He led her along the ochre-red path to where the pond lay, still under its canopy of trees, the water languid, specked with fallen leaves. “Here we are,” Ramsay stopped at a green-painted bench. “Sit you down now.” He watched as she smoothed her skirt beneath her and folded herself onto the wooden slats. She looked up at him, eyes bright and questioning.
“Here I am, Douglas.”
Ramsay stood at her side. Now the moment had come he felt nervous, yet there was no need. He had no doubts that he was correct and the recent, overwhelming surge of affection had only confirmed his decision. “Did you know that this was where Robert Louis Stevenson thought of Treasure Island?” He indicated the small island that sat in the middle of the pond and then nodded to the street beyond. “He used to live just over there, in Heriot Row.”
“Did you bring me here to tell me that?” Gillian’s eyebrows rose slightly. There was amusement in her eyes, and perhaps a touch of something else. Disappointment perhaps?
Ramsay shook his head. He realised he was just trying to delay the moment. “No, I was just explaining the Caribbean connection.” He forced a smile he guessed must look like the grin on the face of a skull. He fumbled in his pocket, found the box and pulled it out. His hand was trembling so much that he nearly dropped it on the path. He knelt, hoping there were no witnesses.
Who cares about witnesses? This is one of the most important decisions of my life.
“Gillian,” he opened the box and pushed it toward her. “Would you consent to become my wife?”
God that sounds clumsy!
The call of the blackbird seemed to last for an eternity as Gillian looked at him and then at the ring. Her eyes were a liquid grey and so beautiful that he wanted to just sink inside them and stay forever.
When they came, her words seemed to cut so deep into him that he gasped. “No, Douglas,” she said softly. “No. I will not consent to become your wife.”
What? You can’t turn me down? I am Douglas Ramsay! I am set to become a successful solicitor! How dare you treat me like this, damn you!
The blackbird was still calling, but the sound was now a mockery of beauty. Ramsay felt the breath choking in his throat. “Dear God, why not? I love you, Gillian. I am on the cusp of my career. Once I pass my finals – and I will – I will be a solicitor. I already have a position in a law firm. We will have enough money to live in comfort, and …”
Gillian was smiling and shaking her head. She pressed a gloved finger against his lips. “Sshhhh, Douglas, dear. I know all about your attributes. I have no doubt of your love, but you see, I want a husband of whom I can be proud, and how could I be proud of a solicitor when all the brave young men are marching to war?”
I am not going to France to get killed or have my legs blown off by some German artilleryman. Not for you and not for anybody else, for God’s sake. There are plenty more women who would jump at the opportunity of marrying a solicitor.
But I love you, damn it all, and I don’t love anybody else.
“To war?” Still on his knees, Douglas stared at her. “You want me to be a soldier? I thought I had explained about that. This war will all be over before I’m even half-trained.”
“Well then, you have nothing to lose, do you?” Gillian shifted along the seat, away from him. “You know that all three of my brothers have joined up, don’t you? I don’t want to be married to the only man in the family who did not do his bit.” She was still smiling, but there was doubt behind the grey eyes now, and something shifting that Ramsay did not like. He did not want to think that it was contempt.
He stood up and brushed the dirt from his knees. He had never wanted this girl as badly as he did at that second.
Damn, damn, damn!
“If I agree to volunteer, will you agree to marry me?” He kept the temper from his voice and fought against the desire to throw the box and ring into the pond and stamp away in frustration and disgust.
“Certainly,” Gillian said at once.
“Well then,” Ramsay contemplated her. With that single dark hair still loose across her heart-shaped face, and her lips open, ready to smile or frown, she was utterly endearing. “Well then,” he repeated, “in that case, I can hardly refuse.”
Oh, Christ. What have I said? Please God the war is over before I get near the front.
Her smile seemed enough reward for a lifetime of soldiering. “Is that a solitaire diamond on my ring?”
*
“You volunteered, then?” McKim asked and Ramsay crashed back to a present consisting of mud and broken men and lyddite-tainted smoke.
“I did,” he said. “Kitchener and the King could not do without me.”
McKim grunted. “Of course not, sir. The army would not be the same without you. Why just the other day General Haig was saying to me …” He stopped talking, “Sorry, sir. No offence intended.”
Flockhart continued to scrutinise him through narrow, thoughtful eyes.
He is working out where he met me before. I have to get rid of him before he remembers and murders me out of hand.
Although the German column had passed, the tramp and shudder of marching feet could still be felt, while the return convoy of ambulance wagons was never-ending. Ramsay realised that his men were all awake again and watching the road.
“Try and grab some more sleep, lads,” Ramsay ordered. “Sergeant Flockhart, you take the next watch, call me at noon.” Uncaring of the mud and shattered stones, he rolled on his side and closed his eyes, not expecting to sleep. The memories of Gillian and that peaceful day in Edinburgh returned and he had to fight against self-pitying tears. The halcyon days of before-the-war seemed so far away they were like a different world. He knew, somehow, that nothing would ever be the same again.
I will never be the same careless man again.
They moved an hour after dusk, slipping silently from the shelter of the shattered farm to head in the direction of the retreating British Army.
“Which way, sir?” Cruickshank asked.
“Head for the guns, Cruickshank, and keep your eyes open for Fritz.” The gunfire continued as a muted roar in the distance, punctuating the horizon with red and white flashes.
“The lads are still fighting, then,” Flockhart said. He pointed to a new shell crater in the ground, the remains of three Germans bore testament to the accuracy of the British artillery.
“But still retreating too,” McKim reminded. “This must be our biggest withdrawal since Mons.” He nudged Flockhart’s side. “Remember that, Flocky? When the angels came to help us? I wonder if they will come again this time.”
Flockhart grunted again. “There are no such things as angels, McKim. There are no angels and there is no God. There is only hell and demons and they are all around us in this purgatory.”
“We’ll keep in line with the road, lads, but far enough away so the Germans won’t see us.” Ramsay led from the front, but he was now constantly aware of a faint prickling at the back of his neck. He knew that Flockhart was gradually working out who he was and where they had met. Once Flockhart worked that out, then there was another threat to his life and an even greater threat to his reputation and name.
“Keep the lads together, Flockhart,” Ramsay ordered. He turned around and saw the compact group of Royals, with McKim slightly to one side and Flockhart in the rear. Flockhart’s eyes met his and did not drop. They probed him; musing, questioning, suspicious, and Ramsay touched the butt of his pistol as a warning. Flockhart nodded but said nothing.
He must know who I am. He must have worked it out and now he’ll try and kill me. I must get rid of him before we reach the British lines. There will be an opportunity somewhere. If not I will make one.
They trudged on into the dark, stumbling over loose strands of wire, skirting the deep shell craters with their pools of gas-poisoned water, freezing with every star shell and flare and watching the intermittent flashes that lit up the horizon and revealed where the fighting front was.
“Over there, sir.” McKim pointed into the dark. “If you look at the gun flashes, you will see something sticking up. It may be a village or something.”
Ramsay focussed, narrowing his eyes against the sudden brilliant flashes of artillery against the dark of the night. There was something there; an oblong of greater black protruding from the chaos of the ground.
“It might be an idea to investigate,” Ramsay said.
CHAPTER SIX
23 March 1918
The church tower rose above the flattened ruins of the hamlet it had once served. Without a map and with every recognisable feature of the surrounding countryside devastated by war, Ramsay had no way of knowing the name of the place.
“Do you have any idea where we are, Sergeant?”
Face him directly, alleviate any suspicion, appear as normal as possible.
Flockhart looked around and screwed up his face. “I couldn’t really say, sir. There are so many wee villages around here, and all have churches.” He shrugged. “I know we are somewhere east of Albert and west of Berlin.”
Sarcasm? Or humour? Is Flockhart trying to show his contempt for me?
Ramsay turned away. “That was very helpful, Sergeant. How long until dawn, McKim, would you say?” Until the beginning of this retreat, Ramsay would never have dreamed of asking the opinion of a mere corporal, but the enforced close companionship had stripped away some of the elitism of rank.
“Less than an hour, sir,” McKim said at once. “Then Fritz will see us marching across his landscape as if we own the bloody place.”
Ramsay listened to the sputter of a machine gun and the crackle of musketry. He estimated it to be at least three miles away, possibly further. For all their marching since the German breakthrough, they were further behind the front than they had been at the start.
“I want to get up there,” he nodded to the church tower. “I want to see how far we are from our lines.”
The tower loomed upward, its top lost in the already lessening dark. “Flockhart, you organise a defensive position around the base,” Ramsay ordered. “If any parties of Fritz approach, destroy the bastards.”
McKim grinned. “That’s the spirit, sir!”
“I’m surprised the Germans have not already occupied this place, sir,” Flockhart said quietly. “It will make a splendid observation post.”
“So am I,” Ramsay admitted quietly. “It makes me wonder just how far they have already advanced. Take McKim and six men and set up defensive positions. I will take Aitken and Turnbull with me in case of nasty surprises.”
And hope to God that our side don’t decide to use this place to range their artillery.
Shelling had ruined the nave of the church and brought down the roof so the interior was a heap of shattered rubble, interspersed with shards of stained glass that glittered and crunched underfoot. The disembodied head of the Madonna stared at them from the top of a shattered pew, its eyes accusing, seemingly wondering how mankind could remain this destructive and violent nearly two thousand years after her son had carried the message of peace and love. There had been a skirmish in here very recently, with three bodies among the ruins, two dressed in British khaki, the third in bloodstained field-grey.
“Check them for ammunition and food,” Ramsay ordered, and lifted three clips from the nearest man. Aitken watched and then rifled the equipment of the second British corpse. Turnbull circled slowly, keeping the muzzle of his rifle pointed toward the darker areas of shadow within the ruins. Only one wall remained nearly intact, with a staircase coiling upward.
“This bugger had his iron rations intact,” Aitken said. “Shall I share it with the lads?” He showed the tin of bully beef and packets of biscuits and sugar and tea that every infantryman carried as standard issue.
“There’s not much to share,” Ramsay said. He eyed the food. It was days since he had eaten properly and even this meagre amount made him ache for sustenance.
You are the officer. It is your duty to look to the men first and yourself last. Ignore the hunger!
“Have half, Aitken and give the rest to Turnbull; maybe the other man has anything?”
“There’s nothing on him at all, sir. He must have been a right greedy bastard.” Turnbull pushed away the corpse in disgust. It was significant that neither soldier searched the German. Even in death he was still the enemy.
“You two watch the flanks. If Fritz has the sense I know he has he will have his eye on this place as an observation post.” Ramsay hesitated for a moment, watching as Aitken opened the bully beef with the point of his bayonet. The smell of the beef seemed to set a fire in his stomach and for one guilty second he was tempted to pull rank and demand his share.
You can’t do that. You need the respect and loyalty of these men.
“Keep alert, Aitken.” Ramsay turned away and tested the first step of the stairs. They were solid stone and had probably been in place for many centuries before this war had rained new powers of destruction on them. The passage of thousands of feet over hundreds of years had worn a depression in the centre of each. The step felt secure and Ramsay moved upward, tested the next and carried on. There were fixtures in the wall to which a rope handrail had presumably once been fastened, but now there was nothing except the rough stone, pockmarked where shrapnel had smashed against it.
I feel vulnerable already. If Flockhart wants to shoot me he will rarely have a better target.
Five steps, ten, and Ramsay was well above head height. The remaining external walls were low and as the grey light of dawn expanded across the eastern horizon he felt very exposed. He was a tiny moving figure against a background of slender grey stone, crawling upward step by careful step. After thirty steps he stopped. There was a gap where a blast had torn apart the stonework and left a hole of sucking nothingness.
Now what do I do? Every German in this part of France can see me if he just glances in this direction.
He looked down. Turnbull was watching him, his face white against the dark background of rubble. Aitken was sweeping the surroundings, rifle ready, watching for the Germans.
Should he go on? Ramsay looked upward, the steps continued, spiralling round and round the central stone column toward the rapidly lightening heavens above. In places the wall remained, concealing the stairs from the outside world, in other places there were huge gaps in the stonework where he would feel ridiculously exposed. Yes, he decided. He must go on. His men were watching. He reached up, grasped the next step, three levels up, and tested it for stability. It felt firm; the step was imbedded into the central column, a solid slab of sandstone that had been carved from some quarry by hand, many centuries ago.
Ramsay took a deep breath and a firm hold of the step. Here we go, then. He stepped into space. For a second he was suspended, hanging on by his fingernails alone as his feet scrabbled for purchase on the rounded central column. The drop seemed to be sucking at his feet, calling him down and he remembered Gillian’s remarks about wanting to fly when she looked over the parapet of the Dean Bridge. That happy day seemed so long ago and far away. He pushed aside the thought, glanced down and saw Turnbull’s white face still staring up at him.
He probably hopes the officer will fall. All officers are bastards, after all. I won’t provide him with free entertainment.
He stretched as far as he could until he felt the skin at the tip of his fingers scraped raw, but his feet found the joints between two stones and he pushed himself upward. There was a second of panic as he hung over the edge and then he pulled himself up and stood on the step. He felt his heart pounding and blinked away the beads of sweat that had collected on his eyebrows.
The rim of the sun had eased onto the horizon during the few moments he had been scrabbling to get over the gap and Ramsay could see the entire panorama of the old Somme battlefield. It was only a few square miles of churned earth and torn landscape, yet it had been the scene of hundreds of thousands of deaths and unthinkable agony. All now wasted as the Germans had pu
shed the British back in a matter of a few days.
Ramsay shook away the thoughts and continued upward, still testing each step as the sun rose along with him and the view grew immense. There were gun flashes to the south and west, intermittent. Mere pinpricks that disguised the fact they were missiles of hellish destruction. He could see villages that were now mere piles of rubble and some that were virtually untouched amidst the carnage of war. There was also a band of smoke that showed where the advance had reached.
Ramsay narrowed his eyes, trying to judge where the front was now. Some miles away, that was for certain. Even as he watched there was a series of explosions, bright bursts of shells around a small village, and the wild crackle of musketry drifting on the breeze.
Amidst the scattering of villages he saw a sizeable town. That would be Albert, surely, with the church tower even taller than this one and the railhead and bustling civilian population. It looked far enough away to be secure. Ramsay wished he had a pair of binoculars, but wishing was pointless. He stepped upward, wincing as the next step crumbled beneath his feet and fragments of stone hurtled downward, turning end over end until they landed with an audible crash just a few feet from where Aitken crouched behind his levelled rifle. Ramsay saw him jump and whirl round. He did not fire and Ramsay continued.
Shellfire had damaged the upper tower and the exterior wall no longer existed. There was only the pillar around which the stairs spiralled, leading upward in a dizzy circle toward the heavens. Ramsay held on to this central pillar with his left hand as he followed the stairs – the empty space to his right sucking at him and the sun rising in crimson splendour to the east.
“Don’t you love the sunshine?” She asked him after their third bout of the afternoon.
He nodded as he watched the sheen of sweat on her upper body and the light passing shadows over her stomach. She turned her head to smile at him, with teeth uneven but surprisingly white.
“My father doesn’t see it much,” she sounded sad. Like so many girls of her class she was emotional and volatile, quick to anger and equally quick to tears.
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