Fall of Giants

Evans went on: “What I heard then was that the French would attack with forty divisions and us with twenty-five. That’s not going to happen now.”

Fitz did not like this negative talk-he was already apprehensive enough-but unfortunately Evans was right. “It’s because of Verdun,” Fitz said. Since the December agreement, the French had lost a quarter of a million men defending the fortress city of Verdun, and they had few to spare for the Somme.

Evans said: “Whatever the reason, we’re virtually on our own.”

“I’m not sure it makes any difference,” Fitz said with an air of detachment that he did not in the least feel. “We will attack along our stretch of the front, regardless of what they do.”

“I disagree,” said Evans, with a confidence that was not quite insolent. “The French withdrawal frees up a lot of German reserves. They can all be pulled into our sector as reinforcements.”

“I think we’ll move too fast for that.”

“Do you, really, sir?” said Evans coolly, again remaining just the right side of disrespect. “If we get through the first line of German barbed wire, we’ve still got to fight our way through a second and third.”

Evans was beginning to annoy Fitz. This kind of talk was bad for morale. “The barbed wire will be destroyed by our artillery,” Fitz said.

“In my experience, artillery is not very effective against barbed wire. A shrapnel shell fires steel balls downwards and forwards-”

“I know what shrapnel is, thank you.”

Evans ignored that. “-so it has to explode just a few yards above and before the target, otherwise it has no effect. Our guns just aren’t that accurate. And a high-explosive shell goes off when it hits the ground, so even a direct hit sometimes just throws the wire up in the air and down again without actually damaging it.”

“You’re underestimating the sheer scale of our barrage.” Fitz’s irritation with Evans was sharpened by a nagging suspicion that he might have a point. Worse, that suspicion fed Fitz’s nervousness. “There will be nothing left afterwards. The German trenches will be completely destroyed.”

“I hope you’re right. If they hide in their dugouts during the barrage, then come out again afterwards with their machine guns, our men will be mown down.”

“You don’t seem to understand,” Fitz said angrily. “There has never been a bombardment this intense in the history of warfare. We have one gun for every twenty yards of front line. We plan to fire more than a million shells! Nothing will be left alive.”

“Well, we’re in agreement about one thing, anyway,” said Captain Evans. “This has never been done before, as you say; so none of us can be sure how it will work out.”

{VI}

Lady Maud appeared at Aldgate Magistrates Court in a large red hat with ribbons and ostrich feathers, and was fined one guinea for disturbing the peace. “I hope Prime Minister Asquith will take notice,” she said to Ethel as they left the courtroom.

Ethel was not optimistic. “We have no way of compelling him to act,” she said with exasperation. “This kind of thing will go on until women have the power to vote a government out of office.” The suffragettes had planned to make women’s votes the big issue of the general election of 1915, but the wartime Parliament had postponed elections. “We may have to wait until the war is over.”

“Not necessarily,” said Maud. They stopped to pose for a photograph on the courthouse steps, then headed for the office of The Soldier’s Wife. “Asquith is struggling to hold the Liberal-Conservative coalition together. If it falls apart there will have to be an election. And that’s what gives us a chance.”

Ethel was surprised. She had thought the issue of women’s votes was moribund. “Why?”

“The government has a problem. Under the present system, serving soldiers can’t vote because they aren’t householders. That didn’t matter much before the war, when there were only a hundred thousand men in the army. But today there are more than a million. The government wouldn’t dare to hold an election and leave them out-these men are dying for their country. There would be a mutiny.”

“And if they reform the system, how can they leave women out?”

“Right now the spineless Asquith is looking for a way to do just that.”

“But he can’t! Women are just as much part of the war effort as men: they make munitions, they take care of wounded soldiers in France, they do so many jobs that used to be done only by men.”

“Asquith is hoping to weasel his way out of having that argument.”

“Then we must make sure he is disappointed.”

Maud smiled. “Exactly,” she said. “I think that’s our next campaign.”

{VII}

“I joined up to get out of Borstal,” said George Barrow, leaning on the rail of the troopship as it steamed out of Southampton. A Borstal was a jail for underage offenders. “I was done for housebreaking when I was sixteen, and got three years. After a year I got tired of sucking the warden’s cock, so I said I wanted to volunteer. He marched me to the recruiting station and that was it.”