A Song for No Man's Land

by Andy Remic

  “I feel sick,” said Webb.

  “But we haven’t bloody set sail yet!” said Jones, smiling, patting Webb’s arm. In a more serious voice, he added, “Don’t worry, mate; when we’re out at sea and you’ve thrown up a few times, you’ll get used to it. I did.”

  “Thanks. It’ll be something to look forward to.”

  Jones nodded, and looked around at the grumbling men. He could feel their apprehension, could appreciate their panic at the thought of fighting on the front. Some of these lads had received . . . what? Two weeks training? At least Jones had put in serious time on the front lines, had fought on the Somme at Flers-Courcelette and Transloy Ridges. At least he had lived through his experiences, learned from his time in the mud, learned of pain through bullets and shrapnel and seeing his friends massacred.

  And now you’re going back, whispered a devilish voice in his mind. Jones half-wished he hadn’t made a full recovery from the shrapnel in his body. Half-wished he was still unfit for service, that the last eight months which had seen so many, many fatalities on both sides of the front had not seen fit to give him full mobility. He half-wished he had lost a leg, or an arm . . .

  Jones shook his head. Shit, no, he decided. He had seen many men without limbs in the hospitals, on the recovery wards back on Blighty soil. Chaps without limbs had curiously dulled eyes. But then, what was more important? An arm, or your life?

  Yet, being whole, being repaired, had condemned him once more to battle.

  And that was just the way it was.

  Jones settled back, chatting to Webb, whom he’d known since childhood. Jones was six years Webb’s senior, but their mothers had been good friends and this had been good reason for the two lads to form a friendship which had endured over the years, despite Jones’s spate of heavy drinking and gambling.

  Now Webb had at last been drafted, concurrent with Jones’s return to active service and mere coincidence—or fate—putting them aboard the same ship on the same day. Jones had seen Webb only once in the last month since the younger lad’s mother had died, and Webb was pale, skin drawn tight, eyes lowered. He looked as if he’d lost weight, and Jones appraised his old friend with sadness. He gave a little shake of his head.

  Webb caught the movement and turned his eyes on Jones. “What? What’s the matter?”

  “It’s you, George. Look at you! You’ve not been feeding yourself properly.”

  “You know how it is,” said Webb, his voice soft. “Since my mother . . . well, you know how it is. Marie is a good cook, but it’s not the same. Our house is no longer the same. It’s lost some of its . . . energy.”

  “She would have been proud of you now, though,” said Jones, trying to lighten the mood. “She would have seen you in that uniform and been right proud!”

  “No, she wouldn’t, Rob. Stop trying to gee me up; it’s no bloody use. Listen. I know you talked to her before she died. What did she say?”

  “She knew you were going to be drafted,” said Jones.

  Webb snorted. “That wouldn’t have taken a genius. The bastards have been working their way through the entire population of Great Britain! It had to come sooner or later. I just wish it had been later. I don’t know if I can do this, Jones.”

  “She wanted me to look after you, George. She wanted to see you taken care of. She made me promise.”

  Webb smiled, eyes full of tears. “She was a soft bugger, really, wasn’t she?”

  “Aye. Yes. A soft bugger.”

  The two men sat in comfortable silence for a while, and Jones remembered Webb’s mother, a gentle woman, with soft features and luxurious curled brown hair. Her face had been deeply sunken when last they met, and the expression on her face told him all. She knew she was dying. Knew she was nearing the end of her mortal coil. She made Jones promise to look after her boy, her Little Georgie . . . and Jones had promised because, ——, there had been no other option; because he owed her that much, a tiny morsel of comfort in her last days of pain.

  She smiled through her haze of morphine. “Thank you, Robert Jones,” she’d said. “I bless you under the watchful eye of God.”

  They docked at Boulogne and were transported by truck and on foot to camps behind the front lines. Jones bribed a corporal to alter Webb’s posting, and when Bainbridge roared up on a BSA motorcycle, the two men watched the recently promoted sergeant stride through the darkness.

  In the distance, the roar of an air offensive against the German Fourth Army was in progress, and the dulled sounds of machine guns drifted through the chatter of soldiers’ talk and the grinding of bombs.

  “Jones!” bellowed Bainbridge, throwing his arms around his friend and lifting the smaller man completely from his feet. Bainbridge was a little bit wilder and a little bit more tufted but the same man he’d befriended so long ago in a Cockney drinking pit. “It’s damned good to see you!” he roared, voice louder than any Fritz machine gun.

  Jones was laughing, and thumped Bainbridge in the chest as the Tommy lowered him to the ground. “God, man, you look old!” he said as he stared into the soldier’s face. “And by God, you’re a bloody sergeant now!” He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the stripes embroidered on Bainbridge’s arm. “I never would have thought it, letting such bad ——ing elements into the privileged ranks.”

  “Shut it, Jones!” boomed Bainbridge, through several new broken teeth. “But good, eh, lad? I’ve been practising, like, and I’ve the right temperament for my rank, now—or so Captain Myers tells me, the stinking old goat. Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Private George Webb, a childhood friend,” said Jones, and Webb and Bainbridge shook hands, Bainbridge crushing his fingers. “Now, you look after him, Bainbridge. No ordering him to slop out the latrine trench!”

  “Somebody’s got to do it,” grumbled Bainbridge. “But I like him! He has a strong grip; we’ll see if that grip can be put to good use against Fritzy, eh, lad?” Bainbridge boomed out raucous laughter, but Webb merely smiled, a modest gesture that went unnoticed by Bainbridge as his colossal appetite for humour and madness took hold.

  “So, then, tell me, how’s life back in England?” asked Bainbridge, as Jones led his two friends into the camp behind the Yser Canal, and towards the canvas shelter which was home to more than thirty men.

  They ducked and entered the shelter. “Oh, you know,” said Jones, “the smell of home-cooking on a Sunday, roast chicken, roast potatoes, sprouts, juicy gravy, filling the warm house with that gorgeous aroma and making your mouth water . . .”

  “Really?” said Bainbridge, licking his lips.

  “Not really,” conceded Jones. “Rations are tight and there’s a roaring black market for anybody with the money. But Blighty is better than here; it’s better than the mud and guns. At least you can get whisky and have the odd bet. At least there are women.”

  “Aye,” said Bainbridge, nodding. “I wish I’d stayed home longer, but with the call of the war, and all that . . . you know how it is. You should have seen it last week, though; do you remember Matchstick? No, he came after you left, I think. The bastards poured gas grenades into our trench . . . It was a close thing. I’ve been practising getting my mask on and off—seemed kind of important at the time, although a lot of the lads were moaning like whores in a German brothel. Well, Matchstick and some of the others couldn’t get their masks on and we tried to help them, Christ we tried, but during the attack, the poor bastards choked to death.”

  Jones ran a hand through his recently shaved hair, aware this talk was making Webb uncomfortable. Webb took out a brush and polish and began cleaning his boots. Jones changed the subject.

  “Bainbridge, remember that Beholla you smuggled back to Blighty?”

  Bainbridge grinned, then looked carefully around. When he was sure nobody was looking, he slid it from beneath his coat and handed it to Jones. “Still have it, mate. Be careful; it’s loaded.”

  “Loaded? Where did you get the ammo?”

  “Scaven
ging, lad, scavenging. For souvos. But with this, it’s worth it. That pistol has saved my life on many occasions! You should see their faces when you shoot them—ha ha! The bullets are designed so if you shoot a man in the forehead, it leaves nothing but a small hole but blows the back of his head off! I tell you, surprise isn’t in it, mate.”

  Jones handed back the weapon with a small shiver, and Bainbridge hid it in his coat. He gave a theatrical wink, then gestured to Webb. “Your pal. He’s a bit on the quiet side, like.”

  “Missing home,” explained Jones.

  Bainbridge slapped Webb on the back, and the Tommy coughed. “Missing your woman, eh, lad? I bet you’ve a nice lass waiting for you back home.”

  “No,” said Webb, shaking his head.

  There was a nearby explosion, and the ground shook. Jones’s equipment rattled in his kitbag.

  “Damn, those boys are getting too close!” snarled Bainbridge, surging to his feet and running out into the night. Overhead in the darkness, a plane droned into the black. “We’re on your side, you fools!” screamed Bainbridge, hawking and spitting in the churned mud.

  He turned to where Jones had followed him out. There was no sign of Webb.

  “That young friend of yours is a strange bugger,” said Bainbridge, eyes narrowing. “Out here, fear will get you killed readily as any ——ing bullet. And he’s scared as a virgin on his wedding night.”

  Jones nodded, and followed Bainbridge towards his motorcycle, where the sergeant lit two cigarettes, handing one to Jones.

  Jones inhaled, and coughed harshly. “What the —— is that?”

  “Bloody French tobacco,” smiled Bainbridge. “Rough as a priest’s cassock, and probably tastes the same. Not that I’ve had the privilege.” He winked.

  Jones scratched at his forehead, then said, “Look, Bainbridge, don’t keep digging at Webb, will you? I know you’re a bastard for it, because last year, you wouldn’t leave me alone about the whisky and the gambling. Just go easy on him, all right? He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  Bainbridge dropped his cigarette and ground it into the mud under the heel of his boot. “If he’s soft, then there’s no place for him in my column.”

  Jones nodded.

  “Anyway. Horse shit. It’s nice to see you again, Rob, damned nice.” Bainbridge patted Jones’s cheek. “I’ll arrange it so you can share my dugout in the trench. The guy who’s with me now snores like a ——ing steam engine. Or a humping pig. Maybe both. He can sleep in the mud tomorrow, the lousy ——er.”

  Bainbridge climbed aboard his motorcycle and, on the fourth attempt, kicked it into life. Over the rumble of the engine, Jones said, “Is there room there for Webb as well?”

  “Tell me you’re joking, Jones?”

  “No joke. I . . . I kind of promised his mother I’d look after him.”

  Bainbridge’s laughter was loud and booming, and with slitted headlamp barely lighting the way, he roared off into the night, leaving Jones standing with the foul-smelling French cigarette.

  Jones dropped the stub and walked back to camp, and in the darkness, the cigarette smouldered for a while, a tiny glow against an infinity of black.

  Slowly, the mud dragged the stub down, embraced it, smothered it, and the glow was permanently extinguished.

  Ypres Salient (3rd. Battle of).

  18th. July 1917.

  SHORTLY AFTER DAWN, the artillery bombardment of the Ypres Ridge and the German Fourth began. The Germans had spent the previous year turning their front lines into well-fortified positions defended by hundreds of concrete pillboxes housing heavy machine guns.

  The way for Allied advance had been paved by constant air attacks during the previous five days, the bombs turning No Man’s Land and the surrounding countryside into a mire of devastation—a landscape of oblivion obscured by a haze of smoke, gas, and the breath of a dark god intent on massacre.

  Now the boom, whine, and crash of mortar shells and field guns echoed across the land with the intention of pounding German defensive lines into pulp, thus allowing infantry from the British Fifth and French First an easier push towards St. Julien and Passchendaele.

  Only time would tell if the strategy would work . . .

  Ypres Salient (3rd. Battle of).

  “The Trenches.”

  22nd. July 1917.

  BAINBRIDGE WASN’T CONVINCED. “Gough has his head up his ——ing backside,” he complained as Jones helped him shovel scattered earth from the floor of the dugout into iron buckets.

  “How so?” grunted Jones, heaving a shovel of earth into the container and wiping the sweat from his brow with a yellowed handkerchief.

  “The weather,” said Bainbridge, simply. “They’ve been pounding the enemy lines to —— for the last four days, and there’s no sign of them slowing. Add that on top of the savage, non-stop air bombardments, and we’ve got a recipe for disaster. All it takes is a little rain, and we’re the poor bastards who’ll have to slog out there up to our tits in mud.”

  “Yeah. Well. I suppose the brass hats know what they’re doing,” said Jones, and watched Bainbridge heave the bucket up the steps from the dugout. When he returned, he threw the bucket into a corner, where it clattered to a halt on its side.

  Jones had settled down into trench life once more, happy at least he wasn’t going over the bags for several days. Webb, on the other hand, was a constant bundle of nerves, although he tried not to let it show. Unfortunately, Bainbridge was an expert at spotting a man’s fear from a hundred paces, and their crossing paths had been nothing but painful for Webb.

  Jones tried to explain it to his old friend the previous night, whilst Bainbridge was out directing a group of Tommies in the digging out of a collapsed communications trench.

  “It’s just his way, George.”

  Webb shrugged. “I don’t ——ing like the man. He looks at me with a sneer on his face, just because he’s seen action, just because he’s proven himself in battle! Well, I don’t know how I’ll perform; maybe I will crack up, maybe I will ‘run away from the bullets’ like your good friend suggested. But he has no right to deride me until I’m proven or disproven.”

  “I think it’s because you were drafted in,” Jones said, at last. “I’ve seen Bainbridge snarling at other new conscripts. He sees the fact that you had to be dragged in by your lapels instead of volunteering like us earlier men, a kind of betrayal.”

  “Yes, well, that’s his view. We all carry ghosts, Robert, and I just wish Bainbridge would let mine lie. I wish he would leave me alone. Remember what you said when I visited you in that London hospital? You could hardly move your arms or legs because of the shrapnel, and you looked into my eyes, swore, cursed the trenches, and told me never to join up; you told me never, ever to join up. Do you remember that, Rob?”

  “I remember. And I didn’t want to come back now. But for some men—and Bainbridge is one of them—war becomes a way of life. To Bainbridge, other men are soldiers willing to throw themselves into the breach, or cowards ready to run home to Mummy. That’s how his mind works; you’re either with him or against him. There is no in-between. No shades of grey.”

  Webb trudged off into the night, face a scowl, and Jones swore to himself he’d talk with the sergeant. Do what he could to help Webb. But when he approached Bainbridge, the big man laughed it off with the words “We’ll see when we go over the top, eh, laddie? We’ll see if he’s ——ing king or coward.”

  Webb knelt on the mud-smeared plank, hammer in hand as he repaired the lengths of broken duckboard. He and seven other men had been detailed to the far end of the trench where an 18-pounder British field gun had become unknowingly blocked, forcing a misfire, wounding six men, putting the gun out of action, and causing damage to the trench walls and the duckboards.

  Taking another plank of wood, he put it in place, held a thick nail steady, and began to hammer it through the timber. His mind began to wander, seeking to block out the noise of the booming guns. A nearby explosion o
f return fire showered the trench with dirt and Webb ducked, a movement that had become second nature since arriving in the trenches, and he continued to hammer, thinking back to Wales, and home, and the long days by his mother’s bedside . . .

  George, you look well today!

  How was your day at work, my boy? I’ve been reading . . . Would you like to listen? Yes, sit there . . . just put it on that stool. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD. And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD . . . in the fear . . .

  Your sister has made some dinner. It’s in the oven. She’s dating that Broome lad from down the street; you know the one, with bushy black hair. They’re going to a dance tonight . . . She looked beautiful in her blue dress; it matched her eyes, made her look so incredibly beautiful!

  George, pass me . . . pass me my glass of water, please. I have to take . . . my tablets. The doctor will be annoyed if I don’t take my tablets.

  Good evening, George. Thanks, my dear. Where have you been today? Oh, yes, that’s right, that’s interesting, dear.

  Your father would have been so proud of you! Have you heard . . . have you heard how it goes on the front?

  Take my ration book; go and get yourself some eggs. You look starved, you poor lad. Oh, yes, you do; now, go on, before your old mam puts her foot behind your backside and kicks you down those stairs . . .

  I’m sorry . . . sorry, George. I don’t feel quite myself today. Oh, don’t go on so; I don’t look anything of the sort. Please can you . . . oh, God . . . can you pass me my tablets? There’s a dear . . .

  Does it hurt? Yes, George, it hurts. I feel like I’ve been cursed, although I don’t know what . . . what for . . .

  —a gentle, pain-filled smile, spreading slowly across her face—

  Maybe that is part of my curse, son, that fact that I don’t know from whence my enemy strikes . . .