There was a glow of light ahead and a moment later he was in the comparative warmth of the dugout. There were two candles burning and the brazier gave off heat and a sharp smell of soot. The air was blue with tobacco smoke, and a pile of boots and greatcoats steamed a little. Two officers sat on canvas chairs talking together. One of them recited a joke-gallows humor, and they both laughed. A gramophone sat silent on a camp table, and a small pile of records of the latest music-hall songs was carefully protected in a tin box.
“Hello, Chaplain,” one of them said cheerfully. “How’s God these days?”
“Gone home on sick leave,” the other answered quickly, before Joseph could reply. There was disgust in his voice, but no intended irreverence. Death was too close here for men to mock faith.
“Have a seat,” the first offered, waving toward a third chair. “Morris got it today. Killed outright. That bloody sniper again”
“He’s somewhere out there, just about opposite us,” the second said grimly. “One of those blighters the other day claimed he’d got forty-three for sure.”
“I can believe it,” Joseph answered, accepting the seat. He knew better than most what the casualties were. It was his job to comfort the terrified, the dying, to carry stretchers, often to write letters to the bereaved. Sometimes he thought it was harder than actually fighting, but he refused to stay back in the comparative safety of the field hospitals and depots. This was where he was most needed.
“Thought about setting up a trench raid,” the major said slowly, weighing his words and looking at Joseph. “Good for morale. Make it seem as if we were actually doing something. But our chances of getting the blighter are pretty small. Only lose a lot of men for nothing. Feel even worse afterward.”
The captain did not add anything. They all knew morale was sinking. Losses were high, the news bad. Word of terrible slaughter seeped through from the Somrne and Verdun and all along the line right to the sea. Physical hardship took its toll, the dirt, the cold, and the alternation between boredom and terror. The winter of 1916 lay ahead.
“Cigarette?” the major held out his pack to Joseph.
“No thanks,” Joseph declined with a smile. “Got any tea going?”
They poured him a mugful, strong and bitter, but hot. He drank it, and half an hour later made his way forward to the open air again and the travel trench. A star shell exploded high and bright. Automatically he ducked, keeping his head below the rim. They were about four feet deep, and in order not to provide a target, a man had to move in a half crouch. There was a rattle of machine-gun fire out ahead and, closer to, a thud as a rat was dislodged and fell into the mud beside the duckboards.
Other men were moving about close to him. The normal order of things was reversed here. Nothing much happened during the day. Trench repair work was done, munitions shifted, weapons cleaned, a little rest taken. Most of the activity was at night, most of the death.
“ ‘Lo, Chaplain,” a voice whispered in the dark. “Say a prayer we get that bloody sniper, will you?”
“Maybe God’s a Jerry?” someone suggested in the dark.
“Don’t be stupid!” a third retorted derisively. “Everyone knows God’s an Englishman! Didn’t they teach you nothing at school?”
There was a burst of laughter. Joseph joined in. He promised to offer up the appropriate prayers and moved on forward. He had known many of the men all his life. They came from the same Northumbrian town as he did, or the surrounding villages. They had gone to school together, nicked apples from the same trees, fished in the same rivers, and walked the same lanes.
It was a little after six when he reached the firing trench beyond whose sandbag parapet lay no-man’s-land with its four or five hundred yards of mud, barbed wire, and shell holes. Half a dozen burnt tree stumps looked in the sudden flares like men. Those gray wraiths could be fog, or gas.
Funny that in summer this blood-and-horror-soaked soil could still bloom with honeysuckle, forget-me-nots, and wild larkspur, and most of all with poppies. You would think nothing would ever grow there again.
More star shells went up, lighting the ground, the jagged scars of the trenches black, the men on the fire steps with rifles on their shoulders illuminated for a few, blinding moments. Sniper shots rang out.
Joseph stood still. He knew the terror of the night watch out beyond the parapet, crawling around in the mud. Some of them would be at the head of saps out from the trench, most would be in shell holes, surrounded by heavy barricades of wire. Their purpose was to check enemy patrols for unusual movement, any signs of increased activity, as if there might be an attack planned.
More star shells lit the sky. It was beginning to rain. A crackle of machine-gun fire, and heavier artillery somewhere over to the left. Then the sharp whine of sniper fire, again and again.
Joseph shuddered. He thought of the men out there, beyond his vision, and prayed for strength to endure with them in their pain, not to try to deaden himself to it.
There were shouts somewhere ahead, heavy shells now, shrapnel bursting. There was a flurry of movement, flares, and a man came sliding over the parapet, shouting for help.
Joseph plunged forward, sliding in the mud, grabbing for the wooden props to hold himself up. Another flare of light. He saw quite clearly Captain Holt lurching toward him, another man over his shoulder, deadweight.
“He’s hurt!” Holt gasped. “Pretty badly. One of the night patrol. Panicked. Just about got us all killed.” He eased the man down into Joseph’s arms and let his rifle slide forward, bayonet covered in an old sock to hide its gleam. His face was grotesque in the lantern light, smeared with mud and a wide streak of blood over the burnt cork that blackened it, as all night patrol had.
Others were coming to help. There was still a terrible noise of fire going on and the occasional flare.
The man in Joseph’s arms did not stir. His body was limp and it was difficult to support him. Joseph felt the wetness and the smell of blood. Wordlessly others materialized out of the gloom and took the weight.
“Is he alive?” Holt said urgently. “There was a hell of a lot of shot up there.” His voice was shaking, almost on the edge of control.
“Don’t know,” Joseph answered. “We’ll get him back to the bunker and see. You’ve done all you can.” He knew how desperate men felt when they risked their lives to save another man and did not succeed. A kind of despair set in, a sense of very personal failure, almost a guilt for having survived themselves. “Are you hurt?”
“Not much,” Holt answered. “Couple of grazes.”
“Better have them dressed, before they get poisoned,” Joseph advised, his feet slipping on the wet boards and banging his shoulder against a jutting post. The whole trench wall was crooked, giving way under the weight of mud. The founds had eroded.
The man helping him swore.
Awkwardly carrying the wounded man, they staggered back through the travel line to the support trench and into the light and shelter of a bunker.
Holt looked dreadful. Beneath the cork and blood his face was ashen. He was soaked with rain and mud and there were dark patches of blood across his back and shoulders.
Someone gave him a cigarette. Back here it was safe to strike a match. He drew in smoke deeply. “Thanks,” he murmured, still staring at the wounded man.
Joseph looked down at him now, and it was only too plain where the blood had come from. It was young Ashton. He knew him quite well. He had been at school with his older brother.
The soldier who had helped carry him in let out a cry of dismay, strangled in his throat. It was Mordaff, Ashton’s closest friend, and he could see what Joseph now could also. Ashton was dead, his chest torn open, the blood no longer pumping, and a bullet hole through his head.