*
By 7.00am on the first day of the attack, Walter was advancing on LaVaquerie across the fields from Gonnelieu. He was dressed in heavy serge jacket and trousers, and wore ankle-length hob-nailed boots and a steel helmet on his head. He was armed with a Lee-Enfield .303 calibre bolt-action rifle. In front of his section rumbled a trident of three Tanks. Exploding a constant twenty metres in front of the advancing tanks was a creeping-barrage of British artillery fire. By the time the British troops got to them, most of the enemy soldiers had already been killed. What the shells missed, the tanks got. They knocked out enemy machine-gun nests and concrete bunkers. They destroyed enemy howitzers, machine-gunned retreating soldiers, and trampled hundreds of meters of barbed-wire entanglements. The strike was so powerful, swift and unexpected that the German troops holding the town were caught completely unprepared and were cut-down like corn, others were seen running away shouting, ‘This isn’t war, this is murder’. Four British soldiers from Walters battalion died in that attack, but the German toll was horrific, with countless killed and severely wounded. On the first day alone, over 8000 German troops surrendered. Captain Haskell, commanding the British Tank ‘Harrier’, later reported; ‘They (the Germans) were surrendering in such unbelievable numbers that we could barely keep up with them’
The cost to La Vaquerie itself was almost total destruction. With the exception of the church spire, barely a building remained standing. I wondered whether Walter had looked up at the church-spire, and the wind-vane pointing towards Cambrai as I now did.
Claire came around the corner. “I want to leave, I don’t like it here”. I brought my eyes back down to ground level. Yeah she was right; I was feeling that way too now, I was starting to realise that the place was making us both feel uncomfortable, like we shouldn’t be there, stirring up the past; we’d clearly overstayed our welcome. Once that realisation dawned the decision was quickly made, and we were on the bike and heading away. As we left, something ricocheted off the dirt just behind us. I glanced in the mirror and saw a flick of dust rising from the ground, and then I saw the video camera bouncing along behind it. I stopped, stowed it safely, and we rode on.
***
There is a huge hypermarket on the edge of Cambrai called ‘Cora’. I love it for the reason that it’s also my daughters name, let alone the fact that it sells everything from corkscrews, peanuts and Avocados; to plasma TV’s, home goods, hardware, garden supplies and Toys. We did our shopping here most days.
After LaVaquerie we came here and went for a look around the store. Claire wanted to get a new book, and soon found an author she was looking for. “It’s in French” She said, sounding somewhat surprised. Then she picked up another book, and another one. “…they’re all in French”! I checked. She was right, they were all in French…who’d have thought?
Holly Valance was singing ‘Kiss’. “She’s singing in French too”. Claire said, and then followed it with; “It’s all very French here isn’t it”. Yep, she was right again. It was, isn’t it.
We walked passed the garden supplies and I noticed some terracotta plant pots. Something buzzed in my head but I wasn’t sure what it was; then Claire said. “Have you got a container to take Walter home in yet”?
“No” I replied, and picked up a pot-plant and looked at it closely. “Would it be wrong to take Walter home in a pot-plant d’ya think”? Claire laughed out-loud. We wandered over to the kitchen bits area, just in case we found something there.
I found a Salt-pig, Claire found a Milk jug. Tupperware was looking good for a while, but then I found a stainless-steel thermos flask. I held onto this until we came upon the Tea, coffee, and sugar canisters.
We walked outside with our shopping bags and loaded them into the bikes panniers. “Where’s my camera?” I asked all a panic. I had just realised I wasn’t carrying it, and in the same instant I remembered hanging it on the handlebar while I got my wallet out; just before we went into the shop. I looked down and there it was, lazing in the breeze in full view. That was another reason to like
***
Six-months prior to the attack on Cambrai, Walter had bayonet-charged across the no-mans
*
As we pitched the tent in beautiful late afternoon sunshine, the thoughts of armed-conflict were far, far away. We had bumped our way along a farm-track running out from the small Hamlet of Havringcourt, and had then taken ourselves slowly and unsteadily across country for half a mile. We were now camped on rough pasture-land; a ploughed field away from the edge of Havringcourt wood, and adjacent to a tall, ripening Maize crop. The grass underfoot was soft and springy and made a good comfortable floor for the ground-sheet. We set-up the tent and sorted through our food for the night; two small bars of Chocolate; a bottle of wine, a bottle of orange-juice; some Tomatoes and cheese; half a dozen soft rolls, some slices of ham and chicken, a dip of some sort, a tin of Tuna and an Avocado. We were more than set.
We walked to gather some firewood. We found an entrance through the dense foliage skirting the woods, and entered the woodland proper where filtered light streamed in from above, lighting the woods in soft yellows and golden-greens. Suddenly it didn’t seem quite so sinister anymore, and beside, there was firewood everywhere. We grabbed an armful of kindling each and piled it near the woods entrance. We lifted good-sized logs and medium sized branches and piled them up too, Before long we thought we had enough wood to see us through the night. I grabbed for one last branch, but my hand fell instead on the nose cone of a world war one shell that had exploded here nearly a century earlier. With a flash, I found myself back in the war again, but all that came to mind was the phrase…‘And in the evening, the woodlands blazed’.
*
With the fire going strong, we drank a glass of wine and talked about what I had found. I held it in my hands, feeling it’s surprising weight and inspecting the shrapnel balls that were still stuck inside. “They were designed purely to kill you know. When these things exploded a thousand steel balls and jagged shards of white-hot steel would rip the air apart and shred everything within fifty-feet of it. They fired these things at people, can you imagine that”? Claire looked at me flatly. “Can you? She asked. Can I indeed?, I though, as I immersed myself in the question. The silence that followed was long and loaded, but thankfully, over a glass of Wine or two the answer came to me. “Yes I can imagine it” I answered suddenly.
After chatting by the fire for a couple more hours, we made another trip to the woods, just to be on the safe-side. I remember that as we walked in the soft evening light, we were looking up at the long, iridescent cloud-trails that were streaming out above us. The stars had appeared by now as well, and were twinkling brightly overhead; the world really seemed quite a nice, warm place to be. By the time we got back to the tent however, things had somehow changed; there was a stranger waiting there for us, and he was carrying a gun.
“Err, umm… Bonsoir. Parle vous Anglais?” I asked hopefully. He went into an immediate French tirade that involved lots of spreading arm movements and archetypal french-sounding words. He adjusted the rifle on his back and pointed to the bike. “Svierge”? he asked me, pointing to the
He shook his head “No, no, non Poulette” he laughed. Non Poulett you say, what then I wondered? He put his fingers to his face making a sort of Antler either side of his nose expression. I shook my head. I wanted to ask him how many words, how many syllables, animal, vegetable or mineral. He put his gun back on his shoulder and hunched over on all fours. I expected to see Kevin Costner looking back at me ‘Tatunka’, but instead he screwed up his face and went ‘Oink’, and pointed to the woods. “Boar dom la Bois”. Realisation dawned; he wasn’t here to shoot chickens at all; there were Wild-Boar in the woods and he was here to shoot them. He had a ‘Hide’ in the trees, and a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights and night-vision. Finally we all understood. Yes it was fine, we could stay. Keep near the fire and don’t make too much noise. Don’t go into woods after-dark, wild-pigs are very dangerous. Lots of Merci’s; followed by an au revoir saw him fade into the darkness while me and Claire laughed about the pantomime quietly, and poured ourselves another glass of wine. With the fire burning brightly, we sat back and watched the night go on by.
A large Owl swooped us silently, then perched in a tree behind us, then swooped us once again. Satellites passed overhead, and constellations moved from left to right above us. Aside from our own voices and that of the fire, all around us was silent. An hour later we saw the dark-shape of the gun-man leave and we breathed a small sigh of relief. There had been no gunshots tonight, the woods could sleep quietly after-all. As cool moisture slowly descended upon the tent, Claire said goodnight. I sat up by the fire and watched the Stars until eventually sleep and dampness overtook me too. In the woods the stillness shifted as a breeze blew in from the West.
***
I woke early, the morning had arrived like a jewel. Night-dew glistened on silken cobwebs, and wet Corn leaves sparkled like gemstones. The sky was crystal-clear and the Sun was a golden orb. Today would be a great day. I restarted the fire and headed towards the woodland to gather more fuel.
I stepped carefree and smiling from the grassland onto the ploughed surface of the field, but within a dozen steps I began to feel anxious and the woodland became a place to fear. I wanted to turn away and go back to the safety of the fire, but I couldn’t, I just kept walking, driven by some misperceived duty. Moments later though I broke, and ran across the field flat-out, and took cover at the very edge of the woods. I could feel the full dread and fear of the hunted prey all over me, and stayed low and silently hidden until eventually it passed, and a steely resolve had replaced it.
I entered the woods with a mission. A stick became my rifle and a rock my grenade. I stalked through the shadows, my senses on fire. Madness, insanity, courage and fear coursed through me like the torrent of someone else’s river.
I stayed low, moving in the shadow of trees. My progress was slow, silent and deliberate. “Crack’, somewhere in front of me a twig had snapped, I stopped dead and crouched down low, staring into the distance. Nothing moved. I strained my ears to listen…total silence. Then out of the deafening stillness came a violent explosion of Starlings from the trees; it had begun. I charged through the woods with branches slashing at my face; and the noise of charging footfalls all around me. I cleared fallen logs, and dashed through brambles and barbs.
My heart pounded in time with a muted staccato gunfire as I raced across a clearing. Before me the ground rose suddenly in a small, sharp hummock, and I threw myself face-first onto it and lobbed the rock and covered my head. The ground shook as I screamed up the rise and shot dead the stunned German soldiers that I imagined there right in front of me…
Reality returned, and I gulped in some air and threw down the stick as a bile burned hot in my throat. I was standing at the lip of a ten-foot crater. On the opposite lip were the shattered, lichen-covered remains of a German observation-post. I ran my hand across it, feeling the scars on it’s familiar concrete face. I’d somehow been here before.
I returned to the tent with more wood and threw it on the fire. I gulped down a glass of water, grabbed a pen and paper, and frantically recorded my experience. Claire woke up and we made breakfast and sat around talking about it all. Presently though, time had ticked-on, and we had to get ourselves moving again. We packed up our gear and loaded the bike. I kicked the fire out with my feet and cast a long, final look at Havringcourt wood. Then I slipped the bike into gear, and with Pink-floyd playing in my ears, I headed straight into the shining Sun.
***
Within fifteen minutes of leaving Havringcourt we were pulled in beside a café-bar in the small town of
***
The Cambrai battlefield is huge. It covers an area roughly six miles north to south, and bulges eastward for about four miles, with Cambrai itself just a little out of grasp at it’s furthest reach. At it’s northern extreme are the heights of Bourlon, with their heavy woodlands. At the Southern end is a deep valley with a large Canal running through it. In between is open, flat, chalky farmland; dotted with occasional hamlets. Stretching across this farmland over ninety years ago was the German fortification of the Hindenburg line.
It extended one hundred and forty kilometres from
*
That same year the German forces were punishing the French at
Meanwhile, somewhere in England the head of the infant Tank-corps –Brigadier Hugh Ellis- was keen to prove his worth, and had devised a mass-attack formation he called a ‘Mailed fist’ (this refers to chain-mail and armour as opposed to the Postal service). But as the early tanks were slow, cumbersome and prone to mechanical failure the chosen ground had to be firm and even, and the distance to cover not too great. The Tanks had already proven themselves very effective at destroying buildings and bunkers and such-like, and if delivered in formation and supported by infantry, they would be a force to be reckoned with. Ellis also surmised that as the Germans hadn’t developed the tank yet, then it was fairly certain they probably hadn’t worked out how to stop one in a combat situation yet either. He was later proven very wrong, but he nonetheless postulated at the time that if one Tank was virtually unstoppable, imagine what three-odd hundred would be like.
He took his idea to General Haig who liked what he heard, and asked if such a place to use them could be found. As it happened Cambrai was being looked at as a possible place to launch the diversionary relief attack. The two ideas became one, then further evolved into a major battle involving 1000 guns, nine tank battalions, six infantry divisions and five cavalry divisions. As Cambrai had become an important railhead and German headquarters town, it’s capture would be a major coup.
*
Claire slurped the last of her hot chocolate and asked. “Did Walter have any sort of break at all while he was here? Because I could really use one”.
“Yes he did actually”. I answered. After clearing the town of Masniere in bitter building and street combat, the 7th Battalion were pulled back from the line for rest and re-fit, and their position momentarily taken by a relief force. It really wasn’t much of a break though, hardly a holiday camp. The 21st November entailed labouring on road-gangs, and helping to move supplies. Walter probably ate, and slept better though than he had for weeks, but then he was simply re-armed and supplied again, and within 24 hours was back on the firing-step. From the 22nd - 25th November, the fighting at Bourlon wood intensified, and British troops were moved from the fairly static, if not a little tenuous central and southern area to bolster the weary forces battling in the north.
On the 25th Walter returned once again to the firing step on the front line of the battle position atop the plateau. Over the next few days both sides traded canon-bombardment, Sniper, and machine-gun fire. Whilst the British held position and wondered what to do next, the German General Von-Marwitz was busy putting together the tools of his response. Fresh troops and supplies were flooding-in daily, aircraft were re-arming and fuelling and heavy artillery was being moved into position. It was only a matter of time now. Walter had taken his last break.
***
We rode the few miles from Gouzecourt to Cambrai laughing and playing ‘Who am I?’ over the intercom. We were having a day off, and felt all the better for it already. Riding up the Avenue De Victorie into the square, I parked the bike outside a coffee shop we liked, where we wasted no time in stripping off all our riding gear; it was a gorgeous day, and way too hot for leather jackets and trousers. We ordered two Cappuccino’s and sat outside enjoying the sun. We talked about how the French all looked so healthy and vibrant, and how we hadn’t seen a McDonalds, KFC or Burger-King since leaving
I needed to change some money though, so after the coffee we walked around looking for a Bureau de change; there wasn’t one. We found a couple of banks, but they were both closed for lunch. It wasn’t even twelve yet.
Some stairs led up from the footpath to an inviting looking doorway that looked like it might be able to help us. There were signs on the window that I somehow translated as belonging to a financial institution of some sort; it was a Bank essentially I figured, so we walked up the stairs and opened the door.
The office was an open-plan, boothed cubicle type arrangement, with telephones at each little station. There was a man serving a woman there, but no-one else around. We just stood there at first, uncertain of what to do next. Then we lifted some pamphlets from the shelves and tried to decipher what they said. There was a lot about what was happening in
Davo was from
Myself and Claire walked around the back streets, and checked out the big new theatre. We looked in the clothes shops and in exclusive jeweller’s windows. The cafes were busy as hell now, and the square was a hive of circulating traffic. We went and got another coffee then wandered around and took some photos. Before long, the town clock hit two, and the peeling of church bells filled the air. The banks were now open, so we walked into the Nord de Finance.
*
A good-looking teller called me from the queue to the counter. I had two-hundred
Outside, a young man sat at the pavement edge, a small collecting tin in his hand. I had a fistful of Euro-notes and a smile the size of utopia on my face. I looked down at him and suddenly felt very well-off; but I wasn’t about to part with fifty euro’s was I?.
I walked twenty feet next door and grabbed me and Claire a drink, then I grabbed another one and returned to the bike. I dropped the change, clankety-clank into the young man’s tin and handed him a bottle of Coke. He looked up at me and smiled. “Merci, merci beaucoup”.
Those hours in Cambrai had been a good break from the constant battle-zone filming and the war conversations that were filling so much of our day. Now we were cool and refreshed again, and neither of us really felt like stepping back onto the land-mines of first world warfare just yet. I suggested going to check out the Camp-site we’d passed on our way up here, we had to find another place for the night anyway, and Claire eagerly agreed.
***
We arrived at the Privat Bois park and stopped the bike in front of a stone house that we figured must also be the office. We banged on doors and peered through windows but to no avail; the place was locked and empty. A single-armed barrier gate prevented us taking the bike into the park proper, but there was room for me to walk past it, so while Claire waited by the bike, I went to see what I could see.
It was a caravan park really, with vans set-up like permanent holiday homes with gardens and fences and driveways and power supplies. I walked around not seeing a soul until I came to the end of the park and spied two elderly women playing cards on a vinyl-topped, fold-up table. I stepped to the edge of their fence and called out. “Pardon’ ‘scusem moi”. A large roly-poly woman in an apron came out and eyed me suspiciously. “Qui?” she replied. “Parle vous Anglais”? No, she didn’t. I then offered “Moi, non parle francais” and then “Vous non parle vous francais” I’m not really sure what I meant to say, but I think it came out as. “I do not speak French, and you, you do not speak French either”. She stood looking at me blankly until I reverted to sign language for needing a place to stay the night. There were a lot of shaking-heads and confused pleasantries until she said the word maison. “Ah Maison” I nodded my head and pointed to the old stone house where Claire was waiting.
I wasn’t really much further forward when I returned to the bike. Claire was busy checking the cameras’ power levels. “We need to get these recharged” she said. “They’re all just about flat”. I grabbed the charger and walked back into the park and sidled up to one of the empty caravans and unplugged their supply. I plugged the multi-outlet into the caravan supply and watched for the little red lights to appear…nothing! I went to the main power box and prised it open with my knife. It was full of fuses and switches and cables everywhere, I didn’t know what I was looking for and didn’t want to risk blowing everything up, so I left it at that. With nothing else to do till someone arrived, we headed up to film the nearby Louverval memorial.
***
7048 British soldiers remained unaccounted for at the end of the battle of Cambrai. Perhaps they had taken cover in a shell-depression, only to be buried-alive by the next eruption of exploding soil that fell on them. Maybe they had been shredded by fragments of shrapnel, or vaporised by high-explosive blasts. It wasn’t that their remains were unidentified, but rather that they were just never found.
*
The Louverval memorial stands in a quiet field on the Cambrai-Bapaume road. It is a gleaming white colonnade structure, reminiscent of Greek or Roman antiquity. We parked the bike down the lane that ran alongside it, and I walked nervously towards the large gated entrance while Claire filmed me from behind. I was talking over my shoulder about being nervous at seeing Walters name immortalised in stone here.
Inside the gate a square of manicured lawn greeted us, in its centre a monolith declared “Their name Liveth forevermore”. Behind this, set in a wide encompassing arc of towering Marble and supported by tall columns was the role of honour; the names of the missing. It didn’t take long to find Walters name. On panel 5, beneath the legend ‘
I pointed to Walters name high up on the wall and sadly out of reach. I wanted to run my fingers across the etched-out stone, to feel the reverberations of a name I’d come to know; but it was too high up, so I smiled at it instead, and said what I had to say. Claire filmed it. She also filmed wreathes of Poppies, and signed photographs that loved ones had left. She filmed the carvings of men at war; and in the cemetery adjoining the memorial, she filmed the row upon row of graves erected to those who had been found, but often remained anonymously ‘A soldier of the great war’. I walked around the memorial, running my fingers over the carved names of so many men who hadn’t been found, then feeling suitably emotional, I sat on the monolith and Claire pointed the camera at me. I was overwhelmed, and could barely speak; the emotion had taken so completely that I only managed a dozen words or so into the lens before I had to turn away.
Near the entrance gate I found a small metal door that had a cross engraved on the front of it. Behind it, a little square hollow held the Commonwealth war-grave commission’s alphabetical listing of those who fell. There were seven books in all; all leather-bound and emblazoned with the words ‘To the Glory of God’. I found Walters name, and ran my finger over the printed text, feeling a familiar, comforting hand rest tenderly on my shoulder as I did so. I turned to smile at Claire, but saw she was outside the gate filming the battlefield across the road. A cold sweat erupted on my brow as I reached to touch the hand on my shoulder, but it had gone, leaving me to sway in it’s backwash. I filled in the visitor’s book and said goodbye.
***
After the Louverval memorial the Cameras were completely exhausted, and I was feeling overawed, overwhelmed and emotionally drained. On top of that, we were both hungry. We headed back to the Privat Bois park, where we lay on the grass outside the Maison eating rolls and drinking water and waiting for someone to arrive. I told Claire about the hand on my shoulder, and she replied “Like that time in
“Yes.” I answered. “Exactly like that time in
One night in 2007 I was sitting alone in my
After about twenty minutes of eating and chatting a blue Volvo pulled into the drive and a suited man in his fifty’s got out. “Par-don, parle vous Anglais”? I ventured. He held his thumb and forefinger barely apart. “A little”, he replied. “Excellent” I said. “We ‘re looking to crash somewhere the night, and wondered if we’d be right to put the tent up here, we also need to re charge some batteries so have you got a power-point we can use isn’t it”? Okay, so it wasn’t really that bad, but it might as well have been. He looked at me expressionless “Par-don”? I made a tent with my hands, then put them together as a pillow under my head, and pointed to Claire then myself. “Moi unt my Mon ami need to umm…Camp-ey ‘ere” pointing at the ground. “Ah qui, qui…mo-ment”. We were sorted, he knew what I meant, I thought my French must be coming along rather well. When he returned I pointed out the camera gear, and the power board, and the plug on the end of it; and then made a plugging-in electric-shock gesture. He asked me to follow him, and led me to the power-box where he frowned at the slight bend near the handle before producing a key and opening it. He flicked a couple of switches and swapped a couple of leads and then pointed to one of the outlets and said “This one”. I asked how much money to stay the night, but I couldn’t communicate the question. I pulled out my wallet and a fistful of Euros and shrugged my shoulders. He laughed, and waved it off. There was no charge for just one night. “Merci; merci beaucoup…au revoir”.
We wasted no time in getting the tent up and the batteries plugged in and charging. We’d have got it done a lot quicker if Claire had helped too, but she thought it would be much funnier to film me trying to do it on my own. She was right, it was; right up to the part where I threw a daddy-long legs near her and she freaked.
*
We left the camera gear on charge and went for a wander around the park. Aside from two or three vans the place was deserted. The empty vans looked like they hadn’t seen occupants for some time, and many of the small gardens were overgrown. We found the shower block. Oh glory-be a real shower with hot-water, what a treat. Since leaving
Soon the cameras were charged again, so we stowed then on the bike, zipped up the tent, then fired up the bike’s engine. There was one more place I wanted to go today, I really, really wanted to see a Tank
***
Philippe had written a book called ‘Following the Tanks’. It chronicled his search to find the whereabouts of every tank used in the attack on Cambrai. In 1998, the French historian and archaeologists search had led him to drive a shovel into the ground at Flesquiere; he hit metal. He gathered his men and told them to dig, a day or so later they had unearthed a complete British mk iv Tank, the first one they had found intact. Of the 374 that rumbled into action on the first day, barely a handful saw the end of the battle. Those that broke down, or were destroyed were simply abandoned on the field, or pushed into craters where they ended up getting buried. This one was as intact as it could be; given that it had been knocked out by a shell and the whole back of it had been opened up like a tin-can.
“I’ve seen that book” I told him, “They’ve got it at the reception of the Beatus Hotel in Cambrai…we stayed there a couple nights ago. “Yes” replied Phillippe. “I recognise the bike. The Beatus is my hotel”.
*
We had pulled the bike up at the front of an ordinary-looking farm building on the main street, and Phillippe had got out of his car. I introduced myself and Claire, and he’d replied in perfect English. I told him I’d sought the tank out because it was part of my great grand-fathers story. He had noticed I had some paperwork with me and asked if he could take a look. He flicked and read, nodding his head here and there, and commented about various aspects of it. After several minutes of perusal he handed it back. “Your research is very good” he said. “I was about to go home when I saw you arrive. Most people wouldn’t stop here unless they knew exactly what they were looking for. Please come in”
*
The Tank wasn’t really any bigger than I imagined it would be, and it looked kind of how I thought it would too, like a huge dirty red-brown Rat with massive tracks and canons. I stood in front of it and imagined it coming towards me with its guns blazing, and then I imagined over three-hundred of them doing exactly the same.
The tank was roped off and I definitely wasn’t allowed to touch, but I was right up next to it, and could see every weld and every bolt that held it together. The steel was thick and roughly cast, the tracks were huge and ugly. A single large-bore canon stuck out from one side, -the other now missing-. and on the front, a machine gun aimed menacingly forward. The thing really was quite repugnant; in a beautifully dangerous kind of way.
When I came to the rear of it I stopped. The whole back of the tank had been blasted outwards leaving a massive jagged-hole where steel should have been. Phillippe told me the Tank had been destroyed on the first day of the attack just tens of metres from where it now rested. Beside the tank stood the kind of weapon that had been used to destroy it, a German field howitzer; and beside that a pile of shells.
All around the building were artefacts from the battle. Helmets, guns, bullets, grenades, shells, water-bottles, bayonets. There was so much of it, and it had all been collected from the battlefield at Cambrai. It brought the reality home with a thump.
Phillippe wished me well on my journey to recover Walter, and reminded me to keep my eyes open for an archaeological dig site while I was riding around, apparently they’d recently found the remains of a British soldier there. I told him that was way too damned interesting, and if I happened to stumble on it I’d definitely check it out. My head was already busy joining the dots.
We said goodbye and rode off into the rain that had drifted in. By the time we got back to the tent it had all but stopped. Claire said she liked the Tank, it was real.
***
The next morning we were up early, and Claire headed straight for the shower block, and while she was gone I starting packing all our stuff away. It was another day in
The sun was warm by now, and the sky was clear and blue. Claire sorted through the camera gear while I smoked a cigarette and worked out where we were. No more than ten minutes ride away I figured, was the Farmhouse of Bonavis, and somewhere thereabouts, I hoped to find the stand of Lateau wood too.
Walter had never been to either mind you, his pathway had taken him slightly further north-east towards Masniere. Bonavis farm and Lateau wood had been the domain of the 12th division, they were Walters’s neighbours at arms, and the keepers of the right flank.
Bonavis farm had been around since the seventeenth century, it was a huge square-shaped enclosure reminiscent of a castle almost. It’s towered entrance beheld two large, wooden doors, topped with spikes, and its walls were thick, strong and tall. It farmed hundreds of acres of food-crops, as well as running cattle and farmyard small-goods.
On the 30th November 1917, it had been reduced to smoking rubble.
*
I stood beside the busy road outside the farm reading an information board about this area of the battle. I looked at the map that accompanied it, then, at the map I held in my hand. Something didn’t make sense, I was confused. Beside me was the rebuilt farmyard, in front of me a small wooded area with a road running off to the right alongside it. A road-sign pointed to Rue de Vigny being down there, but I knew that Rue de Vigny was where the attack on Walter had came from, and from what I could fathom, he’d been killed much further ahead; way past Lateau wood that I still hadn’t even found yet; and then somehow over to the left. I walked back to the bike beside the farm and pored over my collection of maps and information. I turned them this way and that, laid my compass on top of them and took readings. It didn’t look right still, but the compass said it was, and I wasn’t about to disagree. In that case I realised, the small wood right in front of me was Lateau wood, and the road beside it must turn left just out of sight and continue further along into the Canal town of Rue de Vigny still a mile or so away. Fantastic, I knew exactly where I was again.
***
Rue de Vigny nestles at the bottom of a steep and grassy plain, almost in the shadows of the plateau high above. Here, beside the canal St. Quentin, the German army had massed, and from here they had launched their overwhelming counter-attack. We turned right at the road, and headed towards the town.
It was long and narrow, with just one main street running through a row of houses with pretty and well-kept gardens. On the edge of town a construction site was busy building what looked like a giant warehouse of sorts, a sign further along informed me it was a large addition to the already established poultry farm. There were no shops here though, just houses and a small church with the obligatory spire, and a Café that was closed. Before very long we had ridden the length of town; and as we exited I passed a turn-off to the left that led steeply uphill. I pulled over to the side of the road and quickly checked the hand-drawn battle map I had. That was it; that was the road that led to Walters’s last stand. I turned the bike around and pulled into the road and headed uphill. Claire already had the video camera in her hand by the time I got off the bike at the crest of the plateau. I had arrived at the place where Walter had drawn his last breath.
“Say something”. I pulled my helmet off and stood in the middle of the road dumfounded with my arms out wide. “Say something”. I turned around slowly with my arms still spread, feeling the air as it were. “Say something”.
“I think we’re here” I finally managed. “Yeah, we are, we’re here, this is it, this is the place where Walter died”. There was no denying it anymore, I was here and it was real. I was tripped-out with disbelieve, my eyes began darting wildly, but Claire didn’t flinch a muscle; she kept the camera right on me. “And I can’t fucking believe this”. I suddenly blurted. “There’s an archaeological dig going on, right here in the very place where he died, what’s the chances of that”? It was so bizarre, I was caught in this world of my own creation that I was now living in reality. It was already in the screenplay I’d written for gods sake ‘Walters remains are discovered at an archaeological dig site at the Cambrai battleground, and the journalist goes there to collect them’ I’d written this over three years ago, suddenly I was standing in the middle of the scene, playing the part of the journalist.
*
I ran up to the edge of the dig-site and looked across to the other side and around the edges, and at the smooth, well swept surface of the sub-soil. There were rectangular pits four-foot long and two-foot wide ranging in depth from six-inches to maybe two feet all around the site. I was transfixed. A hundred meters away was the site-office; I had to go and talk to someone. I said something into the camera about where I was going, and then I was off. I walked quickly across the rough ground towards the make-shift office. Claire ran to catch-up, we had to get this on film. I knocked on the open door where the diggers were having a break. Claire put the camera to the side of my face. “Pardon” I said, when half a dozen faces looked-up, “Parle vous Anglais”? A woman in her thirties appeared. She was swarthy-white with dark hair and dressed in a windcheater, work pants and boots. Her clothes were covered in dirt. She spoke perfect English with a soft French accent. She was a professor of archaeology and was in charge of the dig. In my story the professor was English and her name was Jennifer, but I didn’t catch this woman’s name. She was very nice though, and very interested in why I was there. She produced a map and diagram of their dig-site, and I compared it to the hand-drawn one I had of the battle-position. They were the same place. “Have you found the remains of a British soldier?” I asked her straight out. Her and her colleague fell into a conversation I couldn’t hope to understand. Then “No” she said. “Not this year we haven’t: three years ago maybe; the government take them away and give them to the British to deal with”. I was hooked. “Were the remains identified”? I asked. “Do you know who he was?” She didn’t know. She suggested I contact the British authorities, maybe they could tell me. I gave her my details and those of Walter Stacey, and asked her to please contact me if anything turned up, she said she would.
*
Walter’s spirit was in the soil here though, I knew it; and this was where I would collect it from; there was no decision to be made.
I walked around the site for a while picking things up and kicking over the spoil that had been pushed up to reveal the sub-soil. They’d told me that I wasn’t to enter the dig-site itself, even though it was open on all sides. Not that I was about to do that anyway, archaeological sites possess a certain sanctity to me, and this one was a war grave too…besides, people were still there.
We walked around the site to the rear where it overlooked the steep plateau sides rushing down to the canal. I talked into the camera about how weird I felt being there, and I ranted about the odds of this being a coincidence. I presented historical information about the site and the battle, and then I looked over the battle-map that had been drawn by one of Walters officers and compared it with what I saw before me. It was picture-perfect; after ninety-one years, all the features he had detailed still existed. I was blown away; I had to take some time-out, my head was spinning. I stepped onto the road without looking and nearly got flattened by a big, blue, French tractor.
*
We sat at the side of the road talking and smoking. I kept on and on about there being a dig-site at this very location. “But that’s what the story is I wrote.” I must have said a hundred-times. “How can this be real?”
We finished our smokes and walked over to the edge of the dig-site. This would be a good place to do some filming. We checked things out, set things up, tested angles and what-have-you, then I started talking. We did a presentation, then a slow pan to take in the whole area before coming back onto me, and then I started talking again. The presentation was patchy at best, the pan was jerky because the tripod head was too tight; and the sound when we played it back was windswept.
Take 2. The presentation was better but Claire had mis-cued the camera.
Take 3. The presentation was great, but I’d changed position hadn’t I, thinking I’d get a better backdrop; instead I ended up with no light on me at all.
Take 4. The tripod moved suddenly.
Take 5. Technically everything was just right, but I completely screwed what I had to say.
Take 6. “Can we take a break, I’m hungry and I’m getting tired of this”. “One more”. But Claire had already moved the tripod. That was it, we were both stressed. We packed the gear up and went into Masniere for a break. It was about one-ish.
*
I parked the bike outside a fast-food store, but then realised it was closed. We crossed the road to another one, but it was closed too. How could fast-food stores be closed at lunchtime? It made no sense. I told Claire I’d seen a fish and chip shop way down the road where we’d first entered town. So she headed down there while I went back to get the bike. I met her there…it was closed.
We headed towards Cambrai. We’d seen a Pizzeria and pasta joint on this side of town near the Cora supermarket. You’re joking, it was closed. Now we were just peed-off. We headed onto Cora and got something from a Baguette-stand and a cup of coffee from a machine; but the coffee was black, and neither of us liked black coffee. I went into the supermarket; moaning and bitching; what’s French for Milk? By the time I’d worked out it was Lait, and then eventually found one that wasn’t baby-lait, condensed-lait, or Soy-lait; and then got back to Claire and the coffee’s, they were just about cold, and the lait just made them even worse. But it really didn’t matter by then, we’d eaten now and we’d got away from the other situation for a couple hours. We relaxed and did a quick supermarket shop before heading off again, soon enough though we were right back in the war.
***
I pulled the bike to a halt and climbed off. To the right of me the fields sloped steeply down-wards to the canal, to my left stood the tall and dense growth of Lateau wood. I took a few deep breaths, and then walked straight into it.
*
When the Germans counter-attacked on the 30th November, they unleashed a storm that pounded the British positions relentlessly. With a downpour of high-explosives they smashed the woodland into little more than a stack of broken sticks, and reduced the British troop positions to a bloodied and confused mess. Heavy trench Mortars targeted designated strong-points along the plateau, and up to fifty heavily-armed aircraft flew low overhead, attacking en-masse. Thousands of Storm-troopers wound their way completely unseen along the narrow ravines that led up the steep-sided woodlands on the southern end of the battlefield. By the time they were seen it was just too late to do anything about it. The battalions of the 12th division fought gallantly to stave off the awesome fire and man-power levelled against them, but to no avail. The attack was so powerful that the woods were utterly destroyed, and the British troops over-run. Hundreds of men were killed as the british right-flank collapsed and the German infantry flooded-in.
Once the Germans had taken Lateau wood they were not only in front of and beside the British forces, but they were also behind them as well. The British had been securely trapped in a well-executed pincer-movement that clamped itself onto the southern end of their forces, and worked its way hungrily northward. Walter was securely trapped.
*
Lateau wood was cratered like nothing I’d ever seen before, and barely ten steps separated one massive shell-hole from the next. Scarred and rotting stumps of war-time trees still dotted the woodland floor here and there,
Within minutes I felt afraid and confused. It was sticky, claustrophobic and clawing in there. The air stank of cordite and I could hardly breathe; it was unnervingly silent. I looked amongst the thickets and saw the fleeting passing’s-by of soldiers still at war. Suddenly afraid and feeling the woods closing in on me, I started walking back in what I though was the right direction, I stumbled on a shell-hole, and my head filled with thunder. An urgent panic rose in me and I began to run. I could feel fear and confusion all-over me as I raced through the trees, desperate to get out of there and not caring which way I went. When I emerged from the thicket I was a hundred yards away from where I had entered. I needed to wipe myself clean, I was coated, I could smell it, hear it and taste it. The horrific events at Lateau woods had left reverberations so strong to make me almost vomit. As far as I was concerned, the battle in there was still raging.
“Did you find anything”? Claire finally asked once I’d finished babbling incoherently into the camera. “No, I was too busy being freaked-out” I told her. Then my eye caught sight of something sticking from the dirt at the roadside. Just an inch or so of rusty steel stuck from the ground. I grabbed hold of it and lifted. A great sod of earth lifted with it, and when I’d wiped it off I found I was holding a splinter of high-explosive shell-casing about ten inches long and four inches wide. It was slightly curved, and still bore the remains of a thread where the shell-head would have attached. I wondered what it must have been like to have these great fragments of steel slicing through the air all around you. A shard this size could cut a man in two, and still carry enough momentum to kill and kill and kill again. I packed it away with the shell-head I’d found a couple nights previous at Havringcourt wood, and wondered if I now had blood on my hands.
*
It was late afternoon by now and we still had to go and collect the soil before we called it a day. We headed off along the woodland trail that seemed to lead where we needed to go, quarter of an hour later we came back again, it had led us into a donkey trail that had just faded away to nothing. We headed away from Lateau woods towards the dig-site; it was time to collect Walter. I joked to Claire that I hoped he was ready, but quietly, it was really my own state of mind I was more concerned about.
***
Standing in my shower in suburban
*
We rode back to the dig-site and parked by the road. The air was still, and the sun was three-quarters done for the day. I walked on the open ground opposite the site, desperately trying to find a spot where Walter might be. Although I’d been sure of it when I saw the dig-site initially, I was now trying to find a reason for it not to be the right place. How could it be the right place, even though everything pointed towards it, how could it possibly be? If it was the right place then that would mean a connection really had been made, and that I had foreseen it. It couldn’t be, I’d written about this site three years ago.
*
I walked the field opposite with my hands open, feeling my way. A voice kept calling ‘Over here, I’m over here’, and I kept looking back across the road. But I couldn’t go over there could I, because if I did then I would have to acknowledge that it was real, and I was afraid.
I was afraid that if I went over there I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was afraid that maybe I’d made a total disgrace of the whole thing, and that I’d somehow dishonoured what I’d came here to do. I was afraid that Walter would see that I was selfish, and that I had become so consumed by my own self-importance that I’d lost the purity of the journey. I was afraid that I was not worthy of being there. I really didn’t want to cross the road, even though I knew I had to.
*
“Over here, I’m over here’. I knelt at the edge of the field and talked into the camera about my story, about the dig-site, about my uncertainty, and about my story again. “But I’ve written this, I don’t know how to feel” But as I talked it just started to make more sense. I had no choice, I had to cross the road whether I wanted to or not, because that was where he was waiting for me; and that’s what I’d come here to do. I was bumbling around the edges of glory; putting-off my moment to seize the Golden sword. I was like some schoolboy afraid to stand-up in class and answer a question to which I knew the answer. I could feel anxiety welling up inside of me till I broke into a cold-sweat. Then I walked to the bike, grabbed the stainless container and pulled the coin out of my wallet. I tried to briefly explain the fifty-cent thing, but it was way too hard and we just walked straight across to the dig-site instead. I went and stood at the very edge of the dig and Claire stood off to my right with the camera recording.
*
This was where Walter had been killed. Not by the initial high-explosive bombardment that had preceded the German troop attack, but rather in the actual gun-fighting that followed; soldier to soldier. He had been wounded in the neck by a bullet, and being fully aware that he was dying, had fallen to the ground and continued to fire his rifle at the approaching enemy soldiers. Walter had finally been killed by a single-shot through the head at close range, and had died fighting.
*
I stood there with the coin in my hand and my arm swinging round and around, my eyes looking here and there. What I was looking for I couldn’t really say, but I think it was for a sign; maybe I was expecting to see Walter himself. Either way I didn’t see anything, and I threw the coin high in the air and slightly towards the right from where I stood. I lost sight of the coin through the air, and Claire missed it’s flight too, but when it came to rest, it was immediately beside a small cordoned-off area of the dig that I hadn’t even noticed before. The cordons were plastic red and white strips strung around four upright stakes. They surrounded a collapsed pit about four-feet square.
I looked at them and felt something move in my head. Did they mean something or didn’t they? I decided they did but I didn’t know exactly what; only what I suspected, and that was good enough for me.
Claire came onto the site and set the camera up. I was kneeling on the ground with the coin right in front of me. I can’t remember what I said, but I ran my hand over the ground, feeling for whatever I thought I might feel. In truth I felt nothing, and that surprised me. I thought, after everything else I’d experienced along the journey that I would see or feel something spiritual, especially here; but I didn’t. Kneeling on the very edge of what I’d come here to do, my mind was slightly numbed perhaps. I was thinking Walter thoughts, but not getting anything in return. Then again, I hadn’t prepared for this moment any more than I’d prepared myself for any other part of the journey, and I was caught between belief in what I was doing, and hoping that it all looked good on camera. I scraped away, making a small pile from the soft, loamy soil; then I scooped it up with my hands and dropped it into the container.
I held it towards the West. “At the going down of the Sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.”
Then I stood and raised my bottle of water in salute. I said that a hundred-thousand men had died on this battlefield, not only British, but German as well. Then I said. “To all who fought and died in the battle of cambrai, here’s to you”. Then I took a long drink of clear, fresh water, threw my camera over my shoulder and said, “Lets take him home hey?” and strolled off into the sunset. It was corny movie magic.
*
I had gathered Walters’ spirit though, of that I was certain; and with it came relief. I can’t say that I talked with Walter again once I’d collected him; I think by then we’d probably both gone through enough to realise that there was nothing left to say, and nothing left to prove. I had done what I’d come here to do. I had done what I’d been summoned here to do. I had done what Walter had wanted me to do. I had done what I had wanted to do. It had been done, and I had done it. It was all about me again.
If anything, that great moment should have been celebrated with
***
We set the tent up on a narrow strip of grass right beside the St. Quentin canal and immediately opened a bottle of wine. We sat there drinking and talking with tea-light candles burning. Above us the stars were shining brightly, and the constellation of Orion was high in the sky. I set my camera up on the tripod and tried to capture it, but as I did so, one small cloud moved over it and decided to stay there; there’d be no capturing the starlight tonight.
The canal water lapped gently as I tried to explain the Hero’s journey to Claire. I equated it to my own journey and told her that now I had gone through the ordeal and seized the Golden sword I had to return home with it, and reap the consequences of its gain. For a moment I saw only goodness at hand, but then I considered what we’d both endured, and how our close friendship had been affected by it all. As I went to sleep that night it wasn’t with thoughts of victory and success, but rather of sadness and loss.
I slept fitfully at best, and when I awoke it was to glorious sunshine and a clear blue sky. We were both experts at packing-up and loading the bike by now, and we did it quickly with the minimum of fuss or conversation; within an hour we were ready to head back to
*
The battle of Cambrai had certainly taken its toll, and somewhere out there on that bloody battlefield I felt the life I had known once was gone also. I picked a Poppy and pressed it solemnly between the pages of a map.
“… I once was lost, but now I’m found,
was blind, but now I see”.
***
For me the battle of Cambrai ended with Walter’s death on the 30th November 1917. In reality though the fighting raged for another four days before finding the status quo once again. At the end of it all a hundred-thousand men were dead; approximately fifty thousand on both the British and German side alike. The position each army held at the end of it all was the crescent bulge of a reversed S-shaped line; the British at the top, the Germans at the bottom. Within a year though, the important tactical lessons learned at Cambrai brought about a decisive result, and on the 11th November 1918 the German army surrendered, and the first world-war was over.
Once again, all was quiet on the Western front.
END.
