I shake my head. ‘You need to be more careful. I’m serious. Gallagher might look like a bloated old windbag, but he’s dangerous. Beddowes too. Keep your lip buttoned when they’re around.’
‘Come on, sir,’ Danny soothes. ‘If you’re worried about whatever Captain Tiny ’Tache was saying, then—’
‘Enough,’ I snap, stepping towards him. ‘You’ve saidenough, Private. Now, let’s get this madness organised.’
He blinks back at me, the hurt evident in his gaze. I want to say something, apologise, explain, but I feel that, for his own good, he needs this short sharp lesson. There are dangers aplenty out here and not all of them are the work of our enemy.
In the end, we don’t even begin moving out until four o’clock. We’d joined the train at Étaples station before dawn and, in the murky light of early morning, I hadn’t realised just how many container wagons made up the locomotive’s tail. Now as the orders come to help unload all the materiel from the tracks and onto the road, my mind turns back to that interview with the colonel and the papers I saw on his desk. Those phrases from the memos return to me too:calculated risk, continuous bombardment, acceptable casualties.What all this means becomes increasingly obvious as I help the men carry box after box of shells and trench mortars, Lewis and Vickers machine guns, Lee-Enfield rifles and Mills bombs to the roadside, loading them onto limbers that have been rolled down from the train’s flatbed wagons. More crates of heavy ammunition than I have ever seen in one place. Then come the big guns themselves, shiny new eighteen-pounders, their huge black barrels pointing heavenward. Already strapped to their limber carts, these immense pieces of artillery are soon harnessed to a stable of horses that have appeared from yet more wagons. The horses whinny and paw at the dirt road, as if testing its ability to transport such colossal loads.
After two hours, my already-exhausted platoon is given the order to form up. Danny helps me get the boys into place and before I start us going, I glance back down the length of the forest road. It’s incredible. Hundreds of men continue unloading the train while in the shadows thrown by the tall trees, horses and pack mules shuffle under their deadly cargo.
‘Everything all right, Lieutenant?’ Danny asks.
He’s smiling again, any hurt from earlier apparently forgotten. I nod dumbly. I have to remind myself that he is new to this war and has no idea how unusual a sight this is. But for the first time I begin to realise the scale of what our commanders have planned. Judging by this single shipment alone, both of men and equipment, this new offensive won’t be merely a series of coordinated raids involving a couple of battalions. This will be unlike anything we’ve yet seen. A massive push forward with possibly tens of thousands of men walking into the hell of No Man’s Land.
There’s a stir in the ranks as Gallagher rides forward, a lumpy figure bouncing in the saddle of his grey thoroughbred. Beddowes brings up the rear on his own horse. My boys are at the head of the column and, reaching us, the captain glances down at me.
‘Officers’ kitbags may be carried by the mules, Wraxall,’ he says. ‘No need to prove anything by lugging it yourself.’
I adjust the heavy pack on my shoulder. The only piece of my belongings I’ve added to a cart is my writing case. ‘Thank you for your concern, Captain Beddowes,’ I say. ‘But I’ll do well enough.’
‘Silence in the ranks!’ Gallagher grunts. ‘Men, forward march!’
The order is repeated down the line and boots begin to beat the earth. We leave the train behind, the drivers, their argument long forgotten, now sit together in the cab, sharing a bottle of wine. Horses snort and find their pace. Wheels turn, limbers creak. Like the elephantine trunks of strange metallic beasts, the barrels of murderous guns move steadily through the trees.
10
Memories are often all you have to distract you from the pain and tedium of a long march. When the view is yet another mile of the same road and your feet feel as if they’ve been soldered into your boots. Some memories that come to me are welcome – a summer day at the river with Michael, our school trousers rolled up, bare feet sawing lazily through the water; the sleepy hum of bees, the bouncy flight of a goldfinch among the rushes; a hand brushing mine as he leans in to peek at my sketchbook.
Other memories are less welcome: we were all numb before we even started that moonlit march from Albert to our sector at the Front. The snow was up to our knees and a knifing wind cut across the wastes of what had once been farmland and villages. Through slitted eyes, it appeared to me like a lunar landscape, all white and pocked with craters. What buildings still stood were no more than shells, a few silvery roofbeams stabbing like bayonets at the stars. At Captain Danvers’ order, we set our faces to the gale and marched out.
We hadn’t been going long before the first soldier fell, weary feet tripping over some snare hidden in a snowdrift. I tried to haul him upright but it was like lifting a dead man. He shook his head at me, snot bubbling from his nose.
‘Please, no,’ he choked. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to go.’
He sounded so pathetic; I felt angry and sorry for him, both at the same time.
‘Get up, Private,’ I shouted over the storm. ‘That’s an order.’
He shook his head again like an obstinate child. ‘Can’t. I’ll die out there if I go. We all will. Just look around you. It’s mad. It’s fucking mad!’
I glanced about despairingly. I didn’t want the captain to overhear. I’d just arrived in the Somme myself, stepping off the train in Albert only the day before. From my brief introduction to Danvers the previous night, I thought he seemed a kind, if gruff, personality. How he might react to a soldier refusing to obey a direct order, though? That, I couldn’t say.
‘You’ve trained for this,’ I told him, yanking again at the man’s arm. ‘Now, on your feet!’
Still he wouldn’t budge. At that moment a flare went up over the bleached whiteness of No Man’s Land, a single brilliant candle illuminating the black scar of our trenches. Before it even began its dying descent, the German typewriters started up: machine guns rattling away at some unknown target. The light fading, I looked down and saw the soldier’s face, stark with terror.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he pleaded. ‘Can’t you see it’s mad?’
A gloved hand gripped my shoulder. ‘Stand aside, Lieutenant. Let me speak to this man.’
It was Danvers, his expression unreadable in the darkness.
‘Just give him a minute, sir,’ I said. ‘He’ll get his nerve back, I know he will.’
‘Stand aside,’ Danvers replied.
Reluctantly I obeyed, joining the knot of our platoon some ten yards back. The men sniffed and stamped their feet, looked uneasy. The wind was so strong none of us could hear what passed between the captain and the private. We all waited, expecting at any moment that one of us would be ordered to slog back to Albert to fetch the Military Police. I wish to God now we had been. A court-martial followed by some kind of field punishment would have been better than what came next. But eventually the man staggered to his feet, Danvers supporting his elbow. They both came forward and the private wiped his eyes and sketched a smile.
