Now fully aware of his surroundings, he looked around. “Where are the rest, Atkins and the others? They were in the kite balloon. Are they all right?”
Jack waved his arm. “Spread out, find them.”
THE TANK CREW came back in ones and twos, with bruised and battered Tommies and scattered haversacks, gasbags, battle bowlers and rifles.
Corporal Riley and Tonkins had found themselves stuck in adjacent trees, having slid down a succession of broad flat leaves as though they were slides. Their electric lance kitbags were found nearby, their fall broken by the undergrowth.
Gazette had twisted his ankle and ended up entangled in a thicket, as if he’d been left hanging out on the old barbed wire.
They came across Pot Shot groaning in shrubbery.
“Bloody hell, I haven’t taken a beating like that since the police set about us during the general strike!” he moaned as they hauled him out.
Gutsy had got away relatively unscathed, having had the benefit of the unfortunate Mercy as a soft landing as they came hobbling in together.
“Well, if it isn’t Wendy and the Lost Boys,” Gutsy said in clipped, bitter tones when he saw the tank crew.
Nellie threw him the kind of haughty look she usually reserved for her brothers. Gutsy, who had contended with Mrs Blood’s occasional wrath for over a decade, baulked nevertheless.
All were maps of contusions, scratches, bruises and livid welts from whip-thin branches, and all had run their gamut of swear words until there was nothing left but a weary acceptance of the discomfort and pain.
They found Padre Rand kneeling over Jenkins, the signals gear hung from various branches around them. The livid, raw acid burns on Jenkins’ face were the least of his worries now. He screwed up his eyes in pain as he snatched short ragged breaths. Padre Rand barely had time to read him the Last Rites before Jenkins’ breathing became softer and then, with one last gasp, stopped altogether.
ATKINS CAME ROUND, his head hurting, every limb throbbing and aching. He eased himself into a sitting position against a tree trunk, resting uncomfortably against the jumble of gear in his knapsack.
He was amazed to find himself still alive. His first thought now was of Flora, just as his last thought had been. He was still alive. He could still get back to her. But to do that, he would have to move.
He saw his rifle some yards away, and levered himself to his feet. The action set off a ferocious pounding in his head. Spots danced before his eyes as he steadied himself. He heard voices calling. He tried to call out, but his mouth was parched and he couldn’t find his water bottle, so he started towards the sounds.
Ahead, white petals drifted down from a tree bough, spinning round in eddies and carpeting the ground beneath the tree. Limping towards it, he realised they weren’t petals, but pieces of card. He could see photographs on some. A slipknot of fear tightened round his stomach. He dropped to his knees and brushed his hand through the fallen photogravures, turning them over. They were photographs of girls, every one, some smiling, some demure, full figure, portrait, occasional French nudes and music hall singers. He knew them all.
Several more fluttered down from above.
Not wanting to, but needing to know, he looked up. He dearly wished he hadn’t.
Fifteen feet above, a body lay face down, splayed awkwardly across a couple of boughs with an arm outstretched, as if reaching for the fallen cards. Pallid whipcord creepers had wrapped themselves around the neck, biting deeply into the skin. The eyes were wide and bloodshot; the fleshy parts of the face were dark purple and bloated with settling blood, distorting the once pleasant features into a grotesque caricature as it stared down through the foliage at him.
Atkins’ voice was quiet but heavy with sorrow, regret and guilt, all bound up in a single word. “Porgy.”
Try as he might, he couldn’t reach his mate’s body. Unwilling to abandon him, he set about collecting up the fallen photographs, Porgy’s ‘deck of cards’. As he did, Atkins felt the tears come, stinging the welts on his face as they tracked down his cheeks. Being alone, he let them fall.
He wasn’t sure how long the voices had been calling. He cuffed his eyes dry and shook off his despondency enough to call out hoarsely, “Here!”
The rest of the section and the tank crew arrived in short order. It took five of them to cut Porgy’s body free and lower him gently to the ground, as Atkins watched, numbed.
Nellie sought to comfort him, putting a hand on his arm.
“Only–”
Atkins shrugged it off, rounding on her.
“Where the fuck were you?” he spat at her. Shocked at his own vehemence and anger, he watched Nellie open her mouth to say something, but he wasn’t listening. He didn’t want to listen. He knew it wasn’t her fault. But he couldn’t stop himself. As if Porgy’s pointless, stupid death had given him permission, all the pain and self-doubt he had kept bottled up over William, over Flora, welled up in a way he hadn’t felt since Ketch died. Atkins’ brutal words had opened a sluice gate, and the rage and pain poured out in a torrent. “I told you to stay where you were. If you’d stayed at the top of the crater, like I said, like I ordered you to, we wouldn’t be in this bloody mess and Porgy wouldn’t be dead! But oh, no, Miss bloody high-and-mighty knew better. This is all your fucking fault!”
The tank crew gathered protectively behind Nellie, and Jack stepped up to Atkins.
“Are you looking for trouble, chum?”
“Jack, Only. Stop it,” said Nellie as the men glowered at each other. “I have four brothers. I can fight my own battles, Jack. I don’t need you to do it for me.”
Atkins balled his hands into fists. He didn’t care. He deserved it. He would take anything the burly tanker dished out; after all, he thought to himself bitterly, wasn’t he the penitent Fusilier?
“Come on, then,” he said.
The longed-for blow never landed. Everson stepped between them.
“That’s enough,” he said. “I’ve already had one mutiny. I won’t have another. Is that clear?”
Jack lowered his fists and allowed Nellie to escort him back to the others, berating him as they went and giving his arm a solid punch.
Atkins continued to glare at the gunner’s broad back.
“Is that clear?” repeated Everson.
“Sir,” said Atkins, grudgingly, his hands relaxing.
EVERSON BREATHED A sigh of relief and gestured Gutsy over.
“Blood, take Lance Corporal Atkins over there, calm him down. Otterthwaite, get Hopkiss’s identity disc and divide his ammunition and food. Then we need to organise a burial party.”
Everson noticed the tank crew in a brief huddle. They pushed Jack from the scrum towards him. The gunner looked awkward and embarrassed.
“We don’t think it’s a good idea to bury them, sir. We should burn them.”
“Burn them?”
“It’s just that the sub – Lieutenant Mathers, sir–”
“I thought you said he was dead?”
“He was, sir.”
“Was?”
“Some sort of fungus reanimated his body, sir.”
Everson pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Was nothing ever straightforward in this place?
“And where is Mathers now?” he asked wearily.
“Sucked into an underground river, sir.”
“Well then, problem solved. Private, we haven’t the time to cut down wood and build a pyre to burn them. We bury them and move on.”
Jack shuffled, unsure.
“That’s an order, private.”
“I DON’T LIKE any of this, Corp,” said Tonkins, as he stood by the fresh shallow grave with his entrenching tool. “I wish I was back in the dugout, making repairs.”
“Well, lad,” said Riley, stood by another, ready to dispense his customary wisdom. He really wished he had a pipe to draw on. These things always sounded better when punctuated by puffs of shag and wreathed in a fog of fragrant smoke, but needs must. “It’s like my old father always said: ‘Hope for the best, expect the worst and take what comes.’ After all, I put in for extra staff in my unit and Battalion sent me you. And look how that’s turned out!” he said, slapping Tonkins heartily on the back.