Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [138]
29 June
Front line for going on three weeks, don’t know how much longer the men can stand it. One private a week older than I am shot himself in the foot yesterday, trying for his Blighty. Only instead of a boat home, he’s in a hole, having missed his aim and hit an artery. Bled to death before they could get him on a stretcher. Probably just as well—it was obvious what he’d done, he’d have been court-martialled for it, and considering the current state of the fighting, probably been shot to discourage others from trying the same. Backs-to-the-wall time, there’s no doubt.
Pray God watch over all VAD drivers. Especially those with green eyes.
15 July
No doubt they’re partying in Paris today, dancing in the streets outside Aunt Iris’s apartment. Not too many bottles of champagne here. Plenty of Bastille Day fireworks, though. Had a blessed three days off the line, baths, warm food, the lice baked out of my clothes, and a chance to see Hélène. She managed to trade with another girl and we sat on a bombed-out building wall and talked and talked while the half moon lay over the poor wounded countryside. I told her about Justice Hall, how I want to show her every corner of it. The Pater’ll have a fit. Tried not to let H. know how much of a fit he’d have; time enough for that.
23 July, near mid-night
If we lose this bloody awful war, it won’t be because of the fighting men, it’ll be due to the incredible stupidity of the higher-ups. Still can’t believe it—full moon, huge thing brighter than a whole string of Very lights, and down comes the order to take out a wiring party. Insanity! Absolute, blithering idiocy. The men went to ice when they heard it, a sure sentence for the death of ten good men. But they were willing. They’d have done it, for me and for their fellows, but I was having none of it. The order had obviously been sent weeks before and gone astray. Even the daftest old general in London wouldn’t send out a wiring party under those circumstances—and when the line’s shifting daily and we hardly bother shoring up trenches because we’ll be out of ’em in a week? Why wire here at all. Nuts, I said, putting on my best Yank accent. Nuts to you, my men are standing down.
26th
I cannot fathom this. I can’t begin to understand. I’m going to wake up now and find it’s all one of those loopy dreams. They can’t be serious.
29th
This has gone beyond a joke. All right, I could have handled it better, and I understand that they have to stamp on anything that might loose the men from discipline. But this extreme a reaction? They’ll look like greater fools when the next level up sees what’s happening and sweeps it away.
The things they said in the so-called trial. I was so flabbergasted I could scarcely summon answers. “Fomenting a mutiny”? Lord, if anything the exact reverse—teaching the men that they can trust their officers not to issue insane orders. It’s a fragile trust, yes, so all the more reason to use common sense.
30th
Spent all the night shivering in the heat. I’m in an avalanche. I’m in a train going for a cliff. I’m going to be forced to bring in the Influence. Shameful admission of defeat, to drag in the family name, but I can’t see how else to stop the machinery. Maybe I should just take my punishment, even if it’s being strapped to a wheel for twenty-one days. Even if it’s gaol, surely I can do that? Being stripped of rank would be the worst. Oh, Hélène, what will you do when you find out? God, I hope I can continue to hide behind this name, to keep all this from the parents.
I keep thinking I’ll wake up. I don’t.
1 August
The Maj. appeared, late last night. Just heard about it, made him insane