The Soldier's Song (22 page)

I have enclosed a few sheets outlining a problem I am working on at the moment. The problem is not strictly mathematical – the real problem is one of my students, a Mr MacIntyre who is a very peculiar creature. MacIntyre is no great mathematician, but he is of the opinion that he is, and he does not take kindly to being told he is wrong. I think he finds it particularly offensive being corrected by a mere woman, so perhaps a second opinion from you might help him see the error of his ways. As you can see, his contention is quite simple – it concerns the use of Fibonacci numbers to find primes – but is also quite obviously flawed. Nevertheless, MacIntyre believes it to be one of the great lost truths of mathematics, and he thinks he can make a name for himself if he can construct a proof. I thought it might amuse you to write a short counter-proof. If nothing else it will keep your mathematical faculties in trim, and I’m sure you will enjoy it.

I look forward to your next letter and I want you to know that we are all praying for you here, and hoping that this dreadful war will be over before the new year is out.

Yours truly,

Lillian.

* * *

Arundel House was what it was called on the trench map. Three-foot walls and a teetering chimneybreast. It hardly deserved the name, but there it stood in the inky pool of its own shadow, a clear landmark on the white blanket of snow.

Too clear by half. The moon was so bright that he could make out the bullet holes in the plaster, the black scorch marks, and the forbidding glint of the barbed-wire entanglements. The listening post was just a few yards beyond the ruin, but Devereux would not be going there tonight. Not with this moon – not with no cloud and the ground so spotless white.

But Wilson wasn’t going to give up that easily. In a week he would be home on leave, and he wanted to be shot of Devereux by then. He stood in the freezing trench for over an hour, studying the ruin, the moon and the frigid indigo sky. But it was no good. The moon was full and there wasn’t a scrap of cloud to cover it. Disappointment was plain on his face when he finally took his eye away from the periscope. It would be suicide for men to go out tonight. They would be like flies on a tablecloth.

‘It’ll never do, Mr Ryan,’ he said, handing him the periscope. ‘Pass the word that the raid is cancelled. Put listening parties in our two saps, changed every hour, and sentries in the fire trench as usual. I’ll tell the Black Hand gang their hour of glory is postponed.’

‘Very good, sir.’ Stephen stumped off along the frozen duckboards, and Wilson slipped into the officers’ dugout, where Devereux had been waiting with his men for this past half-hour, all four of them muffled up in hats and gloves and with their faces blacked.

Stephen found Gardner crouched over the firing step, inspecting the bare feet of one of his men by the light of a candle.

‘The stunt’s off’ — he began, and they both turned towards the sound of raised voices coming from the dugout. Wilson’s shrill tone was partly drowned by Devereux’s deep complaining rumble.

‘So I see,’ Gardner whispered as the argument came to an end. The gas curtain snapped open violently, and Devereux’s bulky shadow emerged, snorting great clouds of steam in the freezing air. He stamped angrily towards them and stormed past without a second look, muttering under his breath.

‘Breen, you must change your socks every day and stamp your feet for a minute every hour,’ Gardner said, with hardly a pause. ‘The blackness will clear up if you get the blood flowing again. Now, put those dry socks on.’ With that, he stood up and stamped his own feet, craning his head around to look at the stars and the moon. ‘Bit on the bright side, if you ask me. I don’t see what Devereux’s so put out about. I wouldn’t fancy my chances out there tonight.’

‘Me neither. But he does seem hellfire anxious to go. Maybe he thinks the boss can command the weather, eh?’

Stephen clapped him on the shoulder and moved on to post sentries and detail listening parties for the saps that lay a few yards out in no man’s land. On his way back he passed the details to Gardner, who had the watch. When he returned to the dugout he found Wilson sitting alone, a mug of tea on the table in front of him. He was staring into the steam, and Stephen silently edged around the table and stretched out on the plank bunk that filled the back wall. As he lay there, a large brown rat ran out on the shelf over the table, raised his snout to sniff the air and looked at both of them with his shiny black eyes before running on into the shadows.

‘I’ve half a mind to send him out anyway, the impudent shite,’ Wilson growled a few moments later.

‘You know very well you won’t.’

‘Oh aye? And why wouldn’t I? He as near as dammit called me shy – and in front of his men, too. I should send him out and be rid of the bugger.’

‘But then you’d lose three good men as well. And if he was wounded it would be your fault for sending him, no matter how badly he wants to go. Best to wait. It’s bound to cloud over soon. He’ll have his chance tomorrow night.’

‘I hope to God you’re right, Stephen. He’ll not talk to his superior officer like that again. I don’t care who his uncle is. I’ll not stand for it – and to hell with the consequences.’

‘This clear spell can’t last forever. Tomorrow night or the night after. I guarantee it.’

Wilson wrapped his bony hands around the enamel mug and blew on his tea. In the flickering light of the candles his eyes were sunk in deep black sockets and he looked tired and strained. Home leave would do him a power of good.

‘I hope to God you’re right,’ he said again, but Stephen had already nodded off.

He snapped awake, still in his greatcoat. The dugout was pitch dark and somebody had thrown a blanket over him. For a moment he couldn’t think what had woken him, but then he heard the screech and pop of a rocket, followed by the rattle of machine-gun fire. He heard Wilson cursing in the dark as he flew up from the table, knocking his chair backwards, and rolled off the bunk and up the steps after him. They stumbled out to find the trench bathed in the stark white light of flares and SOS rockets, and the sentries shouting and firing in quick succession.

‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ Wilson roared as Kinsella came running up.

‘Mr Gardner reports heavy machine-gun fire from near the house, sir, and they’re letting off rockets to beat the band—’

‘Get into the house sap and see if it’s a raid, Mr Ryan,’ Wilson shouted, and then, ‘Corporal Kinsella, make contact with the company on our left. Tell Captain Clarke we may need their support. Where the hell is Mr Devereux?’

Stephen left them behind, running to the little curtained burrow that led into the house sap. He started to scramble in, but collided with somebody crawling out. It was Breen of the black feet.

‘Beg parding, sir,’ he touched his forehead as he tried to extricate himself from the narrow hole, ‘Mr Gardner is after sending me for more ammunition. He’s putting down covering fire for the patrol to get back in.’

‘Patrol? What patrol?’

‘Mr Devereux’s patrol, sir. Sure aren’t they after getting pinned down at the house.’

‘Christ Almighty,’ Stephen swore, ‘Go and tell Captain Wilson, then hurry back with the ammunition.’

He flung himself into the tunnel through the trench parapet and scrambled along the shallow gully that led to the saphead. He found Gardner lying in the shallow saucer of earth, firing the Lewis gun in short bursts at the flashes blazing in the dark beyond the ruined house.

‘What the hell is going on?’ he demanded.

‘Devereux’s lot went out about half an hour ago, but I lost track of them until all hell broke loose and they came haring back to the house. I think they’re pinned down now. Don’t seem to be moving – see for yourself.’

Another flare screeched up into the night as Stephen stuck his head above the edge of the sap. There were three dark figures huddled on this side of the ruined house, about thirty yards away, but only one of them was returning fire with his revolver. Gardner fired off another burst that ended suddenly with the flat click of an empty ammunition drum.

‘Wilson didn’t authorize the raid,’ Stephen said, and Gardner looked as if he had been kicked.

‘But he told me—’

He was cut off by the ear-splitting shriek of an artillery shell, then the hard percussive crack of the detonation. Whiz-bangs. The two men pressed themselves flat as frozen earth and stones rattled down on their helmets, then Stephen glanced out to the house again. It was a German SOS marker. The moment they saw those distress flares going up, the German artillery would hit it with everything they had. Breen came crawling up with drum magazines in the crook of his arms, grinning wickedly.

‘Pardon for the delay, sirs. Captain Wilson’s compliments and he says you’re to shoot Mr Devereux if the opportunity presents itself.’

Now that their artillery was firing, the German machine guns grew quieter. Another ear-splitting shriek as two more whiz-bangs fell on the German side of the house, silhouetting the jagged walls in white incandescent light. They had the range all right.

‘If they don’t get a bloody move on they’ll be flattened!’ Gardner shouted, hammering the drum onto the Lewis gun with the heel of his hand and loosing off another burst. ‘They must be wounded.’

Wounded, or just terrified, thought Stephen. It would take a more resolute man than Devereux to run for cover through an artillery barrage.

‘Keep firing at those machine guns!’ he ordered, and before Gardner could answer he had pulled himself over the rim of the sap and was running for the house. Instantly, the German machine guns came to life again, throwing a glowing line of tracer through the air in front of him, but he didn’t flinch; his only thought was to reach the cover of the low wall ahead. A shell landed behind him and something hit him hard in the small of the back, punching him forward, sending him sprawling on his face. But he was there and, using every ounce of his forward momentum, he scrambled into the shelter of the wall.

It didn’t take long to see why they weren’t moving. Devereux was stretched on his back, his head and face a bloody mess. At first glance Stephen thought he was dead, but when he laid his hand on him he groaned and moved, his arm coming up feebly. He crawled over him to where Sergeant Dwan was sitting against the wall, trying to reload a revolver with one hand while his other clutched the wound in his thigh. Another man was lying beside him, twitching, his bloody hands held over his scorched face and smoke coming from his hair.

‘Where’s Tanner?’ Stephen shouted, his lips almost brushing Dwan’s ear. There was the crash and bang of another salvo, the earth shook, and a piece of the wall blew outwards in a cloud of dust.

‘That’s Tanner.’ Dwan jerked his chin at the twitching man, ‘Byrne’s dead in the German sap.’

‘What about you? Can you walk?’

Dwan shook his head and the ground heaved under them as another shell landed over the wall. A brick flew from the top and smashed into Stephen’s helmet, knocking it half off his head and stunning him. But he already knew what he had to do, and he didn’t have long.

‘I’ll come back for you,’ he shouted, and dragged Tanner into a sitting position, paying no heed to his screams. Kneeling first, he managed to stand up in a wobbling crouch with Tanner draped across his back. Bullets barked and spat angrily off the top of the wall, but he turned around and grabbed Devereux by the collar of his greatcoat, dragging him along as he staggered back to the saphead. He’d only taken half a dozen steps before he thought it was too much. Tanner was doing his feeble best to help him by holding onto his waist, but the dead weight of Devereux felt like it would pull his arm off. Doggedly, he kept going; step by painful step. His knees buckled but held, and he felt dreadfully exposed as he went back to the sap, like walking through a tunnel with walls of fire and earth. It seemed to go on forever, but then there was Gardner’s grave face as he came running out to help.

He dumped Tanner into his arms, dropped Devereux within reach of the sap and turned back to fetch Dwan. That was quicker; a dozen long strides and he was there. The Germans must have realized that there was no attack and their fire was slackening. Nevertheless, as he staggered back to the sap with Dwan’s arm about his shoulders, a shell smashed into the chimneystack, bringing it down with a dull crash. He felt the hot wind of the detonations blasting past him, something knocking into his shoulder, but then he was safe, slithering into the sap, scrambling, crawling forward after Gardner and Breen, dragging the other two to safety.

By the time he slid into the trench, the tumult was starting to die down. The machine guns were still firing, flares screeching up from the bays, but order was being restored as Stephen hurried along to find Wilson. Cease firing! Cease firing! He rounded a traverse and stumbled into a great mound of earth half-filling the trench. A shell had blown in the parapet, and by the light of a storm lantern men were digging at the fresh earth with shovels, plates, their bare hands.

Wilson was there, digging with the men. He saw Stephen and scrambled over the mound.

‘Corporal Power is under that,’ he said grimly, then took him by the arm and led him back the way he had come. ‘What about Devereux’s patrol? Is he still alive?’

‘I believe so, sir. Only Byrne was killed. All the others are wounded. Mr Gardner has sent for the doctor.’

‘By God, Stephen, I’ll make him wish he was dead.’