‘I’m sure Taffy didn’t mean nowt by it, lad,’ says Private Donald ‘Spud’ Pearson. An unkind nickname (‘Fella has a face like a tatter,’ as Robert Billings observed over breakfast yesterday), though unlike Private Colston, Pearson has the sense not to bleat about it. At fifty, the old man of our platoon is a grandfather twice over and knows that, if he simply nods and smiles, he won’t be having to live with ‘Spud’ for longer than a week or two.
‘Listen to the old-timer, Danny,’ Billings says good-humouredly, breaking the tension. ‘All Taff meant is that you’re far too smart to tie yourself down to just one lass. Not when there are young French widows here aplenty, am I right?’ The carriage echoes to the too-loud laughter of the men. Colston grins and slaps Danny’s shoulder while Spud Pearson looks on paternally. Billings goes on, ‘He’s a handsome young pipsqueak, this one. Ain’t that right, Lieutenant?’
As Billings leans over and ruffles his hair, Danny looks up at me again. Heishandsome, yes, but more than that. Shafts of sunlight glance through the train window and burnish those chestnut curls. His lips part, as if to ask a question. Then he closes them, swallows hard, and turns his head to join in with some joke of Colston’s. I realise in that moment of him turning away from me that he isbeautiful. Maybe on some level I’ve realised this before but now it almost winds me. Danny is beautiful, and not in the academic, artistic way in which I’ve appreciated beauty before, in the paintings and sculpture I’ve admired. His beauty is immediate, present and powerful.
‘Here,’ Percy Stanhope says, ‘that’smygirl.’
I blink. His voice isn’t loud, in fact he speaks in a shy, hesitating way, but still it’s like a gong waking me from a dream. He hands over a tiny photograph to Danny. I can see from here that it’s shiny and new, the photographer’s stamp still fresh on the back. A keepsake to take away to war.
‘She’s ain’t much to look at, I know,’ Stanhope says. ‘But then nor am I. Still, we’ve been sweethearts ever since we met outside the school gate twenty years back. Her name’s Eadie. Edith.’
Danny cups the photo in his hand as if it is something rare and fragile. From my position, I can make out a small woman with a bony face, her dark hair scraped back.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Danny says gently. ‘Really beautiful, Perce.’
Stanhope takes back the picture and looks at it, as if for the first time. ‘She is... My beautiful girl.’ He raises his head, beaming. ‘Hey Robbie, Spud, Taffy, take a look at my Ead.’
I’m not sure what they might have said about the girl in the photograph had they been offered a glance before Danny’s appraisal. Tired men living on their nerves can be short-tempered and cruel words can trip thoughtlessly from their lips. In fact, the photo is passed between them with the same kind of respect with which Danny handled it. The men congratulate a blushing Private Stanhope; Colston even sounds a wolf whistle. Meanwhile Danny stands up and, sliding nimbly past the others, comes to join me at the window, his back planted like mine against the glass.
‘Hello, Lieutenant,’ he says. ‘Anything your squire can get for you?’
‘Nothing, thank you, Private McCormick.’
‘Bit cramped in here, innit?’ he mutters.
‘Well, we can always make more room by stowing you away on one of the luggage racks. I reckon you’ll just about fit.’
‘Short jokes,’ Danny nods. ‘Very grown-up of you, sir. You know the lads call you “the old man”? They say you’re wise – and grumpy – beyond your years. I’ll have to tell them that youcancrack a joke occasionally too.’
I smile. ‘You seem to be fitting in well, Private. I hope you’re not missing your old platoon too much?’
He takes a look over his right shoulder, at a billowing canopy of trees and the lonely church spire that breaks through them, like a sailboat lost on a vast green sea.
‘I do miss them. I made some good pals during my training. But honestly?’ The smallest pause. ‘I think I prefer being here.’
If I turned towards him now, we would be face to face, a hair’s breadth separating us, our mouths so close that a single jolt from this rackety old train might bring our lips together. For a moment I imagine kissing him; drawing my fingers through his hair, as he had drawn his through the sand of Étaples, searching for pebbles. It takes all my willpower to keep facing forward.
A scream of brakes, the squeal of the train whistle, wheels shrieking against iron. Danny bumps against me and I have to shoot out a hand and grasp a luggage rack to stop us tumbling across the benches. Kitbags and equipment do tumble, striking the men seated beneath. Beyond the window, the forest has come to a halt. Steam from the train rises like smoke amongst the trees, making it appear as if the wood is on fire.
‘Everyone all right?’ I shout into the clamour of shocked voices.
‘Is it a Jerry shell?’
‘Have we been hit?’
‘Jesus Christ,’ groans Taffy Colston. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Men, keep your heads,’ I order.
Danny stands beside me, a reassuring presence, not a trace of the panic that has gripped most of the others. After a couple of weeks at the Front they won’t be so easily shaken, but to see Danny like this, calm and in control, tells me that I made the right choice in my soldier-servant.
‘We’re too far from the German lines for it to be a shell,’ I tell them. ‘Even their Big Bertha guns can’t reach this far. And anyway, you wouldn’t mistake an explosion like that. So just let me through and I’ll see what’s going on.’
I don’t need to ask him to accompany me – Danny is at my side as we push past the men, some standing, some still splayed across the seats, others crawling out from under fallen kitbags. I reach for the carriage door but the handle is stuck. The sudden braking must have jammed the mechanism. I wrench at the brass ring but it’s no good. The thing won’t shift. A bead of sweat skates down my brow, drops from the tip of my nose, bursts against my boot. The men behind me are muttering, that senseless panic washing back over them. Only now I can feel it myself. It’s so hot in here, so airless, so filled with bodies. An elbow jostles me, a foot kicks out and catches my shin. If they all begin to lose their heads, then I might well be buried under them again...
No. Notthem. New bodies this time. A new platoon that I will have failed.
Danny reaches over me and eases my fingers from where they have become frozen around the handle. Then he takes the brass ring in his own strong grasp and gives the thing a single hard twist and shove. The door flies open, swings wide on its hinges, and smacks against the side of the train. I take a deep breath of fresh summer air. The mutters settle and I feel my own panic subside.
