I smile at Danny. ‘My squire, you mean.’
Danny smiles back. And then I catch the captain looking between us, a fork-speared scrap of bacon halfway to his mouth. ‘Squire, eh? What’s that all about?’
I feel my face redden. ‘Just a request of Private McCormick’s.’
‘Well, no harm in that,’ Jackson nods after a brief pause. ‘In fact, I’ll call him the Wizard of the Manchesters if he keeps serving up breakfast like this. Take the weight off for a spell, Private. Join us.’
While I quickly wash in the hot water he’s provided, Danny perches on an empty rum barrel opposite the captain. I watch them chatting for a bit. Jackson asks polite questions about Danny’s background, his interests and occupation. When I join them, I see that the captain has made a trencher of his slice of bread and shared some of his breakfast with the chef.
‘And you came straight from the fair into the army?’ Jackson asks.
‘Joined as soon as I was called up,’ Danny nods.
Jackson sits back, wiping his mouth on his handkerchief. His unflinching gaze never leaves Danny’s. ‘You’re a good man, Private McCormick. When you’ve stood shoulder-to-shoulder with soldiers, seen them fall around you, seen them fight for a scrap of ground, seen some run and hide, seen some stand over an injured friend and shield him from harm, you know a good man when you meet him. How old are you?’
‘Eighteen, sir.’
‘And you, Lieutenant?’
The question catches me off-guard. ‘Nineteen, sir.’
‘Nineteen.’ Jackson glances around the dugout – the bunks with their empty sleeping bags, the cockeyed shelves holding old copies ofPunchand shortbread tins stuffed with candles, the walls hung with field glasses and dented helmets, oilskin coats and pictures cut out of illustrated newspapers. ‘Nineteen.’ He shakes his head. ‘God forgive us.’
Twenty minutes later, the order of ‘Stand-to!’ has been called and those men not on night watch emerge blinking from their dugouts and cubbyholes. Meanwhile Danny and I have strapped on our kitbags and are ready to depart. Heeding Jackson’s advice, we’ve packed light with only the essentials we’ll need for a day or two. We say our goodbyes to the rest of the platoon, all now lined up along the trench.
‘Stay safe,’ Percy says, clapping Danny on the arm before both he and Robert offer me a salute. ‘Godspeed, Lieutenant.’
‘We won’t be away long,’ I nod. Still, they all seem anxious as they wave us off. When I mention this to Danny he shrugs.
‘Course they are, sir. You’re they’re CO.’
I shake my head. ‘Captain Jackson is company commander. I’m just the leader of the platoon.’
‘But you were the one who brought them here safely,’ Danny counters. ‘You stood up for them against Beddowes and Gallagher. You won their trust and you made their first days out here a little more bearable. And now, if only for a short time, they’re losing you. You’re a kind of hero to them, you know.’
Oh Danny, thereareheroes out here. Heroes on both sides, I think, but I’m not one of them.
We soon leave our sector behind and move north into the anonymous avenues of the trench. With its almost identical fire steps and ammo shelves, its bombing posts and sandbag dumps, it’s like walking in a nightmarish labyrinth. The yards pass and you think: is that the same gunner’s nest I saw a mile back? Even the Tommies start to look alike, playing card games or else sitting in dugout doorways staring into space. Only the occasional noticeboard perched at odd corners mark out the changes: MANCHESTER AVE, PRINCESS STREET, CARLISLE RD, SAUCHIEHALL STREET, each a company’s reminder of some place back home.
‘How did you sleep last night?’ I ask as we move past a row of signallers repairing a telephone cable attached to the trench wall. The men glance up at us suspiciously, as if we might be enemy agents.
‘Not bad,’ Danny says. ‘I mean, I’ve had better nights. The rats out here seem even bigger than the ones I saw when I was a kid, sleeping in the music hall.’
I nod. ‘Soldiers might go hungry, but the vermin are thriving. I’m sorry you had to make do in that little cubbyhole, but there wasn’t much room in our dugout.’
‘Probably for the best,’ Danny murmurs.
‘You boys!Shhhst!’
We have just turned a corner and come upon yet another concealed sniper post. A corporal, his rifle socked into his shoulder, glares before beckoning us forward. ‘What outfit are you with? What’re you doing wandering about?’
I show him the chit Jackson gave me and he looks us over, clocking the pip on my sleeve. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he murmurs, ‘but you gotta ask, ain’t ya?’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘How goes it here?’
He licks his lips before beckoning us closer still. The sniper is a man of about twenty-five, lean and sharp-featured, his face deliberately smeared with dirt to help him blend in with his surroundings. Under the reed-clad netting that disguises his position, he points to a loophole in the wooden parapet.
‘This was left behind by the Frogs when they held the trench,’ he whispers. ‘There used to be dozens of these little firing holes all along here, but we had to plug most of ’em up. Know why? Cos Fritz put some of their crack shots directly opposite us and the bastards started firing throughourbloody loopholes. I swear, I hears this bang one night and the next second the rifle leaps clean out of my hand and there’s a fucking Jerry bullet stuck right in the business end of it!’
