The Storms of War (33 page)

‘People said that last Christmas.’

‘This time it is true. Fritz is taking a battering.’

‘Come on!’ Shep was saying now. ‘Hand over the letter! I need to read the words of my beloved fiancé.’

Celia passed it over and smiled. ‘You are right, Shep. You are always right. I suppose a push is a good thing.’

‘It is. But that’s why we’re getting so many men with handies.’

‘Handies?’

‘The orderly told me last night. You know, they seem fine, except for a shot through their hand. As if the wound is self-inflicted. He said others have started eating cigarettes soaked in vinegar to make themselves ill, can you imagine?’

Celia covered her ears. ‘We shouldn’t say any more! We’ll get in trouble.’ They were supposed to tell the commandant of any suspicions about men with pretended or self-inflicted wounds.

‘No different to all those girls trying to bury their heads in Johnson’s pillow, trying to catch the fever.’

Then followed three weeks in which Celia forgot how to sleep. The trains were so full that they went on all night and then late into the morning, started again by seven. Thousands and thousands of men, sitters crammed into the trains so tightly that they couldn’t move, stretchers balanced on each other. The injuries were terrible, legs, arms, faces. Most of the sitters shook, teeth chattering like a child’s play skeleton, all the way to the hospital. Those who didn’t told her terrible things: queues of men at the dressing stations, their wounds festering in the sun, dying because all the morphine was saved for the operations. One man with a shattered arm said they were so low on doctors that the padre was anaesthetizing
the men for operations, and asked him to help hold them down with his good arm. They wouldn’t talk about the fighting. The commandant was hysterical with panic, sent two girls from the san who were half dead with the flu out to drive. Shepherd fainted at the wheel and had to be revived by her sitter.

By the second week, Celia was weeping with tiredness at the wheel, not caring that the men could see. That same week, the commandant gave them all an hour at lunch, said Station Three would cover. Warterton called them over to look at a newspaper. ‘Keep quiet, girls, but look at this story. One of my brothers sent it. Thousands dead on the Somme.’ She unfolded
The Times.
‘Thank God Richie is further south.’

‘I don’t know where Mick and James are,’ said Shep.

‘I don’t know about mine either.’

‘That’s why we’ve been so busy, though. And why leave has been cancelled.’

They stared at the article, holding hands. Celia felt it then, how torn they were. On one hand, she was a sister, a friend, her body frozen with terror for Tom and Michael, as it always was with news of such a great battle. On the other, she was an ambulance driver, feeling the clunk in her mind as things fell into place, like solving a puzzle in the old days.

‘Lucky Fitz went home when she did,’ said Shep. ‘They’d never let her go now.’ She took her special box of Milk Tray – solely for emergencies – from under her bed and offered them each a stale-looking violet cream.

‘Look at this,’ said Warterton, clutching a biscuit. ‘The newspaper says the soldiers were told the wire would be cut and that they should walk forward slowly. They got there and it wasn’t.’

Celia looked at the words. ‘But isn’t that what they tell them to do in every battle? Walk forward slowly till they reach the wire. The men say it’s never cut. What’s the difference here?’

Warterton nodded. ‘You’re right, Witty, that’s what they always say.’

Shep pointed to the paragraph at the bottom. ‘No, girls. The
whole point is the size of it. This wasn’t just a little battle. It was thousands.’

‘It says here they’re making a film about it.’

‘Who wants to see a film about that?’ said Warterton. ‘I’d prefer to watch Vesta Tilley, awful as she is.’

‘Strange that you despise her so much when we’re all a set of Vestas ourselves. We’d do well in the music hall with these outfits on,’ said Shep. ‘Anyway, you might feel different if you were at home. Your mother will be first in the queue at the pictures to see
The Heroic Sacrifice
or whatever they’re going to call it. Then she will write to you all about it, along with another box of biscuits.’

Summer rolled into autumn. Celia received a letter from Michael after the big push, saying that he’d been sent elsewhere (and that Tom had too). Shep’s brothers were still alive, but Mick had been taken prisoner. Her mother wrote to say that the Red Cross had been to inspect his prison and it was passable. The food at the ambulance station grew worse, and there was even less meat. The commandant apologised, said that rations were going down fast and there was nothing she could do.

Celia had never eaten so little. It made her feel cold, chill hands, her stomach a hollow late at night. In the old days, she had eaten meat at lunch and dinner, and in the holidays extra sausage rolls. At school, she thought, hunger had been that half-hour before the lesson broke for lunch, staring at a map of Europe wondering whether they would be eating beef casserole or lamb hotpot, pondering how many spoonfuls of potato she might get from the servers. Now, she was hungry all the time, even if she woke in the middle of the night. Only the smoking made her forget.

She watched Cooper smiling to herself in the canteen. A few times Celia had gone to the WC in the middle of the night and seen her wandering out. She knew she was being disloyal to Shep, but still she wondered about Cooper, what happened outside. The kiss from Tom had driven deep into her heart. Surely, when Cooper was touched by these men, she felt the same.

Every day, it got colder. Celia dreaded driving in the snow.
Already her hands felt as if they were iced to the wheel, and no snow had yet fallen. The men screamed much more in the cold. ‘The only compensation for winter is that the enemy stops bombing,’ said the commandant, when she found Celia rubbing her hands on the bonnet of the ambulance to get warm. ‘He’ll take a holiday soon, Witt.’

But he didn’t. Every night they told each other it would be his last, and then he did it again.

The commandant’s whistle blew. ‘Ambulances!’

‘Come on, girls,’ called Warterton, stumbling to her feet. It was three a.m. and they had been sent to bed after an afternoon of driving. ‘Station Two have clearly given up. Once more into the breach and all that.’

‘We will follow you, King Henry.’ Shep was pulling on her trousers.

‘Come on, Witty.’ Celia felt weighed down by tiredness, as if she could barely move her legs. She wanted to lie back down again. ‘Come on, old thing.’ Shep tugged on her arm. ‘Your secret admirers are waiting for you at the station.’

Celia rolled out of bed. ‘I’m coming.’

The shriek of the alarm sounded. ‘Oh God,’ said Shepherd. ‘Here we go. Double the fun.’ She squeezed Celia’s hand.

‘Don’t look up at the monsters,’ called Warterton. ‘That will give you the willies.’

‘You can talk! You gaze at those planes like they’re the second coming.’

At the station, the bombs were falling, but once they had loaded up, the skies went quiet. Still, just in case, Celia kept her sidelights off. She craned forward to see. The men were nervy, dreading the next bomb, crying out at every bump. She forced herself to be like Warterton. ‘Don’t worry, chaps!’ she called. ‘Not much further to go now. Hold tight! Here comes another pothole!’

The moon came from behind a cloud, so she accelerated. It was a curse and a blessing in one – easier for her to see, yet much
easier for pilots to spot her. She pressed on. Her shell-shock case gave a terrible scream, but he would have cried out at anything – the opening of the back doors, the change of gear if it was particularly creaky. She had stood at the back as they loaded him in, staring ahead, his hands and legs twitching, his face all fear. He had shrieked hysterically as the doors of the neighbouring ambulance closed. ‘He landed on a dead body that burst,’ said one of the men dispassionately. ‘Poor fellow.’ He was screaming over and over. ‘Don’t worry, son,’ the older sitter said. ‘Our boys will beat the Krauts back.’

She hurtled over the pothole, and as she did so, she saw another ambulance ahead of her. She admired the driving: swift, neat, avoiding a pothole by swerving on to a verge. Over the trees, the moon was hanging, low and gibbous. Plenty of light to drop bombs on the right target. There was a flurry of bombs and a huge crash. It didn’t sound too far away. ‘That’s practically over in Belgium,’ she shouted at the men in the back.

‘I think Jerry’s nearer than that,’ said the sitter next to her. He had a bandaged head and arm and had been smoking silently since they set off. ‘I reckon we’ll be able to see them overhead soon.’ Celia dropped one wheel into the pothole the driver in front had missed. The men groaned.

‘It’s the ambulance station they want,’ she said, braver than she felt. ‘They don’t care about us.’

She turned the ambulance towards Hospital 5, accelerating hard to get up the hill. The nurses were waiting for them outside. ‘All right, love,’ said the stretcher-bearer. ‘Good girl, getting the chaps here quickly.’ Three were still screaming as they were taken out.

‘Don’t think they liked your driving much, Witt,’ winked the nurse, Tibbets. She was a pretty girl, with brown curls and a small nose. The sitter was gazing at her. Celia thought she could tell the soldiers who were going to recover soon – they perked up at the sight of a good-looking nurse.

‘Might get them to send you out in my place, Nurse Tibbets.’

Tibbets smiled. ‘Safe journey back, Witt.’

Celia wanted to seize her hand and say,
Let me stay with you!
Please!
But the canvas roof of the hospital was no protection. ‘See you next time,’ she said. She backed the ambulance away from the stretchers and shot down the hill. The bombs were still falling. Now to keep going, so fast that she’d be back in her bed before she knew it. She went over a bump so quickly that she felt as if she might take off. In front of her, another ambulance joined the road from Hospital 2. Celia waved, but the driver wasn’t looking behind her. It had the same bloodstain on the back as the one she had followed earlier – and still she was not sure whose it was. The other girl was going at top speed too. ‘Race you!’ Celia shouted into the air rushing past. They bumped past the woody copse that led to Hospital 3.

Another bomb dropped behind her. Celia threw herself over the wheel. It was so close. Then she pushed down on the pedal. The ambulance shot forward. It was the fastest she had ever gone in her life.

She did not look up in case there was a flying machine overhead. Instead, she kept her eyes forward, catching up to the other ambulance, racing along the road. Another bomb crashed behind her and she swerved in shock. She pulled back on to the road and pushed on, her ears numb. She felt sure that the thing was above her, aiming for the station. She gripped the wheel and, in spite of herself, glanced up. The great body of a plane hung over her. She slowed down immediately, slamming on the brake. She thought she could see the figure of the gunner at the back.
I can see you!
she could have cried to whoever he was, some boy her own age.
Stop!

She slowed to a crawl and watched the aircraft move forward. Then another bomb, smashing on to the road ahead. She stopped dead and dropped her head to the wheel. There was a crash and a flash of flame. The ambulance in front swerved off the road and fell on its side. ‘Stop! Stop!’ Celia screamed. The plane swooped upwards, off into the sky, the trail fizzing in its wake. She leapt down from the cab and hurried forward. The road was on fire. She crawled down into the grass, around the side of it, feeling the heat flame her skin. In front of her, the wheels of the ambulance
were moving helplessly, like the legs of a dying fly. ‘I’m coming!’ she shouted. The fire swallowed her voice.

She carried on crawling, called out again. The driver’s side of the cab was facing upwards. She reached for the door and pulled. The girl had fallen against the other side. Her dark hair was spattered in blood. ‘Hello?’ Celia said tentatively. ‘Hello.’ She heard a rasping breath. ‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘I’m here now.’ She had no idea, she realised, how she could help this girl at all. Maybe she shouldn’t try to pull her out, but surely it was more dangerous to be in? The fuel might blow up. ‘You’re fine now, dear,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’

The girl gave a groan. Something about the voice struck horror into Celia.
Oh God.
She reached her hand forward to the girl’s head, brushed the hair back, exposing the face and the deep wound in the forehead all at once. She screamed out the word before she could even think it. ‘Shep! Shep!’

Shep’s eyes gazed upwards and closed. ‘Don’t go to sleep,’ Celia begged. ‘Please.’ She clutched at her, tried to cradle her, but she could reach only to stroke.

‘Witt,’ the voice croaked. ‘Witt.’ And then her head dropped, and Celia could feel the flow of blood slowing, stopping.

Soon there were voices and someone’s hands on her. Johnson and another girl – Cooper. ‘All right there, Witt, we’ve got you. Keep calm now.’ Celia kept screaming. She felt one of the girls pulling at her. ‘Let’s take you back. The doctor can give you something. Come on, Witt.’

‘What rotten bad luck,’ Cooper said. ‘The two of them were as thick as thieves.’

‘Rotten,’ said Johnson. ‘I’ll take her back. Do you think you can stay with Shepherd – I mean Elizabeth?’

In the ambulance back, Celia was placed in the position of a sitter but could not sit. She flopped over, bumping her head on the dashboard. She did not want to sit up straight, ever again. Back at the station, Johnson hurried her inside. A doctor came to where she was screaming in the canteen and jabbed her. She felt warm liquid flooding her body, gave in to the relief.

Pozières, Summer 1916

It was the big push. That was all they had been talking about over the past days, the big push. It had even filtered down to the men. A thousand commands going up and down the telephone lines, letters being issued, withdrawn, inspections, discussions. You got caught up in it, the excitement of what was going to happen. Then another command and you were all supposed to do something different. Michael had decided that it wasn’t worth devoting too much thought to one command; best just to say,
Of course the men will be ready, sir,
read the instructions and then file them away. He had a box under his bed for such letters, the pile growing bigger every day.

New posters were stuck up reminding them that speaking loudly on field telephones was a court-martial offence. There was detailed talk about barrages and wire-cutting and the rest. Michael went to three meetings at HQ, in which they looked at reports, maps and proposals. Each time, he felt sure (though not entirely, since he could not take any notes) that it was exactly the same plan that they had gone over before, with only the odd detail changed, here or there. Still, they debated, nodded, discussed, and considered the possibilities, ending – always – in agreement. It would of course be an excellent way to proceed. The men were quite ready, eager to go forth and engage. They were in good spirits, keen to progress. Another general would then talk about what really mattered: the mood at home. His wife was feeling a little persecuted at the first aid committee; the other ladies demanded to know if anything was really being done out here. There had been a letter to
The Times
in which one lady suggested she might take her stock of white feathers out to France and distribute them there.

Each meeting finished with the same conclusion. Something must be done. HQ would improve things, create a new and unique plan, something that would fix the matter once and for all. They had to keep even this quiet: that there would be a plan. So Michael could not speculate with Bilks about what might or might not occur. He did not tell Wheeler, instead applied himself to wondering what the unique plan might be. Perhaps they might bring in a new bomb or type of gun.

The night after making the judgement, Michael had lain in bed, listening. He had not seen what happened, for after the two men had been hauled away, Bilks had found some military policemen to tie them to the wheel. So he imagined it. In the cracks of silence between bombs, he heard Tom scream.

Tom came to him after they took him off the wheel and spoke looking at the floor, promising he would not make the same mistake again. Michael tried to smile at him, say,
I forgive you!
But Tom would not look up.

‘Was it so very terrible?’ he asked Wheeler, three nights later, when they were alone.

‘Not so bad, not really. He was the one who was screaming. I know you had to punish me,’ Wheeler whispered, stroking his back. ‘But you punished him too and that was fair.’ Michael turned around, moved towards him, but Wheeler ducked away. ‘I should go. Bilks will be here.’ He winked.

It was back to normal with Wheeler, better even. But Tom was angry. He avoided Michael, would not meet his eyes, stayed as far as he could from him when they went out on clearing parties or rebuilding trenches.
Being in charge is a lonely job,
Michael told himself, and similar platitudes. But it was not so simple, for some of the other men were fighting shy of him too. They were afraid of talking to him in rest breaks and they did not invite him to play cards at the end of the day. Who minded? he said to himself. Who minded what Cook or Pie thought? Wheeler was content and that was all that should matter. But he still could not
tell Celia what he had done. He wrote her letters, enthusiastic, talking about the food. Every time he picked up his pen, he saw Wheeler’s face gazing at him, imploring him. If he had punished only Wheeler, it would have made him liable to be picked out again by higher command. He put down his pen and answered the voice in his head: what else did you expect me to do? He had meant to show fairness. Instead, he guessed he had exposed himself even more.

Tom would forgive him, he was sure. Already the passion of Tom’s feeling seemed to have thinned, and when Michael asked him to do something, he looked at him with resentment only. He would understand in time. Sometimes, though, Michael thought back to the moment of standing there in front of the two of them, and an odd flush of feeling came to him, a recognition that what he had experienced then was not an endeavour to justice but a desire for cruelty, to crush Tom’s appealing gaze and stop his puppyish need to follow him around.
We are not friends,
he wanted to say.
I barely know you. You were my servant.

Then, two weeks before the July push was to begin – still no plans – word came from on high that Michael’s men, along with the rest of the battalion, were being sent south for a different endeavour. They walked, caught the train, carrying their packs, disembarked somewhere near Boulogne, he thought, occupied a trench that was wider than their old one had been and more makeshift – the sandbags were made from coloured material, flowers, stripes, checks, that he presumed had been local bedspreads and curtains. The men there before them had even left old cigarette boxes around. Michael stood there, gazing at the muddy trench. What on earth were they meant to do here while the big push was going on in the north? Tidying up and pushing sandbags into place for the next load of men to come? He supposed so, presumed that after the first push had succeeded, they would come south and do the same here.

‘Come on, men,’ said Bilks, slipping down behind him. ‘Let’s make ourselves at home.’

*

Five weeks later, Michael and his men had made their trench as wide as they could. They had shored up the sides and reinforced the edges and the bottom. More men had arrived from other parts of the country and the trenches resounded to explosions, thanks to big teams of miners from the west. It seemed to Michael that the whole lot of them were being run from the HQ near Pozières. Their CO turned up with letters and read them out. ‘Continue your excellent work, men,’ he said. ‘Making ready.’

The area was pristine in a way Pozières had not been: houses still standing, even churches; farmers walking their cows across no-man’s-land. There was a wide stretch of ground between them and the enemy, and the Krauts on the other side barely shelled them at all, but still they went through the motions of guns, sentry posts, raiding parties. They gathered together their grenades, counted their ammunition, discussed with the gunners how they might bring over the cannons, prepared for attack, even though, Michael knew, nothing was going to happen. The Germans were no different: they were two sets of toy soldiers walking in and out of position, shaking their guns, never shooting, all of them waiting for the grown-ups to come and play the real game.

The men were getting hard to motivate, he and Bilks had agreed. They were frustrated that the big push was being planned up north and they were doing housekeeping in the middle of nowhere. Pie kept saying that he spoke for all the men when he said they wanted to go back, that they felt the other fellows were fighting hard out there and they wanted to join them. ‘We have to obey orders,’ Michael told them, while they were playing cards at lunchtime. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do.’ He looked at Tom staring into his cup. Bilks raised an eyebrow at him. It was wrong to say it, he knew, a cheap way to garner popularity, but what harm could it do? The CO was too busy reading letters from high command to listen to what the men might say.

‘When can we go back?’ demanded Pie. He had already been out hunting for souvenirs over no-man’s-land, and found very little. He said the stretcher-bearers must have picked them all off and sold them.

‘We will await orders. Perhaps we will stay and the other men and the battle will come to us.’

‘Let’s start our own. I’ll go over and hit Jerry on the head with my mug.’

‘That’s enough, Pie.’ Bilks shot Michael an angry stare. ‘Command order us correctly, thank you.’

‘If they did, we wouldn’t be here.’

‘That’s enough, I said.’

Michael looked over at Tom. He was still gazing at his cup.

‘I will go to see the CO,’ he said. ‘I’ll try to find out what he aims to do.’

*

Three days later, Michael was in the CO’s office, a fine room in the local town hall, newly commandeered. ‘The men want something to do, sir,’ he said. ‘They’re not happy.’

‘That is a coincidence,’ said the CO. ‘There is something I need done.’

Michael almost smiled. He had expected some variety of fight with the man, and here it was, simple and solved. The CO said there was a line of trenches ten miles to the west that the Germans had entirely deserted, yesterday, after a massive bombardment. HQ wanted information about the layout and so Michael and his men should lead a raid on the line tomorrow. They were to stay an hour or so, with half of them drawing the layout – if he could find that many who could draw – and the others collecting up abandoned weapons for testing: guns, ammunition and grenades. Once they had surveyed the area, the CO, said, the gunners were going to go in and bomb it to bits. He said he was sorry but they were to expect a lot of bodies, since the German stretcher-bearers hadn’t managed to get in.

‘It’s not fighting, I’m afraid. I expect some of that in a few weeks or so, just between us. Keep their spirits up, Witt, and we’ll have them back in action before you know it.’ Michael supposed Pie would be happy at least: good opportunities for hunting for badges and whatever else down there.

That night, they were occupied in planning. Michael would
head the drawing team; Bilks gathered together the men to collect up ammunition. Michael took Wheeler – after all, a schoolmaster must be able to draw – along with Long, Ebbots and Porter, who all claimed they could handle a pencil. Bilks told him to take Tom, said he’d oversee Pie and the others. ‘Pick up the bullets first, Pie,’ he said. ‘I’ll inspect your pockets.’

They walked west, Bilks navigating, and took lodgings in a barn belonging to one of the farms on the way. When they all bedded down that night, the men were restless, excitable. Bilks had to tell them to stop talking, otherwise it would be a washout tomorrow, but even he was excited: his voice wavered when he spoke. It was impossible not to feel a thrill, Michael thought. They would be entering a German trench – and they would find out how different it was from their own. It was their reward for these weeks of drudgery.

Once the men were asleep, he gave the signal: three short coughs, then another. He stood and crept out of the barn, as if he was going to relieve himself. Outside, he leant against the wall and waited. He watched his breath ruffle the air, imagining how it might billow out if the weather were cold. After five minutes had passed, he heard Wheeler’s step. He waited, enjoying the hard thrill of anticipation. The pain of the early days had dissipated into contentment, but there was nothing of the complacency he supposed must happen if you lived together and could be sure of always lying by the other at night. Although even then he could not imagine his heart failing to fill with excitement when Wheeler was near. Still, they would have a chance to find out. After the war was over, they were going to live together in Paris. It was easier to hide there, they’d decided.

He heard Wheeler’s footsteps, heard him breathing before he came near. He turned, looked at him, opened his arms. They clung to each other. If you were watching from the outside, he thought, you might imagine they were two people holding on, saving each other from drowning. Afterwards, they didn’t allow themselves much time. Two or three minutes together, not long to talk. But
Michael knew that they were thinking the same thoughts: Paris together, the house they might have, their love.

Next morning, they left the barn and occupied one of the French trenches near to their target. Bilks handed round the rum flask – although what they were doing would hardly be dangerous – and they readied their guns to walk over. They assembled their packs as if they were going out properly, with drawing paper and pencils, containers to hold the bullets and samples they found. At eight, they went over, walking sedately across the grass of no-man’s-land. Michael permitted himself a brief squeeze of Wheeler’s hand when no one was looking.

As they approached the German trench, the men hung back – of course you would. Michael and Bilks went on ahead, guns in hand, and peered over the edge. The trench was smaller than Michael had imagined, narrower than on the other side and stacked high with sandbags made from curtain material. There were bodies strewn on top of each other where they’d fallen, already decomposing in the heat. Bilks clambered down and extended his hand for Michael. ‘Looks clear to me, sir,’ he said. The two of them began to check the corpses with the end of their guns.

‘I wish we could bury them,’ said Michael.

‘If they would do the same for us,’ replied Bilks, turning over another with his gun. ‘Anyway, if they are going to bomb it tomorrow, they’ll have a grave of sorts.’

Michael gingerly poked his gun at a body. He didn’t share Bilks’s relish for the job. His second was turning them over enthusiastically, jabbing at their hearts. Michael couldn’t bear it. He told himself it was out of respect for the dead. Really, he dreaded them. They were already bloated with fluids. He feared prodding one and being hit with an explosion of the stuff. He nudged one whose face was swollen and yellow. ‘I think they’re pretty dead,’ he said.

‘I’ve got a few more to get through,’ Bilks puffed. Michael leaned against the wall as Bilks turned over the rest against his side of the wall, prodded them for life, let them fall back. At last he stood up. ‘We’re clear.’

‘Bring the others down.’

Bilks moved aside two of the bodies to give the men enough space, then clambered up the side of the trench and called them down. ‘Here we go!’ Michael heard Pie shout. They jumped down one after the other, all of them looking around gleefully. Cook whooped and Michael gave him a hard look. ‘Come on. We need to get started.’ The men were delighted, he saw, wildly light-hearted, casting about for souvenirs, wide-eyed at the thought of entering the most forbidden place.