Birdsong

by Sebastian Faulks

  “There’s a bad cut on your head. Do you feel pain there?”

  “Not really. But I feel weak. I feel dizzy, as though I’ve been hit.”

  “I’m going to have to carry you,” said Stephen.

  Jack said, “That’s right. Like that time I caught you.”

  “I’ll do my best for you, I promise. Do you think we’ll get out?”

  “It depends on where the earth fell.”

  “I think I should look for other survivors first.”

  Jack said, “You’d better understand. This’ll be difficult. There’ll be no one else. We can search if you want to, but I’ve seen what happens underground. Two of us surviving’s a miracle.”

  Stephen put on his shirt and tunic and manoeuvred Jack on to his shoulders. He was not a big man, but the weight of him on Stephen’s back as he went at a crouch down the tunnel made him have to stop every few yards. Jack was biting the fabric of Stephen’s tunic to keep himself from screaming.

  They got back to the junction with the second lateral gallery and sat down against the wall. Jack was trembling all over. A fever had started in him, and he had an urge to sleep. Stephen panted in lungfuls of the warm, thin air and tried to shift his position to give respite to the muscles of his back.

  When they had rested a little, he said, “Which way did we come? I’m lost.”

  “It’s quite simple. I’d better explain in case I … in case you lose me. Imagine a three-pronged fork.” Jack put all his strength into making himself clear. “The middle prong leads to the listening chamber at the tip. We were halfway up it when the camouflet went off. The two prongs either side are the fighting tunnels. A lateral section joins the three prongs at their base. That’s where we are now. This is where Lorimer sent us to our separate tunnels.”

  Stephen looked around at the anonymous tube beneath the ground with its bits of wood and earth.

  “To get back,” said Jack, “we go straight ahead, back down the shaft of the fork. Halfway back, that’s where we first stopped to listen. It’s very narrow, you remember. Then when the handle of the fork ends, where it would meet the hand, is the main lateral gallery. We cross that and it’s only a short way to the shaft.”

  He lay back against the wall, exhausted by his explanation.

  Stephen said, “All right. I understand. What I’m going to do is leave you here while I go and look in the fighting tunnels for survivors.”

  “You don’t need to go into that one,” said Jack pointing to the left. “They all went into the right-hand one.”

  “Are you sure? I think I’d better check the other one.”

  Jack breathed in tightly between his teeth. “You must understand. I’ve got a fever now. If you leave me for long I won’t survive.”

  Stephen saw the anguish in Jack’s face. It was not the physical pain: he was weighing his own life against the chances of saving any of his friends’. “I don’t want to be alone for long,” he said.

  Stephen swallowed. His instinct was to make it back to the foot of the shaft as fast as possible, but he imagined what the others in the tunnel must be thinking, if any of them were alive. They would be begging him to come to them. It was not fair to leave them without a chance. Something about Jack’s blue face did not in any case make him hopeful.

  He took Jack’s arm. “I’ll go very quickly up this one, the empty one. Then I’ll come back and see how you are. Then I’ll look quickly up the other one. I promise I won’t be more than ten minutes in either.” He searched his pockets to see if he had anything to give him that might make things easier. He found some cigarettes and a piece of chocolate.

  Jack smiled. “No flames allowed. Gas. Thanks for offering.”

  Stephen left him and took the lamp into the left of the two fighting tunnels. It was not as well supported as the main one. He could see where they had hacked it out with their picks. In a way it was more like a passageway, a thoroughfare that would emerge in light and understanding.

  He made quick progress in the shambling crouch he had seen the miners use. He came to the end of it and saw the evidence of the explosion. It had not been so bad as in the central tunnel, but a good deal of earth had come down. He could not tell how much further the original face of the tunnel had been.

  For a moment he stopped. There was no danger. It was quiet. He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. He became aware of himself and his circumstances as the immediate imperative of action lifted. He would not go back until he was sure that he and Jack were the only survivors. If by searching he brought death closer, it would not matter; there would be some decorum in their dying deep beneath the country they had fought so long to protect.

  He shouted out in the darkness. He went up to the blockage and pulled some loose earth away. He put his lips to the hole and shouted again. The debris was compacted so tight that the sound did not penetrate. Anything beyond it that had been living would long ago have been crushed to death.

  He turned and made his way back to where Jack was lying. He knelt down beside him. Jack’s eyes were closed, and for a moment Stephen thought he was dead. He felt for his pulse beneath the coarse cuff of his shirt. He had to dig between the tendons with his fingertips, but he found some small beat where life still ran.

  He slapped him gently in the face to bring him round. Jack stirred and looked up.

  He said, “Don’t leave me again. Don’t go.” His voice was dry but Stephen could hear the weight of feeling in it.

  “There’ll be no one alive,” said Jack. “That’s where the main blast was, in that tunnel. We got it through the wall.”

  Stephen looked at him. He was in pain and he was frightened of dying, but there was no reason to disbelieve him. He knew about working underground.

  “All right,” said Stephen. “We’ll try and get out. Are you strong enough? Do you want to rest some more?”

  “Let’s try now.”

  Stephen stretched himself, then bent down again. He levered Jack’s upper body on to his shoulder, and supported him beneath the thighs with his left arm. He carried him as he would have done a sleeping child. Jack held the lamp over Stephen’s shoulder.

  After a few yards Stephen had to stop. His own damaged right arm could not support the weight and his left, naturally weak and further tired by digging, was dropping Jack’s legs. He propped Jack against the side of the tunnel, then knelt in front of him and manoeuvred him on to his left shoulder. With both arms wrapped round him he could keep him on for bursts of ten yards at a crouch. Jack fainted each time Stephen stood him up, so after the first three attempts Stephen took his rest kneeling, with Jack still on his shoulder, and his own face pressed to the soil. He closed his eyes against the sweat that ran down from his forehead. He cursed his life and the shards of chalk that pierced his knees.

  After an hour of the slow, dragging bursts they reached the end of the tunnel. There was nowhere to go; in front were only thousands of tons of France.

  Stephen swore at Jack. He meant the words to be beneath his breath, but they escaped. Jack stirred on his shoulder, and Stephen laid him down on the ground.

  “You’ve brought me the wrong fucking way.” He was exhausted. He lay panting with his face down.

  Jack was stirred from his delirium by the impact of being set down. He shook his head and tried to concentrate.

  “We went straight, didn’t we?” He peered back behind them. There was still a lamp hanging from the roof that Evans had put there on their way through.

  It was a terrible sign. Jack looked ahead of them again. He said softly, “This is the right way. This is not the end, this is where the second explosion went off. We’re about twenty yards short of the main gallery.”

  Stephen let out a groan and closed his eyes. Now death had him, he thought; now he would go with it.

  ———

  They stayed where they were for an hour. Neither man had the energy to move. There was one way out and it was closed to them. Jack would shortly die of his wo
unds; Stephen would die of thirst and starvation.

  By his side was his revolver. When hope was finally gone he would fire: up through the palate, into the coiled mess of consciousness and memory. There was a perverse appeal in the thought that he would complete what no enemy had managed.

  When they had grown used to their despair, they began to talk again. Stephen asked Jack if his company would try to send more men down to rescue them.

  “I don’t think so,” said Jack. “They’d find it difficult to shift this amount of spoil even if they did. They’d have to blow it out and that would risk bringing in the roof and making it worse. Also it’s too close to our own line for comfort. They’ll say a prayer at the service on Sunday and put us down as missing.”

  “You can’t blame them. The war’s almost over.”

  Jack said, “Are you afraid to die?”

  “I think so.” Stephen was surprised to hear himself say it. “I was lucky that I didn’t feel fear above the ground, except at the obvious moments. Now I feel … alone.”

  Jack said, “But you’re not alone. I’m here. I’m someone.” He shifted his weight against the rubble. “What’s your first name?”

  “Stephen.”

  “Shall I call you that?”

  “If you want.”

  There was a pause, then Jack said, “It’s strange, isn’t it? That I should be with you at the time I die. Of all the people I’ve known in my life that it should be you.”

  “Who would you choose to be with?” Stephen found himself interested, even though he was weighed down by the thought of his own death. “Which human being out of all those you have met would you choose to hold your hand, to hold close to you in the beginning of eternity?”

  “To be with, like that, always, do you mean?”

  “Yes. The other half of you.”

  “My son,” said Jack.

  “Your son. How old is he?”

  “He died two years ago, of diphtheria. His name was John.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I miss him. I loved him so much.” In the darkness of the tunnel Jack’s voice came up unexpectedly in the lament he had denied himself at the time of John’s death; so close to his own time of dying, he was freed from restraint. “I loved that boy. Every hair of him, every pore of his skin. I would have killed a man who so much as laid a hand on him. My world was in his face. I was not so young when he was born. I wondered what my life had been about until he came along. It was nothing. I treasured each word he gave me. I made myself remember each thing he did, the way he turned his head, his way of saying things. It was as though I knew it wouldn’t be for long. He was from another world, he was a blessing too great for me.”

  Stephen said nothing, but allowed Jack to sob quietly into his hands. Jack did not seem resentful, even in his grief. His flat, guileless face with its narrow eyes looked wonderstruck, incredulous that such a love had been permitted him.

  When he was calmer, Stephen said, “You talk almost as though you had fallen in love.”

  “I think I did,” said Jack. “I think it was almost like that. I was jealous of him. I wanted him to love me. I would watch the way the women played with him. I was pleased that he was happy, but I knew that really it was our games that were best. I knew it was the times with just the two of us that were the best, the purest things on earth.”

  Jack talked about the boy’s innocence and how it had changed him. He could not find the words for it, and began to weep again.

  Stephen put his arm round his shoulders. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll get you out from under here. Somehow I will get you out and you’ll have other children. John won’t be the last.”

  “No. Margaret’s too old now. She couldn’t have another.”

  “Then I will have them for you.”

  When Jack had composed himself again, he said, “I don’t suppose you’d choose to die with me beside you. I’m not much good to you.”

  “You’ll do very well,” said Stephen. “Who knows? Our own choices might not be so good as those that are made for us. I’ve met men I would trust in the mouth of hell. Byrne or Douglas. I would trust them to breathe for me, to pump my blood with their hearts.”

  “Did you love them best? Would they be the ones you’d choose?”

  “To die with? No. The one time I’ve felt what you describe was with a woman.”

  “A lover, you mean?” said Jack. “Not your own flesh and blood?”

  “I think she was my own flesh and blood. I truly believe she was.”

  Stephen seemed to go into a trance. Jack said nothing. Then, as the minutes passed, he tried to rouse himself.

  “We must find a way out of here,” he said. “Back to the shaft’s no good, so we should go forward.”

  “What’s the point? There are just the tunnels there that end in blank walls.”

  “It would give us something to do, rather than just wait to die. We could try to make a noise. If you can manage to carry me again. Take off your breathing set. That’s just getting in the way. And take mine off too. Leave them down there.”

  Stephen knelt down and helped Jack on to his shoulders. He tried to conceal his despair. Clearly it was pointless for them to go back the way they had come; they had seen two of the three forward tunnels blocked. The third one, according to Jack, had taken the worst of the blast so was not likely to lead them miraculously into clean air and sunlight.

  There seemed to Stephen something frivolous about their hope as they laboured back into the darkness. They were facing death and they could find nothing better to do. He felt they should have passed the time more constructively; they should have readied themselves in some way for the end instead of indulging this boyish hope.

  It seemed to please Jack, however. When they reached the crossroads at the second lateral gallery Stephen set him down and flopped to the ground beside him. His chest rose and fell as he squeezed the air into his lungs. Jack had closed his eyes to overcome the pain from his legs which, Stephen noticed, had developed a cloying smell of blood.

  Jack smiled when he opened his eyes again. “Only one thing for it. Try the third prong of the fork. Where those other poor buggers went.”

  Stephen nodded. “Give me a moment to get my breath back. I suppose we might as well. At least then we’ll know …”

  He trailed off, still not quite able to say the obvious thing.

  Jack did it for him. “That it’s the end.”

  ———

  The thought did not perturb Jack. He was beginning to welcome the idea of dying. While a primitive fear kept stirring in him, the pain of his body and the lost illusions of his life made him wish for the conclusion to come. He loved Margaret still, and would have chosen to see her, but she belonged to a different existence from the one he now inhabited with such unwanted intensity. She would die, in any event. The things on which he had based his faith had proved unstable. John’s innocence, the message from a better world, had been taken from him. Any meeting he might have with Margaret and any rekindling of love he might feel would also prove illusory. Love had betrayed him, and he no longer wished to be reunited with his life.

  He felt tranquillity at moments when his pain left him. There was no consideration beyond the body in the darkness of the tunnel; what was done by them in the earth with their hands and legs and voices was the boundary of it all. In the muscular efforts of Stephen to save him, the way he patiently submitted himself to the weight and the pointless striving, Jack felt a sense of rightness and calm.

  They came to the beginning of the right-hand tunnel and Stephen had to go down on all fours to guide them through the ragged entrance. By the light of the fading lamp Jack looked up at the inadequately supported roof and was silently critical of the work of the men who had made it. It was not as high as a fighting tunnel ought to be. Soon Stephen was crouching. After a few more yards he needed to rest again.

  It seemed to Jack that the sensible thing would be for Stephen to leave h
im while he pressed on in the hope of whatever miracle it was they were looking for; but Stephen did not suggest it. Stephen appeared to Jack to be filled with a kind of perverse determination; the harder their progress became, the more set he would be on carrying his ungainly burden.

  The force of the explosion in the third tunnel had taken a different course. It appeared to have narrowed it by sucking it in from the sides. As Stephen went down on his knees to continue, he lifted Jack on to his back where he was able to hold the lamp. It swung to and fro, giving uneven flashes of light to their progress.

  Jack let out a scream as a cold hand brushed across his face. Stephen stopped and Jack twisted the lantern to look. An arm was sticking out from the wall of the tunnel. The body to which it was attached was buried behind it.

  They pushed onward. Jack saw a trousered leg sticking out from the earth. They stopped to inspect it.

  “It’s Evans,” said Jack. “I recognize his sewing in the cloth here. He was my mate. We did shifts together.”

  “I’m sorry. We knew he’d gone, didn’t we?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Jack. “He’s better off out of it. We’ve all gone now. Shaw, Tyson, Evans, Jones, and me. The whole of our little group.”

  As they crawled on Jack lost his sangfroid. He began to tremble and to brush imaginary hands from his face. He felt the cold-reaching clasp of all his dead companions.

  He was in a gallery of ghosts. The souls of all who had died, his friends and their companions; the spirits of the men they had killed, the German bodies that had been hurled upward in the exploding soil above the great mines they had laid: all the needless dead of the long war were grasping at his face with their cold hands. They reproached him for having killed them; they mocked him for being still alive.

  He was trembling so much that Stephen had to put him down. He lay in the darkness sweating and shaking with fear, the pain of his leg momentarily forgotten.

  “We are going to die now,” he said. There was no more composure in his voice, only a wretched, childlike fear.

  Stephen sat opposite him and rested his head in his hands. “Yes,” he said. “I think this is the end.”