A Song for No Man's Land

by Andy Remic

  Part of me is terrified. And yet part of me is filled with a furious anger.

  These creatures which appear in my dreams (in reality) seem to be hunting me. And despite my terror, I know deep down in my soul that one day I must face them. Face them, and kill them. Or die.

  I’ve a lovely pack of bandaging on my torso now, and I’m informed I will have a lot of scarring. But then, what’s a scar if a man still has life? At least the Somme for me is over, and my miserable damp world in the trenches soon to be forgotten. Well. Never truly forgotten.

  Bainbridge lived, that tough cockroach! I’ve been told I might see the old grumpy bastard tomorrow when we’re both being shipped back to Blighty. I’m sure his wife, Helen, will be pleased to see him alive. He doesn’t really talk about her much, and I suppose it’s because he’s scared to death of never seeing her again. It’s his protection mechanism.

  If I was a married man, then I’m sure I’d talk about my wife. I suppose I never got around to marriage, the whisky probably scaring them all off . . . maybe now though, a “hero” of the war, maybe now I’ll be able to settle down and have children.

  Yes. An incentive. Something to keep me off the drink and gambling, something to make me face up to myself and larger, more important responsibilities. Maybe this experience will earn me a little respect in the bank . . . that’s if the bastards still have the job open for me. Do I really care? No. —— the bank. I’m not sure I can sit on my backside all day any longer. Not after what I’ve been through; not after the horrors I’ve seen.

  I wonder how my old friend George is getting on? I hope I’ll see him again soon. However, the poor sod will be conscription age before long and might get drafted into this hell hole. No wonder they don’t tell you what it’s like back home! Only a madman, or a man with nothing to live for, would voluntarily sign up. Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played? Yeah. How ——ing tragic. How deeply tragic.

  After my meal, I had a long talk with the nurse who tended me and about fifty other poor bastards who took metal at Transloy. She is extremely beautiful. Her name is Sarah, and she has the most dazzling, beaming smile, and a laugh that can melt a man’s heart from a hundred yards.

  The best thing about Sarah is she doesn’t question me about life in the trenches, about the war. She is intelligent, and radiant, and she held my hand tonight and read to me. Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth. A fabulous hardback edition with illustrations by Édouard Riou.

  It’s an amazing adventure story.

  I wanted to tell her about the monsters that hunt me. But I could not.

  I think, for the first time, I’m in love.

  I hope I will see her again.

  Diary of Robert Jones.

  3rd. Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

  21st. October 1916.

  I saw Bainbridge today. After breakfast, Sarah helped me into a wheelchair (with much wincing, I can tell you) and she wheeled me across the compound. There he was, smoking a Woodbine, sat out under a canvas shelter reserved for smokers. Smoking is outlawed in the field hospitals, which is a sad irony because a coffin nail is the one joy a man can have in these places of hell, except for the bully. That is, of course, unless you can get hold of some whisky, but now whisky’s more valuable than gold in the trenches.

  I talked with Bainbridge, and we had a laugh. He showed me his bandaged thigh, which had luckily not become infected with gangrene, or he would have lost the leg. The German bullet had shattered part of his femur and he had difficulty walking, but the doctor said Bainbridge would recover full mobility after a few months. That made the ——er happy.

  Bainbridge showed me a pistol he’d stolen—what we call a souvy, a battlefield souvenir. The body snatchers brought in a Tommy who was worse for wear after scuffling with a Hun. In his hand he held a pistol ripped from the Hun’s holster, and Bainbridge’s eagle eyes spotted the weapon, and he’d performed his own midnight reconnaissance of the hospital, picking up the Beholla en route. Bainbridge was proud of the gun, showed it to me as a trophy. It was a 7.65mm automatic and took a seven-round magazine. The only problem was it had no bullets, but Bainbridge didn’t let this damp his enthusiasm. He spoke of how poetic it would be to snuff out Germans with their own guns. Poetic, and tragic, I said.

  I think Bainbridge has lost it. We’ve both seen the dark side of war, and now we’re going home, we’re just glad to be alive.

  One change in Bainbridge’s talk now is his lack of heroic bullshit. He no longer rants about a need for fighting, a desire to kill the enemies of our king. He is a changed man. Only time will tell how changed.

  Just before I left, Bainbridge handed me a couple of Woodbines when Sarah wasn’t looking. I hid them down my chat bags. Bainbridge then looked deep into my eyes. “Do you still have the nightmares?” he asked, and although I knew damned well what he was talking about, I told him no. Sometimes, lies are the only option.

  I left then, worried by his words. I knew I’d spoken to him of nightmares, of being lost in a forest surrounded by choking tanks and blackened trees, an unholy place not dissimilar to No Man’s Land.

  There had been something in his eyes. A question.

  It was as if he knew about the Skogsgrå and the Huldra. About my bad dreams. About the fire burning down the world.

  But I blanked it all. I just wanted out of France.

  I wanted to go home.

  Before I left, Sarah gave me her home address back in England. I said I would look her up, and she kissed me on the cheek. It was the best kiss I’ve ever had, and I can still smell the starch of her uniform, and her faint musky scent which made my heart race. I truly hope I see her again. I hope she wants to see me again. After all, hundreds of men pass through the hospital every week, and after a while, one man must seem very much the same as any other.

  The engines echo deep in the bowels of the collier as I write this, and the English Channel is incredibly rough. “Choppy” is the word the Captain used. Yes. Right, mate. I’ve never been a seafarer, and feel sicker than I’ve ever done before. Choppy.

  I hope the journey will be over soon. I will try and get some sleep after writing, like that snoring bugger Bainbridge on the opposite bunk. I don’t know how he got us a cabin together; I think he bribed some official with cigars. But I don’t bloody know where he got the cigars!

  The name of our ship is the Prince Charles, once a coal transporter but now used as a Q-ship with concealed guns and torpedoes for sinking U-boats. One of the crew, a sailor called Evans, told me this particular Q-ship sank U-36 off the Orkneys in 1915, something he was apparently very proud of.

  Somehow, I don’t know how, Bainbridge has managed to get covered in coal dust. I can see his smudged face through the darkness as he snores like a bloody pig.

  I hope I can sleep.

  I hope the nightmares don’t return.

  I met Sarah by the bus stop on Castle Terrace in Dolwyddelan. The sun was shining, and as we walked towards Church Street, where I was boarding, she reached over and held my hand. With heart racing, I squeezed her fingers, and looked at her, and she smiled, we smiled, and stared at one another like children.

  “You have a castle here, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, built in 1210 by Llywelyn, ruler of North Wales. I used to play there as a child. And . . . in the surrounding woods.”

  “It sounds beautiful.” She looked around. “This is an amazing place!”

  “We can walk up there tomorrow, if you like?”

  “That would be fabulous, Robert.”

  We walked in silence for a while, arriving at the stone terraced cottage where I was staying. We went inside. We were alone. The living room smelt of soap and coal.

  Sarah looked at me. I stared into her dazzling blue eyes.

  She moved forward, stood on tiptoe, and kissed me. We stood like that, kissing for a while, and then I led her to the stairs, up to the bedroom, and we kissed again, my hands on her shoulders, her hands moving to
rest on my hips.

  She undressed me, and I undressed her. My hands slid down her rib cage, rested on her hips. She groaned, and pushed herself towards me. And then it happened so fast, it was a blur, surreal, and we were on the bed, kissing and touching, making love, and I was deep inside her, the whole experience a whirling moment in time where I forgot about the war, forgot about my childhood, and joined with this wonderful woman with the dazzling eyes, and gave her everything, gave her my love, and gave her my soul.

  Part Three

  A Pagan Place

  Woodland Dreams.

  “Through Sharpwood.”

  2nd. November 1903.

  IN THE DISTANCE thunder rumbled, as if the gods were angry, arguing, complaining. The boy stepped out over the insane tangle of deadwood, and paused, one shoe slipping, to look down, down into the trench beneath him. Lightning flickered, illuminating the scene.

  The branches appeared as bones.

  Sharpened bones, ready to impale him . . .

  With dry mouth he continued, stepping from branch to branch, arms outstretched for balance, licking his lips occasionally and glad of the cool rain on his face. The trench—that wound in the earth—was wider than it had first appeared. And with trembling limbs the boy crossed the treacherous place.

  Water rolled from his face in rivulets, making his skin grey in the gloom. He coughed a harsh, chesty cough. And continued . . .

  The deadwood shifted beneath him, suddenly, and he glanced down through the mad tangle, matted with leaves and mud and twigs. Several branches cracked hollow, deep in the depths, a terrible, frightening warning. The deadwood felt incredibly unstable, shifting like a creature beneath him, like a live thing. And bizarrely he moved as if he were riding a creature of wood, its cumbersome legs powerful as it churned through mud and leaves, and he was astride the beast, could feel the heavy thump of its heart beneath him, could see steam snorted from its great bark nostrils . . .

  He blinked, coughed again, and shook his head with a shower of droplets. Thunder rumbled again; the boy crested a slight rise in the insanity tangle of deadwood, and began his descent, heart pounding in his ears, the smell of woodland sour and ripe in his nostrils, invading his every sense.

  He glanced over his shoulder. And amidst the thickly gathered conifers, interspersed with beech and oak and ash, he could see creatures moving within the depths. There were hundreds of them, their grey eyes peering from the dense green darkness, their snouts hissing and snorting at this intrusion into their world, their land, their place of worship. Suddenly, the boy felt like an intruder, violator, a reaper of the woodland—and he was most definitely not welcome.

  Their eyes gleamed, and he watched them dancing through the trees, heading towards him.

  “No!” he cried, and slipped on wet wood, and a hefty crack echoed through the silence. He felt himself sliding, falling, his hands searching for grip, flailing, shifting, the deadwood bucking and shifting its weight beneath him and his fist curled around a branch—and he prayed—and it held, and he steadied himself against the sharp, prodding spears of old white wood and closed his eyes for a moment in silent thanks. He had not fallen. Not fallen deep into the trench of splintered teeth which he now realised with absolute certainty would chew him up.

  The boy nodded and, without looking back, scampered across the rest of the deadwood, even now fearing the return journey, so precarious was this most effective of barriers.

  His shoes touched earth, moss and grass and broken twigs, and he stood panting on the woodland floor, shoes scratched and scuffed, knowing he would be in trouble with Mother when he got home, yet strangely not caring.

  He was close. Closer than he had ever been!

  Here, the woodland was huge, towering conifers. They swayed high above and he squinted, watching their mighty boughs shift, and creak, and squeak, and whisper. Whisper like ghosts.

  The boy set off through the evergreens, breathing their heady perfume, Sharpwood left thankfully behind. A place of teeth, he realised. Glancing back, his eyes came to the trench and he saw the grey-eyed creatures there. They had stopped at the barrier, their muzzles sniffing his scent. They were similar to dogs but without any fur, their entire bodies carrying saggy, grey skin. Their eyes searched for him. Saliva strung from fangs. Their claws were black and long. Then the pack split in two, heading off in separate directions . . .

  The boy shivered.

  They were hunting him, whatever they were . . .

  He drove on through the evergreens, pushing himself forward, sweat on his brow now as panic increased in his breast and he slipped, slid, pushed onwards. He burst into a clearing, and something fell through him—a feeling, cool and luxurious.

  What is this new place?

  This new . . . sanctuary?

  It felt calm, and clean. It oozed purity, and the boy felt suddenly safe. As if the trees themselves would protect him from the creatures sniffing after his scent.

  What to call it? What to call this new place . . .

  “Soulwood,” he whispered.

  Something scampered to one side and the boy jumped, then ignored the sound when he realised it was something small; stooped, sometimes crawling, he progressed way through the conifers ahead, tightly packed now, and up a steep incline which presented itself.

  The trees grew low, and the boy had to almost crouch, head bowed low, branches and fern brushing his hair and clothes, touching him with a woodland intimacy. It was damp and musty down there with the roots and decaying leaves and pine needles, and the boy scraped his knees on limestone rocks protruding from the ground like teeth. The hill grew incredibly steep, and the boy could think of only two words as he crawled and panted and heaved up the slope. Two words that flooded his mind.

  Hunter’s Hill.

  The moon was gone. She’d fled to a happier place.

  The boy crawled in darkness, the powerful aroma of pine filling his mind with corrupt perfume as he used roots and rock to heave himself up the slope. His muscles were straining now, strength failing as he heaved and hauled himself onwards.

  Yet he knew. Knew he was close, knew he was so, so close!

  Behind, he heard a panting sound. A scrabbling. Not one set of claws, but many. He squinted for a few moments, terror taking his heart in its fist. Then he turned back and pushed himself on towards the summit.

  In the surrounding darkness, a different type of beast watched. They had wooden eyes, their indecipherable faces lined with the bark of silver birch and staring unblinkingly through the black.

  Lightning flickered in the far distance, an echo of light through the heavy canopy.

  The boy whimpered as he crawled.

  Fear had taken hold of him.

  He could smell these new beasts, with their dampwood stink. Motionless, statues, watching, watching, watching . . .

  Hunter’s Hill!

  Just up ahead!

  And as he crawled, and struggled, up this final climb towards Heartwood, towards the Dream . . . all he could hear were his mother’s words in his mind, muttering phrases from the Bible, words like wrath, fire and brimstone . . .

  Ypres Salient (3rd. Battle of).

  “Towards Boulogne.”

  13th. July 1917.

  GEORGE WEBB KISSED his sister on the cheek, trying hard to ignore her tears, which glistened like silver, but eventually letting his own fall free as he moved towards the wide walkway and the thick crowd of men trudging slowly across the brine-drenched wood.

  “Goodbye, Marie.”

  “I’ll miss you, George.”

  “And me, you.”

  He waved and smiled, summoning some kind of enthusiasm.

  Marie waved back, kissing her fingers and then waving again. They had become very close since their mother’s death only a month earlier. And now he was leaving her. Alone.

  George turned, was swallowed by the sheer vast scale of the Valiant which rocked at her moorings. He was directed down narrow corridors and past scores of men laughin
g and joking, swapping tales of childhood and making new acquaintances. He found a place to camp down, surrounded by men performing similar actions, unrolled his bedroll, and made some space for himself. Life aboard the ship was going to be cramped, and Webb was filled with a silent dread at the thought of the front lines in France and Belgium.

  George Webb was not a soldier, nor a warrior; he was a man in love with peace and life.

  “I cannot do this,” he’d whispered the night before, as they ate at the kitchen table, lit by golden candlelight.

  “But you must,” said Marie, smiling, beautiful eyes glowing with candle flame.

  “I cannot use a rifle or a bayonet in battle—it’s abhorrent! How can I stab steel into another man’s body? To remove another person’s life? It is wrong. It is evil.”

  “You’ve been drafted, my love. To protect us from the Hun. You must go.” She held his hand then, eyes fierce. “You must do right by King and Country.”

  Webb had been drafted, along with thousands of other men—men from all counties across Britain, replacements for the forty-odd thousand Allied lives that had been lost on the Western Front in June of 1917.

  Webb tugged at his rough canvas clothes, which smelled musty. He grunted, pulling his kitbag from beneath him, then leant his back against the hard metal wall of the ship and looked around. He was seated in what had once been a mess hall for sailors but was now confined quarters for thousands of anxious young men.

  Webb shook his head.

  “George!”

  He looked up, and grinned suddenly at Robert Jones, who strode across the chamber, stepping over countless drafted Tommies all around. Jones reached his friend and they shook hands, and embraced.

  “I’ve been looking for you for ages,” smiled Jones, squeezing down beside Webb. Deep below in the bowels of the Valiant, the oil-fired engines rumbled into life, sending throbbing vibrations through the walls. The floor shuddered.