Beddowes scurrying in his wake, the colonel stomps across the trench to our dugout, throwing aside the gas curtain and descending into the earth. Meanwhile Jackson accompanies Danny and me, giving a friendly warning as we enter. ‘Play your hand carefully, Lieutenant.’
We discover the Toad at our table, his knees popping like rifle shots as he eases himself onto an old ammo box. Meanwhile the Snake casts a narrow gaze around the place. I’m not sure what he expected to find in a ditch cut into the Somme, yet it seems our neat but modest hole in the ground is a disappointment.
‘Can I offer you some coffee?’ Jackson says. ‘Unfortunately, Private McCormick hasn’t been able to work his usual miracle today with the machine gunner’s bucket, so there’s no boiling water, though we do have fresh sugar to disguise the taste of the chlorine.’
Gallagher looks appalled. ‘No, thank you. We need to be heading back to HQ soon anyway. So, Wraxall, out with it.’
I take my writing case from Danny and use the silver key to unlock the box. Setting it on the table, I then pull out the bundled copies of our reports, which lie in front of Gallagher. ‘I’m not sure if these have reached you personally, Colonel, but I hoped that, while you’re here, we might have a chance to give you more information on the reconnaissance you requested. As instructed, for the past week, Private McCormick and I have been making excursions up and down the line. From positions at listening posts far out in No Man’s Land to areas on hillsides and ridges overlooking the battlefield, we’ve made detailed notes, maps and sketches. As you can see...’ I take out diagrams and reports and draw my finger across relevant sections. ‘...we’ve observed fresh trench workings on the German side, their machine gun positions, the regularity of patrols, ground details of No Man’s Land, including any obstacles our troops might face. But what concerns us most is this.’
I come around the table to stand beside Gallagher, directing his attention to our report from the first day. ‘If we’re right about the depth of the enemy trenches, then the push on the twenty-ninth might need to be reconsidered. Our observations suggest that the Germans are bedded in and their dugouts lie very far underground.’
Danny breaks in. ‘If that is the case, sir, then you can bomb them till kingdom come and you’d only scratch the surface of their defences.’
I unfold a large map, taped together across several foolscap pages. ‘And that isn’t all. Look at the size and complexities of these entanglements. Can we be certain that a bombardment will accurately cut through all of this? Because if it doesn’t then our men will be marching into a forest of barbed wire.’
Jackson stirs. ‘If they are right about the German trenches, sir, then that won’t be all we’ll be marching into. Fritz will be back up in their machine gun nests as soon as our guns fall silent.’ Danny and I look over to the captain, whose face is as stern as I’ve ever seen it. ‘It will be a massacre.’
Gallagher’s gaze plays across our maps, diagrams and reports. He sniffs, drums his sausage fingers on the table, and finally glares up at his adjutant. ‘Most interesting, wouldn’t you say, Captain Beddowes? So tell me, why am I only just seeing all of this now?’
29
At Gallagher’s request, we leave the ‘suffocating gloom’ of the dugout and step back into the trench. The rest of the platoon is quickly sent off to attend to their duties and so there is no one to overhear Beddowes as he starts up a tirade against us.
‘To answer your question, sir, I didn’t consider it worthy of your time. In my honest opinion, that nonsense –’ He gestures towards the dugout where our bundle of reports lies discarded – ‘is all the work of hysterical schoolboys.’
I watch the captain’s pathetic moustache tremble with a rage that is reflected in Danny’s eyes. I shoot him a warning glance as Beddowes continues.
‘Are we supposed to discard a carefully organised military campaign on the say-so of a couple of boys who’ve spent a week trotting up and down the line?’ Beddowes’ high-pitched titter sets my teeth on edge. ‘Surely you can’t blame me for not bothering you with such rubbish.’
Gallagher smooths down his distinctly superior moustache. ‘That wasn’t your decision to make, Captain. Whatever your opinion of them, these men were given a mission and I was to be informed of its results.’
Beddowes gawps at his commander. ‘B-but if I may, I only wished to spare you—’
‘Again,’ Gallagher growls. ‘Notyour decision.’
I see Danny’s lips spread into a smile.Oh Danny, don’t think for a moment that old windbag is on our side.Unfortunately, I’m not the only one to notice his amusement.
‘Forgive me, Colonel,’ Beddowes says, his gaze fixed on Danny. ‘But if I may, the reports these soldiers have concocted seem to me to have only one purpose: to derail the push and spare them the ordeal of having to face the enemy. It is my firm conviction that Lieutenant Wraxall and Private McCormick are unmanly soldiers, entirely unworthy of the uniform they wear.’
As Danny’s smile dies, Jackson attempts to speak over his brother officer. ‘That is an unwarranted slur against my men, Captain, and I will not have it.’
‘How else do you explain their fabrications?’ Beddowes all but shrieks. ‘Their wild allegations that the Germans might be better prepared than us? That the enemy is cleverer and that they will destroy us if we try to confront them?’
‘That’snotwhat we said—’ Danny begins, but Beddowes cuts him off.
‘I’ve always had certain suspicions about these two, and now we can see their nature revealed by their cowardly actions.’ His eyes blaze as he returns Danny’s stare. ‘It’s my opinion that they have conspired to sow doubts about the upcoming offensive. The reality is they don’t want their cushy little lives here disrupted by the fight to come. They’d rather stay hidden away in their dugouts, playing cards or whatever else it is they do to amuse themselves, rather than face the enemy. Oh yes, it’s quite the holiday here. I mean to say, isn’t it wonderfully peaceful?’
He pauses for a moment, making a pantomime of cupping his ear to listen for gunfire. Then suddenly Beddowes lunges forward and grabs the rifle from Danny’s grasp. We’re all so stunned that none of us react.
The colonel boggles at him. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Beddowes?’
‘A little experiment, sir,’ the captain replies, removing his helmet and balancing it on the end of Danny’s rifle. ‘To demonstrate that these men have been exaggerating the risks they face.’
‘Beddowes, no!’ Jackson roars.
But his warning comes a fraction of a second too late. With a triumphant grin, the captain has thrust his makeshift mannequin soldier above the lip of the trench and into the sights of the German snipers. But his grip on the rifle is too high and our trench too shallow. I can see Beddowes’ pale hand glint in the sunlight, a target within plain view. We all hear the distant crack of a bullet and, in the next instant, a flash of blood spurts into the air and Danny’s rifle and Beddowes’ helmet clatter to the ground. The captain himself stands upright for a short time, staring almost curiously at the gory stumps where his thumb and forefinger used to be. Then his mouth spreads into a scream and he collapses to the duckboards.
‘Field dressing kit, Private,’ Jackson orders. ‘Quick about it.’
