The other was one of the German gun posts that had survived pretty much undisturbed all through the fighting. The post had been built of poured concrete, ten feet thick and laced through with railway ties and steel bars. Attacking the posts was a short walk to suicide, nothing less. And Alan had wanted it. More even than the probability of his impending death – a fact which Tom treated as certain – what shocked him was that Alan wanted it.
Captain Morgan looked at Tom with a depth of feeling in his eyes. Beyond the makeshift parapet, some two hundred yards away the white concrete gun post shone pale in the moonlight. ‘I’m terribly sorry, old man. I do wish you the very best of British luck.’
‘Thank you.’
‘There’s nothing I can do, is there? Nothing you need?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Just … Look, for reasons I can’t explain, it matters to me very much indeed – more than I can possibly say – who suggested my name this afternoon. You’re perfectly sure it was a Lieutenant Montague?’
Pause.
In the distance a couple of shells boomed, and there was an answering snap of rifles.
‘Look, I was at Sandhurst four years ago, made captain last year. I know when to salute the pips and when to look for a salute myself. I’m absolutely positive, old man. I’m sorry.’
Tom nodded.
Another handshake. ‘I’d best leave you to it, then.’ Morgan began to walk away. A Very light shot up into the sky, and hung there, slowly dropping. The gloomy trench filled with its glow.
‘Excuse me, Captain,’ called Tom.
‘Yes?’ Morgan turned.
Tom held out his crumpled cigarette packet. ‘I’ve managed to crush these. You don’t have any by chance?’
Morgan felt in his tunic pocket. He had a packet of Woodbines intact and just slightly damp from a shower of rain earlier. ‘Take these, old man. You’re welcome.’
We’re the boys of the New Arm-ee.
We cannot fight,
We cannot shoot,
What bloody use are we?
But when we get to Berlin
The Kaiser he will say,
Hoch, hoch, mein Gott!
What a bloody fine lot
Are the boys from the New Arm-ee.
The song in one of its many versions drifted from the slimy dugout steps like the smell of something pleasant. The dugout was one of those captured from the Germans. It was well-built and, as far as these things ever were, comfortable. After a short pause, the song changed to something more melancholy.
Tom swallowed hard. Faced directly with the fact of his imminent death, his long-held attitude of carelessness began to desert him. He didn’t want to die. He was desperately keen to live. Perhaps he’d live through the night only to find himself court-martialled in the morning. But he didn’t care. He wanted to survive this night. After that, he’d take his chances.
And yet his death wasn’t the worst of it. Alan was. Of all people on earth, Alan Montague had put his name forward for the mission at hand. Tom knew he should never have slept with Lisette, yet Alan’s response was so coldly murderous. It was the worst side of Alan, multiplied and exaggerated. This was Alan the nobleman’s son, snobbish, self-righteous and detestable.
Tom felt like a stranger in a strange land.
He walked down the dugout steps. There were thirty men crammed down there, exhausted from the day’s fighting. Of the thirty, only three or four had had the energy to sing, and then only because there wasn’t enough space in the dugout for everyone to lie or even sit.
The men saw the look on Tom’s face, and they fell silent, immediately apprehensive. Those who were awake shook the ones who weren’t. The dugout came to life and the men stood leaning against the oozing walls or sat on rough wooden benches or on the ground. Light came from a pair of German acetylene lamps, which filled the dugout with their thick petrol fumes. The air was utterly foul, but homely. A couple of rats sat chewing something in the corner.
‘Raise your right hands, boys … Your right hand, Thompson, not both of them.’
The men silently obeyed.
‘Now lower your hands if you have nippers, any children at all.’
Sixteen hands remained aloft.
‘Put them down if you have a wife … I said a wife, Appleby, not a girl you screw when you’re in the mood.’
Ten hands plus Appleby: eleven.
Tom nodded. ‘You men come here, the rest of you carry on.’ There was complete silence, except for a low muttering as men clambered over each other to exchange positions. (‘Sorry mate’, ‘Careful, that’s my fucking hand you’re treading on’, ‘I’d’ve married the old cow, if I’d known’ …) Eventually the eleven men found their way to Tom – or eleven boys, to be more accurate, since their average age must have been under twenty-one. Tom’s orders required him to take a dozen men, but he’d disobey. A troop of fifty men couldn’t take the guns, and he’d be damned if he’d have more blood on his hands than he absolutely had to. Tom took eleven matches from the box in his breast pocket and broke the heads off two of them. He jumbled the sticks and poked the ends out between his thumb and hand.
‘Each man take a match.’
The men obeyed, and two ended up with the broken-headed sticks: one sandy-haired, stout but strong, and with a confident look to him; the other was a typical inner-city recruit, poorly fed, short – hardly even five foot four – with a long, pale face. Tom didn’t recognise them. Because of the casualties it had suffered so far, the company had been strengthened with other men of the battalion, men Tom didn’t yet know.
‘Sorry, lads, I haven’t got to know your names yet.’
‘Stimson, sir,’ said the sandy-haired lad.
‘Hardwick, sir. The boys call me Shorty,’ said the other.
‘And what would you like me to call you?’
‘Shorty, sir, I suppose. Seems more natural now, like.’
Tom nodded. He took Morgan’s cigarette pack from his pocket and offered the two lads cigarettes. They all three lit up.
‘Now I’ve got good news for you both. I’ve chosen you for a mission, which is going to be difficult and dangerous, but which will mean a medal for each of you, and a thumping great amount of home leave, if I can possibly arrange it. Here’s what we have to do …’
Alan woke up in pain.
Somewhere there was danger; horror even.
He grabbed his revolver and held it out into the darkness, breathing heavily. He listened for shooting. There was nothing, only the continual thunder of distant guns. Half a minute passed. Alan tried to remember where he was.
He felt around him. He was lying on a straw mattress on an iron bedstead.
He could remember Guy sitting with him for some time during the day – or had it been the day before? He was still muzzy and couldn’t remember. He could hear the rustle of straw under him and the quiet sounds of the village beyond the window: a horse grazing, a mechanic trying to start a motorbike. He groped