‘I’ve never really thought about it. But that part is easy you know. The big outer circle of friends.’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh yes. It’s the other which is the real luck – what we have. That’s another matter altogether. Things don’t happen like this often in a lifetime.’
‘Have you – do you have other friends who – is it the same with anyone else?’
‘No.’
Hilliard felt a rush of joy and his mouth was filled up with the words he wanted to say, his head rang with them and he could say nothing.
Footsteps went by in the trench outside, voices came softly. Then silence again.
In the end they slept.
At breakfast, just after six, it was dark and still uncannily quiet. The men’s faces were pale, unshaven, their eyes staring. They queued for the bread and rashers of fat bacon, stood or sat about drinking the sweet tea, and there would be nothing to do, once they were in battle order, but stand about again, watching and waiting until their turn came.
Walking along towards the platoon sergeant, Hilliard thought that they all knew there was very little chance of this offensive coming off as planned. In simple geographical terms the odds were against them, even though they had confidence in the strength and accuracy of their artillery. Nobody spoke much above a whisper as the dawn came up. But the sky was clear, pale as a dove’s back, there had been no more rain. Between the trees of Barmelle Wood half a mile away on the ridge, a thin mist parted and for a few moments the November sun came out, so that the morning frost shone silver-white and the whole landscape seemed to spread and thin out and fade in a trick of light.
Holding the hot tin mug of tea, Barton looked up and saw it all and felt suddenly elated; his muscles were stiff from the few cold hours of sleep, he had had a nightmare for the first time since coming to France, full of images of dark green water in which he was drowning, yet now, the knot in his stomach dissolved, he was no longer afraid. He thought of Parkin a few hours before, looked along the line and remembered the hours of work that had gone into the planning of this battle, of the weight of gunpower and manpower behind them, and thought, we can do it, we can do it, Parkin was right, what is there to be afraid of? And the sun has come out, we are in luck. We must be in luck.
He had a vision of them all going over the top of the trench and running forward up the slope, hundreds and hundreds of them.
‘All right?’ Hilliard had come back and was standing for a moment beside him. He looked puzzled.
‘Yes. I really am.’ For he left it, he had a hallucinatory sense of possessing more than one man’s share of strength and confidence and hope. It will be all right.
‘Good.’
‘Look…’ Barton nodded up towards the slope and the wood, to where they could just see Queronne in the lemon-white light.
‘It’s like a Turner canvas.’
Hilliard frowned.
‘No – it is. The sun won’t last but it won’t rain either, and just for now it’s very beautiful. Can’t you see that?’
‘I can see that.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘You.’
‘No, no, I’m fine. I haven’t felt like this for weeks. Don’t worry about me. You must never worry about me again.’
Filled with unease, Hilliard turned away.
A few minutes later the men took up their places all along the trench. At eight, with a roar like the explosion of a volcano, the barrage began from their artillery. The men reeled with the shock of the noise after what had been such an unnaturally long silence. But then, for some time there was a sense of general excitement as they watched the smoke begin to rise up in the direction of the enemy front line, saw the great flashes of flame and fountains of earth as the guns scored direct hits.
Half an hour later the Rifle Brigade on the left flank came out and began to advance in perfect order. As far as Hilliard could see the plain in front of the slope was filled with men, following the barrage, sweeping on without meeting any answering fire. He felt a surge of hope in spite of himself that it was going to work after all, the Surprise Element, that this would be the breakthrough, they would go up the slope and breach the wood, take over the trenches and gun positions before the Germans had recovered from the bombardment, which was now the strongest he had ever known. He looked at his watch. He wanted to go, to have it over with.
The Rifles were still advancing. They were beautiful, Barton thought, standing a dozen yards away behind Private Flannery, they are perfectly ordered, lines unbroken, graceful as horses. They are beautiful.
As the noise of the artillery got louder his excitement seemed to fill his body, took him over entirely so that, when they themselves began to go up and over the top, he was no longer conscious of anything except the urge to move forward, to keep up this almost hysterical sense of pleasure in what was so obviously a perfect battle, so easy, effortless. He felt as though he were standing outside himself, and was surprised at this new person he had become, surprised at everything. He wondered when he would come to.
Where the ground began to slope up the mud gave way to grass here and there. But they could no longer see the men on the right and left flanks because of the denseness of the smoke. Hilliard was separated from Barton and not so far ahead, so that when the rifle and machine gun fire opened up from the enemy guns hidden in Barmelle Wood, he had a better view. He watched their own first line stagger and fall, the men going down one after another on their knees and then, before the smoke closed up, the line immediately behind. It went on like that and after a moment they themselves were caught up in it, and the heavy shells began to come over, the whole division was an open target for the enemy guns. Wave after wave of men came walking into the fire, the ground began to open under their feet, as the howitzers blew up dozens of men at a time.
Hilliard began to try and pull his own section of the line together, as the men fell he began shouting at them to close in, before an attack of coughing from the smoke and fumes forced him to stop, gasping for breath. Four men ahead of him and O’Connor on his right went down in the same burst of machine gun fire and he wondered how it had missed him so neatly. He went on.
After that he lost touch, the men coming up behind overtook his own section and fell in the same places, so that the bodies were piling on top of one another, the shell holes were filled and then new ones opened up, filled again. Once, Hilliard slipped and fell and for a moment thought that he had been hit, but could feel no pain. A Corporal beside him was holding his head between his hands, covering his eyes and rocking silently to and fro. Hilliard crawled over, hunted for his water bottle and got a little of it between the man’s lips, but as it dribbled down his throat, he coughed it up with a great spout of blood, and his head fell forwards. Hilliard left him, got up again. He had no idea how far he had gone, he could see nothing. He thought they had begun to walk into their own artillery barrage, but there was a constant spray of fire from the enemy line. He had a clear picture of the whole English army caught in the neatest, simplest possible trap. Another line of men came up the slope. A Company, he thought, stepping between the – already dead and wounded, walking directly on into the rain of fire, and suddenly, Hilliard wanted to stand up and wave at them, shout, push them back, he saw that it was all useless, that those few who did reach the enemy line would be shot to pieces on their wire. He turned and began to roar at the first man who came towards him but before he was near enough he fell forwards, his knees giving slowly under him and his helmet slipping over his face.
In the end Hilliard gave up and went on because, in the total confusion, it was impossible to know how else to behave. Men were rushing from shell hole to shell hole, completely out of order, trying only to avoid the fire now, and caught every so often running straight out of the way of a bullet into the face of an exploding shell. The cries of the wounded men were drowned in the din but now and again came out piercingly clear in the odd seconds of pause between blasts.