Dear God, the people lasted barely three months in this place. He turned the page and turned back again. There were pages missing, torn out; over an entire month, gone. He turned to the last entries, a panic rising in his chest.
October 13th. We ate the last of our surviving oxen today…
November 19th. Last night, my dear George passed away of a terrible fever. He was delirious and did not know me. The Hollands died yesterday in fearful agony. I fear that if Isaiah Walker does not return soon he will come too late. May the Almighty preserve us and see our souls safely to Paradise.
Atkins closed the book. Feeling light-headed, he shoved the diary at Mercy and staggered from the chamber. Mercy said something, but he didn’t hear it. The world had shrunk, pressing in on him, constricting him. He shoved his way past the damn chatt, which was clicking at him. He needed air. He stumbled out into the dark of the passage and felt some small relief from the cool breeze that blew along it.
The Pennines were not the first humans to find themselves here. But after what they had just found, the thought brought little or no comfort to Atkins now. Those people had died here. They died here. There was no way home. It was a one-way trip. Everything he had clung to had been washed away. He felt bereft, adrift.
Gutsy called out from back up the passage, “Only, are you okay? It’s just that Mercy said you seemed a bit windy.”
“A bit windy?” said Atkins, with a sardonic laugh. “Ha, that’s a good one.” He wiped away the tears with the coarse serge sleeve of his tunic. He welcomed the rasping pain on his eyelids and cheeks. “I bloody well funked it, Gutsy. I funked it.”
“It happens to the best, Only, you know that,” said Gutsy, walking towards him. “What matters is you pick yourself up, get yourself back on the fire step.”
“Yes, because that worked so bloody well for Ginger, didn’t it?”
“Ginger had mates. So do you.”
“There’s no point, no bloody point. There’s no way home, Gutsy. I promised I’d look after Flora, but you saw yourself, there is no way home.”
“Flora? Your brother’s fiancé? Very noble sentiment, is that. You’re to be commended.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Only. You’re not the only person to have lost people! We all have family and loved ones back in Blighty. Do you think you’re the only one who doesn’t feel sick looking up at the stars? Do you think you’re the only one who doesn’t wake with a start in the middle of the night with their name on your lips? Do you? D’you think you’re the only one whose heart breaks with every dawn we see here? We’re all in the same hole here, Only. If you know of a better one, go to it!” Gutsy sighed, shook his head sympathetically and softened his tone. “Look, whatever’s going on in your head, you need to sort it. Box it up, put it away. If your head’s not here, you’re going to get yourself killed. You’re going to get us killed. And I’m not going to die because you’ve got a broken heart.”
Atkins looked at him and nodded. There was nothing more to be said. Together, they walked back to the chambers.
When they got there, Mercy had the diary open in his hands. Atkins could tell from the stunned, downcast faces of the men around him that they had all heard the contents of the journal. Even Chandar seemed aware that something had happened, even if it wasn’t sure what. Atkins looked at each of the men in turn. “We can tell no one of this. We must keep this secret. Can you imagine what would happen to morale if the rest of the battalion find out? It would tear it apart.”
The rest of the section shuffled uncomfortably. They knew, right enough.
“No,” said Atkins decisively. “We keep this a secret between ourselves for now.” He looked at Nellie. “Not even the tank crew are to know. We tell Lieutenant Everson and no one else, and he can decide what to do with this information. Is that understood?”
There was a muttered agreement.
“Good. Now let’s do right by these folk.”
Salvaging only the family bible and the journal, they used a grenade and blew the entrance to seal the chamber, burying the families within and burying, in their own hearts, a little of the hopes each of them had nurtured of getting home again.
INTERLUDE FIVE
21st March 1917
Dearest Flora,
Today has been a black day. Today I fear I have lost you for good. I will never see you again, never hold you in my arms, and never hear your laughter again. The scent on your last letter has faded now and is lost to me forever. Perhaps it was an omen.
For all the months I have been here, I have held onto the fact that one day, one day soon, I will return to you. If I can’t do that, I
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AS THE MEN of 1 Section continued their search for the tank crew, the mood that seized them was a sombre one, akin to those moments before the whistle blew and they went over the top. Under the burden of the new secret they carried, each man was momentarily adrift, alone on a sea of his own thoughts. If they had lucky charms they sought them out now in the privacy of the semi-dark catacombs.
“Oh, Christ, we’re really stuck here. We’re never going to get home,” moaned Chalky.
“And we’re stuck here with you, but you don’t hear us moan about it,” said Porgy.
Prof, who could usually be counted on to chivvy Chalky along, had sunk into a morose silence.
Nellie tried to cheer the young lad up. For all that these men were soldiers, some were little more than boys. “Shhh. Don’t say that. You don’t know that.”
Atkins chalked another wall to mark their way and turned to the sweating butcher by his side. “Chalky’s right, Gutsy.”
“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t, but there’s no need to say it. How many times has a man thought that in the trenches? And what good has it ever done him?”
“Aye, but there, home was only a Blighty one away, Gutsy. Now…” he left the sentence hanging.
How did Lieutenant Everson do it, wondered Atkins? How did he marshal his own fears, which must have been the same as any man’s, and yet be able to go down the line and dispense encouragement and fortitude?
Atkins felt he had nothing left to give. He was empty. Empty of zeal, empty of heart. Empty of hope. Yet again, this world had ripped the wind from his sails. He was completely sapped. It was like wading though a quagmire of Somme mud, when concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other was almost too much, and some men allowed themselves to be sucked under and drowned, rather than fight against it to take another step.
Maybe he deserved this. What if this was his punishment? Had his indiscretion with Flora finally reached the ears of God? For a moment, self-loathing rose up within him. This place was now his purgatory, and on some level he welcomed it, embraced it. Whatever it threw at him he would endure, the penitent Fusilier.
They moved on through a honeycomb of passages, threading their way through tunnels, traversing chambers and inclines where ancient, inhuman passages branched and branched again, leading to dead ends and roof falls. Piles of rubble and debris made some corridors impassable; thick infestations of plants, weeds and roots choked others. There was, however, still no sign of either the tank men, or whatever haunted these earthen halls. Only the odd, discordant piping notes from the few air vents not choked with weeds broke the silence.