“Sprint…” Kerr was shaking his head, or maybe it was twitching more strongly. “What sprint? Nobody ran.”
“Helter skelter we peltered across the ground which was intervening and as we drew up to the German defences—”
“The wounded sergeant said all this?” Kerr asked. “Helter pelter?”
“Not helter pelter,” she said, sweetly correcting him. “Helter skelter we peltered across—”
“Rubbish. I never knew a sergeant who talked like that.”
Paxton asked her: “What happened when they reached the German defences?”
“Let me see… We met a hellish machine-gun fire.” She shivered deliciously. “Bullets whizzed in all directions. One after another I saw my pals fall… The Manchesters on our left suffered very badly.” She glanced at the rest of the story. “What a shame. That’s all there is about the Manchesters.”
“That’s all there would be,” Kerr said. “There wasn’t any more.”
She folded up the newspaper. “I don’t suppose you’re interested in the Eastern Front, are you?” she said. “No. Well, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“This is an awful chore for you,” Paxton said. “Why not just let me have the paper and I’ll—”
“Heavens, no! It’s my little war-effort. I enjoy it.” She went out, brightly.
“Awfully sorry about the Manchesters,” Paxton said. Kerr said nothing. He had his arm over his eyes again. Paxton left him.
He asked the nurses about Mrs. Cruikshank and was told that she was the wife of a surgeon. They had five children. She regularly read the lesson at services in the hospital chapel. She put lots of expression into it.
Paxton slept a bit better that night; he had learned how not to lie on his arm. But during the spells when pain came back and shook him awake, time dragged by and he felt like a prisoner in the gloom.
Next morning he made sure he was in Kerr’s room when Mrs. Cruikshank arrived.
“Have you both been jolly good lads and done what you were told?” Her eyes twinkled. “Because if you have, I’ve got such a reward for you here!” Already her voice was swooping and peaking like a roller-coaster.
“It’s all bunkum,” Kerr whispered, but if she heard him she didn’t show it.
“Here’s the best medicine for you,” she said; and for one terrible moment Paxton thought she was going to ruffle Kerr’s hair; but instead she sat on the side of his bed. “The big headline says Good Day For Allies!” she announced, “and the little one says Success on All Fronts, British Gaining Ground. That means,” she explained,”we’re doing jolly, jolly well.”
“I don’t suppose there’s anything about the Flying Corps,” Paxton said.
“I’ve found a topping story on one of the inside pages. It’s called Tales of Bravery. What our men faced. The deadly machine-gun.” She made her shoulders shiver. “They got it from a wounded major when he reached London.”
“Not our major,” Kerr said. “Our major won’t see London again.”
“Are you ready? He says the Hun kept up a slow machinegun fire during the last half-hour of our intense bombardment preceding the assault.”
“What?” Paxton was appalled. “That can’t be right, can it?”
“The Boche knew,” Kerr said. “Or guessed. Same difference.”
Mrs. Cruikshank rattled the pages. “Then there’s a heading that says Cheering Into a Bath of Lead.”
“I don’t remember any cheering,” Kerr said.
Mrs. Cruikshank sighed, a dramatic in-and-out of breath. “Honestly, what a pair of fusspots! This major remembers it, and he ought to know. He says: Never in my life have I seen anything finer than the way our successive waves of men marched, singing and cheering, into that bath of lead. The more casualties they saw in front of them the louder they cheered and sang, the harder they pressed forward into it.” She paused because Kerr was blowing his nose, not an easy thing to do when his head twitched so violently.
“Perhaps that’s enough for today,” Paxton suggested.
“Oh, but you must hear this bit. It’s from a young lieutenant who went over the top. He told a reporter, Excepting a few, the fellows who’d been hit came on with the others, shouting just as loud and running nearly as hard, too!”
“Poor bastards,” Kerr whispered.
Paxton shook his head. “It’s not possible,” he said. “How can it be possible?”
“It’s perfectly clear,” she said. “He saw it happen. Some bowled over like boys doing Catherine Wheels when they were hit, and rushed straight on with hardly a check… Let go. Let go!”
Kerr had grabbed a corner of the newspaper and was trying to drag the rest of it out of her hands. It tore, slowly and raggedly. Kerr was swearing, an endless, hoarse, stammering stream of obscenities.
Paxton went and found a nurse.
Later, when his dressings were being changed, he asked the doctor how much longer he would have to stay. “I’d very much like to rejoin my squadron,” he said.
“We’ll see about that in due course.”
“This place is getting very full. You could give my bed to someone who really needs it.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Hornet Squadron’s got a damn good MO. He could do this.”
“We’ll see.”
In the afternoon he had a visitor: Kellaway. Paxton was delighted and wanted to hear all his news from Pepriac, but Kellaway had banged his head yet again in another forced landing, and his memory was patchy. He was in Paris to have his skull X-rayed. “Spud Ogilvy went west, I do know that,” he said. “Collided with a Hun. I know Spud went west because he owed me forty francs… It’s been very busy since you left, lots of changes. O’Neill asked me to give you this.”
It was a tinted postcard showing a very jolly-looking naked lady. On the reverse side O’Neill had written: You owe me a fiver. “I don’t remember borrowing a fiver from Bunny,” Paxton said.
“Beats me, old chap. I don’t remember eating breakfast.”
“I’m fed up with this hospital,” Paxton said. “I’ve asked them to send me back to Pepriac. They keep saying they’ll see about it, but they never do. I’m fed up with doctors, and their bloody silly wives.”
“Come with me. I’m going back tomorrow, in a car.”
Paxton was startled by the simplicity of the idea. People were walking in and out of the hospital all the time. “All right,” he said. “All right. Yes. All right, I’ll do it.”
Paxton slept, woke, ate, drank salt water, and was chatting to a gunner captain who had only one foot when a nurse stopped to say that Captain Kerr was asking for him. Paxton collected the newspapers and went to see him.
“I’d like to apologise,” Kerr said. “Unforgivable way to behave.” He looked grey and tired. His twitch was worse.
“Not a bit of it, old fellow. I quite understand.”
“To tell the truth, I don’t remember very much. All a bit hazy.”
There was a newspaper clipping on his bed. “Is that about the Manchesters?” Paxton asked.
“One of the nurses gave it to me. I haven’t read it, of course.”
Paxton read it, silently. There was nothing there that he could tell Kerr, so he gave him the clipping and said: “Everyone agrees the Manchesters were very brave.” It didn’t seem enough, so he added:”And all the papers say we’ve nearly won.”
“Nearly won.” The clipping shook in Kerr’s hand like a paper flag being waved. “Nearly won.”