Starshine

by John Wilcox

  Nevertheless, the nerves of the defenders were stretched to the limit as they crouched in the trench. The heat from the sun had long since dissipated as the shadows lengthened, and most of the men had eaten their hard tack rations and, although Hickman and Murphy warned against it, they had drained their water bottles too. There seemed no likelihood of another attack, so Jim set three of the men to dig a ditch on the English side of the trench, leading away out into no man’s land. He explained his thinking to Bertie and the men.

  ‘I reckon they will attack soon after darkness has set in. They’ll wait a bit until they think we have dozed off, because they know we’ve had a bit of a hard day. But they will set up that bloody machine gun to traverse the back side of our trench just on the parapet, to stop us popping back over the top. Now, if we can dig a ditch, not a trench but something wide enough for one man to go out and under the traverse of that bloody gun, I reckon we can creep out and get away, if we take great care. Push the earth back down into the main trench, so the Hun won’t see what we’re up to. Right?’

  ‘Genius,’ said Bertie.

  Two men set to, one shovelling, the other passing the soil back. It was difficult at first because they had to dig well within the sights of the machine gun, but the gun had stopped firing and it was not long before the ditch was deep enough for the diggers to move beyond its horizontal arc. Soon, as the sun began to set, the ditch had snaked out into no man’s land.

  ‘What about Flanagan?’ asked Bertie.

  ‘To hell with him. He’s on his own.’

  As Hickman had predicted, no further attack was mounted on the trench and, as the sun slipped below the horizon, Jim marshalled his men.

  ‘Corporal Murphy will lead,’ he said. ‘The rest of you will follow in single file and I will bring up the rear.’

  ‘Now, that bit’s not a good idea—’ began Bertie.

  ‘That’s how it’s going to be. Now, Corporal, take a bearing now on our lines, so you know where you’re going and I’ll follow on.’ He screwed his eyes to the west. ‘Pretty dark now. Better get going, Bertie. Keep your arse down. You don’t want to make a target for that machine gun.’

  ‘Ah Jimmy, son, you shouldn’t—’

  ‘Start crawling, Corporal.’

  It took at least twenty minutes for the snake to wind its way forward so that Hickman, after one last look through the periscope to the darkness of the German lines, could take his place at the rear. It was difficult to make progress, for each man had to place his rifle and bayonet on the soil in front of him and inch his way forward. Eventually, however, the man in front of Hickman had crawled his way onto flat earth and then slithered down into a shell hole.

  As Jim began to follow, a voice rang out from the abandoned trench. ‘Hickman, where the fuck are you, you bastard?’

  Immediately, a searchlight sprang into life from the shattered village and a machine gun began raking the ground. A bullet caught Hickman in the calf and another in the foot as he hugged the ground. A fierce shaft of pain shot up Jim’s leg and he cried out as he rolled over and down into the crater, clutching his leg.

  Only one other man was in the shell hole. ‘Have you been hit, Sarge?’

  ‘Ah.’ Hickman gritted his teeth. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘They’ve gone on.’

  ‘Right. Well, you get going as soon as that light goes out. They’ll send up a star shell so be ready to freeze. Don’t worry about me. I’ll get back in my own time. Go on, lad. The light’s out. I’ll be all right.’

  Reluctantly, the man nodded and cautiously began to climb up over the lip of the crater and was gone.

  Biting his lip with the pain, Hickman tried to examine his wounds. One bullet seemed to have gone straight through the muscle of the calf, for he could feel two holes. The other had made a mess of his foot and he began the painful task of removing what was left of his boot. That done, he fumbled for his field dressing and swabbed both wounds with iodine and bandaged them as well as he could, stopping as he nearly swooned with the pain. He realised that there was no possibility of him crawling, let alone walking, back to the lines. He would have to drag himself back through the mud and debris.

  Jim drained the last of the liquid in his water bottle and jettisoned it. He took off his pack and threw that away too. Rifle and bayonet? It was a court martial offence to throw away one’s weapon, but to hell with that. There was no way he could move while dragging them along too. He took a deep breath and began the slow, agonising journey towards the British lines.

  He had no idea how long it took him, for he paused often, not knowing whether he was fainting or just slipping momentarily into sleep. He only knew that, just when he felt he could pull himself no longer over that rough, pain-inducing earth, he heard a familiar voice: ‘Jimmy, son. Is that you?’

  He raised a weary hand and it was taken and immediately grasped by Bertie. ‘Holy Mother of God, I’ve bin crawlin’ all over this fuckin’ battleground lookin’ for yer. Are you all right?’

  ‘Never been better, considering I’ve got two bullet holes in me right leg. But I’ve never realised before, Bertie lad, what a wonderful voice you have.’ Then he passed out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hickman regained consciousness as he was being handed down into the trench. He could hear Bertie saying something but he had no idea what it was, for he was adrift in a sea of pain which seared into intensity as he was jolted along the line and then lowered onto a stretcher. He was dimly aware that his injured leg was being strapped to the other when blessed unconsciousness took him again.

  He came to amidst the noise of what he immediately recognised as an advanced dressing station. A doctor was speaking, in the tones of a man who had had little sleep and was harassed and clearly near the edge. ‘For God’s sake man, don’t bring me any more like that,’ he was saying. ‘There’s no hope for them so it’s a waste of time and stretcher space to bring them back. Leave ’em out there to die. Bring me ones I can treat …’

  Oh Lord, thought Jim. Which one am I?

  He was answered when someone rapidly untied the bandage binding one leg to the other. ‘Oh good.’ The doctor’s face came into focus: moustached, perspiring and haggard. ‘You’re conscious. What was it?’

  ‘A machine gun,’ he croaked.

  ‘Hmmm. Better that than a shell, anyway. Calf’s all right. Gone clean through. Foot’s a mess, though. Can’t do anything with that. You’ll have to go down the line. In much pain?’

  ‘A fair bit, yes.’

  ‘Right. I’ll give you a jab. Hold still …’

  He awoke again – he knew not how much later – to hear someone softly singing: ‘At seventeen, he falls in love quite madly, with eyes of—’

  ‘Bertie.’

  ‘Aw, bless the Lord you’ve come round.’ The red, round face came into view, bending over him. ‘How’re you feeling, old lad?’

  ‘Could be worse. Where am I and what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, now, that’s a fine way to talk to a bloke what’s brought you in from no man’s land, I must say. Jimmy lad, you’re well behind the line at a field hospital. What’s left of the battalion – and that ain’t much, old son – has been granted a few days’ leave behind the lines and I managed to find you here. Can’t stay long, so I’m glad you’ve come round, like.’

  ‘Many of the lads have gone, then?’

  ‘Oh aye, Jim.’ The blue eyes had now lost all their sparkle. ‘Most of the whole bloody battalion, including the colonel, the adjutant and virtually all of the officers. All attacking that bloody village, so it was. It was a massacre, son. A bloody massacre.’

  Hickman grimaced. ‘Did Flanagan get back?’

  Murphy’s face reflected the grimace. ‘Yes. The Devil favours his own, so he does. Unlike you, though, he didn’t bring anyone back with him. An’ he tried to cause trouble but didn’t succeed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He reported you to the only on
e of our officers to survive, Captain Willerby of C Company. He said you had deserted the trench with what was left of your platoon an’ left him stranded, so to speak.’

  Hickman stirred. ‘So I bloody well did. What happened?’

  ‘I told the captain that Lieutenant Hamilton had told us to get out after dark and one of our blokes backed me up. Willerby wasn’t much interested in Flanagan, anyway. Comin’ back with none of his men an’ all that. It left a nasty taste in everyone’s mouth, so it did. But you brought your blokes back.’

  ‘Ah.’ Hickman looked down at the cage that formed a blanketed frame above his right foot. He nodded downward. ‘What happened there? I’ve been under for what seems like days.’

  The smile came back to Bertie’s face. ‘I gather that they’ve operated on yer foot. I don’t know how successful it’s been, Jim, but the good news is that it’s a Blighty One.’ He leant over the bedside, his face now beaming positively beatifically. ‘You’re goin’ back home, lad. You’ll be seein’ Polly before long.’

  Jim returned the grin. Then it faded from his face. ‘That means you will be left with Black Jack.’

  ‘Well, yes and no. We are being posted to a new battalion that’s being made up of bits and pieces from others that have been knocked about. He’s in a different company still. Anyway, I’m a bit senior these days, a two-striper and all that, so he won’t find it as easy to sit on me. What …?’ He looked up as a nurse gestured to him. ‘Ah. Time’s up. You’re supposed to be a bit delicate at the moment, ’cos you’ve lost a lot of blood. So I’m off.’

  He sought Jim’s hand and grasped it warmly. ‘Don’t worry about me. Go home to dear old Brum and Polly and enjoy yourself. Kiss her for me – though not too much.’

  Jim returned the grip, as best he could. ‘Thanks, Bertie, for bringing me in,’ he said.

  ‘Ah sure that was nothing, you’d virtually reached the line by then. God bless yer, dear lad.’

  ‘Goodbye, Bertie. Stay clear of Flanagan – and the Jack Johnsons.’

  Five days later, via Boulogne, Folkestone and Victoria Station, Hickman was in a hospital in Islington, North London, where a letter was awaiting him from Polly, obviously prompted by Bertie, for Jim had not written. It was full of concern about his wound, asking how long he would be confined there and telling him that if it was longer than a week she would get leave and journey down and see him. Would it mean, she asked a little wistfully, that he would be invalided out?

  It was a question that had been hanging over Jim since the operation had been carried out on his foot in Flanders. So hectic was the pace at the field hospital that there had been no time for a consultation with the surgeon. He had been given a blood transfusion, his foot and ankle had been encased in plaster and he had been shipped back to England within a matter of hours, so keen was the pressure on the staff there. It was, he reflected, like a production line serving the grim machinery of the ever-continuing Battle of the Somme.

  In Islington, however, a charming lady doctor – he didn’t know there were such exotic creatures – had removed the plaster, examined him carefully, had a new plaster dressing put in place and reassured him that the broken bones were beginning to knit together satisfactorily and that he should be walking again within two months.

  ‘Does that mean I can get back to the front again?’ he asked.

  She looked at him quizzically. ‘Most of the men in your situation aren’t so anxious to get back,’ she smiled. ‘But yes. If that’s what you want, I think we will be able to make that recommendation. You’ve got a fine constitution that has held you in good stead in losing all that blood. You must stay in bed here for a couple more days and then we’ll show you how to walk on crutches. Then you can go home on convalescent leave. But don’t overdo it.’

  He grinned. Jim penned a letter to his parents, a longer one to Polly telling her not to waste precious leave in journeying to London for he would be home soon, and, finally, a note to Bertie, thanking him again for dragging him to the British line. He had been told that, left out in no man’s land, he would have died from loss of blood if he had not received attention. The Irishman had undoubtedly saved his life.

  Hickman could not help noticing that the England he had returned to had changed subtly, even in the year since his last leave. The ongoing fighting on the Somme was now creating the kind of horrendous casualties that no British army had ever faced before. And these grim lists were being printed in the newspapers daily, so that the frightful cost of Haig’s policy of attrition was there for everyone to see. It was rumoured that the average life expectancy of an infantry officer in the front line was now about three months. Jingoism had disappeared from the home front in the late summer and early autumn of 1916 and a grim acceptance of suffering had taken its place – that and growing criticism of the conduct of the war.

  The indolent Asquith had been replaced as prime minister by Lloyd George, his Minister for Munitions, and a coalition government had been formed. A new sense of dogged resolution seemed to be in the air; a realisation that the suffering that was now entering into almost every home was likely to continue for the unforeseeable future. Military conscription had now been introduced for men between eighteen and forty-one, unless they were widowed or ministers of religion, and married men had ceased to be exempt from May 1916.

  On his gentle perambulations on crutches in Islington, however, Jim noticed that volunteers were still being sought for the armed forces. Following a recent air raid on London, one poster urged:

  IT IS BETTER TO FACE THE BULLETS ON THE FRONT THAN BE KILLED AT HOME BY A BOMB. JOIN THE ARMY AT ONCE AND HELP TO STOP THE AIR RAIDS. GOD SAVE THE KING!

  Polly was waiting for him on New Street Station when, eventually, he was released from hospital and sent on home leave. His heart leapt when he saw her, emerging like some mythical princess from the steam issuing from the locomotive. Her hair was bunched up underneath the little straw boater – although the summer had gone – which was tied by a scarf under her chin and she wore a long, full skirt and a tight-waisted jacket of blue that showed off her figure. She was already crying as she saw him, lumbering towards her on his crutches and in his hospital ‘blues’.

  She raced towards him and almost knocked him over with the force of her embrace, burying her face in his neck and then covering his mouth and cheek with kisses.

  ‘Whoah,’ he called. ‘I’m supposed to be a frail, wounded soldier.’

  ‘I know,’ she said and kissed him again.

  He pushed her away to study her for a moment. Her face seemed drawn, accentuating her high cheekbones, and the green eyes seemed now to be luminescent under the tears. To him, she seemed to be more beautiful than ever.

  ‘Oh, Poll,’ he breathed.

  ‘Come on, hero.’ She smiled at him through her tears. ‘Let’s go to Yates’s and I’ll buy you a drink. Here, I’ll take that.’ She leant down and, with an effort, picked up the heavy kitbag which had been on his shoulder when she’d leapt at him.

  ‘No, no. You can’t carry that.’

  ‘Course I can. I’m a strong factory worker, keepin’ the machinery going while you loaf at the front line. Come on.’

  She set off, staggering a little under the weight of the bag and almost disappearing under its size. He could not catch her, though, to relieve her of her burden and she strode ahead while he hopped and skipped behind, shouting for her to stop. They attracted smiles from a dozen hitherto gloomy faces on the station platform.

  In the wine lodge, they drew more sympathetic glances as Polly dumped the bag by a small table in the corner and imperiously beckoned the waiter. ‘Something red and expensive,’ she ordered.

  Jim grinned. ‘My God, Pol,’ he said. ‘You’ve become quite a big girl.’

  For a moment, Polly’s grin faded. ‘Oh yes,’ she muttered, turning her head for a moment and thinking of that back room off Victoria Road. ‘While you’ve been away, my lovely boy, I’ve grown up a bit.’ Then she smiled again. ‘Bu
t now that you’re back, I’m just a little girl again. Perhaps we can play marlies in the gutter when you’re better.’

  So they talked, bantered and chattered – of Bertie, of his wound, of the factory, of their parents, of the rationing now increasingly in force and, just a little, of the war. Jim realised that Polly was under no illusions about how bad it was at the front. The newspapers now were telling it as it was, so she was aware of the growing casualties and the futility of many of the attacks. Jim, however, steered the conversation away.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Still got my diamond, Pol?’ he enquired lightly.

  She blushed. ‘Oh yes, love. I’ve still got it.’

  ‘Haven’t changed your mind, then?’ He tried to keep his tone conversational and cheerful.

  She looked down at her lap and then, quickly, up at him. ‘Can I keep it a bit longer?’

  ‘Of course, Pol. You keep it as long as you like, as long as you don’t give it back to me.’

  ‘It’s just that …’ She looked around the room, as though for inspiration, then leant forward and took his hand. ‘I love you, Jim. Please be sure of that. Let me be for a bit longer, eh?’

  ‘I shall let you be until you’re ready. Now,’ he reached for his crutch, ‘I think we should make for the tram. My folks will be beginning to worry. No.’ He prevented her from taking the kitbag. ‘That’s too big for a little thing like you. I can manage it on my shoulder, though you’ll have to take it off me to get on the tram. Come on, lass.’

  Together, they walked through the crowded streets to the tram stop in Corporation Street, a wounded soldier and his girl, a not unfamiliar sight in wartime Birmingham. They parted with a light kiss in front of number 66, with the promise to meet later, for Mr and Mrs Hickman had invited her parents and Mr Murphy in for tea that evening to celebrate Jim’s return.

  The next evening, Hickman waited outside the works gate at Kymestons to meet Polly at the end of her shift. Because his foot was throbbing, he chose to wait by a brick buttress supporting the outside wall, where he could lean and relieve the ache. He was, then, half hidden as he eventually glimpsed Polly in the middle of a stream of workers. She was chatting happily to a tall, older woman when he saw a man hurry to catch her arm and say something to her. She shook her head and hurried on but he grabbed her arm again. This time, she shook her arm free and gave him a half push and ran after the woman. Then she saw Jim, turned and ran towards him, her face aglow.