Bridging the Gulf (Aka Engulfed)

by Malcolm Hollingdrake

  The kettle soon boiled and she sat in a chair, feet curled up tightly, sipping at the steaming hot tea and viewing the damp world. Since her return from Cyprus she had come to terms with all that had happened. She had, after the initial trauma, remained philosophical and the police had supported with counselling. However, the news of Roy's death had been devastating, particularly as it was so out of keeping with his general lifestyle. In her heart of hearts she had suspected some foul play but of that she would never be fully sure. The official report suggested Roy had been mugged and that either by design or accident he had fallen over the bridge. The Cyprus police would make enquiries but she knew that they would lead to nothing. Her return to work had given her the necessary distraction that she needed to overcome her loss and her friends had rallied round. The legal aspects were handled by Louise and it appeared Roy had left everything to Joan, both houses and the contents of two insurance policies.

  The sound of the letter box and the crash of the paper on the hall floor broke her thoughts. She particularly enjoyed the time with the paper at the weekend, it was a relaxing moment to savour. It was the headline that shocked. A group of Gulf War veterans, known as ‘The Stormers’, a small group in contrast to the 1,000 who had registered with the Ministry of Defence as suffering from the illnesses associated with their brief service in the Gulf, had taken out writs against the Ministry of Defence claiming compensation. However, this was only the advance party and should they be successful, then the floodgates to compensation for all would, they hoped, naturally follow. Earlier in the year, lawyers had completed their research and presented their evidence and now, according to the headline, had been successful in their fight. It appeared that the MOD admitted to errors in both the allocation of major drugs and a cavalier attitude to the supervision of insecticides.

  It was the spokesman for ‘The Stormers’ comment that made her heart stop, made her re-read the passage:

  We have been fighting for years but proceedings are expensive. We have been supported by many generous financial gifts; we’ve even recently received a donation of £2,000,000 pounds from a foreign supporter with the instruction that it should be used to help the families of those who have already lost loved ones. It is such a generous gift and we would like to thank all those who continue to support our struggle for recognition and compensation.

  Immediately Joan knew where the money had come from and she remembered that Roy had always tried to put his friends and colleagues first, but this? Could he really have planned all of this? Could this have been his goal all along?

  She looked at the drizzle and grey cold outside, the dark clouds low in the lightening sky and remembered what Roy had told her about the desert weather on the night before he was injured. She remembered the warmth of his smile and it seemed to lift her; she read the words again and smiled. Maybe he had won after all.

  I hope you enjoyed my first novel, ‘Bridging the Gulf’.

  To commemorate the centenary of the conclusion of WW1 I wrote a short story entitled ‘The Penultimate Man’. I thought it might be fitting to add it here to help us remember the sacrifices paid by our armed forces.

  This story is taken from my collection of short stories ‘Shadows from the Past’.

  The Penultimate Man

  Bells rang in his ears and people shouted words that he didn’t understand as they thrust flowers into his hands. Girls tried to kiss him but he only had one person on his mind, Emilie was the one he must see. His 303 was haphazardly thrown across his shoulder and only occasionally did he experience discomfort from his old wound. His greatcoat flapped at his legs like an eager dog. He had not felt so excited since his arrival in 1914. The road to the bridge seemed to stretch away for ever as he pounded the cobbled road of Ville-sur-Haine; on each side people had gathered, their homes in disarray from days of shelling but still jubilant on hearing the welcome news. More people, more bells and more cheers. It was soon to be over. His body seemed distant, numb, and his heart beat in tune with the bells. Tears of joy ran down his cheeks and suddenly his effort was rewarded, he was at the bridge that stretched across the Canal du Centre. He knew she would be near the chateau gates, away from the dressing station, enjoying the celebrations. Through blurred, watery eyes he spotted her. He called her name, waving one hand full of tightly held flowers. As he called again she turned, a smile forming on her lips as her hand shot into the air.

  ***

  The needle produced a burning sensation as it traced the tail of the small bird that seemed to follow the line of his thumb to his wrist. The blue ink, mixed with the deep red of beading blood, appeared to make the tracing more purple than he had imagined, distorting his idea of the image he had been promised. It was only when the rough cloth held in the tattooist’s hand wiped away the residue that Henry saw the outline of the small bird, the painful love token he had promised her he would take back to the Western Front.

  He had been there before, of course, on a harrowing number of occasions. Each time seemed worse than the last. It was the knowledge of what was to come that proved more of a nemesis. Gratefully, his memory seemed to conveniently numb the horrors and he was only left with an innate sense of self-preservation. He had an almost blasé approach to the next day. “What will be, will be,” he often heard the cynical voice whisper.

  There was only one visit to the Western Front that he recalled with great clarity: he remembered his first, excited encounter in 1914 and he smiled to himself at his naivety. Mons didn’t sound as attractive as he had imagined the distant continent to be, but at the dawn of war and in the light of the rising sun, he remembered how beautiful the area really was when the morning mist gently blotted the landscape into a blur, smudging the sharp outlines like an artist working with pastel. It had, he thought, a certain magic, a mesmerizing mystery all of its own. The air smelled differently back then, fresh and clean, unpolluted by the stench of the bodies of troops and horses. The trees, he recalled, ran militarily straight along the horizon before gently falling into the valley where late corn dipped its laden head as if in homage to the dawn and birdsong mixed mellow and comforting. He gently shook his head as he remembered feeling angry that this beauty brought about a dilution of his enthusiasm for the anticipated fight. Was this it? Was this the killing ground, the place where the Bosche had killed and pillaged? The fight, the war, ‘that would be over by Christmas’ they had told all recruits, bringing about an eagerness to join the fight, seemed so remote. Only the news of the occasional confrontation suggested it had started.

  Swiftly, the riders of the Apocalypse had come; within their wake, danger, pain, suffering and death concealed behind many early morning golden veils and in their turn, the deadly clouds of poison gas. He knew that now only too well as it took only a short time for the cork from the innocent looking Belgian bottle to be removed and for the Genie to turn this idyll into a monumental hell.

  His reflections changed as he looked at the red, swollen hand that appeared to be supporting the blue ink swallow, his bird of love, and his thoughts quickly turned to Emilie. In the bleakness he had found her. Unable to communicate, their eyes had spoken, fleetingly at first, like timid birds, but as trust and confidence developed, so too had their eye contact.

  Henry soon realized that the success of life was chance. Even as a naïve recruit full of enthusiasm and eagerness for the fight, he had begun to realize that the bullets and the bombs were not specific but casual, indiscriminate, random reapers of death. It mattered little to a bullet; your status in life meant nothing, your previous profession, nothing, religion or persuasion nothing, your bravery or your timidity had little to do with the daily roll call of death. Survival was determined by one element, the element of chance. It was some greater being’s toss of a coin or roll of the dice. However, he believed strongly in luck. He was superstitious and always performed the same personal ritual each morning and nobody could tell him anything differently. So far, his life and his limbs were intact, unlike many of the
others who had been but inches away from him when they lost eyes, arms, faces and more often than not, life itself. This was his fortune and how long it should last was only in the hands of his God. He now had a new amulet and he touched the tender skin. It was chance too that had brought him to Emilie.

  The first day of July 1917, after a week of heavy rain, seemed to last for ever. Although severe bombardments had taken place, the heavy shelling had failed to cut and blast away the barbed wire as intended and much of the German trench system was still in place. As a consequence, on that day the British army suffered more casualties than any other day in its history. The machine guns reaped a deadly harvest. The toll of the bell was not enough. When you survived that day there was another and then another. In the trenches, the rain was either wet or deadly; each in its turn took its toll. It was what the generals, safe, warm and far away expected. “The path of duty is the way to glory”, were the words that tolled in tune with the Grim Reaper’s bell.

  It was three days after the worst day of his existence that Henry’s life changed. It was his turn for respite, which meant carrying the dead and wounded away from the front. His billet for the next forty-eight hours would be a barn. It was a place to rest, to eat and to write letters home, a haven where some degree of normality might be snatched. It was hard to put into words what these days away from the fighting meant to the battle fatigued, the scared and the wounded. Each saw them as a different blessing or a curse, a place to find oneself again, for nerves and immediate fear to evaporate. To some it was the start of their journey home. For many, life had changed. Excitement, spirit and fight were replaced by fear, exhaustion, uncertainty and the worst disability.

  For Henry, it would prove to be serendipity; after all, it was in the relative beauty of his temporary home that he first saw her. She was chasing an errant chicken that had fled the coop housed within the barn. He watched her from his own roost, high in the hayloft like some voyeur, some higher being. She cornered the cockerel but it fluttered, squawked and flew amongst the rafters before landing next to Henry who quickly seized his moment and the bird. It was then that their eyes first met.

  Henry climbed down the ladder, the bird expertly hanging by two locked feet held by strong hands, its wings fluttering in protest at its lost freedom. He proffered the protesting bird with extended arm. Neither spoke as the gift was exchanged but he was sure he saw her smile. Was it his clumsiness or his agility to catch and retrieve the bird? He knew not, nor did he care … she had smiled and that had injected him with a warmth of humanity that he had lost, alongside his youth, out in the muddy trenches. Emilie put the bird inside the wire and turned to leave. Just before she went through the small aperture cut within the large barn doors, she turned to look at Henry. It was there again but this time he could see it clearly. His heart jumped and that warm glow filled his body one more time. He knew he must see her again before he returned to the hell that was the trenches.

  Elfi Behrans had met Albert Price in the Black Forest near Freiburg in the summer of 1894. The farmer’s daughter became enthralled with the handsome young English traveller who stayed on the farm that summer helping with the harvest. When he left, she left too. She travelled secretly with him back to England, to Southport, to begin their life together. Henry was born in 1896, to this German mother and English father, brother to Inga. It was with his sister that they learned from their mother the skill of making the ‘corn mother’ or ‘dolly’ and now Henry started to weave a special gift for this girl before he had to return to the front. He shaped it like a small bird, twisting the stems and plaiting the shape. For the first time for as long as he could remember he felt that his life might have a future, a purpose.

  He wrote his name on a small piece of paper before tying it to the corn bird and attaching it to the coop before he left; it was his token, his gift for those brief moments of normality. He could smell the field kitchen and he suddenly felt hungry.

  ***

  The irregular, white-hot piece of shrapnel emerged from the mud after separating from the exploding shell-case before continuing its journey through the cordite-fumed air. It burned its way into Henry’s shoulder, tearing cloth and flesh with ease before boring through muscle to find greater resistance on striking bone, changing its projection significantly. Within seconds it exited part way down his arm, rending a larger exit wound, and from there it simply ploughed impotently into the churned soil.

  As he lay on his back in the mud, knocked there by the force of the explosion and cascade of clods of earth, he noticed that his webbing and uniform were torn and a small, dark area of blood spread. He moved his hand and felt the torn material. He tried to move his shoulder but that proved more difficult. He decided to roll into the crater made by the explosion, out of sight of the enemy guns, and investigate the numbness of his arm. Water already sat in the very bottom and the remnants of an arm lay partly buried, the gold ring contrasting with the brown soil. His heart fluttered and he immediately looked at both his hands; luck again had played its part. The grey sky above was where he sent his whispered, small prayer of thanks.

  ***

  The dressing station was clean and the smell pure. Henry’s senses had decreased in sensitivity since his arrival at the beginning of the war. He could now tolerate the stench of rotten and burning flesh, the almond odour of gas, the stink that bubbled from the duckboards of the trenches but this fragrance, this subtle incense of cleanliness, proved difficult to comprehend. It was as if he had enclosed himself in a defensive wall and something gentle sought entry. The white bandaging and the clean clothes also proved an anathema to him but it was here in these strangely hostile surroundings that he saw her again. Briefly. She passed the passageway that led to the dining room of a large chateau, now the temporary first-aid post, and another sense concealed deep in his soul brought him to an abrupt halt. He was immediately alive again.

  When he turned, holding his injured arm, his heart fluttered again. Above his bed, as if a protecting presence, he saw the corn bird.

  The following morning, she was at his bedside, organizing and arranging, straightening sheets and checking his temperature. Their eyes danced and smiled. He turned and looked at the bird as she rested her hand on his.

  “Merci,” she said as her eyes smiled. “My name is Emilie.”

  Her broken English made him smile back. She turned, removing a small enamelled dish from his bedside table. It was then that he noticed the small posy of flowers.

  After a week he was well enough to sit in the garden. He was able to move his arm; the wound was healing well. They met every day and although language was an initial barrier, bit-by-bit their understanding of each other and their love grew. She put the corn bird into his breast pocket and kissed him.

  “Sois sauf.”

  One particular warm day she met him by the bench in the garden, accompanied by another young man. Henry’s heart fluttered, partly out of jealousy and partly because it always did when he saw her. She perched on the garden bench. Henry could see the facial injuries of the young man who offered his hand.

  “Andrew Lloyd. I’ve heard about you from this lovely young lady. I’m sorry to intrude but she asked me to be here to act as her mouth and ears. I speak the language and she thought it would be good for you both to chat.”

  Henry could see the excitement in her eyes as he learned more about her. It was hard telling a stranger just how he felt about Emilie and she him but it worked and Andrew soon became known as Cupid by many of the other casualties. He laughed at the requests for him to find them a lovely, Belgian lass.

  Over the coming months, whenever possible they met, sometimes only briefly as he travelled back from the front. Slowly, as the face of war changed, the meetings grew less frequent but their love grew stronger.

  The war seemed to be never-ending but the rumour mill suggested a light at the end of the tunnel and that it was all soon to end. The years of death and destruction, the agony and pain were to cease. It was
said that the German powers were in consultation and if all went well a ceasefire could be imminent. Henry felt suddenly invisible, he had been through the worst and survived, but more than that, he had found the one woman he truly loved. An energy came to him as if he had been revitalized and he thought about the one thing in the world he had to survive for: Emilie. He let his mind wander as he remembered that special moment when he and Emilie had explored each other’s bodies for the first time, innocent youths naïvely caressing and forging their own intimacy. And even in the sodden trench whilst on watch he felt his body stirring.

  “Bloody hell, Henry, asleep on duty? You were miles away then. I’ve come to relieve your watch.”

  Henry, started at the intrusion, looked at his relief and smiled. “Made me jump, Tom. All’s quiet. Let’s hope it stays that way. Do you believe the rumours that it could soon be over … maybe even by Christmas?”

  “Heard it before, mate. Show me the holes is what I say, show me the bloody holes. Tom by name, Thomas by nature. I don’t know if I can do much more. Get some rest.”

  He inhaled on his cigarette.

  Henry was just collecting his things. He saw Tom pop his head over the parapet. “Yep all seems …” He didn’t finish. The crack of the rifle had found its mark and Tom slumped back into the trench like a hessian sack of potatoes, a jagged hole where his left eye should be. Henry let out an involuntary scream as he stared at the dark, oozing chasm where blood mixed with the slippery mud. He then noticed the glowing cigarette hanging from his lip, smoke rising like the man’s soul heading heavenward.

  “You bloody, bloody fool!”

  He picked up the periscope and looked out across no-man’s land but he saw nothing. It was a lucky shot from the alert enemy, attracted by the glowing tip of a careless cigarette. One forgetful moment, that was all it took, that was all it ever took. He tapped his breast pocket and whispered another prayer of thanks.