The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  ‘It’s good to laugh,’ he said and his face looked younger, his eyes clear blue.

  ‘I think it is what you need.’

  Briggs looked at her quizzically.

  ‘You seem to try so hard, you...tighten yourself.’

  ‘Do you mean now?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no, of course not. But when you met that officer just now, you become formal, nervous to them. I see that.’

  Briggs sighed. Victoria was right.

  ‘Look,’ she said, picking up downy feathers from the ground. ‘Pretend these are you, so just fly, and stop trying.’ With that, she blew the feathers and they drifted away, effortlessly. Briggs watched as though transfixed.

  Victoria looked at him, then seeing the relaxed smile on his face, smiled too; it was a young man who looked back at her, his eyes were that of a boy’s.

  Later, Briggs walked through the fields to the farm billets. Soft yellow light fanned out from the officer’s quarters over the courtyard where groups of unusually quiet men sat; everyone in rank below officer had been confined to billets. Deerman and Fielder scrambled to their feet and saluted.

  ‘Nice evening, isn’t it Sir,’ said Tom.

  Briggs remembered Victoria’s words. ‘Yes,’ he said, gazing up at the clear blue-black sky. The stars looked like sparks from an enormous white-hot fire. ‘Almost like summer.’

  ‘Will you join us, Sir?’ Joss held up a bottle of wine.

  Briggs nodded, sat down on the sun-warmed stone bench they had been occupying.

  ‘I can’t vouch for its quality, but it tastes good,’ Joss said.

  Briggs drank quietly, remembering the feathers drifting off; he closed his eyes. Then he heard Deerman and Fielder’s voices telling him about the farm they were going to set up – they sounded clear but oddly detached. All he could think about was Victoria: her physical and emotional presence, of what she had said and how she had said it. He had spent the previous few days in the quiet moments when he was shaving trying to guess what it was she found handsome in him. Holding his head this way and that, he realised he was actually quite handsome when he stopped looking so permanently worried. She was right; he merely needed to loosen up. The ease with which they talked gave him unimagined hope. Now he could sit here in this warm evening air and feel the company of friends at last.

  The words If you want to find the old battalion, I know where they are floated down the line. They marched, a heavy knowledge of where they were going, making the movement lethargic and the singing subdued. Barratt had told them about their return to the front line the evening before. Hardly anyone spoke or looked up from studying their boots as he spoke. Joss ate nothing that evening but lay on his mattress, covering his head long before lights-out. His head ached with fear and the sinking memory. The shrieking sounds, the stink from the trenches invaded his memories so all he saw was the filth they had to go back to, with death waiting in the wings to snatch one or the other, or both. How had they endured it? How could they carry on enduring it? Perhaps Tom was right. Perhaps they should all just stop, throw down their arms and walk off en masse. What was the point of it?

  I’ve seen ‘em, I’ve seen ‘em, hanging on the old barbed wire.

  ‘Tell ‘em up the line to bloody well Shut Up!’ the sergeant yelled from the back.

  The singing stopped. The men turned round but the sergeant looked ahead, square-jawed and resolute. A deeper dejection settled among them. They marched, the only regular sound the tramp-tramp of boots. It rained steadily, then in a torrential downpour. It tricked down the necks of uniforms, pinged off hastily donned tin helmets, soaked through the gaps in boots, slithered under capes as the wearer sweated underneath. Arguments broke out. Several men fell out and sat on their packs, looking pale, sweaty-faced and angry.

  After walking for several miles without saying anything, Joss looked sideways at Tom, pulled a few stupid faces, which were usually received with a smirk, or grin, told a few humorous asides but still nothing cracked through the sullen look on Tom’s face, as he kept his eyes straight ahead. Joss fell silent again.

  They had hardly reached the support line when a shell shrieked overhead and the men dropped instinctively.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tom said.

  Joss looked at him, surprised.

  ‘I’ve been a miserable bastard... It’s coming back here. Not knowing.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Somehow I get the feeling not coming out of the line and having to go back would be easier. And that riot at the rugby match...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I enjoyed it.’

  Joss shrugged.’ Most people did by the look of it.’

  ‘No. I mean really enjoyed it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well it doesn’t sit well with not wanting to fight, does it?’

  ‘It’s a game, that’s the difference.’

  ‘So what’s the difference between being able to punch someone on a field and running them through with a bayonet?’

  ‘One’s a game, the other’s warfare, and people don’t die in games. Anyway, I didn’t see you thump anyone.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘So this is a rather pointless conversation.’

  ‘It isn’t. I keep thinking of that convoy. How far would any of us go if we’re pushed?’

  ‘Who knows.’ Now Joss stared forward, avoiding Tom’s stare.

  ‘I hope I wouldn’t, but that’s the worst part; I don’t know. It’s like everything I thought I was sure about is being chipped away.’

  ‘You and several million others.’

  ‘Do you feel like that?’

  Joss considered. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘So how do you cope?’

  Joss shrugged. ‘I suppose I accept that sometimes I think like that and leave it there. We’re all here against our will and I’m buggered if I’m going to be sunk with guilt.’

  ‘I wish I could be like you.’

  ‘You’ve said that before.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re not.’

  The front-line was a predictable but still shocking, shelled-out mire. There had been constant bombardment from each side over the last few weeks and the pocked-marked mud and oozing shell holes were all that remained. There was no trace of the greenery of the coming spring. The conditions were worse than anything Tom had seen, but Joss was not surprised. There was a dugout of sorts for the officers, which comprised a crater covered over with corrugated iron sheets. ‘Other ranks’ made do with the trench bottom, which was knee-high in mud. The only way to keep boots free of it was to sit up on the fire step, hugging shins, which did not make for sleep, only encouraged cramp and stomach pains. The actual line was tentative as most of it had collapsed, and even the presence of sandbags was noteworthy. The duckboards had long since disappeared.

  ‘Perhaps mud really does keep you warmer,’ Joss said as he sat down and the mud oozed over his trousers. ‘Might as well get used to it. We’ll go headfirst into it sooner or later.’

  Tom eased himself down, as the trench was narrow in this section. The mud felt cold beneath him and strange as it crept up over his thighs. As he moved, his leg gave a loud flatulent noise and Joss looked at him, pop-eyed. They started laughing stupidly. A soldier stepped over them and looked down with disgust.

  ‘Bleedin’ ‘ell, you two,’ he muttered and struggled on. Their laughter became uncontrollable.

  ‘Perhaps it does keep you warm,’ Tom agreed when he could speak.

  ‘Or mad,’ said Joss.

  The rain soaked them but it hardly mattered. They were wet. So what? Tom felt it oozing into his underclothes – rain and mud. Wasn’t this the degradation of war? If anyone back home asked him what it was like in the front line, he would tell them. Yet oddly, sitting in the trench with its high mud walls, he felt detached, as if the war was a long way off.

  ‘If a farmer kept cattle in this, he’d be considered cruel,’ Joss said.

&nbs
p; ‘Do you think the red-tabs even know what it’s like?’ Tom asked.

  ‘I doubt very much they’d have the imagination to picture it. Or care, even if they could.’

  Just then, a piercing roar shattered the air with a ferocity that made even sleeping men cover their heads with their arms. An enormous blunt-nosed fountain of earth erupted in no man’s land, which then broke into a plume of soil and rock, staggering towards them like some furious, mortally injured beast, obliterating the daylight. Further up the line, several men with provisions and the post were atomised and sank into the mud without a trace.

  A few days later, Joss was called to the officers’ dugout. Briggs looked up, as though embarrassed; he looked inordinately strained. Sitting up straight, he felt for his cigarette case. It quivered as he held it out. Joss took a cigarette.

  ‘Thank you Sir,’ Joss said, watching him carefully. Something wasn’t right. The thought struck him how odd it was calling him Sir when, given a few years either way, they could have been at school together. Briggs held out a candle in a tin to light the cigarette. For a moment, they smoked and said nothing. Briggs kept glancing up, but then seemed to lose his nerve. His eyes were bloodshot and the whites, yellowish. Colouring up a little, he stubbed out the cigarette halfway through. ‘Your leave is due, Deerman,’ he said, opening a folder. ‘You will report to ‘A’ company headquarters at 1800 hours.’

  ‘Leave?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I’ve only just arrived here.’

  Briggs gave a dismissive gesture, as though saying ‘I don’t make the rules’. Joss noticed his knuckles had gone white, holding the folder. Next thing, the papers swept across the floor. Joss stepped forward to retrieve them and, as he stood up, stopped dead. Briggs’ purple-rimmed eyes were bleared, his mouth set.

  ‘Sir...’

  Briggs drew out a big handkerchief and blew into it hard, then pretended to cough. ‘It’s the damned atmosphere in this dugout,’ he said. ‘It makes my eyes smart.’

  ‘If there’s–’

  ‘A lorry will be waiting for you at headquarters,’ Briggs interrupted, ‘where you and several other men will be taken to the nearest railway. They lay on trains for leave now you know,’ said Briggs trying to smile, but it was a grimace.

  ‘I know – look if there’s–’

  ‘You’ve been out here long?’

  ‘Since 1916. Why don’t you–’

  ‘You saw the Somme offensive?’

  ‘The later stages.’

  Briggs seemed to recoil within himself. ‘Your nerve held?’

  ‘Just.’

  Briggs blew his nose again. ‘Enjoy your leave, Deerman,’ he said, waving him off.

  ‘Anything you’d like from Blighty?’

  Briggs looked up at him and smiled. It was a youthful smile and, for a second, Joss saw the young man he should have been. ‘That’s very thoughtful Deerman, let me think.’

  ‘They say you’re partial to cheese.’

  ‘Do they?’ Briggs said, his young eyes widening.

  ‘How about stilton?’ Joss asked.

  Briggs nodded and for a moment forgot the rot about fraternising with the men. ‘Stilton it is then!’

  Joss grinned. ‘See you in a week then.’

  ‘Seen the post, Deerman?’ Briggs asked it quickly as Joss turned to go.

  ‘No Sir.’

  Briggs went to say something then changed his mind. ‘Enjoy your leave.’

  Joss hesitated by the door but Briggs was writing something on a notepad, his head down.

  A horror crept through Joss as he waded through the mud down the trench. Anything might happen in a week. Turning, he headed back to the dugout and saw Barratt emerging from the musty interior.

  ‘May I have a word Sir?’

  Barratt looked at Joss irritably. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can I delay my leave until Fielder gets some?’

  ‘No you can’t.’ Barratt was looking around as though something far more pressing was on his mind.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Why can’t I delay it, or even not take it at all?’

  ‘That’s not for you to decide.’

  ‘I can refuse to go.’

  ‘And you’ll be put on an insubordination charge,’ Barratt snapped. ‘Look here, you,’ he said snatching Joss’s upper arm. ‘You do as you’re ordered. Your important relatives cut no ice with me.’

  ‘I’m not trying to use my family. I only asked you if I could defer or reject leave.’

  ‘And I told you no. Now go.’

  Joss trudged despondently back to where Tom was sitting in the mud, trying to read. ‘Well?’ he asked, looking up.

  ‘A week’s leave,’ Joss said, slumping down.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  Joss looked away.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘What do you think?’ The tone bordered on bitterness.

  ‘Joss...don’t. Just go.’

  ‘I have to report to ‘A’ company HQ by six.’

  ‘Do you need a hand packing?’

  ‘I’ve hardly unpacked yet.’

  They grew quiet.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Joss said. ‘I’ll use the time to look for a farm.’

  Tom turned to him and grinned. ‘That’ll be good.’ His spirits soared. Joss would be out of this for a week, safe, not having to dodge with death.

  ‘I want to stay here with you,’ Joss said. ‘I asked Barratt, and he as good as told me to push off.’

  ‘Go and start looking for the farm. Please.’

  As he walked down the communication lines, Joss tried to visualise his former home, and couldn’t. Tried to picture the grounds with the smooth chestnuts, mown lawns; of tea shops and the bustle of the nearest town, but couldn’t. All he could see were miles of mud and putrid shell holes. By the time he was out of sight and sound of his company, his mind was mercifully blank.

  The lorry was waiting at the company’s position, which was on the edges of the support line. It jolted violently to a start and became stuck in the mud several times as it struggled to the nearest railway siding with the wheels spinning helplessly, engine shrieking. Several other men were sitting in the lorry, heads down, arms dangling, too exhausted to be moved by the thought of escape. Eventually they were set down at a small, grubby halt, wind-blasted and empty and, shortly after that, a train rattled up. Several of the doors were missing. Joss walked along the interior and tripped in crevices where the floorboards had been ripped up to stoke a brazier. The few seats were already taken by soldiers in various extreme states of fatigue who peered up angrily with looks learnt for an enemy, so Joss leaned against the carriage wall, where wind howled through the many gaps, and the endless jolting made his back ache viciously. For a panicked moment he wondered what he would do if he ended up slipping the discs which he felt were coming out, and he wasn’t sent back to the front, or was even unable to take up his farming dream. He moved away from the draught and sat huddled in a comparatively warmer alcove where the floor was intact. He felt his head nod several times and continuously jarred awake as the train shuddered through the night.

  At eight o’clock the next morning, they were herded into huts, had lukewarm baths in tubs and were issued with a clean uniform and a vermin-free certificate, before being directed on to a ferry. It was only then that Joss realised he was on the coast. He sat on the deck, a bitter wind with shooting rain, like ice darts, spitting at his face, but all he could think of was just lying down somewhere on the floor to sleep. Sleep was paramount. The anxiety of leaving Tom at the Front emerged then receded with the guilt of looking forward to a hot bath, good food and clean sheets. Finding a space near a store cupboard, he lay down and slept the sleep of the exhausted.

  A boot kicking him roughly at the ankles brought him too and he winced, as his back was in spasm with a deadly black pain. It took several minutes to get to his feet; people stepped over and around him in the
ir eagerness to disembark.

  It was broad daylight and the ferry was just sliding into the quay. There was a cacophony of hooters and horns. Streams of khaki dulled into the grey of the stone and concrete of the quayside. Looking over the cloud-bleached port, he saw the suggestion of hedges and trees that heralded the British countryside and, for a moment, he felt overcome with a mixture of love and anger. Overhead, a solitary seagull wheeled, giving a mournful, spectral cry.

  There were two hours to spare before his train left for London so he shuffled aimlessly along the seafront, hands deep in his greatcoat pockets, spasms of pain making him stop still and wince. Walking further, the buildings fell away and he was wandering along the shingle into countryside. Light rain stippled the sea’s surface and inaudible mists were floating in from the water, giving an unearthly silence. He moved as though he was walking through a dream of ghosts. More gulls winged quietly overhead, their breasts pure white, unsullied; he had forgotten that anything could be that clean. The waves moved ceaselessly with a whoosh and then a sucking sound on the shingle. Joss trudged on but began thinking more about the Front and the danger so he made his way back towards the noise and bustle. Going into the nearest telegraph office, he wired his parents to tell them he would be catching the 10 a.m. train to London, and would let them know what time he would arrive at Woodham Hall once he reached the city. Then he bought a postcard of a summer scene of the nearest resort and wrote ‘One day we’ll visit here and we’ll have fun in peacetime. Forever yours, SFJ’. Addressing it to Tom, he stamped it and slipped it in the post-box, knowing Tom would understand the ‘SFJ’ as Short-for-Joss. He wondered if he should have signed off like that in case it was read by the censors, but then shrugged – would they know who SFJ was? Coming out of the post office, he saw a young woman holding a boy and girl of about ten years old by hand. She was obviously their nanny as she could not have been more than late teens or early twenties. She had a sombre but delicate face. As they passed, Joss raised his cap, said ‘good morning’.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, then turned away, as though angry or embarrassed. The boy tossed his boater along the quay and Joss retrieved it and gave it back to the woman who gave a bitter smile. As he walked off, she called back. Joss turned; his Red Cross armband nearest to her.