But would the outside world understand? Here, among the cripples, the wholesome and healthy staff were the odd ones out. But out there, back in England? Would they understand; would they try to? Out there, isolated from each other, he and his fellow victims would stand out like lepers. Guy shuddered at the thought.
After the third day, Guy began to take more of an interest in his surroundings and his fellow inmates. In the bed next to him was a man in his thirties who had lost his right arm, a Devonian with a pockmarked face, a corporal named Lampton, who spent his time learning to write with his left hand.
According to Lampton, they were in Ruby Ward. With just ten beds, it was one of the smallest wards and contained only the lightest casualties – the not so badly wounded, or amputees or potential amputees. There was little sign it had ever been a classroom. The walls, which had been painted yellow, looked dirty and uneven. The wooden floorboards were dusty and unswept, the windows filthy and cracked, two large but dim lights swung from the high ceiling. Two paintings broke the monotony of the peeling yellow paint – one, an alpine scene, the other, a portrait of King George. Guy was tempted to salute each time he looked at the earnest monarch and his piercing eyes. By each bed stood a small table for their meagre belongings. Guy’s table was empty, so Lampton gave him his copy of Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities.
The corporal introduced Guy to each of his fellow occupants. Opposite him a chap called Stephen Browne – Browne with an ‘e’ – and either side of him, two men whose names Guy couldn’t remember but whom he christened Smith and Jones. Jones, poor chap, was a basket case – he’d lost all four limbs, various tubes were attached to him, leading to a huge demijohn beneath his bed. Guy, to his shame, felt a shudder of revulsion. Smith, for his part, had lost his right arm and his right leg. Further down, a Welshman with part of his jaw missing and bits of food smeared across his shattered mouth. None of them were in a fit state to talk or acknowledge Guy’s hello. And this, thought Guy, was a ward for the lighter casualties?
Browne seemed ridiculously young, his fresh complexion belied by his dark eyes. Although quiet, Browne was able to offer his own explanation, ‘Got caught by a piece of shrapnel,’ he told Guy. ‘Gouged out my thigh. But I was lucky; they saved it in time.’
Each had his own sorry tale, similar to Guy’s. And now together, in Ruby Ward, they found solace in each other’s company, swapping stories, jokes, cigarettes, optimism and encouragement.
Later that afternoon, the autumn sun shone and the nurses encouraged the men to go outside and exercise, and enjoy the fresh air. One of the nurses brought Guy a pair of crutches. He struggled to use them and found the effort exhausting. He asked for a wheelchair but the chairs were in short supply and reserved for officers or those like Smith and Jones in greater need. It put into perspective the nature of his suffering. So, he persevered with the crutches. It was difficult at first, fearful as he was of falling over at any moment. Lampton accompanied him as he stumbled precariously around, the corporal promising Guy to help him if he looked like he was about to fall over. Guy wondered what Lampton could do with his one arm, but he was grateful for the offer. Once outside, Guy was surprised to see the lawn covered in long wooden huts and even a series of marquee-style tents. Lampton anticipated his question. ‘They’ve been put there,’ he said, ‘ahead of the next big push.’
‘Expecting a lot of casualties then?’
‘Yes. How fast we learn, eh? At least we’re out of it. They’ll move us out soon; we’re taking up too much valuable bed space.’
‘Home?’
‘Yep, home – a beautiful word, don’t you think? Not so sure about Browne though,’ he added, lowering his voice.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, poor chap, he reckons he’s got himself a Blighty but I’m not so sure.’
‘You reckon he’ll get sent back?’
‘Yeah. It all depends on the Blighty nurse.’
‘The what?’
‘The doctors – they’re so rushed off their feet they ask the nurses what they think. So on Ruby, the Blighty nurse, I don’t know which one it is, but she seems to have the authority of who gets sent home and who doesn’t.’
‘Good God, that’s some responsibility.’
In the far distance, the men could still hear the rumblings of war. For some, the sound was too much and even at this safe distance, they preferred to stay indoors, closeted from the audible reminder of what had brought them here.
The nurses were mostly well-to-do English ladies, attached to the Voluntary Aid Detachments, but there were a few French nurses in attendance. Guy found the contact with women such a humanising effect. For two years, he had lived with men in an unreal, unnatural environment where the thought of women seemed such a trivial distraction and where death made a more natural if unwelcome bedfellow. As such, he had forgotten how much he missed the company of women. For the first few days, whenever a nurse spoke or touched him, Guy felt thankful, almost tearful, for their attention. It wasn’t the women’s sexual being that so moved him; it was the sense of comfort, of maternal security and well-being that was so blissful. Once, in those early days, when a nurse rested her palm against his forehead, Guy felt his muscles relax, the inert tension ease and his mind drifted away. He wondered whether she was the Blighty nurse that Lampton had mentioned. But there were, of course, a few nurses who were considered particularly attractive and the subject of much lurid discussion. The men regarded the nurses with either maudlin sentimentalism or lewd crudeness. Guy was relieved that at least in front of the nurses, the men always behaved impeccably. They all preferred the English nurses, women who could talk to them of England and the things that reminded them of home. The French nurses were fine, but even if they spoke good English, and some did, the men felt alienated by their accents, the lack of common ground. And Guy couldn’t help but agree. After such a long absence from home and away from women, talking to an English nurse was like touching home. Whether she represented your girlfriend, your mother, your sister, you felt the bond, the hand stretching across the Channel resting on your forehead, soothing one’s whole being.
Chapter 14: The Ridge – 3 November 1917
Sergeant Wilkins was leading the working party across the open terrain trying to keep to the mud-tracked road, followed by his small group of twenty men including Jack, Gregory and Robert. They walked in silence, mindful of the holes and craters that pockmarked the road and the shallow ditch that ran alongside it. It was eight at night and dark, only a few stars visible, but at least the big guns on both sides had fallen silent, and even the rain had eased off; however, the legacy of an earlier downpour made progress difficult. Jack was exhausted. He’d only had a matter of a few hours’ sleep during the whole week. The sergeant knew of his ‘little visit to the quack’ a couple days earlier and had promised Jack to keep him busier than ever. ‘That’ll teach you to go running to an officer,’ the sergeant had said sadistically. The lieutenant warned them the Hun knew that the two-mile road was a key supply route to the brigade depot and that they kept a careful eye on it in the hope of disrupting the British chain of supply. But the alleged ‘couple of miles’ seemed unending.
‘How much further, Sarge?’ asked Jack.
‘What’s it to you, Private?’ the sergeant snapped back.
Eventually they came to the depot from where the men were loaded up with an assortment of supplies: wiring, spades, axes, duckboards, sandbags, buckets, and other assorted things. Laden with their hoards, the men knew that the return journey would prove to be far more arduous. It was virtually pitch black as they staggered slowly back, and every few yards they had to stop and wait because someone had slipped in the mud and spilled their burden.
The road took a slight incline upwards. Jack groaned with the effort, his throat parched dry, his temples pounding. The pace was excruciatingly slow, one laboured foot in front of the other, each step an effort through the sucking mud and the puddles of slimy water. Gregory h
ad fallen behind. ‘Not in line,’ he shouted. The advanced group stopped for Gregory and the other stragglers to catch up. Jack listened. Beyond the rasping of his own breathing, all he could hear was the uneasy silence. He didn’t like it; the silence couldn’t last. They were so exposed out here on top of the ridge and very much alone. The darkness that engulfed them offered little comfort. He wished the stragglers would catch up; they had to get back, it’d only be a matter of time before the Germans realised what they were up to. He realised that the closer they got to their lines, the more vulnerable they’d be to an attack. There was another way, a longer but safer route through a copse. He stood right behind Sergeant Wilkins, wondering whether the sergeant had thought of this too, and dare he ask. He decided he had little option.
‘Sarge, will we going straight down the road near Fritz or should we circumnavigate the trees?’
‘Circumnavigate, eh? Is this a question or a suggestion, Private?’
‘I just thought it might be –’
‘I don’t give a fuck what you think, you little upstart.’ Warming to his task, Sergeant Wilkins leant towards Jack until their noses almost touched, his foul breath filling Jack’s nostrils. ‘Listen, you useless piece of shit, don’t think your big words impress me, cos they don’t, see. Now get your arse in line, right?’
‘Sir.’
‘Don’t “sir” me, Searight, I’m sergeant to you; I work for a living, gottit?’
‘Yes, sergeant.’
The stragglers caught up, panting, bent double under the weight of their loads. They huddled together, each realising, like Jack, how precarious their position was, and how far they still had to go. Then, as if to compound their fears, a Very light shot up in the sky, illuminating the stark landscape. The men stood stock still, their hearts thumping with the dread of what would follow.
‘Shit,’ uttered Robert looking around anxiously.
‘That’s blown it,’ whispered Gregory.
Jack agreed. ‘We’re going to be sitting ducks up here.’
‘Stop your fuckin’ whining,’ barked the sergeant, but Jack could hear the uncertainty in his voice. ‘C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of ’ere.’
Jack spoke; once again, he didn’t want to, but he had to: ‘Shouldn’t we lie low for a while, Sarge?’ Sergeant Wilkins spun round to face him. Jack flinched; for a moment he thought the sergeant was going to hit him.
‘Your nerve snapping, Private?’
‘No, but it’d be suicidal to go forwards now.’
Through gritted teeth, the sergeant hissed, ‘You don’t listen, do you, Searight? I don’t give...’ He stopped. He heard it. They all did. The eerie sound of the whoosh steaming across the night sky. They all threw themselves onto the ground. It exploded a little way further up the track in front of them, some thirty or forty yards away. Moments later, a second shell landed at the same distance, throwing up huge wads of earth.
The sergeant waited for a short while and then rose to his feet. ‘Let’s go,’ he said just loudly enough to be heard. Jack stood up unsteadily, repositioning the awkward load on his back while gripping his rifle, which he knew had been rendered useless in the circumstances. He edged forward, every nerve frayed, compounded by the debilitating exhaustion that reduced his legs to jelly. The party began to elongate and sub-divide into smaller groups again. The sergeant seemed intent on leading the men straight towards where the shells had exploded. Another flare lit up the sky, quickly followed by another shell, which burst behind them shaking the ground. As they dived down, a couple of the party were hit, obliterating one man into bloodied shreds, while the other clasped his pummelled head, his piteous screams ringing out into the night. Jack lay prostrate on the wet track, his cumbersome load jettisoned next to him, his head so low his lips touched the muddy gravel. The Huns had them now, he thought; another couple like that and they’d all be done for. The wounded man started crying hysterically. Jack noticed some of the men had taken shelter in the roadside ditch. He crawled towards it and grovelled into the thin channel of mud as another shell exploded nearby, the noise deafening him. He crawled up to Robert. They could hear the sergeant’s rasping voice ordering his men to proceed but no one heeded his demands. Jack realised he was shaking uncontrollably, that noise was having its usual effect again. Another was coming; Jack buried his head into the mud as the shell exploded. More screams. He began to whimper pathetically, and felt his mind collapsing in on itself.
‘The Huns seem to be making a lot of effort on our behalf,’ said Robert.
The screeching whoosh sounds became continuous. One landed precariously close, showering the crouching men in clumps of earth. ‘Just make it stop, in Heaven’s name, make it stop,’ muttered Jack to himself. He had to get away, but the noise trapped him in the ditch. He waited.
Robert sat up. ‘It seems to have stopped, come on, let’s make a run for it.’ They clambered nervously out of the ditch and crept forward, holding their rifles. Everywhere there were men lying flat on the ground, most of them dead, some blown apart, others screeching as men do in the painful and lonely realm that lies between dying and death. Jack saw Sergeant Wilkins, groaning, clutching his leg. Jack reached down to him, grappling for his emergency dressing pack. But then another shell bore down. He should have thrown himself down flat, but as if hypnotised, Jack remained still, kneeling beside the sergeant. The air thumped him hard on the back of the head with the force of being hit by a damp sandbag, followed by a terrifying noise as the shell exploded on impact. Immediately, came the sound of hundreds upon hundreds of lashes swishing through the air as great pieces of jagged shell flew in every direction. Something caught him in the shoulder, the force pushing him over onto the sergeant. But he barely noticed; the pain was unable to permeate through his blank mind. His vision blurring and feeling bewildered and dazed, Jack staggered up and breathlessly zigzagged across the road, tripping over himself, pulling himself back up, oblivious to his surroundings. He stumbled through the maze of men, wounded, dying or dead. Unable to control the whimpering, nonsensical noise emanating from his mouth, Jack lurched forward, before finally collapsing in a heap.
Chapter 15: Stranger in the Midst
Private Christopher Webb was having a late night stroll. It was almost ten; lights out would be in a few minutes. His platoon was half way through a six-day rest and stationed in a couple of billets a few miles south of the village of Saint Omer. He and his fellow privates had spent an exhausting day clearing the local road of mud following a forty-eight-hour downpour. But after four p.m. each day, the men had the evenings to themselves. Dinner had been a couple of hours ago. Back home, Webb had always been partial to an after dinner walk. The big guns had fallen silent and the evening was wonderfully still and quiet. The two adjoining billets backed onto a small forest and Webb breathed in the smell of the fir trees. In three days’ time, the platoon was due to go on another tour. The prospect didn’t worry Webb unduly because, assuming he survived it, he was due his first bout of leave since arriving in France ten months previously. Webb was thirty-five years old, a veteran of the Boer War, married with three children. How he longed to see his family again. The youngest would have almost doubled in age since he last saw him. He appreciated that he would be a stranger to the little chap, but he still couldn’t wait to hold him.
Webb had just lit a cigarette when he became aware of a figure coming up the track towards him. At first, he assumed it was one of the men returning to the billet after a more adventurous late night walk than his own. But there was something in the way the man slouched that made Webb realise that this was a stranger. For a fleeting moment, he thought it was a German, but then he saw the khaki of the British uniform. The man seemed to be heading straight towards Webb but his head hung low and Webb reckoned the man hadn’t yet realised he was standing there. The stranger was muttering to himself. With barely ten yards between them, Webb called out. Immediately, the man stopped and looked up at Webb, clearly surprised to have bumped into anyon
e. The two men stood in silence gazing at one another, each suspicious of the other, each wondering what to do or say next.
Webb could see that the stranger looked filthy, exhausted and cold, and was panting heavily. He also appeared frightened, his eyes began darting this way and that, as if looking for an escape route. He was young, perhaps not yet twenty. He was short, his slouched posture emphasising his lack of height, and he had dark, almost black, unkempt hair. His eyes however, looked anything but young; they looked bloodshot, thought Webb, lined and weary. He had no helmet or hat and, Webb noticed, no rifle. In his arms he cradled his greatcoat which was wet and splattered with mud. His face and hands were almost black with grime; his trouser leg ripped in the right leg. His puttees looked ragged and his boots misshapen by layers of dried mud. The man looked as if he’d just come back from the front, thought Webb.
The stranger spoke. ‘I’ve gotta get back.’
‘Back?’
‘Yeah.’ He paused for a few moments, trying to catch his breath. ‘Have you got any water?’ he panted.
‘I think you’d better come in, mate,’ said Webb nodding his head towards the billet.
‘No, gotta...’ He bent forwards and put his hands on his knees, his breathing still laboured. He muttered something, but Webb didn’t catch it. Then, suddenly, the man fell to his knees, looked up momentarily at Webb, and collapsed in a heap.
Throwing away his cigarette, Webb sprung forward and felt for the man’s pulse. It was still strong, very strong. He concluded that the man had simply collapsed from exhaustion. He noticed a wound in the shoulder; a large damp patch of blood stained the back of his tunic. Webb ran back into the billet and headed for the communal room, which was a hive of men chatting, laughing, and drinking and smoking. A crackly record played in the background. Webb recognised the tune as ‘Come Under My Umbrella’. Near the door sat three men playing cards. Webb beckoned them and urged them to come outside and give him a hand to ‘carry in some bloke who’d appeared from no-where and just collapsed’. In no time, the three soldiers were up on their feet, following Webb outside to where the stranger lay. They each took a limb and heaved him indoors, laying him on the floor of the hallway to catch their breaths and to decide where to put him. Webb remembered there was a spare bed in the downstairs dormitory, near the kitchen. They lugged him through, thankful not to have to carry him upstairs, and laid him on the bed.
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