Malcolm MacPhail's Great War by Darrell Duthie

Author:Darrell Duthie [Duthie, Darrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Esdorn Editions
Published: 2018-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

16th of April, 1918

Sains-en-Gohelle, France

The band of little men sawing logs in my throat was hard at work. I felt dreadful.

My bed offered scarce solace for the aches, pains, cough and roaring sore throat I’d had for three days running. The flu was going round. I dressed slowly, methodically straightening my tie in the mirror where a sallow-looking character with huge bags under his eyes stared woefully back at me. After pulling on my second boot I felt winded, and I dropped back prone onto the bed where I was sitting, my head momentarily spinning.

I wasn’t feeling any better about the latest news from the front, either. None of us were. Some were downright angry. They had every right to be. Passchendaele had been abandoned.

General Plumer had ordered a withdrawal from Passchendaele and its ridge, the oh-so critical ridge that had cost so very, very much. In a grave tone the field-marshal had implored us that it was “imperative” to capture it. It “must be taken at all costs” he had lectured at Ten Elms.

Six months later, without so much as a shot, Plumer’s legions put their tails between their legs and beat a hasty retreat. We left it in their hands and they gave it away. It was infuriating. I tried not to get too worked up about it. I was feeling queasy enough as it was.

We heard the news the day before and talked about little else.

‘Listen, I hate to say it,’ I said, at a heated moment in the conversation, hoping the contrarian streak in me wasn’t going to lead to a bloody nose, ‘but abandoning Passchendaele and the ridge was sensible from a military perspective. It’s a simple question of geometry. Manning a half circle requires a lot more men than manning its diameter. And lately manpower is a scarce commodity. Plumer really had little choice other than to withdraw.’

‘And we all know why manpower is scarce,’ growled Lieutenant Hannigan, his face glowing red, ‘because of the tens of thousands of men it cost to take the bloody mud-hole in the first place! And to give it up without as much as a whimper!?’ Normally Hannigan was a mild-mannered, ideal son-in-law sort that the artillery, for one reason or another, seemed to attract. He lost a lot of men at Passchendaele, and it didn’t take a clairvoyant to see it weighed heavily on him. He wrote a great many letters home.

The lawyer in me knew I was on the wrong side of this discussion. Intrepidly, I plugged on. ‘You’re right. But holding it wasn’t the answer. Since the Brits hollowed-out their divisions they’re in no state to defend the Salient, and to prevent the Boche cutting through to Hazebrouck and the Channel ports… at least not without French reinforcements. And they don’t seem to be coming.’

Ludendorff’s encore was to strike in the north. With supplies and communications stretched, his Operation Michael along the Somme had ground to a halt – for the moment. The British

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