A Long Long Way

by Sebastian Barry

  Father Buckley said the Our Father and a few Hail Marys and kept himself short. He didn’t attempt a talk or warming homily because no one could hear him except the nearest twenty men.

  Suddenly the enemy guns opened their filthy cursing mouths and belched forth a ruinous misery of shells. The men heard shrapnel searing about in every direction and the biggest bombs were being dropped it seemed into the support trenches a good way behind. But the men didn’t drop a stitch of the Hail Mary they were halfway through knitting, one soothing word to the next.

  Then mysteriously every man knew Father Buckley was done. Perhaps it was achieved by a seamless series of Chinese whispers, or Chinese winks and nods anyway But it was a remarkable thing, Willie thought, a remarkable thing.

  Of course, any fool knew it was bad news when the padre came right into the trenches. If they had been on proper orders they might have gathered in a field somewhere in the reserve lines and had a decent mass of it, and a sermon from his nibs.

  It wasn’t that he was unwelcome. He was well known because he showed his face everywhere, and though he was a bit strange and apart in some ways, the men liked him as they would perhaps a beloved aunt. If there was such a thing as a fearless womanish man, he was it. For he was gentle and spoke soft with a lettered accent.

  There were round bits in his words where the men had sharp, and sharp where they had round, though indeed he didn’t talk like a gentleman as such. It was whispered that he had been found in private weeping and yet he had been seen in a dozen battlefields tending to the dying with a dry eye and a murmuring word. A drink of rum he always refused, but he smoked woodbines with everyone and a woodbine was his calling card to a new man in. Religion as such he rarely discussed and sins or the like were not his constant song, though you could go to him for confession should you so have chosen and he would give you the stiffest penance he could within reason — within the reason of the war. He advised chastity all right, but only because a dose of the clap was a fearsome embarrassment to a young man.

  Willie supposed Father Buckley was a man who had seen every type of wound the war could offer close up, because he had held every type of wounded man in his arms. He must have whispered last rites to headless men, and also to men with only a head left and the rest blown into a billion drops of air, he had surely felt the warm ballooning armfuls of entrails spill into his own lap, and strained not to lie to any dying man, to’ steady him and ready him for the off, like a flighty horse in the stalls before a race. Certainly he believed a man’s soul would issue forth like a dove and fly up to its dove cot in the high realms of heaven. He told the men that their guardian angels had come back to them from childhood and were with them again, watching over them silently and lovingly He had endured those that screamed in terror and those that screamed in self-pity, those that said generous last words — which might indeed be the memories that made him cry later — he had heard the sudden heart change that might rescue a man from the yawning pits of perdition. And indeed he had disappeared a few weeks back and it was said, also in whispers, that he had been given a week’s furlough at home because his nerves were tottering. But you would have to expect that. A man, especially a priest, could not witness scenes like unto the end of the world, as if the armies of the West had joined battle with the armies of the East, in that wild apocalypse shown to poor St John, in his penal servitude under the Romans on the island of Patmos in that vanished world, and so on, without disturbing a few hairs on the head of his mental ease.

  Be that as it may, Willie knew and everyone else knew without saying a word or exchanging a look that things would be of a harsh enough nature, because Father Buckley had elected to be with them.

  The gas sirens went off suddenly and Willie nearly left the sanctuary of his pelt. O‘Hara beside him jumped like a dog. He was trying to prevent it, but that cold, unfriendly terror flooded instantly into his brain. A sweat, incongruously chilly, formed in his hair under the helmet. Everyone struggled to don the wretched gas masks. Now if these were the finest masks in creation, they were a bloody muddle to get on, and there was always the fear you might be missing a little place where the poison might seep in. Captain Sheridan came up cursing from his dugout with Christy Moran, looking like storybook monsters. But they all looked like storybook monsters. The sergeant carried a canvas bag of trench weapons, more like the weapons of medieval times than anything else, sticks with nails in them, rough-cast things with iron knobs, and he was handing these out. Willie was given a thing like an Indian tomahawk, and he stuffed it into his webbing.

  ‘All right, lads,’ said Captain Sheridan, but the words were darkened and muddled by the mask. He lifted it off viciously. ‘All right, lads, listen to me, look it, we can hold this now, we can. I want you to make sure you’re well masked up, check each other’s masks, lads. And just let the foul stuff go over. Don’t take off your fucking masks for any reason. The gas’ll fall in on us here and just sit for a long while. There may be a lousy attack following it. That’s the important thing. And, lads, for the love of God, don’t let the bastards get any further than this very spot in Belgium. You’re to crucify the cunts, now, men, if you don’t mind!’

  And that was not a bad speech, thought Willie Dunne. It was a pity that the captain’s voice trembled so. But you had to say something to fellas in this predicament. Three men up stood Quigley, who had come up only this very morning, arriving in with a few other lads. Quigley was a tall, gangly lad from the city. He had never seen a real trench in his life, let alone been expected to withstand some kind of assault that he could not fathom the nature of. He was having grave difficulty with the straps of his mask, and was muttering and staggering about. A big, clear, dark stain of piss showed now on his britches front.

  And Willie was just glad he had his own mask on now and no one could see his eyes. The memory of the other time at St Julian was howling in his head. A hundred pictures returned to terrorize him. He shook his head in his misery. By God, O‘Hara, whose leg touched his left leg, was trembling. His whole body was rattling. Suddenly Willie thought of what those fucking men were doing in Dublin and he cursed back at them, cursed them for their violent ignorance, he did. Captain Pasley’s twisted form was illuminated there, it would seem, behind his eyes.

  Through the silly murk of the eye-holes he looked at these twenty or so men in this stretch. The machine-gun crew were ready with their weapon to mount it on the parapet, three crouching men. Four men were assigned as bombers and had each a belt of Mills bombs. Better at least than the old bean-cans full of explosive they used to hobble together and fling at an ungrateful enemy. Maybe there was something ridiculous in the scene. After all, every man crouched in the same direction, some head down now the German artillery had proper range on them and the shrapnel bombs were landing just feet in front of the parapet. They looked like the men at the back of any Irish country church on a Sunday, kneeling on one knee in manly fashion, the women of the parishes ranged on the seats proper. But they were not talking of beasts and ewes now, it was not their God they were waiting for, but the long shadows of the friends of Death himself. There was no star of Bethlehem here, nor wise men nor kings, only poor Tommies of Irishmen, Joe Soaps of back streets and small lives. Heroic things had been suggested to them, and though they were not heroes as you might read about in old Greek stories, their hearts, such as they were, answered. No man could come out to the war without some thought of proper duty, some inkling of possible deeds to match the tales they heard as children. There were no fathers or mothers here now, no raggedy dresses, no ringing games, spires of familiar churches, no ancient stones set one upon the other, no St Patrick’s Cathedral and no Christ Church. Only a furrow of excellent agricultural clay where they in their complete insignificance crouched. This was not a scene of bravery, but it seemed to Willie in his fear and horror that there was a truth in it nonetheless. It was the thing before a joke was fashioned about it, before an anecdote was conjured up to make it safe, before a proper s
tory in the newspaper, before some fellow with the wits would make a history of it. In the bleakness of its birth there was an unsullied truth, this tiny event that might make a corpse of him and all his proper dreams.

  The gas boiled in like a familiar ogre. With the same stately gracelessness it rolled to the edge of the parapet and then like the heads of a many-headed creature it toppled gently forward and sank down to join the waiting men. These excellent gas masks instantly lost their excellence for Private Quigley, who at any rate had failed to fit it on his crooked face. One size fitted all, but he had a wondrous cabbage head, and the straps would not lie down. Father Buckley rushed to help, and Quigley now was spluttering and coughing, and started to tear off the mask. Father Buckley was signalling wildly for him to do the bloody opposite. Now two other men at the other end of the trench were having trouble likewise and behind their masks were coughing and no doubt going as red as ripe apples in a good August.

  The evil gas lay down in the trench like a bedspread, and as more gas came over, it filled the trench to the brim and passed on then in its ghostly hordes to the support lines and the reserve lines, ambitious for choice murders. Quigley had fallen down on the mucky ground and was writhing there like a python snake, the mask was off, and his wide eyes were black stones in a beetroot face. He was screaming between the choking. He was calling out and when he opened his mouth Willie could almost taste himself the awful gas that rushed gratefully in. And pity struck him. Yes, in the midst of all, pity struck him for the thousandth time, and he was almost grateful for the pity. Father Buckley was in a paroxysm of helping and disquiet as if his own child were being horribly tormented. At least six lads now were entirely blinded and Captain Sheridan moved them roughly back to the parados side of the trench, and went from man to man remaining swiftly, to try to steady the group. Willie Dunne had just shat in his pants, he could not help it, no more than a man who was hanged could help the stiff pecker he showed to the mocking crowds.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ he said to himself, ‘oh Jesus, protect us.‘

  He wished his father’s lot could rush up now with batons drawn and dispel this horrible unruly gas, drive it off the page of the world.

  ‘Papa, Papa,’ he said. Then he found a picture in his mind of the gates of his grandfather’s house in Lathaleer, two big, fat, rounded pillars into the welcoming yard, with the mad hens going about the pack-stones, and his grandfather with his big white beard like a proper Wicklow man. ‘Grandpa, Grandpa,’ he whispered, ‘protect us.’

  Two of the machine-gun crew were still untouched and they scrambled their gun up onto the ground just in front of the trench and started firing into the gas. This was reassuring to the others.

  Now, on top of the released gas, gas-shells were being lobbed at them, exploding with their own particular signature of hurting noise. The artillerymen behind them were also firing now, and they could hear their own happy shells going over as swift as young house-martins, you would think, and that was also a little heartening. There were so many shells in the air it was a wonder that they did not simply smash into each other. Then the machine-gun was heard no more. Something that they could not see had silenced it. One of the gunners slid back down into the trench still holding the canister of water he was using to cool the weapon, like a dying gardener or some such.

  Then, equally abruptly, the firing of shells ceased on the Hun side, though their own guns continued, shell after shell, shell after shell. Then for some reason that stopped too. Even in the awkward masks, the men tried to glance at each other’s eyes, to see what was happening. Pairs of frightened orbs stared out from the masks. No one knew. Quigley lay on the ground still as a sleeping tramp. This must be worse gas than the other stuff, Willie knew, if it could murder a man so quickly. The other afflicted men had the strange yellow froth pouring down from the mask itself, where a sort of bib folded onto the chest. They were staggering about so much that Father Buckley looked like a distracted mother hen, trying to tend to them. Maybe he was also trying to get them out of the way of the survivors. It was not a good thing to be facing God knew what with a poor bastard wriggling and thrashing in on top of you from behind.

  Now there was that queer silence that was not a silence, because Willie could hear his own breathing like a water-pump, his heart pulsing and complaining in his breast from simple lack of air. All the world was close in and made of canvas; the level of distress in all his limbs was like a poison itself. Despite the masks now there was a stench everywhere, a stench in his mask, a stench in his blood, his eyes felt like they were peeling away Desperately he tried to keep looking upwards, up the steep wall of the trench. He got a thump in the back and he turned slightly and saw the sergeant-major passing roughly, gesturing for them to mount the fire-step. Christy Moran must have seen something above, for he had just popped his head up to see what had happened to that fucking machine-gun. What had he seen in the coiling mists?

  A grey monster in a mask came leaping into their trench. He looked enormous. Whether he was or not Willie did not know, but he looked as big as a horse. He stood over Willie and all Willie could think of were Vikings, wild Vikings sacking an Irish town. It must have been a picture from a school book. He had never seen a German soldier before so close up. Once he saw three dejected German prisoners, poor maggots of men with heads bowed, being escorted to some prison camp through the reserve area. They had looked so sad and small no one even thought to mock them. They engendered silence to see them. But this man was not like them. He put his two hands on Willie’s shoulders and for a moment Willie thought he was going to rip off the gas mask and instinctively he put his hands up to hold it on. For some reason, without himself actually registering it, he had got the funny tomahawk into his left hand and when he raised the hand the spike at the top of the short stick horribly drove into the underchin of the German. The man now clawed there himself and to Willie’s surprise tore off the saving mask, which looked a very much more admirable design than Willie’s. Now Willie again almost on instinct struck at the man’s face with the hatchet and it opened the cheek from the side of the mouth to the eye above. But such a wound was probably superfluous, because his own gas now assailed the huge man, his face not three inches from Willie’s own, because the great soldier fell to his knees. He was roaring something in that German language.

  There were three more of these soldiers now in the trench with them and, as if inspired by Willie’s German, the Irish lads were making it their business to try to pull off the masks of the attackers. One Irish man got a knife driven hard into his belly and the German held him there like a lover, until Sergeant-Major Moran cut off the back of his head with a vile-looking mallet. Hands clawed at faces and necks. Captain Sheridan had been driven back against the wall of the trench and a soldier was beating him with his bare fist in the face through the mask, hitting again and again. This man was killed by one of the new recruits firing his rifle in terror into the man’s back. The man fell backwards so heavily that his skull struck right into the back of Willie’s head and Willie went out cold.

  Chapter Nine

  When he awoke he saw nothing at first because his mask had pulled sideways and the eye-holes invited one of his ears to see out. In instant panic Willie tried to readjust it, thinking the gas would get him now for sure. But when he got the eye-holes right, he saw dimly Christy Moran sitting on the ground, like a drunkard in the small hours of a terrible binge, without his mask on. Christy Moran was sitting there and every few moments he was nodding to himself, as if he might be telling himself a story, and surprising himself with it.

  Father Buckley was in his after-battle attitude, kneeling beside a dead man. The killed German who had loomed at Willie like a giant lay curled beside him, for all the world like a dead companion. The face was bruised and torn, the wound under the chin drying black. He was a little fellow like a whippet after all. Willie touched the man’s arm and the dead soldier seemed all bone and sinew. He wanted to push the man away but somehow he did not
. Quigley was just being borne away by the stretcher bearers, and miraculously he seemed to be still alive, though his lungs must be like some old gruelly hash.

  Captain Sheridan was standing absolutely still and quiet, holding his gas mask tenderly in his right hand, his nice Cavan face like an elaborately decorated cushion, the bruises showing red and dark blue in a curiously symmetrical pattern. Then, as if these men were waiting for an unheard order, the captain bestirred himself and roused the sergeant-major and nodded to him and plunged down into the dugout, no doubt to try to phone back a message. He re-emerged immediately coughing and watery eyed, because the intimate gas liked to sink into such places. He dashed out a message in pencil in his notebook and Willie was told to run back to headquarters if he could find such a thing and deliver it. Willie Dunne was not a runner, but then who was a runner now?

  He found the communication trench thick with the wounded, the maimed, men crying openly, men shouting in pain, men sitting in dark stupors that heralded death. So Willie climbed up the parados and went that way over open ground. He hardly cared.

  Then he looked back like Lot’s poor wife to where the gas had come from. They could shoot him now easily. There were a few fallen soldiers in no-man’s land, all of them seemingly Germans. Who shot them down Willie could not say Because the ground sloped ever so slightly he could see also a good way up his own zigzagging trenches. There were heaps of men there also. Up the jammed communication trenches moved those eerie lines of blinded, miserable men, a hand on the shoulder of the man in front, a cursing, still-sighted man at the head of all, leading them away Of the twelve hundred, how many remained? How many letters would Captain Sheridan write tonight if his wounds allowed and all the other line officers with such mournful tasks? How many hearts stopped beating, how many souls to their allotted places, how many in the crowds now also clogging up the way under St Peter’s gate, and did the saint wonder at these sudden hordes advancing on him with their Irish accents from the Four Green Fields to beseech the mercies of heaven?