by Pat Kelleher
“Everson,” he said, “you might have been right.”
“Right?” said Everson quizzically. “About what? What did I say? Jeffries!”
But Jeffries was already strolling down the fire trench, elated.
The great worms, it seemed, had retreated, beaten back by the firepower of the Battalion. The relief along the line was almost tangible. There were exultant, if weary, cheers as the last of the creatures retreated into the earth under the burning glare of another flare.
Slowly the concussive ringing in Atkins’ ears faded to be overwhelmed by the rising tide of groans and screams from those in No Man’s Land.
He plugged his ears with his fingers as if trying to restore the blissful distance granted to him by the explosion, wishing the cries would cease and hating himself for it. The screams continued all night, though none would venture from the trenches to lend aid or succour, the cries gnawing relentlessly at each man’s conscience. Those that could survive out there until morning might have a chance.
Atkins’ guilt threatened to rise up and choke him. Had William died like that, slowly, alone in agony and fear with no one willing to help? If he was truthful even that wasn’t what bothered him. What bothered Atkins was the unspoken thought that somewhere, deep down, he hoped his brother was dead.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“In Different Skies…”
OVER THE NEXT few days a broken telegraph pole was erected to serve as a makeshift flagpole. Hanging from it, not proudly and defiantly, but limply, fluttered a dirty and ragged Union flag. It seemed to reflect the worn, exhausted mood of the men who wandered aimlessly about beneath it, devoid of any great purpose now the battlefield in which they toiled had ceased to exist. However, the veneer of normality was maintained, as it always was, in the most damning and ignominious of circumstances. Or perhaps because of it, because of the sheer scale of it.
The battalion fell back on a comfortably familiar routine despite their unfamiliar surroundings. The physical labour and variety of the fatigues reassured the men, keeping them occupied and busy. In Kitchener’s Army there was never any shortage of tasks.
Captain Grantham had forbidden anyone to leave the sodden circle of Somme. It was all that now remained for them of the world they knew as home, blighting the fresh green landscape around them like a canker, an unutterably dark stain on their souls, made visible. For Jeffries that wasn’t too far from the truth. Jeffries, who was technically now next in command being a full lieutenant, feeling constrained for the moment by orders he had no compunction to obey, began seeking more signs and portents. The molten rage he felt at the ritual’s failure was, thanks to the sight of the giant worms, even now being forged into cold, hard intent. And he was given to wandering to the far edge of the mud pack and peering out into the unknown land.
It was something many of the other ranks did when not working. Egged on by pals, a few daring or stupid ones had tried scrambling down the mud banks onto the verdant foreign plain, wading out into the green tubular fronds and turning to wave at their friends, only to be snatched away with a scream by the hell hounds that still loped about perilously near. That put a stop to such expeditions. Those that didn’t get eaten alive were just as quickly chewed up and spat out by equally voracious NCOs.
Not that many wanted to leave the confines of their claustrophobic muddy trenches, for there, at least, was a sense of familiarity and belonging. There, among the avenues, streets and homes they’d carved and burrowed for themselves they shared a commonality of purpose, of experience, of comradeship that no one back home could, would or should understand. The fear that it might suddenly vanish in an instant, returning to France without them, leaving them stranded, was more than incentive enough to keep most in line. Battle Police and Field Punishments did for the rest.
With the aid of several privates Lieutenant Tulliver wheeled his aeroplane onto the drying mud flat in order to protect it from the indigenous life that seemed to be gaining in courage by the day.
Swamped in his Aid Post, Captain Lippett, with the help of the nurses, began to set up a Casualty Clearing Station on the open ground above, behind the support trenches, using what they could to erect makeshift bivouacs. There they found themselves having to deal with a new kind of shell-shock victim, ones who could not deal with the new reality they now faced.
The tank crew didn’t really fraternise with the other soldiers, preferring to keep themselves to themselves; the secrecy of their training had been drilled into them and was not easily relinquished. They slept in bivvies alongside their machine, politely declining to mix with the others, happy in their own company and in allowing their commander, Mathers, to speak for them. This was not to say they were unfriendly, merely guarded. The landship created a great deal of interest among the infantry men and, when brief moments between work arose, whole platoons would gather round examining the great armoured war beast, circling it and expressing their approval with low whistles and amazed shakes of the head. While pleased with the attention lavished on it, the tank’s crew guarded its secrets enviously, like priests at a shrine, and requests for a ride or a look inside were politely, if firmly, declined.
The length of the day was timed. It came to twenty-two hours. The night sky offered up no clue to their whereabouts, other than it was no sky they recognised. Whatever myths might have drawn its constellations, they were none they knew, so some men began sketching their own; ‘The Pickelhaub,’ ‘Charlie Chaplin,’ ‘Big Bertha,’ ‘Little Willie.’ The brightest star in the night sky was soon named ‘Blighty.’
By day the warm sun began to dry the Somme mud out until it developed a light dry crust that contracted in the heat until it cracked. The decomposing bodies beneath began to rot faster. Foul smelling steams and vapours rose from the flooded shell holes as the fetid liquor within evaporated.
The hell hounds, still drawn by the smell of carcasses, unable to help themselves, slunk forward in ones and twos only to be driven back by sentries’ rifle fire.
2 p LATOON WERE on trench fatigues again, working on the stretch of support trench behind the front line. Meant to house off-duty and support troops it needed to be turned around to work as a front line in order to protect their rear. It was a job they were familiar with. Captured German trenches needed such work doing to them in order to make them defensible; changing parados to parapet, cutting new fire steps and laying new wire. The idea here though was to turn the entrenchment into a circular defensible stronghold. It was still an unnatural feeling to stand in the open on the lip of the trench in the full glare of the sun with nothing to fear but sunburn, but the bright warm sunlight eased their brittle nerves a little.
“Bloody rotten job!” said Mercy, sucking fiercely on the end of a fag as he shoved his entrenching spade into the dirt with his foot, seeking to prise loose another spit-worth of claggy mud.
“I’m sure you’d rather be on burial duty,” said Ketch, walking towards them as they slung the spoil over the top. “It can be arranged.”
Pot Shot put a warning hand on Mercy’s shoulder. Mercy grunted and stubbed the butt of his Woodbine out on the damp wall of the trench, grinding it purposefully into the grit, his eyes never leaving Ketch.
“Now put your backs into it! This section of trench is to be finished before dark” he said, before wandering off.
“One of these days,” said Porgy, spitting on his palms and gripping his shovel before starting to fill another sandbag. “Burial party? I know it’s a bad lot but—”
“It’s worse than you think,” said Atkins. “Don’t tell me you can’t smell it?”
“Thought that were Gutsy’s feet,” said Lucky.
“Oi!” warned Gutsy from where he was leaning against the side of the trench taking a slug from his water canteen.
Ginger, who was on watch, sat on an old ammo box, his eyes nervously darting around the unfamiliar landscape.
“I hope you’re keeping your eyes peeled, Ginger. I don’t want to become a devil dog�
�s dinner,” griped Half Pint.
“Uh huh!” he said, nodding his head.
“He seems to have calmed down a bit in the last few days,” said Atkins to Gazette.
But Gazette wasn’t listening. At least, not to him.
“Shh!” he said, holding up a hand.
“I wish you’d stop doing that!” said Atkins.
Gazette silenced him with a scowl.
There came a low soft roar like the roll of distant thunder.
“Take cover!” yelled Ginger, leaping down into the trench. The roar continued building. It wasn’t a shell or thunder, it was an earth tremor.
The walls of the trenches began to vibrate, sandbags jittering over the edge.
“Get out, get out!” Atkins yelled as Porgy thrust his hand down from the lip. Atkins shoved Ginger towards him. Porgy grabbed his hand and yanked him up. Atkins scrambled up using an old scaling ladder. The wall collapsed, sliding down into the trench and undoing several hours of hard work before the tremors subsided. Muted yells arose from all around as men scrambled out of the trenches onto the open ground above. A more plaintive and urgent, if unintelligible cry issued from nearby.
“Someone’s trapped,” said Pot Shot. They slipped back down into the trench and worked their way along until they came to the junction that led to the latrines.
Ketch had been doing his business, sat over the hole in the plank across the pit. When the tremors hit, the plank must have juddered loose because there was Ketch, khaki pants round his ankles, in the slurry pit of excrement below. Buckets of urine had also fallen over, drenching him in their pungent contents.
“Get me out!” he screamed through the filth.
The section looked at each other, smirks breaking out on their faces as their corporal struggled to right himself. No one was willing to go near the collapsed latrines and risk a similar ducking themselves.
Atkins looked around the collapsed trench. Seeing Ketch’s rifle, he picked it up and, checking that the lock was on, held the butt as he thrust the barrel towards Ketch.
“Grab hold!
But the corporal’s hands were slick with sewage and, as he pulled himself out, he slipped back with a splash causing the section to double up in raucous laughter.
Atkins persisted though and Ketch was able to loop his arm through the rifle’s shoulder strap as he pulled him out, almost losing his own footing in the process.
Ketch lay panting on the floor of the trench coughing and spluttering, his sodden trousers round his ankles. Atkins slit open a sandbag with his bayonet and passed it to Ketch who snatched it from his hand ungratefully and began to wipe the excreta off his face.
“You!” he spat. “You did this!”
“Corporal?”
“You were told to put this latrine right. You and Evans. Did you think it would be a big joke? A big laugh? Well you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face one day, Atkins. You mark my words. You’ll get what’s coming to you.” He got to his feet and advanced towards them. They backed off, unwilling to be smeared by the malodorous mud.
“It was the earth tremor!” said Atkins. “You must have felt it, we all did.”
Ketch opened his mouth to say something, stopped, gagged and retched. The section’s delight turned to disgust. They backed away from him out of the trench, hearing another heave as vomit splattered wetly on the trench floor.
STILL SNORTING AND guffawing over Ketch’s misfortune they got back to the section of trench they had been rebuilding and found Ginger billing and cooing. In his arms he held his tunic inside out and crumpled like a nest. They could hear something snuffling about inside it.
“Look, Only!” said Ginger thrusting his hands out towards Atkins, inviting him to examine the jacket’s contents.
“Oh God, don’t say Haig’s back!” muttered Gazette.
Atkins peered over cautiously, not knowing what to expect, half anticipating something to leap out of the bundled cloth and bite him. He caught a flash of yellow fur and saw a long nose sniffling about in the makeshift khaki nest.
“What the hell is that? Ginger, what on earth have you found this time?”
“His name’s Gordon,” he replied beaming. He moved his hand under the tunic to open it out, revealing a small rat-sized creature with short yellowish fur, small black beady eyes and a long tubular snout. It didn’t seem to have jaws or teeth. It snuffled eagerly around in the jacket, completely uninterested in the soldiers now gathering around it. “I found it,” said Ginger. “He was just sort of wondering around, like he was lost… like us.”
“Fuck’s sake, Ginger, everything we’ve come across so far has tried to kill us or eat us or both. You’ve got no idea what this thing is!” said Gutsy.
Mercy did. He knew what it was straight away. It was an opportunity.
“No, no,” he said. “Steady on, lads. I think Ginger is onto something. Look.”
They looked. Then they looked puzzled.
“All I see is some blonde rodent with a furry trunk,” said Porgy.
“At what it’s doin’, smart-arse!”
Atkins looked again. It seemed to be excitedly running its snout along the seams of the jacket. A small long red tongue flickered out. “It’s chatting,” he said. “Bloody ’ell. It’s eating the lice!”
As they watched, the otherworldly rodent pushed its snout into and along the seams, sucking up eggs and lice alike with great relish.
“We could clean up with this, fellas. This is the proverbial golden goose. No more feeling hitchy-koo. They’ll pay through the nose to have their regulations cleaned of chatts. Gawd love us, any of us would! Gordon, here, is what you might call a Hitchy-kootioner.”
There was a chorus of nods.
“Me next!” said Porgy hopping to pull off his boot before carefully pulling off his woollen sock and dangling it in front of Gordon. “Here, boy. Here,” Gordon lifted its head and sniffed tentatively at the warm, damp, writhing sock. Porgy dropped the stinking sock into the coat. Immediately Gordon thrust its snout into it.
“And what good is all that money going to do out here?” said Pot Shot. “Where can you spend it?”
“Jeez, steady on, Pot Shot, can’t a man have a dream? I’ll save it and spend it when I get back.”
Gordon was now totally enclosed by the sock, although from the snuffling and snorts that were issuing from it, it didn’t seem to mind.
Already Atkins and the others were thinking of the booming business ahead; five hundred lice ridden, lousy men at thruppence a head? Gordon was going to make a killing for them.
GRANTHAM HAD TAKEN to pacing about his new HQ, trying to avoid the vista outside, as if by ignoring it it would go away. He couldn’t cope with it. There was no section about this in the Field Manual or the Standing Orders. Without them he didn’t know what to do.
The man was fast becoming a liability. He commissioned innumerable reports, seeking to bury the stark horror of their situation under a mountain of minutiae, so Everson found himself mired in endless company meetings.
“Trench repairs are well under way,” Everson reported. “The backfilling, blocking and fortification of the open trench ends will be complete soon. Nothing should be able to enfilade or flank us then. Second Lieutenant Baxter of the Machine Gun section is constructing new emplacements for his guns. We’ve also set up a trench mortar in the old farmhouse. However if we want to repair the trenches properly then we’re going to need more wood. At the moment we’re down to cannibalising duckboards for revetments.”
Grantham’s face was drawn, his eyes red-rimmed.
“This is a nightmare,” he muttered.
“At some point we’re going to have to send out working parties to cut down trees from that forest over there.”
Slacke nodded emphatically.
“Sir,” he said. “We have potable water for three more days. We have food rations enough for perhaps twice that. Rum ration won’t last. If we’re here much longer we’ll have to start looking
for supplies locally.”
“No,” said Grantham, hoarsely.
“But, sir…”
“I said no. We will return home.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but we can’t just sit here and wait for that to happen.” He paused. “It may never happen.”
Grantham exploded. “That is defeatist talk, man, and I won’t have it, d’you hear?”
Everson took this as a further sign of Grantham’s growing instability. The man needed to believe they would be returned home. If it became apparent that their fate was otherwise he feared that Grantham would really funk it.
“Sir?” It was Jeffries. “With all due respect we may have to face the possibility that we are here for an indefinite period. While I am sure you are correct in your assumption that we shall be returned I feel it prudent that we should prepare for the worst. At the very least it will keep the men occupied. An army with nothing to do will soon become a mutinous rabble.”
Everson was surprised by what he heard. “I have to say I agree with Jeffries, sir. It should be understood by all that we shall be returned home in order to keep up morale. However we should consider sending out scout patrols. We need to know what we might face in the short term and if we can find water.”
“I could make a short reconnaissance flight, Lieutenant,” offered Tulliver. “That would at least give your men some possible directions in which to explore. I should have enough fuel, but with my observer dead, I’d need someone to spot and map-make for me.”
“Jeffries can go,” said Grantham. A smile bloomed briefly on Jeffries’ lips before fading.
“Very well,” said Tulliver. “I suggest we go straight away. There’s enough light left for a short flight.”
“You need to look for rivers, streams, lakes; sources of water. Look for cultivated fields or others signs of civilisation,” suggested Lippett.
Civilisation. It wasn’t a thought that had even entered Everson’s head until now. He had been too preoccupied with simple, brutal survival and thoughts of home. But yes, civilisation. The existence of a civilisation that might have achieved dominion over this wild and untamed country had never really occurred to him. What cities might they have constructed, what wonders might they have achieved? What marvels might they work? Surely they would recognise a fellow creature of equal intellect and extend a hand in aid? Unless they were responsible for their sudden journey and arrival here. In which case one would have to try to divine the motives for such an act.
