No Man's Land

by Reginald Hill

  This last argument Denial forcefully turned around. It was men brought up in these traditions who were eventually going to want reasons for risking their lives rather than obviously stupid orders to make impossible attacks. There had already been many instances of disaffection, quickly suppressed and subsequently lightly glossed over; and a legend was growing up about a whole lost battalion of deserters who inhabited the old battleground, sallying forth at night to take what they would from supply dumps and defying all official efforts to suppress or destroy them.

  ‘From what you’re saying, Jack, it sounds as if you think we ought to join them,’ said his superior ironically.

  Denial shook his head.

  ‘We can’t change policy, sir,’ he said seriously. ‘More’s the pity. All we can do is help hold things together till the idiots at the top see sense, and hope it’s not too late.’

  ‘And capturing this bunch of deserters would help? I thought you objected to the execution of deserters?’

  ‘I don’t want them executed, sir. Killing the odd individual who breaks does nothing. It feeds disaffection rather than suppressing it. But this lot and other groups like them can become – are becoming – symbols of successful revolt. That’s why they’re dangerous.’

  ‘And your own personal feelings, Jack?’

  The question was put gently. The response was fierce.

  ‘I’ve never allowed personal feelings to get in the way of my duty, sir. Either in the Army or out of it.’

  Denial’s gaze was unblinking, challenging.

  ‘Yes,’ said the other softly. ‘I believe you. All right, Jack. I’ll give you what rope I can. But remember. There’s a bloody war being fought out there. Our job is simply to help keep our side of things running as smoothly as possible. Never forget that.’

  ‘I thought that was precisely what I’d been saying,’ said Denial.

  On his way back to his billet, he made Sergeant-Major Maggs divert the motorbike combination along a skein of narrow sunken lanes whose coils took them ever eastwards. Finally he ordered a halt, got out and clambered over a tall hedge into a rough pasture. His instinct had been right. From here he could look down towards Barnecourt, its church, the bridge across the river. And the hospital.

  He turned from that to look up a long shallow valley which rose gradually to where, a few miles away, a heat shimmer from naked earth marked the beginnings of the Desolation.

  Up there; he was somewhere up there.

  He felt nothing contradictory in the feeling which welled up through his entire being.

  Sometimes hate was a kind of duty too.

  PART TWO

  THE FARM

  In 1917, the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) began, like the Somme, in July, and lasted, like the Somme, till November. British losses were in the region of 300,000. Of the 346 men executed during the war, 266 were condemned for desertion, 37 for murder, 18 for cowardice, 7 for quitting post, 6 for violence against superior officers, 5 for disobedience, 3 for mutiny, 2 for sleeping on post, 2 for casting away arms. No Australian soldier was executed during the war.

  1

  Sunrise, and three figures crawl from the Warren and pause, as timid as any rabbits sniffing the morning air for danger.

  The sentry does not share their caution. All he feels is envy.

  ‘Lucky sods,’ he says, adding as he makes an obscene gesture with his arms, ‘give ’em one for me!’

  The sun is more sudden in these rolling flatlands than it has scope to be among the foothills of the Harz or the high fells of Cumberland. As the three figures move westward it rolls swiftly up behind them, filling each dip and hollow in turn with an explosion of light. The thin mist has no defence and is blown away by the gusts of light rather than any movement of the air, as the three men move with swift care through the broken trees. They have gained their skill in different ways – game-stalking on a nobleman’s estate, sheep-herding on precipitous hillsides, childish games of pursuit and flight through the ill-lit back streets of Bradford – but now their abilities meet and conjoin in a strange dance as each takes the point in turn, then waits and watches till the others have flitted by. They have been doing this twice, sometimes three times a week for over six weeks now and they are growing as used to each other’s rhythms as old partners on a ballroom floor.

  The huge sky is growing bright from horizon to horizon as the clouds which stem from the far western sea glow pearl-grey, then pink, then quilted white, and the three men increase their pace. They are out of the Desolation now and can take full advantage of hedgerows and trees as they hasten over the last half-mile to the Gilberts’ farm.

  The working day had already begun. Madeleine greets them with her customary brusqueness. Life has not treated her gently and it’s going to take more than a bit of politeness, a few hours’ work and a scattering of soldiers’ rations to erode her high-piled suspicions of anyone and everyone outside her family.

  Nicole welcomes them with bright-eyed delight, marred for Josh only by its apparently equal distribution among all three of them.

  Madeleine’s parents, Monsieur and Madame Alpert, come somewhere between the two greetings. Old Georges, half-crippled by arthritis in his knees after a lifetime as an estate gardener, acts as if he would not be surprised by the arrival of the Kaiser himself. His wife, a lively, rose-cheeked, bird-like seventy-year-old, smiles and nods and chatters happily to the newcomers as she bustles round the farm as though she had a large household to look after and keep tidy.

  What she has in fact is the stone barn of her son-in-law’s farmhouse, with a dilapidated but usable byre and stable attached. The farmhouse itself has received a direct hit from a German ‘morser’. Part of one wall and a chimneybreast remain standing. The rest is rubble. Madame Alpert includes among her tasks the cleaning and polishing of the hearth which stands open to the elements.

  Lothar was working among the rubble that morning when Madeleine came out with some coffee. Nodding at the old lady, Lothar said, ‘She is very houseproud, your mother.’

  He spoke with a smile, but there was no responsive humour from the woman.

  She said, ‘After he could no longer work, my father took my mother back to the little village where she was born. It was to the north, not far from Albert. It had gone. There was not one stone standing on another. It was impossible to tell even where the road had been. Here at least she can see something which might grow again.’

  Lothar’s mind was much exercised by the question of something growing again in every sense. Josh had taken control of the farming side of things, with willing but clumsy labour provided by Auguste, Nicole’s shell-shocked brother. He was a man in his late twenties, appearing reasonably normal if rather shy and poorly coordinated, until startled by any sudden noise. Then he would tremble uncontrollably and seek out a dark corner to curl up in and Nicole would have to come and embrace him and talk soothingly in his ear for perhaps an hour before he would emerge.

  He had a rapport with animals greater even than Josh’s. Somehow the indomitable Madeleine had collected, as well as half a dozen scrawny hens, an old cow and a horse. Auguste was the only one who could coax more than a cupful of milk out of the cow. Josh had spent half a day digging a rusty old plough out of the rubble and the other half mending it. He and Auguste then coaxed the horse into a makeshift harness. Once harnessed to the plough, it took so readily to pulling it that Lothar guessed it was an artillery dray horse which had broken loose and strayed. On its rump there was a scar just about where a French army brand would have gone. He made some joke about this to Madeleine, but the only response he got was an uncomprehending stare.

  With the horse and the plough, real work could begin in the fields. There had been the remnants of some grain seed-stock in the barn and to these Josh was adding what he could garner from patches of two-year-old vegetable crops which had survived and seeded themselves in the bomb-cratered fields.

  But more important even than the actual farming, i
t seemed to Lothar, was the refurbishing of the farm buildings to provide a winterproof shelter. The barn was old and draughty, with sacking-patched holes in the roof and a floor of bare earth. In a dry, warm summer, it provided adequate enough accommodation, but once the rains, winds and frosts of the year’s ending arrived, it would test the endurance of even battle-hardened soldiers.

  He’d been labouring away in the ruined house for an hour, without feeling he was doing much more than redistributing the rubble, when he became aware of Josh standing behind him. The boy was grinning broadly.

  ‘You didn’t do much navvying in all them travels of yours, did you, Lott?’ he said cheerfully. ‘What’s this? A wall?’

  ‘How did you guess?’ answered Lothar, straightening up.

  Josh put his foot against the putative structure and pushed. The stones tumbled apart and gave up the pretence of being anything but a heap of rubble.

  ‘A grand wall that was!’ he laughed. ‘Here; let the dog see the rabbit.’

  As he spoke he began to select and place stones together and rapidly a structure recognizable as a section of wall began to take shape under his hands. He worked swiftly and efficiently. Stripped to the waist, he looked slight and bony, but Lothar could see there was a phenomenal chest expansion as he breathed slowly and evenly, and the sinews of his arms and shoulders slackened and tautened like the pulley-ropes in some cunningly designed lifting mechanism. Lothar regarded him with affection and admiration. The improvement in the boy, both physical and mental, was marvellous to behold. Fresh air, familiar work, relative normality, all these contributed, but the main cause was not far to seek.

  She appeared now, blonde hair flying, her expressive face alight with joy, waving her left hand wildly over her head. In it she held a small brown egg.

  ‘Voilà!’ she cried. ‘La p’tit’, son premier oeuf!’

  La p’tit’ was the smallest and scraggiest of the hens whom Josh had opined was fit for nothing except soup.

  As she rushed forward in triumph, Nicole stumbled on a mound of loose stones and almost fell forward. The egg flew out of her hand, and she screamed in dismay. Josh, who had looked up at her approach with a joyful grin which had nothing to do with successful hens, thrust out his right arm and plucked the egg from the air. He peered into his clenched hand and grimaced in revulsion as though the egg had broken as he caught it. Nicole made a sympathetic moue. Then suddenly Josh grinned and like a successful conjuror held up the egg between thumb and index-finger, turning it slowly round to show it was smooth and perfect.

  Nicole did a little dance of relief, grabbed the egg from him and scampered off to show her mother. Josh stood looking after her, his face alight, and Lothar thought: He’ll be pestering me for extra French lessons tonight!

  It was unfortunate, but Josh seemed to have little talent for languages, and, to compensate, Lothar had set himself to instruct Nicole in English also and the girl was making much more rapid progress.

  ‘Thank you, Josh, for the demonstration,’ said Lothar.

  ‘This? Oh, it’s nowt. I help repair walls and sheepfolds up on the fells, so you pick it up. You should see my dad at it! He’s a real artist. You’d need a direct hit with a “minnie” to knock down a wall he’d built!’

  He referred to his father easily and naturally, but there was a shadowing of the eyes as his mind followed his words into that remote area of time and space which was home.

  Lothar didn’t give him time to brood.

  ‘Josh, how high could you build something like that?’ he demanded.

  ‘A drystone wall, you mean? Oh, pretty high. I’ve seen ’em five or six feet. Why’re you asking, Lott?’

  ‘It’s a matter of trying to get some kind of house back together for the family before winter,’ he said. ‘They can’t stay in the barn.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Josh.

  ‘Because it is damp and draughty and dark and leaking,’ said Lothar in his best magisterial tone.

  To his surprise Josh’s response was a loud guffaw.

  ‘So you’re going to build another house out here?’ he said. ‘It’ll take ten years at least, the rate you’re going! And it’s a daft idea anyway! This isn’t just a ruin, it’s a wreck. And bloody dangerous too. One good gale and I reckon the rest’ll come down. Look, there’s four walls in the barn and a roof. It’d be much easier, and a lot safer, to work on that.’

  ‘But the floor’s just earth, it’ll be cold and damp.’

  ‘Spread a bit of rubble, lay a few planks,’ said Josh promptly. ‘You needn’t do it all over, just in one corner. We could put up a couple of new walls. They’d be out of the weather so it wouldn’t matter if they were a bit flimsy. Knock a hole in an outside wall for a window. Build a fireplace with a chimney. Patch the roof, or put another roof over the-room we’re building. You can do nowt out here, Lott, honest.’

  Lothar opened his mouth to reply, but there was no reply possible. It was all so obvious, he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen it for himself! He had let his mind be seduced by that damned fireplace so lovingly cared for by old Madame Alpert.

  ‘Josh,’ he said, ‘in future I will stick to repairing worlds and leave houses to you! Let’s take a look inside and see what is to be done.’

  But before they reached the barn, they heard a thin but carrying triple whistle drifting across the fields.

  ‘Heppy,’ said Lothar. ‘Someone’s coming.’

  It had been Viney’s express injunction that one of the trio should always be on sentry duty between the farm and the village, four miles away. In the event this was always Lothar or Hepworth as Josh was far too important to the farm work to be wasted in this way. The signal had been Josh’s idea. He had a marvellous skill of mimicry of bird-calls and he had taught the others the redshank’s song which would alert those on the farm without arousing the interest of non-ornithological visitors.

  The two men made their way swiftly to the small orchard where a ‘hide’ scratched out against an earthen bank and camouflaged with straggly undergrowth had been their first construction on the farm.

  Madeleine watched them go with her usual impassivity but Nicole’s young face showed a lively alarm. Her mother did not give it time to grow but brusquely commanded her to check that no evidence of their helpers’ presence had been left in sight. This was the first time that visitors had interrupted their work and Madeleine felt as anxious about their purpose and identity as she did about the possible discovery of the deserters’ presence. This anxiety grew as the sound of a motor engine labouring up the long, winding and badly rutted farm track became audible. Only trouble came nowadays in motor vehicles.

  The vehicle that finally bumped into view did not look substantial enough to hold much trouble. It was a motorcycle and sidecar combination, dust-covered as were the two riders who now got out and started beating themselves respectable.

  The sidecar passenger was a small man in a dark civilian suit. The other was taller and dressed in British Army khaki. He removed his goggles and leather helmet and picked up a hat from the bottom of the sidecar. It was an officer’s peaked cap and as he put it on, Josh peering through the concealing brushwood twitched nervously.

  Madeleine had emerged from the barn and stood facing her visitors, not speaking, forcing them by her silence to explain themselves.

  It was too far from the orchard for the hidden men to hear what was said and after a few moments the distant trio went into the barn so now there was nothing even to occupy their straining eyes.

  Minutes ticked by. Josh shifted his cramped limbs and murmured, ‘Lott?’

  ‘Yes?’

  The boy said no more, but his expression was agitated. Something strange was taking place in his mind. Perhaps it was caused by lying here, concealed and frightened, pressed close to the ground with the musty smell of excavated earth in his nostrils. All that was missing was the scream of approaching shells, the blast and heat of their detonation making the ground tremble in time wit
h his fearful flesh and turning the skies red with blood and horror. It seemed to Josh – though he knew it only seemed, that it was a lie and a deceit – but it seemed to him that all he had to do was stand up and walk into the barn and explain himself to that British captain, tell him how everything had come to pass, tell him about Wilf, and Lott, and how much he hated the killing and how much he loved Nicole … all he had to do was this and all would be well, all would be positively and finally and endlessly well. Not just well in the sense of preserving him safe from military discipline, but well as things had been well before … Before when? Before that moment, whenever it was, that the decision had been made by which he had given away all that was so perfectly and naturally well in his life that he did not know it. A second chance, there for the taking …

  Then it came to him with the cold shock of experienced truth that all along that sinuous spoor of blood and slime which marked the war’s trail across the face of Europe, millions of other men lay in earth and mud, beneath the blazing sun or the cold stars, and stretched back their minds to some recollected happiness, within reach, it seemed at times, of a simple act of will, but in reality unattainable now for ever.

  He began silently to weep and Lothar’s arm around his shoulders was a weight not a comfort. He had no idea how long it was before the sound of the motorbike startled the birds in the trees above his head, but their outcry and the rattle of the engine fading down the track and out of earshot was like a farewell to hope.

  Lothar let him lie for several minutes. He sensed that this was no time for an intrusive questioning.

  Then he said, ‘Hey, Josh. Your face. You cannot risk to so worry Nicole, heh?’

  The boy did not reply but spat on the shred of cloth which served him as a handkerchief and scrubbed at his cheeks. Lothar watched for a moment, then said, ‘Perfect. Let us go now and see what news the great world has brought us.’

  In the barn, Madeleine was already busying herself about her customary household tasks as though nothing had happened. She seemed inclined to answer Lothar’s queries in monosyllables, but as Nicole was ready to remultiply these a hundredfold, there was no shortage of information.