The Soldier's Song (33 page)

Wilson confirmed as much when he came back from Brigade HQ. He was leading the carrying party with the rum ration, slipping and stumbling under the sloshing weight of their carboys. He didn’t even need to be asked: just one look and he shook his head.

Their attack was set for nine o’clock, and at seven the artillery opened its barrage on the German lines. Stephen wormed in among his men, breakfasting with them on undiluted rum and hard tack, and watched the shells falling on the crest of the ridge. Each one flashed orange at its heart and spat up a thin black cloud of earth. They seemed to smoke less than he remembered, perhaps because the ground was so soft. But no matter how many fell, they made no difference to the blocky grey edifice that crowned the ridge. The shells threw up a curtain of earth, but each time it subsided, the scene behind was unchanged.

With less than an hour to zero, Wilson summoned him back to the dugout to discuss the final details of the attack. Little had changed since the day before except that things had become more uncertain. The Royal Irish were believed to have been stopped somewhere between Borry Farm and Vampire Farm. Their exact disposition was unknown, but they were last reported taking heavy enemy fire. Stephen was to try to link up with them if he could, but whether he did or not he was to press on with the attack on Vampire Farm. Wilson’s part was as before. The signal for Nightingale to advance would be three flares fired in quick succession from the farm.

‘Three flares, right you are,’ Nightingale noted it down in his pocketbook and as he did, Stephen looked past him at Wilson. Wilson shrugged.

At the end of the meeting he looked at his watch and then shook hands with each of them in turn. Ten minutes to go. They wished each other good luck and went outside, where the sun was trying to break through the thick, gunmetal clouds. Without looking back, Stephen scrambled into the broad shell crater where his company waited. Only thirty-four of them left – less than half strength. He nodded at Sergeant Devlin, who tipped his helmet in reply. He hardly knew Devlin and wished Kinsella hadn’t been wounded. He never needed him more than he did now.

‘All set, lads?’ he called out.

‘All set, sir,’ they murmured in reply. He sat down alongside them and emptied the shells out of his revolver into the palm of his hand. He looked down at them for a moment, bright and new in the gloomy wet, and then reached under his cape and patted the pocket with the letter. His good-luck charm. Just as he took his hand away the roar of the shelling stopped and they all instinctively looked up into the sky. As if to fill the sudden silence, the rain gathered strength and started to beat down on them in big heavy drops that pinked on their helmets and drummed on the canvas of their capes.

As he started to reload he saw Wilson climb up to the rim of the crater on the right, standing out in the open with his arms outstretched, like a priest saying Mass. He had taken off his cape and his helmet and stood bareheaded under the rain, unholstering his revolver. His reedy voice carried clearly across the churned earth.

‘Would you look at this lovely weather, boys!’ he roared. ‘Sure isn’t it just like being at home?’ Muted laughter drifted up from the crater below.

Stephen felt the anxious eyes of his men on him. ‘You must keep moving, whatever happens, lads,’ he said, scanning the pinched faces for something better than lost hope and bovine weariness. ‘No matter what – forward, forward all the time. You all know where we’re headed and we must get there before they know we’re coming. If we get in close enough they can’t touch us. You must keep—’

He was cut short by a sharp noise like tearing cloth. German shells came crashing down around them, whiz-bangs bracketing the crater and shaking the soft earth where they lay. They cowered down, pushing themselves deeper into the mud, but the next salvo passed overhead, falling deeper into the lines.

‘Steady, lads,’ he called out as they craned their necks to the sky, waiting for the next one. ‘Our friends must be expecting us.’ His weak crack raised not even a smile. They hunkered and knelt in the mud, grimmer than ever.

‘Erin go brea,’
Wilson bellowed, still out in the open – he hadn’t even taken cover from the shells. Now he turned around to face up the hill, gesticulating wildly at the German positions. ‘We’re coming to get you, boys. You’ll not keep us out today!’

Licking his lips, Stephen looked down at his watch. It was a minute to nine. Dead on time another salvo from the British artillery screamed overhead, drowning Wilson’s words. He was dancing now, doing a little jig as his men crawled out of the crater to stand beside him. Stephen felt for the whistle on its little cord, then crawled forward to the rim of the crater, gazing across the brown expanse of sodden earth curving gently up towards the ridge. The men slithered up beside him, forming a ragged arc on either side. The second hand on his watch swept upwards. His mouth was dry, his heart going fit to burst. He wasn’t able to get his breath. What if he couldn’t blow? Five seconds.

‘Come on the Dubs!’ Wilson cried, and his men gave a bloodthirsty howl as they followed him out. He was almost lost amongst them, a slight figure in the throng of heavily laden men. It was time. With a last deep breath, Stephen bit down on the metal of the whistle and blew for all he was worth.

Nightingale slowly let the discs of the binoculars slide down the dreary landscape. Viewed through the glass it looked like a painting – flat, achromatic, unreal. When he could see nothing more than the blurred earth a few yards in front, he put down the glasses and looked up. The sky was low and grey and the ashy clouds seemed almost to brush the earth. It would be dark soon: the day was almost over.

He’d been lying out in this spot so long that he was nearly submerged in the mud. After the others started their attack he had sat in the trench for an hour, listening as the firing grew to a crescendo and then died away altogether. By then he was completely certain that the flares wouldn’t go up, but he couldn’t just sit there. There was no sign of anybody coming back, no counterattack, no artillery barrage, nothing. When the rain clouds settled on top of the ridge he crawled forward to try and see what was going on, but all he could see was the squat grey hump of the strongpoint. Nothing moved. A half-dozen khaki lumps dotted the grass in front of him, but they were clearly dead. Otherwise the slope was eerily empty. It was as if the rest had vanished into thin air.

If the Germans wanted to counterattack they would have done it straight away. It occurred to him that they might be waiting for nightfall, but he knew they wouldn’t come then either. Why would they? All they had to do was hold their line. It was well made and well sited: strong concrete shelters dug deep into the ground, and each one placed to support the others. They’d be mad to leave those behind just for the sake of a few hundred yards of bog. Why would they come down here when all they had to do was sit in their strongpoints and let the British attacks break on them like waves on rocks?

This much had occurred to him hours ago, but still he lay out by himself, only dimly aware of his men waiting fifty yards behind. Part of it was hope – if anybody was alive he might see him, he might be able to help him. But another part was fear. He was alone now, and he didn’t know what to do next. Who did he report to? What did he say? How could he explain that they’d all just disappeared? It was his responsibility – he was in charge. Why had he just let them go?

But he couldn’t stay out all night. He slowly pushed himself up out of the mud and started to crawl back to the trench. Every foot of ground felt cold and repellent to him and he found himself shivering, his teeth chattering. When he finally slithered in, Sergeant Dunne pressed a tin mug into his hands. The tea wasn’t very hot but it seemed to roast his fingers through the metal.

‘Any sign, sir?’ Dunne asked, and Nightingale just shook his head as he took a mouthful of tea.

‘There’s a runner here from Brigade HQ. Wants to know how the attack went, sir.’ He nodded to a whippet-looking man crouched in the trench a few yards away, soaked to the skin with no helmet and only his collar turned up against the rain. ‘What shall I tell him?’

It took an effort to speak. The cold had cramped his muscles and his jaw felt locked tight. When at last he managed it, the words came out in a croak.

‘Tell him the attack failed, sergeant.’

‘And what about our losses, sir?’

‘Total losses, sergeant. Tell him they’re all gone.’

* * *

TO: MR JOSEPH RYAN, 31 EDEN QUAY, DUBLIN. DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT CAPT. S RYAN, 2ND DUBLIN FUSILIERS IS REPORTED MISSING BELIEVED KILLED IN ACTION ON THE 16TH OF AUGUST. LORD DERBY EXPRESSES HIS SYMPATHY.

* * *

Stephen felt as if he was coming out of a long tunnel. He had no sense of place or time, just an icy cold inside that was numbing his chest and arms. The only feeling was in his legs, where hot pain burned, blazing up from time to time as consciousness lapped at him. He came to himself in fits and starts: now he could feel his face pressed into the earth, now see a patch of weeping grey sky, and then nothing at all. All at once he was fully alive again, moving his fingers, shivering.

He lifted his head with a groan and looked around. He was lying in a shell crater, filthy brown water lapping at his thighs and a red stain around his left knee. No wonder he couldn’t feel his feet. It was so quiet he could hear the breeze whispering through the grass above his head. Time – how long? He looked at his wristwatch, wiped the mud off it, tried to focus his eyes on the dial. Then he put it to his ear to make sure of the whirring movement. Quarter past six. He let his head fall back and stared up at the sky. It was grey and mottled purple, like the colour of old bruises. But at least the rain had stopped.

The cold had dulled him so much that it took him a moment to realize that he was still shivering, that his teeth were chattering. He had to move – at least to get out of the water. Digging his hands into the cold mud above his head, he tried to haul himself up. At the first pull, pain speared up his leg like an electric shock and he cried out. Suddenly he wasn’t shivering any more, but he had to rest a minute to get his breath. It took two more pulls to drag himself out, and then he lay on the sloping side of the crater, gasping, his leg throbbing, blood and water running into the brown earth. But he was lying awkwardly, and it took another effort to roll over onto his back. Then he had to wait for the spasms of pain to subside before he could sit up and examine the wound.

His trouser leg was torn just below the knee, exposing blackened skin and a deep cut with white bone gleaming at the bottom. The steeped flesh was corpse white and macerated, the edges of the wound gaping at him like obscene lips. Shivering once again, he pulled the soaked shell dressing from inside his tunic and wrapped it around his knee, wincing as he tied it. Then he had to rest. He lay back in the mud and his fingers automatically went to his breast pocket. It was still there. That was something, anyway.

He tried to remember what had happened. The pain was coming at him harder now, and the effort of remembering took his mind off it. Start at the beginning: the very first step, sinking knee-deep into the mud. Bloody hell! If it was like this all the way they were stuffed. But there was no firing yet. It was so quiet he could hear the splashing and sucking and cursing of the men staggering after him. After fifty yards he was panting for breath, sweating, his leg muscles dead with the effort. Glancing to his right, he saw Wilson’s men strung out in a broken arc, struggling uphill against the grip of the sodden earth. He knew they should have been advancing by rushes, but running was out of the question in this muck. Anybody who lay down would never get up again.

As they plunged onwards one of his men started saying the Hail Mary and Stephen found himself muttering the words under his breath.
Hail Mary, full of grace . . .
Speed was of the essence, and yet they were stumbling, crawling, almost swimming forward at times. Their precious five minutes was wasting away. If they weren’t in close when the Germans came up then they would be caught at the gaps in the wire and that would be that. The wire, the bloody wire. He dreaded it; the first line was coming up, but it was cut and broken by the shells and he directed his men into the gaps with hoarse, breathless shouts.

Then they were through and the fear receded a little. They might do it, they just bloody might. There was more wire to come, but the ground was rising – it was drier, firmer, and they only sank halfway to their knees. And still not a shot from the Germans. If only it would hold just a little longer. He darted a look at Wilson’s company, ahead of him now, moving faster.
Holy Mary, mother of God
. . . They just bloody might!

‘Come on, lads, come on! Spread out there. Forward, forward!’ he shouted, half-turning, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Fusilier Doyle topple over backwards, his hand flying to his chest. Then he heard the swish of bullets flying past, thudding, splashing brown mud all around him. He hardly had to look back up the hill; the sinister grey hump was spitting yellow now. He counted the flashes; five machine guns.
Pray for us sinners . . .

‘Keep going, lads,’ he cried, struggling forward as fast as he could, his hoarse breath rushing in his ears. Bullets whipped overhead, hissing and cracking, but he didn’t even hear the first shell falling until the blast almost knocked him off his feet. He reeled, half-deafened. No mistake there. More followed, falling so fast that the noise of detonation was one continuous pulsing boom. They were pouring them in, trying to break up the attack before it got in among them. He felt the heat on his face and found himself on hands and knees, mud up to the elbows, ears ringing. Staggering up again, he cast around wildly for the rest of his men, urging them on in a harsh, inhuman voice. Then he stumbled forward with them.