Liam's Story

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  There was nothing relaxed about their first route march. Eight miles of cobbled roads, on soft feet in relatively new boots, was painful. Their journey was south-east this time, through the town of Bailleul to billets in a series of farmhouses off the Armentieres road. With fifty other men Liam was directed to a walled enclosure of house and farm buildings. In the midst of the yard, assaulting their nostrils even in the crisp, cold air of that frosty afternoon, was a midden, a huge, sunken pit full of manure. It was something of a shock, as was their accommodation in the nearby barn, especially to those naive enough to have expected beds and clean sheets in the farmer’s best rooms. Whatever spare beds existed in the farmhouse were allocated to their officers.

  Remembering Gallipoli, Liam laughed at the twitching noses around him. ‘Better than a hole in the ground,’ he declared, shrugging off his weighty pack, ‘and at least the straw’s clean.’

  Although it had seemed a temporary resting place, they were at the farm for ten days, days which were given over to intensive training. There were lectures on gas attacks and a necessary exercise in the use of gas helmets. Tear-gas bombs were exploded to illustrate the effects on the unprotected, and then to give the inexperienced confidence in those hideous face-masks, a cylinder of something more deadly was opened in a trench while the helmeted troops walked through it.

  The machine-gunners were put through a fresh series of courses on the stripping, mounting and firing of the heavy Vickers machine-guns. Their instructor was at pains to remind them, frequently, of the importance of care in filling the belts. Unless every cartridge was correctly in its place, he said, the gun would jam; and as Liam well new, that kind of carelessness cost lives. Once a gun stopped firing, and the enemy had its position, no quarter would be given. Machine-gunners were not taken prisoner: they were killed.

  Amidst the hectic activity, the lectures, demonstrations and tests, Liam thought often of Robin and wondered where he was.

  It was some time since letters had reached him, and he was alert for news of the Green Howards. He missed his brother, was aware as never before of a need to see him face to face, to touch him, even hold him for a moment. It was, he supposed, a reflection of the loneliness he had felt since losing his companions from Dandenong. They had been like family, and since then he had had no particular friends. He was closest to the men of his machine-gun team, and his affection for Matt and Jack, Smithy and Carl – and even for Vic, the cocky youngster who made up the sixth member of the team – was general and undiscriminating. For any one of them he would have risked his life, but personal attachment was a thing of the past. Liam could no longer say, as he had once done of Ned, this man is my friend. Since Ned there had been too many deaths.

  His frustration was Sergeant Keenan. Mostly, Liam tried not to provoke him, because the older man had the power to retaliate in dozens of irritating ways, and small irritations were always the most maddening. But the antipathy between them was strong, and much as Liam tried to contain it, Keenan seemed determined to draw it out. At times, Liam wanted to hit him hard, to drag him to his feet and tell him that there was a war going on and they were supposed to be fighting on the same side; if they could not pull together in a common cause, how on earth could they hope to win?

  But he knew it was pointless. Keenan, with three stripes on his sleeve, had the upper hand.

  He was so disliked, Liam began to wonder what would happen when they got into the trenches; in the heat of battle it was not unknown for old scores to be settled permanently, and who was to know whence the bullet came? Despite his loathing, Liam was not even tempted. When the time came for Keenan, fate would decide his end, and if there was any justice at all, he thought, it would be sooner rather than later.

  By mid-April, they were on their way to billets nearer the front line. The weather, which seemed to have been warming up for spring, changed its mind that day. Cart tracks and unpaved country lanes were quickly churned to mud, while from a leaden sky the wind whipped cruel flurries of sleet, stinging their faces, making what might have been a pleasant journey across country into a bitter slog.

  Erquinghem seemed a haven of civilization after that march. It was a small but busy industrial town, all slate roofs and tall, red-brick buildings, its broad streets boasting a plethora of small cafes and restaurants. As soon as the men were billeted they were out again, eager to sample whatever was on offer.

  Gun drill and firing on practice ranges was interrupted only to familiarize the men with the trenches. Over the following week they went in small groups to view the front line in several places, and as a bonus came to know the string of villages and small towns which followed the course of the meandering River Lys.

  Easter came late that year, not until the third week of April. Good Friday had been as wet and miserable as its predecessors, but the Sunday dawned like a promise of summer. Church parade, on that glorious Easter morning outside a ruined farmhouse on the edge of Fleurbaix, was attended by most of the battalion. Once the service was over, Liam was aware of nothing more than a need to escape.

  He had money in his pocket and the rest of the day free. With barely more than a glance and a wave at his companions, he crossed the bridge and set off in a westerly direction along the riverside. The sun was warm, releasing all the heady scents of spring. In his old life that yearly miracle had been taken very much for granted, but with the scorched, dry memory of Egypt still clear in his mind, Liam found a sensual pleasure in this subtle fragrance of earth and flowers and new leaves. In the midst of destruction it was like a blessing from God, a blessing he was not sure anyone deserved.

  After almost a month, it still amazed him to see fields like the one beyond the hedgerow, recently ploughed and sown, and in meadows nearby, cows munching contentedly while shells ploughed fields just a few miles away. Here people lived on the brink of death, tending their farms with sandbags stacked against the direction of the guns, and windows shuttered against the blast. Just up the road to the east, half of Armentieres was devastated, while in the other half lived families who still went to work, to school, to church on Sundays. It lent an incongruous air of normality to what was surely a highly abnormal situation.

  He supposed the war had become a fact of everyday life to local people; but there was danger in that acceptance, and danger to the new soldiers amongst them. No matter how strongly they were urged to remember the close proximity of the German guns, and the keen eyes of enemy spotter planes crossing the lines, it was easy to be lulled into forgetfulness. In this lush land full of food and water and friendly faces, it was too easy to relax, to march, singing, down the centre of a road to billets in nearby houses, to stand outside smoking and talking, and forget the eyes that watched and marked every movement.

  Yesterday, Easter Saturday, two billets near Fleurbaix had been shelled to oblivion.

  He found himself in Sailly, amongst villagers returning home from Easter services and idling soldiers from other parts of the line. He nodded, exchanged the odd greeting, and continued on his way. Beyond the village, where he had never been before, he found a small military cemetery beside the road. Most of the graves were British ones, but already there were Australians too. Between the rows of wooden crosses were flowers, wild hyacinths and narcissi growing by the older graves, and on some of the most recent, bunches of daisies and anemones. Taking off his hat, he walked the rows, reading every name, softly repeating each one like a litany of prayer.

  When he returned to Erquinghem it was late afternoon. The place where he had eaten the night before was quiet. Two British soldiers were drinking themselves into a stupor in the corner, and a group of Australians, having finished their meal, were preparing to leave. There was no one behind the bar, and he did not expect to see the girl who had been serving last night.

  When she appeared to take his order, something inside him responded instantly. Although he was hungry, he ordered a beer first, and begged her to sit at his table. For a moment she hesitated; then, with a glance ov
er her shoulder, poured herself a mineral water and sat down.

  He felt ridiculous then, with nothing to say; at least, he could think of plenty in English, but nothing he could translate, adequately, into French. So he drank his beer and looked at her. She was fine-boned, with a delicate, pointed face and a certain pertness about the mouth and eyes which offered challenge. For the first time since those early days in Egypt, Liam was ready to accept it, was possessed of a need and a confidence which far outstripped anything felt before. He wanted her. His body was on fire with the need to know and touch and conquer. He longed for the ease of softness and release.

  His thoughts were so violent that a corner of his mind, still coolly detached, was appalled. He dragged his eyes away, shading them with his hand lest he terrify the girl into leaving.

  But she was older and wiser than that. Protected she might be – he had seen her mother glowering at him the evening before – but intuition and two years of passing soldiery had ensured a certain loss of innocence. She took his trembling fingers between her own, and made him look at her. Dark hazel eyes softened into sympathy. With a mixture of broken English and slow, clear French, she told him that she understood; she was sorry, it was not possible, but she understood.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, softer now, the violence abating, his desire for her still there, but under control.

  ‘No. No regret.’ Slim shoulders shrugged, and she smiled, eyes twinkling. ‘Beer?’

  ‘Yes – please.’ He lit a cigarette, sucking the smoke in hungrily. It helped a little.

  With the glass on the table she faced him, fingers interlaced, her eyes reading his expression more clearly than the words he longed to say.

  ‘You are sad.’

  Liam almost laughed at that. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes. Today – where?’

  ‘Where did I go? Walking – to Sailly.’ And then he remembered and his smile disappeared. ‘To the cemetery.’

  ‘Your friends?’

  Liam shook his head, dragging more smoke into his lungs, aware, now that she had pinpointed it, of the utter desolation which had possessed him then. He knew now, as she probably did, why he had wanted her so violently; why, if he was truthful, he still wanted her now. It was to prove that he was still alive, and more than that, to know the joy of making love to a woman before he quit this world forever. Except he did not love her, he hardly knew her. She was just a pretty girl with a come-hither smile.

  Monday was fine and devoted to training; Tuesday, the 25th, was the first anniversary of their landing at Anzac Cove. The Brigade mustered that day for an inspection by General Walker, and as though to remind the Australians of what had been their fate a year ago, the German artillery shelled some billets outside Erquinghem, wounding ten men. A couple of nights later, after a gas alert, the Australian artillery opened fire for the first time, laying a barrage across the enemy parapets amidst rousing cheers from their own side.

  Standing outside their billet, drinking vast quantities of the farmer’s homemade beer, Liam and his companions whooped and yelled at every explosion, at every flare that soared with a trail like a rocket and burst into a graceful, brilliant white star. With the red and yellow flashes of the guns it was like the celebrations of 5th November; and Guy Fawkes, Liam thought with childlike joy, must be cheering from his traitor’s grave.

  ‘Vive l’Australie!’ the farmer shouted in his ear, skipping like an ancient gnome as he hoisted a jug of beer and refilled all their mugs.

  Drinking his health, Liam tried to explain the excitement of Guy Fawkes Night at home. But the traditions of the eccentric British were lost on that son of Flemish soil, and the finer points of a Catholic plot to blow up Protestant King James as he opened Parliament in 1605, were seemingly appreciated only by a very small boy, who gazed up at Liam in open-mouthed amazement.

  ‘And he was born in York, you know,’ Liam announced, ‘so he can’t have been that bad, even if he was a traitor.’

  ‘Who was?’ an Australian voice asked.

  ‘Guy Fawkes – weren’t you listening? And he might have had a point, at that,’ Liam went on, slurring his words. Draining his mug, he held it out for more.

  ‘Don’t you think he had a point?’ he demanded a moment later. ‘I mean to say, just look at all that…’ He waved towards the brilliant sky, shouting above the din. ‘It’s a wonderful firework display and – and I’m sure it’s very good of them to put it on for us – but what is it all for?’

  Swaying towards the man in front of him, Liam grabbed him by the collar. ‘Men are getting killed under that lot. Tomorrow – tomorrow, it might be us. I ask you, mate – what is it all for?’

  The answer was briskly sober. ‘Shut up, Corp, you’re plastered. Let that bastard Keenan hear you, and if he don’t have you shot, he’ll have them stripes off you right sharpish!’

  ‘Bugger Keenan. We should take a leaf out of Fawkes’s book,’ Liam declared in a confidential whisper, ‘and turn that bloody artillery on Haig and Walker. See how they like it!’

  ‘Come on, mate, you’re drunk — ’

  ‘Am I drunk?’ Liam asked in surprise. He stared at his tin mug, empty again, although he did not recall drinking, and then up at the sky as a continuous volley rent the night in two. A great white star exploded and fell to earth in a sweeping arc, all the buildings and men around him seeming to move with it; without the support of his companion, Liam would have keeled over into the mud.

  ‘Yeah,’ he mumbled, ‘I am drunk. What I was saying – stupid. Forget it.’

  ‘It’s all right, Corp,’ the other man sighed, ‘if I’d been at the Landings, I might feel the same.’

  His hangover the next day was of Cairo proportions, made worse by the shame of recalling every single word he had uttered; what he could not recall was the identity of his companion. Not one of his own team, he was certain, and that was unfortunate. He felt a fool. It alarmed him to realize that he had said such things while not even conscious of having thought them. At least, not for a very long time.

  That, coupled with his reactions in Erquinghem on Sunday afternoon, conspired to worry him. He felt he was losing control. In an attempt to regain mastery, he threw himself into the training and prayed for action soon.

  They went, a few days later, into the trenches at Bois Grenier, and apart from the unpredictable weather and the brazen activities of their constant companions, the rats, Liam was able to report in his letters home that he was quite enjoying himself. It was good, he said, to be in the thick of it again, to be doing something useful at last after months out of the line. Even in the trenches, after a week or so, they were able to have their rest periods away from the fighting. There had been no such respite on Gallipoli.

  In his diary he recorded the events of everyday life, a sudden improvement in the weather in May, the welcome presence of a cat about the place. He described the planes soaring overhead, the dogfights and the daily bombardments, sniping from enemy trenches, and his own satisfaction in returning such fire.

  Their gun-pit, he wrote, was in a ruined house, their living accommodation a hut set into the ground and protected by sandbags. But the house was beside a road which attracted constant attention from the enemy, and the Germans used it as a target for their artillery. Supplies of food and ammunition could only be obtained at night; and at night machine-guns played with devastating accuracy upon the road. Several times he’d had to run for shelter, or simply lie flat in the mud until the enfilade ceased. The sniping at their hut, both with rifle and machine-gun fire, had suddenly become less haphazard and more wickedly accurate, as though their own activities had finally stirred a crack shot into determined action.

  Next day he asked permission from Keenan to move. It was refused. But then Keenan left to attend several days of an instruction course. After a few hours in which the hail of bullets had his men dancing every time they wanted to leave the pit, Liam sent a message up the line to their officer. He thought he would have to wait
until after dark, but one of their own howitzers started firing into a wood on the German side, and under cover of the smoke, he was able to get out.

  Permission granted, they worked all night to build a new gun pit some few yards up the road. With daylight, during a bombardment of the German trenches, the team moved out of the ruined house. None too soon. During the German return attack, four guns, firing as one, managed to take off the sandbagged roof of their old hut; that night, improving the new dug-out, the men piled eighteen inches of earth across its top. The following afternoon, he watched their old home disintegrate beneath a volley of high-explosive shells.

  ‘Then they burst shrapnel overhead with the hopes of getting anyone running about,’ he jotted into his diary. ‘As if anyone could have survived the shelling. But Fritz is very thorough. Thank God we moved in time. If Keenan had been here, I suppose we would have been under that lot.’

  Bitterness and a certain amount of vindictive crowing prompted Liam to keep up the fire from their new emplacement. Having sighted the position of those four enemy machine-guns, he was determined to make them suffer. His efforts attracted the artillery again, setting all of them hopping as they dashed back and forth to their tiny cookhouse, trying to get something to eat. They were all laughing, but that afternoon, when news came that they were to be relieved, Liam was more than thankful.

  After twenty-four days’ subjection to shelling and machine-gun fire, it was good to be behind the lines again, even if only for a few hours. Liam and his team went to the baths at Sailly, and then on to the battalion post office. Apart from one letter from Australia, for some reason there had been no mail since coming into action; he was overjoyed to see a pile of letters and two parcels of newspapers awaiting him.

  It was a pleasant afternoon and the six men ambled down the road, reading their mail as they went. Liam flicked through the collection of envelopes, mentally identifying each writer. Three from York, one from his cousin in Leeds, two from Robin, and one with a blurred postmark and writing he could not believe he recognized. He stopped in the middle of the road, staring at that distinctive hand.