I must write to Nancy today. I was very pleased about the prospect of her new infant. Tell her I cannot possibly have another godchild, four is quite sufficient for anyone, but she is welcome to call it after me if it is a boy! I told John about it. He looked surprised that I should know, so early on. I gather his family don’t talk about these things – he ought to have been a doctor’s son!
Tell Amy the socks are fine. I don’t need them yet but when the weather gets colder, as it is surely bound to do before very long, I shall be pretty glad of them. The men tell horrifying stories of almost freezing to death, once autumn and winter set in, of having to break the ice on the water and toes freezing and dropping off, and heaven knows what else.
I am not really afraid of going right up into the front line permanently now, since my whole war so far seems to have been a succession of stages, I am being gradually broken in. And there have been respites in between. I suppose this is one. It is just so dull and boring and, at the same time, so tiring. One longs for a bed! (The bunks do not qualify for that grand name.) Thank you for the records, which came beautifully packed and quite undamaged. We have been playing the Elgar and the Schubert – especially the latter, most of all. The ‘Winter Songs’ somehow don’t clash with this golden autumn weather at all, they contrast, and besides, they are so beautiful to hear, after the unharmonious crashing of shells and guns in the distance. Not to mention the singing of our own men and Coulter’s whistling and the clatter of dixies and bayonets. Oh, it is not quiet here, not really! Only it is rather better towards the end of the day.
The Adjutant came in yesterday and listened to the whole of the ‘Frühlingstraum’ (it is John’s favourite) and then just walked out again, so we could not tell if he approved, or enjoyed it, or was puzzled, or what! He is a strange character but most efficient, and the morale and general state of the company is very high. I have to give him a good deal of credit for that, though John would hate me for saying so, since his dislike of the man has not waned. And I agree that he does view the pair of us very coldly. But one does not know what his circumstances are, he may be a very unhappy man. He is a lone wolf, certainly, and maybe he thinks we should all follow suit. But then, John has always been a lone wolf, I think, until now. Perhaps out of necessity rather than choice, however.
Someone has come in with a message for me. Do send more apples if you can, they are marvellous.
‘David…’
‘All right. I’m ready.’
‘I wish you weren’t going.’
‘Why?’
‘I mean – I wish I were going instead.’
‘Do you? Whatever for?’
Hilliard stammered, ‘It’s only that you…’
‘What?’ Barton looked up, grinning. It was late in the morning. Warm again. Barton was to go up into the front line, led by Grosse, and along to an Observation Post from which there was a good view of the ridge and Barmelle Wood, and the few ruined walls to the west of that, which were all that now remained of Queronne. The whole site was held by the enemy. He was to make a map and bring back as much information as he could about the area.
‘Why you?’ Hilliard asked now.
‘I’m better at drawing.’
Hilliard felt his heart swollen with fear. He thought, he does not know what it could be like, he doesn’t know. It was, apparently, a straightforward job, no more dangerous than anything in the front line now. But how dangerous was that? It had been clear and quiet and still here all day. When the order came down and Barton had gone to see Franklin, Hilliard had sat at the table in the dugout and trembled with fear. He would rather go himself, he would rather anything. As usual, Barton had laughed at him, and he had seemed excited, too, proud to be given this job. When he was getting himself ready there had been a gleam in his eyes of something like real pleasure.
Hilliard thought, he won’t come back. Anything can happen between here and there, one small thing is enough. The front line had been under heavy fire all week.
He won’t come back.
Perhaps this was the feeling that Coulter and the other men got when they were sure, when they knew. And they had generally been right, hadn’t they? Perhaps this was it.
He wanted to go to Franklin and demand to be sent on the job himself, though he knew he could not, and that it was all insane, for sooner or later Barton had to come up against a real danger, the risk was constantly there of his being hit, wounded, mutilated, blown to bits. Or simply shocked, as he had never been shocked before, by some appalling sight or sound.
But Hilliard had never known this kind of fear, not even on his own behalf during the summer, and certainly this agony of feeling on behalf of someone else was entirely new to him, he could not cope with it all. All that morning he had scarcely been able to look at Barton, and yet when he had looked, had not wanted to take his eyes away. For he was there, now, across the tiny, dark space of the dugout, everything of him was there, his skin and flesh and bone, whole and unblemished, he was there, calm and confident and cheerful, his manner as always easy, amused. Hilliard could still reach out a hand and touch him if he chose. He was there. Later, he would not be there.
He shook his head, and in a second of absolute clarity, he saw that nothing mattered except Barton and what he felt for him: that he loved him, as he had loved no other person in his life. The reason for this and the consequences of it were irrelevant, the war was irrelevant, something for them to get through. Nothing else could be truly important again. Nothing else.
Acknowledging this for the first time, he felt as though his head had been rinsed through with clear water, and he was no longer perturbed, he had seen and accepted it all. Everything else was far away. He looked down at the pile of ammunition returns on the table in front of him, at the black lead pencil and the box of matches. At his own hand. And then the fear hit him again, broke over him like nausea. If Barton were killed what would he do? What would he do?
‘Mr Barton?’
‘Yes. Hallo, Grosse. I’m ready when you are.’
‘Right, sir.’
Grosse was from Glaziers’ platoon, one of the best runners in the Battalion, though he was large and clumsy looking, with huge hands and feet and an enormous, wide head. He stood in the doorway. Coulter came up behind him.
‘The C.O. would like to see you, Mr Hilliard, as soon as you can.’
Hilliard stood up at once, grateful for the interruption, for now he would not have to watch Barton go, hear his footsteps retreating behind those of Grosse along the trench, would not have to sit here and stare at his papers for hours on end, waiting. They both went out of the dugout together without speaking again, turned their backs and went in opposite directions.
Battalion Headquarters was in a half-derelict cottage standing on its own at a crossroad half a mile from the support trench. Behind it, in a field which had one been ploughed and then overrun by the army, so that it had deep ruts, dried and caked in the sun. There was a trampled path, the grass was brown-yellow. In one corner, the rusty remains of a plough.