The Lambs

by Peter James Cottrell

  ‘Hey, I think I’ve had enough circuits and bumps, as you put it, to last a lifetime,’ said Fitzpatrick as he scooped up the last sandwich. ‘Anyhow, I heard most of you guys don’t last a week. I can see why now!’

  ‘Maybe, but I’ve been in this game for two years now. I was a sapper before the war, digging latrines and playing with explosives mostly, until I transferred to the RFC. Now, I get to sleep in a bed most nights – a bed with clean sheets and blankets – and three hot meals a day. There’s even hot water to wash and shave. Believe me, it beats dog biscuits, bully beef and the smell of your own armpits!’

  Flynn scratched his stubbly chin, ruminating. It was hard to disagree. Despite the queasy, gut-wrenching terror of their flight, he had to admit that it had been exhilarating; in hindsight, fun even. ‘It all seems a bit bloody dangerous, Mac,’ he finally replied.

  ‘And the trenches aren’t?’ He had a point. ‘When was the last time you had a night out to a café? I tell you, the mademoiselles love a flyer.’ He was grinning now, warming to his theme. ‘Look, none of us know when we’re going to cop it in this war so if I’m going to cop it I want to do it after a good night’s sleep in clean clothes and with a full belly. Any old fool can be hungry and uncomfortable.’ In the warped logic of the war, Flynn knew he made sense.

  ‘Do you think there’ll be more?’ asked Fitzpatrick.

  ‘What? Aeroplanes?’ answered Flynn, looking puzzled.

  ‘No, sandwiches,’ said the American as he rubbed his greasy hands down the front of his filthy tunic, eyeing the empty plate. There was a whizz-bang as shells began to fall outside in a nearby field. They could see them through the window. Horses neighed, shying and bolting as their drivers darted for cover.

  ‘Somehow your offer suddenly seems tempting,’ said Flynn.

  ‘What? Of more sandwiches?’ said Fitzpatrick but both sergeants ignored him, shaking their heads as dust cascaded from the ceiling like a biblical plague of dandruff.

  ‘You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve managed to make contact with your units,’ announced the padre, re-entering the room. ‘Your squadron’s sending a car, Sergeant McCudden. It should be here within the hour.’ Then he shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m afraid it’s not such good news for you chaps, though. I managed to get through to your battalion and the gentleman I spoke to said you’d have to walk.’

  ‘Poor bloody infantry,’ muttered McCudden, loud enough for them to hear.

  ‘They’re expecting you back by morning,’ added the padre, adopting his best, professionally comforting smile, the one he’d obviously been taught at seminary school. Then he beamed unaffectedly. ‘Time for more tea and sandwiches.’ A salvo of shells came down nearer, scabbing plaster from the cracked walls, making the padre wince.

  ‘It’s only harassing fire, Father. Try and ignore it or you’ll go stark raving mad. It’s the sons of bitches you can’t hear that’ll do for you, not these ones,’ said Fitzpatrick, doling out advice like a grizzled veteran, seemingly oblivious of the man’s medal ribbon. The irony wasn’t lost on the padre, who resumed his professionally concerned smile before disappearing once more. ‘Seems a decent enough sort for a Prod.’

  ‘How do you know he’s a Protestant?’ asked Flynn.

  ‘Gotta be, ain’t he? He’s English. Aren’t all English God-botherers Prods?’

  ‘Tell you what, chaps. Why don’t I give you a lift back to your unit? Then at least you’ll be able to get some decent kip rather than spend all night wandering about,’ said McCudden.

  ‘It’s a plan,’ agreed Flynn just as the shelling eased off and the soldier returned with some blankets and pillows. McCudden built a nest in one of the deckchairs and began to drift off, as did Fitzpatrick, leaving Flynn alone with his thoughts and cooling tea. He wondered where Mary was. He missed her. She’d written but he hadn’t read her letter. Foolishly he’d put it in his pocket to read after the raid. They weren’t supposed to carry personal items in case the Germans learnt something important from them. He didn’t think Mary knew much that would shake the empire to its foundations but he’d never know now. The Germans had taken it when he’d been captured. One of them would be reading it now. His cheeks flushed. He hoped there was nothing embarrassing in it, which was foolish really as the chances of him ever meeting the German who’d read it were slim to non-existent. Fitzpatrick was snoring and Flynn felt his head nod as he finally crumpled across the table in a deep, dreamless sleep.

  ‘It’s here,’ said McCudden, shaking him awake. It seemed like moments. The driver, a very clean RFC corporal, disdainfully watched the two filthy infantrymen climb into his immaculate Model T Ford, followed by McCudden.

  ‘It’s almost like the fair’s come to town,’ announced Flynn as he stretched out in the back.

  ‘What fair?’ asked Fitzpatrick, banging his chest with his fist. He regretted wolfing down quite so many sandwiches. He was looking around. ‘My pa told me to be careful with carney folks.’

  ‘There isn’t a fair, you eejit,’ said Flynn, playing up his Irish accent.

  ‘Then why’d you say there was one?’ he asked petulantly.

  ‘I just mean that I’ve flown in an aeroplane for the first time ever and now I get to go in a car. It’s like a bank holiday. All I need is a ride in a train and a trip to the seaside and I’ll be made up!’ quipped Flynn, then he noticed the fields and trees, almost for the first time. ‘You know, it looks so different from back here, the countryside. Whenever we’re on a march I just stare at the fella in front’s back and switch off. I don’t suppose sappers do much marching? Me and the fellas back in the battalion, we must have marched the length and breadth of this bloody country and, you know, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it!’

  ‘That’s what I love about flying,’ McCudden chipped in from the front passenger seat. ‘When I’m up there,’ he pointed at the sky, ‘it’s like you’re free and, let me tell you, at eleven thousand feet the view is, well, out of this world.’ There was a faraway look on the pilot’s face as if transported to a happier place. Fitzpatrick began to sing, belting out a chorus of ‘The Ragtime Infantry’. The driver didn’t look amused. Flynn and McCudden joined in. ‘We cannot march, we cannot shoot; what bloody use are we …’

  They had lapsed into silence by the time the car jerked to a halt outside yet another anonymous brick farmhouse, attracting the attention of curious onlookers. There was a sign. It read ‘HQ, 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers’. They were home.

  ‘Out you hop, then,’ said the driver, ignoring Flynn’s rank as he skipped out and opened the door. He was keen to be rid of the ill-smelling fusiliers who’d made such a mess of the back of his car.

  ‘I meant what I said – look me up if you’re ever in the area,’ called McCudden, waving cheerilyas the car sped away.

  ‘And where the bloody hell do you think you’ve been?’ bellowed Clee belligerently. Instinctively, they braced, spinning around to confront Clee in all his neat, compact and immaculate splendour. His boots were unnaturally clean; his moustache bristled; his stick quivered beneath his arm as his all-seeing eyes seemed to scour their souls. ‘I should have you two shot for bloody desertion!’ he growled, making Flynn begin to regret escaping captivity. Then Clee’s hard eyes softened, ever so slightly, and he stepped forward. The mask slipped, revealing the genuine concern beneath. ‘Where’s young Doyle?’

  ‘Copped it, sir,’ said Flynn. ‘We got caught. Doyle copped it when we made a break for it. Didn’t he, Séamus?’ He didn’t see any point in elaborating, in telling Clee that it had been a British bomb that had killed him. What would be the point? Doyle was gone. The truth wouldn’t bring him back and he seriously doubted that it would make his parents feel any better about their loss. He could tell from the look on the American’s face that he agreed. Clee nodded, guessing that there was much left unsaid. Then the mask was back.

  ‘You’d better report to Sergeant Devlin so he can finish his report.’ Flynn felt a surge of relie
f that Devlin had made it. ‘Then, I’ve no doubt Captain Murphy will want to speak to you.’ They dithered, unsure what to do, where to go. ‘Well?’ sniffed Clee. ‘What you waiting for? Get away!’

  They found Devlin outside an old barn, a Woodbine hanging limply from his lips as he dawdled with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He looked pale and drawn, distinctly out of sorts. His sunken eyes were fixed on the ground at his feet like a man awaiting his own hanging. Crushing the cigarette beneath his boot, he turned to enter the building when he noticed Flynn and Fitzpatrick approaching.

  ‘Thank Christ ye made it!’ he gasped, genuinely pleased to see them. ‘Let’s get ye inside and get yous sorted.’ He ushered them inside. The room stank of kerosene and sweat.

  ‘Doesn’t the army love paperwork?’ muttered Mahon, newly elevated to the heady heights of Company Quartermaster Sergeant, from behind a makeshift desk piled with forms. An old copy of the Irish Times lay tea-stained beside them, announcing the executions of the Easter rebels’ leaders. Captain Murphy was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘So where’s Terry?’ asked Flynn, half-expecting to find his friend hanging around in the makeshift company office. Mahon became unnaturally engrossed in his forms, as if trying to avoid eye contact. Even Devlin seemed strange as the atmosphere in the room thickened, like lead on Flynn’s shoulders. ‘Where’s Terry?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Devlin quietly.

  ‘Gone? What do you mean gone? Terry wouldn’t do a runner. He must be with that Carmichael woman,’ replied Flynn.

  ‘No, Kevin, he’s gone. Him and the Duke …’ Devlin was staring listlessly into the middle distance as if trying to work through a problem in his head. ‘Damnedest thing. They must have got lost getting back, set off a flare coming through our wire. Jerry machine gun got them. They’re dead, Kevin, both of them.’

  CHAPTER 21

  British rear area, Hulluch, north-west France

  Flynn woke with a start, his ears still ringing with the sound of phantom guns. His mouth felt like sandpaper and tasted like something had died in it. He was drenched in sweat; stale whiskey sweat. It had been Devlin’s idea to christen his stripes. He had no idea why on earth Captain Murphy had made him a sergeant. Some people would have loved the power and he could picture Fallon strutting like a cockerel if anyone had been stupid enough to make him up. Instead, Flynn just saw responsibility and he’d already had enough of that. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Doyle’s bloody carcass smeared across the grass or Gallagher and the Duke floundering on the wire. Whiskey helped, blotting out his dreams, but the mornings always hurt: a dull ache inside his head. At least he didn’t have to do fatigues any more, only supervise them, and he saw another side to Devlin and Mahon; a side he’d never seen when he was in the ranks and now he understood why Mahon sometimes buried himself in his paperwork. It was somewhere to hide.

  The latrines were somewhere to hide too when he was on a work evasion scheme. He’d washed and shaved, cutting his chin in several places before relaxing on one of the rudimentary thunderboxes, doing his best to keep his boots clear of the thick brown porridge seeping around his feet. A work party marched by, picks and shovels shouldered. This was their rest period. Flynn didn’t see why because they seemed to spend most of it back in the line repairing wire or raiding the enemy. He looked at his wristwatch – spoils of yet another raid – before turning his face to the warm June sun. Work could wait.

  ‘If ye’ve not got a sense of humour, ye shouldn’t have joined,’ he remembered Devlin saying when they were recruits, and he made a mental note to look up ‘sense of humour’ in the dictionary when he got a chance, just to check whether they were both working off the same definition. Then he picked up a piece of old newspaper and skimmed it over, not understanding a word. It was in French: blurred words in cheap ink on cheap paper but it would do for what he had in mind. Surely The Wipers Times would have been a more appropriate publication for the task.

  Then he took out Mary’s letter, the words leaping from the page as he read. She was sorry but she couldn’t walk out with a British soldier, not after what British soldiers had done in Dublin. For a moment he toyed with the idea of using it instead of the newspaper but the proper place for ‘Dear Johns’ was the company noticeboard. It wasn’t as if her letter would be alone: there were literally dozens of them as long-cherished sweethearts dumped their boyfriends, sick of waiting. Succumbing to tradition, he opted for the newspaper, as oblivious of the passers-by as they were of him. He’d learnt a long time ago that privacy was rare in the army and to be honest he was amazed that Cronin, or should he say Dempsey, had managed to get away with her deception for so long. He’d just finished when he noticed Fitzpatrick sauntering over, carrying two steaming mugs of tea. He was wearing corporal stripes, incongruously new and clean on his shabby old tunic.

  ‘Here you go, Sarge,’ said Fitzpatrick. ‘Get this down you,’ he added, seemingly sickeningly fresh despite consuming copious quantities of whiskey with Flynn and Devlin the night before.

  ‘Can’t a man take a crap in peace?’ grumbled Flynn, taking one of the mugs. Fitzpatrick was right; it made him feel better although he couldn’t resist commenting that it tasted like shit.

  ‘Hey, that was crafted by my own fair hand,’ protested the American.

  ‘Not literally, I hope?’ replied Flynn with a face that could curdle milk.

  ‘Hey, don’t take the piss out of my special Irish breakfast tea,’ he said.

  ‘Why’s that, Séamus, because there’d be no flavour left if you did?’

  ‘So what do you think of the big push, Sarge?’ asked Fitzpatrick, changing the subject.

  ‘Well, army biscuits do have a habit of blocking you up, but this tea of yours should certainly help.’

  ‘Not your frickin’ bowels! I mean the big push – you know, the knockout blow we’ve all been waiting for, the thing everyone’s talking about, the thing that will end this darned war. You know, that frickin’ big push!’ said Fitzpatrick.

  ‘Séamus, my boy, people have been going on about a big flaming push ever since we got here! Jesus, do you remember when we joined up? They said it’d all be over by Christmas!’ said Flynn between sips of tea.

  ‘Sure they did, but no one said which year, did they?’ answered Fitzpatrick. It was an old joke, guaranteed to raise a laugh from the most jaded of squaddies. ‘OK, very funny, but seriously, though, this is different. The Frogs have been taking a pasting down in Verdun since February. The place sounds like a meat grinder; those guys have lost thousands. Old Hackett says they can’t last much longer unless we do something … and soon!’ He was referring to the massive battle that was bleeding the French army white and although they didn’t know it, it was bleeding the Germans white too.

  ‘And?’ asked Flynn.

  ‘And that is precisely why we need to give old Kaiser Bill a smack on the nose,’ enthused Fitzpatrick. ‘Just think. If Jerry’s burnt himself out against the Frogs then it’ll be a walkover!’

  ‘Don’t you think that if everyone is talking about this big push that Fritz will know all about it too, eh?’

  Fitzpatrick’s smile wavered slightly. ‘OK, so we won’t have the element of surprise. Maybe Division’s been pulling all these stunts recently,’ he meant raids, ‘to draw Jerry in, get him to reinforce here and overstretch at Verdun. After all, have you heard how much stuff the gun bunnies have brought up around Albert, wherever that is? There ain’t no way anyone’s gonna survive the bombardment those guys are going to throw at Jerry, poor buggers.’

  Maybe they were right. For several weeks the Brass had been throwing at least a battalion a night at the Germans in their sector. They said it was good for morale, kept Jerry on his toes, but it was a dripping tap. So far they hadn’t fought a proper battle and yet over twenty men were dead and dozens more had been wounded. He thought of Gallagher. Devlin had said Gallagher’s death hadn’t made sense. That night was the elephant in the room. The thing they were
all aware of but none of them could talk about. It didn’t do to dwell on the dead. That was the theory anyway; shame it didn’t quite work in practice. Maybe that was why he’d started to drink too much.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re getting so excited about anyway,’ said Flynn. ‘If, and I mean if, old Hackett’s right and this big push comes off, it won’t happen here. Most of the army’s up at Wipers,’ he meant Ypres, ‘so it stands to reason that’s where it’ll be.’

  ‘Hell, no, Wipers is too goddamn obvious. That’s what Fritz will be expecting. No, I think Haig will pull something out of the bag – after all, that guy knows what he’s doing. Stands to reason; he wouldn’t be in charge otherwise. No, old Hackett says it’ll be on the Somme. It’s in all the papers. They say it’s a bit like Salisbury Plain, all rolling chalk downs. It’s where our line ends and the Frogs’ begins: stands to reason really. Perfect attack country and once we’ve got Fritz on the run, well, we’ll be able to chase him all the way back to Berlin, you see.’

  ‘And old Hackett told you all this?’ Fitzpatrick nodded. ‘Don’t you think that if old Hackett’s worked out that the big push will be at this Somme place then it’s reasonable to assume that Messrs Hohenzollern and Falkenhayn,’ he meant the German kaiser and his chief of the general staff, ‘may have worked all this out too?’ Fitzpatrick narrowed his eyes, mulling Flynn’s words over in his head. Flynn glanced at his watch before handing back the empty mug.

  ‘So, my special breakfast tea wasn’t so bad after all,’ said the American, upending the empty mug and peering inside.

  ‘Well?’ asked Flynn.