Fall of Giants

Billy looked at him. He had a bent nose, a mutilated ear, and a scar on his forehead. He looked like a retired boxer. “How old are you now?” said Billy.

“Seventeen.”

Boys were not allowed to join the army under eighteen, and had to be nineteen before they were sent overseas, officially. Both laws were constantly broken by the army. Recruiting sergeants and medical officers were each paid half a crown for every man passed, and they rarely questioned boys who claimed to be older than they seemed. There was a boy in the battalion called Owen Bevin who looked about fifteen.

“Was that an island we just passed?” said George.

“Aye,” said Billy. “That’s the Isle of Wight.”

“Oh,” said George. “I thought it was France.”

“No, that’s a lot farther.”

The voyage took them until early the following morning, when they disembarked at Le Havre. Billy stepped off the gangplank and set foot on foreign soil for the first time in his life. In fact it was not soil but cobblestones, which proved difficult to march over in hobnailed boots. They passed through the town, watched listlessly by the French population. Billy had heard stories of pretty French girls gratefully embracing the arriving Brits, but he saw only apathetic middle-aged women in head scarves.

They marched to a camp, where they spent the night. Next morning they boarded a train. Being abroad was less exciting than Billy had hoped. Everything was different, but only slightly. Like Britain, France was mostly fields and villages, roads and railways. The fields had fences rather than hedges, and the cottages seemed larger and better-built, but that was all. It was an anticlimax. At the end of the day they reached their billets in a huge new encampment of hastily built barracks.

Billy had been made a corporal, so he was in charge of his section, eight men including Tommy, young Owen Bevin, and George Barrow the Borstal boy. They were joined by the mysterious Robin Mortimer, who was a private despite looking thirty years old. As they sat down to tea with bread and jam in a long hall containing about a thousand men, Billy said: “So, Robin, we’re all new here, but you seem more experienced. What’s your story?”

Mortimer replied in the faintly accented speech of an educated Welshman, but he used the language of the pit. “None of your fucking business, Taffy,” he said, and he went off to sit somewhere else.

Billy shrugged. “Taffy” was not much of an insult, especially coming from another Welshman.

Four sections made a platoon, and their platoon sergeant was Elijah Jones, age twenty, the son of John Jones the Shop. He was considered a hardened veteran because he had been at the front for a year. Jones belonged to the Bethesda Chapel and Billy had known him since they were both at school, where he had been dubbed Prophet Jones because of his Old Testament name.

Prophet overheard the exchange with Mortimer. “I’ll have a word with him, Billy,” he said. “He’s a stuck-up old beggar, but he can’t speak to a corporal like that.”

“What’s he so grumpy about?”

“He used to be a major. I dunno what he done, but he was court-martialed and cashiered, which means he lost his rank as an officer. Then, being eligible for war service, he was immediately conscripted as a private soldier. It’s what they do to officers who misbehave.”

After tea they met their platoon leader, Second Lieutenant James Carlton-Smith, a boy the same age as Billy. He was stiff and embarrassed, and seemed too young to be in charge of anyone. “Men,” he said in a strangled upper-class accent, “I am honored to be your leader, and I know you will be brave as lions in the coming battle.”

“Bloody wart,” muttered Mortimer.

Billy knew that second lieutenants were called warts, but only by other officers.

Carlton-Smith then introduced the commander of B Company, Major the Earl Fitzherbert.

“Bloody hell,” said Billy. He stared openmouthed as the man he hated most in the world stood on a chair to address the company. Fitz wore a well-tailored khaki uniform and carried the ash wood walking stick some officers affected. He spoke with the same accent as Carlton-Smith, and uttered the same kind of platitude. Billy could hardly believe his rotten luck. What was Fitz doing here-impregnating French maidservants? That this hopeless wastrel should be his commanding officer was hard to bear.

When the officers had gone, Prophet spoke quietly to Billy and Mortimer. “Lieutenant Carlton-Smith was at Eton until a year ago,” he said. Eton was a posh school: Fitz had gone there too.

Billy said: “So why is he an officer?”

“He was a popper at Eton. It means a prefect.”

“Oh, good,” said Billy sarcastically. “We’ll be all right, then.”

“He doesn’t know much about warfare, but he’s got the sense not to throw his weight around, so he’ll be fine so long as we keep an eye on him. If you see him about to do something really stupid, speak to me.” He fixed his eye on Mortimer. “You know what it’s like, don’t you?”

Mortimer gave a surly nod.

“I’m counting on you, now.”