Covenant with Death

by John Harris

  This time we couldn’t fail. We daren’t fail. If we did, it would take years of work to retrieve the failure. This was to be the first shaft of sunlight after two years of darkness, the end of the sorrow, the boredom, the pain and the frustration that had been endured so long, and I felt a surge of fierce joy in the fact that they’d entrusted the task to us. Here was history, I knew, and I felt privileged to be taking part in it.

  We reached Albert in the afternoon, tramping under the tunnel of the railway arch that led into the town. We were marching in silence now, the band saving their breath for walking, the fifes and drums packed away in the waggons.

  At Albert we saw the first sign of the desolation of war and felt the chill of hollow echoing buildings with broken windows like empty eye-sockets and smashed doorways like wailing mouths. It was a deserted, shattered, red-brick town where broken chimney stacks reached for the sky alongside the ruined tower of the Basilica. Here and there a gaunt half-savage cat living among the ruins fled across our path, disappearing into the broken shells and cascaded rubble that had once been shops, their signs Au bon marché and Cuirs et clogs and Déboutant de Boissons lopsided over the empty doors.

  ‘Jules Verne used to live here,’ Tim Williams told us.

  ‘Why?’ The word came back in a chorus of disgust.

  A hundred feet above our heads, on top of the Basilica, the Madonna held out her Babe over the triangular square, almost as though she were going to toss Him among us. The tower had been hit by a shell in the early days of the war and the statue seemed to be perpetually on the point of falling. When it did, they told us, the war would end.

  ‘’Ow about scrimming up there and giving ’er a shove?’ Eph suggested.

  You could see heavy batteries hidden among the trees and behind the ruined houses. In one street there was an empty factory, mere brickwork tumbled about twisted girders of rusty iron, with broken sewing machines lying in the rubble and on the pavement, and in another a large barrack-like building that seemed to have been a girls’ school, as empty and deserted as the rest of the town. We followed a street that curved in a gentle arc to where houses were levelled to the ground in pathetic heaps of brick and splintered wood, straggling weeds growing over the debris, so that all the time the mass of the Basilica with its peeling patches of gilt seemed to be there on our left, its pretentious modernity lost in the dignity of its ruins. Under the dramatic silhouette of that leaning statue, we marched out of the town in silence.

  We took the northern road that led into the Rue de Bapaume. Just north of the square it was joined by another road that came up from the south, and we had to halt to let another battalion pass.

  Mouth organs were whining and they were singing the maudlin songs that had already carried the Army round France for two years. You could see them grinning as they passed, old faces, young faces, all the same, all brown and healthy, all excited at the prospect of ending the war here on the Somme.

  Four after four they came, the shuffle and crunch of their boots muffled by their strong rough voices, every one of them, rich and poor, stupid and intelligent, all reduced to the common level of khaki, all carrying their rifles in exactly the same manner, all bowed and sweating under the weight of their equipment; their khaki stained where the straps rubbed and the entrenching tools chafed, but all singing, all cheerful, in spite of their loads and the crowded roads.

  They were chivvied along by worried civilian officers on horses or boyish-looking subalterns who didn’t seem to know what was happening as they tramped along in their new waterproof trench coats, all of them bursting into cheers whenever they had the breath. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of ourselves.

  When the last man had gone on ahead of us, we set off again, crunching between lines of squalid ruins, left-handed over a railway and away from the town, past a battery which had halted on the road there and was just getting under way again, grunting and groaning with that peculiar sound of guns on the move.

  We swung downhill through Querrieu, a small place by a river, which was full of cars and horses and military police and despatch riders, and cavalrymen in smart brushed uniforms and polished bandoliers. It was here, we gathered, that General Rawlinson, who had come out to take command of this vast new 4th Army, had set up his headquarters. Leaving Querrieu behind us, we turned right-handed, then left-handed, up the hill and past the dark mass of Aveluy Woods.

  The moon appeared briefly, red and horned and chilly, and still we marched, tramping over the muddy surface of a road that was well padded with manure from thousands of mules and cavalry chargers and transport animals. I was tired now, and hungry, and beginning to realise that wet and chill and damp could be wearying too.

  Villages slid behind us, nothing more than blank walls with chinks of light, seemingly indifferent in their emptiness to our weariness. Occasionally, when an officer or a military policeman swung a torch, or we passed a hurricane lantern hanging from a parked limber, you could see your own hunchbacked lurching shadow with other hunchbacked lurching shadows against the walls, gross enlarged stumbling shapes of men with slung rifles, and the flickering lines of moving legs.

  It was impossible to see anything now, though it was quite obvious we weren’t alone. There were small shaded lights everywhere and occasionally I caught a glimpse of guns or horses or waggons, and once or twice I heard the grind of lorries in the distance.

  Occasionally, behind us and on our left, I saw a faint flickering of light in the sky, and in the rare moments of silence when we halted I could hear a dim thudding rumbling, a new vibration to the ears, a sound of infinite subtlety and yet of immense suggestion, almost like wheels passing over a distant board bridge. I saw heads go up as it travelled down the column like a sentence of death, and a thousand men seemed to sniff the air. It was still far away, but irresistibly there – the war.

  ‘The guns,’ Murray whispered.

  ‘Murray, old fruit,’ Mason observed wearily, ‘you’ve got a gift for stating the obvious.’

  ‘Cut it out there, you lot,’ Corker snapped. ‘You bloody newspapermen talk more than all the rest of the battalion put together. Now shut up and save your breath.’

  We halted briefly on a long straight road through a double row of poplars, and here and there I could just glimpse broken walls and the glint of watery craters.

  ‘Shell-holes,’ Murray pointed out breathlessly.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Mason said.

  I knew that there were many men around me. I could hear the poppling clatter of motorcycle engines and the rumble of wheels, and the jingle of bits as horses tossed their heads. On my right there was an aid post, and in the light from the doorway I saw a couple of stretcher-bearers pushing a wheeled stretcher. In the distance, thrown into silhouette by the flickering lights to the north, there was the skeleton roof of a farm against the sky. The whole area seemed to be one vast mass of confused activity. Then a whistle shrilled and there was a chorus of half-heard orders and the column concertinaed into uncertain movement, men shuffling against each other in the dark

  ‘Come on, keep going,’ Corker’s voice kept nagging. ‘This mob don’t straggle. It’s only a nice easy trip – especially for a staff wallah in a car.’

  We marched on interminably. It was maddening, that marching through the darkness hour after hour with nothing to see but the black shape of the man in front, jerking up and down; sloshing through puddles you couldn’t see; stumbling under the drag of packs and weapons; ticking off the miles. I shifted my rifle from side to side, carrying it slung or sloped, then slung again, using my hands to ease the shoulder straps of my equipment and take the ache from my collar-bones. I was staggering with weariness and hunger by this time, and movement became mechanical as I walked.

  ‘They say you mustn’t – take your boots off – after a march,’ Murray panted. ‘Or your socks. Not till you’ve – cooled down and the swelling’s – gone from your legs. Bathing hot swollen feet – makes ’em tender.�
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  ‘For Christ’s sake, shut up,’ Mason snarled. ‘It makes me feel poorly just to listen to you with your strings of good advice.’

  It wasn’t long before Murray became silent through sheer exhaustion and I took his rifle, and later Henny Cuthbert’s too, while they plodded alongside me, arms swinging, mouths open, heads hanging. I remember seeing Bold by the light of a lamp that came from an open doorway, carrying a whole sheaf of rifles and pouring some of his own rum that he’d saved for just such an event into a man who’d staggered from the ranks and flopped exhausted by the roadside.

  My feet were burning and, in spite of the spots of rain in the air, my body was running with sweat. We’d every one of us got a fifty-six-pound pack, ammunition, a water-bottle, a haversack, an entrenching tool, a rolled greatcoat and all the other things we had to carry.

  The three rifles I was humping felt like a ton weight but I kept telling myself I couldn’t pass them on to someone else. Hang on to them, I kept saying, every time I felt like throwing them away. Not far now. Surely not far now. The grit in my eye-corners was turning to mud with the sweat that stood out on my face. Only one thing to do, I thought. Clench your teeth and keep going. So I shut my jaw tightly and pretended there was nothing to worry about. Push aside the waves of pain that come up from your feet. Forget the ache in your shoulders. Hang on. Keep going.

  God, I said, muttering aloud to myself as I put one foot down in front of the other with a numb feeling of automation, I thought we were good at marching.

  While I was still occupied with the thought and the resentment it brought with it, Eph, who was in front of me, halted suddenly, and I crashed half-asleep into his back, cutting my lip on a buckle on his pack. Then I staggered forward again as Mason crashed into me from behind. As the whole column closed up like a broken bellows, dumb, panting, sweating, I saw a couple of lordly staff cars with Union Jacks on the bonnets go roaring past, officers dozing in the back.

  Daylight was approaching. I was aware of halting in a lane. There was the ruined wall of a farmhouse and some battered-looking hedges. With the cessation of movement, Murray had simply sunk to the ground alongside me without a word.

  Corker appeared, limping, his face drawn and grey with fatigue in the early light.

  ‘Into the field there,’ he said, pointing. ‘We’ve arrived. You can git yer feet under the table now. Git moving. Sharp now.’

  I stumbled through a broken gate. In front of me were rows of sagging brown tents and a broken barn. We shambled together again and stood once more in four untidy lines. Then a whistle blew, and I saw the lines sliding sideways like a collapsing pack of cards.

  I lay on my face. Locky, next to me, was on his back, and beyond him men were asleep just where they sprawled. Blissfully, I let myself float towards unconsciousness, then, suddenly, I remembered that young Murray was still outside in the lane. Oh, forget him, I told myself. He’ll be all right. Then I thought he’d probably get run over by a lorry or a cart, and it nagged at me and wouldn’t let me sleep.

  In the end I forced myself to my feet and went back for him. It was almost more than I could manage because my knees had stiffened suddenly.

  I staggered through the gate again, half-falling as my clumsy feet stumbled over the uneven ruts. I got Murray to his feet somehow but he slipped out of my arms as though he were dead and flopped to the ground again. I tried once more, falling over him, swearing at him all the time, cursing him with every foul word I could lay my tongue to, my hands as awkward as if they didn’t belong to me, my eyes blurred, my body curiously unbalanced and difficult to manage. I got him over my shoulder at last and weaved, panting and blinded with sweat and still swearing in a low vicious mutter, back the way I’d come. I bumped into the gate which, curiously, didn’t seem to be where I’d thought it was, and half-fell into the hedge, scratching my hands and face on the thorns before I recovered my balance.

  I saw Locky lying flat out, with Barraclough and Henny Cuthbert and Spring and Mason, and stepped among them, trying to avoid falling over them. Then Bold appeared and saw me with Murray, who was snoring slightly now. He emerged through a blur and I tried to smile at him. But my face seemed stiff and wouldn’t work properly.

  He helped me lower Murray to the ground. ‘If anybody’s still on his feet,’ he said grimly, ‘you can bloody well bet it’ll be Fenner.’

  He gave me a push, and I staggered back, grabbing at the air for support, startled, trying to keep my balance, wondering what the hell he was up to.

  ‘Here, steady on,’ I said.

  ‘Fall over, you stubborn bastard,’ Bold said in a short vicious bark. ‘Don’t you know you’re done?’

  I gave him a weak grin and my knees seemed to buckle under me, and I sat down, still grinning foolishly, and fell over backwards, fast asleep.

  2

  The thin rain that woke me the following morning was carried on a light blustering wind that whipped the tree-tops and stirred the wheat on the shoulders of the hills.

  I opened my eyes to find myself staring at a grey sky with hurrying clouds, and wondered where I was. As I sat up, I saw a sparse hedge and, just beyond, a barn with open doors, lofty as a church, its walls pierced with narrow slits for light and air, its beams and rafters unwrought. Then I heard the voice of Ashton and, twisting round, saw him standing by the gate with young Welch, comparing lists and maps, the light glinting on his spectacles.

  The cooks had established some sort of cookhouse in a dip in a corner of the field, and the kitchens were already belching out smoke behind a sack-and-canvas lean-to. There was a smell of bacon in the air that wrinkled the nostrils and brought saliva to the mouth. Somewhere, almost beyond the reach of the eardrums, I could hear the faint thud of guns.

  The sergeants were getting their own food from the cookers and I clambered stiffly to my feet and joined them. One by one, a few other men joined me – Henny Cuthbert, stumbling, and pale and drawn with exhaustion, and Catchpole and Spring and Locky and Henry Oakley, then young Murray, surprisingly bright and unwearied by the march – and they tagged on behind, hobbling up with their mess tins towards the queue that was already forming, licking their lips at the smell of food.

  We ate like famished wolves under the thin shelter of the hedge, savouring the taste of the burnt bacon and the bread, and the hot sweet tea surfaced with globules of grease. As we mopped up the last smears of fat with bread, Corker and Bold came along, staring at us, chaffing us, on the lookout for the youngsters who hadn’t the stamina of the older men. Bold seemed hard and taut and untouched but old Corker’s moustache drooped a little. He was limping too, but his eyes were as bright and merry as usual.

  ‘You all right, Cuthbert?’ Bold demanded in his high voice, peering down at us, his eyes narrow and shrewd and concerned.

  ‘Yes, Sar’-Major.’ Henny put his mess tin down and started to get to his feet, his thin face gaunt with weariness.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Bold snapped, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Give yourself a chance, man, do. A soldier should always relax when he can, to make up for all the times when he can’t. We ain’t on parade ’ere.’

  When we’d finished we cleaned our knives and forks on the grass and hoisted ourselves to our feet and rinsed out our dixies. One or two men found buckets made of biscuit tins and scrounged hot water from the cooks. We started to shave and wash, sharing the water until it became grey and curdled, sluicing off all the dust and grime of a four-day journey. Someone managed to laugh and I heard a few catcalls. We were beginning to recover.

  ‘There’s women ’ere,’ Eph announced unexpectedly, putting his head round the angle of the hedge where the platoon had established themselves, a sly salacious look on his face, his voice full of suggestion. ‘Real mademoiselles with eyes and arms and legs and everything.’

  He went into a wealth of obscene detail that set several men climbing to their feet, feigning indifference but with their eyes already alert and on the lookout, then sent the
m sagging back with his next words.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he grinned. ‘You needn’t rush. They’re as big as the Rock of Ages and look twice as ’ard, and the officers’-mess servants are round there already, proper sprat-eyed, like moggies after a sparrow.’

  Bold, who’d found himself an office consisting of a box under a broken haycart, appeared in front of us again. We were sprawling among the scattered equipment, the dumped mess tins and the stacked rifles, rubbing stiff knees and hunting lice, and I thought he’d come to get us on our feet to clear up.

  ‘Cuthbert here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant-Major.’ Henny sat up, his face lengthening.

  ‘Gas guard. Come on, let’s have you.’

  Henny’s long face fell, but Bold jerked his thumb at an eighteen-pounder shell-case that he’d tied to a tree.

  ‘Don’t look so cheerful,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice easy fatigue. Keep you out o’ mischief in case anybody comes up asking for volunteers for ’umping kit.’

  ‘I can hump kit, Sar’-Major,’ Henny said earnestly, his thin body stooping with weariness. ‘Honest I can.’

  ‘That’s what you think. I know better. That’s why I’m a sergeant-major and you’re not.’

  We began to move about slowly, like drugged bees, limping still, cherishing our blisters and our chafed aching bodies. I found we’d arrived at a place called Colinqueau Farm on the edge of the village of Rippy, which was situated just north of Bertrancourt, which itself was north of Albert and well behind the line and facing a point somewhere between Gommecourt and Serre.

  It was well-wooded country with sheltered fields full of long spring grass and thorn bushes, and hollows warm with the damp smell of earth. The village was a one-street place of crumbling single-storey buildings, with tumbledown barns housing ancient treadmill threshers, and farms which seemed to have been constructed chiefly in squares like keeps, the middens and the stables and the pigsties their most important points. Dry wiry grass and white flowers like daisies grew along the tops of old walls, some of them twelve or fifteen feet high, as though they’d been erected to keep out prying eyes.