Ramsay glanced at the map of the front line spread over one entire wall of the dugout. “Where are we, exactly, sir?”
Campbell unsheathed a bayonet that hung in its scabbard from the back of his chair, looked at the glittering blade for a second and jabbed it in the map.
“We are here, between the Durhams and the Northumberland Fusiliers. As you know, most of the Front is no longer a continuous line of trenches, but a system of strongholds – we call them keeps – which should be mutually supporting with interlocking fields of fire.” Campbell raised his eyebrows and waited for Ramsay’s confirmation.
“Yes, sir,” Ramsay said.
“Except the keeps are not complete yet,” Campbell said, “and we are lacking machine guns and artillery.” He opened the drawer again, looked at the whisky bottle and closed it with a bang. “How up to date with the situation are you, Ramsay?”
“I have been recovering from wounds for the past few months, but I have kept in touch with events in France.”
Campbell nodded. “You are quite experienced for a lieutenant. Remind me where you were wounded, Ramsay?”
Ramsay ignored the implied criticism of his rank. “Passchendaele.” He heard the flat intonation of his own voice.
Campbell heard it too. “That was a bad one,” he said. He glanced at Ramsay’s two pips and pushed harder. “Was that your first action?”
“No, sir.” Ramsay shook his head. “I was at the Somme as well.”
Campbell glanced again at the two wound stripes. “You were injured there as well?’
“Yes, sir.” Ramsay did not explain further.
Campbell nodded. “I will be blunt, Ramsay. I would expect an officer of your experience to hold a higher rank than lieutenant.” The weary eyes held Ramsay’s gaze.
“Yes, sir,” Ramsay sighed. “I was wounded on the first day of the Somme. I hardly cleared our own trenches before I was hit, so there was little time to gain promotion.”
Campbell nodded, but his eyes remained hard. “Was that your first action?”
“Yes, sir,” Ramsay said.
“And your second?”
“Passchendaele,” Ramsay told him. “In between I was recovering and then based in southern England.”
“Hence no chance of promotion,” Campbell agreed. “Even so, it’s good to have an officer of your experience here, Ramsay. We are fighting a different war to the one you knew at the Somme, and with different men.” He returned his attention to the map. “As I was saying, the front line should consist of a series of strong points with interlocking fields of fire, so in theory every inch is covered by machine gun and artillery fire.” He tapped the point of his bayonet on the combination of lines and dots that marked the British front line.
“We are here, in the centre left of General Gough’s 5th Army. I want you to take over this section of the firing line, from here, to here.” He moved the bayonet slowly across the map. “We are still creating our strong points, but we have a partially completed small keep which you will command.” Campbell sat back down, put a hand toward the table as if reaching for something, changed his mind and began tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. “As soon as you are settled in, Ramsay, I want you to send out an observation patrol. Tonight will do. See if old Fritz has anything planned, listen for anything unusual. Try and see when Fritz is coming.”
Ramsay nodded. “How many men do I have, sir?”
“Thirty three,” Campbell said quietly, “and you have three traverses with one Lewis gun. There is support behind you, of course. We have two Vickers machine guns, as well as artillery, so your front is well-covered if Fritz decides to call.’
Ramsay nodded. “Thank you, sir, that is good to know.”
“We call your section of the line Gorgie Road,” Campbell gave a wry smile. “I hope you are not a keen follower of the other Edinburgh football team.”
Ramsay did not smile at the Edinburgh connection. “I prefer rugger sir. How are the men?” he asked.
Campbell shrugged. “Mostly very young, with a stiffening of veterans,” he said. “You have a few originals and you will need Sergeant Flockhart and Corporal McKim.” Campbell shook his head. “McKim is a bit of a rogue, but there is no better man when things get rough, except perhaps Flockhart.”
“Sergeant Flockhart?” Ramsay started. He felt the blood rise to his face but took a deep breath. Calm down; it’s a common enough name. There’s no need for worry.
“That’s the man,” Campbell confirmed.
“Sergeant James Flockhart?”
Oh God, no! Of all the people to bump into out here!
“You know him?” Campbell looked up, smiling.
“Not personally, sir, but I have heard the name,” Ramsay lied easily. He tried to still the increased hammering of his heart as the memories crowded back into his mind.
Fresh spring grass; puffy clouds painted white against a blue washed sky, with trees waving only the tips of their boughs in the lightest of breezes. She looked up into his face, wide eyes of light blue laughing with him as they made soft love.
“Happy?” he asked, and she nodded her head, and then opened her mouth in a cry of ecstasy.
He smiled and allowed the sensation to linger as he gazed down at her, with those wondrous breasts now exposed to the kiss of the sun that highlighted the faint down on her arms.
In a few years, Ramsay knew, the breasts that gave him so much pleasure would be ponderous and her eyes hardened with toil and poverty, but for the time being she was all that he desired in a woman: young, willing and free.
He climaxed and lay there, panting slightly as she moaned in his ear. The world was good.
He listened to the sound of her breathing and reached out for her again.
“Do you love me?” she asked.
“That’s not surprising,” Campbell’s words brought Ramsay back. The major studied a section of the map for a second. “Flockhart is a good man – one of the originals – a veteran of Mons, Ypres and the Somme. He’s seen it all and done it all, he can be trusted. McKim is an old soldier from way back. He’s been promoted and busted back to the ranks so many times the regiment has lost count. He was in the Boer War from Bird’s River to Paardeplatz, the siege of Wepener and with Dawkins in the Transvaal. He knows all there is to know about soldiering.” Campbell touched the two gold wound stripes on Ramsay’s sleeve. “Junior officers have to earn the trust of McKim and Flockhart, but these will help.”
The sergeant’s name had startled Ramsay but he glanced down. “Yes, sir.”
Campbell returned his attention to the map. “So you’re back for another helping of Fritz, then?” He sat down again before Ramsay could reply and waved his bayonet at the map. The twelve and a quarter inch long blade seemed to waver in the flickering glow of the candle. “Let me elaborate on the set up we have here. It’s not like it used to be, Ramsay. Now we have three distinct defence lines. The rear line that we can defend in depth. You have just come through that. There is the battlezone of strongpoints and redoubts, this is where we will hold any push by Fritz. Lastly, and most exposed, is the forward zone of small outposts and larger strongpoints.” He waved the bayonet vaguely at the map. “As our sector is not complete yet, we still have sandbagged trenches as well, while the strongpoints are not as strong as I would like them to be.”
Campbell held Ramsay’s eyes; his face was expressionless. “I am sending you to the forward zone.”
Ramsay nodded. Back again. Back with the mud and slaughter, back to the scene of my earlier failures. “Yes, sir.”
“Just leave my office here,” Campbell smiled at his attempt at humour, “walk down Gorgie Road for half a mile and you will reach your new home.” He held out his hand. “Well, good luck, Ramsay. You had better get out to the forward zone and look after things.” He smiled, briefly, but his eyes were still weary. “I repeat, I am glad to have an experienced man with us. These young lads like Kerr are good stuff, keen as mustard and brave as they
come, but the men prefer an officer who’s been through it.” His smile was bleak as an Edinburgh November. “There are not many of us left.”
With that reminder of their own vulnerability, Campbell sat back down, glanced at Ramsay and recovered the bottle of Glenlivet. Raising it in Ramsay’s direction, he asked, “More?” and shrugged when Ramsay shook his head.
“You won’t mind if I do.” He poured whisky into his glass and did not stop until the liquid slopped over the rim and overflowed onto the table that bore a hundred similar stains. Ramsay left him to the sanctuary of alcohol and stepped into the sinister dark.
How long this time? How long before I catch a bullet and the men despise me?
A flare drifted across the night sky, casting a red light over the surreal landscape, momentarily highlighting a barrier of sandbags with crimson shadow. Like blood. Like the blood of a million dead men. Ramsay shivered, pushed the thought away and concentrated on finding his way through the shambles of barbed wire that linked the strongpoints together. What had seemed so clear cut on the map was only confusion on the ground.
“Are you looking for somewhere, sir?” The voice came out of the dark.
“I’m looking for Gorgie Road,” Ramsay said.
“You’ve found it, sir,” the voice said. “You’ll be Lieutenant Ramsay then?” A compact figure emerged from the shadow of the sandbags. When a signal flare soared up above No Man’s Land, he withdrew to the trench wall, but not before Ramsay had seen he was a stocky man with steady eyes and the three stripes of a sergeant on his sleeve.
That’s him. Oh, God, that’s Flockhart.
“Careful now, sir. There’s a sniper about. He’s a persistent bugger and he loves it when somebody lights us up with a flare.”
Ramsay stood still until the flare died away. He knew that movement meant death if a German sniper was on the prowl. Of the British, only the Lovat Scouts could outmatch the German snipers and there were none in this sector of the line.
“Can’t we deal with him?” Ramsay moved on, with the sergeant slightly behind, his feet quiet on the sparse duck boards. “I might send out a patrol of picked men and watch for him.”
“Not bon, sir. Your predecessor tried,” the sergeant’s voice was flat. He gestured over the wall of sandbags with a jerk of his head. “He’s still out there,” his face twisted in the sudden light of a flare, “hanging on the old barbed wire.”
Ramsay nodded. “I see. You will be Sergeant Flockhart, then?” He tried to keep his voice neutral as he narrowed his eyes against the glare of the flare. His hand edged to the flap of his revolver holster. Did Flockhart know who he was?
“The very same,” Flockhart agreed. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, would you like me to show you to your dugout? You look dead on your feet.”
The flare faded and fell to earth, leaving them in blackness that seemed more intense in contrast to what had gone before. Ramsay started at the sudden clamour of a machine gun. The noise echoed in the dark. “Sorry,” he said, “my nerves are not what they were.” He flicked open the catch of the holster. Do it now. Nobody will know. It will be one shot among a thousand.
“Nobody’s nerves are what they once were.” Flockhart had not moved. “That was up north, not in our parish.” He stepped onto the duckboards in the centre of the trench. “Come this way, sir. Mind and keep your head down.”
The trench was shallower than those Ramsay remembered, with sandbags making up more than half the wall. Rather than forming a permanent barrier across the whole line of the front, it served as a link between a number of more heavily fortified strong points, where Lewis gunners crouched behind castellated parapets and Vickers machine guns swivelled to cover all possible access points. As always, there were men on duty, standing on the firing step, peering through periscopes into the dark or crouching in the shelter of the sandbags as they gripped their rifles. Some looked up as he passed, others ignored him. Only one man jumped to attention and tried to salute. Flockhart pushed him back. “Don’t be stupid, Nesbit! If Fritz is watching you’ll have Mr Ramsay marked off for the sniper!”
“Oh God, I’m sorry, sir!” Nesbit appeared to be about fifteen years old.
“Just something else to remember, Nesbit,” Ramsay said. “You get back to duty, son.” He felt suddenly ancient. He was barely twenty-three, but it was hard to remember a time when his life had not been regulated by gunfire and punctuated by the wary eyes of private soldiers. Either that or the heavy smell of antiseptic in the white-painted wards of a military hospital, among the regulation blues that hid the wreckage of what had once been fit young men.
Ramsay borrowed a trench periscope and eased it over the parapet to survey No Man’s Land. At first his eyes could not penetrate the dark, but a providential flare drifted across the sky, casting a greenish hue over the landscape and reflecting from ten thousand barbs in a hundred coils of wire. Ramsay winced at dark memories.
Kerr joined them, his face tinted green by the flare. He said nothing as he filed behind them, but his breathing was heavy, indicating nerves.
“Good man, Kerr,” Ramsay encouraged.
Flockhart nodded to him, “If you just bear with us, sir,” and led them round a corner of the trench to where a wall of sandbags soared into the hostile sky. “Here we are sir. We call it Craigmillar Castle. This is our own private keep.”
The sandbags were six deep around this section of the trench, with firing positions every yard and a raised platform for the Lewis gun. One glance through the periscope revealed an eighteen foot deep barrier of barbed wire. “It’s not perfect, sir,” Flockhart said. “We could do with a heavy machine gun in our section and at least two more Lewis guns.” He gave a wry smile. “And a couple of Fritz’s pill boxes.”
Ramsay nodded. He looked around, assessing how his section of trench could be improved. “How has Fritz been behaving recently?”
“Tres bon, quiet as a baby on laudanum, sir.” Flockhart jerked his head back to indicate the German lines, a scant two hundred yards away. “No patrols, no morning hate, nothing. It’s like they are on holiday over there.”
“They are definitely planning something then,” Ramsay said. “We can expect a raiding party tonight or at dawn tomorrow. Is there a listening post in No Man’s Land, Sergeant?”
“There is, sir. It’s manned day and night in case the Huns try anything. We have Second Lieutenant Mercer there now, but it’s time for his relief.” Flockhart rolled his eyes toward Kerr.
Now! Now I can get rid of him. Ramsay nodded and turned to Kerr, who had been a silent spectator to the conversation. “Kerr, I want you to take Sergeant Flockhart and four men to the listening post. If you hear anything unusual, report back. Follow the advice of Sergeant Flockhart. I don’t want any heroics now.”
Kerr grinned quickly, “Thank you, sir.”
Thanking me for sending him into danger. That boy should still be at school.
“Remember what I said and don’t be a hero, Kerr. Do as the sergeant advises. He was cutting barbed wire when you were still cutting your milk teeth. ”
Flockhart did not look as pleased. He raised his eyebrows briefly, nodded and said, “Very good, sir.” He seemed to be studying Ramsay’s face, as though trying to recognise him
Yes, it’s me you bastard, your nemesis. Die!
Ramsay watched as Kerr divested himself of all his surplus equipment and followed Flockhart into a deep, sandbagged bay. There was a crooked tunnel that led into a sap which zig-zagged forward. Flockhart slid into the sap, with Kerr following eagerly and four anonymous privates who followed more slowly and with less enthusiasm.
Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die. Ramsay shook the betrayal from his head. “Good luck,” he said. Kerr looked back and smiled and then the privates shuffled forward and they disappeared behind a dogleg in the sap. There were faint sounds of feet scuffing on duckboards and then silence. Suddenly it seemed lonely in
the keep.
What have I done? Self-loathing uncoiled in Ramsay’s stomach and he turned away in disgust. He turned again, opened his mouth to call them back and a corporal hunched past, pipe between his teeth and his eyes as calm as midsummer. “Evening, sir,” he said. “Don’t you worry, you’ll soon settle in.” He stopped and removed his pipe but made no attempt to salute. Ramsay saw that he wore the King’s and Queen’s Boer war medal ribbon as well as the purple and green of the North West Frontier.
“Thank you, Corporal…?”
“McKim, sir.” The corporal appraised him frankly. “Kenny McKim. You’ll be the new lieutenant, then.” He grinned. “Welcome to Craigmillar Castle, sir.”
“Thank you,” Ramsay repeated. “Hardly a castle, is it?” He looked up as another flare soared into the night. The light illuminated this section of trench, showing the heavily sandbagged emplacement for the Lewis gun with its six man team trying to grab some sleep around its base. The barrel pointed skyward but the drum of ammunition was fitted in place and one man had his hand on the stock, as if holding the hand of a favourite child.
“Let’s hope Fritz stays at home for a few days,” McKim placed his hands in his pockets and sauntered down the trench. Although he did not look down, his feet found the driest places on the duckboards. “Here’s your own personal snug, sir.” He jerked an elbow toward a dugout. The top step was supported by sandbags and the side wall riveted by broken duck boards.
“Wake me in two hours,” Ramsay paused at the entrance, “and I will do my rounds.”
“Yes, sir,” McKim said. “Although the guns will wake you first.” He raised a hand in farewell and stepped around the traverse of the trench. His rifle was slung casually over his shoulder, but a canvas cover protected the muzzle and what Ramsay could see of the mechanism was bright and clean.
Ramsay negotiated the five steps that led to his dugout. It was not as luxurious as that enjoyed by Campbell, being little more than a depression scooped out of the ground, roofed with corrugated iron and protected by layered sandbags. Despite the chicken wire that lined the interior walls, mud and soil had seeped into the room and lay in small piles, while the smell of stale sweat from the last occupant was noticeable, even above the normal stench of the front. There was a garish picture on the wall, a scantily clad woman with ample breasts and a big smile – the accompanying script was in French and Ramsay did not bother with a translation. The table was small, unsteady and unwashed; the bed consisted of a duckboard plank balanced between two sandbags and a straw mattress on top. There was a telephone with a wire snaking up the steps, presumably connecting the dugout to Major Campbell. Ramsay lifted the receiver and heard the faint buzz that confirmed his connection; there was nothing else in the room, save mud.
Last Train to Waverley Page 3
