The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (116 page)

Adam was still stuffing his letters in his pocket and straightening his tunic as he followed the sergeant through the winding communication trench and up over the duckboards to the little patch of churned earth where the service was to be held.

The day was turning out fine, and some late ox-eye daisies brightened the spot where the men had gathered. Overhead, a skylark was going crazy in the sunshine.

The chaplain was waiting in his surplice with a Bible in his hand, while behind him stood the other officers and a handful of men. The man nearest the chaplain carried a half-filled sandbag.

As Adam took his place beside Captain Goodwin, the chaplain began the service, and the private with the sandbag lowered it carefully into a freshly dug hole. Beside the hole lay an empty whisky bottle, securely corked, containing a handwritten luggage label.

The sergeant saw Adam looking at it, and whispered in his ear, ‘Cap’n Goodwin’s little system, sir. Marks the grave till the crosses come through.’

‘How many names on the label?’ Adam whispered back.

‘Five, sir.’

Five, thought Adam. The sandbag contains the remains of five men.

But what about Private Nathan? He hadn’t been blown up, just shot through the head. And what about St John Cornwallis’s boot? There didn’t look as if there was enough room in the sandbag for that. Why hadn’t they found Nathan and Cornwallis?

Adam made a mental note to say something afterwards. Or perhaps he ought to write a report to the War Graves Commission? HQ was always sending out reminders about that.
It is of the greatest importance to civilian morale that the location of all temporary graves be reported at once
. . .

Once again, Adam saw the red hole blossoming in Nathan’s forehead. One moment he’d been a boy of eighteen, intent on not losing his nerve, and the next – he was simply dead. Nothing human left. Just a lump of meat on the ground. And now the chaplain was thanking God in His mercy . . .

Adam struggled to take it in.

He hadn’t believed in God since he was eight, when his mother had died of the Russian influenza. He’d flatly refused to go to Sunday School, and there had been a family row about it, with his older brothers siding with Pa against him, while three-year-old Erskine looked on with round blue eyes. Surprisingly, it had been the Sunday School teacher who had taken Adam’s part, by declaring that he must be given time to find his own way. That was Aunt Maud for you. Rigidly conventional for most of the time, and then occasionally . . .

With a twinge of guilt he realized that his mind had drifted away from the service. How could he be so callous? How could he care so little about a brother officer whom he’d known ever since Winchester, and four of his own men?

And yet, try as he might to conjure up some sadness, all he could feel was a vast disbelief.

He looked about him at the grey faces of the living, and the yawning black hole with the sandbag at the bottom; at the barbed wire stretching into the distance, and the tender blue sky. He thought, what are you doing here? How could you possibly
imagine
that this has anything to do with your brothers? How could you think that by running over a few hundred yards of torn earth waving a useless revolver, you’re honouring their memory? They’re dead. They’re gone. What’s left of them is no different from those chunks in the sandbag.

He glanced down at his bandaged hand, and remembered the feeling of surprise when he’d been shot: when he’d realized that he was part of the target.

He ought to find that frightening, but he didn’t.

Oh well, he thought numbly. Perhaps I’ll be one of the lucky ones. Perhaps I won’t feel fear.

Chapter Eight

Berthonval, August 1916 – one year later

A doctor was visiting the battalion. As his practice had been in Galloway before the War, Adam asked him to dine in his dugout: an impulse he regretted on learning that the doctor was making a study of shell shock.

After heavy losses at Longueval and Delville Wood, the battalion had spent two weeks behind the line, then taken over No. 1 sector at Berthonval. The trenches were deep and dry but not revetted, so they needed shoring up to prevent a collapse when it rained. As the line was quiet and the weather good, Adam drew up a rota for the men, and they got on with it.

Normally he enjoyed this sort of work, but now he found himself snapping constantly at the men, and cursing their slowness. What was wrong with him? Presumably this confounded doctor meant to find out.

The dinner was a good one, for Sibella Clyne, who seemed to have adopted Adam as one of her causes, had sent out another parcel. After tinned oysters and cold partridge, they had a chocolate cake from Rumpelmayer’s, washed down with two bottles of Graves, and plenty of whisky. The doctor was excellent company, but Adam knew that he was being observed, which made him even edgier than usual. When his batman came in with more coffee, he snapped at the man to get out.

There was a silence after the batman had gone. The doctor lit a cigar, while Adam rearranged a matchbox on the collapsible writing desk which doubled as a dinner table. When the silence had become intolerable, he said, ‘So what’s the verdict?’

‘What do you mean?’ the doctor said mildly.

‘Well, it’s quite clear that you’ve been sizing me up. What’s the verdict?’

The doctor smiled. He had a square, freckled face, and small grey eyes that gave nothing away. ‘Your CO is becoming concerned about you. That’s all.’

‘So he told you to check me out.’

‘Something like that. He seems to think you’re showing signs of wear and tear.’

Adam barked a laugh. ‘Enough for a ticket home?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Ah. I didn’t think so.’

‘Often a man simply needs time out of the line. And sleep.’

‘I don’t want sleep,’ said Adam. ‘When I sleep, I dream.’

‘Nightmares?’

‘Well, of course.’

There was a pause, which the doctor seemed content not to fill. Adam finished his cigar and lit another, then refilled their whisky tumblers. He caught the doctor’s eye and shrugged. ‘I know, I’m drinking too much. And my nerves are shot, and I look fifty instead of thirty. So do we all. Must be something to do with sitting like rabbits in holes, waiting to be blown to blazes.’

‘That could be it,’ agreed the doctor.

‘So why is the CO picking on me? Everyone’s got the wind up.’

‘You’re one of his best officers.’

Adam snorted. ‘Then he’s in trouble. If a shell bursts a mile away, I have to steel myself not to cringe. I curse anything and everyone. I talk too fast, and always about the War. Each new gas attack, each new calamity, I have to talk about it. It’s as if – as if I’m trying to
infect
everyone else with my own fear. And that’s what it is, doctor, it’s fear. We call it “windiness” or “wear and tear” because we can’t bear to use the real word. It’s despicable.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, I do.’ With his fingertips he drummed on the table. ‘Do you know what I hate most? It’s the ones who
don’t
get the wind up. We had one last month, a transfer from C Company. Big fellow, good officer, no imagination. No fear. “Life in the line”, he told me on his first morning, “affects me very little. I’ve found that if you can just steady yourself the first time you’re shelled, then you never have any trouble again.”’ Adam took a long pull at his drink. ‘God, how I hated him! I hated him far more than I’ve ever hated the Boche – whom, as it happens, I don’t hate in the least.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Poor fellow was caught by a sniper two days later. So after all that about shellfire, he—’ He broke off. ‘You see? I’m talking too much. And before the War they used to chaff me for not talking enough – for keeping my feelings to myself.’ He paused. ‘So tell me, doctor. In your expert opinion. Is it shell shock?’

‘We don’t use that term any more—’

‘I don’t care what you call it!’ Adam burst out. ‘Is it shell shock?’

The doctor studied him. ‘No. The thing is, Palairet, in war, men wear out. Like clothes.’

Again Adam snorted.

‘I mean it,’ said the doctor. ‘Courage can be spent. But yours isn’t, not by a long chalk. All you need is rest.’ He reached for another cigar. ‘And I’d watch your drinking, if I were you. If it gets out of hand, it won’t much matter whether you’ve broken down because you drink, or drink because you’ve broken down.’

That made Adam laugh in earnest.

The doctor didn’t join in. He said, ‘I understand you haven’t been home on leave for quite a while.’

‘I’ve been on leave. Only recently I spent a couple of days in Paris.’

‘But you haven’t been home. You haven’t seen your wife.’

Adam gave him the blank smile that used to infuriate his older brothers.

‘What about letters? Getting plenty of those?’

‘Oh, yes, plenty of letters.’

‘From your wife?’

Adam set down his glass and rubbed his temple. Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop. ‘The odd thing is, people keep asking me to look after them. As if I can. As if I have any sort of control over what happens.’

The doctor waited for him to go on.

‘Last week I had a letter from my great-aunt out in Jamaica, asking me to “keep an eye on” my cousin Osbourne. He’s just been conscripted by what she calls “this dastardly new law”, and she’s heard that he’s somewhere in my neck of the woods. Apparently his mother became hysterical when he was called up; “quite inconsolable”.’

‘That’s understandable.’

‘Why?’ snarled Adam. ‘He’s still alive, isn’t he? And anyway, what do they
imagine
I can do to keep him that way? Why does everyone keep coming to me?’

The doctor put his head on one side. ‘Perhaps – because you do feel fear, and yet, somehow, you still carry on.’

Adam threw him a disbelieving look.

‘Some men,’ began the doctor, ‘men like your unfortunate transfer, for example, never experience fear. Others do, but they carry on. In my experience, it’s the latter kind of man to whom people look for help. It’s the same in a unit. The men know that such an officer understands what they’re going through, and yet can be depended upon to lead them—’

‘But that’s just it,’ cut in Adam. ‘I can’t be depended upon.’

The doctor was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘What do you fear most?’

Adam did not reply.

‘Is it shellfire? Is that what you fear?’

‘Doesn’t everyone?’ He downed the rest of his drink. ‘The worst death of all. Blown apart. Crude. Shattering. No dignity. Just clods of flesh.’

The doctor studied him. Then he stubbed out his cigar and got to his feet.

‘Leaving so soon?’ Adam asked with a curl of his lip.

‘You’ll be all right,’ said the doctor. ‘I shall recommend you for some Divisional Rest. In the meantime, keep busy.’

Adam burst out laughing.

‘I mean it, Palairet. Spot of activity does wonders to steady a man.’

‘Well, jolly good,’ said Adam, raising his glass, ‘because I’ve a patrol at five in the morning. I dare say that’ll be just the ticket.’

His orders were to take seven men and scout out the enemy line. ‘Shouldn’t take you more than an hour or so,’ said his CO. ‘Pleasant day for a walk in the woods.’

Adam sent two scouts fifty yards ahead, with two more as flank guards a hundred yards on either side, keeping Sergeant-Major Watts with him. They were to take as little as possible: just rifles, and a bandolier to each man.

They soon reached the woods, where their progress slowed, as they had to climb over so many fallen trees. They lost sight of the line behind them. The War fell away.

The woods were deep and cool, the glades bright with purple teazels and magenta willowherb. Adam thought of the woods around Cairngowrie Hall. Yesterday he’d had a letter from Maud McAllister; in the margin she’d sketched a squirrel nibbling a pine cone. Celia no longer wrote at all, and he didn’t expect it, but he looked forward to his aunt’s brisk little notes about the daily goings-on in Galloway. And he’d developed a taste for Sibella Clyne’s breathless torrents of gossip: they seemed so much more real than reality, and required no response from him except distant amusement.

His great-aunt’s letters were welcome for a different reason. She was the only woman he knew who could fill several pages with nothing but disapproval.
Sugar has made that dreadful man Kelly a millionaire all over again
, she had written in her last,
although much good may it do him, as he is now somewhere on the Somme, having persuaded a cavalry regiment to take him; I cannot
conceive
of how. In my day, officers were gentlemen, not street Arabs made good.

Eden, too, prospers wonderfully, but I do not begrudge them their success, for at least Cameron Lawe
is
a gentleman, of sorts. I understand that his wife is active in the War Contingent Fund, which is to be admired, although she has been heard to speak disapprovingly of the War itself, and this I find reprehensible. Sadly, their daughter Isabelle does them no credit.
On dit
that she has joined a fast set in London, and leads poor Sibella a merry dance; a stranger to war work, as she will be to her reputation, should she continue in this vein
. . .

Dear me, thought Adam as he clambered over a tree trunk, a young girl who prefers parties to war work. Whatever is the world coming to?

A snap of branches up ahead, and one of the advance scouts came running back. He’d spotted a system of trenches guarded by barbed wire.

Adam went forward with Watts, and found to his surprise – for this sector had supposedly been recently scouted – that the trees had been cleared to give a field of fire in front of the wire. He sent one scout back to warn the flankers, then with Watts and the other man he crawled under the wire.

To his relief, the German trench was empty. It was also scrupulously tidy: four rifles neatly lined up against a wall, a little pile of bombs, a stack of blankets, and some tinned provisions.

While Watts heaved the supplies into the bushes, and the scout went off to bury the bombs, Adam made a quick sketch of the trench system.
NB
, he wrote at the bottom,
cavalry will not be able to circumvent this
. The thought nearly made him smile. ‘That dreadful man Kelly’ would be disappointed. Adam had only met him a couple of times in Jamaica, but he’d never forgotten seeing him ride.