Two hours later
Aquenne Wood
There in that desolate huddle of trees were two of the three beings Stanley most loved.
On Soldier’s safe return depended Tom’s life, and the life of Soldier himself. On Soldier’s safe return depended too the fate of Villers, the fate of Amiens and of Paris. How strange that the events of Stanley’s own life, the beat of his own heart, should pound in such precise collision with the pulse of the War.
Hamish, his face lit in a shaft of amber sun, remained at Stanley’s side. His eyes were resting on Da’s letter. ‘Your Father?’
Stanley nodded.
‘He didnae know, did he, your father? Didnae know you were here?’
Stanley shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Stanley, this is nae place for you . . . even with the Dog Service.’
‘No,’ Stanley burst out. ‘This is no place for dogs, or horses, no place for sons or fathers or brothers. But until I’d read Da’s letter, there was no other place for me.’ Hamish stretched an arm around Stanley’s shoulder. A little while passed. When Stanley was calmer, he said, ‘My brother . . . he’s out there, with the East Lancs.’
‘Oh, laddie . . .’
Hamish was silent as together they both looked out over the parapet, their eyes tracing the route Soldier might run, out of the wood, across a marshy, shelterless belt of land, over the canal and then up the steep slope, leading to the trench in which they stood.
‘So much, Stanley, depends on your dog –’ Hamish shook his head doubtfully – ‘Jerry’s all around and everywhere – you can’t say where he is and where he isn’t.’ He was putting the field glasses back to his eyes again when the wary quiet of the twilight was shattered by a sudden splutter of machine-gun fire, a savage shriek, from the right of the Bois.
A volcano of earth and debris erupted in the Monument. Closer, there was a splutter of machine-gun fire – but from where? Further down the trench where the Devon infantry stood, a shout went up. Fidget appeared out of nowhere, gripping Stanley – something was there in the far distance, hurtling low and fast towards the canal. You couldn’t see a dog at all, just a grey blur, a silver streak. Hamish was yelling for James; Stanley was measuring the land the dog had to cover, the distance, the minutes it might take. Twelve perhaps. Twelve; if Soldier kept up this speed, then twelve.
Every stump and shard and ridge that lay between himself and the dog he loved, from the tiptop of his head to his toes, looked to Stanley sinister and malevolent. Any hole or ditch might hide a gun. Soldier was almost at the canal. The water would be thick and choked with mud. There he was, out now, on this side of the canal. He had to cross the plain now, cross it from Stanley’s ten o’clock. With gathering speed, Soldier soared over something, perhaps a dyke, perhaps a runnel, and Stanley felt a vaulting rush of joy. The pulse of his own heart was suspended, keeping pace with the unending, coalescing step of those quicksilver legs. All his breath converged on that one body – it was only the silver streak that he saw. With pride and hope he watched the gathering speed, the coiled back, the outstretched neck, the outstretched tail. He saw the smooth liquidity and grace of a dog who raced with every atom of his being towards the boy he loved.
The going was heavier now, the mud thick and greedy; Soldier’s butterfly legs would be sinking in the evil, foul-smelling slime, but there round his neck, in the tin cylinder, was the precious message, the message that might save Tom.
Like quicksilver Soldier ran on. Around him lay scattered the bodies of the dead. There’d been no time to clear the dead, to collect the wounded. Stanley watched, Hamish watched – James, Fidget, Cook, the line of Australians, a row of hats cresting the parapet for as far as the eye could see, all watching as Soldier hurled himself into the glimmering disc of a shell hole, hitting it at full speed, with a rainbow shower of droplets. He was out – back in the open – would now climb the exposed bank.
There was a stutter of machine-gun fire.
Hamish’s hand rose in horror to his face. He shook his head. ‘A light Maxim. Four hundred rounds.’
But Soldier was running onward, unflinching, open-jawed, grinning. He’d been out of range. There was silence from the deadly Maxim. Stanley pictured the evil rounds on their fabric belt, feeding into that gun, knew that its range was four thousand yards. Where was the Maxim? Was Soldier coming into or going beyond the gunner’s range?
‘There’s one gunner – only one on the Maxim,’ whispered Hamish, adding, ‘Run, doggie. Run, while he reloads.’
In which chink of this malevolent swamp was the Maxim hidden? The machine gun gave a second savage cackle of fire. The gunner had sharpened his aim. Bullets, the size of marbles, fell like hail, whipping and tearing up the ground around Soldier. Was the Maxim on the railway line?
‘Come on . . . Come on . . . Hurry, Soldier, hurry . . .’
Stanley could think of nothing, hear nothing, see nothing, only that mercury thread, only the grey form that skimmed the ground like a rushing shadow. A trench festooned with barbed wire lay ahead. Soldier raced towards it and hurdled, joyous, and effortless as a stag, hind legs tucked up. It would be harder going now, the ground a soupy morass – a porridge Hamish called it – but the dusk was deepening and Soldier could use the runnels for cover if they weren’t full of water.
There was a single crack of fire from the right – not the Maxim, a rifle.
‘A Mauser, there, right below,’ said Hamish. ‘Enemy outposts everywhere.’
Stanley’s head swung wildly – where, where was the gun, where was Soldier?
At the bottom of the slope to Stanley’s right, unearthly shades of grey and green and brown mingled.
‘Jerry’s all around and everywhere,’ said Fidget.
Still Soldier ran on unhurt and Stanley breathed again. The line of hats cresting the parapet were all watching, screaming, shouting and cheering the dog on.
There were two, perhaps three rifle shots. Where was he? Soldier had disappeared – No, he’d dropped into the dyke, the flooded dyke, which ran perpendicular to the trench at the bottom of the slope. He was taking cover – No, he was out – forced out by the choking mud, perhaps – back out into the open.
There was not an ounce of cover now. Only the shards of things that had once been. Only them and this valiant grey dog. Beyond Soldier, the smouldering village was silhouetted against an ever-changing backcloth of light. The sky, scintillating over the village, was hung with ribbons of light.
The rifle gave a single brutal crack. Stanley’s blood ran cold. Where was he? Where was Soldier?
‘He’s up, laddie – he’s up,’ said Hamish.
There . . . There! He’d fallen but he was up on his feet again the instant he’d landed – it was just the impact that had thrown him, that was all, just the impact. Stanley’s fist was in his mouth.
Soldier stopped and uttered an unearthly, spine-chilling shriek of pain. Soldier had been hit. He’d stopped. His right flank was shuddering, crumpling. Stanley heard, as though blurred, the screams of the men who watched over the parapet, saw Hamish’s large hands fly to cover a face that was harrowed with pain, saw him turn aside from a sight that was beyond bearing. He saw as if at second hand, or in a dream, Soldier fall . . .
‘Soldier, Soldier,’ he breathed.
He took up his glasses, scanning the waste of slime, his hands shaking, legs buckling beneath him, his field of vision jumping from one point to another. He saw torn cloths that fluttered in the wind and dead men lying like wreckage brought in on a tide. Where? Where was Soldier? Stanley saw tangled wire, tins, weapons. He saw the dead and the wounded – but where was Soldier?