He sighs, then turns his gaze over my shoulder to where Ollie sits in the cart. ‘Can’t I take a turn up there?’ he grunts, his expression souring. ‘Why does Little Lord Fauntleroy get special treatment?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ I ask, a spike of anger in my tone. ‘Well then, come take a look.’
He begins to bluster. ‘Doesn’t matter, sir. I was only saying—’
‘Get up, soldier,’ I tell him. ‘That’s an order.’
Hobbling a little, he follows me over to where the fly-misted mule shuffles in its traces. I lay my palm against the creature’s flank, feel the thick thud of its heartbeat. Meanwhile Ollie looks back at us from the cart. Pain has lined his face and he looks older than his eighteen years. Much older.
‘Private Murray, I wonder, would you be willing to show this man your feet?’ I ask gently. ‘I think he’d find it enlightening.’
Ollie looks between us before giving a tiny nod. Then, as the bewildered soldier approaches the cart, Ollie slowly pulls aside the old bedsheet that has been covering his bare feet. The wiry man stares for a moment, then glances at Ollie shamefaced, before shuffling back to the roadside. As he passes me, he mutters: ‘Poor kid. Poor bloody kid.’ Lowering himself to the ground again, he folds his arms, leaving his boots well alone.
I step over the cart and take a deep breath before examining Ollie’s feet for myself. It’s been only minutes since Danny and I removed the last dressing and reapplied the antiseptic iodine, so I’m not sure what I expect to see. Some miracle cure conjured by one of those roadside Christs, perhaps. I ought to know better.
There are no miracles here.
‘How is it?’ Ollie asks in a shaky voice. ‘I don’t like to look.’
I keep my own voice level. ‘No worse,’ I tell him.
It’s a lie. And you don’t need to glance at the hot, fevered flesh of his feet, all mottled and purple, to see it. Ollie’s face alone – his jaw so often clenched, his eyes bolting, his grey skin awash with sweat – tells the tale. Despite my trying to reason with the colonel before we set out this morning, Gallagher had insisted that the boy march the first ten miles. I argued with the colonel and Captain Beddowes as they looked down on us from the relative comfort of horseback. The wheedling words of Beddowes:As the colonel has just observed, Lieutenant, the man looks well enough to us. We can’t allow any idling or they’ll all be at it. Now, get the fellow into line.It had taken a warning glance from me to keep an outraged Danny silent.
In the end I hadn’t asked permission. When Ollie fell for the third time, his face planted in the filth of the road, I took him out of the line myself, Danny and I lifting him into the nearest mule cart, making him as comfortable as we could.
But by obeying Gallagher’s original order, I may have left it too late. Now I cover Ollie’s feet with the old bedsheet again and pat my hand against his shoulder.
‘When Private McCormick returns, we’ll bandage them up again. It’ll be all right.’
‘Will it?’ Ollie looks confused, his eyes unfocused. ‘Good. That’s good then... I like Danny a lot.’
‘Me too. He’s a very good soldier.’
‘And a good singer. You should’ve heard him last night, sir. In the pub. His singing is so beautiful.’
I nod. Beautiful and unsettling. After getting back to the villa, I’d slept fitfully in my cot, my mind full of Danny’s performance at that seedy little tavern in the square. Of course, I know what disturbed me about it. The flamboyance, the femininity: it all felt too bold, too suggestive, too dangerous. Especially after Captain Beddowes’ comments.
‘You rest as best you can,’ I tell Ollie. ‘We’ll get you seen by a medic as soon as we reach camp, I promise.’
I try to sound reassuring, confident, but inside I’m feeling overwhelmed and more than a little afraid for Ollie Murray.
A hand falls on my shoulder. ‘Lieutenant Wraxall, you need to come with me. A couple of the boys have landed themselves in some trouble.’
I turn to find Danny standing behind me, his face etched with worry. ‘What is it?’
‘I’m not sure. But Lieutenant-Colonel Gallagher is on the warpath.’
We leave Ollie and hurry into the chaos of the road. Our current rest stop is not far from the Front, somewhere between the towns of Hébuterne and Auchonvillers. In the fields around us sit vast ammunition dumps with chains of men ferrying crates into wagons. Meanwhile orderlies on bicycles weave precariously through our mile-long column, ringing bells that seem to echo gunshots from a neighbouring field. I only glance in that direction once. The sight of heavy-headed horses, lame from nails dropped by limbers and wagons, is sad enough. I don’t want to witness the officer striding between them, revolver in hand, putting the poor creatures out of their misery.
As we stride on, I fix my gaze instead upon Danny. I tell myself I have been overreacting. Effeminate music hall acts are common enough at home and rarely give rise to suspicion. Or if they do, those suspicions are left unspoken. Theatricals like Danny have always been given a certain freedom.But we’re not at home,a tiny voice whispers to me. Here there are other rules we must live by. Still, I comfort myself that the men in the pub had seemed to enjoy the show. I must stop worrying about such trivial things and focus on the important stuff: Ollie needs a doctor’s care before it’s too late.
And it seems Private Murray isn’t the only member of my platoon in danger.
We emerge from a crowd of soldiers to find Lieutenant-Colonel Gallagher and Captain Beddowes on horseback, towering over Percy Stanhope and Robert Billings. The Toad is red-faced with fury while the Snake shakes a disapproving head at the cowering men. The rest of my platoon stand in a circle around their comrades, all looking nervous as hell. Even old Spud Pearson, that calm and fatherly presence, seems worried.
‘What’s going on here?’ I ask, stepping into the circle.
‘Ah, just in time, Lieutenant Wraxall,’ Beddowes croons.
