Now, God be Thanked Read online

  Now, God Be Thanked

  JOHN MASTERS

  To the victims of the Great War, among whom were the survivors

  PEACE

  Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,

  And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,

  With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,

  To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,

  Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,

  Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,

  And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,

  And all the little emptiness of love!

  Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,

  Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,

  Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;

  Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there

  But only agony, and that has ending;

  And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

  Rupert Brooke (1914)

  Contents

  1 Saturday, July 4, 1914

  2 Henley, Saturday, July 4, 1914

  3 Hedlington, Kent: Saturday, July 11, 1914

  4 Hedlington: Sunday, July 12, 1914

  5 Walstone, Kent: Tuesday, July 14, 1914

  6 St Pancras Station, London: Friday, July 17, 1914

  7 London: Saturday, July 25, 1914

  8 Tuesday and Wednesday, August 4 and 5, 1914

  9 Hedlington: Thursday, August 13, 1914

  10 London: Sunday, August 23, 1914

  11 Le Cateau, France: Wednesday, August 26, 1914

  12 New York: Friday, August 28, 1914

  13 At Sea: Monday, September 14, 1914

  14 Hedlington: Tuesday, November 3

  15 Hedlington: Thursday, November 5, 1914

  16 Walstone: Saturday, November 7, 1914

  17 Wellington College, Berkshire: Saturday, November 21, 1914

  18 Near Wytschaete, Belgian Flanders: Wednesday, December 23, 1914

  19 Walstone Park: Friday, January 1, 1915

  20 Hedlington: Saturday, January 16, 1915

  21 Hedlington Race Course: Saturday, February 20, 1915

  22 Hedlington: Saturday, March 13, 1915

  23 Hedlington: Tuesday, March 16, 1915

  24 Walstone: Thursday, April 1, 1915

  25 Flanders: Wednesday, April 21, 1915

  26 England: May, 1915

  27 Cambridge: May, 1915

  28 Hampstead Heath: Whit Monday, May 24, 1915

  29 Near Loos, France: Saturday, September 25, 1915

  30 Hedlington: Saturday, November 6, 1915

  31 Hedlington: Thursday, November 11, 1915

  32 North Atlantic: Thursday, December 2, 1915

  33 Walstone: Friday, December 17, 1915

  34 Christmastide, 1915

  Family Trees

  A Note on the Author

  1 Saturday, July 4, 1914

  As the arc of dawn passes over the steppes of Russian Asia it moves swiftly westward to pour its warmth on a royal and long-established continent – Europe. The sun lightens dark forests of pines, so carefully tended that no fallen branch litters the ground; it sweeps over sandy wastes preserved for hunting birds and beasts; and warms rich soil carefully tilled by husbandmen who had lived in the same cottages, serving the same lords, for centuries; and it illumines smoking factories that speak of vast new wealth and power. Mountains divide this nation from that; but the shining railway lines break through these barriers from the Urals to the Atlantic, to link German factory and Italian vineyard, Dutch port and French Alp, Belgian city and Norwegian meadow. Only England stands apart, aloof behind the grey Channel … of Europe but not in it.

  The land of Europe is deeply shaded by the industriousness of man, and decorated by the creations of his spirit: cathedrals, aqueducts, bridges, statues, hospitals, museums, ripening wheat, darkening grapes on ordered vines. The men and women who populate it speak a score of languages, but for nearly two thousand years they have shared one history, one religion, one tradition of music, one ideal of beauty. There are sixteen kings, but only three republics – Switzerland, France and (since 1910) Portugal. Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia do not exist: some have been dismembered in past wars, some will be created by a war that many feel must soon come.

  Though small in area, Europe draws to it the eyes of the earth, for as in centuries past it proclaims itself the axis of the world, the home of civilization, the seat of power. In Chancery and Palace, Embassy and Court, men, in golden epaulettes or frock coats, crested helmets or silk hats talk of ‘Lebensraum’, ‘spheres of influence’, ‘buffer states’, ‘national interest’, ‘balance of power’, ‘a place in the sun’, ‘Drang nach Osten’, ‘revanche’, ‘two-power doctrine’, ‘interior lines’. Only a divine being could untangle the numberless webs of conflicting desires, fears, and greeds hidden in the webs of oratory; but an intelligent man or woman, and there are many, can see that three sets of opposing forces have created tensions of almost unmanageable proportions. First is the struggle for control of Eastern Europe, pitting Germany and Austria, as the Teuton powers, against Russia, as the protector of all Slavs. Second is the thrust of Germany to escape from its geographical encirclement by creating colonies in Africa and Oceania – a policy which can survive only under the protection of sea power – a sea power which, by becoming reality, must threaten Great Britain. Third is France’s burning desire for revenge for her defeat by Germany in 1870, and the recovery of the two provinces then seized from her, a desire countered by Germany’s own determination to hold what she has won and, if opportunity offers, to destroy for ever France’s power to hinder her grand designs.

  All European nations have standing armies; and nearly all have a system of conscription under which all able-bodied young men serve a year or two with the Colours before entering civilian life where they become the reservists who can, within a couple of weeks, by the process of mobilization, convert the standing armies into nations in arms. From a careful planner’s point of view, the best time to mobilize is after the harvest is in and large numbers of men are freed from the land … to fight. Railways and modern roads give armies the ability to wage autumn and winter campaigns so that a war can be launched in, say, August, and ended, at the latest, by March – in time to release the men back to the land for spring sowing.

  On June 28th, 1914, in the powder keg of Eastern Europe, a Serb schoolboy shot and killed the visiting Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian throne. For a time no one seems to notice that the event touches all the tensions needed to produce a great crisis – it pits Austria (which will be backed by Germany) against Serbia (which will be backed by Russia); it enables France to consider seeking her revanche while Germany is engaged to the east; it enables England to consider destroying the naval threat against her by acting in concert with France and Russia, rather than alone; and it happens when, after due time has been spent in negotiating, the harvest will be in.

  In England, for some weeks, the assassination is not considered an event of great importance. On Saturday, July 4th, 1914, in that island kingdom, the heart of the largest empire the world has yet known, protected by the Channel and a mighty battle fleet, the brilliant ‘season’ is in full swing. The Derby has been run (and won by Durbar II); the Birthday Parade held at Horse Guards (the Colour trooped was that of the 1st Battalion, the Grenadier Guards); the finals of the Men’s and Women’s Singles are in progress at Wimbledon. The nation’s attention is focused on its beaches, playing fields, and rivers – and in particular on the Thames, and the small riverside town of Henley. It is the last day of Henley Royal Re
gatta.

  The Thames here is three hundred feet wide, flowing evenly under the town bridge towards tidewater, London, and the North Sea. The water is twelve feet deep, not diamond clear, but a sheened translucent green, full of swirling weeds, for the river is born in no mountains, but in the honey rock of the Cotswolds, and in its course has already flowed a hundred miles through farm land scored by the ploughing of centuries, under bridges that have heard the creak of Saxon cart wheels, over fords once stained with the blood of the Legions. Water meadows and woodland copses line both banks, backed, on the right, by the rising Berkshire hills. On that side, also, stand the clustered buildings of Remenham Farm and Rectory. At Henley Bridge and town, the left bank is in Oxfordshire, but half a mile downstream, nearly opposite Remenham, it passes into Buckinghamshire. The river is unobstructed and nearly straight for that mile and a half; except that near the lower limit an island – Temple Island, decorated by a little Palladian temple of marble – divides the river into two channels.

  From a point just below Temple Island to a point below Henley Bridge, upstream, is the Henley course, the water and the distance – 1 mile 550 yards – over which all the races of the Regatta are rowed, and have been, with minor modifications, since 1839. The Regatta is held every year at the end of June and the beginning of July, and until recent years ended on a Saturday with the finals of all the events, including the most important, the Grand Challenge Cup, a race for eight-oared boats open to amateur oarsmen from all countries.

  The boomed channel is 150 feet wide. Since the oars of a racing eight make eighteen-foot sweeps on either side, two crews abreast take up seventy-two feet of water. At Henley this leaves ample room for manoeuvre – but not for another boat; so all races here are match races. Between the booms and the bank, especially near the finish, mass the canoes and rowing boats and punts of the spectators, so dense that the water can scarcely be seen between them, only the coloured parasols, the women’s long pastel dresses, the men’s white flannels, coloured blazers and straw hat ribbons. On the banks there are stands for more spectators; and the house that is home of Leander Club, and the marquees for the Stewards, and for the shells, and tall wooden boxes on stilts above the booms, from where the races are judged; and the lawns and rambling buildings and giant trees of Phyllis Court; and the narrow towpath on the Berkshire bank, alive with coaches riding bicycles or horses, and young men running and shouting encouragement to the crews representing their school or college or club.

  This day, in 1914, the final of the Grand was to be between Harvard University and the Union Boat Club of Boston. The start was set for 4.15 p.m. Preceding the Grand was the final of the Diamond Challenge Sculls, between Giuseppe Sinigaglia of Italy, and Colin Stuart of Cambridge; and before the Diamonds was the Ladies’ Plate, between two Cambridge boats – Pembroke and First Trinity.

  Guy Rowland resettled his left arm more comfortably in the sling and winced as pain stabbed up from the wrist. It wasn’t his bowling arm, but even so he wouldn’t be able to bowl next Saturday, as he had hoped, and as Quack had half promised. Well, no good crying about it. There’d be other sunny Saturdays, other batsmen to face and outwit. He yawned slightly and stretched his shoulders. Shouldn’t have eaten so much cold salmon at lunch; or had that second glass of white wine.

  ‘Tired, Guy?’ the man next to him said, smiling.

  ‘No, Uncle,’ he answered. ‘A little sleepy, that’s all.’

  Beyond his uncle a fair-haired sturdy boy of his own age – seventeen – cupped his hands and shouted across to the nearer racing shell, ‘Go it, Charlie! You’ll beat ’em.’

  No. 5 in the First Trinity boat, its stern held at the start line, raised one hand off his oar in acknowledgement and then settled down as he saw the umpire put his megaphone to his mouth in the motor launch Enchantress, its screw churning slowly to hold it in place against the current.

  The fair-haired boy cupped his hands to shout again, but other, slightly younger boy in the group muttered audibly, ‘Silence in the pig market…’

  Dick Yeoman looked round, frowning; but Guy said, ‘You’d better be quiet, Dick. They’ll be off any moment.’

  The umpire shouted. ‘Are you ready? … GO!’ The maroon banged deafeningly, the men in the punts let go of the stern posts, the crews bent to their oars. Water splashed as oars dug deep, riggers and stretchers creaked, rowlocks rumbled, greased slides trundled under straining bodies, coxswains’ voices rose in urgent cadence ‘Oo-one … two-oo … three-ee …!’, spectators shouted and cheered. Dick Yeoman began running up the towpath towards the distant tower of Henley Church, yelling, ‘Trinity! Trinity!’

  The boats disappeared behind Temple Island, and the younger boy called to the lone girl in the group, ‘Come on, Stella, do you good to run.’

  Stella Cate pouted and waved a hand. ‘Too hot – besides, I don’t have a brother in the race, like Dick. I don’t care who wins.’

  ‘But you think the Pembroke stroke is very handsome, don’t you? You’re sweet on him, aren’t you, sis?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Laurence. I haven’t spoken a word to him. I’ve never seen him before. And which is stroke?’

  ‘Liar! You …’

  ‘Now, now,’ Tom Rowland said, ‘let’s walk up at a gentlemanly – and ladylike – pace, watch the finish of the Diamonds, perhaps, and then come back here for the Grand.’

  ‘Jolly good idea, Uncle,’ Guy said, slowing his pace. One good thing about rowing was that it usually took place in pleasant surroundings, he thought; but then, so did cricket. And rowing didn’t have much finesse: either you were faster than the other fellows, or you weren’t … His Uncle Tom was striding after Dick Yeoman, several yards ahead. His cousin Stella fell in beside him, a picture of loveliness in a pale green organdie dress and wide-brimmed, flowered straw hat. The crews were far ahead now, the barking of the coxswains growing fainter every moment. Guy slowed still more. The sun was hot, the breeze fresh, and like Stella he didn’t really care who won. Besides, you needed to look where you were going, to avoid the swan droppings strewn thick along the towpath.

  At the foot of the Phyllis Court lawn, on the Oxfordshire bank, overlooking the river by the wall, Richard Rowland sat in a striped deck chair, his wife Susan beside him on his right and his unmarried sister Alice Rowland on his left. He had been coming to Henley every year since he was a wetbob at Eton, and that was thirty years ago now. A pair of small tables was set before them with teapots, cucumber sandwiches, silver jugs of milk and hot water, cups, spoons, and sugar. Alice was pouring – Susan had been born Susan Kruze, of San Francisco, and no English lady could be persuaded that she knew how to pour tea. They were right, Richard thought, watching his wife put lemon in her tea, with no sugar; barbarous way to treat tea, he thought, though to be honest this wasn’t Broken Orange Pekoe. He glanced across the river at the Leander lawn and the Stewards’ private Enclosure – a sea of pink or blue rowing caps. He thought that the only pink cap not over there was the one on his own head, for he was a member of Leander, having rowed for Cambridge in his time.

  Alice said, ‘Are you going to have a holiday before September, Richard? You’ll be kept quite busy afterwards, will you not?’

  He replied, ‘No, taking over the plant will be holiday enough. And I don’t think I’ll have to sit there, right on top of everything, for more than a year. By then I’ll have made any changes I want, and be sure everything’s in order and running the way I want it to. Then I’ll take Susan off for a trip – to America, we think. She’s been pressing me to go ever since we got married.’

  ‘I want to see my father and mother again,’ Susan said.

  Richard took off his thick-lensed glasses and polished them. To him, now, the scene was no more than a tinted blur, as he said, ‘We’ll go to San Francisco, of course, but I really want to see Mr Ford’s factory at Detroit, and work out how we can apply his methods at Rowland’s … if it’s possible at all.’

  ‘Do you think the Gover
nor will like that?’ Alice said.

  Richard replied, ‘I’ve been waiting nineteen years for Father to retire, and when he does, I must do what I think best, for these days … not what he thought best, for those days. How is he, by the way?’

  ‘Resting, with Mother. He thought he’d be down for tea, but he obviously isn’t. That was quite a nasty shock for both of them, especially Mother.’

  ‘Being thrown out of a cab can be serious for anyone, let alone people of their age.’

  ‘They’ll be down for the Ball tonight, even if only for an hour or two. Neither of them would miss that for anything … Here are the crews!’

  Richard jumped to his feet, putting on his glasses, and shouting, ‘Trinity! Trinity!’

  The two shells came on fast, the rhythms of the plunging oars and bow-stringed bodies hypnotic in their strength and speed. The scattered shouts fused into a low roar. The bows flashed by and Richard sank back, a disgusted look on his face. He took off his glasses and polished them crossly. ‘Pembroke by two and a half lengths. Well, better luck next year … where are the others? Tom and the boys went down to the start with Stella, I know, but where are Margaret and Fiona?’

  His sister answered, ‘They had lunch in Leander with Cantley and Arthur, but that should have been over long since. Shall I go and find them? It would be nice if we could all watch the Grand together, and the crews will be going down any time now. I hear they are both very fast. It ought to be a good race.’

  ‘If some beastly suffragette doesn’t jump into the river in front of them, the way that woman ran out on to the Derby course last year,’ Richard said. ‘Downing the King’s horse! Women who’d do that are a disgrace to the country.’

  ‘That poor woman is also dead,’ Alice said gently.

  Richard muttered, ‘And no British crew in the final of the Grand, for the first time in history! That’s a real disgrace.’

  Susan looked at her Regatta programme and said, ‘The Diamonds come before the Grand. The Italian is a giant of a man. Did you see him?’