Act of Valour by Elizabeth Darrell

Author:Elizabeth Darrell [Darrell, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-04-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tim’s experience of trench life was delayed. On reaching Poperinghe, the rail centre for the entire Ypres complex, he was told by a transport officer that the West Wilts had been relieved from the front line two days ago and were presently resting in a hamlet named Roget’s Wood. It was one of the rest centres used by the thousands of Allied troops who had occupied this large sector of Flanders since the beginning of the war, neither advancing nor retreating more than a mile or so in that time. Ypres itself was a ruin of no use to anyone, yet the Germans continued to shell it daily and made periodic attempts to take it from the British living in the ground beneath the charred remains of buildings. After eighteen months they had not succeeded.

As Tim waited for a vehicle going in his direction he experienced a revival of the old yearning for glory which had been slowly deadened at GHQ. All around him was first-hand evidence of war. Fleets of mud-covered ambulances moving to and from the railyard; staff cars and motorcycles, some with sidecars carrying senior officers and others driven by dispatch riders used to slithering over mud, ploughing through floods, dodging shell craters and bullets in order to deliver their vital communiqué; long columns of weary soldiers coming in from the horror to go on home leave, others marching away from the trains which had brought them back to face more. Over all these stirring images Tim heard the rumble of heavy guns like an approaching storm, and his pulse quickened. He was the great-grandson of General Sir Gilliard Ashleigh and the nephew of Vorne, the Hero of Khartoum. He had an obligation to these men, and those who had gone before them, and he would meet it in full. He could finally justify his right to assume the family name and be counted amongst their number. His mother did not understand his need to do that.

The journey to Roget’s Wood was enough to make any new arrival’s hair stand on end. Driven by a slap-happy lance-corporal named Minns, and accompanied by two cavalry officers who were as drunk as lords and who encouraged Minns to “take the fences like a man” or to “clear the sticks with a tally ho”, Tim clung to the sides of the bone-shaking vehicle as it raced and bounced through potholed lanes, occasionally taking a short cut over streams or across the corner of a derelict field. The two cavalrymen tumbled from the back seat at the entrance to a large remount camp, where horses tried to graze on new grass struggling through the mud and rough-riders attempted to break in a fresh consignment of animals.

‘Cheerio!’ chorused the pair as they staggered off, supporting each other to remain upright.

‘Very nice gentlemen, sir,’ commented the pixie-faced driver. ‘Real sports.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the bemused Tim, wondering what they were like in the saddle.

‘New to Wipers, is you, sir?’ he asked, using the troops’ name for Ypres.

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