There was a good deal about which he might have thought, and he wondered why he did not do so. There were memories: last night’s quiet beach, the faces of his family, Henry Partington. Or there might so easily have been anger, at the things he had heard and read in England about the conduct of the war: he could have despised the Major, who was going blind and fed his dog and felt out of things, who would have thought something of Hilliard if he had gone for the cavalry. Or could have pitied him.
He wondered, too, why he did not think ahead, as he had done yesterday, about his own platoon, and what had been going on and what would go on during the coming autumn. He thought nothing. A few yards off a man in a frock coat fidgeted with a carnation in his button-hole and, when he was satisfied with the set of it, took out a handkerchief and because of grief or heat, wiped his eyes carefully, before he walked away.
It was like being under water or some mild anaesthetic, everything around Hilliard and within him was remote, people parted and moved and reformed in bright, regular patterns like fragments in a kaleidoscope.
After more than an hour he felt a strange contentment begin to seep through him. He was quite relaxed. He had left Hawton, where he had been so unhappy, and his future movements would be decided for him by other people in some other place. He had only to follow. There would be no more anxieties about what he should or should not let himself say to them at home, or about whose names he might read in the lists in the newspapers, about how he could bear to sit in the sour-smelling room with the Major, tensed with dread of the night to come, of his dreams and the open window letting in the scent of roses.
‘What would you like for lunch, John?’
‘Is there anything I can get you from the library?’
‘Do you want to be woken for church in the morning, or shall I leave you?’
‘Is your leg healed enough for you to try and swim?’
‘Your father says you’ll be back by Christmas, it will certainly be all over. Is he right? Do you agree with him?’
‘Shall I marry Henry Partington? Do you approve, John?’
‘What would you like for dinner, John?’
No more of that. He would only get their letters, as faint reminders of some other world. Instead, he would be making entirely possible decisions, about maps and marches and the conditions of rifles and feet, he would be taking simple orders about life and death.
He felt a moment of singing happiness.
Most of the men stayed on deck for a long time, watching the lights and rooftops of the town disappearing behind them. The boat was very full and it was easy, he now realized, to pick out the ones who had been here before, so that he ceased to worry about the silver-topped cane. Instead, he lay down across two wooden-slatted chairs, using his valise as a pillow, and, after a while, slept. He did not dream. Around him men talked and played cards, drank and read and sang, or were alert, silent.
When he awoke, he saw the sea immediately in front of his face through glass, and the sky, white as a gull’s belly, and, for a moment, it seemed that he was asleep on the beach at Hawton, that nothing had passed between his last walk there in the moonlight and this dawn. But when he sat up he saw the houses of Cherbourg. His back was aching. He was very hungry.
‘Mr Hilliard…’
‘Coulter! Good evening.’ For a second, he had not remembered the man’s name, but he was delighted to see a familiar face, to feel that he was almost home.
‘How are you, sir?’
‘Better. Very well, thanks. I was expecting Bates. Where is he?’
Coulter frowned, shaking his head, but for a moment, Hilliard did not take in his meaning.
‘Excuse me for just a moment, sir, there are some men I’ve to look out for. We’ve had reinforcements this week – not before time. If you wouldn’t mind holding on, sir.’
They were standing in the early evening sunlight, on the grass beside the train. No station, no buildings, only a stopping place, this. Other men peered down at them through the smeared windows, waiting to travel on. Hilliard had only a rough idea of where he was. The train had taken over seven hours but that meant nothing, they had stopped and crawled, stopped and crawled. Only once he thought he recognized a town they went through and then a village, a part of the countryside, white châteaux with green shutters glimpsed through some trees.
The message for him at Cherbourg had been that his battalion was at a rest-camp, twenty miles behind the front line. So they must have come down after Pourville Wood. More than that he could not know. Except that he had expected his own batman, Bates, to meet him and take him on, and here was Coulter, whom he scarcely knew – a small man with a crumpled, old-young face. Hilliard tried to remember something about him.
It was very quiet. Ahead of him the road ran down, dusty-white, between sloping fields. The trees were as parched as they had been at home, but much yellower, here it was already autumn. The sun glinted on the weather-vane of a church, just visible behind a copse in the far distance, and it was bright as a shell in the night sky. But silent.
‘If you’re ready now, sir?’
Coulter picked up his bags. Behind them, a group of men, all of them new to France. Hilliard saw that they looked tired, though it was only because of the heat and the tedious journey, but they were excited, too, willing and keen. Incredibly young. Coulter had organized them, they began to walk. The train stood where it was.
He wanted to say, ‘Do I look older than that? Do I look as old as I feel?’
‘Glad to see you looking fit, sir.’
‘Thanks.’
‘All right walking now, are you?’
‘Oh, yes, yes. Fine.’
‘It’s not so far away. Mile and a half.’
‘How long have we been down here?’
‘Best part of a week, sir. It’s a nice place, I must say. Very pleasant.’
They passed down the hill between sun-soaked trees, and the gnats and midges hovered in thick, dark clusters. The road narrowed, became a lane. There were dried cart rucks along the edges. A rabbit shot across a few yards ahead of them, and stopped in the middle of the road, ears quivering, waited. It’s like going back to school, Hilliard thought, it’s so bloody peaceful, it’s like going back to school, with a prefect to lead you up the road from the station because you’re new, you don’t know the way, you haven’t been here before. Except that he had.
The rabbit stayed until they came within a few feet of it, before making in panic for the brambles.
‘Where’s the war, Coulter?’
The man smiled. Behind, the new recruits to the Battalion. They were not talking.
‘How many for B Company?’
‘Eight, sir. We had forty, last week, and ten just before we came down.’
‘What?’
‘Not enough. We’re still well under strength.’
‘What’s been happening, for God’s sake?’
‘Don’t you know, sir?’
They rounded a bend. Somewhere he could hear water.
‘Coulter?’
‘You’ll find out about it all, the C.O.’ll tell you, soon enough. He’s been waiting for someone new to tell.’
‘It was hopeless trying to make any sense out of the newspaper reports.’