Cello crouched, with his back against the trench wall. His equipment hurt him, rubbed him. He smelt himself and knew he was foul and he needed to urinate and defecate. Suddenly the march he was making with his Sergeant was… He opened his hand and looked at it. It began to shake. It was not his hand. It was a bow hand. He tried to stop it shaking, to make it strong so that it could still hold a bow, which could attack the strings and create… music. He looked at the photograph in the other hand. His mouth had sand sticking to its roof and sides. He tried to run his tongue over his teeth but didn’t feel them. The tongue had lost its taste. The teeth were like rocks sticking out of the sand.
What is this? He asked himself.
He closed his eyes and the left hand let the photo fall.
If only it would rain he might be able to drink. When you wanted water it was nowhere.
His head hummed as though an engine were approaching.
Perhaps a tank would crush his Sergeant. He scrambled and fell upwards, dizzyingly. Back he went to find his charge and lay thankfully beside him… The Sergeant had no need of water but suddenly he remembered that he had given John nearly a full water bottle after taking some into his own bottle. Was he mad? No he had found him dead so where…
Oh god, a full bottle.
Had he left the bottle as he picked the Sergeant up after they were disturbed by the Hun patrol?
He fumbled for John’s bottle, on his belt. It shook with a little weight. Cello drank, though somewhat guiltily. Why should he not take water when this man had no longer a need for it. Perhaps soon he would have no need of it either. Then he slipped down beside the dead man, who was becoming unfamiliarly cold and rigid.
“John… John,” he said. “Don’t leave me John.”
He was on top of the trenches on a beaten earth bank from which he could look down, but not right into the valley from where they had come. In the far distance was a line on the horizon. He thought of the periscopes, watching him. Perhaps he should wave. His thoughts trembled, uncoherent in his mind. As he lifted Sergeant Wall and settled him somehow across his shoulders Cello looked at his right hand. It trembled again. He shook it. Then he turned away from the line on the horizon, turned to take a sniper’s bullet in the back.
Snipers were seen sometimes in the trenches, special groups of which there were some in each battalion. They came and took up a position especially selected within the trench complex, perhaps slightly to the side, in a hide of sand-bags or a wooden structure. Rifles were the .303 Lee–Enfield, but with a telescopic sight. The rifle often had its own hessian camouflage to cut down any glare or sheen of oil, making them look like the branch of a tree. Triggers were often set on a very light pressure to prevent movement during a long trigger pull. Accuracy was everything. Stillness, patience, breathing and calmness, were also the tools of the sniper; in contrast to the rushing, screaming adrenalin of the sweating line soldier as he rushed towards death, desperately yanking his trigger.
Cello knew nothing of the sniper’s art. But he knew that in the little section he had come from, there were no snipers. Its chaos gave him confidence that none would have taken up position there since he left.
So he ignored his safety. He faced a new direction and a hardening of his decision to choose the ‘enemy’.
A familiar scent suddenly caught his face like a claw: death.
The trench system did not seem to be too much damaged by bombardment. So how would this have occurred? It wasn’t Sergeant Wall, whose odour had become familiar to Cello.
There was a breeze in Cello’s face coming from higher ground now in front of him. That was where the death was.
Cello staggered onward, pace by pace. He had nowhere else to go and he knew that death was his domain now. John Thomas Wall had died in his care. He, the cello player soldier, could have died at the hands of his enemy. His own unit had threatened him with death through desertion and he had seen how they had all complied with the killing of one of their own, a casualty, stabbed with a bayonet.
One of their own: a body lying in mud. Sergeant Wall was one of their own but now just an unfamiliar body who could not resist, not fight, not complain about death. He had obeyed orders, been injured and called for help. Deserting him; ‘killing’ him, if that was what they had done, had shown something of them; at least for the moment, for that moment. Or was it a great conspiracy, the leaving of John Thomas Wall to die, like the making of a sacrifice, to satisfy the bloodlust of the shooters coming behind, like the man on the wheel, like Jack shooting the casualty.
Then came a very familiar sound; shovels on soil.
Cello sank to his knees. Then he dropped the Sergeant off his shoulders to his right. The body took Cello’s helmet off, catching it under the belted equipment, now devoid of ammunition, water and any useful thing.
Cello, a boy again with dirty blond hair, did not try to retrieve the helmet, just as he had tried not to retrieve the rifle which he had cast down, He lowered his head and listened as he could, without looking. Even when adrenalin has taken away the power of movement it still allows perfect hearing. Only the breathing interrupts that, though Cello’s breathing had become shallow and quick.
The digging continued. Then voices. With voices you can detect mood, sense threat, or joy. The digging of a grave, perhaps a mass one, was not a subject for joy. The voices accompanied movement and action. Hard work of the most unpleasant kind does not encourage much comment, only direction, probably by a Non-Commissioned Officer.
Bodies were dragged, heaved and landed. Soil was shovelled.
Was this the place for the burial of John Thomas Wall.
Why was this seemingly large burial so close to the front?
Or was it a large burial?
The bombardment that had gone before the battle may have been very accurate. The trenches had been cleared. But then they hadn’t been badly damaged, so how had a lot of people been killed?
How many?
One more to be buried.
The thought that the burial could finish for the lack of more bodies spurred Cello. He was beyond fear. He had practiced action in plain sight of his enemy. They had already discovered him. Now he had to reveal himself for the first time to his enemy. He had to do it for the sake of his friend; John Thomas Wall.
Cello stood up, without his helmet, to look for the grave to bury his friend.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The burial party
There were some trees over to the right. The sound came from there. Cello could perhaps approach unseen.
No; any sneaking up would get him shot. Just then he did not want that. He wanted to give his Sergeant a burial. He pulled his helmet up his arm with the strap around to hold it, then heaved the Sergeant up and over his shoulder, perhaps for one last carry.
“I’ve got one more,” he called, forcing the words out through the desert that was the inside of his mouth and lips ravaged by wind and dirt. They were split, bloodied, dried then split again like the torn opening of a paper bag. The words caused the lips pain which he did not notice.
He saw some flashes of white moving as he approached. Then trundling forward, he finally turned the corner of the line of trees and came upon the burial party.
There were only three of them and two had large white aprons with red crosses the length and breadth of the apron which ran chest to knees and went around the body. They wore gloves as well and masks. Their hands were for bodies, not rifles.
One grey uniformed, soft capped, slightly portly NCO stood to one side, without mask but with Mauser. He had a leather belt with tiny pouches, not designed for carrying supplies for a patrol of any duration. He might have been a gamekeeper out on his estate with his shooters, or bringing in the bodies of the birds that had been shot, after a good day’s sport.
They hadn’t heard the croaking that Cello’s voice made. But when the two white-aproned ones saw him come from beyond the trees, they stopped and dropped their hands to the side, having just deposite
d a body into the pit. The gamekeeper turned. His Mauser was slung, not ready for use. He did not struggle to make it ready. He did remove the cigarette from his lips and after a moment opened his small, pursed up lips into a smile, showing a hint of dirty teeth.
Cello stopped. “One more…” He pointed to the grave.
The smile broadened. A hand pointed to the pit. All three were motionless.
Cello went forward. He seemed to have forgotten that he was empty of energy, empty of every sip of adrenalin. His mouth was not even dry and eager for drink. Water could perhaps not be forced down at this stage. He was nothing. Only his burden was something, something that needed the earth for its sustenance.
He reached the lip of the pit. It was like a trench, made wide to accommodate bodies lying across it, as opposed to along it as they would do when sleeping during a pause in their fighting. They had no fight left to do. The earth would take them without a battle for territory. The earth was mother, father, bed and blanket, a place to rest.
His knees gave way and Cello dropped onto them. He sagged one shoulder and his burden slid down onto the ground, but it was bent into an angle and Cello needed to straighten his Sergeant out before committing to the earth.
“You have not been dead long John, have you, not as long perhaps as these that are to be your companions.” It was a whisper that only the Sergeant could hear. “Let’s straighten you.” He turned John Thomas Wall onto his back and pulled his legs straight, then his shoulders. He turned him again so that he was facing downwards, on the edge of the pit. Then with a roll and a shove he sent the body down the three feet to the trench floor where a convenient space had been left for him. He almost succeeded in making him end up facing upwards towards the sky and his freedom.
Cello’s job was done.
He didn’t want to look down. He missed his Sergeant immediately. He missed his cello. He stood and slowly turned.
The gamekeeper had unslung his Mauser and it was pointing at Cello whose spirit finally let him collapse and black out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The guest
They splashed water on him and he revived. But he was obviously in need of some assistance. The two men in aprons lifted him while the rifle of the gamekeeper remained trained and unwavering. They did not speak. Cello had heard their voices already, probably expressing disgust at their job. But Cello did not screw his face up at the bodies, one of them was so close and familiar to him. He had even felt John Thomas Wall’s penis as he lifted him, trying not to touch his injured legs by putting his hands further up. Post death stiffness had not set in there.
having lifted Cello out of his feint the two men sat him down again to watch the filling in of the grave. Cello had been right to make a move when he did. Their work was almost done. Feet, bodies and finally faces were blanketed over, comforted by a brown shroud. Earth; the soldier’s friend had accepted them. Grotesque injuries were hidden. What did their injuries matter now, death had come to end the pain and they were being laid to final rest.
It may not be a final resting place.
The Sergeant did not have the terrible injuries of some in the trench that he shared. So how had he died? The burial party did not question the reasons for death, which obviously had already occurred, they were merely a burying party.
Geographically the site would be easy to find should there need to be an exhumation for reburial. The gamekeeper no doubt knew his land. He would be marking it on a map for future reference. But what could be done to protect the sacred ground. How sacred was it?
Once the soil had been deposited and filled to a mound they searched for something to mark it. Of stones there were few. There would be no permanent memorial, not yet. They did find a few stones to put around the mound and sticks were placed on top, not in a crucifix but in some kind of prearranged sign.
Then they turned their attention to Cello. He stood on the gamekeeper’s bidding. He could not speak but made a sign of drinking. One of the white-aproned ones drew a bottle from somewhere and passed it to him. They had already used some to revive him. Cello’s hand shook without control. He managed to get the bottle to his mouth and water passed down unnoticed at first.
It did refuel him enough to move his feet, listlessly, shuffling along. He did not bother to replace his helmet. It was out of his hands now; his future.
His captors did not press him to move quicker. They were unhurried.
They were at some rounded hill top on which life, rather than bodies, carried on. A trench here and there, wire entanglements through which to find a path, craters to negotiate. It was nothing like a front line, or was it?
Men looked up from their huddled business. What occupied soldiers did not change from one army to another. A different language, uniforms and weapons and perhaps mood made the difference. The work still included digging, daily life and construction perhaps of a ‘jump off’ trench. Perhaps they were planning a counter attack.
The battle of Arras, founded in such optimism, starting with a great advance and the taking of prisoners, would end in another stalemate – probably, with these men going forward, in retaliation.
There was carefree eating and drinking. There was no bombardment.
Cello did not take in the safety of the scene. He was a prisoner. But somehow he felt safe – or he felt nothing.
They arrived behind the occupied trenches at some tented area. Cello was not aware of the red crosses which were on the roof. He was aware of lying down, or been put into a lying position with a firm hand, though not an oppressive one. There was murmuring and he was left to drift in and out of sleep. Time moved out of reach, along with the responsibility to do something.
Then a confident voice, a female voice, of care and nursing and something like motherhood, said; “Can you sit up young man.” It was not a question. It cut through fog and fatigue and Cello knew he had to obey. He struggled but rose shakily. The English was good but broken and heavy. There was a white coat; unusually clean.
“You brought in a casualty, to bury,” said the white coat.
“Someone needed to look after him,” Cello said, or he heard himself saying. He subsided back to a lying position.
“He was another body. Are you a relative?” asked the medic.
“No.”
“You, yourself are not injured though.”
“No.”
The white coat stood there. It did not have a red cross on it. Cello was troubled by this. He wanted the red cross.
“Could I have… have some water and perhaps food,” he managed to say.
The coat moved and thought about the question. “Our food is not plentiful… But I can see that you need something. I suppose you can be our guest for a short time.”
“Thank you.”
They waited. The white coat waited. Cello could not see the face clearly. His vision was not clear. His hand was not still. He took his eyes off the white coat and they drifted up to the tent ceiling. It had a wooden frame and the canvas in between was drooping. He began to feel unsafe. He was not in a reinforced bunker underground. Soldiers spoke of the Hun being in such underground bunkers, way underground. He could not be safe from a bombardment here.
The white coat moved after some murmuring.
There were other, real casualties to attend.
His treatment changed. What was Cello doing here? He didn’t need treatment. There was food. It came to others and then to him, grudgingly. The white coat was elsewhere. She was needed. All Cello needed was food. There was meat, of a sort and potatoes and cabbage, delivered by an orderly. He was in uniform, not medical uniform. His eyes were surly. He had probably spat in it, or worse.
There was water, clean and fresh, as from a river. He thought of a river, water flowing over rocks, cold and quick. Cello had bathed, paddled, in one. He had been with his young brother.
Something had happened. Something terrible. An accident.
He couldn’t think of a river.
As a cellist
he could make amends and make his mother proud and end her grief. The brother was no longer there. His family had been… broken.
The silent years were filled with cello practice, which was a healing of all that. But now that world too was broken… utterly. Who could mend it?
Maybe the cello again? It seemed an impossible task; a dream, especially with a shaking, uncontrollable bow hand.
After the meal and enough to drink, for the moment, Cello drifted towards sleep. He knew it could not be a long one. He would envy his Sergeant’s long sleep, without dreams. Real sleep was a luxury in the trenches, so rarely achieved. It was also feared, lest death should prevent an awakening.
He did dream. He was in a garden, playing his cello. It was a sort of party, a garden party. Characters inhabited the grass, running to explore the edges of the lawn, where bushes bowed over bare patches, littered with pine cones. These images were clear but individual characters were dim and fleeting. They were impressions rather than real; Sergeant Wall, Ben from his section, the Corporal, playing a sort of hide and seek like children.
He knew they would come back, maybe more white coats would come, to take him. The gamekeeper. Prisoner and escort, ‘ATTENSUN!!’ Music played to escort him away. They were laughing! Would John Thomas Wall be laughing? He tried to look, but he was dragged away from his cello. The laughing and the shaking hand.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Cellist Soldier Page 10