Peter Jameson

7–14 June 1917

Battle of Messines (1917)

PART TWENTY-THREE

The first of July, nineteen hundred and sixteen, which turned the British front opposite Albert from a picnic-ground to a cemetery, reacted promptly on the hitherto quiescent valleys below Messines. The words “maximum activity,” scribbled by a thousand telephonists, thumped on a thousand typewriters, stripped tarpaulin from the 12-inch naval gun on the railway by the cross-roads, unroofed its sister in the canvas house opposite Divisional Baths, woke howitzer and eighteen-pounder in their pits beneath the trees, mortar and machine-gun in their hiding-places among the trenches. To these, the Boche replied with his eight-inch at Oostaverne, his 77’s behind the ridge, and a peculiarly deadly Minenwerfer which ran on rails and changed position whenever fired at.

PART THIRTY-ONE

For the world, war went on; but for Peter it had stopped dead. He saw it from afar: spectator and not participant. His lack of interest in it amazed him almost as much as the glorious credulity of the civilians with whom he occasionally discussed its official versions—perversions. Finally, in a fit of ungovernable annoyance over a picture of “cheery wounded” after the battle of Messines, he barred the topic altogether. Patricia made no objection; but the children demurred furiously.