When I try to reach for him, he bats my hands away. Finally, I make him look at me.
‘Do you think I could sit there in some reserve trench, knowing you were going over the top? Jesus Christ, Danny, you ask me why I did it?’ I sigh. ‘Because I love you. And if I can’t keep you safe, if I can’t save you, then at least I can stand with you. Whatever tomorrow brings, we’ll face it together.’
The night roars around us. Flame and iron crack the sky. The earth trembles under our feet. And in the darkness and in the light, his lips find mine.
34
1st July • The Battle of the Somme
The second hand marches on relentlessly. Two twenty-six a.m. I close the casing and hand Grandpa’s watch to the runner.
‘Please take care of it,’ I tell him.
The soldier salutes and, turning on his heel, is gone, the gas curtain slapping back across the dugout doorway. In that brief glimpse of the outside world, I saw a black sky reddened with flame, a scarlet glare that fell across the table and the letter I am writing. A final letter that will not be added to the others lying at my elbow.
I glance at them now, envelopes addressed to my father, to my mother, to Michael’s parents, only to be delivered in the event of my death. Nineteen years on this planet and this tiny stack of apologies, explanations and farewells is all that I might leave behind. I had friends at school, of course, good friends, some of them, but almost all are either dead or out here themselves, and what could I possibly say to them that they don’t already know? Anyway, that old life seems very distant to me now.
Should I die today, I don’t know if my father will regret not writing to me. I haven’t heard from him since leaving home, though Mother has written, saying he found my Military Cross in his desk and has displayed it on the mantelpiece. If I do return, I’ll ask him to take it down. She says he talks of me often over the breakfast table and is optimistic that we might properly reconcile one day. In my letter to him, I have apologised for any distress I’ve caused butnotfor my nature.If there is a God, then I will face Him as He made me, Pa,and I think He will be a kinder judge than you imagine. The letter to my mother is simpler, telling her that she did her best to make my childhood a happy one and that I’m grateful for it. To the Greaves family I wrote:Thank you for sharing Michael with me. He was one of the most special people I’ve ever known, and I loved him dearly.
I turn back to the last letter. The hardest I’ve ever had to write. How in a few lines do you express the happiness another soul has brought to yours? The way your heart stops and your breath catches at the sight of his smile? The hope that he has reawakened within you, dragging you from the darkest of places back into the light? And the regret that, if he is reading this, then you will never again know the joy of holding him in your arms? I try to put it into words, knowing words are inadequate. But perhaps I have something better. Pulling the drawing from my pocket, I glance at it for a moment: that faceless sketch of him naked at the attic window, the best tribute I can offer to the man I love. I fold it, together with his letter, and place both into a sealed envelope which I lock inside my writing case.
The silver key sits in my palm, winking up at me in the half-light of the dugout. Closing my fist tight around it, I take one last look about me. The earthen ceiling above my head judders with yet another impact, raining dirt into the mud-coloured dregs of coffee that sit in three tin mugs upon the table. Captain Jackson, Danny and I had toasted each other here only an hour ago, the captain unsurprised by our report from HQ.
‘Well, I only hope that Beddowes can live with his conscience,’ he said wearily before raising his cup. ‘But enough of him. To the Manchesters!’
We clinked mugs. ‘To the Manchesters.’
Now I move steadily across the dugout towards my cot. Cleaned and loaded, my revolver rests there like some kind of cold-blooded creature patiently waiting to strike. Amid the din of the barrage it’s difficult to hear anything and yet a whisper still comes to me. A word spoken in German by a boy long-dead.Kamerad.I snatch up the weapon and stride out into the night.
The men crowd the trench, eyes swinging between the extra rum ration in their hands and the swatch of sky above the parapet. Some squat on their haunches, a few doze but none truly sleep. At the far end, I see a dozen or so huddled together in prayer with an army chaplain. The man raises his hand in blessing and I picture my father at his pulpit, speaking verses that damn his congregation. I’m glad to see that this clergyman offers only hope and comfort. We have enough of Hell here already.
Although it isn’t all horror and darkness. I watch as Danny passes among the men, sidestepping boots and bayonets, pretending to trip, raising a smile and handing out his own words of consolation. Percy and Robert laugh when he reaches them, a little of the fear going out of their eyes. I can’t hear what they’re saying over the noise, but I see Percy clutching something in his hand. Danny kneels beside him and Percy nods, passing him the scrap of paper. The photo of his sweetheart, I now realise.
‘What did you say to him?’ I ask when Danny reaches me.
‘That Edith would be proud,’ he says.
I nod. ‘I’m proud too. Of them and of you.’
It’s the most excruciating agony that now, in this moment, I can’t hold him. Instead we stand side by side and wait for the dawn.
At around four a.m. additional ammunition and equipment arrive from the supply stores behind the line. Bullets and a couple of extra Mills bombs apiece. The men reorganise themselves in silence, efficiently adding to their lethality. This done, they lapse back into watchful stillness. I glance across at Danny, his expression almost unreadable in the gloom. Is he ready for what’s to come? A stupid question. No one can ever be truly ready for this. But I think back to that attic room in the villa and those words of his:I don’t want to hurt anyone.Hemustovercome those fears and doubts. He must fight now, or he will not survive the day.
An hour later, the first grey hints of morning start to filter across the sky. Faces harden, dry lips are licked for the hundredth time, fingers flex around rifles. As the light strengthens, I see clearly the long line of ladders perched against the wall and the khaki-clad boys waiting to climb them. Khaki – the colour of everything and nothing. I am sick to death of it.
A soldier darts along the trench, dispensing trinkets like a pickpocket returning his plunder. Reaching me, he offers my watch, now synchronised precisely for zero hour. I wonder vaguely if my grandfather ever imagined that his little legacy might countdown the seconds to my annihilation.
‘Everything all right?’ Danny murmurs in my ear.
‘Not especially. How about you?’
He takes a moment to consider before leaning in and whispering. ‘I love you.’
I close my eyes, breathe hard. When I open them again, I press the silver key into his hand.
‘What’s this?’ he asks, looking down at it.
‘If I don’t make it... Hush, Danny,’ I say when he starts to object. ‘If I don’t, there’s something for you in my writing case. To remember me by.’
