He turns to me, and in the dying light I see there’s a shimmer in his eyes. ‘It’s not a question. Not really. Only, I suppose I wanted to know the man who could draw like that. That’s why I called out to you that night in Folkestone. It was you up at the bandstand, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you answer me?’
I shake my head and look out at a swell of black clouds massing on the horizon. ‘You need to be strong, Danny. Stronger than you’ve ever been in your life before. That’s how you’ll survive what comes next. Only at the same time, you must try to hold onto who you are. Don’t lose yourself.’
He looks a little startled, but then nods. ‘I know what I’m getting into. I’ve heard the stories.’
At his words, something like anger flickers inside me. ‘Stories are one thing,’ I say. ‘Living it is different.’
‘Sir,’ he speaks very gently, his gaze roaming to my ruined ear. ‘What happened to you?’ When I don’t answer he places his hand on my shoulder. ‘Listen, if you—’
‘It’s over. Finished,’ I say. ‘All I need you to realise is that what’s coming is going to be tough. Tougher than you can imagine.’
‘I know tough, Lieutenant Wraxall,’ he says slowly. ‘Believe me, I do. And you know something else? I’m a survivor. Always have been. I think you are too.’
‘You’re impossible,’ I tell him.
‘It’s been said... Oh, but wait a bit, I’ve got something for you.’ He slides his hand into his tunic pocket and brings out a square of paper. ‘I saw you looking at it in the cookhouse yesterday morning before Captain Tiny ’Tache showed up. You seemed fascinated by it somehow. Anyway, after you left, I cut it out. Thought you might like to keep it.’
He passes it to me and I unfold a crinkled page to reveal the copy ofThe Fighting Temerairefrom the back of the magazine. It strikes me again, Turner’s melancholy image of the old warship: a proud survivor of so many battles, still unable to escape her final destruction. Not at the hands of a foreign enemy in the heat of war, but under the smashing hammers and ripping crowbars of her own countrymen.
I look up at Danny and murmur my thanks, slipping it into the same pocket that contains my grandfather’s watch.
‘Well, don’t look so sad about it,’ he says lightly, and when I return his grin, he laughs. ‘Keep smiling, sir, it suits you.’
8
9th June
Dark green woodland, rivers rushing under railway bridges, fields dotted with farmers and their families, toiling beneath the hard summer sun. My platoon and I glimpse them from our carriage window as we rumble past. Occasionally one will catch my eye: a wild-haired boy cradled in the arm of an immense oak, his toy rifle trained upon us; a woman straightening up from her work, wiping her brow on her apron and gazing back at the train with dull, lifeless eyes.
I know that look. I’ve seen it here and at home. She has lost someone to the meatgrinder.
Together with a couple of other platoons from the Manchester Regiment, we are squeezed onto a train that looks like it was constructed not long after Stephenson’s Rocket. Belches of oily smoke gust against the windows and blot out the view. There are no comfy compartments here, only slatted wooden seats that make you feel each sway and jolt. Forcing you, despite your tiredness, to stand every thirty minutes in order to ease aching bones and weary backsides. We’ve been stuck inside this sweltering, slow-moving box for approximately eight hours, trundling our way south into the Somme Valley via Calais, Dunkirk and Béthune. It will be another hour before we finally arrive behind the lines at the main administrative town of Albert.
Taking my five-minute ‘arse break’, as Private Robert Billings has poetically put it, I sidestep between the knees of my platoon and go to stand with my back to the window. There I take a breath of hot air, scented with the sweat and farts of over a hundred men. A gas attack in the trenches is a terrible thing, of course, but at least there you might have chance to strap on a respirator.
I take out my grandfather’s watch to check the time, my fingers brushing carefully against the Turner drawing Danny gave me. It’s just after two. If we keep going at this rate, I should be able to get my men billeted somewhere in Albert before dinnertime. We can then continue the seven-mile march east to our sector near Maricourt tomorrow. Snapping the watch shut, I look up at a crowd of faces.
My platoon occupies four sets of benches, their bulging kitbags and equipment webbing – containing water canteens, haversacks, ammunition pouches, entrenching tools and other necessary gear – all stuffed onto the luggage racks above their heads. Given that they have only sips of warm water in their canteens and half a box of dry biscuits to share, they’re holding up pretty well.
Danny sits between Percy Stanhope and Robert Billings, chatting away as if they’ve been friends since boyhood. I almost envy his ability to fit in, whatever the company.
‘So Danny boy, are you ever going to tell us how you got that shiner?’ Billings asks.
Danny circles a finger around his black eye. ‘What, this? A girl back home gave it to me. And quite right she was too.’
Billings laughs. ‘I don’t believe a word of it. I swear I saw that mug of yours on the boat over and there wasn’t a mark on it.’
‘My bet is you had a run in with one of them mad bastards at the Bull Ring and couldn’t stop that mouth of yours running on,’ says Percy Stanhope. ‘Am I right?’ He elbows Danny in the ribs and they start up a playful wrestle until the men on either side complain. In the end, Danny releases Stanhope from a loose headlock. ‘Fine, I submit,’ Stanhope says, with a final gentle shove. ‘My, but you’re a strong bugger for such a little lad. Seriously though, have you got a girl back home or what?’
Danny blushes and, for a fraction of a second, those perfectly blue eyes glance in my direction.
‘He’s not got a girl. Not that one. Never in a month of Sundays.’
The speaker is Private Reg ‘Taffy’ Colston, a man mountain who takes up almost two seats and whose face is weathered by a lifetime working on fishing trawlers. As is the slightly baffling way with a platoon of men, Colston has been rechristened ‘Taffy’ because he happened to mention a Welsh grandmother. He hates the nickname but that just means it has stuck all the harder.
Danny’s smile slips. ‘What do you mean by that, Taff?’
The rest of the chatter in the carriage subsides. In the hush that follows, all I can hear is the tread of wheels on rail, the groan and creak of the wooden benches, the thud of my heart. If necessary, I can put down a fight between the men under my command. A word alone should do it. I just pray that I won’t have to.
