The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (117 page)

The scout returned and chatted quietly to Watts, who was lighting his pipe, while Adam finished his map by sketching the lie of the land. To the west the ground dipped sharply, but he couldn’t see for the trees how far down it went . . .

A German observation balloon rose silently into the sky and came to a stop directly above him.

It was no more than a hundred and fifty feet overhead, and Adam could clearly see the two men in it. One of them was looking down at him through his field glasses, while the other jabbered excitedly into a telephone: reporting their position, no doubt.

With a sense of unreality, Adam pocketed his map and quietly ordered the men to fall back into the woods. Beside him, Watts swore under his breath, and extinguished his pipe. Together they plunged into the trees.

The Germans lost no time. Adam had scarcely entered the woods when three guns opened up from the German line, and three shells came shrieking towards them, exploding several hundred yards to the right. Adam yelled at the men to run. More heavy crumps, this time a little closer. Shrapnel whistled through the trees. Black smoke billowed closer. The Germans were getting the range . . .

As they ran, a line of men suddenly loomed up ahead through the drifting smoke. Adam drew his revolver, then recognized Captain Anstruther of B Company, Lieutenant Cardinal, and four of their men.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ yelled Anstruther.

Briefly, Adam told him about the observation balloon, then asked the same question.

‘Wire-cutting party,’ yelled Anstruther, ducking as another crump passed overhead. ‘No idea there was anyone else in here! Another bloody mix-up!’

Another shell wobbled towards them, and they threw themselves to the ground. When it was over, they got up and ran like hares.

Watts had been hit in the leg. Adam went back for him, and together they struggled on. By now the German battery was putting big crumps right across them. He heard the dreaded whirr-crump, and he and Watts threw themselves under a fallen tree.

The shrieks became deafening. Adam pictured the shell wandering malevolently through the sky, seeking them out. This is the one, he thought, as he always did these days. The fear squirmed in his stomach. He felt it crawling up his chest, seizing hold of his heart. He set his teeth . . .

The shell burst. Shrapnel thudded around him. Watts grunted. Adam hugged the earth.

Shaking so hard that he could hardly stand up, he struggled to his feet. Watts was dead. Adam glanced round. Anstruther and Cardinal were dead too. The men were crouching in the willowherb, looking up at him. It dawned on him that he was now the senior officer.

Should they make a break for the lines, or take cover and wait till it was over? He didn’t know. He could see the terror in the men’s eyes.
Officer getting the wind up
. . .

Once, Watts had told him what he called the ‘soldier’s motto’. ‘If in doubt, sir, do
something
. Anything. Don’t much matter what.’

‘Head back to the line,’ said Adam. ‘Come on, up with you! Back to the line, sharp!’

The men leapt up and followed him.

As he ran, Adam felt his nerves steady. The fear was still there, but it was no longer in charge. He thought, my God, that doctor was right. Spot of action. It’s just the ticket.

He received a citation for ‘great coolness and gallantry’, which made him laugh. It sounded as if they were talking about someone else. He also got four days at Divisional Rest, and an invitation to dinner with the divisional commander.

HQ was a different world. The huts were daintily camouflaged, there was none of the usual rubbish lying around, and the duckboard path was neatly covered in rabbit-wire to prevent people losing their footing. Even the sandbags were superior: beautifully hand-stitched gabardine in cheerful colours, which had obviously been made by a ladies’ sandbag club. Adam felt like a tramp.

Towards the end of dinner, while they were waiting for the brandy and cigars, he could stand it no longer, and excused himself.

He went out into a field at the back. It was still light, and ox-eye daisies glowed in the last of the sun.

If Erskine were here, he thought, how he’d laugh at that citation. And those sandbags!

He watched a ladybird negotiating a grass stem, and tried to picture his younger brother’s face. He couldn’t. Erskine had been the cleverest of the three: the wittiest, the most fun. Adam’s favourite. His best friend. And now he couldn’t even remember his face.

Inside him, something broke. He sank to his knees and the sobs burst from him. Wrenching, painful. Frighteningly loud.

He cried for what seemed like hours. At last the sobs subsided, and he was able to get to his feet and straighten his clothes. He glanced at his watch, and saw to his amazement that he’d only been crying for three minutes.

In a ditch, a frog began to croak. A breeze stirred the ox-eye daisies.

Adam brushed the grass seeds off his knees and took a deep breath. He felt drained, but curiously calm. His face was stiff as a mask.

Yes, he thought, a mask. Because it’s all about acting, isn’t it?

He went back inside. Had coffee with the divisional commander, told a couple of jokes. Listened to DC’s stories with every appearance of enjoyment.

This is what you’ve got to do, he thought as he lit another cigar. You’ve just got to become a bloody good actor.

Chapter Nine

Gouzeaucourt, March 1918 – eighteen months later

He was shot through the heart
, wrote Adam,
and died instantly. I am certain that he felt no pain
.

The boy in question had crawled fifty yards with his intestines hanging out, before falling into a shell-crater and drowning. Adam signed off with his usual expressions of regret.

He wrote three more letters along similar lines, adding little details about the weather for verisimilitude, then sat back and rubbed his temple. On his writing desk was a stack of the men’s letters awaiting censoring, and a half-finished report on Enemy Dispositions. He decided to ignore them, and finish his letter to Maud McAllister – although most of that would be lies, too.

Since you asked about my domestic arrangements
, he wrote with false jocularity,
I can tell you that I’m not too badly off. It’s chilly outside, but quite snug in here, for we have a charcoal brazier and four officers in close quarters to warm things up
.

The brazier existed, but not the charcoal; Adam’s eyelashes were sticking together with cold. But the four officers were accurate enough, although one was a German who’d been dead since the summer. His ribs poked between the revetments like a broken birdcage.

You will also be pleased to learn
, Adam continued,
that I have a dog: a black and white mongrel who followed me home last week. I have dug him a small recess by my bunk, and put in a couch of sandbags, and he seems quite comfortable. He accompanies me on my rounds, and has developed a fondness
for corned beef, particularly the W. H. Davies variety
. The dog also enjoyed fresher meat, of which there was plenty about. But Adam saw no need to trouble Maud with that.

Last night we had a gas attack, which was rather boring. For an hour we bumbled around in our rubber snouts, then bumbled back to bed. According to Birtwhistle, the Boche put over about 1500 gas shells (there’s a fad at the moment for counting these things), so we were lucky to lose no more than two men
. Ten others had been carried away to cough up their lungs at the base hospital; but why tell her about that?

As it’s a little damp, some of the men are down with what they call ‘three day fever’, which resembles influenza. I had something similar at Arras, the Christmas before last; here’s hoping I steer clear this time!

He frowned. He mustn’t overdo the tone, or Maud, who was no fool, would smell a rat.
If the above sounds strained
, he added,
then please forgive me. We’re waiting for this ‘great German offensive’ they’re all talking about, and it’s wearing us down – not least because we’ve fetched up a bomb’s throw from Delville Wood; yes, the same Delville Wood over which we played tug-of-war two years ago. That should give you an idea of precisely how far we’ve come
.

Again he frowned. He oughtn’t to have written that. It didn’t do to be too honest, not even with a sixty-one-year-old ex-Sunday School teacher. Besides, if the censors ever got wind of it . . .

Swiftly he signed off and sealed the envelope, which, like all officers’ stationery, bore the printed message:
I certify on my honour that the contents of this envelope refer to nothing but private and family matters
. Despite what he’d written about their position, Adam signed his name underneath with a flourish.

It was time to go round the line. With Dog at his heels, he made his way through the winding trench, walking with his habitual back-aching stoop to keep his head below the parapet. It was one in the morning, and all was quiet. After the bitter skirmishes of the past three days, the men were exhausted, and those off duty were fast asleep, but as Adam neared the end of his sector, he sensed that something was up. Then he heard it: a burst of uproarious singing, swiftly suppressed.

Sergeant Duckworth came round a bend in the trench, looking harried. ‘Ration-carriers, sir. Roaring drunk, the lot of them.’

Adam sighed. ‘Why?’

‘Poor devils got lost, sir. Wandered about half the night, then decided they couldn’t find us because we’d all been blown to smithereens, and sat down to drown their sorrows with the rum rations.’

It was just as the sergeant said. Two of the ration party had passed out on the duckboards; two more were slumped beside them in tears; and another four were beaming up at Adam, incapable of anything else. They were rough, filthy, and achingly young. Their kilts were stiff with mud, and most had souvenirs tied to their waists: a bayonet scabbard, a coalscuttle helmet, a belt buckle marked
Gott mit Uns
.

Sergeant Duckworth cleared his throat apprehensively. ‘Do we arrest them, sir?’

‘And then what?’ said Adam. ‘If we sent them down the line, we’d only bring shellfire on them and their escort.’ Again he sighed. ‘Let those two sleep it off, and do what you can for the others. We’ll stand to as normal, at five o’clock.’

The sergeant blew out a long breath. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Adam had just turned back for his dugout when he was almost flattened by a young staff officer.

‘Captain Palairet,’ panted the officer, ‘thank heavens I’ve found you!’

‘Keep your head down,’ said Adam. ‘Snipers in this sector, or didn’t you know?’

Alarmed, the staff officer bent double. ‘Brigadier McClaren will be visiting the lines at three a.m., sir. He wants your men turned out so that he can inspect their rifles.’

‘What?’ said Adam wearily. ‘Why does he want to do that?’

The staff officer was eyeing Private Morrish, who was sprawled at his feet, snoring gently. ‘Brigadier likes to see the men well turned out, sir,’ he said doubtfully.

And mine aren’t, thought Adam. But if his men were filthy, their rifles were not; he himself inspected them regularly. What was the point in waking them for nothing?

Sergeant Duckworth came up to see why Adam was still there. Behind him there was another burst of singing, rapidly hushed.

The staff officer looked startled.

Adam didn’t blink. Squaring his shoulders and sticking out his chin, he put on his best martinet act. ‘Very good, lieutenant,’ he snapped, ‘I shall have the men turned out by three. But be so good as to ask the brigadier to send me that order in writing.
If
you please.’

The staff officer swallowed, and Sergeant Duckworth bit back a grin. They both knew that Adam had every right to request a written order, but that by the time the message got through the brigadier would probably have lost interest, thereby giving the men a couple more hours’ much-needed sleep.

Further down the line, a shell burst. The officer ducked. Adam didn’t. The officer straightened up, visibly impressed. He was too inexperienced to appreciate that Adam wasn’t being brave; he simply knew by the sound that the shell wasn’t close enough to do any damage.

‘That’s shell sense, that is,’ Adam heard Sergeant Duckworth telling the officer as he and Dog started back for the dugout. ‘Captain Palairet knows what he’s about.’

No he doesn’t, thought Adam. Nobody does. That’s the point.

Back at his dugout, he poured himself a drink, then snatched half an hour’s sleep.

He awoke with a start. All was quiet, save for the scuffling of the rats and the distant crump of the shells. He knew he wouldn’t sleep again, so he got up, fed Dog, and took out his sketch pad. At the entrance to the dugout, a trio of skulls poked through the mud like mushrooms, and on one of them sat a rat as big as a cat, nibbling something clutched in its paws. Adam settled down to draw.

He was working on the tail when Birtwhistle came down the steps, drew his revolver, and spattered the rat across the duckboards.

‘I was drawing that,’ Adam said mildly.

‘Sorry, old man,’ said Birtwhistle. He threw himself onto his bunk and began immediately to snore.

Adam stooped to retrieve the
Danger de Mort
sign which had been knocked off the table by a fragment of rat. He didn’t feel like starting another sketch. Time to open the parcel he’d been saving.

Sibella had been more than usually generous: four bottles of cognac, a dozen pocket classics, five cashmere shirts, a little glass tube of quarter-grains of morphine, and an expensive-looking box from a Mayfair chemist containing a dozen gelatine sheets impregnated with cocaine.
A useful present
, said the label,
for friends at the Front
.

Adam set aside the cocaine to give to Birtwhistle, and arranged the other items on the writing desk. Then he opened Sibella’s letter.

It’s a bribe, of course
, she wrote disarmingly,
but my younger brother Lyndon will shortly be joining the battalion, so be a dear and keep an eye on him? Oh, and I expect you’ve already heard, but your cousin Osbourne has got his blighty at last! A decent wound to the calf, nothing too horrific
. . . Which is hardly surprising, thought Adam with wry amusement, since Osbourne had inflicted it on himself.