No Man's Land

by Reginald Hill

  Viney was reaching the same conclusion.

  ‘Christ Almighty, Fritz,’ he said, looking haggard. ‘I think I’ve left it too late. Who’d have thought the bastards would get off their arses at last and start making a real fight of it!’

  Nevertheless, he was still set on returning to the Warren and seeing for himself when Hepworth came into the barn and reported movement to the east.

  Alarmed, the men grabbed weapons and rushed out to see.

  It was Viney, using his -binoculars, who made the first identification.

  ‘It’s them!’ he said. ‘Leastways, it’s Evans. And there’s Blackie. He shouldn’t have come, he’s not in the raiding party!’

  But his indignation that his orders had been disregarded changed to relief, as he saw the extent of the disobedience.

  ‘And there’s Josh too,’ he cried out. ‘Thank Christ! I think they’ve all come!’

  In fact as the men started trickling into the farm it became clear that while this was certainly not the raiding party, it was far from all of the Volunteers.

  Taff Evans explained.

  ‘First night, fog was so thick, it was getting inside the Warren. “Bugger this,” I said, “we’re likely to end up breaking our necks or getting bogged down in an old shell-hole.” So we stayed put, see.

  ‘Meanwhile all hell was breaking loose out there. Next day we realized it was getting closer. Second night was the same, and now we were getting really worried. Some were for going, some for staying. It wasn’t just a question of the raiding party any longer, Viney, it was the lot of us. One or two of the lads were already in a bit of a state, what with the guns and all. Anyway, the vote was for hanging on a bit longer.

  ‘By the time we got to last night, I knew we had to be off out of there. The bloody war was coming right back to us, see! So some of us set off out. Well, we hadn’t got far before we realized the place was crawling with bloody troops! Lucky for us, there was such a state of bloody confusion that we managed to scramble back to the Warren without been taken notice of. We lay doggo for the rest of the night, but come this morning I went up top to take a look-see and what I saw made me realize it was time to be off.’

  He took a deep breath both out of necessity and for dramatic effect.

  ‘I saw a whole fucking company of riflemen running! I mean, running that way.’

  He pointed down the valley.

  ‘They had their officers with ’em and they still had their weapons, but that was enough for me. If the British Army was on the retreat at the double, then Taff Evans wasn’t going to hang about!

  ‘I went back down and told the rest. Them as wanted came with me. There were some who took off in other directions. And a few there were who reckoned they were as safe down the Warren as anywhere, and they’ve stayed. Well, they may be right! We’ve got through to here only because we were fucking lucky and there’s chaos out there. But whether we’ve run far enough or fast enough, I’ve got my doubts.’

  He came to a halt. Lothar looked around. There were between fifteen and twenty men who had come with Evans. They included Fox, Nelson and Groom. Blackie Coleport was crouched in a corner, a private little smile on his lips and his unblinking gaze never leaving Viney. Close by him sat Josh. Lothar had observed a look of sheer delight and relief bloom on Nicole’s face when she realized Josh was in the group, then it had gone out like a star swallowed by drifting cloud and she had disappeared from view.

  Lothar felt angry with her, but knew there was little he could do. A spontaneous show of affection as Josh arrived might have done something to cut through all the knotted emotions that separated the two young people, but the moment was past. At least it was past for Nicole, but there was still time for himself to practise what he preached.

  He went to the corner and squatted down beside Josh. The boy had been looking fairly animated as. Evans spoke, but at Lothar’s approach his face had resumed its old closed-in look and he fixed his eyes on the floor.

  ‘Josh,’ said Lothar. ‘My friend, I am more glad than I can say to see you.’

  He put both his arms around the boy and drew him close. The slim frame tensed and stiffened within his grip, the head sank obstinately lower.

  ‘Josh,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Listen! Now you are here, there is something you must do. Madeleine wants Nicole to go down to the village with the livestock. It will be safer for them there. But she will not go. I think she would go with you, perhaps. Will you take her? I beg you.’

  There was no response. Lothar tightened his grip on the boy.

  ‘Josh, you must!’ he pleaded. ‘Josh, she is pregnant. She is with child.’

  The boy’s body started in his grip like a shocked heart.

  ‘It’s your kid,’ he snarled. ‘You fucking well take care of her!’

  Viney had risen and come to stand close by them, a menacing figure. But he made no effort yet to interfere.

  ‘Yes,’ Lothar said. ‘It is my child. But it is not me she thinks of, Josh. It is not me she puts all her hope of happiness in. Josh, I am nothing to her. She would, I think, gladly kill me if it would gain you for her once more.’

  Slowly the boy’s head came up to look at him.

  He met the questioning gaze unflinchingly, but he suddenly felt like a shabby betrayer before those desperately probing eyes. Was he not simply trying to slip out from under his own responsibilities by this show of noble altruism? What future could there possibly be for a young French girl and an English deserter?

  But now seeing the hope beginning to swim up to the troubled surface of Josh’s face, he felt no doubts. No matter how short a future might appear, it was never too short to be important.

  ‘Remember how you felt when Wilf died,’ he said. ‘Remember that others feel too. And fail, also. Go and see her now, Josh. She is outside, I think. Go to her. Talk, at least.’

  Slowly Josh rose, breaking Lothar’s grip, but holding his hands for a moment as he stood over him.

  ‘Thanks, Lott,’ he said.

  He moved swiftly away.

  Lothar looked up at Viney.

  ‘It is for the best,’ he said.

  ‘Best for who?’ said Viney. ‘Tell me that, Fritz. Best for who?’ And turned and walked slowly away.

  Josh found Nicole in the byre. He had somehow known she would be there, standing close to the very spot where Auguste had fallen with a bullet in his chest. It came to him with a shock like an explosion that what he felt she had done to him was nothing compared with what he had done to her. The greatest, the most unbearable pains can be caused by accident, without malice, without design. He had scarcely thought about her dead brother during the months in the Warren. All his attention had been taken up by his own pain, his own despair. Lothar had reminded him of his own unreal, uncontrollable existence after Wilf’s death, yet he had felt himself unique. In this world of death and horror, he had had the arrogance to feel unique!

  She showed no surprise when he cautiously pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  ‘Bonjour, Josh,’ she said in a small, low voice.

  They stood and looked at each other in the dim light which stole in behind him through the half open door. Through the aperture also came the crash of bursting shells and the rattle of automatic fire, distant as a landrail’s chatter in a neighbouring stubble field, but always coming nearer. This they did not hear but strained tongues to shape and ears to catch the words which could heal or destroy.

  There was no chance of Josh rifling his small store of French and finding the right words and even his English vocabulary seemed empty of the subtle phrases needed to express the turmoil of feelings inside him. As for Nicole, fear of saying a wrong thing, of taking a step in the direction of recrimination and accusation, kept her paralysed.

  Then the cow moved, swinging her heavy hindquarters in response to some minor irritation of the skin, but the result was for all the world like some kindly old aunt, impatient at the indecision of these silly youngsters, n
udging her niece into action.

  The broad hock touched Nicole and she stumbled forward. If she stumbled rather further than either the blow or her own powers of recovery made really necessary, then this was the prerogative of a pregnant woman in her own country who has made up her mind what she wants. As for Josh, he stepped forward to steady her, but found instead he had caught her in his arms, and he did not even have time to be surprised at how easily the right words came and how simple and few they turned out to be.

  6

  The parting was too swift to be sorrowful. That would come later. The afternoon light was fading fast and the distant glooms were continually ripped by jags of fire.

  Josh, dressed in an ill-fitting assortment of Auguste Gilbert’s clothes, mounted the cart with the old artillery ‘hairy’ before and the bewildered cow behind. Nicole crouched at the bottom of the cart, between a small bundle of her belongings and a roughly assembled crate containing the few hens they had been able to round up.

  A few last words, shaking of hands, close embraces. Viney thrust a wash-leather purse into Nicole’s hands. It was bulging with coins and so heavy that some at least must be gold.

  ‘It’s a war loan,’ he said. ‘Hide it. Take care of him.’

  ‘Merci, monsieur, merci! she replied, thrusting the purse down her blouse next to her skin.

  Then Josh slapped the reins on to the rump of the horse, clicked his tongue, and the ramshackle equipage began its halting move down the valley.

  They had an escort, both official and unofficial. Most of the men had decided too that their best bet was to head out before the war overtook them. Lothar, who did not trust them all equally, had viewed this with some concern till Taff Evans had announced he was going too.

  Privately to Lothar he said, ‘Don’t worry, boyo. You’re thinking some of these lads are capable of knocking those young kids over the head and stealing the horse, isn’t it? Well, mebbe you’re right. It’s every man for himself now, that’s the way of things. But I’ll keep close till we get near the village. They’ll come to no harm.’

  Viney had made no effort to prevent this division of his force. Why should he? thought Lothar. This was no time to be thinking in terms of strength of numbers. Once the Warren was abandoned, numbers merely drew attention. It would be the wily – and lucky – individual who survived.

  Lothar was concerned that, if stopped, there was very little chance of Josh passing himself off as a Frenchman. It was Nicole who supplied the answer. The girl was a transformed being, full of life and energy, and that this was a mental as well as a physical revitalization soon became apparent.

  ‘He has Auguste’s clothes,’ she said. ‘So, let him have Auguste’s papers too!’

  It was so simple it might work, thought Lothar. Of course, most of the villagers of Barnecourt would know that Auguste Gilbert was dead and in his grave. But they were not the ones who’d be asking questions. Indeed, with the German advance audibly getting nearer, they’d probably be too concerned with their own safety to worry about anyone else. As for the military, what would they see? A young man, so shell-shocked during his service that he could no longer speak, and with the discharge papers to prove it.

  Still, as he watched the cart bump away down the potholed track, his heart was full of misgivings.

  ‘Perhaps I should have gone too,’ he said aloud.

  ‘No,’ said Viney, who had been absent during the farewells but was now standing beside him.

  ‘No? Why not?’ Lothar demanded angrily.

  The Australian let out a single explosive bellow of laughter.

  ‘Do you think if I didn’t go, I’d have let you go off with them, Fritz?’ he asked. ‘For a clever man, you’re a real thick cunt sometimes.’

  He went back into the barn. Lothar stood a long time, watching till the cart was out of sight and realizing for the first time just how much it had cost Viney to let Josh go.

  It gave Jack Denial no satisfaction whatsoever to know that he had been right and the vast majority of his fellow officers had been wrong. They had relied too heavily on a forecast of the enemy’s tactics which proved inaccurate; a scheme for the movement of reserves and supplies which proved inadequate; but above all, they had relied on the fortitude and altruism and strength of will of the British soldier who, badly treated, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly led, had held the line across Belgium and much of northern France with indomitable courage for three years.

  And now the British Fifth Army was in full retreat. Not an organized withdrawal permitting the enemy to recapture a few hundred yards of no-man’s land, but in many places a full-scale flight leaving holes in the line through which the German army was pouring like water through a dyke.

  Since leaving the Château d’Amblay which was already being hastily evacuated, Denial had had no rest. The roads were chaotic and his men were almost at the point of despair in their efforts to establish some kind of control of the violent and conflicting flow of retreating soldiers, advancing reserves and fleeing civilians.

  He moved from one key point to another, directing Maggs to take their dust-covered motorbike combination across fields and through woods to avoid the cluttered roads.

  He had just used his APM status to bring peace and common sense to a head-on collision between a pair of majors who’d got to the point of arguing seniority, when Maggs who’d gone a little further down one of the roads returned.

  ‘Hope you didn’t leave anything valuable in your billet, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Why’s that, Sergeant-Major?’

  ‘I just saw one of the civvies from Barnecourt in that mob back there. He says Jerry’s come down the river valley from the north, reckons they’ll be in the village by now.’

  ‘As far as that? My God!’ said Denial.

  He stood in thought for a while, then said, ‘Sergeant-Major, round up all of our lads that you can. Start them rounding up any odd bods and stragglers they come across. Also all the guns and ammo they can find.’

  Sergeant-Major Maggs caught his drift instantly, but said, ‘Sir, what about this lot?’

  He indicated the congested crossroads at which they stood.

  ‘Leave one man here,’ said Denial. ‘But let’s face it, Mr Maggs. It’s all right directing traffic, but if we don’t all do something about stopping the enemy, it’ll be German traffic we’re directing in a few more hours, won’t it? So get to it, quick as you can.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Maggs.

  For Josh and Nicole, the journey down from the farm had been slow and perilous. The cart had almost lost a wheel at one point and it was here that the remnants of the Volunteers, far from being the menace that Lothar had feared, had proved invaluable.

  They had shown a strange reluctance to split up, though what safety they could hope for certainly did not lie in numbers. Indeed they seemed almost pathetically keen to keep within view of the cart, as though its presence conferred some kind of civilian respectability upon them. Thus it was easy for Taff Evans to summon a gang of willing helpers to hold up the cart by main force while the repair was effected.

  The delay meant it was thick twilight by the time Barnecourt came into sight. But the village itself was not in darkness. Shafts of light spilled out of doors and windows and there was a noise which sounded almost like drunken merriment audible in the interstices of the gusting wind which had blown up at the fugitives’ backs.

  ‘What’s happening?’ wondered Josh.

  ‘Perhaps the people are packing up to leave, frightened that the Boche are close,’ suggested Nicole.

  ‘Mebbe,’ agreed Josh and urged the horse forward.

  The wind was blowing stronger and stronger, still carrying the noise away from them as they approached, but there was certainly nothing in it of the sound of battle and they did not slow their pace till they were almost at the outskirts of the village.

  The main part of Barnecourt lay on the other side of the tiny river and the leaders of the group of deserters were al
ready crossing the narrow bridge.

  Evans went running up the road behind them shouting to them to wait. It seemed to him that whatever was happening in the village, the sight of a gang of ragged, wild-looking men was not going to be greeted with universal delight. As he ran, the wind suddenly dropped for a moment, and the nature of the hubbub over the bridge became clear.

  It was indeed drunken singing.

  And, devastatingly, the words were German.

  Even as the significance of this hit Evans a crackle of small-arms fire punctuated the serenade. Two of the men on the bridge screamed, twisted and fell, the others scattered, diving for cover down the river bank or among the nearest houses.

  Taff turned and ran back towards the cart.

  ‘Get back! Get back!’ he screamed. ‘They’re here, the Huns are here!’

  Josh did not wait to ask questions. The old horse had not been asked to make many violent manoeuvres since he had last been harnessed to a gun-carriage, but all the old skills remained and in a few moments the cart was facing back up the valley.

  By now the Germans who had fired on the deserters were up at the bridge. They loosed off a volley up the track which drink and darkness did not make very accurate. None of the bullets troubled Josh and Nicole, but behind them Taff Evans threw up his arms, stumbled and fell.

  Nicole, seeing the Welshman fall, let out a cry of alarm but next minute he was on his feet, waving them on. It was a foolish thing to do, but it was not foolishness that gave him the strength, unless courage and self-sacrifice are the prerogatives of fools. Josh must not be allowed to stop for him, this was his only thought, instinctively according the terrified young man the same impulses of loyalty and bravery as he found in himself. The first bullet had ripped through the fleshy part of his thigh, but the next two caught him in the middle of his back and this time he went down into a darkness like that of the eighteen-inch seam he had once worked deep beneath the ravaged ground of the Rhondda.