These men have been through a hell that I pray he will never know. It’s a hell they carry with them too. You can see it in their haunted eyes and the way some of them twitch and shiver as they walk. The stories of the endless battle at Verdun, a fortress town far beyond the southernmost tip of the British sector, is chilling, even to those of us who have already seen action. Four months of brutal fighting, thousands dead, and still the battle rages on, devouring men and resources on both sides.
We stand for twenty minutes or more, watching these veterans of hell pass by. Some hobble on crutches, others, burned and blinded, are guided by their friends. One with a dent in his head is ferried in a wheelbarrow and sings ‘La Marseillaise’ while swishing his fingers through the air, as if conducting an invisible orchestra.
‘Are you all right?’ Danny asks me.
He’s looking down at my hands. They’re shaking badly.
‘Fine,’ I nod. ‘Men, back into position. Forward march.’
The rain eases as we pass into Albert. I split my platoon off from the main column here and assemble us in what remains of the town square, a bomb-blasted wasteland dominated by the wreckage of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebières. I’m just negotiating with a quartermaster for billets for the night when a ragamuffin boy runs up to us, waving a note.
‘Lieutenant Wraxall? Is he here? I am searching for Lieutenant Wraxall?’
‘I’m Wraxall,’ I say.
The boy looks relieved. He has probably already tried half a dozen companies. ‘From the Bécourt Chateau, monsieur,’ he pants, holding out a mucky hand.
I drop a coin into his palm and the messenger hurtles off again.
‘What is it?’ Danny asks.
‘I’m summoned to battalion HQ to meet our new CO, Captain Jackson. Oh well,’ I sigh, daydreams of a nap upon a well-sprung mattress dissolving before my eyes. ‘Better get it out of the way, I suppose. Lieutenant?’ I address the quartermaster. ‘What chance do I have of finding a horse to ride out to Bécourt?’
The whiskery old soldier hems and haws. ‘Not much of one, I’d say. Every nag in the town’s already spoken for. But on the sunnier side of things, I know an empty villa that can house you and your boys for the night, long as you don’t mind sharing with a basement full of rats and a roof full of sparrows.’
‘How far is this battalion HQ?’ Danny asks, resting his kitbag on the ground beside me.
‘A couple of miles, I think.’ I feel my legs ache at the very thought.
Danny nods, his gaze skating around the square. ‘All right, just give us a tick.’
Before I can ask what he’s up to, my squire has sped away into one of the rubble-strewn streets. Meanwhile the quartermaster takes charge of my platoon. Spud and Taffy relieve me of my own kitbag, whistling for other men to come forward and take Danny’s, before they are guided off towards the rat-infested, sparrow-stuffed villa. Too tired to think any more, I slide down the wall behind me and rest my head against the cold stone.
My eyes glaze. My head sinks to my chest. I doze. I dream...
Calm as a mirror, the waters of the estuary lap around the hull of theFighting Temeraire. I stand with Danny at her prow, his strong hand resting beside mine upon the rail. Together, we watch threads of sticky brown smoke bulge out from the funnel of the paddle steamer that draws the old warship to her doom. I open my mouth to say something. To order, to persuade, to plead. I want to stop the destruction that awaits her – awaits us all – but I am frozen in place.
PrivateOllieMurray is not frozen. He sways high above us, crucified against the crossbeam of the ship’s mast. A figure as pale and poignant as the dead saviour who hangs in my father’s study back home. Like Christ’s friends and disciples in Rubens’ painting, Danny and I extend our arms to help the poor boy down from his cross, but he is too high for us to reach. He cries out to the setting sun and his feet weep blood. Rain begins to fall upon the deck of theFighting Temeraire. Only it isn’t rain but clods of wet earth. Cemetery dirt slapping against the coffin boards of the deck. Trench mud knocking us to our knees, blinding us, burying us, pulling Danny and I apart until I have lost him in the suffocating blackness.
I am alone.
In the earth.
All alone.
Except.
Kamerad...?
A hand shakes my shoulder, dragging me out of the darkness.
‘Sir, wake up. Stephen, it’s all right.’
I jerk into consciousness, leaping to my feet, blinking against the daylight. The busyness of the square floods my senses: a parade of pigeons strutting along a wall; workmen in overalls arguing over how best to repair a gun carriage; sunlight flashing in semaphoric shafts through the arches of the half-demolished basilica; a company of soldiers marching past, their captain as proud-chested as the pigeons.
‘Bad dreams?’ Danny asks.
I nod. Then shake my head. ‘What have you got there?’
