Eve and Her Sisters (20 page)

The diamonds in the bracelet she had on sparkled as she put her glass down. She touched the jewels lovingly. Clarence had bought her this for Christmas only three weeks ago and she had fooled herself into believing that he still cared for her. She had been clutching at straws, she knew that now. She had known it then.

It was nearly midnight when she heard the knock on the door. She had changed the sheets on the bed and had a long bath, sprinkling her favourite perfume in the water. Now, wearing nothing but a whisper-thin black negligée and with her hair brushed to gleaming silk, she walked into the hall and opened the door, a welcoming smile on her face.

‘So what do you reckon then? Think we’re going to knock them Germans into next week like the old generals want?’

Caleb shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

‘Oh, I shan’t hold me breath, mate. Not me. I’ve been in this war too long to do that. Now Kitchener’s gone, there’s no voice of reason left, if you want my opinion.’

Caleb didn’t particularly, but he liked Algernon Griffiths or Big Al as he was generally known and so he let him talk on. Al liked to talk, and there were few enough pleasures left in the world for sure. Caleb had first met Al when they had been up to their waists in mud and crawling with lice in the trenches some months back in January. Now it was the beginning of July and they’d looked out for each other since then. Algernon had one of those naturally optimistic natures that refused to be downcast for more than an odd minute or two, whatever the situation.

‘The corp says we’re going to be part of the offensive on the Western Front. The generals have been planning it for months. Always worries me when I hear that. If they’ve had it in mind for months then ten to one the Germans know about it an’ all.’

‘You could be right.’ Caleb adjusted his pack which weighed a ton. He and his battalion were marching at a smart pace, some of the men singing music hall tunes and accompanied by the odd mouth organ here and there as they walked in the dead of night. They could see points of flame stabbing the darkness miles away where British shells were falling.

They were passing through a small French town and officers in staff cars slid past, the motorcycles of despatch riders scooting by. It was good to be walking briskly for a change after all the time in the trenches. They passed a French sentry who raised an arm in salute, calling, ‘
Bonne chance, mes camarades.
’

‘Aye, the same to you, chum,’ Al yelled back.‘With knobs on an’ all.’

‘He was wishing us well.’

‘I know that, I’m not as thick as I look.’

‘That’d be impossible,’ Caleb agreed, straight-faced.

‘The corp reckons this assault on the Somme is the biggest battle of the war up to yet. Umpteen divisions of our lot and the Frenchies on a fifteen-mile front. If it’s anything like them poor blighters at Gallipoli had to put up with, it’ll be another disaster in the making. I had a cousin in that lot and he wrote his mam they had to skedaddle with their tails tucked atween their legs. Mind, they did get ninety thousand men out of there without losing one, so that’s something.’

Caleb nodded. He wasn’t interested in a retreat which had happened six months ago. As Al elaborated on the mistakes that had been made in Gallipoli, he let his mind focus on the letter he had received that morning which was tucked in his tunic pocket. He had come to rely on Eve’s letters like the bread he ate and the water he drank. They provided a link with a world that wasn’t bloody and soul-destroying, a world where normal folk still went to bed at night in a real bed and got up in the morning to a cup of tea at their own fireside.

She had written the usual stuff. Nell’s little lad was walking already and into everything, and the next one was due in a couple of months. He could see Nell churning them out like clockwork every year, the way she and Toby were going.

His mother was the same as ever and sent her best. By that he took it to mean his mam was driving Eve mad and had sent no message to him at all.

She had acquired a dog, a stray, she thought. She’d found him skulking in the yard one night and took him in for a meal and he’d stayed ever since. Sensible dog, he thought, a smile touching his lips. Obviously knew when he was on to a good thing. If he came back in the next life as a dog he’d make a beeline for Eve’s door. And it wouldn’t hurt for her to have some protection when the inn was closed either. More than once over the last months he’d worried about that.

‘. . . an’ about damn time, that’s what I say, eh?’

‘What?’ Caleb became aware that Al was waiting for an answer and he hadn’t heard a word. ‘Sorry, you can’t hear yourself think with them bawling out “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag”.’

‘Better than “Keep the home fires burning”.They’ve done that one to death the night.’ Al hoisted his pack further up his back. ‘I said it’s about time they tightened up the call-up net, in my opinion. Our Ellie’s written the government’s going to conscript all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one, married or not, ’cos they can’t get enough volunteers. Now I’m not saying everyone should’ve been as barmy as me an’ you and put their hands up for this lot from the start’ - Caleb knew that was exactly what Al was saying, having listened to his views on what he called the lily-livered blighters back home who were sheltering behind their wives’ skirts - ‘but a blind, deaf an’ dumb man knows we’re not going to win this war without every last jack man mucking in.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You know so, man. We all do. Our Ellie says some of the women have taken to handing out white feathers to blokes who are weak-kneed, shaming ’em like.’

Poor devils. As Al talked on, Caleb’s mind returned to Eve and home. He realised the two had become synonymous in his mind. And it was funny, but he could picture Eve in his head as clear as day whereas when he tried to conjure up Mary’s face, it was indistinct, blurred. It hadn’t been that way at first. It had been after Ypres when most of the men he had joined up with had been cut to pieces by German guns or had their insides burnt away by choking chlorine gas that he had realised he hadn’t thought of Mary in days. He still loved her, he would always love her, he told himself firmly, but the ache of her loss which had paralysed him at first was easing. The blood and guts of trench warfare had seen to that.

‘Looks like we’re nearly there,’Al said as they heard one of the officers up front shouting orders.

‘There’ turned out to be astride the River Somme in Picardy. After making their way to their positions, they waited for morning. At 7.30 a.m. the artillery barrage was lifted and Caleb and Al and forty-four divisions of British and French soldiers went over the top. Caleb and Al, along with every other British soldier, were carrying entrenchment tools, two gas helmets, wire cutters, two hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition, two sandbags, two Mills bombs, their groundsheet, haversack, water bottle and field dressing - almost seventy pounds of equipment each. They staggered into no-man’s-land at little more than a slow walk, their orders to seize four thousand yards of enemy territory by nightfall.

In the first five minutes Caleb lost his friend and most of his battalion, cut down by relentless machine-gun fire. He saw Al fall, his face blown away, and within seconds there were heaps of dead and dying. The noise, the screams, the thunder of guns was numbing, he couldn’t take in the horror of the slaughter he was seeing. They were being mowed down indiscriminately, officers and men together, but still they had to go forward into the guns.

He didn’t pray, he didn’t think, he didn’t do anything except stumble forward in the noise and din and falling bodies, the smell of gunpowder and blood and mud sticking in his nostrils. The German defences were formidable and deep, even the capture of the first and second lines brought little advantage and no respite from the guns.They had been assured the bombardments by the air force in previous days had destroyed the heavy barbed-wire obstacles in their path, but more soldiers were getting tangled in the wire, hanging like screaming puppets until they were blasted into oblivion.

At midday the attack was suspended so the stretcher-bearers could work in no-man’s-land. The German guns were silent, and the men sat in small stunned groups in the trenches. Caleb looked round him. Every man was blood-splattered, filthy, the whites of their eyes showing stark in their grimy faces. Al was gone. He couldn’t take it in. And how many others? Hundreds, thousands. Why was he still alive? Lots of those men had had wives, bairns. Al and his Ellie had three.Why was he alive and they had gone?

Someone passed him a mug of tea and he drank it without tasting it. He felt tired, bone tired. They had marched all night and fought all morning. What was Eve doing right now? In that other world that he hadn’t valued until he had left it. He shut his eyes but he could still see red, a red the colour of blood, behind his closed eyelids.

The British artillery fire resumed at four that afternoon even though there were still wounded to be retrieved from no-man’s-land. The toll rose swiftly until nightfall. Caleb was amazed to find himself alive at the end of the day.

That night he sat dozing on and off in his dugout, wondering when his turn would come. He wouldn’t survive. No one could survive this slaughter for long. He hoped when he went, it would be like Al, blown away into oblivion in a moment of time. One searing shaft of pain and then nothing.There were too many lads who’d been maimed or burned or blinded.
Blinded.
His stomach muscles clenched. Left helpless like a baby, needing someone to lead you for the rest of your life. He wouldn’t be able to tolerate that, he’d have to end it.

He’d write to Ellie. He nodded mentally to the thought. Tell her Al hadn’t suffered, that he’d been joking and laughing till the very end which had been quick. Al would have wanted him to do that and it might give his wife some comfort in the midst of her mourning.

Would there be one soul who would genuinely mourn for him? He doubted his mother would waste a tear, they’d never got on. He’d often thought it was funny that his da, who’d been a gentle, kind man, should have been taken, whereas his mam had gone on and on. Only the good die young. He’d heard that phrase bandied about a lot in the last months, but certainly it applied to his parents.

As dawn broke he reached in his haversack for his sketch pad and pencil. Working swiftly, he drew a picture of Al as he had often seen him in the evening when his friend would take the small picture of his wife out of his tunic pocket and stare at it for a long time. Al’s face had lost its habitual toughness at those times and Caleb had realised he was seeing the husband and father rather than the soldier.The picture finished, he wrote a quick letter and put the two together in an envelope. He’d see it was put with Al’s effects which were being sent to his wife. He’d do it this morning before he went over the top again. Just in case. He went to put the notepad away and then paused.

He would write to Eve. It hadn’t been long since he had written but that didn’t matter. The desire for a link with home was strong this morning.

A tiny movement on the perimeter of his vision caused him to glance up. A small bird was perched on top of the dugout, looking at him with bright black eyes. It was a beautiful little thing and as he stared at it the tiny head tilted for a moment before the bird flew off.

Well, how about that. Caleb glanced round to see if anyone else had noticed but his comrades were fast asleep.

Feeling the need to share the wonderful normality of the incident, he swiftly captured the little bird on paper before beginning to write beneath his sketch, ‘You’ll never guess who came to see me this morning . . .’

When he had finished the letter he read it through, realising he had said far more than he had intended. He had told her about Al and the letter he had written to Al’s wife, about the mindless madness of the last hours, of the ache in his heart for England’s green countryside.

Would she think him weak, womanly? He read the words once more. But it was how he felt. He would give the rest of his life for a day spent tramping England’s countryside with his sketch pad. A muscle in his jaw working, he put the letter in an envelope and addressed it to Eve. He would send it. He could trust Eve to read it and not think the less of him. She would understand. She was like that.

His sergeant, a rough diamond, appeared round a curve in the trench, rousing the men who were still sleeping. When he reached Caleb he stood for a moment. ‘Get any sleep, Travis?’

‘Some, Sarge.’

‘I was sorry Griffiths bought it yesterday. He was a good lad, was Griffiths.’

‘Aye, he was, Sarge. One of the best.’

‘We go over in fifteen minutes so get yourself something to eat.’

‘I’m not hungry, Sarge.’

‘I didn’t ask if you were hungry or not. I told you to get something to eat. All right?’

‘Aye, Sarge.’ Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes before likely as not he’d be blown to smithereens.What did it matter if he went to meet his Maker on a full stomach or not? Nevertheless, he did as he was told after dropping the letters into the mail bag. Sergeant Todd was a good bloke who was easy to talk to but no one in their right mind would consider disobeying him.

Fifteen minutes later Caleb was in position. The deafening explosions meant the sergeant had to bellow at the top of his voice when the moment came for the men to go over the top.

Caleb began to stumble forward as shells screamed and men shouted in a repeat of the day before.Then to his horror he found he’d blundered into a tangle of barbed wire. Panicking, he tore at it with his hands. He didn’t want to die like this, caught like a lump of meat on a skewer. And then he was free again and the relief was almost exhilarating.

The barrage from the German guns was fierce but still they advanced inch by inch. Men fell to the right and left of him and once or twice the force of the shell which had blasted them knocked him off his feet but only for a moment or two. He didn’t know how far they had advanced or how much time had gone by when they reached the abandoned dugout. The sergeant was in front of him and as he reached him he bawled at Caleb and the privates behind to get into the trench, which they did gladly.