INTERLUDE FOUR
20th March 1917
My Dearest Flora,
We went for a bit of a nature ramble today with the tank lads. It didn’t go so well. The tank got stuck and I was attacked by insects.
Still and all, I had a happy time wandering through the woods, thinking how wonderful it would have been if you were here. Would a nature ramble agree with you in your condition, do you think? I don’t expect your Aunt lets you out of the house much.
Of course, all good things must come to an end and I came to a bad one right enough, banging my noggin. Out cold, I was, but I dreamt of you, so that was a bonus. It was just a pity that I had to wake from it so soon.
I write this now by fire light as we are camping out in the wilds. Not that Gutsy notices, he can sleep anywhere. I hope that tomorrow we can return to the comfort of our dugout. There’s a thing you thought you’d never hear me say. And here’s another, what I wouldn’t give for a pair of me mam’s knitted socks. I can’t darn to save me life and my last pair has got more holes than I’ve got toes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHILL DAWN JUST tinted the pallid sky with vermillion smudges, like roughly smeared lipstick on a “lady typist’s” damask cheek. A thick, low fog had settled in the early hours, sinking down into the trenches, drifting sinuously through the valley and blanketing the veldt.
Everson chewed his bottom lip and felt the old familiar mixture of thrill and fear, as he walked along the duckboards from bay to bay along the fire trench, giving encouragement to weary soldiers who had withstood two days of attack and stood it with courage and fortitude. Even though losses had been lighter than he’d expected, here and there he noticed gaps beginning to open in the front line. Another day of assaults and he might not have the men left to close them.
His thoughts turned to Lance Corporal Atkins and his mission. There was no way of knowing how they were faring. No matter how much he wanted to, he could not depend on them now. He was resigned to fighting with what he had and determined to hold out here as long as possible.
After all, there was nowhere else to go.
Every man was Stood To on the fire steps, looking over the parapets and down their rifles towards the enemy, in expectation of a dawn attack.
High above, on the hill-top on the valley side, a lone light twinkled its iddy umpty message from the observation post to the HQ below.
A runner darted through the communications trenches, calling out in a low voice, “Lieutenant Everson?” and was passed along from bay to bay by weary, hungry soldiers.
Everson heard his name. “Over here, Barnes. What is it?”
The private handed over a scruffy stub of folded paper. “Message, sir.”
Everson unfolded the grubby sheet, read and reread the hastily scribbled note, and shook his head in disbelief. “It’s not possible.”
THE PAST COUPLE of days had meant little sleep for anyone, least of all the medical staff. Captain Lippett had worked long hours in the surgical tent ceaselessly cutting, sawing and sewing, and Sister Fenton, organising the orderlies and the urmen volunteers, seemed indomitable and tireless. Edith Bell was tired. The demands of the wounded were constant, from the small, frequent and easily answered requests for water or a smoke to the anguished pain-spurred appeals that only God could now fulfil. All she wanted to do was fall on her little bed and sleep, but not yet. She strode briskly through the fog, over to the compound, to check on her coterie of shell-shocked men.
“How have they been?” she asked the sagging sentry, who shivered in the dawn chill.
“Quiet as the grave, ma’am. Not a peep.”
“Nothing? Nothing at all?” A hint of suspicion tinged her voice.
“Not so as I heard,” he said, as he unbolted the gate to let her pass.
There were those amongst the men who couldn’t tolerate any kind of confined space, not the hut or the dugout, who slept in the open as best they could with their tremors and nightmares for company. Letting a soft smile spread across her face, she went to the first pile of bedding to check on the patient. The crude mattress was unoccupied, its blanket thrown aside as if in haste. At this discovery, she merely raised a quizzical eyebrow.
As she went from one to another, she found the bedding heaps of straw-filled mattresses were all empty. That in itself was unusual. Now she was becoming perturbed. Where were their occupants? Her heart racing, she scanned the compound once more, as if to be sure of her eyes, before heading across to the hut with a rising sense of urgency. She pushed the door open. As the pale light from the doorway cut through the interior gloom, the silence that met her only increased her sense of alarm. The self-absorbed muttering, the yelps of alarm, the constant scuffling and thrashing that usually greeted her were absent. Blankets lay abandoned on the floor. The hut, like the compound, was empty.
Her mind racing, she turned and made for the dugout where some of the men huddled for comfort. In her haste, her feet slipped on the crudely constructed wooden steps and she slithered to the bottom, almost losing her balance. She recovered herself and fished in her trouser pockets for a box of Lucifers. Regretting the use, she struck one. The sulphur-bright flame flared and flickered, chasing away the chill gloom. The acrid smell of sulphur hung in the still air about her, clinging to her hair and stinging her nostrils. She held the dwindling match aloft. The dugout was as empty as Christ’s tomb on Easter Sunday.
The guttering glow could shed no light on the mystery, but a shrivelled knot of fear formed in her stomach. She shuddered, dropping the match as she rushed up the steps, trying to quell the irrational panic that rose within her.
“They’ve gone!” she cried. “They’ve all gone!”
EVERSON HEADED ALONG the fire trench to the bay where Sergeant Hobson was stationed. By the time he found his old platoon sergeant, the rumours were already beginning to spread. Being a good platoon sergeant, he’d already heard them.
“Is it true, sir?” Hobson asked. Everson had known him since training and the man was a fount of practical knowledge and experience, and had been his right hand man on the Somme through the bloody summer of 1916, but he doubted if even Hobson had seen anything like this.
“Apparently. The message from Hill OP is that the Khungarrii have vanished overnight. Just melted away. Their whole army. At least, that’s what it looks like.”
The sergeant coughed and looked uneasy.
Everson knew the sound well enough. “Out with it, Sergeant.”
“I don’t like to say it sir, but isn’t that exactly what happened to us? There one minute, gone the next?”
“I had the same thought, Sergeant. But it can’t be that, can it?”
“The way our luck’s been running recently, I wouldn’t like the thought of them chatts running round the bloody Somme on our return ticket. If I allowed myself to think of that, I’d fair bloody weep with the injustice of it, sir. But one thing you can be sure of, if we’ve thought of it the men will have, too.”
“Yes. Best keep them Stood To, Sergeant, until we can find out exactly what’s happened. The last thing we need is a damned mutiny. Maybe there’s some other reason, some Khungarrii high day or holy day, perhaps.”
“Then again, maybe the buggers have got a trick up their sleeves, sir?”
“There is that. Either way, I don’t like it, Sergeant. I’ll send Tulliver up for a look-see when the light’s better, but for now I need to know what’s going on out there. I want you to take a patrol out, see what you can find. Take Poilus with you.”