Panic tears through me. All I can hear is the frantic pulse of my blood, like the heartbeat of the earth. I am trapped again, as I’ve always been trapped: in the judgement-thick shadow of my father, in the narrow world of my old school, in the meaningless rules I’ve fought for, in the memory of a winter trench where I lost myself. Buried there under the bodies of my friends and comrades. Buried in the gaze of the young man I killed. Buried alone, thank God. I must breathe soon, Imust, but at least Danny made it out alive.
Grains of dirt work their way under my closed lids, scratching at my eyes. A tremendous pressure throbs against my body as if it might crack my bones to pieces. My back screams. My lungs shriek. I try to clench my fists against the agony of it, but this patient tomb hugs me tight so that even my fingers are frozen into position. I whimper and a dribble of mud siphons between my lips, crumbs sliding across my tongue and rolling down my throat. The moment’s here. I can’t hold on any more. I open my mouth and draw down the darkness. My last breath. Upon it I believe I can taste that sea of blood that is soaked into the soil of the Somme...
Movement. A hand finding mine. It grazes, snatches, grips. A flash of torchlight against my closed lids and a new pain shoots along my arm as I am hauled out of the dark. Clots of mud fracture before my eyes, a black curtain drawn back so that I can see the world again. Before me, a group of men stand at the wall of the trench, some holding spades, others with hands gloved in filth. Beaming with relief they stare back at me. I see Danny, his face wet with tears. Tears that fall and carve out channels in his mud-smeared skin.
‘He’s all right,’ Danny shouts at the other men as he wrenches me free of the collapsed tunnel. ‘He’s alive.’
His arms encircle me, drawing me close like he did in that lonely avenue in Authuille. I sag against him, my chin resting on his shoulder. I cough, splutter, and he rubs my back, freeing the last of the grave dirt from my throat. And all the while he whispers, ‘You’re all right, Stephen. You’re all right. I’ve got you. You’re safe. Thank God. Thank God.’ Some detached part of me observes the men standing around us. There’s no suspicion in their eyes, only a kind of sentimental admiration. That is the irony of this war – love between fighting men is something to be encouraged and applauded. Just as long it is therightkind of love.
‘You’re shaking,’ Danny murmurs. ‘Of course you are.’
He shouts something and a man comes forward with a flask. A moment later, I feel the burn of brandy on my lips and a welcome warmth pulses through me. I try to stand by myself but my legs are still weak and I fall against Danny again.
‘Take the poor chap to my dugout. I’m on watch tonight so I shan’t be using it. You can stay there too, if you like. Looks to me as if he shouldn’t be left alone for a while.’
I recognise the speaker – the plummy-voiced officer who first told us about the old listening post. Danny murmurs his thanks and the lieutenant waves it away.
‘Think nothing of it. Feel a bit guilty, truth be told. You’d never have ventured out there if I hadn’t opened my silly yap. Your kitbags are stowed there anyway. Third doorway along, should be some water and grub hanging around too.’
I croak out my appreciation to the men who helped rescue me. Then, with Danny as my guide, we stumble off in the direction of the dugout. It feels as if I float along the trench, my body horribly insubstantial after the crushing weight of the earth. Before we step down into the dugout, I crane my neck and stare up at the sky. An ordinary night, misted with stars, the same boring old full moon I’ve seen a hundred times before.
‘Beautiful,’ I say. ‘So beautiful.’
Danny looks back down the trench. We’re now out of sight of the men.
‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’
Moments later, I’m sitting on the bottom bunk, my hands clasped tight in my lap. All dugouts are pretty much identical, the same improvised furniture and basic decoration. This one sports a couple of frayed public school ties strung out for a washing line and a portrait of the Kaiser used as a dartboard. While I look about in a sort of dumb bewilderment, Danny busies himself pouring water into a bowl and then rummaging in his bag, bringing out his field dressing kit. He then searches among the cans of condensed milk, packs of sugar, jars of rum and bottles of ink that litter the table, finally discovering what he needs. He comes to crouch beside me, gently taking my shaking hands and placing them, palms up, on my knees. He begins to wash away the grime and debris from my cuts, carefully sponging the lacerations before breaking an ampoule of iodine and applying it to the wounds.
‘They’re not too deep,’ he says softly, looping and securing bandages. ‘You won’t need stitches.’
This done, he searches the dugout again and returns with a fresh bowl of water, a raggedy towel and a bar of soap. He places these at his feet and, straightening up, lays his hands on the lapels of my filthy uniform.
‘Are you all right undressing yourself?’
‘I think so,’ I tell him.
Ignoring the sting of my injuries, I pull off my tunic, shirt and vest. There’s a bit of broken mirror on the opposite wall, and I’m amazed to see that only my face and neck are really filthy, my torso being pretty much spotless. I lower my head and, like an infant, allow Danny to comb the earth from my hair. Having removed the worst of it, he gently scrubs my scalp before asking me to lean forward so that he can rinse out the soap. I watch cascades of brown water splash into the bowl at my feet, the one beside it pink with my blood.
‘Sorry the water’s so cold,’ he says. When his hand accidentally brushes the ruined flesh of my ear, I flinch. ‘Sorry,’ he murmurs again. ‘I didn’t mean to–’
‘I killed a boy.’ My voice is so empty, so hollow it doesn’t sound like me at all. ‘I’m not a hero, Danny. That bauble they gave me? The Military Cross, awarded to Second Lieutenant Stephen Wraxall, for conspicuous gallantry during an enemy raid on a British trench. That’s what the citation says. Only in my case, ‘MC’ ought to stand for Miserable Coward. When those grenades came flying into our trench and knocked me to the ground, all I did was lie there, hidden under the bodies of my men. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to...’ I can’t look at him. Can’t stand to see the judgement in his eyes. Almost dying tonight has made me realise that I need to tell him, so that at least someone will know the truth of what happened. My bandaged hand goes to the side of my head, to the old ugliness that sits there like a constant reminder. ‘I waited until the raiding party had moved on to another sector and then I got to my feet. They’d left one of their men behind to stand guard. He was a kid about our age.’ The young German looks back at me now from over Danny’s shoulder, mute as always, his face reflected in that bit of broken mirror on the wall. ‘I shot him. He wasn’t attacking me, wasn’t even reaching for his gun. I was just so scared and angry.’
Silence in the dugout. Only the sound of our breathing, the flap of the gas curtain covering the door, the distant spit of a rifle.
‘What happened when you went home?’ Danny asks.
‘They offered me a cushy desk job,’ I say. ‘Something like what Beddowes does out here. Pushing paper around, stamping forms. I could work at the Ministry of Munitions in Whitehall, live somewhere in the suburbs, find a nice girl.’ I laugh at that, the idea of me walking in the park on Sunday afternoons, arm-in-arm with a vicar’s daughter or some pretty waitress from the Lyons’ Corner House on the Strand. ‘That’s the picture they painted for me, my parents and the authorities. My Blighty wound meant that I need never step into this hell ever again.’
‘Then why did you?’
I look down at my hands, still resting on my knees. There are two fresh red spots in the centre of my palms, blots bleeding through the bandages. But for once my hands aren’t shaking.
‘Because I couldn’t live a lie,’ I say. ‘Not at home, anyway. All those friends and neighbours telling me what a brave chap I was and how proud I must be. Proud, Danny.Proud.’ Finally, I look up at him, his face shimmering behind my tears. ‘I murdered that man in cold blood. I took his life without a thought. So yes, I persuaded a doctor to sign me fit for active duty and I came back. I owe it to them, you see? Phil Danvers and my old platoon. That poor German kid. Why do I get to die in a comfortable bed fifty years from now when they...’
‘Shhh, shhh,’ Danny says, catching hold of my head and drawing me to his chest. ‘It’s all right, Stephen. It is. That soldier was part of a raid that killed your whole platoon. They’d badly injured you too. You were frightened, hurt. And listen to me. Listen.’ He places his hands either side of my face, resting his forehead against mine. ‘Do you really think he wouldn’t have shot you, given the chance? His comrades had left him alone in an enemy trench, a dozen British soldiers blown to bits at his feet. He must have known you’d have reinforcements pouring in at any moment. It was him or you.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ He nods. ‘And you don’t hate me for it?’
