Deafening (28 page)

“We’ll have a good rat hunt,” he’d heard a boy say one morning before dawn. Jim had been standing outside a dressing station as the men moved forward. “After the battle. See what they’ve been feeding
on over on Fritzie’s side.” Shortly after that, the rum ration had been poured. Jim saw the empty jars being carried back down the line. The boy had not returned. Few of the boys had returned that day.

Another Verey light, closer this time, and then another, illuminated the horizon as if a town fair was beckoning across the countryside.

Half up, half down, Jim counted under his breath. They rose together, but the same split-second found them down for the third time. They sank to the rotting earth. Jim could hardly believe what had happened. He saw himself and Irish, both on their knees, the half-conscious boy between them still upright, the arm tangled in the neck of Irish’s tunic. Jim felt a sudden surge of laughter—nothing could suppress this. He began to shake as if a low howl inside him was working its way out. There was a rapid response of gunfire. Knowing that his laughter had been silent, he wondered if it had been aimed at him.

“What the hell?” Irish whispered. “Keep quiet.”

Maybe he’d made a noise after all. But now he heard laughter coming from Irish. The two began to shake uncontrollably and they stayed on their knees for what seemed like a long time, until they were wheezed out, muscles heaving in their chests. Through the darkness, Jim could see the gap between the whiteness of his friend’s front teeth.

The human chair. The body between. The firing stopped. Jim realized, with relief, that it had not been aimed at them at all.
When flashes come, when flares and fireworks are all around, you see sudden silhouettes, men walking, both sides, out here in No Man’s Land. Working parties. Some carrying rolls of wire. The figures freeze until the blanket of darkness falls again. And then, movement starts up once more
.

Unwiped tears rolled down Jim’s cheeks and he prayed that the boy did not understand what was happening. He whispered, “Lift, Irish, for God’s sake, when I give the word.”

This time the boy’s body did not threaten to topple. They had the
balance of it from the start and they stood on four legs like a single machine. If they were shot at, Jim did not know, because he stopped hearing. Nor did he think of the weight of the carry. He concentrated only on placing one foot, the other foot, one foot, the other foot. They stumbled, corrected, moved forward. Left, right, left.

Avoid lifting over ditches or walls
.

The training line brought him close to hysteria; he might start laughing again.
Don’t think. If you do, God knows, you’ll give permission for something else to break loose
. Instead, he started his chant,
Infirtaris…

He and Irish got their patient down and into the trench, and suddenly Jim felt more exposed here than he had out in the open. Arms and legs, backs and hands, were numb when they brought in their man. It had taken them forty minutes. The M.O., sleeves rolled up, arms and shirt splattered with blood, looked at the two of them, looked into their faces and nodded. His glance took in the projectile sticking out of the soldier’s collarbone and back, and he sucked air between his teeth and called for assistance. He reached for the morphine and the carbolic acid and he went to work.

My Love

I am sending this letter from our new location. After breakfast and without warning, our section was told to pack up and get ready to march. Irish and I did not march, as it turned out, and travelled by motor ambulance all the way. We camped in a large field and now we are billeted in barns and lofts and tents. I am in a tent. I am not permitted to name the nearby town. Censor’s strokes may already be through this letter. One of my first jobs was to sort through a hill of equipment that belonged to wounded men who were sent back to Blighty. Whenever possible, the kit follows along behind. It was a mess of a job but I managed to get things straightened out. It is queer to see the keepsakes the boys squirrel away: a rabbit’s
foot; a ball-bearing; a tiny pocket light; a length of coloured cord; a calendar diary no more than an inch square; a spent bullet casing with a pencil cleverly stuck into its end; a photo—everyone has a photo
.

The boys we look after here are in a room crowded with three rows of beds. It is somewhat of a hospital and rest station, and both Irish and I will be here for
CENSORED
. The injuries are not severe enough for Blighty, and once the boys are healed, they are sent back up the line. Some have infections; many have joints swollen from arthritis. Every ailment you can think of. I am learning the meaning of things I did not know when I worked for Dr. Whalen. DAH means disorderly action of the heart. PUO means pyrexia of unknown origin, a fancy way of saying fever. But you probably know these things from your work at the school hospital
.

Irish and I cart water and serve breakfast and stock supplies and help the medical staff, and generally do what we are assigned to do. It is more or less like the work of the orderlies. I am now on the night shift and hope to finish this letter with no interruptions. I had a bath yesterday, the first in three weeks. I heard from one of our boys who returned from hospital in Étaples that they have a bathhouse there that can take 70 men at a time. He said that cigarettes arrive from Canada in unending supply. The boys in hospital are given oranges and chocolates and cigarettes to bring with them when they’re sent back up the line. Some of the wounded in hospital send word to their friends to open parcels that come while they’re away, and the eats are shared out among the men. The treats are appreciated far more in the trenches than in the hospitals, where everyone is well looked after
.

I am being called this minute to heat some Oxo. I have to close. All my love, Chim

He did not tell Grania in the letter that when he first walked through the town, he met up with two men from Number 10 Field Ambulance and learned that one of the boys he had met during training in England had been killed by a shell. There had been nothing left of him to scoop into a sandbag, they said.

Jim remembered him as a red-haired intelligent boy named Egan, who looked no more than seventeen. He was so eager, he quickly became known as Eagern. He had left school to join up and had lied about his age. Some of the underage boys served in the line for months before they were found out and sent home. Some were sent back to England to fill in time until their next birthday. When they were deemed to be of fighting age, they returned to the line again, often to their old units. It was not easy to think of Egan not existing. According to the men from Number 10, he’d had no burial.

Several weeks back, at a time when things were quiet, Jim and Irish had been sent forward on a night working party to help reinforce a dugout that had been used as a dressing station and that would be used for the same purpose again. The sides and walls were eroded and had fallen in because of recent rains. The small party left after dark and arrived at the location a half hour later and the men started to dig. But the stench was impossible; the more they dug, the more terrible it became. It was all Jim could do to keep from running away from the job. He cleared a shovelful of earth and, through the dark, saw a pair of knees embedded in the dugout wall. And then, all around him, men were digging up body parts of French soldiers. Mud and slime were alive with skulls and arms and hands. They were told to give up and abandon the site, and they were glad to get out of there before daylight.

While he had been in the town near their new billets, Jim had passed a small church and he’d retraced his steps and entered the building. It was damp but peaceful, and there had been no one else inside. He sat in a pew and propped his feet on a low wooden rack that had been laid over the floor. He stayed there as long as he could,
resting and thinking. Thinking how hopeless had been the life of the red-haired boy named Egan, whose flesh no longer existed.

I have begun to talk to myself at night. I try to be careful not to keep anyone awake, but Irish, never far off, has noticed. I should be exhausted; there is so much outside work to do. We have been put in charge of building latrines and incinerators. Stash is our best mason; he seemed to know something of the job when we were told to build a fireplace. Stash has always managed to attract stray dogs and cats; this time he adopted a white kitten and shoved it inside his shirt as he worked. Wherever the strays are, they will find him.

On Sunday, we attended Divine Service, and after that I had guard duty. Tonight I’ll be working the night shift. Stretcher bearers are a versatile lot behind the lines; we are used for many duties. I saw close up a severe shell shock case. Two friends from the 8th brought him in. The boy’s body was shaking; his head was twitching and his eyes rolling around without focus. His arms and hands and legs and feet were twitching, too. He was unable to stand and had to be propped between the boys before they could drag him to a bed. This is a terrible sight and affects everyone. It is like watching a convulsion that never ends. He was nineteen years old and the only word he could get out was Mother. He called out, again and again. A chaplain came in and told us not to worry, that the boy had only lost his nerve. But it was more than that; it was a serious and disturbing case.

We’ve heard that counterattacks by our Canadians near Hooge on the thirteenth have been successful in taking back trenches. This news revives everyone, after the terrible losses. Stories circulate, as always. One of the bearers I met from the 10th told me that a badly wounded man crawled all the way to the aid post in the dugout and when he got there, he tumbled down the steps, unconscious. They treated his wounds and got
him back to the Clearing Station, and now he is happily on his way to Blighty.

I wrote about the bath but not the how and where of it. I did not mention the lice in our clothing. These are soundless, laying eggs in our seams and feeding on our blood. When we have a chance to sit around, we pick them out one by one and crush them. The boys call them crumbs. If there is a fire, or a stove, they burn them on top to hear each separate pop. Some of the boys scrub at their seams with toothbrushes drenched in creosote. But even if we rid ourselves of the creatures for a day or even an hour, as soon as we are back to work, looking after the boys, or in dugouts or barns or billets, we are lousy again ourselves.

We were marched to a bathhouse in town that had been set up by four Jocks who were assigned to build the apparatus. Four local women stood by—it was an open warehouse sort of room—while we were naked. Some of the boys joked and laughed about the women’s presence, but I did not. We were told to strip down and pass our dirty clothes to one woman, and then we were doused with cold water. We had two minutes to soap down and then out again, and a dip into the vat. It was only slightly warmer, but better than the cold-water dousing, and then we were out for good and another woman handed us a clean set of underwear and new socks.

Irish was in front of me in the line, Evan in front of him. Stripped down, a dirty-looking bunch we were. In the midst of all, Evan began to hop from one foot to the other, complaining in a tumble of oaths that came out in rapid succession. “For mercy sake,” Stash told him, “be still and quit jumping around.” But Evan shouted out that he was infested. Others shouted back, “Do you have something new to tell us?” His clothes had been collected so I didn’t know why he was carrying on, scratching and scraping. When I looked, I swear—Irish said later he couldn’t believe his eyes, nor could anyone else—fleas
had taken over and covered Evan’s two legs from the knees down. He looked as if he had pulled up a pair of high socks knitted from black moving bodies. When the boys realized what was up, they scattered to all sides so the fleas couldn’t hop over onto them.

We still try to find food during every spare moment we have. Irish managed a trade for extra bread and milk and cakes tonight, so we had a good feed. There was meat for our supper but it was smelly and tasted rotten. Occasionally one of the boys will catch a rabbit and pass it on to someone who can make a stew. We are all thankful for the scroungers.

Chapter 12

A Palate Sound

K Kiss Kill

“Place the hand in front of the throat. As sound is uttered, push hand forward
.

Explode the aspiration
.

A good supply of breath is necessary for this sound.”

Illustrated Phonics

Stories continued to circle. The squad was to attend gas school, and weeping shells would be thrown at them; a man in the 49th committed suicide; the squad was going up to the old graveyard to fill sandbags all night; one of the self-inflicteds had held an empty bully beef tin and shot through the can and his own hand so that no powder burns would show; the major was to give a lecture on bandaging techniques and attendance would be mandatory; the road back of the main communication trench needed repairs to allow the use of wheeled stretchers. And there were persistent rumours that Number 9 Field Ambulance would be following 7th Brigade, about to leave for the Somme.

When they had the chance, Jim and Irish, Evan and Stash managed to get some time off together and walked to a nearby village in the evening to look around for a place to eat. They had heard of a small
estaminet
that was said to be better than others, and after walking a mile to get to the village, they traced their way in and out of narrow streets, trying to find the establishment. Evan insisted
that he knew the way; he’d been given instructions. After disputing, and giving up, and following Evan again, the four came upon it suddenly, near the end of a street that narrowed to a short alley and then a path.