Our progress slows. The German machine gunners have been joined by snipers who begin picking off men in a more targeted way. While the typewriters continue to throw bodies into gory heaps, their eagle-eyed comrades land kill shots with almost perfect precision. Only one thing is certain in all this chaos: this is not the calm, clean march to victory we rehearsed in that field back in Briquemesnil.
Another of our platoon drops. In the heat and the horror, sweat has run into my eyes and I can’t make out who. It’s too late to help him anyway, even if we weren’t at risk of being shot by our own commanders. The platoon behind us has caught up and I see them pass over his unmoving form like an indifferent wave.
Captain Jackson has his revolver arm outstretched and is taking pot-shots through the smoke. I know I should follow his lead. Not to is madness. But the gun sits heavy in my hand. I’ve lectured Danny about this, saying that he would have to overcome his distaste for violence if he wanted to survive. I’d thought my own survival instinct would kick in too, but it seems that exorcising ghosts is not that simple. Bullets and grenades are useless anyway, the gunners too distant for me to hit.
Suddenly the Germans’ heavy artillery resumes, shells coming thick and fast. The land before us ignites into a towering wall of stone and earth that shoulders aside the smoke and throws men in all directions. Even the whippers-in can’t control the mayhem that ensues. Jackson shouts for us to take cover and half a dozen of the platoon – all that remain of us now – drop into the nearest crater. I crash against Danny as we tumble, our weapons lost in a slide down the high-sided hole, finally coming to rest with limbs entangled in a pool of metal-grey water.
‘You all right?’ I shout.
He nods and we both scrabble to retrieve our guns.
The last to dive for cover is Percy. Glancing back, I see him pause for a split second at the crater’s edge. I don’t know what causes him to hesitate, perhaps the warnings of the whippers-in still ringing in his ears. I hear Spud shout up at him, telling the ‘silly sod’ to duck. In the same moment, it appears as if invisible fingers have reached out and are busy plucking at his clothes. Shreds of khaki fly from his tunic as his helmet is flicked to a jaunty angle. He stands there, jerking and jumping, dancing almost, until several bright red islands spread over his chest and stomach. Robert screams and Percy looks down at himself, his hands ranging across these curious new stains.
We catch him when he falls. Between us, he feels insubstantial, as if he is already fading from the world. Ten hands bring Percy to rest against a patch of dry earth. He looks at each of us and shakes his head. ‘I’m not dying. I’m not. It doesn’t even hurt.’
Danny glances at me, his gaze desolate. ‘That’s right, Perce,’ he says. ‘You just need to rest a little while.’
But Robert pushes angrily at Danny. ‘Don’t lie to him,’ he sobs. ‘All anyone does out here is lie.The Germans will all be dead, their wire’s gonna be cut, it’ll be as easy as pie, boys, you wait and see!And now look what’s happened. Look what’s fucking happened!’ He glares at Captain Jackson, who bows his head, as if accepting the blame. I feel the injustice of it. I want to correct Robert, tell him that Jackson is a good man who tried his best. But deep down Robert already knows this. He just needs to scream at someone.
‘Comfort him,’ I whisper, nodding towards Percy. ‘Don’t waste this time.’
His eyes wet with tears, he nods and hunkers down beside his friend, drawing him into his lap. ‘You all right, Perce, old lad?’ he grunts. ‘Bloody hell, but you weigh a tonne. I knew some bastard was nicking my ration.’
Percy’s brow crumples. ‘I never did. I wouldn’t.’
‘I know that, old lad,’ Robert soothes. ‘I know. You’re the best of us. Ain’t that right, Lieutenant?’
I come to kneel beside him, laying my palm against Percy’s cold cheek. ‘The very best.’
‘That’s right,’ Spud echoes. ‘Best lad in the company.’
Danny leans in and gently slips his hand into Percy’s tunic pocket. He brings out a small photograph, which he holds up so that the dying man can see it. Percy’s lips, almost white now, spread into a smile. ‘My Ead. My girl. Will you tell her that I was brave, Robbie? Will you tell her, Danny? Will you?’ His voice becomes thin and frantic. ‘Will you tell her, Lieutenant? Will you tell her, Captain? Spud?’ He shakes his head again. ‘It hurts, you know? But don’t tell her it hurt. I don’t want her th-thinking of me like this.’
‘Shhh,’ Robert whispers. ‘You don’t have to worry about anything.’
Danny nods. ‘Keep looking at that girl of yours, Percy. That pretty girl you met outside the school gates all those years ago.’
I smile, despite everything. Trust Danny to hold the detail of another’s happiness close to his heart. Percy reaches up for the picture, taking it from Danny with bloodstained fingers. ‘I’m frightened, lads,’ he confides. ‘I feel really cold and I can’t see very well. I can’t... I... I can’tsee. I can’t see her, boys. Ican’t.’
We all try to reassure him, but Danny waves us to hush. ‘It’s not a scary darkness, Percy, I promise. It’s like chasing a dream. When you go to sleep, don’t you sometimes hope for a certain dream?’ He takes Percy’s hand in his. ‘I know I do. When you next close your eyes, you just let go of all your pain and you chase the best dream you ever had.’ He leans in and kisses the dying man gently on the forehead. ‘And we’ll be right here while you dream. I promise.’
36
We dodge from shell hole to shell hole, battling to get through. I have no idea how long it is since we left our trench. Time seems to have no meaning here, in this nightmare where our advance is now made up of sideways sweeps between positions for cover. When I try to check my watch, I find that the face has been smashed, probably from when we tumbled into the crater. Another of our platoon has died since we were forced to abandon Percy’s body there. The old man of our company. Dear old Don ‘Spud’ Pearson. He never did outlive his nickname; in fact, I think he came to embrace it. He was caught out in the open by a sniper just as the veil of smoke parted.
The dead lie everywhere you look, in ones and twos, scattered and in heaps. Uncountable numbers, beyond what I think any of us might have feared. It’s too huge, too numbing to penetrate my senses. A hundred sights, sounds, smells and textures demand attention but only fleeting things manage to break through: a single scream like a bow scraped across an untuned violin; the strangely similar scent of blood and shredded metal; and close ahead, a laundry of red rags hanging from the German wire. Only not rags but men, or what is left of them.
Breathless, we reach the last shell crater before the German line. There are other men already here, a good twenty or more, the survivors from a couple of different companies. They catch sight of the pips on our sleeves and one starts to babble.
‘Our officers are all dead, sir. Captain McManus, he was knocked back into the trench soon as he stepped off the ladder. Head blown clean from his shoulders. And all our lieutenants and sergeants, they’re gone too. We’ve just been sitting here debating. We daren’t go back cos we’d be shot, but there’s no way through. Not like the top brass promised.’
Captain Jackson gives them a few encouraging words. Then, with Danny, Robert and I beside him, he elbows his way up the side of the crater. Flat on our stomachs, we reach the edge of the hole where Jackson takes out his periscope. After a minute or two, he passes it between us.
‘There’s at least one gap in the entanglement,’ he says. ‘About twenty yards to the south, right where that poor bastard is all caught up. Do you see it?’
I nod. A narrow entry point, like a lost tooth in a wicked mouth. ‘Sniper nest not too far off,’ I mutter. ‘We’ll lose more than a few before we get there.’
‘We’ve lost people already,’ Robert says hoarsely.
