They turned another corner. A young soldier was up on one of the firesteps, facing them and about to step down into the trench. Barton caught his eye. As he did so, a shot came and the man toppled rather slowly forwards, to land almost on top of Barton and between him and Grosse.
Barton stopped. Bent down.
The man lay quite still but as Barton looked at him, a shudder and a quick breath went through his chest, and the limbs jerked and convulsed before going still again, the helmet slipped sideways off his head. His eyes were open and his mouth was full of blood. Otherwise, he seemed quite undamaged, his legs lay relaxed as though in sleep. Barton stared down at him. The skin across his nose had peeled with the sun. He had very pale, almost white eyelashes, and a curious mark, like a smoke burn, across his forehead.
Grosse retraced his steps and was standing on the other side.
‘Get a stretcher quickly.’
‘He’s dead, sir.’
‘He was breathing.’
‘He was dying.’
‘Get a stretcher.’
Grosse did not answer. Barton reached out a hand and touched the man’s chest.
‘Stuck his head too far up, I suppose. Daft thing to do. They’re crack shots, they could shoot a bullet through a ring on a pig’s nose at a hundred yards, those Jerry snipers.’ Grosse leaned against the side of the trench, his voice was conversational.
‘For God’s sake…’
Barton looked up angrily. Fell silent. But he did not want to leave the man on the ground. The body was warm, the skin faintly flushed. He had been alive, looking into Barton’s face. Then dead. Nothing. Nothing.
A Sergeant came round the traverse. Barton rose to his feet.
‘You’d better get a stretcher.’
‘Sir.’ The Sergeant glanced down. ‘Private Price,’ he said, shaking his head, perhaps unsurprised.
‘Come on, Grosse.’
But he did not want to go on, he wanted to go back, not because he had lost his nerve, but because he was sickened, for where was he going, why was he to spend an afternoon making a map, playing a game, spying and reporting about a few square yards of country, why had the men standing in the traverse with their meal, and this Private with the pale eyelashes, why had they been alive when he came down here less than an hour ago who were dead now? He had wanted to take up the body of the man called Price and dig a grave and bury him himself, for would that not have been more purposeful, would he not have done the first thing of value since coming into this war? Instead, he was going ahead with binoculars and a notebook and pencils, he was detailed to make a map. To make a map!
He stopped. For a moment it was quiet. He supposed they must take time off for meals over there, too. Quickly, he pulled himself up by his hands and rested his toes on one of the higher layers of sandbags lining the trench, moved up until his head was at first level with, and then protruding over, the parapet. He thought, I have never done such a dangerous thing in my life. But felt calm. ‘Mr Barton…’
He took no notice of the runner. The sun was shining straight into his face, so that when he closed his eyes it was pleasant, it was like sitting outside on the terrace of the house at Eastbourne, basking, soothed as a cat, he felt his skin comforted by the warmth. He half opened his eyes, and the space between the two sets of trenches was pale, in a haze he saw smoke going up, saw grass and a couple of gorse bushes and the shell craters, dried in the sun, saw the enemy wire glittering. There were a few small clouds, very high up in the sky. Nothing moved. He thought, I shall stay here, I shall wait and warm my face in the sun and if they fire, they will fire, if I am killed. I shall be killed. For it seemed not to matter, nobody’s life mattered, he was of no more or less importance than the Private who had just spouted blood at his feet.
He was here to make a map.
Jesus Christ!
He felt hands gripping his legs, hauling him roughly down so that he stumbled and lost his balance and landed awkwardly, on the floor of the trench. A splinter of something went through the soft flesh of his palm.
Grosse was standing stiffly, his face furious, and unapologetic. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but…’
‘All right, all right.’
He got up slowly and made a play of checking that his binoculars had not been damaged. Realized that he must have looked over the parapet and been quite still for several seconds and that no shot had been fired at him.
A heavy shell roared overhead and crumped down quite a way behind the trench. The air smelled of cordite and chalk. Grosse said nothing more. Barton wondered what he was thinking, whether he would tell anyone what had just happened.
‘We’d best go on, sir.’
Barton nodded. It was not for a long time that he came to and realized what he had done. But it seemed entirely reasonable, nevertheless, he felt neither ashamed nor surprised. Something had clicked inside his head, he felt different, he would go back to the support trenches and his own dugout, he would talk to John and read Sir Thomas Browne and listen to the ‘Winterreise’, he would draw his map and make his report, but he would not be the same as when he had set out. Something was new. Something…
He wondered who the dead man had been, remembering the sunburn and the open eyes with their pale lashes, the sudden breath. He wanted to kneel down in the trench, then, and press his face into the soil, and weep, out of misery and rage, he wanted never to get up again.
‘Thank your mother for the almonds.’
‘I’m not writing a letter.’ Barton did not look up. His face was closed, whatever he thought or felt was undetectable.
They had moved down here, five miles behind the trenches, and were in tents and some farm buildings in the middle of derelict countryside. Their first tour had been a quiet one, but the men were tired, they had worked long hours at tedious jobs. Within three or four days they would be back and B Company would go into the front line.
‘Elgar.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Or Brahms. We could have the Brahms Serenade.’
‘No.’
‘What then? Schubert again?’
‘I don’t really feel like music.’
‘Oh.’ Hilliard hesitated, fiddling with the head of the gramophone.
It was mid-aftemoon. In half an hour he’d have to go and supervise the Company taking baths in an iron tank situated beside some disused stables.
Barton went on writing.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Perfectly, thanks.’
Hilliard wanted to cry out, so helpless had he felt for the past week, in the face of this blankness.
Barton had the green-bound copy of Sir Thomas Browne beside him, he was writing something into a notebook. John wanted to ask what was wrong, to offer help, anything. But since he had come back from his day in the Observation Post at the front line, he had been like this, silent, apathetic, withdrawn, as though he had new secrets. Hilliard felt snubbed. Once he had said, ‘What have I done?’
‘Nothing, John. Nothing.’
Now, outside, the men were being drilled by Sergeant Dexter.
‘David…’
‘Yes? What is it?’ But he went on writing, his pen moving evenly over the thin paper, he did not look up.
Hilliard realized how used he had grown to Barton’s openness, to the warmth of his conversation and his constant teasing, to the long letters and the stories about his family, to his sympathy, the way he gave and shared so much. He had, simply, grown used to receiving from him. Now he was afraid, in the face of this new mood which he could not fathom. David’s behaviour had become like his own in the past. ‘Moody,’ Constance Hilliard would say. ‘You were always a moody child, John.’ And so the label had stuck and he had grown used to it, almost proud that he preferred his own company to other people’s and found silence easier than conversation and gaiety. His behaviour stood for everything which his parents mistrusted, for them his character was flawed. Well then, he had wanted to be flawed. But since his meeting with Barton he had begun to question himself. He had changed. And now?