by Tim Atkinson
‘But you’ve got to deal with the past first,’ she says.
‘Aye, well – we do plenty o’ that,’ he nods. ‘Clearing away t’rubbish. All that stuff that’s left lying around the fields.’
‘Stuff?’ She looks confused. Surely he doesn’t mean bodies?
‘Rifles, bullets, bombs – you name it. Mess-tins, ammunition boxes, duckboards, ladders, shell cases. There’s scrap lying about everywhere.’
‘Oh I see,’ she says.
‘And the Belgians want to get their land back. They’ve got mouths to feed.’
‘It can’t be easy for them.’
‘It isn’t. And they could do without some o’ these daft ideas for … God knows what – leaving the towns as ruins; building memorials instead of building shops and schools and houses – grand schemes for ruddy great statues, plinths and sculptures.’
‘But the people must remember.’
‘Must they? Most of us would quite like to forget.’
‘But the world, the people at home, the politicians. This can’t be allowed to occur again. It simply cannot. The world must know what happened here in order to make sure it never, ever happens again. Don’t you agree?’
‘Aye well,’ Jack sighs. ‘That’s what we all thought when we was fighting, I suppose.’
‘You fought?’
‘Aye, lass. Of course.’
‘Of course,’ she repeats, looking down at the floor. ‘Of course you did.’ The mug the girl is nursing starts to rock as her hands tremble. Tea slops over the rim and drips onto the floor. Jack gently prises the mug from her fingers and puts it down beside her on the bench. As he turns back the girl starts pummelling his chest with her fists – surprisingly hard – her slender body convulsing once again in deep, racking sobs.
‘Hey, lass …’ Jack takes hold of her wrists. ‘Whoa! Steady on!’
The tears in her eyes glint as anger gives way to sorrow and the tension in her arms relaxes. She unclenches her fists. He pulls her towards him, his arms enfolding her narrow shoulders, her wet face buried in his sleeve. Instinctively, his hand begins stroking her hair and she digs her nails into the back of his greatcoat. He takes her arms and pushes her back, slightly.
‘What were all that about?’
She holds a hand up to her mouth.
‘There is someone, isn’t there?’ Jack asks. The girl looks down, nodding briefly. ‘Do you want to tell me about him?’
She quickly shakes her head then says, ‘No – he won’t be buried here.’
‘Oh, aye?’ Jack plants a tiny, chaste and gentle kiss on the girl’s forehead. She looks up at him, astonishment and incomprehension on her face.
‘What did you … ?’
‘Shhh! It doesn’t matter,’ he says softly.
She opens her mouth as if to speak and then closes it again. She shakes herself as if trying to wake up from a dream.
‘I haven’t got the words to say much more,’ Jack says quietly.
‘No words then.’ The girl puts a finger to his lips.
‘I, er …’
‘Yes, I know.’
But she is looking up at him still, not moving away, not getting up, not wanting to release herself from this embrace. She feels the warmth of his skin seeping out through his Army uniform. His breath, held slightly, is gentle on her face. And she is not moving.
‘I’m … look, I …’
‘Aye. Me, too …’
The words are at odds with what they both seem to be feeling, with what they are doing, what they’re thinking. And pretty soon, they both give up talking. His hand rests on her thigh. Her eyes are closed. Her head tilts back and he kisses her neck.
It is over within minutes. In the half-light of the hut, her brief nakedness – his hardness – seems unreal, like a waking dream. They stare at each other. Jack buttons his flies. The wet at the top of her thighs turns cold.
‘We best be getting back to the others,’ he says as tenderly as he can manage.
‘Yes,’ the girl replies, replacing her hat. ‘We better had.’
‘That shouldn’t have …’
‘I know,’ she says.
‘I’m sorry.’
She looks at him. ‘I’m not,’ she says.
‘Not … what?’
‘Not sorry,’ she says briskly, putting on her gloves. ‘Although the floor was a bit hard.’
‘Aye, lass,’ Jack laughs, ‘and a bit mucky too!’ he says, brushing down his greatcoat.
She reaches up and holds his face in her hands. ‘This is what you were fighting for, Jack. This is what he would have done if he were here … what they would all have done.’
‘Aye, lass, but …’
‘We owe it to them, Jack.’
‘Aye, I know, but …’
She pulls away from him. ‘You’re married, aren’t you?’
‘Nay, lass!’
‘No? But there is a woman, isn’t there?’
‘Aye, well … I suppose so. Sort of.’
‘Sort of?’ The girl laughs. ‘Sort of? Then you had better “sort of” get things sorted out, Lance-Corporal Patterson.’
‘Aye, well …’
Outside, the rest of the party has wandered back into the cemetery and is gathering round one of the larger, better-built crosses. Ocker is acting like a tour guide again.
‘The grave of Valentine Strudwick,’ he announces. One of the nurses stares at the inscription, leaning closer to the tin plate on which the soldier’s details have been stamped:
5750 RIFLEMAN
V.J. STRUDWICK
8TH RIFLE BRIGADE
14 JANUARY 1916
AGE 15
She steps back suddenly as if stung. ‘Surely … ?’
‘No mistake, miss.’
‘But he was just …’
‘… a boy,’ someone else says softly.
Silence. Far off, on the road, a cart passes. The horse whinnies.
‘I didn’t think that sort of thing …’
‘It wasnae meant to,’ Mac says. ‘Especially not when there were some o’ them old enough still at home and sucking at their mammy’s titties!’ Fuller looks down at the ground, and kicks a clod of earth. Jack is suddenly overwhelmed with an urge to thump him, hard.
‘But …’
‘Joined up when he was just a wee lad o’ fourteen. Had his last birthday out here in the Salient, before …’
The girls all bow their heads. Someone mouths a silent prayer. The French exhumation party walks past carrying a stretcher.
Ocker pauses for a moment. ‘Right-o then, ladies,’ he says, breaking the spell. ‘Time to move on, I reckon. What d’you think, Jacko?’
‘Aye,’ Jack nods. ‘We’ll drive over towards White Sheet and have a look at Gravenstafel Ridge. And then we’ll stop for a bit o’ dinner at Tyne Cottage. What d’you reckon?’
‘Dinner?’ One of the nurses laughs.
‘He means lunch,’ says another.
‘Oh!’ the girl says. ‘Is Tyne Cottage a restaurant?’
War Diary or Intelligence Summary:
Army form C. 2118
1919
DIVISION MAIN DRESSING STATION—Remy Siding Map Sheet 28; Grid reference: L.22 d.6.3
December 3rd – Salvage operations resumed in N.36a, M.35b and adjacent battery positions.
December 7th – Church Parade (all denominations) held in Salvation Army hut due to cold weather.
December 8th – Kit inspection. AF3221s completed for all ranks.
December 9th – Battalion selected to send one officer and 16 O.R.’s from Auxiliary Labour Company to assist Graves Registration Unit (G.R.U.) in battlefield clearance and cemetery concentration. Remainder: Drill and P.T.
December 10th – Lecture by 2/Lt. ANKERS in Salvation Army hut entitled ‘Birds of the British Isles’. Orders received for a party of 30 men to proceed immediately to LILLE to escort a supply train.
December 11th – Capt. G.R. HAROLD, Lt. T.D. FREEMAN D.S.O. and
23 O.R.’s left Battalion for demobilisation.
December 13th – All salvage and recovery operations suspended due to inclement weather.
December 17th – Snow clearance operations POPERINGHE, YPRES and VLAMERTINGHE.
11
Winter comes early in 1919, and all around the ground is frozen hard. There isn’t much digging to be done, and even clearing the remaining iron harvest is starting to prove difficult. Shell cases, guns and discarded ammunition freeze to the ground. The men are restless; some see ghosts. And the devil makes work for idle hands. The CO decides to keep Ingham’s men busy by sending them to assist one of the few remaining Chinese working parties.
‘Out beyond Tournai,’ Ingham says, once the men have fallen in, ‘we’ve been informed that there seems to be rather a lot of stray ordnance – small items, guns and ammunition, that sort of thing. Anyway, the demolition party needs some extra manpower. As we’re not able at the moment to do much digging …’
‘Who’s not able to do much digging, sir? You should see Jack hard at it with his pick and shovel!’
‘Well, yes I know, but’ – Ingham stops and looks at Jack – ‘but that’s pretty dangerous, isn’t it? I thought I’d given orders, Patterson – no mattocks. There are unexploded shells out there, for God’s sake!’
‘Yes, sir. Very good, sir.’
‘Right then, Sergeant Townend and I will take the car. Private Fuller, you can come with us and help navigate. Corporal Patterson, you and the others will follow in the ambulance. Private MacIntyre will navigate for you and the remainder of the men can travel in the rear.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Once they are dismissed the men gather their tools and climb aboard the old, high-roofed ex-Army ambulance, still half-lined with its stretcher-shelves. ‘Don’t know about you,’ says Ocker, knees pressed against the wooden partition that divides the rear of the truck in half, ‘but this is giving me the creeps. Couldn’t we have travelled in the Albion?’
‘No room,’ shouts Jack from the front. ‘And anyway, I’m not trained to drive it yet!’
‘Well, bloody well look sharp and get your chitty for it, Jacko,’ Ocker shouts above the engine noise. ‘Because I’m not travelling in the back of this bloody body buggy much longer.’
‘What d’you reckon?’ Jack says to MacIntyre. ‘Reckon we can squeeze him in the front wi’ us?’
‘Aye, why not,’ says Mac. ‘If the poor wee lamb is afraid of ghosts.’
‘You can swap with me if you like,’ says Ocker. ‘But apart from being bloody uncomfortable – I don’t know … it’s flamin’ creepy too.’
‘Ach, stop being so windy, will ye. What’s the matter with you? There are no bodies in there, are there.’
‘No, but …’
‘And even if there was, what harm would they do ye?’
‘Plenty,’ Ocker says. ‘I can’t stand it when a cobber’s quiet. Need a bit o’ conversation, I do.’
‘Aye,’ says Jack. ‘We’ve noticed.’
They pull in to the side of the road briefly, waving Ingham and the staff car past while Ocker climbs into the cab with Jack and MacIntyre.
‘’Struth, that’s a relief,’ he says. ‘I reckon there’s bits and bobs of fellas we’ve dug up rattling around back there in all the dust.’
The others smile, but no one finds it in the least amusing.
‘Seriously, you weren’t back there with ’em, mate.’
‘There’s no one back there now, you daft bugger,’ Jack says. ‘Not now you’re pestering us up front here.’
‘Yeah but they’ve been there, mate,’ says Ocker. ‘Honest, it’s like sitting in your own grave back there.’
‘Didn’t have you down as superstitious,’ Mac tells him.
‘I’m not,’ says Ocker. ‘At least, not normally. But this ain’t normally, mate, is it? This is … weird. I dunno, but this is … digging these fellas up day after day. It’s worse than war, this is.’
‘At least no one’s firing at us any more,’ Jack says.
‘D’you know,’ says Ocker. ‘I think I’d prefer it if they were.’
‘You what?’
‘Yeah! I mean, at least then you know who the enemy is, where he is, and what you’ve got to do to him. But this way … Jeez!’
‘Someone send for the MO – quick!’
‘This way it’s as if we’ve crossed over some flamin’ threshold and we’re living in a land of the dead.’
‘It’s not a doctor this laddie needs, I tell ye – it’s the priest!’
‘Don’t you ever think about it? Doesn’t it ever get to you?’
‘Not me, lad.’
‘No. Me neither.’
‘Oh yeah?’ says Ocker. ‘I don’t believe you. Honestly, there’s more dead every day in this job than the living. I’ll tell you something—’
‘First time for everything.’
‘No, mate. Listen.’
‘We’re all ears.’
‘Well … don’t you sometimes wonder?’
‘All the time,’ Jack smiles.
‘Mostly about the rubbish you keep talking.’
‘No, fair dinkum, mate, hang on a mo. I mean – how do we know the whole world hasn’t died, eh? How do we know the whole human race isn’t lying out there somewhere, waiting for us to find ’em and bury ’em, fill a flamin’ form in for ’em and then go out looking for the rest of ’em?’
‘This is getting a bit …’
‘Deep?’
‘Too deep for me, Mac.’
‘You ever seen the MO about any o’ this, Ocker ol’ lad?’
Suddenly, Ocker is very quiet. ‘Actually,’ he says at last, his voice barely audible above the noise of the engine. ‘Actually I did, once. It was only then I had to eat crow and join the daddies unit …’
‘Does this fella ever speak English?’
‘Beats me. Not sure why we even have him in our army.’
‘Had an English mother, apparently. Is that not right, Ocker?’
‘Ocker had a mother?’
‘Turn right at the next junction, Jack!’ Mac suddenly calls out, looking up from the map that has spread to fill most of the cab.
‘It should be signed to … now then, what’s that called – Vaulx is it?’
‘To where?’
‘To Vaulx? I don’t know how to say it. Vos? Vol? Vough?’
‘It’s Vouw,’ Jack corrects him.
‘Look, Jack, I’m no expert, if anything you’re the man to get your lips around these Belgian tongue-twisters rather than me. After all, you’re the one with more than a bit of help from the locals.’
‘And I bet that’s not all he gets his lips around,’ says Ocker. ‘Is it, Jack? Get plenty of action in Ypres of an evening don’t you, Jack-the-lad?’
‘Aye, well. I’m learning a bit of t’language if that’s what you mean.’ Jack hauls the heavy steering wheel round, making a left turn.
‘That’s all, is it, Jack? Language lessons? That’s all she gives you, is it?’ Laughter.
‘Look, lads, I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me and Katy.’
‘Katy is it now?’
‘Blimey, Jacko, if that’s the wrong idea then I wouldn’t mind barking up the wrong tree myself a bit more often.’
‘Nay, we’re just friendly, like. She’s pretty—’
‘She’s available.’
‘Not if de Wulf has anything to do with it, she isnae!’
‘And she’s clearly good with her tongue, eh, Jacko?’
‘She helps me,’ Jack smiles, ‘if I get stuck on any o’ these B—’
‘Berkshire Hunts.’
‘Give over!’
‘That’s la langue d’amour for you,’ says Mac.
‘Yeah, and if anyone knows how to say it proper it’ll be our Jacques.’ Ocker is laughing. ‘Isn’t that what she calls you, Jacko? That what she whispers in your ear at night is it, mate? Jacques, Jacques, kiss me Jacques, make love to me, ravish
me, have your wicked way with me …’
He leans across in front of Mac and tries to plant a kiss on Jack’s cheek.
‘Get off me, yer daft bugger,’ Jack shouts as he tries to keep the truck on what little of the road is clear of snow. ‘You’ll have us all in yon ditch.’
For a brief moment, anger flickers across Jack’s face. But then suddenly, the other two men are singing. And Jack finds himself smiling slowly to himself, almost against his will.
Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?
Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?
Mademoiselle from Armentières,
She hasn’t been kissed for forty years,
Hinky, dinky parlez-vous.
‘Come on “Jacques” – join in, man! You know the words.’
‘Yeah, better than the rest of us …’
Oh, mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?
Mademoiselle from Armentières, parlez-vous?
She got the palm and the croix de guerre,
For washin’ the soldiers’ underwear,
Hinky, dinky parlez-vous.
‘Isn’t that what she does for you, Jack – Jacques – eh? Washes yer underwear, does she?’
‘Aye, well …’
‘At least he’s wearing some,’ says Mac. ‘Unlike you, you filthy wee …’
‘Give over, mate!’
‘I reckon your kecks got so high-and-mighty that they marched off of their own accord.’
‘Or disintegrated!’
‘Even the chats won’t go near Ocker.’
‘I’ll have you British peasants know,’ says Ocker indignantly, ‘that I had a bath …’
‘… yeah, we know, Ocker – Christmas 1915!’
‘Hey! Pipe down now, lads,’ Mac says, pointing to the road ahead. ‘Look – Ingham’s here already.’
Jack slows down and pulls in at the side of the road. But by the time they’ve disembarked and joined the others, things aren’t going well. The Chinese labourers are squatting at the roadside boiling tea, and Ingham isn’t happy. ‘Why the devil aren’t you fellows working?’ he is asking. ‘Who’s in charge here?’
A little man runs up to him and tries his best to explain. The farmer, he is telling Ingham, has already cleared the scrap. The shell-hole they’ve been sent to find has been filled in.
