In small groups they climbed up the parapet and back into no man’s land, hoping to use the early morning darkness to their advantage. The German machine guns had been silenced, so George ran for it. In the darkness it was hard to tell which way was what. A few minutes later, after squelching through mud and dodging barbed wire, George rolled into a trench, his small group behind him. The trench was empty save for a few dark shapes moving about at one end.
‘Let’s go check it out,’ he said to the man next to him, fearing they may have ended up back in the German trench.
‘They’re Lancs! Look at the badges,’ someone shouted. ‘Thank God!’
The dull glimmer of bronze shone on their sleeves as another Very light flare went up in no man’s land. George ducked further down into the trench as another shell hit no man’s land just off to one side. The artillery was still heavy here, and as he moved towards the Lancashires in the next trench a shell went off in a communication trench behind him, throwing thick mud and dust up into the air. The men that had been there were now gone, and the trench itself had partially collapsed. Some of his group moved to try and dig them out, but George knew they were already gone.
Instead, he carried on in the direction he had been travelling, moving closer to the small group of Lancashires. They were from the same battalion, so they must be close to their own lines. He asked the first man the way back to their unit, but the man just stared back at him, unblinking eyes staring out from the dirt around his face. George thought about shaking him, but realised there was no point. He didn’t know where the man’s mind had gone, but hoped it was better than this place.
The other couple of men were helping a wounded man down to the bottom of the trench and George moved up to see if he could help. He reinforced another man, by putting his back against him and making sure that he didn’t slip in the mud. They managed to lift the man to the ground, groaning with the movement. He lay on the fire step, out of the mud and drainage at the bottom of the trench.
As another Very light went up, George caught a glimpse of the man’s face. It was pale despite the muck and sweat that covered it, and an intelligence showed in his eyes.
‘Joe?’ the man said suddenly, trying to get up. The other men pushed him back down. ‘Joe Abbott?’ he continued, quieter, unsure of himself.
George was shocked. He hadn’t heard his brother’s name in over a year. In the dark, muddy hell of the trench his brother had been far from his thoughts, but here was this man that had mistaken him for Joe. He couldn’t believe it. There was a family resemblance between the two brothers, sure, but they didn’t look alike. George had lost weight and grown gaunter during his time in the trenches. He realised he must now resemble his brother more, Joe always having been the thinner of the two.
He moved closer to the stricken soldier, trying to work out who he was, while the man still repeated his brother’s name, each time more quietly than the last as his strength was leaving him, his energy almost spent.
Another shell exploded nearby, causing them to duck as the shrapnel and debris flew everywhere. The change in pressure hurt George’s ears and the whomp of the explosion caught him. It took all his willpower not to drop his weapon and put his hands to his ears.
The other men had pushed themselves back against the trench wall, avoiding the worst of the blow. But one had not been so lucky; the trench wall no longer existed in that section and half his body was buried good in the mud and slime that had fallen into the trench. No one moved to uncover him. It didn’t matter any way. A large chunk of his torso had been ripped open and his arms lost; he would bleed out before anyone could help him. George tried to blink away the image, but when he closed his eyes it was still there. It always would be. He’d seen enough horrors to last a lifetime.
A Very light flew up into the sky highlighting the grisly scene in its off-white glow.
‘Frank?’ George said, as the face in front of him became clear, then disappeared as the Very light blinked out. It was always difficult for their eyes to adjust as the light kept changing at every opportunity, but George had seen enough.
‘Joe, it really is you,’ Frank replied, his voice a hoarse whisper that George had to lean closer to make out. One of his fellows had gone off to fetch a stretcher-bearer or a medic and had left George more room to kneel next to Frank’s prone form, as he lay along the duckboards.
He fumbled in his pocket and then drew out what he was searching for. Flicking open the silver casing, he sparked the lighter, bringing it closer to Frank’s face.
‘Hey, mate. Don’t you care about the gas?’ the soldier opposite him said, and George ignored him. Yes, a stray match could set off some gas or explosive, but there had been no sign of gas being used on this section. They were safe for now. He used it to illuminate the man’s face, to check that he recognised him. It was Frank Gallagher, from Joe’s work. Perhaps a little bit thinner and less lively, but it was the same man. He had that almost pockmarked face that showed signs of teenage acne. George didn’t know him well, he had only met him a few times. Everyone looked different in khaki, but some faces you didn’t forget.
‘If you’re going to waste that flame, Joe, at least gimme a fag,’ Frank said with a cough. At least he still had his sense of humour. George pulled a packet out of his webbing and put a cigarette between Frank’s lips, with care, making sure it stayed in place. Then he lit it, the end glowing red hot in the darkness.
‘Thanks, Joe,’ Frank said, between clenched teeth, expertly keeping the cigarette in place whilst talking, even in his wounded state.
George thought for a minute. Frank still believed that George was his brother. In his state, would there be any point to telling him otherwise? George didn’t like the idea of lying to someone who was on the edge of death. They were all on the edge of death out here.
Then a thought occurred to him. If Frank thought he was Joe, then it was possible that Joe was out here too. Perhaps he was lost out in no man’s land, wherever Tom had gone. He had no choice but to plunge ahead.
‘Sorry, Frank, but I’m not Joe,’ he said, repositioning the cigarette in Frank’s mouth, then lighting one of his own.
‘What do you mean, “not Joe”?’ Frank’s voice was growing ever weaker. ‘’Course you’re Joe, I’d recognise you anywhere, lad. Now’s no time to develop a sense of humour.’
George took one of Frank’s hands in his, to rouse him.
‘I’m not Joe,’ he said again. ‘I’m his brother. I’m George. Do you remember me?’
Frank brows furrowed despite the glassy look taking over his eyes.
‘George?’ he whispered.
‘George Abbott,’ George urged.
‘George… I remember you. You’re Joe’s little brother. What are you doing here? You don’t work at the newspaper…’ He trailed off, growing delirious with his pain.
‘Where is that medic?’ George grumbled, looking around at the others who in the darkness shrugged almost imperceptible shrugs. He tried Frank again, growing more desperate.
‘Frank, we’re not at the newspaper. You know where we are. My brother, you know my brother.’
‘Joe, my good pal Joe.’ Franks eyes lit up at the mention of Joe’s name.
‘Yes, Joe… my brother.’ He had taken Frank by the shoulders without realising. ‘Is he here, Frank? Is Joe in France?’ He shook Frank’s shoulder and felt guilty as the other man groaned with the movement. He was losing consciousness, but something still held on.
‘Joe? In France?’
‘Yes, Frank, is he here?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I never could get Joe in khaki. It wasn’t his colour.’ He began laughing, a dry, wracking laugh that plummeted through his entire body, shaking him where he lay. Despite the obvious pain, it was a good laugh. Frank had always had a good laugh. George leaned back on his haunches and let out a huge sigh of relief and built-up pressure. He had almost been holding his breath.
Joe wasn’t in France.
; That small fact brought him immense relief. He couldn’t imagine his brother in this place. In the mud and blood. In this hell.
‘Your brother is still back at the newspaper, doing my job for me. Y’know he wouldn’t fight.’ He coughed, and the corners of his mouth darkened. It was a couple of tense, worried seconds before he spoke again. ‘I’m starting to think he was right.’
‘Don’t worry, Frank. Everything’s going to be all right.’ He had no idea if it would be. Frank was fading fast, but he had to say something, something to keep his mind on the future and keep him fighting. ‘The medics are on their way, lad. Just you wait.’
‘I reckon this is my last day, lad,’ Frank croaked out from his blood-drenched mouth. The sound was a whisper, but he spoke with a forcefulness that made the blood dribble even more.
‘Don’t say that, Frank. The medic is on his way.’
Someone tapped George on the shoulder, but he didn’t turn.
‘He’s gone, lad.’
The voice was quiet, respectful, by his side.
George straightened. He didn’t know Frank well, but he knew he was a good man. He did what he could to smarten him up and moved him out of the mud. It wasn’t fair to let a man die like that. He closed his eyes and said a prayer for his brother.
After a few moments he went off to find his section.
*
The day was turning to light as they found their own section of trench. It had been a long night, and every man was tired, strain etched on their faces. The officers were busy tallying the dead from their own units, working out who was missing from those who were present.
In the late afternoon when the sun was already beginning its downward slope, a figure slipped into the trench and dropped down in front of them. Everyone jumped up, but George recognised the silhouette.
‘Tom? Tom Adams, is it really you?’ He hugged his friend as if he hadn’t seen him in years, squeezing the air out of his lungs in a big bear hug.
‘Easy, easy, lad. That hurts,’ Tom said, pushing George away. For once he didn’t have a grin on his face and it unsettled George. The other men drifted back to their dugouts and those who were repairing the trench started digging at the loose earth again.
‘You’re hurt?’ he asked, checking for the signs of a wound, before he was again pushed away.
‘No, George,’ Tom said.
George gave his friend a shrewd look, expecting him to be playing the hero.
‘No,’ he said again, with more force. ‘I’m fine. Honestly, I’m fine. Leave off, will you?’
‘All right. I’m just glad to see you is all. I thought the worst.’
‘I know, George, but I’m all right, see? Look.’ He twirled on the spot, and then grinned at George, but it seemed forced. There was no humour behind that grin.
‘I can see. But where have you been? I couldn’t find you out there. I searched and called, but you had gone. You couldn’t have gone far.’
‘I didn’t,’ Tom said. ‘I er, I got a bit lost once all the guns started firing. I couldn’t hear anything in the noise.’
George wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw Tom force back a shudder.
‘That machine gun was giving the men around me hell, George. I ended up in a shell hole once it opened up. One of the explosions must have forced me in there. I… I didn’t know I was in it until I was in it… if you know what I mean?’
George was confused, he had never heard Tom sound so uncertain in all the years they had known each other. Since they had met he had been the very epitome of calm and controlled. The man standing in front of him now was an altogether different man. Not just because of the mud and blood that stained his skin and khaki, but in the way he talked. It wasn’t the fact that he talked like a soldier, it wasn’t that at all. Actually, he was no longer talking like a solider but more like a frightened little child, telling his mother about the monster under his bed. In all his life, George had never imagined Tom Adams being that small, scared boy, but now it was the only image he could picture.
Tom grinned at him again, trying to overcome this barrier that had come between them all of a sudden, but it didn’t work. Something had changed in their relationship.
‘What happened after that, Tom?’ George asked, trying not to pity his oldest friend. ‘I must have strayed some distance away from you once the Germans broke loose. Apparently, I was nowhere near you.’
Tom didn’t answer but patted his webbing. Once he had found a cigarette he put it in his mouth and gestured for George to help him light it. George passed him the lighter that he had kept in his webbing since Tom had given it to him, and Tom snickered at the memory. ‘Thanks, lad,’ he said, and handed it back.
‘Keep it,’ George said, hoping that he hadn’t said it with too much anger. ‘I don’t smoke half as much as you, and… it belongs to you. I was just looking after it, right?’
Tom squinted at him, then put the lighter away without another word.
‘So what happened?’
‘Not much, lad.’ Tom sat down on the firing step and took another drag from his cigarette. ‘I didn’t leave that shell hole. I mean, how could I?’
He paused for George’s judgement but seeing the blank expression George forced onto his face, he carried on.
‘How could I go anywhere? That machine gun was ripping the ground to shreds. Little tufts of dirt kept dropping on me every time it fired. When it shut up, I went to move, and bang, it opens up again, traversing back and forth, dropping more spots of dirt on me… and worse. Those lads out in the open didn’t stand a chance.’
‘I know, I saw them,’ George conceded, not wanting to bring back the memory, but having little choice.
‘If I’d have left that shell hole, it’d have been nothing short of suicide. Call it whatever you want, but I was in no position to help with the raid, I was pinned.’
George knew what Tom meant, as he too had been pinned down inside an altogether different shell hole. But he had found his way out, hadn’t he? Tom could have done the same.
‘There was another lad inside the hole with me. He looked younger than you, but he wasn’t afraid. He was just like you, he was. He got up right to the edge of that shell hole, grabbed his Lee Enfield and faced the enemy.’
Tom stopped and took a deep breath and a drag of his cigarette before continuing.
‘Next thing I know,’ he said, ‘he’s falling back into the hole, face first, or at least what’s left of his face. The machine guns caught ’im and gone clean through his hat. There was nothing left of the poor lad to recognise him with. His own ma wouldn’t have known him from the rest. There was no way I was gonna join him in the bottom of that hole without the top of my head.’
He took another long drag and George sat down next to him on the firing step, unable to look at his friend’s face anymore. The sorrow there was too heartfelt, and George could empathise. His mind flashed back to the corpse he had found in his own shell hole. How had that poor man died? He shook his head to clear the image and Tom took it as disagreement.
‘Well, many others would have done the same, lad,’ he said. ‘I know you’re a hero and you’d have run off to beat the whole German army on your own, but there was no way I was getting out of that shell hole. So I sat there.’
‘That’s not what I was—’
Tom ignored him.
‘I sat there all night, listening to the sound of the guns firing and my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. After a while it started to get quieter.’
George wasn’t sure whether he meant the sound of the guns or his heartbeat.
‘Once the machine gun had finally given up I chanced it. Guessing that you lot had probably made it back by then, I crawled back through the mud and dirt. It took what seemed like hours, and at one point the machine gun opened up again. I pushed myself down as far as I could go, right into some poor old sod’s earthly remains. The stench was awful, and I don’t know how long I lay there for until it stopped firing again. The
I crawled on, rolled over the edge of the trench and there you were, as if an angel, staring back at me.’
‘It’s all right, you’re back now.’ George patted Tom on his back. ‘Let’s get a brew and some kip. We’ll be back on duty once the sun goes down.
Tom nodded and together they went off in search of some of the petrol-tinted tea that was so common in the trenches.
Chapter 25
Joe sat on the bench overlooking St John’s Gardens, Anne at his side. The grass was covered in leaves of various different colours: browns, yellows, and some still held on to the green of summer. They blew around in the air, swirling in patterns this way and that way. Every now and then a strong gust would force one bunch of leaves at another, attacking them with a crunch. He shivered in the chilly air and pulled his coat tighter around him in a vain effort to warm himself up.
‘They’re saying it won’t be long now. The military act will come soon. Conscription.’
He spoke, trying to break the silence between them. It wasn’t an awkward silence. Anne was enjoying the park as much as he was, but he enjoyed it more when they were talking.
‘Who’re saying that?’ she asked, staring off into the distance at the trees whose leaves were slowly falling to join the others on the ground.
‘The No-Conscription Fellowship are quite sure it’s imminent. Parliament are definitely heading that way. Especially after that registration day they had in August. I still regret having to sign that document.’
‘What else could you do?’
‘I could have thrown it away. I’m sure they would have sent me another one to fill in though. Or worse, sent the police around.’
They sat in silence for a while. Anne moved closer along the bench, and Joe put his arm around her, thankful for her warmth in the cold autumn afternoon. The smell of her, that close, was intoxicating. It took over his sense so much that he almost forgot what they were supposed to be doing.
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