“Gray told me one day when I was in hospital that this was quite common among children who had … what was his phrase? ‘Had the normal magic of their childhood taken from them’ … something like that.”
“What the hell does Gray know about it?”
“One of his Austrian doctors told him.”
Ellis, who was still listening from his bed, said, “What happened when you were wounded?”
“I began to believe in something.”
“In what?”
Stephen rested his chin on his hands. His speech was slurred, with long silences as he struggled to shape his thoughts. In the spaces between the words there was a screaming of shells. “I heard a voice. There was something beyond me. All my life I had lived on the presumption that there was no existence beyond … flesh, the moment of being alive … then nothing. I had searched in superstition …” He waved his hand. “Rats. But there was nothing. Then I heard the sound of my own life leaving me. It was so … tender. I regretted that I had paid it no attention. Then I believed in the wisdom of what other men had found before me … I saw that those simple things might be true … I never wanted to believe in them because it was better to fight my own battle.” With a burst of fluency, he said, “You can believe in something without compromising the burden of your own existence.”
Weir looked at him uncomprehendingly. Ellis coughed. “So what do you believe in?”
“A room, a place, some self-grounded place.” Stephen’s head was close to the table and his voice was almost inaudible. “Just a room. Where it is understood.”
Ellis said, “I think you have a long way to go before you can call yourself a proper Christian.”
Stephen raised his head from the table. His eyes slowly filled, then brimmed with rage, the uncontrolled temper of a farm boy. He stood up and went unsteadily to the bunk. He took Ellis by the shirt and hauled him down.
“Look here, I’m sorry, I meant no offence.” Ellis was alarmed by Stephen’s expression. “You’re drunk, leave me alone.”
Stephen breathed in deeply. He let his hands fall to his sides. “Go and look after your men,” he said softly. “It’s three o’clock. Go and talk to the sentries. You know how frightened they’ll be.”
Ellis pulled on his coat and backed out of the dugout. Stephen watched him go, then turned back to Weir. “That’s right, isn’t it, Weir? He should go and see that they’re all right?”
“Who? Ellis? You should have kicked him. Let me sleep in his bunk till he gets back. I’m on my own since Adamson was wounded.”
———
Jack Firebrace and Arthur Shaw lay curled together in their dugout. There were ten men in a space twenty-five feet wide and five feet high. Once they had inserted themselves there was no chance of movement. Jack had grown used to sleeping all night on one side; with Arthur Shaw’s bulk in position, he could not turn over. He was lulled by the sound of Shaw’s deep, raucous breathing; he had become accustomed to the contours of his body. He slept as well with him as he had ever slept in London with Margaret, shutting his ears to the sound of the trains rattling past the back window.
In the morning he wrote a letter home:
Dear Margaret,
Thank you very much for the parcel which arrived safely, it was most acceptable. We can always do with a few more Oxo cubes and the cake was much appreciated by all. We have been in much better billets recently and I am in very good health. We have proper dugouts—not just for the officers! It really is the lap of luxury, I can tell you, and we have all done a good bit of sleeping.
We are doing some digging too. I think the infantry accepts us more now and what we are doing is very important for the next big attack. Yes, there is to be another one.
It is dangerous of course and there have been some gas alarms, but we all feel better now we have had a new lot of canaries. I think there are enemy mines but we haven’t met them yet. I tell you all this, but you are not to worry about me. If you worried then I should regret having written it.
The infantry always want us to do some of their fatigues but we do enough underground. We’re not building anybody’s trench for them, I can tell you. We did give a hand burying some telephone cables, but that’s all. Now some of them are sent on fatigues to help us. That’s more like it!
They marched us five miles back for a bath and we had had one the day before. There was a good bit of groaning, I can tell you. What’s the point of getting clean if you can’t change your clothes, which are full of “visitors.” But it was a good bath with plenty of warm water and a warm shower-bath. Then the men were all very happy because we had some rest and there was a place with beer. We got a good strafing from the sergeant when we got back but it was worth it.
You say you’ve got no news and I must be bored with what you send but this is not so. We long for word from home. That’s all we think of: home, home, home.
I think of the boy a good bit too. I must say I am finding it difficult to keep bright. We have divine service on Sunday and the sermon is always interesting. Last week the padre told the story of the Prodigal Son, how a rich man had two sons and one of them went to the bad, but when he came home his father killed the fatted calf for him. I would have wanted to do the best for John, but it is not to be.
I am doing my best to be merry, and you must not worry about me. Please thank Miss Hubbard for her good wishes. Write to me soon.
Your affectionate,
Jack.
The mines were driven far under the ground into a blue clay. At the heads of the deeper ones the men enlarged chambers where they could rest and sleep without needing to go back above the ground. They bore the stench of their packed, unwashed bodies for the sake of the warmth and safety. Any minute was better that was not spent beneath the endless dripping sky; no night was unbearable that offered shelter from the freezing winds that stiffened their waterlogged tunics and trousers into icy boards. The smell was hard to breathe, but it was no better aboveground, where the chloride of lime seemed not to relieve but to compound the atmosphere of putrefying flesh, where the latrine saps had been buried or abandoned, and where, to avoid the smell of feces, men chose to inhale the toxic smoke of braziers.
While the principal deep mines, which had been under construction for two years, were gradually enlarged and driven out toward the ridge, Weir’s company were working on a shallow tunnel from which they could listen for enemy countermines. One morning they heard sounds of German activity above them. There appeared to be an underground ladder nearby from which men were jumping. The noise of their boots could be heard stamping along the tunnel overhead. Weir ordered his tunnel to be evacuated, but two or three men had to be left in listening posts at all times to be sure that the Germans would not undermine the actual trench. There were no volunteers for this job, so he had to make a duty roster. They took candles with them so they could read books as they listened. Only twenty men had been down and back by the time the explosion they most dreaded shook the earth. The Germans blew their tunnel with a large camouflet. The two listeners were buried under thousands of tons of Flanders soil.
Weir was in the trench when the explosion went off, drinking tea with Stephen and explaining his difficulties. He went white as the earth rocked under them. The hot liquid spilled unremarked over his shaking hand.
“I knew it,” he said. “I knew they’d blow it. I’ve got to get down there. It was my idea to put them there. Oh God, I knew this would happen.”
He looked frantically to Stephen for sympathy, then brushed past him on his way to the tunnel head.
“Just a minute,” said Stephen. “You may have lost three men down there, but if the enemy’s got a tunnel under this trench I’m going to lose half my company. You’d better be bloody sure where their tunnel’s going.”
“You come and see if you’re so concerned. I have to think of my own men first,” said Weir.
“Take one of your men and get him to report back to me.”
Weir was s
o angry that he had stopped trembling. “Don’t you tell me what to do. If you’re so worried about your men, then you—”
“Of course I’m worried about them. If they think there’s a mine under them they won’t stay put for twenty-four hours. There’ll be a mutiny.”
“Well, come down and bloody well see for yourself then.”
“It’s not my job to crawl around underground.”
Stephen was following Weir along the trench to where he kept the tunnelling supplies. Weir picked up a canary in a small wooden cage and turned to face Stephen.
“Are you frightened?” he asked.
Stephen hesitated, glancing at the cage. “Of course not. I merely—”
“Well, come on then.”
Stephen, who had not often felt himself out-argued by Weir, saw that he had little choice.
“It’ll only take an hour,” said Weir, more placatingly now that he could see Stephen weakening. There was a pause. “You got wounded last time, didn’t you? So now I suppose you’re afraid to go down.”
“No,” said Stephen, “I’m not frightened of going underground.”
Weir passed him a helmet with a lamp on it, and a pick. “It’s very narrow there, and we’ll need to clear some debris when we get to the explosion.”
Stephen nodded silently. He instructed the nearest man he could see to tell Ellis where he had gone, then followed Weir to the head of the tunnel.
A piece of tarpaulin was stretched over a wooden frame built back only a couple of feet from the front wall of the trench. The excavated clay was taken away in sandbags and dumped well to the rear so that enemy planes could have no idea where the digging was being done. The opening was not much more than a rabbit hole.
Weir turned to Stephen, his face set in anxiety. “Follow me as fast as you can.”
Beneath the parapet of the trench was a vertical shaft into the darkness of the earth. The horizontal wooden rungs were several feet apart. Weir scrambled down with practised ease, holding the handle of the canary’s cage in his teeth, but Stephen had to feel ahead for each slat of wood with his feet.
Eventually he reached a wooden platform where Weir was waiting.
“Come on, for God’s sake. This is it. It’s only a shallow tunnel.”
Stephen, breathing hard, said, “Shouldn’t you have sent the stretcher-bearers?”
“Yes, they’re ready, but they won’t come unless an officer has told them where to go.”
Weir went forward at a crouch into the darkness, carrying the cage in his left hand. Stephen followed three or four paces behind. The bird was chirping, though whether through fear or happiness he could not say. Stephen shuddered at the sound. He thought of the surface of the earth above them: a pattern of round shellholes that made up no-man’s-land, each one half-filled with water in which the rats played and feasted on the unrescued corpses; then thirty feet or so of packed, resistant clay, down which the moisture could still permeate from the world above them.
Weir had gone down on his hands and knees as the height of the tunnel decreased to about three feet. The sides of it pressed in on them and Stephen found it hard to see the beam of Weir’s lamp ahead of him. His own seemed to illuminate only the nails on the soles of Weir’s boots and the occasional glimpse of cloth on his slowly advancing rear.
As they went further, Stephen felt the clay stick to his crawling hands. He wanted to hold his arms out sideways and push back the flanks of the tunnel to give them space to breathe. As long as Weir’s body was between him and the cage, however, any fear he felt from the enclosing weight of the earth was tolerable. Anything was bearable provided he did not have to come too close to that bird.
Weir’s breath was coming in fast, loud gasps as he pushed onward, using one hand to pull himself and one to drag the cage. Stephen felt a piece of rock slit the skin of his left hand. There was nothing he could do. The earth above them was poisoned by the spores of gas gangrene, a horse disease implanted by the copious manure used by farmers; he hoped it had not sunk so deep below the surface. He pressed on, trying to put his weight on the outside of his hand. The tunnel was now so narrow that they had to try to enlarge it with their picks. There was no room to bring sufficient leverage, however, so their progress was very slow.
Weir suddenly stopped, and Stephen heard him swearing.
“This is it,” he said. “This is the end. There should be another thirty feet. They’ve blown the whole bloody thing. They’ll both be dead.”
Stephen came up and saw the wall of earth in front of them. He felt a sudden panic. If the tunnel behind them should also now collapse … He moved his feet reflexively and began to manoeuvre to turn round: such an explosion must surely have weakened the whole structure with its flimsy supporting timbers.
From his haversack Weir took a round wooden disc, which he pressed against the side of the tunnel. Then he took out a stethoscope and plugged it into a teat on the surface of the disc and listened. He raised his finger to his lips. Stephen had no intention of interrupting. He listened carefully himself. It was curiously quiet. There was something unsettling about the silence: there were no guns.
Weir tore the stethoscope from his ears. “Nothing,” he said.
“Is that thing effective?”
“Yes, it’s good. A scientist in Paris invented it. You can never be sure, of course.”
“Who was in there?”
“Shaw was one. The other was called Stanley, I think. He was new.”
“And how do we get them out?”
“We don’t. If we try to dig out this stuff we’ll just bring in the roof. We send down some men to timber it, and if they can get through, so much the better. But I want to close this tunnel now.”
“And if they don’t get to them?”
“We say a prayer. We’re all buried in the end.”
“Do you want to say a prayer now?”
Weir’s face was so close to his that Stephen could smell the stale alcohol on his breath. “I don’t know any prayers,” he said. “Do you?”
“I could invent one.” The canary let out a small living sound. Stephen ached with fear. Words came from his lips. “Into your hand, oh God, we commend the souls of these two men. May they rest in peace. Let this not be in vain. In Jesus Christ’s name. Amen.”
“Let’s go,” said Weir. “You’d better let me lead the way. I’ll try and get past you. Move back a bit that way, that’s it, push up against the wall.”
Stephen flattened himself to try to let Weir pass over him. As Weir’s body pressed against him his trailing pick caught against the clay above. A lump of it fell on him. The space dislodged a much heavier fall which smashed down on to his right arm. He let out a cry. Stephen instinctively tried to pull back to where the tunnel was wider in case the whole thing collapsed. Weir was swearing and groaning.
“My arm’s broken. Get me out, get me out. Quick or the whole thing’s going to come down.”
Stephen went back to him and began to lift the fallen earth very carefully off his body. He pushed it back toward the face of the blocked tunnel. Weir was moaning in pain.
“Get it off, get it off. We’ve got to get out.”
Stephen, through grinding teeth, said, “I’m doing my best. I’ve got to be gentle.” He was lying on top of Weir, his head toward Weir’s feet, as he cleared the debris from his arm. He then had to wriggle back over Weir’s body, forcing his face down into the earth with his weight. He finally got back so they were lying face to face, Weir’s feet toward the wall, Stephen’s toward the way out. Weir spluttered on the clay in his mouth.
“Can you make it?” said Stephen.
“I’ve broken my arm. Maybe a rib too. I’ll have to crawl on one hand. You take the bird.”
Stephen reached back to the cage. Its flimsy wooden frame had been crushed in the fall of earth; it was empty.
“The bird’s gone,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Damnation,” said Weir. “We can’t leave it. We’ll hav
e to find it and take it back. Otherwise if the Boche find it they’ll know we—”
“For Christ’s sake, they know there’s a tunnel anyway. That’s why they blew it.”
Weir spat through his pain. “You cannot under any circumstances leave a bird free. Ever. It’s in the handbook. I’d be courtmartialled. Find the bird.”
Stephen crawled back over Weir’s prostrate body. He felt himself close to tears as he searched the murk of the clay with the feeble light of his helmet. A little to the left of the hole made by the fall he saw a gleam of yellow. Gently, he reached out his hand towards it.
He could feel his heart pummelling the floor of the tunnel; his clothes were sodden with sweat. It ran down into his eyes. He held his hand steady, the fingers opening in the gloom as he moved toward the bird. Please God, he muttered, please, please … When his hand was no more than six inches from the canary he made a lunge for it. The bird took off and its wings brushed the back of his hand as it flew past him. Stephen screamed. His body convulsed and his legs kicked back into Weir’s thighs.
“For Christ’s sake! What’s the matter? You’re going to bring the tunnel down.”
Stephen lay face down, panting, with his eyes closed.
“Keep still,” said Weir. “For God’s sake keep still. It’s up near me now.”
Stephen lay quietly, saying nothing. Weir made no movement. Stephen heard him make little whistling noises. He was trying to soothe the startled bird, or trick it into his hand. Stephen was still facing the wrong way. Weir’s body was blocking his exit back to the light.
He felt Weir make a sudden movement. “I’ve got it,” he said. “It’s in my hand.”
“All right. Let’s go. You start off and I’ll follow.”
“I’ve only got one hand. I can’t take the bird.”
“Well, kill it. It’s only a canary. Come on. I want to turn round. I’m getting cramp. I want to get out of here.”
There was a silence. Weir made no movement. Eventually he said, “I can’t kill it. I can’t do it.”
Stephen felt a strange weight in his stomach. “You must kill it,” he said. His voice came softly through his dry mouth.
Birdsong Page 31
