At Some Disputed Barricade wwi-4

by Anne Perry

  “We should go now.” Morel’s voice came out of the darkness. “We might need all night to work our way into the French force and join them. We don’t know when they’ll go over. I don’t suppose they know, poor sods.”

  That was the decision made. To argue now would look like fear. At the very least it would leave Morel to go alone, and that was unthinkable.

  “Right,” he said as if Morel were in charge. Perhaps he should be. Joseph had been into no-man’s-land more often than he could count, but as a chaplain, in order to pick up whatever bodies he could find and help the wounded. After the worst night’s fighting he had been as far as twenty yards from the German trenches, but he had never faced an enemy soldier in anger, never fired a gun at a man.

  “Are you all right, Chaplain?” Morel asked, the use of his occupational title betraying the uncertainty he felt of Joseph’s mettle.

  “Yes, I’m right behind you,” Joseph said. “If we go over just behind the first attack, we can look like stretcher bearers. Attract less attention, and go as far forward as possible.”

  “Won’t fool anyone for long,” Morel replied over his shoulder. “But maybe by the time they realize it we’ll be through. Just hope they don’t take us for deserters.”

  “Deserters usually go the other way,” Joseph pointed out. “That’s what makes Geddes clever.”

  “He’s a clever bastard, all right,” Morel agreed dourly, his voice low in the darkness in spite of the guns in the distance. He did not add anything more, and they went the rest of the way in silence, dropping down the slight slope toward the field dressing station a thousand yards away.

  They curved around it, keeping as far away from the light as possible. Joseph, with his priest’s collar, did not need to account for his presence. For Morel it was harder. He had no rifle, only the revolver.

  All around them were French soldiers, their outlines in the near dark little different from the men of the Cambridgeshires: helmets smooth, the occasional peaked cap, rifles stark. Their voices were muted, a little harsh with tension. Many smoked and the smell of Gauloises was different from Woodbine, but the long, slightly sour jokes were similar: self-mocking, the laughter quick.

  There was coffee in their own version of a Dixie can. It was offered generously and both Joseph and Morel took it. It was bitter as gall.

  A little over an hour later the order was given to advance, and without guns they rose with the other men and charged forward. Like the Ypres Salient with which Joseph was familiar, no-man’s-land was desolate, but drier than the thick Flanders clay. There was the same greasy film of chemical residue from shelling. The earth was strewn with the wreckage of guns and half-sunken vehicles. The same stench of decaying corpses filled the nose and mouth. Drowned men, bloated and inhuman, rose to the surface of water-filled craters when they were disturbed.

  They moved forward as fast as possible, struggling in the mud, crouching low to avoid the return fire of the enemy. Star shells lit the sky, rose high and bright, then faded away again. The noise of guns was everywhere, and now and then the dull whoomph as a shell sent earth and mud flying up only to fall, crushing and burying everything it landed on.

  There was a surge forward again. There were men running all around Joseph, bent forward, flailing in the mud. Every now and then one would stumble and fall. Sometimes they got up again, sometimes not. Instinct and long habit made him want to go back and see if he could help. Once he stopped and Morel lunged at him, half dragging him forward, all but wrenching his arm out of its socket.

  They were far closer to the Germans now. When the flares went up they were clearly visible running and firing. Joseph realized with sudden, stomach-jarring horror that in a few moments he would be fighting for his life. He would have to kill or be killed, and he had no idea how to do it. He was not a soldier, he was only playing at it—wearing the uniform, eating the food, sharing the grief and the hardship, but never doing the fighting, never seeing the purpose for which a soldier lived and died.

  Ahead of him a figure stumbled and fell forward into the mud. Automatically Joseph stopped and knelt beside him, almost tripping Morel in the process.

  “Are you hurt?” Joseph shouted in French at the man on the ground. He tried to turn the man to see, and realized his chest was torn away.

  “Come on!” Morel lunged at him to pull him up.

  Joseph tore the rifle out of the dead man’s hands. “Merci, mon brave!” he said briefly. He took the ammunition belt as well, putting it on with clumsy fingers as he stood up again. “Pardon,” he added.

  “Get on with it!” Morel yelled at him. “We’ve got more pressing things to do than get shot or bayoneted here. We’ve got to get that son of a bitch back and clear the rest of us!”

  Joseph moved forward, following on Morel’s heels. He had grown up in the country. He had no pleasure in shooting, but he knew how. He could understand overwhelmingly the ordinary young soldier’s desire to aim wide rather than at a living man.

  The next moment they were almost at the German trenches. The noise was indescribable: gunfire, the scream of shells and the roar of explosions, shrapnel flying—all alternating between darkness and glare.

  Suddenly there was a man in front of Joseph. He saw the light on the blade of bayonet and in trying to avoid it he slipped in the mud and staggered forward. It was all that saved him from having his stomach ripped open. Immediately there was someone else in front of him. He saw the high point in the center of the helmet, and lifted his rifle to fire. The man fell, but he did not know if it was he who had shot him, or someone else. There seemed to be gunfire everywhere.

  He plowed forward, sliding into the trench and running along it toward the supply line leading backward. He shouted in German at Morel to follow him.

  The trench was deeper than he had expected, and drier. It startled him and he felt both ashamed and resentful. It was several minutes before he realized that he needed to change identity. Now he must be German. Being covered in mud was an advantage. He threw the gun away and looked around for a wounded man, any wounded man, to make it look as if he were helping.

  Where the devil was Morel? There was no time to go back and look for him. What if in those last few seconds he had been shot? What if he was lying wounded, maybe bleeding to death just beyond the parapet, while Joseph was pretending to be a German soldier and running for the supply trench?

  He turned back just in time to see Morel fall over the parapet and raise his gun to fire at him.

  He froze. It was the final absurdity. They had made it, and were going to shoot each other! He started to laugh, crazily, idiotically.

  Morel lowered the gun and came toward him. “Chaplain, are you all right?” he asked sharply.

  “In German!” Joseph snapped back at him, using that language for the command. “Are you badly hurt?” he went on.

  “I’m not…” Morel began, then as a German corporal came around the corner of the trench he doubled over and all but collapsed in Joseph’s arms.

  Joseph took his weight with difficulty. “It’s all right, I’ve got you,” he said in German. “I’ll take you back to the dressing station. Here!” He half-lifted Morel over his shoulder and, ignoring the corporal, set out along the supply trench.

  “Can you manage?” the corporal called after him.

  “Yes, thank you,” Joseph answered. “I’ll carry him to the surgeon, then I’ll be back.”

  Morel muttered something into his ear, but he did not catch enough of it to make sense.

  Joseph kept his head down, easing Morel’s weight higher—both because it was easier to walk, and because it allowed him to hide most of his face without arousing suspicion. He hurried, as if Morel were bleeding to death and he had to get him out of the range of fire and then attend to him.

  He passed other people: stretcher bearers, medical aides, even another priest. There was enough noise from gunfire to make conversation difficult and everyone had their own duties. Even so, there were mor
e offers of help, which he refused.

  It was eerily like a mirror image of the British trenches he was so used to where he knew every yard, every bend and turn, every rise to stumble over or pothole to turn your ankle in. He knew every ledge and shallow dugout where a man could curl up and snatch an hour of sleep.

  These trenches were deeper, drier. He passed a dugout with electric lights. It was harder going out into the darkness again. Morel was growing very heavy.

  Suddenly there were two figures black in the gloom ahead of him, talking softly in German. Cigarette ends burned brightly for an instant, then disappeared.

  Suddenly panic seized him and he slithered to a stop. Morel dropped over his shoulders to land in the mud, cursing roundly, but having remembered to do it in German.

  “Bless you,” Joseph replied. “Are you hurt?”

  “Bruised to hell.” Morel stood up slowly, wincing. “You might have warned me.”

  “Geddes,” Joseph whispered, pulling Morel away from the men. “Which way?”

  Morel looked around carefully. “There.” He pointed forward. “He’s getting away from the lines as fast as possible.”

  “Does he speak any German? He must, or he wouldn’t dare come through.”

  “Picked up some, but he won’t want to put it to the test this close to the firing line.” Morel started along the trench again and Joseph caught up with him, moving swiftly now.

  They kept out of sight as much as possible, but always as if priests ministering to the wounded. Reluctantly, Morel had gotten rid of his gun also. It was too dangerous to keep if he wanted to maintain his disguise.

  By dawn they were two or three miles behind the lines. The light came early in a clear sky, which held only a few shreds of gray cloud, lit from beneath with pale brilliance. It showed a land shattered by war. Trees were splintered, their naked trunks leafless, some scarred black by fire. Farmhouses were roofless, walls fallen away. Fields were scoured up, crops ruined.

  Joseph glanced at Morel but did not speak. It was time he thought more clearly. Now they were through the German lines they needed to plan, and first to deduce what Geddes would have done.

  “Change clothes,” Joseph said slowly, thinking aloud. “Eat. More important, drink. Water would do, anything clean. Need strength.” He imagined Geddes giddy with freedom, but so tired he could barely stand, and knowing he was a fugitive who did not even speak the language and understood very little of it. “Might have to fight later,” he went on. “Need a safe place to rest first. Exhausted now, and need to plan.”

  Morel was staring at him, frowning. “We have to find Geddes,” he said awkwardly, his face twisted with sudden and startling pity, so deep it gave him pain.

  Joseph saw it and it took him by surprise. Morel had misunderstood, thinking he was speaking of himself. The pity was for him, and perhaps for what he had once been, in another age, in Cambridge. He realized something would be broken between them if he said the wrong thing now. The emotion must be acknowledged, then put away as if it had never happened. He looked over toward the fields and the road, away from Morel’s eyes. “You know him better than I do,” he went on, as if considering deeply. “What do you think would be his first priority?”

  Morel answered after only a moment’s hesitation, and he kept his voice very nearly expressionless, as if he had known what Joseph meant from the beginning. “As far from the lines as possible,” he said, relief making his voice a little high. “He’s not a coward, but he wouldn’t look for trouble. He’s strong. He grew up in the country. If any man knows how to survive on the land, he does.”

  Joseph turned to look at him for a moment, then at the fields again.

  “I know.” Morel lowered his voice, almost as if in the presence of the dead. “It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it? I should think if there’s anything to eat in that, the locals will have had it. Turnips, wild berries, even roots, nettles. God! What a…” His voice caught. “I don’t know. I haven’t got a word for it. Tragedy doesn’t seem big enough.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “If one man with the potential to be great is brought to his knees by a single weakness, we call it tragedy. We haven’t got a word for an entire continent committing suicide.”

  “It’s mutilation, not death yet,” Joseph said softly, willing himself to believe it.

  “Isn’t it?” There was little hope in Morel’s face.

  Joseph started forward. “Let’s see if anyone’s encountered Geddes.”

  They walked in silence for more than a mile. They passed only one person: an ancient man leading a plow horse, a dog at his heels.

  Then Joseph picked up the conversation. “What are we going to say? I should be able to make them believe I’m a priest. And that I’m nearly forty. They’ll believe I’m that old.”

  Morel gave him a wry look. He was in his mid-twenties, but he looked gaunt and there were deep lines in his face. “Or more,” he said drily. “But so are plenty of fighting men. I’d better think of something, and before we reach that farm.” He gestured toward a group of buildings perhaps half a mile away. One side was black from fire.

  “The simplest is best,” Joseph answered, having already given the matter some consideration. “You are a priest also.”

  “What happened to my collar?” Morel asked the obvious. “German priests wear them, too.”

  “Swiss,” Joseph corrected him. “Your accent isn’t good enough for a native. You were helping someone and got blood all over it. You could wash yourself, but your collar and tunic were ruined. Don’t forget the tunic, nobody gets blood only on their collar. They’ll know you’re lying. Another tunic is no problem from a dead man, but he wouldn’t have a priest’s collar. You know enough from your prewar studies of biblical languages to pass as long as you don’t try to conduct a service.”

  Morel smiled. “You lie better than I expected.”

  “Thank you!” Joseph said sarcastically. “Geddes won’t get away with that. So what would you do in his place?”

  The farm was only a hundred yards away now. It was dilapidated, mended with old boards and clearly whatever had come to hand. There obviously had been no glass to replace the shattered windows, and perhaps no putty either. It must take either courage or desperation for the inhabitants to have remained here.

  “He doesn’t have more than a few words of German,” Morel said dubiously. “But he’s a fly bastard. He’ll have thought of something.”

  “If you don’t understand, best to pretend you can’t hear,” Joseph observed. “Maybe he’ll pretend to be shell-shocked and deaf.”

  Morel looked at him with a flash of respect, but he said nothing. They were at the entrance to the farmyard. An elderly woman was putting out kitchen scraps for a few scrawny chickens. She was rawboned and thin, her face seamed with grief. She looked up at them with alarm.

  Joseph smiled at her. “Bless you, mother,” he said quietly in German. “Can you spare us a little clean water to drink?”

  She saw his collar, and the fear melted out of her eyes. Joseph was ashamed at the ease of the deception. “Of course,” she answered him, only glancing at Morel. “And food? Are you hungry?” That was a gracious formality. Of course they were hungry. Everyone was hungry.

  Joseph hesitated. Which was worse—to take her food or to insult her by implying that she had too little to give away?

  “Come,” she directed, and led them into the farmhouse kitchen. It was stone-floored, with heavy wooden rafters across the ceiling from which in better times there would have been a flitch of bacon and strings of onions, as well as the few dried herbs there were now. Being late August there was no need to heat the room, and she had allowed all but the embers to go out in the big black range. She had probably been going to eat whatever she had cold. Now she opened up the door of the range and prepared to put a small piece of wood inside.

  “It is hot walking,” Joseph said quickly. “Pastor Morel and I would both be grateful for cold water, if that is possible? My nam
e is Josef…”—he picked the first name that came into his head—“…Bauer.”

  She introduced herself shyly and then turned her attention to cutting dark rye bread into slices and finding a small portion of cheese and half an onion. She served it carefully on polished plates, and with glasses of cold water, presumably from the well. They were far enough back from the battle line for the water to be unpolluted.

  Joseph began the conversation by explaining their presence. He said they were looking for a young man, a parishioner in peacetime, who was badly shell-shocked and who had run away, terrified. They were afraid if they did not find him he might be shot as a deserter, but since the incident he had been deaf and would not understand. Had she seen such a young man pass this way?

  She said she had not seen him herself, but her neighbor three miles to the south had mentioned just such a man to her only yesterday. They thanked her profusely and took their leave. She had given them directions to the nearest village, and then to the small town beyond. She felt certain that anyone in the young man’s position would head in that direction, hoping to hide and find shelter and possibly food before making his way home.

  They thanked her and left.

  They passed munitions and supply columns going toward the front, men on foot going back from leave and brief recovery after minor injuries, and raw recruits going to join the front. Most of these last were painfully young and their faces soft with the last remnants of childhood. Now they were struggling to mask fear and honor their commitment, and their families’ faith in them. Many would already have lost fathers and older brothers.

  “Jesus wept!” Morel said under his breath. “That blind boy on the right looked just like Snowy Nunn! What the hell are we doing here, Chaplain? What are we doing anywhere except at home?”

  Joseph did not bother answering. Platitudes were no use anyway, and there was nothing else to offer but words that had all been said before.

  They found shelter for the night in someone’s byre. Even though it was dry, clean, and perfectly comfortable, the owner apologized, quite unnecessarily. The next morning they were offered a kind of gruel for breakfast. They ate it gratefully and without asking what was in it. Everyone they saw was hungry, frightened, trying hard to hang on to some dignity and a shred of hope.