‘That is impressive shooting,’ Danny nods. ‘But how could an expanding bullet lodge itself inside your barrel?’
The sniper looks outraged. ‘Calling me a liar? All right, big man, you step up and have a go.’
He pulls the weapon from his shoulder and offers it to Danny. I see a nerve twitch in Danny’s forehead, notice the muscles in his neck tighten as he sets his jaw. ‘No thanks,’ he mutters. ‘I tried my luck the other night. Turns out I’m not much of a shot.’
The corporal gives him a self-satisfied smirk. ‘Best keep your mouth shut about things you don’t understand, then. You’re new here, I suppose? Yeah, got the look of a green boy about you. You’ll learn. Or maybe you won’t.’ The corporal rests his rifle against the fire step and prods Danny in the chest. ‘The days of us sniping at each other might be over pretty soon anyway. Rumour is there’s a big push coming, but before that we’ll rain down fire on the Jerries, night and day. Know what a real bombardment is like, green boy?’ He glances at the sky, a dazzling strip of cloudless azure. ‘All that up there will be one screaming sheet of metal. You won’t be able to glimpse a patch of blue between all those flying shells. Hell on earth, my friend.’ He grins and spits on the ground. ‘Hell on earth, for us as well as them.’
23
13th-14th June
We speak with paper and pencil, conversations passed between us in eloquent silence.
While Danny scribbles his latest response, I take out Grandpa’s pocket watch and squint at the time. Ten to midnight. Another hour to check the last German sentry change and we can call it a night. I roll my head from side to side, hear the bones crackle in my neck. It’s been thirteen hours since we crawled into this old abandoned listening post, situated well out in No Man’s Land. A friendly, plummy-voiced officer from the Northumberland Fusiliers had told us about it.
‘Not sure why the sappers gave it up,’ he’d said, offering us both a cigarette. Danny declined while I lit up. ‘Could be something structural, but we’re damned close here to the Huns’ Front line, so it might suit your purposes very well. Only, if the whole thing comes down on your heads, don’t blame me, what?’
Glancing into the dark hole that led out from the front of the trench, we’d decided it was worth a try. From my knowledge of the lie of the land, I was confident that it would give a good view of the German position around the occupied town of La Boisselle. And so we had left our kitbags with the officer and entered on hands and knees, our shoulders brushing the earthen walls, mouths clamped shut against billows of disturbed dirt. It had been a nervy few minutes. After living in a cramped dugout, I thought I was pretty much immune to claustrophobia, but creeping along that narrow passage, with its creaky wooden struts holding up tonnes of earth above our heads, I’d realised how wrong I was. I imagined us passing under those vicious coils of barbed wire that defended our trenches, then beneath the dead zone of No Man’s Land, craters clustered either side of us, some still cradling unexploded shells. At last, we’d emerged into the listening post, a tiny chamber just large enough for two men to sit opposite one another. Overhead, a small hole in the roof had been disguised by a strip of netting covered with stones and rough grass.
‘Well, that was certainly an experie—’ Danny began, pulling himself into a cross-legged position. I’d quickly leaned over and placed my hand against his mouth. Voices tend to carry across No Man’s Land, and we were close enough now that a bored German sentry might catch even the faintest whisper. Danny’s startled blue eyes stared back at me. As I slowly pulled my hand away, he had winced, mouthing:Sorry.
I gave a nervous smile and tried to ignore the tingling in my stomach. The sensation of his lips pressed against my palm... Reaching into the small satchel I had dragged along the tunnel behind me, I took out a bundle of loose paper and a pencil. Although it was gloomy in the chamber, shafts of daylight battled through gaps in the grass ceiling and allowed enough illumination to write by.Apology accepted, big mouth.
Danny took the note, read it with a grin, then scrunched it into a ball and launched it playfully at my head.
And so the hours passed. To begin, I’d taken the small retractable periscope from my satchel and, easing it through the camouflaged ceiling, surveyed our immediate surroundings. I then divided a couple of sheets of paper into a grid system and started mapping out portions of No Man’s Land: the rise and fall of the ground, the odd isolated clump of trees, every snarl of enemy wire, each shell crater and scrap of discarded metal. Anything that might slow down our advancing troops. It was a painstaking process with Danny planting his eye to the periscope to check my observations. That done, I sketched what I could see of the German trenches themselves – machine gun nests and the height of their parapets, any evidence of fresh fortifications and the placement of weapons. At one point I noticed a work party busy replacing a wall of rotten sandbags.
I passed Danny a note:Look where those men are working. What do you see?
He took the periscope, watched for a while, then scribbled back:They’re wobbling a lot. On high ladders. Trench might go very deep. Like you said atHQ, if their dugouts are far underground then bombardment might not have much effect.
I nodded grimly and noted the observation on a separate page.
The day wore on. Between a couple of sentry reliefs and the arrival of a ration party, there were acres of time when nothing happened. We filled it with our scribbled conversations.
Tell me about home.
I took the note from Danny and thought for a moment, picturing my old bedroom: the framed biblical samplers on the wall over my bed, my neatly ordered desk, my books, my cricket bat propped in the corner, my sketches stowed safely away in a drawer.
Not much to tell.Just me, my mother and father.
And your drawings.I’ve only seen one of them but it was incredible.
I shrugged.
That painting I cut out for you – the old ship – why does it mean so much to you?
Reading his note, I’d reached into my pocket and brought out the print. Carefully, I unfoldedThe Fighting Temeraireand handed it to him.
My father took me to the National Gallery –I wrote –and I remember catching sight of it between all these bustling bodies. I think– I hesitated, pencil poised above the page, trying to recapture that feeling from long ago.It called to me. Its sadness, its power. I could feel the truth of it. Does that make any sense?
Danny looked up from the note. He seemed to study me for a while before dipping his head to the page:Yes! This is what music – what singing – means to me! It’s beyond words to explain.
Your singing has the power of paintings,I wrote back.
He read this and shook his head, blushing.
I’ve seen it, Danny. You bring joy and comfort with your voice.I paused. In my mind, I could picture it again, a distraught Ollie lying on the ground, Danny soothing him with his song:
