The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  ‘It wasn’t quite what I expected either,’ Deerman said as they walked back to their haversacks and damp blanket. ‘None of us like to think we’re slugging it out over such a harmless piece of ground, do we?’

  Fielder shrugged. How could he tell him how appalled he was at the visual insignificance of it all? How at times he had imagined himself at the forefront of some big battle, crawling along with the other stretcher-bearers – cool-headed, dependable Fielder: a person to help with the morale of the others, a real ‘brick’, and brave too. Fielder, who would go out under fire to drag back the injured. And the landscape of this was a gargantuan plain, a Marathon, rolling plains, rolling hills. Not this insignificant little field. Were men really going through hell for that? But, if he had known, would it have made any difference? Surely compassion was compassion, and if it wasn’t then what was it?

  Deerman saw his look, guessed. ‘If it’s any help Fielder, I was taken aback too. But out here, it’s a case of accept and survive. Anyway, come on. I have to teach you the ropes.’

  Fielder held back for a moment, then, pulling his helmet straight, followed him, unquestioning.

  The rest of the day was one of routine, of learning. All the time Fielder stayed with Deerman, trailing after him like a small child. Then, after an evening meal of bread and jam and a mug of tea, which tasted like petrol, they prepared to settle down to sleep, jammed up against the other men. It had been a short day, cold, gloomy and raining, but Fielder had been too engrossed to notice the privations, or, indeed, the movement up the line.

  It was still dark when Miller kicked at their feet.

  ‘Come on, we’m on the move again,’ he said.

  Instead of the lethargic routine, there was a strangely suppressed energy as the men packed and made humorous asides to one another. Then followed a miserable walk in ankle-deep mud, so that, what was in fact less than a mile, took the time of several to cover. Boots sucked obscenely, became dislodged, and brought the line to an abrupt halt many times. And, for Fielder, there was the same unreality, for all he could see was the dingy outline of Deerman’s haversack and cape, besides the squelch and slop of mud and the clank of rifles. At last, they came to a wider trench, where there was a noticeable confusion of movement. They were told to stay where they were. Then, almost half an hour later, while it was still dark, a lieutenant came down and spoke with their sergeant, who, seconds later, turned round to them.

  ‘Right then lads,’ he began, ‘we’re going to give old Fritz a surprise in exactly quarter of an hour. We’ve been drafted in to help ‘B’ company take the line, so you can show ‘em what we’re made of, can’t you!’

  There were several answering ‘whoops!’

  ‘Does he mean ‘A’ company or the Germans?’ Fielder whispered.

  Deerman looked at him kindly, mouthed ‘both’ then waved slightly for him to stay quiet.

  As the sergeant went up the line, Fielder looked around. The men were leaning against the sandbags, some dragging on cigarettes, which they stubbed out quickly when the sergeant and a second lieutenant reappeared.

  Then the command, ‘Fix bayonets!’ A clattering as blades were fixed.

  Fielder caught Miller’s eye. They stared at each other, Fielder feeling this man’s vulnerability like a shock.

  Then the command, ‘One step forward!’ and the replying clump and scuff of boots on the fire step.

  Fielder felt his bowels contract, felt his heart start to bang in his ears. He looked again at Miller who was standing with his forehead resting on the sandbags. Other men were staring up into a pitch sky where no stars showed. No-one dared turn to the man standing next to him. The silence was immense. Then the whistle down the line, men spewing out over the top with bayonets thrust like dead steel as if hungry for the cut and thrust, independent of the soldiers whose faces showed bitten-down terror as they launched out. Then the mechanical stutter of machine gun fire and screams – those awful gutting screams, which nothing could prepare you for. Fielder felt himself jolting with fear behind Deerman who turned round to him.

  ‘Just keep hold of the stretcher and follow me when they send the shout up,’ he said evenly. ‘Don’t do anything rash–’

  The shout went up.

  Deerman scrambled up with the bulky stretcher as though hit with a powerful spring, dragging Fielder after him. It was a scene of hell. All around, a wild confusion of cavorting sea-like mud, shrieking explosions, screams and shrieks, and men who dropped down in front of them as though in sudden fatal faints. Volleys of Very lights shot over, bursting like insane fireworks; fountains of earth and fire flew up in front, behind, all around, yet still they urged on through. Fielder kept his eyes trained on Deerman’s shoulders, the whites of his knuckles showing in the dark as he gripped insanely onto the stretcher handles as they slithered over to a pile of men. Tripping over the blooded legs of a shell-torn man, he stared down in disbelief. The man’s face was missing; it was a jellied, pickled mass. Then the image from the art gallery came to him like a blow: the blistered inhuman face. Deerman helped Fielder up, tried to screen him as he vomited. They forced on through the slime.

  They reached the first heap of men shot down by the machine gun fire, whose position was now ablaze, and dragged a man who was gargling with pain onto the stretcher, and turning back, went as fast as they dared to the trench. Then back again. There were several groups of bearers running back and forth, like helpless ants over the ground, which was littered with cleaved and bloody bones, like heaps of waste from a butcher’s shop. To one side, a man was sitting up on his knees scrabbling at sightless, bloody eyes, screaming. Fielder had to turn away; the stretcher was full. He couldn’t help him. Suddenly, the feeling they were about to be flayed to bits hit him and his knees gave. More than anything, he wanted to crouch into the ground; hide. An eerie, inhuman moaning filled the air, and a lolling, veering barrel of explosives blasted into their line, throwing him upwards. He landed on his back, violently winded, staring up in disbelieve as bits of earth and debris spat down. He rolled over to see the stretcher, the soldier and Deerman still in front of him. He dragged himself to his knees. Deerman was attending to the patient.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Deerman’s steady voice came through the barrage. Fielder nodded. ‘Then help me get him back in.’

  For how long he moved in this nightmare he could not tell, but after a dozen or so carries to the aid post, someone grabbed the end of the stretcher, shouted ‘Move!’ and they lurched forward. From then on, it was back and forward from casualty to trench, with only the other bearer’s sharp orders keeping him from madness.

  Sometime later, and nearly sobbing with exhaustion, Fielder realised the barrage was over, but still they were sliding back and forth, as soldiers tried to crawl past. The air was choking with ammonia and shell dust. He wanted to tear at the collar of his tunic, get good clean air. At that moment, a flare arched over gracefully, showing their work was done; the ground was cleared, but there was no sign of Deerman.

  Stumbling into the trench, Fielder swallowed a rum issue someone held out and slid down the sandbags, gazing unseeing at the walls, aware only of faceless corpses staring back. He closed his eyes. His breath was short. There were loud voices and commands all around, but he sat still, unable to move.

  ‘Deerman?’ he called sometime later, getting to his feet.

  There was no sign of him. The possibility Deerman could have been killed came to him. Surely, that was not possible. But he realised it was. Who had grabbed the end of the stretcher, and why?

  ‘Where’s Deerman?’ he asked of each group as he made his way down the trench. Hunger and fear were making him nauseous. ‘Deerman, you know, tall, fair-haired stretcher-bearer.’

  The others stared vaguely at him. He spotted Miller further up the line; he was folding a blanket and cape, target-eyed. His lips blue.

  ‘Have you seen Deerman?’ Fielder demanded. Miller stared at him as though he had never seen him before. He folded t
he blanket over and over again, then shook it out and started refolding it again.

  Fielder pushed on. Dots of intense orange speckled the trench sides, growing deeper with hard inhalations. Another shock of crazy green light blazed over.

  ‘Gangway!’ a voice yelled. Two stretcher-bearers jogged past with a man supine, his face screwed up as if in a silent, deadly rage. Fielder stared after him, saw the hair was dark, not fair. A brazier caught further along the line, flared with a blood-orange festoon of sparks, marking dark outlines of men. There was a crossfire of loud voices. No-one seemed entirely sure what to do. Still he asked. ‘Deerman?’ Still the shake of heads, the incomprehension. By the time he caught up with ‘A’ company’s stretcher-bearers in their little ramshackle dugout, he was almost mute with exhaustion.

  ‘Down there mate,’ said one of the bearers to his question.

  Deerman was sitting in the midst of several bearers, staring distractedly to one side. There was blood and matter down his tunic and arms, and his helmet was pushed back from his neck. Fielder crouched beside him.

  ‘Fielder?’ Deerman asked, trying to get to his feet. Fielder steadied him.

  It seemed a long way back to their packs, manoeuvring past the straggled lines of men. Deerman walked awkwardly, as though drunk. If anyone, including themselves, had asked why they had moved out of the dugout they would not have been able to say, but it seemed an unspoken understanding that that is what they would do.

  At last they found their things and Deerman slumped down, turned to rest his face against the ice-glistening sandbags. Fielder turned away, but then remembered the blanket. He unrolled it and covered Deerman, who almost immediately fell into a deep sleep. Fielder sat against him, trying to share some of his body warmth. Nico had followed them and curled up against him. Fielder felt into Deerman’s pack and found the dog cape. He tucked it around the animal that grumbled with satisfaction and gave a thump of its tail. The three of them lay still and soon sleep overtook Fielder.

  He awoke before dawn to find the blanket and another draped over him and Deerman, with the dog, still and covered by his cape. Just for a moment, Fielder felt strangely at ease as his body relaxed.

  The next morning, the extent of ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies’ losses were ascertained. Half were left able-bodied, just over a quarter were wounded, and the rest were dead. The fact that ‘B’ company had occupied the German trench seventy yards away, gave Battalion HQ cause to wire through the success of the attack. As the general spoke of the great gain, a stray shell landed in no man’s land and a fresh corpse was flung onto the lip of the German parapet, sliding face-first to land at the bottom of a trench beside a soldier who was trying to eat his morning ration.

  The British line was told to go back to Base Camp and get ‘cleaned up’.

  ‘Thanks for looking after Nico last night,’ Deerman said as he walked with Fielder along the wider communication trench. ‘That was good of you.’

  Fielder smiled and patted the dog that was walking solemnly by his side.

  ‘And thanks for the extra blanket,’ Fielder said.

  Deerman laughed. ‘I took the liberty I am afraid, it was so bloody cold last night.’

  ‘You don’t need to apologise. It was what I wanted.’

  Deerman gave him a small interested glance. ‘Good.’ He hesitated. ‘We could use the stretcher-bearer’s dugout, you know...if it gets too cold.’

  ‘Only if it gets too cold.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They walked on in silence.

  ‘I hope we’ll all get a bath at base,’ Deerman said.

  Fielder peered down at himself, saw own uniform smeared and caked. They both said at once, ‘And that the water’s hot.’

  They laughed, a companionable easiness descending over them.

  ‘Do you want to talk about the attack?’ Deerman asked at length, turning round to him.

  Fielder took off his helmet, scratched his head. ‘Was that a fairly usual... I mean–’

  ‘It’s about what you’d expect,’ Deerman said quickly. ‘I’m sorry we were separated.’

  Fielder met his look. He had wanted to ask, ‘Where did you go? Where were you?’ But he knew that sounded pathetically selfish, childish even.

  ‘You were rather thrown in at the deep end,’ Deerman continued.

  ‘It’s a war,’ Fielder said. ‘There’s no other way it could be.’ He undid his breast pocket, pulled out two Woodbines, offering one to Deerman who shared the same match behind cupped hands. For a second their eyes held: dark blue on greenish-brown.

  ‘There’s usually some good grub at Base,’ Deerman announced quickly as they drew apart. ‘At least something that resembles food.’

  Later, after baths and dressing in clean, deloused uniforms and eating quite reasonable food, they settled down for a game of cards with several other bearers. Fielder was pleased that he was seen as Deerman’s partner, his stretcher-bearer chum. This thing, ‘chumming’, they called it, where groups or pairs were known to be best mates and unassailable, and the way he had been accepted so easily into this role, made him feel good. His usual questing mind started working on this idea, but this time he knew it was different – out here, there were different speeds to friendships, to life, and instinctively he knew to stop analysing it. He looked to Deerman; saw his natural gregarious nature, his obvious kindness, and his heart did something like a flip, which he clamped down on immediately, hoping none of the other card players had noticed. He shoved another Woodbine in his mouth and pretended there was nothing more important on his mind than winning this game of cards.

  It was only later that he noticed Deerman’s hand starting to shake. He looked rung-out. When he realised that Fielder had noticed, he clenched his hands, trying to stop the obvious juddering.

  ‘I get this at times,’ he said.

  ‘You’re exhausted.’

  ‘I need to turn in.’

  ‘If you want some time to yourself–’

  ‘No, I could do with the company,’ Deerman interrupted. They left together, with Nico clattering after them.

  They lay down on the mattresses thrown down in lines in the long, but surprisingly warm, building. Fielder tried to read, propped up against the wall. Deerman was lying on his side, Nico curled up at his feet, snoring noisily.

  ‘When’s lights-out?’ Fielder asked.

  There was no answer. He looked over to Deerman and saw that he was already asleep. Fielder smiled. He looked at Deerman’s profile, enjoyed the view of the handsome face, the fair hair falling over his forehead, his right arm stretched out from the beneath covers, relaxed. He felt a swirl of emotions in his mind and sat back against the wall, thinking. His life was changing almost by the hour. This was not how he had expected his life at the Front to be, not one bit. Something immense was happening.

  The next day consisted of the usual drills and inspections. At regular intervals, Fielder looked for Deerman when they became detached, noticed how Deerman would find him out and sit with him, as a good friend at school might. The base camp was in a flat, featureless plain but the fields were at least still green or newly ploughed, and the few trees were intact. They were lodged in basic wooden huts with bare wooden floors, over which, boots clattered noisily.

  ‘We’re going to have a game of cards, will you join us?’ Deerman had asked that evening. Fielder nodded eagerly. They sat around a low table with some of the other bearers, with Nico curled up on a blanket at Deerman’s feet. It was something Fielder noticed: Nico always had something comfortable to lie on, regardless of where they were – it was the sort of regard for an animal he had never seen before.

  The cards were dealt and they all grouped around. Deerman tried manoeuvring his neck and back to ease the strains and pulls in his young-old joints and muscles, heard the apparent cracking of joints when he rolled his shoulders and felt the stinging in his raw, split hands. Fielder looked at him.

  ‘We’ve had some fairly long carries recently,
’ Deerman explained, and knew Fielder would unfortunately soon know what he meant.

  The game proceeded. Deerman glanced at Fielder who was in profile, listening carefully to what one of the other bearers was explaining about food rations. The light from the lamp shone on his face and Deerman gazed with interest. Looked at the straight nose, the high – yes, high – cheekbones, saw the touch of early evening stubble on Fielder’s jaw and the slightly overshot upper lip. Yes, there was a physical attraction, and that did not surprise him; he was at ease with these feelings, but this was something beyond it, as well as.

  Later they were in the local cafe, which, even they as privates, were allowed to use in the evening.

  ‘Come and talk to me,’ Deerman said, and they sat down at a rickety table by the fire. Nico manoeuvred himself between them, but gallantly offered his paw to Fielder, who shook it.

  ‘Couldn’t you have been an officer, or something?’ Fielder asked. ‘It would have been easier for you, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I’m the something,’ Deerman replied. ‘Seriously, I didn’t want to kill anyone.’

  ‘Well, how about being a doctor then, with the RAMC?’

  Deerman looked at him oddly. ‘Where the sciences are concerned, there’s not a great deal going on in the upper storey, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But with your–’

  ‘Background? This is what I chose, Fielder. Not chose, exactly, but it was the best of all options.’

  ‘Don’t your family mind?’

  ‘Yes, but my middle brother’s doing the officer bit – he’s a major.’ Deerman moved back, tried to stretch his legs and his knees cracked painfully. ‘So why did you chose this?’

  ‘I didn’t. I was conscripted.’

  ‘I mean, choose stretcher-bearing.’

  Fielder thought, then. ‘I couldn’t do the bayoneting stuff.’