the maltese angel (50 page)

Trains, trains, trains. Stretchers, stretchers, stretchers. Bodies, bodies, bodies. Blood, blood, blood. That's what the wheels were

saying. That's what all the train wheels said. They never speeded up the rhythm: they slowed it down, they stopped, but they never speeded it up.

He was tired. His body was crying out for rest; but more so, his mind pleading for it.

How many ambulance trains had he travelled on over these past months?

When did he come here anyway? May? Yes it was May, when the Arras

affair was on. God! God! That was an introduction. They were

shovelling them in then, those who got back across the Somme at

Abbeville. And many of those that were left were wishing they had

never got back.

How many times had he thrown up? If it hadn't been for Jim Anderson and David Mayhew he might have joined the mutineers or the absconders and risked being shot. Jim had said he had suffered from diarrhoea for the first three months.

"But you get used to it," he had said. David was more laconic, less sensitive.

"It's what you asked for," had been his comment. Yet it was David who had taken him aside and said, "We've been put here because we're needed. I've asked God time and time again, why is this happening? Why is He allowing it? And the answer is, as the answer always is, man's free will. It's a paltry answer and I've told Him that. But He's also reminded me that His Son was crucified for doing good and that we and fellows like us are in the same boat." And then David had added in his usual manner, "And it's no good crying out like His Son did, " Why hast thou forsaken me? "

because we'll get the same answer, "You asked for it, so you've got to see it through."

Yes, it was David that had been his prop really, and still was. But if they should ever have a quiet minute together again, and God only knew when that could possibly be, he'd ask him if he, too, had this whirling repetition in his brain that woke him out of sleep, repeating

everything three times.

David's voice came to him now, saying, "Have a word with Geordie at the far end there, will you? because if he starts ranting again he'll wake the whole lot up. And as long as we're stuck here they might as well get a little sleep, those who can."

Gerald repeated to himself, "Those who can," as he looked along a double row of stretchers flanking each side of the long railway

carriage. This carriage was supposed to take only twenty-five in some kind of comfort, but there were over forty on this trip. How many had been left behind altogether? He didn't know. What he did know was

that by the time the next train arrived, some of them wouldn't need to be lifted up.

He stepped cautiously down the narrow, dimly lit aisle. The place was hazy with breaths that took a little of the chill off the atmosphere.

Suddenly the carriage shook violently and a voice to his side said, "A couple of inches more and it would have been goodbye, Blighty."

He looked at the man whose stretcher was on a rack to his shoulder and he uttered a platitude that was beginning to wear thin in his

vocabulary: "A miss is as good as a mile." And then he moved on to where the voice could be heard above the mutterings and groans; but before he reached the source at the end of the carriage, the train shuddered again and he had to thrust both hands over a platform

stretcher to steady himself against the blacked-out carriage window.

The man whom he was leaning over and whose whole face was bandaged, as was one arm, muttered through a slit where his lips were, "Why don't they get their aim right and finish with it?"

4^ He could give no answer, and especially not a quip, and so moved on to the man who was doing the talking. He had pulled himself up over his pillow, with his head now resting against the partition that

divided this section from the rest of the train, and he greeted Gerald with, "How much longer are they gona dither here? A sitting bloody duck, that's what we are. Nobody seems to learn a bloody thing in this war.

Keep moving. Keep moving. That's the thing to do. "

Gerald dropped down on to his hunkers and he said quietly, "Arty, isn't it?"

"Aye, that's me name, Arty Makepeace. And that's a hell of a joke, isn't it? Makepeace."

His voice only just above a whisper now, Gerald said, "There's one or two along the line there not too good. They're trying to sleep it

off." And the man's voice now was even lower as he said, "For the last time, you mean."

"Could be. Could be."

"Aye, well, join the band."

"Oh, you'll be all right."

"Think so?"

"Yes, once you get back to base; and after that it won't be long before you're on the boat."

The man's voice had become really quiet now when he said, "Funny thing, you know, this is my third bloody year out here. Aye. Aye, end of '14

I joined. And I'd begun to think nothing could touch me, all because me wife always finished her letters with, " I'm praying that God will protect you". And, you know, I had got to believe it up to this." He now pointed down to where the blanket sank below his left knee.

"Went through a lot, I did, and not a scratch. Bullets going through me 'cap, an' the seat of me pants, but not a scratch. Even this bloody year, when I was in the counter-attack at Arras. Aye, I was, and we thought we were away. Oh, aye, we did. After having been pushed back across the Somme at Abbeville. Oh, we were all cocking our snooks, when it

happened again. You know sum mat The lot that they're sendin' over now are like bloody boy scouts. Some of the buggers couldn't tell

their arses from their elbows. Trained. Aye. By God! they call it

training! "

His voice was rising again, and so Gerald interrupted the threatened flow, whispering, "What's your regiment?" And thankfully a whisper came back to him: "Tyneside Scottish. We were with the Tenth and Eleventh Battalions, you know. Eeh! the commander. He was a bloke. A leader all right; he ferried us across in little boats. But what did we meet, eh? Air attacks, tanks, and their bloody infantry."

"Shh! Shh!"

"Now don't you Shh! me, lad. Anyway, you just sound like me old man.

He always used to say, "Shh! Shh thy gob!" And, you know, it's a funny thing, I'll tell you something'. I've been more frightened of the bloody mud than the bullets, crawling in it, being choked by it, gulping it down. If we lose the war, an' it's a penny to a pound that we will, it'll be the mud that's done it. But the funny thing is, I was brought up with mud. You see, me old man always had an allotment, kept our bellies full many a time mind, but work in on it he would sometimes put the fork through his boot or get a cut in his hand. What did he do? He stuck mud on it. Aye. If the ground wasn't wet he

would wet it, you know, then stick mud on it. That was when he was outside the house. Inside he went for salt. So--' He now pointed down towards what was left of his right leg below the knee, and he went on,

"When I was lyin' in that bloody shell-hole, half covered in water, I thought of me da an' the mud. And when I came to me self an' saw

what'd happened, well, that's what I did. I packed the stinking thing with mud an' I'd like to bet that was why I lived to reach that

stinkin' station. How long did we lie on that stinkin' platform eh ...

? For how long?"

Gerald didn't give him an answer. But he knew some of them had been left there for twenty-four hours and

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for many it had turned out to be just four hours too long. And the rest of them, those who had been picked up with this lot, would now probably go the same way if this bombardment went on much longer.

The man now lay back on the pillow, but as Gerald was about to move away he found his wrist gripped, and the voice, now quite low and

solemn, said, "You have my respects, lad, and all your gang. As that bloke across there said' he now jerked his head towards a stretcher at the other side of the aisle 'you lot were the heroes of this bloody senseless game. That's what he said after your mate got it just afb re we pushed off. By! that was a quicker do: here the day an' gone the morrow. You know, he was an 'ero; he could have been picked up on the last train, but he gave way to a bloke that was in a bad way." He suddenly paused.

"I'm sweatin' like a bullock now. I was freezin' a minute ago."

Gerald put his hand on the man's brow. It was wet. Here was the

answer to his jabbering; he was in a fever. He now pulled the blanket up under his chin, saying quietly, "Lie still. I'll be back in a moment."

Then he exclaimed, "Ah now! Listen! We're moving off, and we haven't got all that far to go." He did not add, just another five hours, that was if they weren't held up again.

He had got only half-way down the carriage when he had to stop and help David Mayhew hold down a burly sergeant. The poor man was back in the trenches giving orders and yelling: "Over! Over! Over! Come on!

Lift it! Never mind the bloody moonlight. If they can see you, you can see them. Over! Over! Over! Hell! move it. "

As they pressed the man down, David, gasping, said, "This is where we need Arthur and that damn needle of his."

Yes indeed, Gerald thought. Arthur the hero. Arthur Sprite had almost completed his training as a doctor when he had joined their ranks and become such an asset to them. Yet strangely, he hadn't been liked.

Perhaps it was because he had aimed to show his superiority from the beginning. That he was brave, there was no doubt; but there had always been the question as to the reason why he was one of them. Was it on religious grounds? Political? Personal morality? Or what? Strangely, he could never be drawn.

Anyway, he was dead now, killed while carrying out an apparently brave act. As David had pointed out, there had been no need for him to dash along the road to the two wounded men supporting each other. Having got that far, they would have made it the other few yards to the

station and the Red Cross vans. But no, he had to be spectacular and he had raced along the road and right into the bomb that had not only killed the three of them, but also blew the last van to smithereens.

Daily he was asking himself what drove people to do the things they did. What had driven him into this hell-hole? Principles? What were principles but the sparks of one's ego? Variety? No. No. No. Don't start again, he told himself.

It was two-thirty in the morning when the train drew slowly into the base. There was no need for lanterns for the moon was shining,

transforming the night almost into daylight. And now there was a

scramble to get the wounded from the train and into the field

hospital.

He and David had laid the last man of their section in a sort of

outpatients' tent, waiting their turn for a doctor's attention, when a nurse, coming by, looked at them and said, "You're late as usual." And they both said together, "Hello there, Susie."

"You've packed some in this time."

"Not one half of what we've left behind," said David.

"And we've had to crawl most of the way, so slowly at one period that we picked up some stragglers, six of them, three of them in a bad way.

They had become separated from their unit. But who hasn't! Well, here I'm off for something to eat."

41?

you 11 oe mcKy. Un, l forgot, you we got a kitcnen 01 your own; half of ours got it. " Her voice sank.

"And two orderlies with it."

David said nothing to this, but he sighed and turned away. And the nurse, looking at Gerald, said softly, "You look all-in."

The, look all-in? I could go for another .. full ten minutes. "

"How long have you been on this trip?"

"Since the beginning of the year."

"Don't be daft." She pushed at him, then added, "But it must feel like that at times. It must be twenty-four hours, at least."

He sighed now and said, "Well, I've got a forty-eight coming. And you know what I'm going to do in it?"

"Yes. Yes. Sleep."

"Right on the dot, Susie. Right on the dot."

"I'd like to take a bet with you."

"Yes?"

"You won't sleep for twenty-four hours; you'll hardly sleep for twelve."

"Perhaps you're right..." He knew she was right. You got past sleep.

You might be lying on your bed, and there you were, your eyes wide open, staring straight ahead into the past .. you were on orderly duty, running here and there. Then quite suddenly there was Dunkirk and the ambulance train, and the sickness in his stomach mixed with anger by the sight of more mangled men.

It had been in Dunkirk that he first saw Susie, during the bombardment.

The Germans were firing their long range guns on the town from Dixmude.

And he could even hear her now saying, "If you don't want to have to lie on a stretcher, lie on your belly, man."

It was a brief meeting in the mud; he was not to see her again until some three months later, and that was in Rouen.

Then they had met in this medical outpost that seemed to be part of no man's land. That was two months ago.

Since then, now and again, they had exchanged a few words, as they were doing now.

"Part of your billet got it, but your kitchens are left. That's the main thing." She smiled her impish smile as she added, "You can sleep standing up as long as your belly's full. And by the way, thank your mother for the cheese; that was real cheese. You're lucky. I hope

there's another parcel waiting for you."

All he could manage was a short laugh before he turned from her. But he was thinking, I must put a stop to those parcels. They're really worse off over there than we are here. Janie must be sending the

butter and cheese from the farm .. But then, if he stopped the parcels, he'd miss the fruit-loaf. Good God! Fancy thinking about fruit-loaf after the experiences of the last twenty-four hours. Just let him get into that bunk, that's all he wanted right now. Sleep.

Sleep ..

But he wasn't to get straight into his bunk, for he was stopped by Jim with the order that he was to report to the officer in charge, one William Haslett.