The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  They sat in silence. ‘Neither could I,’ Deerman said at length.

  ‘You could have had it much easier as an officer. That’s the first thing I knew about you. Miller told me.’

  Deerman grinned. ‘Miller thinks I’m loopy.’

  ‘He likes you.’

  ‘He still thinks I’m loopy.’

  Fielder straightened up. ‘He doesn’t. He respects you. They all do. I can see that.’

  Deerman bit down on the urge to dismiss this as he realised it was taking something out of Fielder to voice it, so he nodded.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, staring in front of him. He drew out two Player’s Navy Cut from his breast pocket, lit them and handed one to Fielder who took it. Deerman leaned forward with the match behind his hand and their eyes met again and held. Deerman gave a short, encouraging smile. They sat back in the uncomfortable, hard chairs.

  ‘Will you do some more studying when this is all over?’ Deerman asked. Neither would have said ‘if’.

  ‘I might. I wanted to stay on at Grammar, but when my grandfather died I had to leave.’

  ‘What would you study?’

  ‘English: novels, the poets. And I would like to know more about geology, geography, biology, that sort of thing.’

  Deerman peered at him quizzically.

  ‘I know it’s an odd combination but I’m interested in them. Anyway, I’d have to follow them through at night school, if I could get anything.’

  ‘You’re determined, aren’t you?’

  Fielder shrugged. ‘I have to be. What about you?’

  ‘I’m going to buy a farm.’

  ‘As easy as that?’

  ‘A small farm.’

  ‘Have you farmed before?’

  ‘No, but I used to hang around the farm on my parents’ land when I was a child, but I think I was probably a nuisance. A few of the older hands would let me bottle-feed a calf or a lamb when I was very young. Anyway, those farming days were stopped when my sister found me asleep in the lamb pen.’

  Fielder laughed.

  ‘Mother was informed, and then it was deemed I should be trained as a little gentleman. So I was plonked on a pony and lead around by one of the older hands.’

  ‘So, you can ride?’

  ‘Yes. Can’t you?’

  Fielder looked at him irritably. ‘No...’ Silence, then, ‘How many brothers and sisters do you have?’ he added, immediately regretting his brusqueness.

  ‘Three brothers and one sister. My sister, Edith, is the eldest. She’s married with a son and daughter. My elder brother, Christopher, is living in America with his wife; George, my middle brother, is in Australia, married with two sons, and my other brother, Roger, is the major. What about you?’

  ‘There’s only me.’

  ‘No aunts or uncles, or cousins?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  Deerman frowned in question.

  ‘We went to live with my grandfather,’ Tom said. ‘When my father died, I was brought up by him.’

  ‘Sounds rather lonely.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘You’ve never tried to find your mother?’

  ‘What’s the point? She walked away from me. Anyway, I was too young to remember much about her. I was only about three when she left.’

  They sat in silence then Fielder turned to Deerman.

  ‘What’s your first name, really?’

  ‘Joss.’

  ‘What’s it short for?’

  ‘Me.’

  Fielder shook his head.

  ‘My family call me John.’

  ‘So where does Joss come from?’

  ‘One of my middle names, which is Jocelyn. I used to try and say it as a very small boy because I thought the sound of the name was unusual, but I could only manage ‘Joss’ and it stuck.’

  ‘One of your names?’

  ‘I have four.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Michael (Mother’s brother), Ralph (Mother’s father) and Jocelyn (Father’s uncle).’

  ‘Why so many?’

  ‘In case they changed their minds, perhaps? No, it’s some dynastic poppycock. How many do you have?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Oh.’ Deerman hesitated. ‘Why don’t we use first names? At least they only have one syllable.’

  Fielder smiled, held his hand out. ‘Good evening Short-For Joss.’

  ‘Good evening Tom-Thomas.’

  They shook hands. Several pairs of eyes flickered over to them and then back to various games of cards.

  ‘And what do your family think about your decision to stay as a private?’ Tom asked.

  Joss shrugged. ‘Appalled and mystified I think. My parents seem to be permanently concerned about my apparent lack of goals. My sister thinks I am an interesting eccentric, my brother Roger thinks I’m a Bolshevik. My two elder brothers regard me as the family oddity. I am quite a bit younger, so they’re probably used to thinking of me as the odd afterthought.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think they were all rather surprised when I appeared one May morning.’

  ‘You were born in May?’

  ‘Early May.’

  ‘That’s my favourite time of year. I was born in early January – the bleak time.’

  Joss shuffled back against the wall, trying to support his neck with a rolled-up scarf. Yet, it was not the physical discomfort he thought on, but the fact that Tom may not celebrate his birthday – he had no family to remember it.

  ‘It must be odd being a private when your uncle and brother have such high ranks,’ Tom persisted.

  Joss shrugged. ‘I suppose it is. I get the general impression that people think I went in as a private to be bloody-minded or to make a point, which, in some ways, I did, but not in the belligerent way my family and the army think. I just don’t understand imperialism or empire. It’s not important to me, and that’s something they really can’t fathom.’

  Tom glanced at him, could see he looked tired now, and decided not to pursue it.

  The next day they were sent back into the front-line trenches. As they walked, they came out onto an open plain with a stamped-out strip, which the officers called a road. Along the sides were the remains of horses and scatters of parcel wrappings, sacking, and torn and bloody bandages. There had been a surprise bombardment hitting a supplies’ reinforcement column, the mess of which had gone out for some hundred yards from the shelling side. There had also been some looting from the corpses. At first Tom was shocked by that, then wondered why it mattered to him so much. The men were dead; perhaps the boots and kit were needed. Surely he should have been more shocked that a soldier was expected to bayonet another man, a stranger, to death, or to hurl bombs into known groups. Was this what ‘getting used to it’ was all about? Was this how they coped and stayed sane? He started counting paces. Turning his attention to numbers and the addictive routine of the march, he walked on. That sound and the numbers stopped him thinking.

  At the next support line conditions were more congenial, for there were several shelters and the stretcher-bearers were given a shack in which they kept the stretchers and dressing supplies. Next to it was a small dugout, which about ten of them managed to get inside. It was much warmer and, with a blanket at the door left by the last inhabitants, it came close to being bearable, except the ground was hard and Tom felt fleas biting in the sweated layers of his inner garments. Soon lice would come, very soon by the look of it, for the bearer sitting opposite him was holding his tunic over a small brazier and was watching with amused interest as the writhing beasts fell into the flames. Tom imagined them crawling up his trouser legs, then felt the tickling tentacles on his skin, in his groin, felt the itch and sting of their bites. Closing his eyes, he tried to blank out the thoughts. Joss had not been scratching, and he did not want to be caught at it either. Then Joss looked sideways at him, and, feeling into his shirt, caught hold of several lice and, grinning, held them out. Tom stared at the wriggling
creatures.

  ‘They’re my little chums,’ Joss said. Then, snapping a flea between his fingers, added, ‘and these are my little lodgers.’

  ‘And you’re a barmy sod!’ exclaimed one of the other bearers, holding up his shirt to show the seams. ‘See. It’s clear of the little buggers!’

  ‘And I’ll give you me jam ration if you don’t get them back in thirty minutes,’ the bearer’s friend challenged.

  ‘Jam ration for those little bleeders? You’re on, mate!’ said the first bearer pulling on his shirt. For the next fifteen minutes he sat, staring them out and smirking. Then his mouth twitched. His mate jumped up, and thrusting his hand down his back, drew out a louse and held it up.

  ‘Bastard!’ muttered the first bearer.

  ‘Here, two jam rations for a bloody chat! That’s all right!’ his mate crowed.

  ‘Une chat pour le–’

  ‘Oh fuck off Deerman, you toff!’ came a voice, and Joss ducked as socks, vests, in fact anything to hand, was thrown at him.

  ‘See,’ said Joss grinning, turning to Tom, ‘they just don’t appreciate my wit.’

  ‘You’re a bleedin’ looney, Deerman, that’s what you are!’ said the first bearer. ‘Now give us that jam and don’t tell the sarge.’

  That night the snow fell and stuck, indifferent to the men in both lines. Even during the coldest times at the farm when working out in the fields, Tom could not remember anything like this, for now his head felt it might crack with cold and his feet stick to his boots with frost. Yes, he had been colder at the farm, but then there had been the fire in his cottage, where his cold-burnt hands had tingled painfully as warmth revived them. Back then, his boots had dried in the hearth and his damp clothes hung over the fire, steaming like kettles. Knowing there would be an end to the cold had made it tolerable. But now, in these trenches, there seemed no possibility of a reprieve for days, longer even, and it felt intolerable as trickles of water made their way down his back and soaked his inner clothes so that they stuck to him like cold, gelid dishcloths. His head ached with cold and his hair was damp under the tin helmet, which he kept on in a last attempt to stay warm. Both he and Deerman used a rough shelter made around a hole in the trench wall. They were supposed to be asleep, and for Joss’s sake – who sat hunched up nearby – Tom tried to stay quiet, knowing if he didn’t get any sleep he wouldn’t be able to perform his duties, look out for his own or anyone else’s safety, he would be stumbling about in an intoxication of fatigue and something gruesome may happen. He closed his eyes but the smashed, inhuman face stared back and he opened his eyes with a snap. This movement seemed to wake Joss, who peered up.

  ‘This is hell,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s wrap up.’

  They pulled the blankets over them and pushed in against each other, feeling the warmth of the other’s body. Nico wriggled in underneath, gave a snort of content as he climbed onto Joss’s chest. Tom relaxed against Joss; the warmth was supremely comforting, more, so he dared not look at him. It surprised him, as he usually disliked physical proximity. At training camp, he had not liked anyone sitting too close and thus kept away from canteens and common rooms. He had heard himself described as standoffish, stuck-up, by several of the others, and had been put off trying to be sociable. It had seemed easier that way. Therefore, to be huddled in a couple of blankets with someone he had only known for a short time should, he reminded himself, be disconcerting, but it was not. It was a comfort and felt too good to be acceptable. Acceptable? Why the hell was he thinking like this? A shell could wipe them all out in seconds, so to hell with acceptable. With the blankets as a tent and a gap for air, with each other the feeling of safety intensified, and sleep came easily.

  They were roused by someone kicking at their boots.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you!’ a voice said. There was some laughing. ‘But if you little lovebirds would like to come out?’

  Tom heard the words blearily, found himself lying across Joss’s chest, who looked at him surprised. They scrambled to sit up.

  ‘All right?’ asked a young soldier, grinning as Tom peered out.

  ‘We were keeping warm,’ Tom said.

  ‘We believe you,’ said the soldier. ‘Anyway, thought someone’d better get you up because it looked as though you was about to kip through stand-to.’

  All through stand-to Tom invented scenarios, thought of the names they might be called. Yet no-one seemed to give it a second thought when the trench returned to the slow routine of morning; only Joss, who went off down the line to a brazier. Tom watched as he worked at a piece of splintered board down the trench, burning something into it with a red-hot point of a poker. Slumping into the shelter, Tom tried to read in the gloom. Were Joss’s actions a way of saying, ‘Back off will you? You’re becoming too dependent’? Had he misread the situation so wrongly? He took out a book from his breast pocket: Keats’ Odes, the last present his grandfather had given him, which he took around with him everywhere. It was pocket-sized, leather-bound in royal blue and inlaid with gold lettering; it had seen him through some rough patches. Now he opened the pages and his eyes fell on the words he knew by heart. Immediately his mind went back to Worcestershire, to the fields, butter-gold with corn, of sun glinting white and silver off pastures in the heat, of quiet woods with lattices of sunlight and cool, deep green shade. Memory could so easily take him back…

  The sound of hammering just above his head made him start. In front of his face was a large pair of muddy boots.

  ‘Come and have a look,’ Joss said, leaning down.

  On a broken piece of board hanging from a nail were the words: No.3 Trench Walk. At Home. And on the other side: No. 3 Trench Walk. Not at Home. Tom looked at him, smiling inanely. He wished he could have found the words to express…what?

  ‘And here,’ Joss said, handing him a mug of tea and bringing out a parcel from the side of him. ‘You open it.’

  Tom started undoing the layers of paper and card, laying each aside with child-like anticipation. When the final wrappings were off he saw the items: a ham, preserves, expensive cigarettes, chocolate, soap, knitted woollen socks and gloves and two books: Hardy’s The Return of the Native and Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. He took out the latter.

  ‘They told us about this at school,’ he said. ‘It’s about selling your soul to the devil. Do you think that’s what we’re all doing in this war?’

  Joss frowned at him. ‘No, I don’t. And if you start thinking like that Fielder, you’ll end up in the Bin. You do know that?’ His tone made Tom blink in surprise.

  Several others wandered over, seeing the food, and helped themselves distractedly to the chocolate, which Joss had just opened. Even the captain, Barratt, dropped by on hearing Deerman had received a parcel, and absent-mindedly helped himself to one of the cigarettes while detailing duties. Joss watched with a ghost of a smile.

  After the impromptu feast, Joss went off to the latrines. Tom walked the other way to smoke a cigarette to try and work out what was going on in his head. There was a daze of feelings and some other more primal sense of attraction, of need. It was surging and enjoyable but he knew he had to hide it. Suddenly, he his attention was drawn by something poking out of a shell-hole fifty yards away. The more he stared, the more convinced he was of it being a hand, a clawed hand, as though the owner had been trying to catch at the lip of the shell-hole. At first he thought it a shame the man had not made it, then it occurred to him he should go and see if there was any sign of life, but he reasoned a machine gun could be trained on the section, or a sniper ready to end his life with a bored pot-shot. Even though the hand looked rigid, he wondered how he could live with the thought that the man might still be alive and he – Fielder – had done nothing. Yet he knew it was all linked with this mass of new feelings. How could he be enjoying himself out here? The very thought seemed wrong, just plain wrong. Preparing to push up, he felt his heart thudding in his chest. Launching himself up and over the parapet, he lay, lizard-like, on the freezing
mud. Nothing moved. He crouched up and scuttled forward, but realised he could not make out the hand, so he lay down, gauged the territory until he saw it, unmistakable, reaching out for help. Keeping the arched fingers fixed in sight, he dragged forward and, on reaching the shell-hole, he found the hand was, in fact, a tattered dock plant, dried, brown, poisoned by mustard gas and shell fumes, but still there against all the odds. To make sure this was what he had seen, he retraced his steps, and yes, there was the dead dock looking like a hand. Surely his eyes could not have deceived him that much! Sweat prickled on his forehead.

  ‘What the hell are you doing out there!’ roared a voice.

  Tom clenched, started to move backwards, still on his front like some strange crab. When his first heel dangled over the parapet, he was jerked violently downwards. He looked up at Barratt glaring down at him.

  ‘On your feet!’

  Tom jumped up, stood to attention.

  ‘Explain yourself.’

  Tom opened his mouth to speak but he couldn’t. Instead, he stared helplessly.

  ‘If I ever see you doing that, or anything like it again, I will put you on an immediate charge. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes Sir.’

  ‘No-one goes out into no man’s land without precise orders. Now get out of my sight.’

  Fielder saluted and walked off back to the shelter. Yes, what had he been doing? He sat back against the shelter wall and reached for a cigarette. His hand was shaking. He closed his eyes, felt the sense of not being there. A clattering called him to again. Nico came into the shelter followed by Joss.

  ‘Help yourself Tom-Thomas,’ Joss said jovially, cutting himself another doorstep of cake with his pocketknife. Nico sidled up to him, his eyes widening beneath the quiff of fur, he started shaking hands with Joss insistently.

  With one quick movement, Tom pulled the blanket down over the entrance and pushing Joss back, kissed him roughly. Joss steadied himself, then, holding one arm around Tom’s back and the other behind his head, reciprocated. They kissed for what seemed like minutes, with Joss kneading the back of his head. Then Tom sat back.