A Song for No Man's Land

by Andy Remic

  Pass me my Bible; there’s a good lad . . .

  When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted . . .

  —flicking through pages and reading at random—

  Hark, a tumult on the mountains as of a great multitude! Hark, an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The LORD of hosts is mustering a host for battle. They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole earth . . .

  He could see her in the gloom. She was sleeping, and he did not wake her, did not want to see her in pain—and so he pulled over a stool and sat beside her bed, his eyes tracing the weary lines of her face, the sunken hollows where once there had been flesh, the dark rings where once there had been joy.

  “How could this happen to you?” he whispered, but expected no answers. At first, he had blamed the doctors for not being able to cure her; then he blamed the world, for apparently cursing her; and finally, he had blamed God for failing to step in and heal her.

  Now . . . he blamed nobody. He simply sat in silent misery, watching his mother, watching Mary Webb, watching this fine woman he had known for seventeen years, who had raised him lovingly from cradle . . . nurtured him through childhood, watching her gradually erode and die.

  All he would be able to do is bury her in a poor man’s grave.

  “She has a lump in her stomach, George. She has a cancer, spreading through her digestive tract, eating at her flesh as well as her will to live.”

  “A lump?”

  “A tumour, in her stomach. It is too large for us to operate; it must have been causing her incredible pain.”

  “Yes . . . yes, she has had pain for a while.”

  “Did she not seek medical advice? Did she visit the doctor?”

  “She did . . . or she told us she did. A tumour, you say? I’m confused . . . will she die? Will she die?”

  Echoing softly in his mind.

  “Will she die?”

  “Yes, George. She will die. I’m sorry.”

  Jones walked through the dark trench, like a carved wound in the earth, carrying a tray with care as he skipped over puddles, trying not to splash his trousers. He reached the steps of the dugout and heard laughter within, but not the laughter of humour, more the laughter of bitterness, of mockery . . .

  He stood there, shivering slightly, the gypo on the tray steaming and smelling almost good enough to eat. In the distance, the heavy artillery bombardment of the enemy lines continued into the night; it was a song of metal, a symphony of pain and death.

  “You’re always writing bloody letters, soldier. Who are you writing to now, eh?” came Bainbridge’s voice. Jones frowned and moved forward but stopped at the next exchange of words.

  “Shut up, Bainbridge.”

  “To you, it’s sergeant, and don’t forget it or I’ll break that pretty face of yours. So, come on, who are you writing to? A slut back home . . . or maybe your mother? Yes, a boy like you wouldn’t know a real woman if she lay down before you with legs spread wide open. So then, it’s to Mummy, eh? Mummy’s little boy . . .”

  “Shut up!”

  “What you writing? Asking her to pull some strings, get you drafted back to Blighty, eh, lad? Away from the fighting? Away from the death? Get yourself posted to some nice little base in England, guarding against the never never never . . . while over here in France, your comrades are getting shelled to ——ing pieces!”

  “That’s not true. Leave me alone, Bainbridge, leave me alone . . .”

  “Can’t you take the truth, little Mummy’s boy? Can’t you take it? Well, remember this: I’m the sergeant here, and somebody has to read the letters sent home, somebody . . .”

  “You read them?”

  “They’ve got to be read. National security, lad; we can’t have you leaking secrets to the ——ing Hun and having Mr Crumps for breakfast as a result of your flapping big mouth.”

  “Enough!” hissed Jones, stooping low to enter the dugout. “Bainbridge, leave the lad alone, will you? The poor bastard has been through enough!”

  Bainbridge laughed. “Been through enough, has he? He’s a spineless bugger, and he deserves bloody shooting! Always writing letters home . . . you little Mummy’s boy! You hear me, Webb? And as for you, Jones . . . we were shrapp’d together, man; we’re brothers! Don’t side with the new recruits; they ain’t worth it.”

  Bainbridge pushed his way from the dugout and left behind an atmosphere of tense oppression. Jones moved to his bunk and sat down, stared over at where Webb was poised, his pen touching the paper but not actually moving.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Why does he hate me, Rob?”

  “He doesn’t hate you.”

  “You heard him . . . He thinks I deserve shooting! And he kept calling me a Mummy’s boy . . . That hurts me inside; it twists me . . .”

  “He doesn’t know, George. He doesn’t know about your mother. Maybe if I told him what you’d been through?”

  Webb looked up, his tear-filled eyes suddenly angry. “What? And endure his ——ing sympathy?” he spat. “You never sat there holding her ——ing clawed, clenching hand whilst she cried like a babe; you never sat there while she screamed and moaned and begged me to kill her. And I thought about it. I looked at that pillow and thought about smothering her . . . to put her out of her pain. When she finally died, I was glad, you hear me? I was glad because it was an end to suffering, an end to the constant agony. In the end, even the drugs didn’t take away the pain. If I’d had a gun, I swear I would have shot her myself.”

  “You don’t mean that, George,” said Jones.

  “I mean it, Rob. And I tell you something else; when I finally do go over the top, then your friend Sergeant Bainbridge is going to get one hell of a shock, because every bastard I shoot down will be for my mother, because I want them to suffer like she suffered, I want God to hear the screams of the people I send his way, and I’m going to laugh and spit in his ugly ——ing face when I see him. And if I don’t see God? Well, then, I’ll be in hell, exactly where I deserve.” Webb threw down his pen and, grabbing his coat, left the dugout.

  Jones saw tears streaming down the soldier’s face but let him go. He had no words, no answers for the young man, and for several minutes, he considered going after Bainbridge and beating the living shit out of the man for his thoughtlessness, stupidity, and lack of humanity.

  Finally, Jones lay back on his bunk and calmed his breathing. The candlelight played across the far wall, and Jones watched the shadows, trying to clear his mind, trying to calm himself.

  He thought about Sarah. Back in Wales. He remembered meeting up with her. Kissing her. Holding her. Dancing with her. Laughing together . . . making love together under rough blankets as the rain drummed against the window . . .

  Drinking whisky with her.

  Her eyes, flashing with hate, tears on her cheeks, as she threw a glass at him . . . the sound as it shattered against the wall.

  The sound of breaking glass, and Sarah, sobbing . . .

  Shadows flickered lazily, dancing this way and that, swaying like trees. Like towering conifers . . . swaying in the night storm.

  Jones closed his eyes and allowed sleep to take him, for he was bone weary and sick to death of the trenches. And he dreamed of the woods, climbing the steep slope on muddy hands and knees as, behind, creatures snarled in the darkness.

  Woodland Dreams.

  “Towards Heartwood.”

  2nd. November 1903.

  HARK, A TUMULT on the mountains as of a great multitude! Hark, an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together!

  The boy struggled on, clawing the ground, rain dripping from the vast overhead canopy. It ran down his face and he rubbed at his eyes, coughing harshly, and he began to shiver and he coughed again, alarmed when mucus spurted between his fingers. A coldness crept into his bones and he wished, wished to God that his
feet were dry and warm, and what he would give to be in a warm bed with hot soup inside him and to be happy and safe and warm . . .

  He could hear the snarling creatures, coming up the hill behind him. Their claws gouged the earth. They panted, muzzles dripping strings of saliva, their grey eyes fixed on him, struggling onwards . . .

  Nearly there . . .

  Hunter’s Hill . . .

  Heartwood . . .

  With a cry, he reached the summit of the slope, his hand grasping a hefty branch as the creature was nearly upon him. He spun around on his backside, and as the first creature leapt, he swung the branch, which struck it between the eyes, knocking it to one side, whining and snapping fangs.

  There were three of them, and the boy scrambled to his feet and backed out into the woodland clearing. Thunder rumbled. Lightning crackled, lighting the scene with bright blue electric.

  “Come on!” screamed the boy as the three creatures advanced. He heard more snarls from further down the hill. Lips curled back over long silver fangs, and with a blink, the boy realised the lips were like ebony, the teeth like sharpened wooden splinters, the fur like grey moss, the eyes like pale knots in pine.

  They’re like dogs, he thought. Dogs created by the woodland itself . . .

  Another leapt, and the branch connected with its skull, whacking it to the side where it yelped; the boy took the branch in both hands now, and a bright beaming confidence overtook him.

  “Come on. I’ll kill you all,” he screamed, his young voice ringing out across the clearing.

  The three creatures observed him, panting, and he began to back away. They stood, chests heaving, drenched by the rain. Their pale eyes followed him, but they no longer attacked.

  He backed away, away, and watched as more of the dog-like creatures appeared at the edge of the trees. Their eyes watched him. Fear filled his chest as he realised, now, there were more than he’d first thought . . .

  Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.

  His eyes were wide, but he kept a firm hold on the branch as his shoes trod backwards.

  Again, the land sloped upwards through the clearing. He glanced over his shoulder and could see it!

  The summit of Hunter’s Hill, shrouded in mist, containing huge shapes, their dim outlines filling him with a sudden faith.

  Hunter’s Hill. He could feel the mystery, the essence of legend, the weight of the myths beneath his scuffed shoes, beneath his feet, beneath the limestone rock and thin soil and carpet of sodden, rotting leaves and wood.

  Hunter’s Hill.

  The Gateway to Heartwood.

  “I must go on,” he said, shaking his branch at the creatures who watched him from the darkness. “Towards the Heartwood!”

  He broke into a run, shoes pounding and slipping on the long grass. Wind whipped through his hair. Rain trickled down his face, down his neck. Thunder rumbled, ominous and growling.

  He glanced behind, but the dog-creatures did not follow, instead staying by the edge of the trees, as if they were connected to that segment of woodland, unable to leave the trees to which they were joined . . .

  The boy slowed as he neared the objects on the summit of Hunter’s Hill. They were larger than he’d seen in his dreams, seven of them in a circle, towering up above the soil and stranded twigs and branches. Each was five times the height of a man and carved from the lightning-blasted core of an ancient oak. They had been carved—with skill, each to resemble a different figure—limbs twisted and bent, faces curled into grotesque gargoyle growls.

  The boy drew near, and slowed, and stopped. The branch he carried slipped from his fingers as he came to the edge of the circle, and moved forward, to stand at the very centre of Hunter’s Hill, turning slowly, looking up at these huge carved figures.

  He stared at the carvings from a long-dead race. And they gazed inwards, not outwards, on the summit of Hunter’s Hill. Their twisted limbs and massive bulks glistening under their rain and mist cloaks. They were beautiful. They were ancient. They were perfect.

  The boy gasped . . .

  Each figure was a man. Some wore masks, with huge circular eyes. In their hands they carried rifles and swords. Many had two mouths, their faces lifted to the sky in double silent screams . . .

  “Wow,” he whispered.

  Then, “I am here. As I promised. As you commanded.”

  The boy coughed again, a heavy cough, and pain was in him now, deep in his chest, and he was coughing, coughing, coughing and the mucus was dribbling down his chin and he could not stop the coughing, and he felt weak, as weak as a lamb, and he tried to lift his eyes to see the images more clearly, these wooden totems of long-dead days, but he no longer had the strength . . . and the rain ran down his body, and he sank to the ground, laid himself on the cold earth at the centre of the circle, and he curled into a ball and coughed up mucus and lay there thinking about what he had witnessed, what he could feel coursing through the ground under his fingers, beneath his body, the energy of a different place, a different time, a different world.

  His eyes fixed on the huge carved figures, one by one by one.

  They seemed to speak to him, with cold dead mouths.

  You will come to us, they said.

  One day, you will fight with us.

  One day, you will save us.

  And everything drifted in smoke, and the ground was cold, and his coughing would not stop, and he lay there, and he waited to die.

  He could hear his mother’s words echoing in his mind, could still see that religious glint in her eyes as fresh as tears. And her words, her words harsh, forcing down the corridors of his soul . . .

  Hark, a tumult on the mountains as of a great multitude!

  Hark, an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together!

  The LORD of hosts is mustering a host for battle.

  They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole earth.

  Hands curled around him. Lifted his unconscious body into the air. And the Skogsgrå drew him to her chest as her eyes met the eyes of the Huldra, who gave a single nod, and they set off through trees as old as the world.

  They found him the next morning at the foot of the sprawling bracken leading from Clearwood. When the boy hadn’t returned, and his mother found his bed empty, she panicked. The boy’s father was down in London on business, and so his mother, alone and frightened, ran to a neighbour’s house to raise the alarm.

  As dawn brightened the sky with streaks of violet, a search party set out from the boy’s house under cold grey drizzle.

  He was almost dead. Damp, cold, and unresponsive. They wrapped him in blankets and carried him back to his house. The doctor was sent for, arriving by carriage twenty minutes later, his breath reeking of whisky.

  The boy was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis, early stages, and as such could be treated at the local sanatorium. The doctor hurriedly prepared admittance papers for the boy’s incarceration, and amidst his mother’s tears, he was transported by ambulance to the distant Victorian building to begin treatment. The boy’s mother did not travel with him.

  Robert Jones awoke just once in the ambulance, looking around, eyes wide, coughing and choking, eyes streaming tears; in his head he could hear a booming, crashing sound, as of endless trees collapsing deep within ancient woodland.

  A nurse held his hand, patted his arm, smiled down at him with absolute kindness.

  “The evil thing, it’s hiding, in the Heartwood,” Jones whispered, and closed his eyes, and slept a dreamless sleep filled with pain and anguish and a need to return to the trees which seemed to stretch out for ever, and ever, and ever.

  Part Four

  A Silent Song

  Ypres Salient (3rd. Battle of).

  “Over the Wire.”

  1st. August 1917.

  JONES HAD A DREAM that night. A nightmare played out under blackened trees. He was in the trench like a curved scar created by a razor. He looked left
and right, across the muddied, stained duckboards.

  He was alone, and the fear started to eat him.

  Whistles sounded, and Jones gripped his rifle tight, clambered up the ladder, over the wire, out into No Man’s Land and the enveloping darkness of the bomb-blasted forest. Burnt trees surrounded him, twisted and angular.

  They ate him whole.

  Turning to look back, Jones could no longer see the trench.

  Guns roared in the distance beyond the scorched woodland, and mortar shells exploded, kicking up great mushrooms of mud and earth and roots, shattering the broken woodland trees around him.

  Jones stood, gazing at the trees which had once been so majestic, so holy, and now were nothing more than broken, bent, smashed figures returning charred to the earth which had spawned them.

  Out there in the gloom of No Man’s Land, Jones could distinguish shapes, giant silhouettes looming as if carved from the night . . . They were tanks, belching fumes, tracks grinding through mud and crushing bent trees . . . but even as he watched, the roaring of their engines faded and they ground to a halt, rocking, and stood in silence, obsolete amidst the crushed woodland.

  A bullet sped past Jones’s ear, catching the lapel of his coat, but he did not flinch. The guns had stopped.

  They could not kill him now.

  He walked forward, boots sinking in the mud, until he reached the first tank. It was a Mark IV, its six-pounders silent and still, its great riveted tracks motionless in the mud, and mangled with the broken branches of dead trees, like splinters caught in a beast’s maw.

  Jones walked slowly along the side of the machine, running a hand down the dirt-smeared planks of riveted steel, until he was past the monstrosity and walking through the skeletal woods.

  He turned once. The tank Mark IV was motionless. But to Jones’s eyes, in this place of hell, the tank seemed suddenly carved from wood, black, charred, scarred wood, as if the tank itself had grown from the shell-pounded earth.