‘Oh, sorry sir, what with the twilight and my eyes not being the best, I didn’t see—’
‘Who was killed and where?’ I bark at him. ‘Quickly, man.’
He shoves a finger back in the direction of the communication trench. ‘Young ’un. Curly brown hair. Silly bugger was walking up top when a sniper clocked him. Fell right at our feet, twitching and groaning. We sent one of our lads for help but there weren’t nothing to be done. Boy said he was from the Manchester Regiment and to send word to a Lieutenant Hacksall and a Captain Jackman or some such. Anyway, he was still breathing when those bloody rodents started swarming in. Jezza and me kicked ’em off him as best we could, then sent another of our boys to inform his company. Here, he wasn’t one of your’n, was he?’
A private from the Manchesters has been killed, a lad with curly hair, coming back from the direction of battalion HQ. I take off through the slimy, sinewy maze of trenches. I don’t pause to ask men to move out of my way. I shove past them, elbowing bodies aside. Some merely grunt in surprise, others shout oaths after me. All I can hear is the slip and hammer of my feet on the greasy duckboards. Half a mile to our sector, the longest half mile I’ve ever known. The rain eases, patters, stops. The clouds crack apart to reveal a starless night and that full moon that witnessed my rescue. Twenty-four hours later, is it shining on the body of Danny McCormick?
No no no no no no.The word taps out like a telegraph inside my head. We had only just found one another. We had so much still to do, to say, to share. He can’t be dead. He can’t. Except of course he can. Here, in this place, there is nothing more natural for an eighteen-year-old boy to do than to die. But perhaps the carrier was mistaken. Maybe he misheard the dying man’s last words. After all, the names weren’t quite right – Hacksall and Jackman – it could be a different platoon.
The moment I turn into our trench, I know that I’ve been grasping at straws. A circle of men stand around the body of a soldier, the corpse laid out on a sheet of gleaming tarpaulin. Between their legs, I can see a hint of pale skin, horribly waxy in the shadows, and a crop of rain-drenched curls. I grasp at the wall beside me, stumble against the sheet of corrugated iron embedded in the trench. In that instant, a flare goes up over No Man’s Land, turning the world into a photographic negative, shadow made light, light turned dark. As the flare distances and dies, Captain Jackson peels away from the others and comes to meet me.
‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ he says.
‘Danny.’
It’s the only word I can say.
At the sound of his name, Danny turns his head and looks back at me. I stare. Can’t make sense of it. He is standing in that prayerful huddle with Percy, Robert, Spud, Taffy and the rest of the platoon, and yet he is also on the ground, still and lifeless. Has he become one of my ghosts, like Phil Danvers and the German boy? Will it be his gentle voice murmuringStephenthat haunts me now rather than the wordKamerad? But suddenly he is right in front of me, his hand on my arm, bright eyes shining with unspilled tears.
‘It’s Arthur,’ he says. ‘He was shot on his way back carrying rations.’
Now they all move aside and I see the body clearly for the first time. Curly-haired Private Arthur Morse, who not three days ago told us of the death of Ollie Murray. I wonder if it ever crossed his mind that he might be the next of us to die? All I know for certain is the shame and relief that floods through me. Relief that Danny is alive and shame that this comfort comes to me at the expense of another man’s life.
26
15th June
While most of the platoon remain on duty, a small party of us leave early the next morning, bearing Arthur Morse’s body between us. We carry him on a stretcher back to Maricourt where, without too much fuss, a pine box, a chaplain and a couple of shovels are rustled up. One of the ever-expanding cemeteries next to a French church serves as the private’s resting place, a bottle containing a slip of paper with his name, regiment and rank placed beside him in the coffin. While the padre reads the burial service and Danny sings a lilting hymn, Captain Jackson makes careful note of the exact location of the grave. This done, we all help to fill in the hole, then salute and begin the tedious march back to the trenches.
It’s a fine morning after last night’s storm. Bees bob across our path, larks trill in the valley below, a riot of roses smothering the burned-out memory of a house sweeten the air. This could be England, I think, Ollie’s words coming back to me. It could indeed, apart from the sunken road lying ahead of us. We walk towards it in silence. The atmosphere today is not the same as it was after Ollie’s funeral. I can tell from the sullen, almost anxious mood of Danny, Percy, Taffy and the rest that an awful truth has dawned upon them. Ollie was the first of them to die and it had struck them hard for the tragedy it was. Arthur’s death is different and they don’t want to admit why: that this is a first step on the road to death losing some of its power and becoming as routine to them as oiling their rifle or darning their socks.
I should reassure them, I suppose. Tell them that they may fear the blunting of their emotions but that death never completely loses its sting. It may bide its time, piling slaughter upon slaughter, until you wonder if you can still feel anything at all. And then, out of nowhere, it will reach into your chest and squeeze your heart so tight that you reel back, grateful and frightened by the knowledge that you’re still a human being. I felt something like this when I saw that black-edged card in Michael’s mother’s window. I felt it again last night when I thought Danny was dead.
But I’m not sure you can explain such things. It’s knowledge these men need to come by the hard way.
‘Private McCormick tells me you had quite a time of it on your first reconnaissance,’ Jackson says. He turns that piercing gaze on me. ‘Sure you’re all right to go back out again today?’
I look ahead to where Danny has just entered the communication trench with Spud and Percy. We didn’t have a chance to speak much last night. After stowing Arthur’s body in a vacant cubbyhole, the captain had ordered everyone not on watch to get to their beds, and so all we’d managed were a few words regarding Danny’s visit to HQ. Apparently, Captain Beddowes had been too busy to receive our report personally and Danny had been forced to leave it with a guard at the door. A fact that makes me glad that I’ve decided to keep copies, written up by Danny, in case the originals go astray. In all honesty, I wouldn’t put anything past Beddowes. Anyway, that was all Danny had been able to tell me before we retired, me to the dugout I shared with Jackson, Danny to his own separate cubbyhole. I had lain awake in my bunk for hours afterwards, remembering how he’d held me following the tunnel collapse, longing to be held like that again.
‘Private McCormick shouldn’t have worried you,’ I say to Jackson.
‘Nonsense,’ he grunts, then smiles. ‘The man’s your squire, isn’t he? Your welfare is his priority. Being buried alive is not something to shrug off, Lieutenant.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m fine, sir. Anyway, I believe we’ve already gathered some valuable intelligence.’
Jackson nods. ‘Your observations about the depth of the German trenches. Yes, Danny told me. Potentially very concerning.’
‘I also got a good view of their entanglements yesterday from the hills overlooking Ovillers,’ I say. ‘I made a few sketches and I think Danny could be right about our guns not making a big enough dent in the wire.’
‘Well, if you’re sure you’re up to heading out again, let’s see what further intelligence you two can gather. Oh, and Lieutenant?’ I glance at the captain and find his gaze fixed on Danny. ‘Be careful, won’t you? I have a great deal of respect for you both and I wouldn’t like to see you come to harm.’
There’s no menace in Jackson’s voice, only concern. I find it both reassuring and worrying.
Our kitbags repacked, we start out, moving further north along the line. At first Danny is quiet, the death of Arthur Morse probably playing on his mind. But as the miles pass and we leave the trenches to gain higher ground, he begins to smile again. Perhaps it’s the warmth of the sun on our skin or maybe the view that lightens his mood. With our backs to the Front, it is possible to forget the war, if only for a moment. Dandelion and pimpernel flame the untamed fields that stretch to the horizon. Insects buzz in a blaze of yellow mustard while a hare appears at a fencepost, the sun glowing red through his quivering ears.
‘Let’s not ever turn around,’ Danny says. ‘Let’s pretend that this is all there is to see.’
‘If only we could,’ I sigh.
