by Alan Judd
‘When eventually I reached A company and was directed to company headquarters someone mentioned Captain Foucham but I was too exhausted and dulled to take it in, just thought I’d misheard. I knew his predecessor had been killed and that there was a replacement but didn’t know who. The dugout – really just a hollowed-out bit of trench with a canvas flap – was lit by a single candle on a table made of ammunition boxes. Seated on another ammunition box, hatless, tunic unbuttoned, smoking and looking at an old trench map, was your father. I saw immediately that it was him but it was a few seconds before he recognised me in my helmet and with all my clobber and covered in mud. We just stared at each other without speaking and now for the life of me I can’t remember who was the first to speak or who said what. Funny isn’t it?’ The colonel shook his head. ‘I know we shook hands and each said something about what a surprise and not expecting to see the other and each gave an account of how we came to be there. Of course, there was a third person in the dugout – Maud – but neither of us mentioned her. In moments of great surprise or shock we reach for the ordinary, don’t we? The banal, the everyday, the practical, the obvious. That’s what you cling to while you re-adjust.
‘And then there really was someone else in the dugout, Hobbs, the company runner. And then briefing and introductions and finding somewhere to dump my kit and everything else and in no time you’re immersed in mundanity, the endless mundanities of trench life, or family life or working life or whatever you’re doing, the Duke of Wellington’s one-damn-thing-after-another of it all that fills our hours and prevents us thinking about where we’re going. Just as well, perhaps.’
Seeing Frank take out another cigarette, the colonel pushed the lighter across to him. There had been no music for a while now. Frank imagined them talking to each other, becoming intimate.
‘We never did talk about it, the obvious subject. There was never time for the personal, too much going on, and when you weren’t busy you were sleeping, or trying to. We were never alone, anyway, apart from the odd half-minute. But there was an unspoken understanding that sometime we would. And we were not estranged. We simply resumed from where we left off before he went to Canada, as if we were on an extended poaching expedition on old Johnny Wooding’s land. We made a good team, your father and I, always did. Knew each other so well we didn’t need to explain. But that was also what worried me, you see, more than the Maud business. I sensed he knew my secret and I was terrified it would come out. As it did, very soon it did.’
The colonel paused again, looking at Frank as if expecting him to know. ‘Your secret?’ Frank asked.
‘My fear. My secret fear.’
There was another pause. ‘But everyone’s afraid, aren’t they? I am. I’m sure all the guys are, every time we go up.’
‘Of course, of course, you take that for granted and get on with your job. So long as you keep going, just do your job and keep going, you’ll be all right. There were cases of shell-shock but they were understood and accepted, couldn’t be helped. What I’m talking about is another level of fear. Incapacitating fear, when you’re paralysed, lose control of your body, want to go on but your legs won’t move. It hadn’t happened to me by then but I knew it would, I’d seen it in others and I knew it would come to me one day. And that made me more afraid, afraid of my own fear. That was my secret and I lived in a perpetual funk because of it.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Frank surprised himself. It came out so easily. He heard himself saying it without having intended it, like the colonel’s proposal.
‘You do?’ The colonel stared. It was impossible to tell whether he was recalling his own feelings or assessing Frank’s. ‘When it started I thought it was shell-shock at first. It was following the retreat from Vadencourt – withdrawal, I should say, a fighting withdrawal, the Eighth Battalion never broke, not once. First symptom was the shakes. Nothing unusual about that, most of us did at some time or other. It was just like when you get an eyelid that goes on the blink, you get this trembling in your vision and think everyone else can see it, but they don’t. But with me there was something else. I couldn’t make myself stand upright, even when I knew it was safe. I crouched all the time and flinched at the slightest noise or unexpected movement. Embarrassing, you just hope no one else will notice. Then one day your father asked me to lead a raiding party that night across to the German lines to nab a Hun prisoner or two. Not his idea – came down from Brigade via Battalion HQ. They wanted live evidence for their theory – hope – that the offensive was running out of steam, that the Germans were pretty well as exhausted as we were and wouldn’t be able to maintain momentum much longer. They were right, as it turned out.
‘Not that he asked me directly. It was just after stand-to – you know, that dreadful hour before dawn when you’re at your lowest ebb and everyone has to rouse themselves to be ready for a dawn attack which hardly ever comes. I was on the fire-step in number one platoon’s position, crouching of course, though I could just see into no-man’s-land through some nettles and churned-up earth. Unknown to me, Frank came along the trench behind me, inspecting positions. He put his hand on my shoulder and I winced and shrunk myself, my head between my knees, immediately, uncontrollably.
‘“It’s all right, it’s only me,” he whispered.
‘When I opened my eyes I saw he was smiling but it was a kindly smile, not a mocking one as it might have been. Because I know what he saw: a frightened, furtive little animal, paralysed by fear from a mere touch on the shoulder.
‘He put his hand on my shoulder again. “It’s all right, Ken, it’s all right, don’t worry.” He spoke as if to a child or pet. “I wanted your advice about something. Come and see me when we stand down.”
‘Well, it turned out he wanted me to recommend someone to lead the raid. It was to be an all-volunteer job, like most of our raids, and he wanted to let the best candidates know first. Neither of us knew the company well, of course. When I said I would he looked at me for a long moment, the candlelight flickering on one side of his face. It was not just Maud who was our unacknowledged companion now but that frightened little animal. “Are you sure?” he asked.
‘“I want to,” I lied. In a way I did, I wanted to show him I was more than just that little animal. I also thought I was going to die anyway so better get it over with before the extent of my funk was discovered. The only other surviving platoon commander was pretty badly knocked up, having been in the front line longer than I had, and it wasn’t fair to ask yet more of him. He was killed the following day, as it happened. Trench mortar.
‘So I led the patrol out that night. Eight of us, all volunteers, divided into two snatch parties and with Sergeant White as my second-in-command. We didn’t have to cut holes in the wire – there wasn’t any to speak of by then, retreat being so fluid. We just crawled out in two parallel groups, close enough to communicate.
‘We didn’t know how far we had to go, of course, because we had only a rough idea where the Hun were and the ground at night is always very different to the topography you think you remember from the day. The odd flare or star shell went up from both sides and then we had to freeze, face down in the mud. You feel so hideously exposed in the glare which seems to last for ages. My buttocks quivered so much I was afraid they might be visible to the enemy.’ The colonel laughed and coughed. ‘Curiously, I didn’t feel frightened just then. Tense, of course, anxious, but concentrated on getting the job done. I’d left my fear behind. Or so I thought.
‘When the last flare was fading I made myself raise my head a fraction. I saw the outline of a helmet about thirty yards ahead. It didn’t move and could have been a corpse but it looked upright and we knew there was a network of old supply trenches in that area. When the flare had died completely I crawled over to where I reckoned Sergeant White must be and tapped him on the leg. Turned out not to be his leg and not a living one, either. But I found him soon after – or, rather, he found me. Turned out I’d crawled ahead of him and he
grabbed my foot, which was a bit of a shock. Thought it was the dead chap at first.’ The colonel laughed and coughed again. ‘Anyhow, we agreed to carry on forward until one of us saw something close enough, in which case he’d shout “Now!” and we’d all get up and rush them. I crawled back to my team and passed the word that it was likely to be soon.
‘It was less than another minute. They must have heard or seen something because they opened up with rifles, machine-guns and flares, luckily a bit to our right. I think we all shouted “Now!” Thereafter it was a daze of lights, bangs, tracer, shouts and screams, plus a few crumps as our Mills bombs got into their trench and a lot of stuff in reply which fortunately went over our heads because we’d got amongst them by then.
‘Raids are very short-lived, very confusing. Every man comes back with a different story even though they were only feet apart. Same with your dog-fights, I imagine. Anyway, this was a success. We all got back and we nabbed two Huns. Lucky devils, they’d be out of it soon. All except me, that is. Every man got back except me.’
‘You were captured? Injured?’
The colonel shook his head. ‘Still in my hole, in a funk. Couldn’t move, you see. I shouted “Now!” with the others and went to get up but my legs wouldn’t move, I just couldn’t make myself. It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel them, as if I was paralysed, I just couldn’t make myself do it. It was all going on around me in the dark, people running past shouting, flashes and shots, then running back towards our lines, lots of random fire by then, flares going up, and I just lay there willing myself to move and utterly impotent. No one saw me, they didn’t know I wasn’t amongst them until they got back.’
‘So how did you get back?’
The colonel held out his hand for the lighter, tamped down his pipe, relit it and sipped his wine. ‘Courage is keeping going, that’s the essence. Not doing anything special or daring, though it includes acts of valour and self-sacrifice. It’s putting one foot in front of the other when everything in your body is telling you not to, or when you feel so weak and weary you just want to give up. Same in civilian life: it takes courage sometimes just to go on with the ordinary. In a sense, it’s easier in war because it’s more defined. For me, as I suspect for most soldiers, it was waiting to go over the top that really took it out of you. Once you were up and over you were caught up in the mayhem, like a maul in a rugby match. Ever played rugby? Well, like British Bulldog, then. Play that in the mess, don’t you?
‘But the worst bit was the waiting, knowing it was going to happen, looking at your watch and counting down to the whistle, feeling empty in your stomach and not knowing whether your legs would move when ordered. That’s the hardest thing, you see, being in the front line of the infantry when ordered to advance into fire. It’s the essence of infantry work, what you have to do to win battles, but nothing in land war is more frightening or more dangerous. Your equivalent of low-level attacks into flak.’
‘You’ve heard about them, I guess, sir?’
‘Another thing about courage is that it’s finite. Like energy, it gets used up. You only have so much. I was already living on a courage overdraft when I went to ground that night and somehow, in that little hollow, I reached my overdraft limit. When I went to get up, there was nothing left.’
There was another silence. The colonel’s pauses made it difficult to tell whether he was waiting to resume or waiting for a response, or had simply ceased to be aware of his listener. There was still no more music but in the silence Frank heard Vanessa laugh, a twist of the knife. ‘But you got back?’ he persisted.
‘Frank got me back. They realised I was missing, of course, didn’t know whether dead or injured but Sergeant White knew roughly where I’d gone to ground. He offered to go out again but Frank insisted and crawled out himself. It was more dangerous then than when we’d gone out the first time because the enemy was thoroughly alerted. I was still in my funk hole, didn’t know what to do, hadn’t moved an inch, when I heard movement behind me, realised it must be someone from our own lines. Strangely, that did it – I found I could move again. I’d just started to slither round when he found me. We were both lying down, face to face. “You all right?” he whispered.
‘“Fine,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
‘He patted me on the helmet. “Don’t be.”
‘“I funked it. Couldn’t move. I’m so sorry.”
‘“Follow me.”
‘When we got back to our trench I heard him say to Sergeant White, “Concussion. Be OK when he’s had a rest. I’ll send him back to Battalion HQ with the prisoners, detail two men to go as guards.”
‘When we returned to the dugout I tried to explain to Frank again but he cut me short. “Forget it, these things happen. Main thing now is to get the prisoners back quickly so they can get them to Brigade for interrogation. No need to hurry back. That’s probably all the action we’re getting for the night. Get some sleep somewhere.”
‘That was the last I saw of your father. We delivered the two prisoners after the usual mishaps of trench travel at night, nearly getting shot by our own HQ company sentries. I had a feeling he intended me to stay out of the line and be rested and was perhaps sending a separate message to the CO to that effect, so I didn’t hang around to hear it but set off back again with the two guards. Not that I wanted to go back, of course, but I couldn’t bear to feel I’d let Frank down. Especially as I’d married Maud.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Strange thing about guilt is that you can become possessive about it, hoarding it, treasuring it because it makes you feel special. You, uniquely among all humanity, bear this burden. It’s corrosive, like too much grief, turning you inwards on yourself rather than outwards towards others. In the end I had no relief until I told Maud everything. She had known and loved him and if she could forgive me, I reckoned, then I could begin to accept myself. Frank was the love of her life, you see, never me. But I accepted that, too.’
‘When was he killed, my father?’
‘He was wrong about a quiet rest of the night. They punished us for the raid with a bout of shelling. The company HQ dugout, where Frank would normally have been, was untouched but he’d remained in the section of trench where we’d come back and it was that corner that was hit. Him and Sergeant White. I got back to find myself in charge of the company. Ironic, eh?’
‘So it wasn’t your fault? You didn’t need to feel too guilty?’
‘Chance that he’d stayed there, yes, but he wouldn’t have been there at all if he hadn’t rescued me. His body wasn’t – it wasn’t a direct hit. The shell landed just behind, collapsing the trench wall even though it was a dud, didn’t go off. Neither he nor Sergeant White had a mark on them. It must have passed very close and the over-pressure burst their lungs, or the vacuum collapsed them. Better way to go than most, I guess. I shouldn’t have kept this’ – he touched the lighter with his fingertip, pushing it back to Frank – ‘but I wanted something to remember him by and doubted his next of kin would have any use for it. Pleased to be proved wrong after all this time.’ He smiled at Frank as he got up, with obvious effort. ‘Bladder calls. One of the crosses of age. Don’t get old, Frank.’
He shuffled towards the door. He was old, thought Frank, old before his time. He might only be in his fifties but he looked ten years older. Perhaps it was the wine. Frank remained seated, his fingers curled round his wine glass. Listening to the colonel’s story, he had neglected to drink and now, listening to the silence from the drawing room across the hall, he neglected the story. Were they choosing more music, kneeling together on the floor? Were they on the sofa with each other, talking quietly and intimately in what he imagined to be the preliminary to mutual seduction? He couldn’t bring himself to blame her; Patrick was everything he assumed a woman would want. He didn’t blame Patrick, either. He was jealous of her attention going elsewhere but not of Patrick himself. They were right for each other. He was envious, that was all, envious that it happe
ned to others, not to him.
The door opened. ‘Come on, what are you sitting here for? Come and dance.’ She was flushed and smiling, her outstretched bare arm resting on the door handle.
Patrick appeared behind her. ‘Better not give the Moose ideas. Time we got moving. May have a busy day tomorrow.’
Frank stood, picking up the lighter. ‘Sorry, we’ve been talking.’
She folded her arms. ‘War talk, I suppose?’
‘The last war.’
‘Makes a change. Next time we dance. Promise?’
Pleased, he nodded and smiled. ‘Sure thing.’
The back tyre of Patrick’s bike was flat. They pumped it but it wouldn’t hold air, so they had to push the bikes back to base. It was almost an hour’s walk and very dark except for the sky to the southeast which was punctured by flashes accompanied by the crump of bombs and bark of ack-ack.
‘Dover or Folkestone getting a pasting,’ said Patrick. ‘Probably by the Yanks, getting the wrong side of the Channel.’
For a few seconds the memory of Tony walked with them. Frank realised he was forgetting him already.
‘Seems a nice old boy,’ said Patrick. ‘Knows his wine. Generous with it, too.’
‘He told me he knew my father, my real father, in the last war. He was with him just before he was killed.’
‘Well, that’s something to write home about. War throws up extraordinary coincidences. I knew a chap who ditched in the North Sea and was picked up by his own brother, who was in the Navy.’