by Pat Kelleher
“Let that be a lesson to you,” she said. She wondered if it sounded too playful and improper.
“I knows me place,” he said, touching his forelock, mockingly. Edith gently pushed him on his shoulder.
“You. Now you’re teasing.”
“Nurse Bell!” barked Sister Fenton. “When you’ve quite finished fraternising with that jackanapes there are other men waiting for your attention!”
Edith felt her face burn as she reached for a gauze pad. “Hold this,” she told him as she placed it over his wound.
“Sorry, Miss,” said Porgy. She began wrapping crepe bandage around his head. “Not too much,” he said, “otherwise I won’t be able to fit me battle bowler on.”
“I’ve a feeling your head’s way too big for it anyway,” she said with a smile. “Away with you.”
EVERSON REACHED THE makeshift Headquarters. It was dug back into the side of a trench; all salvaged beams, corrugated iron and tarpaulins. News of the death of the major hadn’t taken long to filter down through the Company and the men had taken it quite hard, especially as the next in command was Captain Grantham. To be truthful he didn’t have much faith in the new Skipper himself. Captain Grantham shouldn’t even have been at the Front. He’d had some cushy job back at Battalion, but he’d probably whined and groused about a Front Line position, wanting to see a bit of action just so that he could say he’d been there before returning to his nice desk job in the rear. Now, for better or worse, they were stuck with him.
“Is this it?” Everson asked, stepping inside and looking around despondently. “Is this all of us?”
It was dispiriting how few officers were left. There was Slacke, the company quartermaster sergeant, Padre Rand and Captain Lippett, the MO and Captain Palmer of D Company. Jeffries was sat on a wooden chair, slouching with his legs stretched out in front of him, his chin resting on steepled fingers, glowering blackly, lost in thought. His eyes flicked up as Everson entered, but seeing nothing to interest him, lost focus as he turned back to his own contemplations. Grantham looked up from talking to a Royal Flying Corps officer and an officer with Machine Gun Corps insignia on his uniform.
“Everson,” said Captain Grantham. “I’m afraid so.”
The Flying Officer looked young, even to Everson. He had blonde hair and there was something about the double breasted tunic and that RFC wing on the left breast that just looked so—dashing. Everson felt a pang of jealousy. Here he was caked in mud, dog-tired and aching to his very bones and here was a handsome young man seemingly unmarked by the terrors of war; an ‘angel face’ he believed they called it.
“James Tulliver, RFC,” he said, turning, extending a hand and jerking his head in Jeffries’ direction. “Who’s that louche chap over there, I’m sure I know him. Hibbert, is it?”
“Jeffries, Platoon Commander, 4 Platoon, C Company.”
“Jeffries?” said Tulliver, mulling the name over. “Oh. Are you sure? No, of course you are. Sorry, my fault. Thought he was someone else.”
“I often wish he was,” said Everson.
The other man turned too. Tall and lanky, he had dark circles under his eyes and a greasy pallid look to his skin. His uniform hung on him as if it were a size too big.
“Mathers, Machine Gun Corps, Heavy Section.”
“Ah, the Tank Commander,” said Everson. “Good show. You saved some of my men out there today,” he added, gripping the proffered hand. He was disappointed to find the grip a little weak and clammy. “So what the devil’s going on, d’y’think?”
“Hmm,” said Mathers. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Sorry. Damned headache.”
“Gentlemen?” said Grantham, bringing the meeting to order. The officers gathered round the rickety table covered with maps. “Casualty Reports?”
“We weren’t up to full strength to begin with. Out of nine hundred and twelve officers and men, we had already lost twelve officers and two hundred and forty eight other ranks to German fire and gas, and we lost two officers and fifty-eight other ranks from shock of transport here. We have a further two officers and twenty seven other ranks killed by those creatures. There are three hundred and seventy wounded, some critically, most walking and nine suffering from severe shell-shock. In short, gentlemen, you’re down to less than two hundred able-bodied men at the moment, barely a Company.”
Seven. Seven officers left, thought Everson.
“We need to get the wounded to a Casualty Clearing Station,” said Lippett, “I don’t have the means to deal with them here.”
“Well, Mr Tulliver here doesn’t seem to think that’s going be, ah, possible,” said Grantham nervously.
Lippett peered at Tulliver from under his eyebrows in a way that reminded Everson of his old schoolmaster.
“That’s right, sir,” said Tulliver. “I’m afraid there is no Casualty Clearing Station to go to. I explained to Captain Grantham earlier, we’re completely cut off. This is all that’s left,” he said, pointing to the pencilled circle on the map. The other officers leaned in to look. “The rest of the area outside the circle no longer seems to exist. You’ve all seen it. What’s out there bears no resemblance to any maps or aerial photographs. It’s as if we’ve been picked up and dropped elsewhere entirely.”
“But the world can’t just disappear!” muttered Grantham.
“Perhaps it didn’t,” said Everson. “Maybe we did.”
“Preposterous!” agreed Lippett.
“You’ve seen it for yourself,” said Jeffries sternly. “How can you doubt it?”
“Some of the men have suggested it’s Paradise,” said Padre Rand.
“Are you trying to say that we’re all dead and this is some blasted afterlife?” said Grantham. Everson tried to ignore the tremor in his voice.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t say so after meeting those hell hounds earlier,” said Mathers.
“Some think we’re dead, yes,” continued the padre. “Some men have been saying it’s Africa.”
“Well, something, I have no idea what, has brought us here, wherever here is,” said Everson. “There’s no reason to think it might not snap us back to the Somme at any moment, like an Indian Rubber band.”
“And if not?” asked Grantham. “What then? We have no line of communication, our supply line ends several hundred yards to our rear. If Tulliver is to be believed you can’t ring up Battalion and ask for another truck load of Maconochies and Plum and Apple to be sent up. We can expect no replacements and no relief. What on earth do you suggest we do?”
“Survive,” said Everson. “Survive until we return home.”
“An admirable sentiment, Everson,” said Jeffries. “but what if we don’t return home?”
“We’ll find a way. That’s what hope is all about. ‘If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.’ Isn’t that how the saying goes?”
“Very prosaic,” said Jeffries. “But platitudes won’t save us. What if there isn’t a way? What if this,” he said, gesturing at the foreign landscape beyond the tarpaulin, “is it?”
The discussion degenerated into a babble of voices and opinions, each seeking to be heard. Jeffries stood back and smiled to himself as if pleased with the discord he had sown.
“Gentlemen, please!” cried Grantham, but he was unable to bring any kind of order to the debate.
Jeffries leaned forward and began whispering quietly into his ear. Grantham pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. For a moment Everson thought the man had found an ounce of gumption.
“Mr Jeffries, what is your opinion?”
Jeffries drew himself up and glanced at the men one by one. They fell silent. He took a moment before he spoke, to make sure he held their attention. “It is my belief that we are no longer on Earth at all.”
Over in the corner CQS Slacke barely stifled a snort of derision. Jeffries ignored it and pressed on. “One, the sun is slightly larger than we know our sun to be. Also, we at
tacked Harcourt Wood at dawn mere hours ago. The sun is now sinking towards the horizon. Two, the temperature here owes more to the tropics than to winter in France. Thirdly, those creatures that attacked us exist in no bestiary I’m aware of. And fourthly, my compass.” He shoved his brass compass onto the table. The needle swung round and round indecisively. “North seems to be everywhere.”
“Then where the deuce are we?” said Lippett.
“I have no more idea than you, Captain,” said Jeffries, “but Everson is right in one respect…”
Startled by his name, Everson looked up and found Jeffries regarding him curiously.
“Something, it seems, has snatched us up and delivered us here. As to how and why, well, I wonder if we’ll ever know,” mused Jeffries. “However you may be sure that there are things in this universe, gentlemen, of which you have no conception, no conception at all.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Grantham.
“I suggest an inventory of all rations, supplies and equipment,” said Slacke.
“For the moment we should keep to Standing Orders, sir,” said Palmer. “Confine the men to the trenches just in case, as Everson says, we should be returned as abruptly as we arrived.”
“So that’s your answer? We stay on this charnel pit on the off-chance we should be catapulted back to France?” Lippett said.
“Which is fine in the short term,” said Everson. “But if supplies start running low we shall have to find water and food. We need to find out about this world if we are to survive it. We should think about sending out scouting parties.”
“And what happens should we get snapped back to the Somme while they’re out? What will happened to the those left behind?” said Padre Rand.
The men around the table fell silent as they ruminated on the possibility of their being marooned under such circumstances. It was a fate nobody wanted to contemplate.
“Padre,” said Grantham. “I think it would be a good idea to arrange a church parade for tomorrow. I think the men could use your moral guidance and faith right now.”
The Chaplain looked startled. “Er, certainly Captain.”
“Captain,” Jeffries urged Grantham. “You should address the men. They need to be told something. We must keep up morale and quell any thought of desertion or mutiny. A few words from you, sir, would help.”
Grantham slumped into a chair, completely overwhelmed by the situation. His eyes searched the floor of the dugout as if they might find the answer there. “I don’t know. What the hell can I say?”
Everson swore under his breath. Grantham was funking it. And what was Jeffries’ game? He seemed to have made a good job of undermining Grantham while appearing to support him. After Grantham, as the next senior officer left in line, command would fall to Jeffries himself. If something wasn’t done this whole situation would turn into a bigger disaster than it already was. The men needed leadership. Now.
“Sir!” said Everson, rather more sharply than he had intended. Grantham started. “Whatever you’re going to tell the men, tell them quickly. The sun is setting and we’ll need them to Stand To. God alone knows what else is out there.”
Grantham looked up and nodded wearily. “Of course,” he said. “Order the men on parade.”
“MEN!” BEGAN CAPTAIN Grantham. He was stood on an old ammo box, Everson, Jeffries, Lippett and the padre standing in the mud behind him as a show of unity. “As you know from our current troubles we face a predicament the like of which the Pennines have never faced before. There is a rumour that this is some kind of hallucination or afterlife and that your fighting days are over. I am here to tell you that they are not. You took the King’s shilling, made the oath and signed up for the duration, the duration, gentlemen, and as such you are still soldiers in the King’s Army. We are still at war. Any insubordination under the present circumstances will be dealt with severely. Standing Orders are still in effect and all men are confined to the trenches. If we are to get through this we must all pull together. I am informed that the world around us may not even be Earth, but we have faced adversity in foreign climes before and triumphed and we shall do so again. We do anticipate an eventual return to Blighty but, as the Pennines, we know that there’s always a long hard climb before we reach the top. But reach it we will, so we must bear our current troubles with fortitude. Onward and Upwards, the Pennines!”
The men cheered and waved their helmets in the air. It was half-hearted, but, nevertheless, Grantham seemed pleased with the response. It wasn’t the most rousing speech Everson had heard, but nobody expected much of Grantham. It would be left to the subalterns and NCOs to pick up the pieces. Oblivious, Grantham smiled magnanimously. Enjoying the brief moment, he spoke out of the corner of his mouth to his poker-faced staff. “Come on, smile boys, that’s the style.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The Evening Hate”
THE SUN BEGAN to set. The fact that perhaps it wasn’t their sun was only just beginning to dawn on the soldiers. 2 Platoon were stood to on the fire-steps of their trench as they had stood dozens of times before; rifles, bayonets fixed, resting on the parapets, one in the spout, ready to repel any attack. Though from what, they had no idea. If the hell hounds earlier were a taste of what this place had to offer, it was going to be a long night.
Atkins stood in his bay with Gazette and Ginger. Porgy, Gutsy and Mercy manned the bay to their left. Beyond them were Captain Grantham, 1 Platoon and a flanking Vickers machine gun post. To their right was a second machine gun emplacement and the remains of 3 and 4 Platoons, under Lieutenant Jeffries. Atkins didn’t envy Pot Shot, Lucky and Half Pint. They’d drawn the short straw and were twenty yards further out in the forward observation post in No Man’s Land.
“Psst!” It was Ginger. Atkins tried to ignore him. “Psst!”
“What?” Atkins flicked his eyes from his rifle barrel. Ginger grinned at him and lowered his eyes towards his own tunic. Atkins followed the glance. There, peeking out the top of Ginger’s shirt, was Haig, his pet rat. Ginger looked absurdly pleased with himself and started making chtching noises into his chest.
“Bloody hell, Ginger,” Atkins rolled his eyes, a smile flickering at the edge of his lips as he returned to his vigil. Hunkered in the distance the nearby forest seemed as impenetrable as the old Hun line. The noises emanating from it changed as the sun sank, becoming wilder and more guttural as if the night signalled the onset of some feral reverie. He shivered involuntarily. The howls and chatterings played on his nerves more keenly than the never-ending drum roll of artillery barrages ever had. By comparison the abrupt ferocity of Whizz-Bangs, Jack Johnsons and Woolly Bears were as comforting as a home-fire.
More unsettling though was the evening breeze. He was so used to the smell of gangrene and feet, of shell hole mud and corpse liquor, of cordite and overflowing latrines, that the eddies of warm, damp wind caught him by surprise, bringing with them, as they did, brief intoxicating respites to his deadened senses. Tied as he was to his post, fleeting siren zephyrs of air laden with captivating scents danced lightly around him, allowing him snatches of exotic perfumes or heady animal musks; the ephemeral aromas tempting and teasing, offering a world beyond imagination.
There, that note. He closed his eyes and inhaled gently, afraid the scent would evaporate before he could savour it, it was like… like Lily of the Valley—Flora, that last night. They’d been to see the latest Charlie Chaplin at the Broughtonthwaite Alhambra. She was laughing. The cobbles—the cobbles were slick with rain, the faint smell of hops from Everson’s Brewery hung in the night air. Her foot slipped on the greasy sets as they crossed the road and she’d linked her arm through his to steady herself. She chattered on about Old Mother Murphy, young Jessie in the end terrace and Mr Wethering at Mafeking Street School but he didn’t hear her.
He’d known Flora forever. They’d sparked clogs and scabbed knees together as nippers in the same back alleys. They’d lived two streets apart their whole lives but she’d never real
ly looked at him that way until he’d got the khaki on.
“You look ever so handsome in your uniform, Thomas.”
“Get away!” he said, dismissively, then: “Really? Well, it’s a bit on the large side and these trousers don’t half itch, but if you ask the Company Quart—”
“Sssh.” She put a finger to his lips.
She was so close he could smell her hair, the scent of her perfume— Lily of the Valley—the brief scent vanished and the familiar fug of war and corruption closed about him once more.
Raucous cries rang overhead as furred creatures with long necks, leathery wings and hooked beaks flocked into the sky from somewhere in the hills, congregating over the muddy sea of the battlefield. They dived and banked with rasping calls, like gulls in the wake of a fishing trawler, tempted by the human harvest of No Man’s Land.
From somewhere down the line a couple of shots went off into the flock followed by the sharp, scolding bark of an NCO. The shooting ceased.
Atkins shifted his body uneasily against the wooden planking of the revetment and wiped his sweat-slick hands on his thighs before repositioning the stock of his rifle more snugly against his shoulder. He looked out again across the landscape of mud and wire towards the forest. He hated this time of day; as the light failed, shifting shadows played tricks on the eyes. It seemed to him that whatever gloom slunk sullenly in the forest was now flowing sinuously from it.
“What else is out there, d’y reckon?” he wondered. “I’m hoping for wild women myself.”
“Don’t know, but a target’s a target,” replied Gazette, his eye never leaving his rifle’s sight. It was clear he had his ‘business’ head on. “It’s either alive or dead.”
“Yeah, either way, Porgy’d probably make a pass at it, eh?”
Gazette didn’t reply.
“Never thought I’d miss Fritz,” said Atkins. “At least with ’im you knew what to expect; the odd Minniewerfer or Five Nine. You knew where you were.”
“Reckon you’ll have cause to be even more nostalgic by the time the night’s out,” said Gazette. That was Gazette—a real barrel of laughs, but you didn’t have him round for his sparkling repartee. He was the sharpest shooter in the platoon, so you forgave him the odd lapse in manners.