The Horizon (1993)
Page 10
Livesay stared at him and then at Jonathan as if for support. ‘But – but, sir, they’d never arrive before dawn even if the pinnace found them without delay. They’d be coming ashore in broad daylight!’ He stared through the crudely curtained entrance as if he could see it. ‘Up that cliff? They’d never stand a chance!’
Waring lay down carefully on some sacking. ‘Must get some shut-eye. Call me if anything happens.’ Before he closed his eyes he looked over at Livesay and tapped his forehead again. ‘Think, man – it’s all you have to do.’ Then he was instantly asleep.
Jonathan and Livesay left the cave together and stood on what felt like broken boards while they allowed their eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness. The steep cliff and the rocky barriers that ran behind the defence line cut out every sound of the sea, and it was quiet, and somehow eerie. Finally Jonathan could see the faint outlines of sentries posted along the firing step, their sun-helmets showing clearly against the stars. He thought of the man from Perth and said, ‘I would have the men remove their helmets, sir. To any sniper they must look like enormous mushrooms, even in the dark.’
‘I’d better have a word with the colonel about that,’ Livesay said, and reconsidered immediately. ‘No, dammit, he’s asleep.’ He beckoned to a corporal and told him what to do, then added, ‘I don’t like this place, Jono. Not one little bit. It’s not proper soldiering. Sitting ducks, that’s what we are!’
They all looked up as a flare burst high over the ridge and lit the barren landscape like a desert.
Jonathan climbed up beside a sentry and stared across the undulating gullies and scattered rock formations. A corpse lay near the trench, its staring eyes like glass in the drifting glare. Others lay beyond, and the sour stench of death was everywhere.
To the young sentry he said quietly, ‘Watch the corpses, Tucker.’ He recalled what David had told him about the Chinese corpses in the Boxer Rebellion. The dead were the dead, but there they had moved imperceptibly until they were close enough to fall on the thin line of marines like crazed, screaming dervishes. ‘Just in case.’
‘Yessir.’
Jonathan sensed Payne beside him. He was holding out a silver cup. ‘Here, sir.’ Jonathan felt the Scotch burning his empty stomach. How could men eat when they knew what to expect? It must be like that before climbing to the gallows, he thought. But even then you had some dignity.
‘Thanks. I needed that.’
Payne said gravely, ‘No, you don’t, sir. Not like some.’
Jonathan saw Payne place a spare rifle close at hand. So even he knew about that. He thought of Waring’s shocked response. Officers with rifles and bayonets! He had made it sound like an act of treachery.
The flare had extinguished itself and there was only darkness again. What did it mean? A signal, a warning? Who could tell?
He leaned his back against the rough side of the trench. At least it was cool. He would not have believed it possible at one time, but in seconds his head had lolled in sleep.
Payne tilted the silver cup to his lips until a solitary drop of Scotch ran down his tongue. Then he screwed up the flask and collected his own rifle.
He looked at the stars. Fainter already. Never mind, Captain, he thought. We’ll stick together, and we’ll be as right as rain!
‘Here, sir, something to wet your whistle.’
Jonathan suppressed a groan and waited while his reluctant senses returned to life. ‘What is it?’ Surely he had not been asleep. He was still slumped against the side of the crude trench, every bone and muscle throbbing a separate protest. Not asleep.
‘Char, sir. The Aussies left us a fair supply of water when they pulled out. Wouldn’t float the old Reliant but it’ll keep us going for a bit.’
The tea tasted bitter, and there could have been more milk and sugar. But it was like pure champagne, and Jonathan could feel the tension easing in his limbs.
‘Colonel’s coming, sir.’ Payne busied himself with some invisible task as Waring’s ramrod figure, followed closely by Major Livesay and Lieutenant Wyke, strode along the winding trench. He saw Jonathan and gave a stiff nod.
‘Time to stand-to. It’ll be light within half-an-hour. Remember what I said – space out the N.C.O.’s and make certain that the machine-gunners know their sectors.’ Wyke hurried away, calling for a corporal.
Waring rubbed his chin with his stick. ‘I’ve been thinking.’ He turned his back to the parapet and glanced at the shadowy humps of rock through which they had climbed from the beach. ‘We should have an observation post there, with another wire running down here and to the beach party.’ He did not even blink as the heavy rifle cracked out again. The hidden sniper with his fixed sights could have been the only Turk on the peninsula, except for the gaping corpses. Waring looked at Jonathan. ‘Well? What d’you think? You’re something of an expert in gunnery matters, what?’ He sounded more irritable than usual, Jonathan thought; and it was rare for him to ask for an opinion.
‘I agree, sir. From there I might even see our ships.’
Waring’s mood changed. ‘So you intend to go yourself, do you? Add another V.C. to the family collection?’
Jonathan unclenched his fists slowly. ‘That was unfair, sir.’
Waring gave his braying laugh. ‘You’re too serious by half, man!’
Payne was shaking out some mugs and suddenly Jonathan saw his outline for the first time. It would soon be dawn. ‘I’ll leave now, sir. I’d like to take Tarrier with me.’ He expected another argument but Waring was already getting out his binoculars as he snapped, ‘Stand-to. Make sure the H.Q. platoon is in position and aware of the high ground on our left front.’ He saw Wyke staring at him and added harshly, ‘And get those men to replace their helmets! The place is a shambles!’
Jonathan asked, ‘Ready, Payne?’
‘As ever, sir.’ He handed him one of the forbidden rifles and grinned. ‘Don’t forget your bundhook. I’ve checked it – full magazine, one up the spout, safety catch on.’
Figures were showing themselves along the trench, and Jonathan could feel the sand between his teeth. Just as well about the tea. You couldn’t kill a raging thirst with neat Scotch.
Tarrier faced him, his eyes like dark holes in his face. ‘Won’t it be dangerous, sir?’
There was no answer to that.
Jonathan climbed over the back of the trench and walked quickly towards the shadowy rocks, his rifle held at the port across his body. He heard Payne fix his bayonet and work his rifle bolt just once. The rest was instinct. By the time they had reached the cover of the rocks it was already much lighter, the stars almost gone, the slope and the nearest gully beginning to take shape like some aerial photograph.
Tarrier almost fell as he slipped on loose stones, and pointed at the edge of a pale crater. One of the fleet’s shells had left its mark here, when the Turks had been driven from this ridge as the first landing parties had surged ashore.
There were several rifle shots and Jonathan heard Tarrier’s sharp breathing as he ducked down amongst the rocks. Payne said reassuringly, ‘Not shooting at us, sir.’ He added to himself, ‘Not yet.’
‘God, I can smell the sea!’ The words were torn from Jonathan’s throat. Somewhere to the south-west Reliant and her consorts would soon be calling the hands. Order and cheerful discipline, a good breakfast and some of the baker’s fresh bread. Could life become so basic that that was all that really mattered?
‘Watch out, Mr Tarrier!’ Payne’s bayonet moved like lightning and steadied above a shallow depression where two figures lay, arms outflung, rifles glinting very slightly in the strengthening light.
Payne grimaced. ‘What a stink! Still, we’ll get no trouble from them.’
Despite the warning the young second lieutenant still stood looking down at the corpses, the rifle fire and lurking danger momentarily forgotten. It was very early, and yet the sound of buzzing flies, the stench of decay seemed to dominate this place, staining the clean morning.
Tarrier asked hoarsely, ‘What do we do, sir?’
Payne clambered down and tore the water flasks from the two mutilated soldiers and said, ‘Empty. Bloody useless.’ He swatted some flies away. ‘We’d better get a move on.’
They climbed up the slope and all at once the sea was there like an endless, dark blue backdrop. Closer inshore the water was in total darkness, and only a few early gulls swooped over the hidden beach where they had stumbled ashore.
Jonathan knelt down and took several deep breaths. He thought of the average sailor’s belief, like a private prayer. Just get me to the sea, and somehow I’ll get home. The soldiers he had known so briefly in France had had no such comfort. Each dawn on the firestep, the rim of the parapet above them: the horizon. No hope of a friendly ship at the end of it. Just up and over the top, into the wire, into the guns.
He shook himself and peered over the last scattered rocks. He heard Payne humming softly to himself as he took up a position behind and slightly below him. Maybe he didn’t care about the sea.
Tarrier said tightly, ‘Sorry, sir. I don’t seem to be able to get used to it.’
Apologising again. Like the young midshipman with Soutter before he had died. Jonathan pulled out his binoculars and felt the warm metal, smooth in his fingers. They had been his father’s, but they were still better and more sharply focused than most modern ones.
He said, ‘You’ve only been out here for a dog-watch, Roger.’ What can I tell him? You never get used to it if you are a human being. Or should I tell him to be like Beaky Waring? He would never break under any disaster. His code of conduct was as much a part of the man as his pig-headedness. He said, ‘No half-measures, Roger.’ It was strange how hard his voice sounded. ‘It’s kill or be killed. They’re the enemy. As people they don’t exist.’
Payne rested his rifle against a slab of stone and peered down at the defence line: a rough scar which vanished on either hand, marked all the way by shell craters and discarded equipment. Dug by the enemy, taken by the Australians. The light was stronger, and he thought he could feel warmth on his cheek. He could see the vague shapes of other corpses. All along the line, some right up to the trench where the marines were hidden from view. Beyond and disappearing into shadows and morning mist were the undulating gullies: a useless, empty desert.
Something flashed from a far hillside and he thought of the sprawled corpses, the army of buzzing flies. Another heliograph. Up in those foothills the Turks would have found the sun before anyone. Another signal from the unseen enemy.
Crack. A sniper somewhere. Payne wriggled round as his captain called, ‘Listen! What the hell is that?’
Payne backed up the slope to join him, his rifle in the crook of his arm like a watchful gamekeeper.
Together, hatless, they knelt on the hard stones and stared across the dark placid water.
It came again. The bright, cheerful toot of a boat’s whistle.
Payne gaped at Jonathan in stunned disbelief. ‘It’s Impulsive’s lot, sir. They’re coming in.’
Jonathan stared around desperately. They had got the pinnace restarted, and with another to assist were making straight for the beach.
Payne said, ‘We must warn them!’ But they both knew it was already hopeless.
Jonathan began to get to his feet, and ducked again as a rifle cracked out from another hillside and the heavy bullet flung grit into his face.
Payne adjusted his backsight and said, ‘Keep down, sir. They know we’re here.’ More bullets cracked over the rocks and ricocheted across the cliff like maddened hornets.
Then, as if to a signal, the hills reverberated to the sharp crash of artillery and the quiet morning air was ripped apart by the staccato rattle of machine-guns.
His breath rasping in his lungs, his knees and elbows raw from their rocky cover, Jonathan crawled further until he could see over the lip of the cliff, even as smoke drifted thickly into the sheltered beach. He forced himself to watch as one steam pinnace received a direct hit and was blasted to fragments, its towed boats flung about in disorder as men pitched overboard, torn apart by splinters or dragged down by the weight of weapons and kit. The sea’s face was boiling, churned into a million feathers as the hidden machine-guns raked slowly back and forth, smashing men and boats alike until the water near the beach was bright red. The other pinnace exploded, its brass funnel flying into the air as another shell found its mark. A few pathetic survivors had reached the shallows, and for the briefest of moments it seemed their despair and courage had saved them. Then the machine-guns began again, catching them, flinging them down into the water or onto the smoking sand. Jonathan found that his glasses did not even quiver. It was as if he must remember every hideous moment.
Two last khaki figures had almost reached the shelter of the cliff when one of them swung round and fell, an arm outflung, and probably calling to his friend. The other marine hesitated and turned back. Just seconds. What were they thinking? The wet sand leaped and spattered and the bullets ripped over them yet again. And then, at last, there was only silence.
For hours the naval bombardment continued. Along the twisting trench the marines lay or crouched, with their bodies and faces pressed against the sun-heated rock or the bullet-riddled sandbags.
When the onslaught on the Turkish positions had begun some of them had cheered and waved like madmen as salvo after salvo had roared overheard like express trains. If anyone raised his head to watch he could see the tons of earth being hurled into the air, the hills and gullies hazy with green lyddite smoke as shrapnel joined forces with high-explosive shells and ranged the enemy positions in a torrent of death. Whether the bombardment was in retaliation for the slaughter of Impulsive’s landing parties, or because of information received by the flagship, it had given them heart. It was vengeance for the marines who still drifted in the sea, or lay on the bottom with their unused weapons and equipment.
Jonathan sat with his back against the firestep and tried to prevent his mind from cracking, forcing himself to remember every detail of what he had witnessed, checking to ensure that his cringing brain still recalled the right order and content of each horrific picture.
He did not know what he had expected of Waring when he had made his report. Dismay, remorse, guilt even, for ordering the boats to continue inshore without support or the cover of darkness.
In fact Waring had said very little, only, ‘At least we know what we’re up against.’ And, ‘It proves the need for faster and better communications.’
Major Livesay had said quietly, ‘I knew most of those chaps. I still find it hard to accept.’
What had he meant? That the useless slaughter could not have been so complete as Jonathan had described it? Or that Waring’s callous reaction was beyond belief?
At noon the bombardment finally stopped. It was as if each man had been rendered deaf, or some great door had been slammed shut. Dazed, dust covering their bodies and sunburned skin, the marines stared at one another like strangers. Sergeant McCann, his walrus-like moustache curled at the ends and stained dark with tobacco, moved slowly along his platoon, speaking to some of them, growling an occasional threat at anybody who had failed to clean his rifle after the grit and drifting smoke had settled: the ideal, no-nonsense N.C.O., who would always obey orders and would see that they were carried out by those in his care, no matter how young and inexperienced. Squatting behind his heavy machine-gun, Private Bert Langmaid moved its crank handles slightly and made certain the long fabric belt of bullets did not catch on any obstruction. Langmaid was one of the hard men, tough and insubord
inate, who had been put into the new company to stiffen it with his experience, but mostly because every officer he had served had wanted to get rid of him. He and Sergeant McCann had a wary respect for one another, but any comparison ended there. Langmaid had been made up to sergeant and had been broken to corporal twice. Now he no longer even wore those chevrons as some record of his service. He had received punishment that would have broken most men. But not Langmaid; he took it like a challenge and had kept his contempt for authority intact. A weary commander had once asked him why he was in the Corps at all.
Langmaid had displayed his crooked teeth, victims of too many fights to remember. ‘Cause I likes it, sir. It’s wot I does best.’
He was squatting there now, eyes slitted against the glare, large and untidy like a badly packed kit-bag. His two assistants were mere boys by comparison, who looked on the machine-gunner with as much fear as awe.
Next in the trench was Barlow, the one who had shown such eagerness to Jonathan aboard Reliant. A youth with a scrubbed, pink face which refused to tan, he was leaning against the side of the trench, his rifle gripped in his fists while he repeatedly licked his dry lips.
Jonathan looked away. He really did look no more than twelve. It was rumoured that he didn’t even shave as yet.
Next to Barlow was Corporal Ned Timbrell of the third platoon, with a pointed foxy face and deepset eyes like black olives. A reliable N.C.O., and one with his sights set on promotion, no matter what it might cost. Like Langmaid he had a violent past, but Timbrell’s was private. It had to be. He had once been a young waterman working on the London river at Blackfriars: it was so hazy now that he could scarcely recall it in exact detail. He had got into a brawl outside The Flying Horse with a warehouseman he barely knew. They had both been drunk, but not so much that Timbrell had not seen the knife in the other man’s fist. The scar was still on his left shoulder, but the force of the blow had allowed him to turn the man onto his own blade. In the terrible silence he had stood alone on the wet cobbles, the corpse leering up at him in the light of a gas-lamp. With great care he had lowered the body into the dark, fast-moving current. The Thames had been on the ebb and moved swiftly to hide its secrets as it sped down to the Pool of London.