‘What do you mean?’ Robert asks.
The man shrugs. ‘Thousands dead and hardly a foot of ground taken. By the reckoning I heard, sixty per cent of the men and even more officers have been killed.’
Listening, we are all ashen-faced. Even the German prisoners seem appalled.
‘All for nothing,’ Robert echoes. ‘Poor bloody Percy.’
At around nine p.m., the heavy guns at last fall silent. Still, we hear from whispers passed down the line that the Germans are launching small counter attacks. No soldier can sleep with such a threat and so I spend the entire night walking up and down, talking to the men to keep them awake. They stand doggedly at their firing posts, any spare ammo laid out on the parapet. But I can see the exhaustion of the day clawing at them. It’s a strange kind of fatigue, jittery and cold, scratching at your eyes and throbbing into your bones.
At last, the sun rises and the dregs of water canteens are passed around. I start to ask Danny if he wants to portion out some of the remaining food from the German dugout, when a familiar scream reaches us.
‘Seems like they’re starting up their barrage agai—’
I don’t reach the end of the sentence. Falling short of its target, a shell buries itself into the earth directly in front of our position. In the same instant, the trench wall explodes outwards, a blast of dirt and debris throwing men in all directions. I feel myself launched high against the back wall and then dashed sideways, landing in a sprawled heap across splintered duckboards. The aftershock rings in my ears. I blink, splutter, cough up a throatful of phlegm. Memories of the tunnel collapse swarm in on me and I panic, thrusting my hands against a tonne of suffocating earth that isn’t there. It takes a few moments for me to realise that I haven’t been buried alive and that I can still see the sun.
But something is wrong. I place my palm against the damp ground and it comes back sticky and red. I’m lying in a thick and ever-expanding pool of my own blood. I see the source and clench my teeth, fizzing against the pain that saws suddenly into my consciousness. A jagged piece of metal, probably torn from the corrugated iron that reinforced the wall, has embedded itself into my thigh. The shard sits there, ragged and rusty, the wound pulsing around it.
‘Stephen? Stephen, where are...?’ Danny, searching among the debris. Catching sight of me, he hurries over. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ he mutters, dropping to his knees, his gaze playing across the wound. ‘It’s all right. It’s going to be fine.’
‘The others?’ I gasp. ‘The men. The prisoners.’
‘They’re all right,’ he says. ‘You’re the only one who... Oh God, Stephen.’
He shouts for help and I see Robert appear over a newly formed mound of earth that seems to separate me from the rest of the platoon. He begins to skid down towards us, field dressing kit in hand. While the sweat streams into my eyes, the two of them debate about the wisdom of removing the shard. I tell them to leave it in place and to bind my thigh around it as tight as they can. The metal barb can be removed later by a medic, if one can be found. And so Robert unclasps his belt and, placing it between my teeth, tells me to bite down hard on the leather. Then, with Danny pressing at the edges of the wound, Robert licks his lips and begins to wind a bandage firmly around my leg. The metal shifts inside my flesh as he works, grinding at bone, tearing at nerves.
I scream and darkness descends.
My father’s voice, cold as metal, echoing down from the pulpit:For the wages of sin is death.
Michael in the summer house, nervous fingers, warm lips, asking:But Stephen, don’t you want to know how I died?
Ollie, his feet bleeding, crucified against the mast ofThe Fighting Temeraire.
Captain Jackson, carrying me across the battlefield, saving me from this bloody war.
Only it isn’t Jackson who carries me. I blink and light thrusts back the darkness. Looking up at the face above me, I find that I am resting in Danny’s strong arms. He cradles me to him as we lurch across No Man’s Land.
‘No,’ I wheeze. ‘Can’t... Can’t abandon the trench.’
‘Shhh,’ he hushes. ‘It’s all right. Captain Jackson came back while we were trying to find a medic for you. He said there were none in the sector and that I should take you to our old trench. There’ll be doctors there.’
‘Danny, I... If I...’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to hear it. You’re going to be all right. I know you are. Because I love you.’
I try to tell him that I love him too but my throat is so dry. I tremble and my head lolls sideways. Through tears, I see the battlefield, the slaughter ground, still strewn with bodies. Birds hop and squawk between them, stained beaks pluck-pluck-plucking, oily wings aflutter with delight. This isn’t a place for men, I think, only for birds and for worms.
‘Nearly there,’ Danny croaks. ‘Hold on.’
We pass between the gap in our barbed wire and he lays me gently on the ground by the parapet. I stare up at the sky, a sea of blue islanded with drifting cloud. Nothing to pollute that perfection. Hands shuffle beneath me and I am lifted again and taken down the ladder. Danny’s face presses against mine as we descend, his features bunched up with the strain of carrying me. My own pain seems distant, like the memory of agony in a dream.
When we reach the ground, he loops my arm around his neck, bearing all my weight as we stand together. Even as my sight begins to dim again, I can see that our trench has been hit. A German shell knocking in walls and blowing off the roof of our old dugout. There are men picking about among the dead that litter the ground, searching pockets and ammo pouches. Dead from our own company, hit the moment they stepped off the ladder and knocked back into the trench. These reserve soldiers will have been ordered to salvage what they can; a small assignment before they themselves are sent to relieve troops at the new Front line. After today, any spare ammunition will be like gold dust.
I see one of them turn to the mound of earth that used to be our dugout and start pulling free shreds of clothing, a tin mug, a scrap of map.
I feel my heart lurch. ‘Duh-Danny. The... wri... the wri...’
Danny looks me with uncomprehending eyes. ‘Hush now, Stephen. There’s no need to worry. We’re back. We’re safe.’
