Chapter 15
Only one man remains, crucified on the fence, his scarecrow shadow lengthening across the road as the day dies around him.
Fat flies bob about his sweat-soaked face but he can’t swat them away.
They crawl in the chestnut gold of his hair and dance upon his freckled cheeks.
Loosely bound, his outstretched arms quiver either side of him.
Occasionally, he will allow his wrists to rest in the noose of the loops attached to the fence, but mostly it is his own force of will that keeps his arms suspended.
I wonder why. Is it to make a point, and if so to whom?
To show the colonel and Captain Beddowes that he can’t broken?
But they are not here to witness his defiance.
Or is this display of suffering to prove to me how absurd all my rules and regulations are?
If so, I wish he would stop. It’s too much to bear.
I take out my watch for the twelfth time and check the hour.
Almost eight o’clock. A little under twenty minutes left.
It seems to me that the other six men were cut down days ago.
I think of them leaving the roadside and heading back to their trenches, bent double, hugging their screaming arms to their shoulders.
And then I think of Ollie and his tortured feet, all the fault of some irresponsible training segreant who neglected the welfare of his men.
Isn’t it enough that we force these poor bastards into the meatgrinder?
Do we have to half-kill them ourselves first?
Suddenly Danny’s laughter cuts through the silence.
‘I swear to G-God, Perce, if you apologise one more time, I’ll get down from this bl-bloody post and th-throttle you. This was my choice. I don’t bl-blame you or R-Robbie for... for...’
I look up. A twist of pain has gripped Danny’s features. He starts to splutter and cough.
‘For Christ’s sake, let me give him some water,’ I call out to the guard.
Lieutenant Rivers is standing with his back against the fence, yawning into his fist. Adjusting the rifle strapped to his shoulder, he shakes his head. ‘Against my orders. You heard what the colonel said. Anyway, it’s only a touch of cramp, it’ll pass.’
‘Gallagher isn’t even your commanding officer,’ Percy objects. ‘You belong to a completely different regiment, you... you... you fucking sadist.’
Rivers unhooks his rifle just as I grab Percy by the arm and drag him away. ‘You will apologise to the lieutenant, Private Stanhope,’ I tell him. ‘Insulting a senior officer is a serious offence and I won’t have it in my platoon.’
Percy’s face is scarlet with rage. When they finally come, his words are muttered at Rivers through clenched teeth. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
I nod, ushering him back to stand with Robert in front of the punishment fence.
Then I turn to the grinning guard. ‘But as I am of equal rank to you, Lieutenant, I can be both insulting and unoriginal. You are indeed a fucking sadist. And now, whether you like it or not, I’m going to give Private McCormick a drink. ’
As I unclip the canteen from my belt and approach the fence, I hear the click of a rifle behind me. ‘Step away from that man, I shan’t ask you again.’
I catch movement from the tail of my eye – Percy and Robert snatching their own rifles from their shoulders and aiming them at Rivers.
A startled cry escapes the guard, though he keeps his weapon trained upon me as I unscrew my canteen.
Up close, I can see how parched Danny is, the corners of his mouth blistered and swollen.
Still he manages one of his carefree grins as I lift the canteen to his cracked lips.
‘What about the rules?’ he croaks.
I nod. ‘Damn the rules.’
And I mean it. All my life I’ve been hemmed in by them, guided and restricted.
The bible-black rules of my father, the meaningless traditions of school, the cruel regimes of the army.
Many of them inhuman and senseless. Yet I followed like an obedient child, afraid to challenge them.
Perhaps because my very nature – my ‘degeneracy’, as both my father and Lieutenant-Colonel Gallagher would call it – was breaking one of the most fundamental rules of all.
Well, I refuse to stand by now and continue to watch Danny suffer.
He closes his eyes when the tepid water hits his throat.
His chest shudders with relief, his fingers clench and unclench, his long eyelashes quiver.
I see a tear roll from the corner of his eye and I quickly reach out and thumb it away; he would hate Rivers to see any weakness, I know.
As I do so, Danny pulls back from the canteen and gasps.
He runs his tongue across his lips, smiles again.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he says. Then in a whisper, ‘Thank you, Stephen.’
‘I’ll have every one of you up on charges for this,’ Rivers bellows at us. ‘Disobeying orders, threatening a fellow officer, bloody mutiny! Gallagher won’t just have you court-martialled with hard labour.’ He thrusts the barrel of his rifle at Percy and Robert. ‘He’ll have you all shot.’
‘Oh well,’ I say to Danny with a wink. ‘In for a penny, then.’
And taking out the sheath knife from my belt, I cut away the rope binding him to the fence.
He stands upright for a moment, perfectly still, kept in place by the extraordinary willpower that has seen him through almost three unbearable hours.
Then, as I’m freeing his ankles from the post, I see his legs shiver and his knees buckle.
All at once, he falls, his body folding in on itself, a hoarse groan coming from some place deep inside.
I catch him as best I can, taking him under the arms and hugging him to me.
And suddenly in my mind, I’m picturing a painting that hangs in my father’s study back home.
A print of Rubens’ Descent from the Cross, the ivory-white body of Jesus being lowered by his followers to the ground after his crucifixion.
It’s an image I have copied many times in my sketchbook – the blood-smattered shroud, the weeping wound at his side, the long flowing hair of the Saviour, a russet shade similar to the short curls that now brush my cheek.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask him. ‘Danny, answer me.’
Percy has shouldered his rifle and come forward to help support his friend.
‘No,’ I say, as he tries to drag Danny’s arm over his shoulder. ‘Don’t bend his arms, not yet. The muscles and tendons need time to adjust.’
‘I’m all right,’ Danny says at last, and I feel a kind of resurrected strength pulse through him. His legs straighten and, although he still needs us to support him, he manages to walk away from the fence to the roadside.
‘What about him?’ Robert asks. He still has Rivers in the sights of his rifle.
I glance over to where the guard stands fuming, his own weapon trained on Danny’s back. ‘It will be our word against his,’ I say. ‘In any case, the usual period for field punishment is up to two hours a day. Private McCormick has already served that time and more.’
‘Gallagher ordered he serve three,’ Rivers barks.
‘And we shall report that he did just that.’ I look at the others. ‘Right, lads?’ Percy and Robert nod. ‘And if you dare shoot a soldier in the back, Rivers, I’ll see to it that it’s you facing a firing squad.’
We leave the guard at his precious crucifixion post, shouting threats and blue murder after us, and start together along the road.
Our column of troops has vanished long ago and now only the odd elderly villager or half-drunk Tommy on a rest day wanders past. To our right, forests and valleys, verdant and unspoiled.
To our left, a shattered view of lonely walls and blasted trees with a gash in the grey soil where a communication trench runs out to the Front line.
Then the lifeless waste of No Man’s Land and beyond that, a glimpse of an eerie mirror image: the German-occupied towns of the Somme, made just as desolate by our own guns.
But it hadn’t started like this. In 1914, the ravaging Hun had stormed almost unchallenged through the places where we now walk.
It wasn’t until they were met by French resistance at the Marne that the invaders were pushed back and a Front line established which, since that day, has hardly moved an inch.
A chain of defensive misery woven through the towns and villages of Gommecourt, Serre, Beaumont Hamel, Auchonvillers, Fricourt, Mametz.
I shake my head. No one had heard of these places when they existed, now that they hardly do, everyone has.
We’ve been going for a couple of hours, Danny’s cramps easing a little with each passing mile, when a voice calls out to us.
‘You boys up there! Better get yourselves out of sight, unless you want your heads blown off.’
In the next moment, I hear the crack and zing of bullets flying past my face.
Before I can shout the order to take cover, I feel a hand tug at my puttees, strong fingers closing around my ankle and pulling me down the high bank upon which the road sits.
The others scrabble behind me and we are all safely hunkered down when two more shots fizz overhead.
Our rescuers, a pair of grubby-looking soldiers with a coil of barbed wire at their feet, treat us to a grim smile.
‘Not from round these parts, eh?’ one says, thumbing back his cap.
‘Private George Fipps, nice to meet ya. This handsome fella to my right is Benny Stern.’ Benny’s smile is friendly but largely toothless.
‘We were just lugging this here gooseberry back to our trench when we had to take cover.’ He inclines his head to the entanglement of barbed wire sitting on the ground, nicknamed for the prickly gooseberry bush.
‘Locals call this here stretch of road “Pot-shot Alley”,’ George continues, ‘all on account of old Kurt. Best shot in the Somme, old Kurty. The rule is, never go alone on the road in broad daylight when he’s on duty, or you’ll soon be carrying your brains back home in your battle bowler. ’
‘A Jerry sniper?’ Percy boggles. ‘Bloody hell, he must be good if he can hit a bloke all the way out here. Aren’t our trenches a bit more convenient for him?’
‘Oh, those boys know to keep their melons down when Kurty’s on the prowl,’ George says, wiping his nose with one of the filthiest handkerchiefs I’ve ever seen.
‘Anyway, I think he doesn’t consider them much of a challenge.
The road’s elevated, ya see, and just about within range of his nice little shooter.
Only last month, he bagged poor old Peachie, ain’t that right, Benny? ’
Benny mutters ‘Ay-uh,’ and displays his gums once again.
‘There was our good friend Peach, whistling along the road, not a care in the world, and then BAM! Straight through the temple. Never knew what hit him. We still get together outside Peach’s dugout and whistle “Boiled Beef and Carrots” in his honour, just so that Kurty might hear us and know that his memory lives on. ’
Danny, Percy and Robert look a little disgusted at George’s casual humour; I have to remind myself that they are still new to this war.
Dealing flippantly with death, even that of a close comrade, is one of the ways you survive.
I have seen men wave cheery good mornings to their dead friends, hanging on bits of barbed wire out in No Man’s Land.
How’s the weather treating you, Stan? What’s the news from up top?
It’s a way to distance yourself from the horror and grief that might otherwise destroy you.
Still, my heart aches to think that, very soon, Danny and the others might themselves find some relief in such dark humour.
Robert asks, ‘So why do you call him Kurt?’
‘Gotta call him something,’ George shrugs.
As if the sniper has heard his nickname mentioned, another crack and whizz sounds above our heads.
‘Well, I don’t believe he’s the best shot in the Somme,’ Percy mutters.
‘Oh no?’ George says, taking out a cigarette paper from his tunic pocket and stuffing it with odds and ends of tobacco. ‘You got another candidate?’
‘Just so happens I have. And he’s right here.
’ Percy nudges Danny with his elbow. ‘I bet our boy could give your Jerry sniper a run for his money. In fact, I bet he could polish off old Kurt the same way Kurt polished off your poor mate Peachie. What do you say, Danny?’ He glances up at the darkening sky, now vaguely dusted with stars.
‘Don’t you reckon it’s a lovely night for killing Germans? ’