They’ve heard tunnelling – Germans planting mines under our line. If the Hun hear us above them, they’ll set the charge and blow us all sky high.
Danny takes the note, reads, and scribbles back:Can’t we just creep away?
I shake my head:A forward trench can’t be abandoned. We’ll have to wait and see.
See if we’re dynamited into bloody pieces, just like some of my old platoon. I try to focus on the moment, to think of anything other than that snow-speckled horror. Still my hands tremble as I push the paper back into my pocket and take out Grandpa’s watch. Four twenty-three. The sun glints off the brass casing, a dazzle reflected on the wall of the trench. Danny and some of the other soldiers follow it with their eyes. Apart from the statue-like sappers, there is nothing else to look at.
Seconds wear into minutes, minutes to hours. We stand side by side, stock-still, breathing slowly as the engineers patiently listen. After a while, my legs and back begin to seize up, twitches and spasms jumping in my calves and between my shoulders. I long to move, a tiny step to readjust my position, but I know that the smallest sound might give us away. And so, to distract myself, I go over and over what Danny has just said: I know his caring nature, but his reluctance to hurt anyone, even in a world such as this? And what did he mean, that he might not be able to stop? Wherever these qualms come from, he will need to get over them. And quickly.
Shadows are lengthening in the unmoving trench when Danny’s hand locks around my wrist. I glance at him to find his face slick with sweat. I mouth:Are you all right?There’s a kind of rigid terror in his eyes.
I pass him a scrap of paper and Danny scribbles:I can’t do this.
I write back:No choice. If the engineers think a charge has been set, they’ll tell us. Then we can run.
He snatches the paper out of my hand and writes: It’s not that. Not the idea of the mine going off. It’s the waiting. I can’t stand it.
He glances back the way we came and I see his boot twist on the duckboard. Now it’s my turn to grip his wrist. I shake my head at him and mouthNo. I feel him try to pull away but I dig my fingers into the flesh of his arm. This isn’t Danny. In his right mind, he’d never put these men at risk. What’s going on inside that head of his? I let go of his arm and hold him with my gaze while I scrawl another note:You could kill everyone here. Do you understand?
He licks his lips, sets his jaw, gives a single sharp nod. I grasp his shoulder and feel him tremble, this brave man who hasn’t so much as flinched under relentless machine gunfire. He suddenly looks like a child who has tried on a soldier’s uniform and marched out with his friends to play at war.
‘All right, lads, false alarm,’ the sapper who first spoke to us suddenly announces. ‘You can all be about your business.’
He groans a little as he uses the trench wall to push himself upright. The other men stretch their arms and legs and curse under their breath.
‘Can’t be helped,’ the sapper sighs. ‘We reckon the Jerries probably struck an underground stream while digging. What we thought was them tamping down the earth around a fuse was the beating of their drainage pumps. Listen, it’s better than the alternative. At least you’ve all still got the correct number of limbs.’
This very reasonable excuse is waved away by grumpy Tommies, who have probably now missed their dinner. Wires and stethoscopes are packed up and, within seconds, the sappers have vanished and Danny and I are alone again. The sky is darkening, the trench so inky black that it’s difficult to pick out the shape of our boots from the mud.
‘What was that all about?’ I snap.
‘I’m sorry,’ Danny says. ‘I don’t know what happened to me.’
I look at him. That rigid terror is gone but shadows of the frightened boy remain. ‘You don’t?’
‘I...’ He lowers his head. ‘No, I suppose I do, but it’s never happened before and so...’ Danny steps away to rest his back against one of the iron sheets that reinforce the trench. Running his fingers along the undulations of the corrugated metal, he cranes his face to the sky. ‘My mother was a drunk, Stephen. Soft as a sparrow and with the voice of a lark, but a drunk just the same.’ He hesitates, cutting his gaze away from me. ‘She wasn’t a monster. You have to understand that. But life had knocked her about and so she hit the bottle from time to time.’
‘Danny—’
When I try to approach, he gestures me back. ‘Let me finish, please.’ He takes a breath and plunges on. ‘I’d been with some friends down by the river. Mudlarking, playing war. It was late when we started back, almost eleven. Mum had been out of work for a few days and I knew what that meant. When I got back to our lodging house, everyone was standing outside on the pavement. There’d been a gas leak and no one was to go back into the building until the engineers arrived. The air was poison, they said, and a stray flame could set the whole street ablaze. I asked the neighbours if Mum had come out with them and they all shuffled their feet and avoided my eye. They said our door was locked and that she hadn’t answered their knock. I tried to get past, tried to barge through the door but the landlord stopped me. He said if she was still in there then there was nothing I could do for her. Not now. I fought against him but he was a big bastard and held me fast. So I just stood there with the rest, waiting, waiting, waiting, until finally the engineers arrived and the gas was turned off and the house ventilated. Then they let me go. I found her up in our attic room, cold and dead, the bottle still in her hand. But it was the standing there that was the worst of it. That was why I couldn’t bear it just now. The standing, the waiting. It was as if it was all happening again...’
I go to him, hold him close as he weeps. If anyone comes round the corner now, they might forgive such a sight. Even the bravest man can break down occasionally. I hold him, I whisper comfort, and I feel a little closer to learning the truth about him.
28
20th June
It’s late in the afternoon when the package arrives. Danny and I have returned from another scouting trip to find most of the platoon sitting on the ground (after a few sunny days, the trench is as dry as a trench ever gets) all cross-legged and passing around parcels like kids on Christmas morning. There’s the typical high spirits and ribbing that accompany a delivery from home. Spud unwraps a box of shortbread and blesses his granddaughter; Percy holds up a brand new photograph of his sweetheart Edith, blushing as the wolf whistles echo around him. Catching sight of us, the men wave and welcome us back.
‘Good to see you, sir!’ Robert shouts. ‘You too, Danny boy. Been out galivanting again with the local widows?’
I sigh and shake my head. ‘Keep a civil tongue in your head, Private.’
‘My tongue’s not been anywhere else, Lieutenant,’ Robert grins. ‘What about yours?’
The platoon give out a collective ‘Ooooo!’ and I tell Robert to watch himself. His cheek is close to insubordination but there’s no malice in it and his crude comments are in some ways a relief. If the general suspicion is that Danny and I are ladies’ men, then all to the good. The laughter and teasing is only cut short when everyone notices the unopened package in Taffy’s lap. He runs his palm almost reverently across the brown paper.
‘For Private Oliver Murray,’ he says softly, reading the label. ‘From his mother.’
