Lena. So quick and bright and bonny. Already she’s talking, talks like a book, Dad Bright says, and singing as well, remembering all the words to the songs Pansy and Mother Bright teach her and when she dances, well, she’s that light and dainty on her feet. They all dote on her, all of the Brights do, and if any of them have wondered she’s not like Clem, there’s never a word been said.
Pansy takes Lena up into the bush to play among the trees and ferns and flaxes and to listen for the birds. In the summer she’ll teach her to swim in the creek and when she’s old enough she’ll go along with the other kiddies to the school and Pansy will help her with her lessons, making sure she has her own chance.
After Lena was born she’d filled out the birth registration. When it came to writing down the father’s name, she stopped. Though it was a lie, she could write Clem in there. Clement Michael Bright. Lena would have the name of the family that loved her.
She’d sat there, thinking hard. She had loved Otto; he was Lena’s father and his name would be all she would ever have of him. But what if she did give the child his name, the German name she should have? People hated the Germans and probably would for a long time to come.
She filled out the blank space and when the birth certificate came in the post she folded it carefully and tucked it beneath her things in the drawer.
Part Five
Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.
Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know,
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw someone lie
Humped at his feet . . .
‘The Rear-Guard’, Siegfried Sassoon
32
It was as if the earth had a purpose all its own, moving closer, pressing her dankness, rankness down on him and her cold eating into him. Sleeping, jolting awake, sleeping and waking, sleeping waking; there were voices but he couldn’t be sure of them. Was it in the sleeping he heard them or was he awake?
Here.
Hold on, mate.
Your hair still grows after you’re dead. Your hair grows and your fingernails grow, it’s why they put concrete over the graves, the concrete is to stop the hair and the nails coming through.
They’re in the cemetery and it’s getting dark.
There’s people here, old son, been buried alive. They’ve found the skeletons to prove it, the hands stretching upwards and the fingernails broken and filled with dirt from where they’ve tried to dig themselves out.
Could be his mind playing tricks on him. Could be he’s still down there, though it seems he’s in a bed and when he opens his eyes there’s light around him.
He lies still, trying to make sense of it, trying to work out what’s real. The light around him, the sounds, the feel of the mattress beneath him, that and the blanket.
There is light shining into his eyes. He feels the weight of whatever was pinning him down lifted from his body and feels the relief of it. He breathes in hard, testing. It catches somewhere in his chest, sharp and stabbing.
He was on a stretcher being carried through the darkness, but a different darkness he could see through and there was rain on his face until they shovelled him into the back of the ambulance and it shuddered, skidded and the driver was swearing. Fucking stalled, fucking stalled the bastard. He heard clunking, that was the crank the driver was using, and they were moving, jolting forward, him and the other men with him in the back. There was the smell: disinfectant, he thought, and blood and shit and piss.
He’s alive and he’s in a bed and there’s a face above him and he wants to laugh right out loud. He was in the ground buried, but now he’s alive and he’s in a bed and there’s a face above him.
You’re with us now, are you?
He’s heard of men waking up thinking they’re in Heaven with an angel looking down at them. No mistaking this one, though. A face like a robber’s dog, this one has.
‘I thought you were an angel, Sister.’ He feels his mouth stretched in a grin and he hears his words come out, slurred and husky. His mouth is dry and Jesus his head hurts.
‘Well I’m not,’ she snaps, ‘and I’m no Sister, neither.’
She’s narked and all, she’s a real sourpuss this one, and that makes him grin all the more. He looks around him, taking in the row on row of cots packed together and the blokes lying in them and the bloodstained bandages and the bedding lying flat over where there should have been legs and arms not there and the smell. And Christ, some of those lads look like they’re corpses already but still he can’t stop grinning because he’s alive and he’s awake and he’s out from under the ground.
Now he’s looking down for his own legs and they’re there and his hands as well, resting on the blanket. He’s alive and with everything still left of him.
What about the others? He’s searching the faces.
‘Tam? Is Tam here? And Sharpe.’
‘There’s an Archibald Sharpe in the next row along. I don’t know about any Tams.’
‘McAtaminey,’ he says. ‘Walter McAtaminey.’
“I haven’t heard the name.’
‘Can you find out?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘What’s wrong with me?’
‘A knock on the head and cracked ribs. You’ll be out of here soon. One of the lucky ones, you are.’
‘Sharpy?’
‘He’s to be shipped to England later in the day.’
That means it’s serious. But maybe there’s hope because if Sharpy was going to die they wouldn’t bother sending him anywhere else, would they. But Tam? And Green. Green was there as well.
‘Tom. Tom Green. He was the one listening.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She shakes her head but, in his heart, he already knew Green was dead. He would have been closest to the blast. He remembers the fearful look on Green’s face as he’d stared back at them, the urgent way he’d waved his hand to stop them working. It was too late by then.
It was him should have been listening. He should have been the one and what was he doing but wool-gathering and now Green’s dead and Sharpy not far off it, most likely. Maybe Tam as well.
He’s not grinning now and she takes his hand and squeezes it, I’ve got to be off but I’ll be back later to see how you’re doing. She’s kind and now he looks at her closer he sees it’s the dark rings under her eyes and the bleakness in them and the grim set of her face that makes her plain. She was most likely bonny enough before she got caught up in all this.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks.
‘Sheila.’ She squeezes his hand again. ‘Try to sleep. You’ll be good as new in no time.’
He stares after her. He doesn’t feel much like sleeping and he doesn’t feel lucky neither. One of the lucky ones, you are.
Green dead. Is Tam dead as well? He tries to remember where he was when it all went off — in front of him or behind?
Green dead. Joe dead and he’d never even got anywhere near fighting a German. All he’d done was try to pretend he was a soldier just like all the other kids huddling down there in the mud and the blood and the rotting body parts and the piss and the shit and the lice and the shitting, pissing, fucking rats. And what was it all for, with a few yards of mud gained one week, the same yards lost the next?
All for nothing, that’s what it was. Only a fucking, stupid, mad game with no purpose to it, no end to it. But no reason to stop when all that had to be done was toss the dead ones to the side, since there were always more new players to send in alongside those who’d copped it but were patched up good as new ready to send back
in and all.
His guts are churning with the stink and the boys with their blank eyes and their bandages and the blankets covering over the parts missing. Cover it over. That’s right. Fucking cover it over with a clean blanket and then folks won’t know. That’s what this whole fucking shitting war is. Just covering over the whole fucking shitting fucking fucking mess of it with blankets and words and knitted socks and flags. He wants to smash and punch. He wants to cry. He can see Sheila bending now over one of the lads, then she signals to the orderlies and they’re coming with a stretcher.
Well, that one’s a goner. Least he made it here, least they can write one of their letters to his mother, died from wounds peacefully in hospital. He’ll be buried out alongside where they are. There’s graveyards sprung up all over the show; there won’t be ground enough to put them all in if this carries on much longer. He died in a bed and he’ll be buried with his name above him and that’s something to be grateful for. Not like the other poor bastards blown to bits of bone and shreds of flesh and left to rot.
Lies in a soldier’s grave. That’s the story they write. Died bravely. Didn’t suffer. Lies now in a soldier’s grave.
A soldier’s grave. If them at home knew what he did. Their dead lads lying down there, passed by without a second look, trampled by the boots walking over them, gnawed on by the rats. Lads that should’ve been back home working and building things up, wedding their girls and looking to having little lads and girls of their own.
He’s going to vomit, he can feel it churning up in his belly and now he’s heaving and tossing out his guts all over the bed. Sheila’s running and there’s a woman behind her, that one’s a Sister for sure, she’s got that steely look about her, get a basin, nurse, for heaven’s sake why hasn’t that man got a basin beside him? Sheila back and muttering there aren’t enough to go round and that’s why, she’s stripping the blanket off the bed, and he’s back against the pillows, she’s tucking the blanket up around him.
He’s back against the pillows and he’s crying. Jesus, talk about Joe pretending to be a man, there’s tears streaming down his own face, running like the fucking Grey they are and he’s shaking and the whole bed shaking with him.
‘It’s shock,’ she says. ‘Try to get some rest. Doctor will be around soon. He’ll most likely give you something to calm you down.’
He sleeps for what seems to be a matter of minutes and he wakes with a face looking down at him. ‘Are you in pain?’ it asks.
He stares at the face, registers that it’s thin and young and male and the eyes behind the glasses are pale and look dead-beat. There’s that steely-eyed Sister behind him.
‘Are you in pain?’
The voice is raised and Clem hears the impatience in it. There’s all the others to see after him; there’s a man up ahead calling out. Others to see much worse off than he is. His head hurts and his ribs but it’s nothing up against those others. He shakes his head.
‘Righty ho.’
And they’re gone. How do they do it? That one’s for the knacker’s yard but that one can be patched up. So long as lads can crawl and hold a rifle they’ll be all right to be sent back. Is that what it’s down to? Cannon-fodder. He remembers his dad’s words. It’s not the doctor’s fault. Neither is it the Sister’s. It’s just their job.
What he could tell them back home. What he could tell them. Our brave lads. Fighting for King and Country. Died a hero’s death. They wouldn’t let animals be treated the way they were treating their boys. What if it got out that a herd of cows were wounded and in agony and left to die in their own muck, well, the whole of the country’d be up in arms. And these are their sons. Their own little lads they used to pick up and carry in their arms.
He’s got to stop thinking this way. He’s got to. It won’t do him any good thinking like this. No good at all. He’ll be out among it again soon enough.
He wishes he was more like Tam, who stays calm and cheerful and keeps on joking. He gets his letters from home and he laughs at what they say, but always in a good-humoured way. Mam wants to know if I’m eating enough and getting enough rest. She says the daffodils are out, they’re making a good show this year. Ellen and her mother are crocheting around the big tablecloth. It’ll only be used for visitors. My word, she’s clever with a needle is my Ellen. It was hard for them getting the right linen, with things not coming through from England the same. They’re using lemon and green on the cream and she hopes I like that combination. When it’s finished they’ll be getting on with the table napkins.
Mother prays for you every night and so do I. Good night, my own brave darling, and may God bless you and keep you safe. Your Ellen.
Tam reads that bit out, his face soft. She has a way with words, my Ellen.
Sleeping and waking. When he’s awake long enough he tries to build up his spirits. He could still be down there. He could be dead. He has to rouse himself up if he’s to get himself through the next part.
It won’t go on for ever. It can’t.
He has to rouse his spirits, get out of here, get through the next bit and then he’ll go home. Maybe he’ll make something better of himself once he’s back. Because he still wants to.
All those words Dad used to spout at him. He never listened to it, nor saw why Otto was concerning himself with it all. Best thing for a young man, far as Clem was concerned, was to work hard and start making a life for himself. But now. By God he’s seen enough to make a young man think a bit further about how things are.
He could be down there and dead. He’s alive right enough but he’s here in this hell of young lads broken and dying. He sees the doors open and the stretchers brought in. There’s a man screaming, blood pouring from between his thighs. He’s heard of that and now he’s seeing it for himself. The Sister’s there. Groin accident. Better to be dead than live on like that. Better dead.
He wants to go home. He sees it now: the kiddies playing in the street, the men coming up from the mine, the bush spreading up behind the cottages and the creek. The winter frosts, the sun beating down bright and hot how it does on summer days and the rain coming out of nowhere. Here, with the land so flat and stretching out miles and the sky hovering so low it seems to press down on a man, well, he longs for the rise of hills, the mountains stretched above them, the glimpse of snow glimmering red and gold in the light at the end of a day.
Pansy’s kiddie might be out running in the streets by now. How old would she be now? Most likely too little to be out playing on her own yet. He’s seen young ones, hardly able to walk, being let out with the bigger ones supposed to be watching them but he knows Pansy wouldn’t allow that. He knows she’d be a good mother. Mother’s always writing of the girl. He expects she’s pretty, clever too if she’s anything like Pansy. Pansy with her bright eyes and the ends of her plaits folded under just so like her ma always did them. Pansy saying the poems, her voice ringing out clear as a bell.
Lena Bright, she is. Lena Bright, Lena Bader? What does it matter? He thought it was the worst that could happen but given what he’s seen it’s not much. There’s worse things happen at sea is what his gran used to say.
Though it still hurts him if he lets it. He can’t help but envy Tam his letters and his girl waiting for him. Good night, my own brave darling, and may God bless you and keep you safe. Tam’s Ellen and her embroidery and china being saved up for her wedding, well, she’d be a girl you could trust; she wouldn’t be giving herself away without the ring on her finger.
He can’t be dead. Not Tam. Tam’s lucky. Him and Tam are the lucky ones. It’s not the way for a man to behave but he was crying a moment ago and now he’s trying not to laugh out loud, he’s got the shakes again try to rest, you’ll be good as new. Try to rest try to rest try to rest.
He wakes and there’s another face above him and, by God, it’s Tam grinning down on him. His arm is in a sling and there’s a cut above his eye but
, by God, by God, it’s Tam.
33
By the time they’re back there are changes. Underground fighting is becoming a thing of the past. Now that they’ve got the trench mortars and howitzers in use, the army can achieve in minutes what them digging for months could do.
The lads are building shallow-level galleries running out under no man’s land, the idea being to link them up with the German trenches after the advance they say is coming. It’s mainly above the chalk they’re digging so it’s soft earth and easy; they can do twenty-seven feet in twenty-four hours in this. At first they were told it was a rush job and every one of the lads put his best foot forward. They were on the offensive now, all set to push Fritz back to Germany where he should be; just a few more months and it might be over. Then the word came around that the British attack was postponed indefinitely so there was no hurry over what they were doing after all.
What it meant for the war itself Clem could only guess at. Was it that they were being beaten back, no longer on offence but defence? Nobody knew: it was all gossip and hearsay. One day it was one idea and the next some other. Still, it was the same day-after-day digging. They had to be careful with the fortifications: earth that soft could crumble and bring the whole show down.
He and Tam had been pronounced fit for work around the same time, Tam with his bust wrist, him with his ribs. Holding on. It was all you could do. Just hold on and keep digging. Sometimes he feels as if he can’t catch his breath down there. Maybe it’s still his ribs not quite mended but he worries it’s his head that’s not right. Mild concussion, the doctor said, and he’d get over it soon enough.
But he’s down there, not thinking about anything much at all, just swinging the pick or shovelling and all of an instance it comes at him, sweat beading up on his forehead, a different sweat, entirely, from the ordinary sweat-up he got from working. Ice-cold it is and it makes his skin prickle and then his breath starts to go and next thing he’s doubled up wheezing and having to drag in every breath.
Through the Lonesome Dark Page 25
