The Black Mountains (45 page)

The trench was shallower here, hastily dug to consolidate ground gained, only three to four feet deep, and within a stone's throw of the barbed-wire. Above it, a cluster of shattered trees stood sentinel, their branches and trunks blasted to premature death, but their roots spreading tenaciously through the trench walk. Ted crawled along it on hands and knees while above him the storm raged on. At the intersection where the split trench curved away, he paused to get his breath.

A burst of machine-gun fire crackled, sharper and closer than before, and automatically, he ducked. Then, as it died away, something made him straighten just enough to peep warily over the rim of the trench at the narrow strip of barren earth that reached to the barbed wire.

Men, long since dead lay there, heap upon untidy heap, but now there were fresh corpses and those not yet dead who writhed and moaned. Although he knew he was in mortal danger, and although his eyes were misted from pain and loss, of blood, Ted stared for a moment in honor. Then, he started, tingling through and through with awareness.

Among the shattered bodies was one he thought he recognized. That boyish face, imploring heaven as he tried to drag himself across the sunbaked ground, was one he knew. Somehow he was sure it belonged to no one from his company, no one he'd met in this godforsaken hole. It came from a different place, and a different time. The khaki uniform was distracting Ted's memory, and the pain confusing him.

The small body out there in No Man's Land flattened, the face dropped forward to bury itself in the bloodied mess of a shattered soldier, and in the same instant Ted remembered.

Reg Adams! The boy from Bath who had come to South Hill Pit to avoid conscription! Suddenly the fury of the battle seemed very far away, and Ted was back in the black passages beneath the friendly earth, chewing on a cogknocker and drinking cold tea from his stone bottle as he listened to the boy explaining his reasons for wanting to stay at home.

He hadn't made it then. He hadn't been able to escape the notice of the pen-pushers. They'd caught up with him, just as he'd been afraid they would. And he wasn't going to make it now, either, unless someone helped him, and helped him soon.

Hurriedly Ted looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the dying lad. But what was special about one boy dragging himself back to the lines when men were dying all around? He looked back at Reg. The boy's hands were stretched out before him, clawing helplessly at the earth, and Ted was suddenly reminded of Harry learning to crawl.

The pain in his foot had spread so that his whole body seemed to be encircled with it. This, for some strange reason, made it easier for him to put his weight on it. He searched the planking against the wall of the trench to find a toe-hold, and was surprised when he felt nothing. Strangely, his foot was numb from the ankle down—it was the rest of his body that was consumed in pain.

With tremendous effort, Ted found his toe-hold and hoisted himself up. It was hard going; his strong and muscular arms felt like pieces of gas-mask tubing that would not bear the weight of his body. All around him the fury raged on; a shell fragment spattered him with earth, snipes' shots whizzed past him and the angry air sang in his ears. Behind him, another shell landed with a dull thud, and he heard the rush of soil as the trench walls caved in. But he did not look back.

Inch by inch he wormed his way forward, his injured foot dragging uselessly behind him, his eyes blurring from sweat and loss of blood.

A little more. A little more. Not much farther now.

It never occurred to Ted that he might be too weak to drag himself back to the trench, let alone a wounded boy, too. Neither did it occur to him that the lad might be beyond help. He reached the body, pulling himself along with one last, mighty effort, and spoke the boy's name with eager urgency.

“Reg, Reggie, are you all right?”

There was no answer, no answering movement. Ted raised himself on his elbows, prodding the boy.

“Reg! Come on now! It's not far. We'll make it together.”

There was still no reply.

“Reg!” With a supreme effort, he lifted the lad, turning him on to his side, and two facts presented themselves simultaneously.

First, the lad was dead. The pleading gesture had been his last, and his wide and staring eyes would never see England again. But even as Ted tried to digest the fact that all his effort had been in vain, he grasped the other.

This wasn't Reg Adams. He wasn't even very like him. Only the small-boned wiriness of him was similar. And this was only a boy—one of those who'd faked his age to join up, more than likely.

Rage filled Ted, lending him new strength. He'd get the youngster back if it killed him! Somewhere, someone was worrying about him, and he wanted them to know. Besides, to leave a kid like this out here to rot was filthy—obscene—a sum total of all the obscenities.

Ted gritted his teeth, and catching the boy by the shoulders, pulled him an inch or two. But he was heavy, much heavier than he looked, heavier than any putt of coal.

The thought gave Ted an idea. From his pocket he took a length of twine which he had saved in case it came in useful. This he tied round the boy's chest, passing it under his armpits and knotting it firmly. Then he dragged himself up into a kneeling position, bringing the twine between his legs and fastening it around his waist.

Just like the gus and crook, he thought, and then there was no, effort left to spare for thinking.

Ted was half-way when it first came to him that he might not make it. He hardly seemed to be moving, and he felt as though he were swimming against a strong tide with useless limbs, lungs that were bursting and a head that sang from weakness. The battle still raged around him, but he was no longer aware of it.

Pull, move, one knee, the other, keep your face off the ground. Why can't you see, damn it, why can't you see? Pull, move, you're not trying hard enough. It's all right, Reg, we'll make it. Not far now, see? Not far. But why the sea? How did you get into the sea? No, the beach—it's the beach, the sand. Can't you hear the breakers, you silly bugger? There, against the rocks. The tide must be coming in. Can't you hear it?

From the tumultuous cacophony, one sound isolated itself, a shrill, high-pitched whine, coming closer and closer. Ted lifted his head, puzzled. What was that? What was it?

And then he knew. For a second, his fogged brain cleared, and suddenly it was like looking through the clearest crystal. He saw the trenches, the men, the guns silhouetted against the clear, blue sky. He saw the earth beneath him, brown and ravaged, and felt again the pain in his foot.

A shell! he thought. A shell, coming this way! So it's all been for nothing. All for nothing!

Almost from the first, Rebecca knew that she was pregnant. It was a sick certainty inside her that she could not dispel however often she told herself it had been only once, and somehow she felt it was a just punishment for her sin.

I must have encouraged him, she thought. For him to do such a terrible thing, I must have been partly to blame. And now I shall have to pay.

Days passed, and the signs accumulated. There was the nausea rolling over her in waves when she got out of bed in the mornings; then, there was the absence of ‘the curse', which should have come around two weeks after Rupert's attack on her, and lastly, there was the change in her breasts—they had become firmer and engorged, the area around her nipples growing darker. But she told no one; there was no one to tell. And all the time she trembled from head to foot as she wondered what to do.

If only Ted were here! But he wasn't. He was in France. And although she managed to smuggle some writing paper and envelopes out of her father's desk when she found it unlocked one day, and scribble Ted a hastily written note, she'd had nothing in reply.

But on one thing she was determined. Whatever happened, she would not marry Rupert. Quite apart from the fact that the very thought was as repugnant to her as ever, it would be her revenge on him for what he had done to her. For, as he told her that night, he was certain to be conscripted into the army sooner or later, unless she became his wife.

“You'll have to marry me, Becky,” he had said to her several times after that dreadful night when he had taken her, but she only set her mouth in a determined line and shook her head.

“I won't marry you, Rupert. And if you and my father try to make me, I'll say no at the altar.”

Rupert subsided then, wretched with guilt, and for the first time since she had known him, she had felt he was actually afraid of her. She knew why, of course. He was afraid she would tell her father what he had done, and that would be the end of all Alfred's promises to set him up.

When no mention was made to him of an impending wedding, Alfred began to wonder what had happened and mentioned it to Rupert.

“You were so keen to bring the date forward, my boy,” he said in puzzled tones. “Is something wrong?”

Rupert coloured, and his hands began to shake.

“Becky's so shy and inexperienced, Uncle,” he said. “ I don't want to hurry or frighten her.”

“Would you like me to speak to her?” Alfred suggested, and was surprised by Rupert's vehement response.

“No! No, just leave it to me, Uncle. Given time, I know I can bring her round to the idea of marrying me willingly. And I wouldn't want her any other way.”

“But your conscription?” Alfred said. “ Men are being pulled into service in their hundreds. It can't be long before it's your turn.”

“No, I've thought of that,” Rupert said. “I'm making out a case for the Appeals Tribunal now, on the grounds that I shall be of more use to the community as a solicitor than a soldier.”

Alfred nodded. The Appeals Tribunals had been sitting every two or three weeks since April, hearing pleas from reluctant conscriptees on every imaginable ground, from their indispensability at work to the fact that they were the last remaining son of a family not already in France.

“I still think you'd do best to set the date for the wedding,” he said, blissfully ignorant of how hard Rupert was trying to do just that.

As the weeks passed, Rebecca's desperation grew. Certain now that she was going to have a baby, she was terrified of what would happen when her father found out. What he would do to Rupert she didn't know, and didn't much care either, for she was sure she would be the one to take the brunt of his anger.

Just when she reached the depths of despair, she thought of Ted's mother. Although she had only met her once, Rebecca had liked her, sensing the inner strength that made her just the person to turn to in a crisis. And it would be the next best thing to having Ted at her side. But how to get to see her? There was one way, and one way only.

“Take me to Hillsbridge, Rupert. I want to see someone there,” she said the next evening when he came to visit her. “ There's no reason at all why I can't ride in the side-car.”

“Why do you want to go to Hillsbridge?” he asked bad-temperedly.

She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze defiantly. “That's none of your business. Now, are you going to take me, or am I going to tell my father what you have done?”

Rupert's eyes fell away and a bead or two of perspiration stood out on his forehead. Curse it how could he have been so stupid as to get himself into a position like this? But for the moment he would play along with her.

“Where in Hillsbridge?” he asked.

“You can drop me outside the George Hotel,” she said. “ I'll walk from there.”

“All right”

It was bumpy riding in the side-car, and before they had gone far, Rebecca began to feel sick. But she gritted her teeth and forced back the nausea, and when he stopped outside the George she climbed out.

“I won't be long,” she said. Then she turned the corner into Conygre Hill, and was lost to his sight.

The sun was low in the sky now, but it was still oppressively hot, but that did not lessen her pace. If she was too long, Rupert might decide to come looking for her after all, and that was the last thing she wanted. Only when she reached the point where Greenslade Terrace angled away from the hill did she pause, the beating of her heart keeping time with her ragged breath. This was the rank. Now, she had only to find the right house. But when she did, what was she going to say? All the carefully rehearsed speech had flown from her mind, and she felt the beginnings of panic.

How could she possibly tell this woman she scarcely knew that she was going to have a baby? And why had she ever been so foolish as to think she might help?

I must have been crazy! Rebecca thought. But it was too late to turn back now, and taking her courage in both hands, she walked along the rank until she came to number eleven. Then, before it could desert her, she raised her hand and knocked on the door.

For a moment there was no sound from within and her heart fluttered somewhere between relief and despair. Then she heard footsteps and voices coming closer and the door was flung open by a little boy in short trousers and a shirt with a sailor collar. Although he could not have been more than six years old, his colouring was so like Ted's that Rebecca knew at once that this must be Harry.

“Is your mother in?” she asked.

“Yes, I'm here,” Charlotte called.

Because she had bent down to speak to Harry, Rebecca had not seen Charlotte, and now she jumped self-consciously.

“Oh Mrs Hall! I didn't know you were there!”

“Rebecca! Then you've heard!”

“Heard? Heard what?” Rebecca asked, staring at Charlotte. The older woman had aged somehow since their last meeting; her eyes were hooded and tired, her face drawn and pale.

She moved Harry aside and opened the door wider. “Come in, Rebecca.”

The girl followed, her nervousness growing. There was something different about Mrs Hall, and she was not certain of her welcome. And what was it that she thought Rebecca had heard?