Birdsong (57 page)

In her bedroom Jeanne undressed. She felt encouraged by Stephen, though she could see he was making efforts for her benefit. It was a beginning. She walked naked across the floor to take her nightgown from the back of the door.

It opened just before she reached it, and she saw Stephen outside in his shirt, his legs bare.

He recoiled. “I’m sorry, I was looking for the bathroom.”

Jeanne had grabbed reflexively for a towel that lay on the chair, and tried to arrange it modestly over her body.

Stephen turned and began to move back into the sitting room.

Jeanne said, “Stop. It’s all right. Come back.”

She put the towel on the chair and stood quite still.

There was no light in the room, but the brightness of the autumn night made it easy to see.

“Come and let me hold you,” she said. The slow smile rose up and illuminated her face.

Stephen walked slowly into the room. Jeanne’s long thin body stood to welcome him. Her pale arms were held out, pulling up the round breasts that rode like mysterious white flowers on her ribcage in the uncertain light. Stephen went and knelt at her feet. He put his head against her side, beneath her ribs.

She was hoping that his forced lightness of spirit would still be with him.

He put his arms round her thighs. The soft hair that grew up between her legs was long and black. He laid his cheek against it for a moment, then put his face back against her side. She felt him begin to sob. “Isabelle,” he was saying, “Isabelle.”

W
hen Stephen returned to his company in the forward area there were celebrations. The men were guardedly hopeful that their next attack would be their last, and after the events on the Ancre and the advance on the canal Stephen had acquired a reputation for survival. Even the enlisted men who had joined since he had been away were aware that he was regarded as a lucky charm. Exaggerated rumours reached them of the witchcraft he performed in his dugout.

The engineers and tunnellers came up infrequently to do trench maintenance. A long tunnel out into no-man’s-land was periodically inspected and repaired. Its furthest point provided an entrance to a useful if dangerous listening post close to German lines, apparently still undiscovered by the enemy. Men positioned in it had heard talk from the German front line. It had been of retreat.

Enemy shelling followed a pattern. It was accurately aimed at the rear area, with little danger to the front line, and stopped for an hour at lunchtime. The British reply observed the same formalities, so Stephen was able to eat peacefully on his first day back. Riley had heated up some tinned stew, but had managed to find a fresh cabbage to enliven it.

Cartwright, the officer commanding the engineers, came to see him in the afternoon. Although he was regarded as a weak character by the infantry, he had a sense of grievance that made him a tenacious arguer.

“As you know,” he said, “we have an agreement to help each other, though as far as I can see there has been little give-and-take about it.” He had a pale face with a receding chin; he favoured familiar domestic phrases and proverbs in the hope that they would make his arguments seem more palatable.

“Now I’ve received an order that my men are to enlarge the listening post at the end of the main drive. That’s all well and good, but the last men I had down there said they heard what sounded like enemy work going on just above them.”

“I see. So you’re saying you want some of my men to go down with you.”

“Yes. I think we’re entitled to it.”

“I thought all the digging had stopped.”

“You never know with our friends the Boche, do you?”

“I suppose not. It seems a bit unnecessary, but—”

“I thought that since you’d been away you’d like to see what’s been going on for yourself. After all, the work is done for the protection of your men.”

“You’re as bad as Weir. Why are you always so keen to get us underground?”

“Because we dug you proper drains here and made this dugout.” Cartwright gestured to the wooden walls and the bookshelf above the bed. “You don’t think your men could have done this, do you?”

“All right,” said Stephen. “I’ll come and inspect it, but I can’t be away for more than an hour. One of your men will have to bring me back.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged. We’re going down at midday tomorrow.”

———

The autumn light showed the blackened, splintered stumps of what had been trees. The floor of the trench was for once reasonably dry when the men assembled at the tunnel head.

Jack Firebrace, Evans, and Jones were among six experienced tunnellers who handed out helmets, torches, and Proto breathing sets to the infantry. Cartwright said to Jack, “You’re to escort Captain Wraysford back after he’s inspected the work, Firebrace.”

“Aren’t you coming?” said Stephen, putting an electric torch in his pocket.

“Wouldn’t do to have us both down there,” said Cartwright.

Stephen looked up at the sky above him. It was a clear, pale blue with a few high clouds. The tarpaulin-draped entrance to the burrow was dark.

He was thinking of the first time he had gone underground with Hunt and Byrne to protect Jack Firebrace. He remembered the pale light of panic in Hunt’s face and the impact of his own wounds. He himself had changed since then; he could no longer
be sure that he would be as calm in the narrow tunnels that awaited them. He rested his hands on the wooden revetting that held the front wall of the trench and breathed in deeply. There were no distinct worlds, only one creation, to which he was bound by the beating of his blood. It would be the same underground as here in the warm air, with the birds singing and the gentle clouds above them.

He clambered in after the tunnellers and felt the splintering wood of the ladder against his hands. The drop was vertical and the rungs were far apart. Stephen hesitated as he lowered his feet into the darkness, but was forced to continue by the boots that kept treading down close to his fingers. The light at the top of the tunnel was obscured by their large, descending bulk, and eventually narrowed to something like a distant windowpane, then to nothing.

He heard Jack’s voice below him telling him how much further he had to go. Eventually he jumped off the ladder and fell to the earth on a platform about ten feet square, where Jack and two of the infantry were waiting with lamps. When the others had arrived, some timber was lowered down. Jones and Evans took it from the end of the dangling rope and prepared to carry it forward into the tunnel.

Three tunnellers led the way, with the other three at the back and the six reluctant infantry in between. The tunnel was at first high enough to stand up in and they made good progress over the dry, chalky floor. After about fifty yards, the senior miner, a Scottish lieutenant called Lorimer, told them they were to be quiet from then on. They were coming to a long lateral gallery from which led various tunnels going toward the enemy. To begin with they would all go down the main one, which led to the forward listening post; later, when the men were working to enlarge it, the infantry would be required to go into a parallel tunnel to protect them. They would be able to take a miner with them to show the way. All were equipped with lamps.

They went down on their knees to get into the main section and Stephen saw the anxious glances being exchanged among his men. The air had a dense, damp quality. They strained and gasped as they went through a small opening, but then found they
could half-stand again and proceeded at a crouch. Stephen noticed the solid horizontal planks attached to verticals at distances of about five feet. From what he could see it had been well done. In the accustomed scamper of the tunnellers there was no fear or sense of the unusual.

The six infantrymen, led by a lieutenant called Crawshaw, were struggling to keep up with those in front. Stephen could hear them gasping. They carried rifles, which made it difficult for them to use their hands to steady themselves.

It seemed a strange way, Stephen thought, in which to have passed the war, like rodents in a separate element. It had shielded them from the impact of the big attacks and the sight of bodies piling up, but the world the miners inhabited had its own ingrained horror.

He would go just as far as the main chamber, then insist on getting back to his men. They would be grateful that he had made the gesture, which would secure the continued cooperation of the tunnellers in the jobs they found most wearing.

The tunnel became narrower and they were obliged to go down on all fours again. The front men suddenly stopped, causing the others to crush together behind them in the darkness.

“I think they’ve heard something,” Crawshaw whispered into Stephen’s ear. “No one move.”

The men lay huddled in the tube of earth as Evans fumbled in his pack and squeezed through them to get up to his three colleagues at the front. After a whispered consultation, Evans squirmed forward to a piece of dry wall and stuck a flat disc against it, into which he plugged a stethoscope. Crawshaw raised a finger to his lips and made a downward motion with both hands. The others lay flat on the floor of the tunnel. Stephen felt a stone against his cheek, and tried to shift his head. He was lodged up against the leg of someone he could not see and had to stay where he was. He could feel his heart moving slowly against his ribs.

Evans lay tight against the tunnel wall, like an unwashed and unqualified doctor listening for signs of hostile life.

Stephen closed his eyes. He wondered whether, if he stayed in this position long enough, he might drift off to a final sleep. The agitation of the other men prevented him from sliding into his
own thoughts. He could sense their fear through the tension of the bodies that pressed against his. It was their passivity that made it difficult; even against the guns they had some chance of riposte, but beneath this weight they were helpless.

Evans eventually pulled the stethoscope out of his ears and folded it back into his pocket. He shook his head and pursed his lips. He whispered his report to his lieutenant, who in turn put his mouth to Stephen’s ear.

“Can’t hear anything. It may have been shellfire from the surface. We’re going to press on.”

The men on the floor of the tunnel stirred and dragged themselves back again into their crouching positions, in which they could again advance deeper.

Stephen could feel himself sweating. He could tell by the stench from the bodies packed in around him that he was not the only one. Trench conditions had improved, but not to the extent of providing the men with means of washing, even in hot weather.

The roof of the tunnel began to lift a little, and the smaller men, such as Evans and Jones, were able to walk upright. They came to a junction where the miners’ lieutenant, Lorimer, issued instructions. The main digging party would proceed straight to the listening chamber; the others would go into one of the fighting tunnels alongside, the entrance to which he was now able to point out.

Stephen smiled to himself as he saw the expressions on the faces of his men. They exaggerated their reluctance into comic grimaces, but he knew from his own experience that it was real enough. He was glad he was going into what, presumably, would be the largest section of tunnel. He had no fear of going forward provided he felt he could get back. What had frightened him underground with Weir was when the earth fell behind them and he had for a moment thought he would not be able to turn round.

Crawshaw checked that his men had their grenades and rifles. He himself carried a revolver, which he waved dangerously toward the tunnel entrances. Stephen guessed he was trying to show them how fearless he was. Perhaps they believed him.

He watched them depart. He remembered the feelings of tenderness he used to have for the men when they went into battle
or on patrol; he used to imagine their lives and hopes, their homes and their families, the little worlds they carried on their backs and in their minds. He could remember this compassion, but he no longer felt it.

His own party was about twenty-five yards short of the main listening chamber when Lorimer again came to a halt and raised his finger to his lips.

Stephen inhaled tightly. He was beginning to regret having come down. Either Lorimer was nervous, and was turning a routine inspection into something protracted and unpleasant, or else there was real danger. Evans had taken his listening set into the adjacent tunnel. Jack Firebrace was summoned by Lorimer to place his ear against the wall.

Jack covered the other ear with his hand and closed his eyes for better concentration. For half a minute they all stood motionless. In the light of a miner’s lamp, Stephen stared with minute intensity at the grain of a piece of timber about six inches from his face. He traced the tiny lines and indentations. He imagined how it would curl beneath a plane.

Jack pulled back his head from the wall and wheeled to face Lorimer. His urgent whisper was audible to all of them.

“There’s footsteps, going back toward their lines. They’ve got a tunnel west and about ten feet up.”

Lorimer’s face tightened. He said nothing for a moment, then, “Retreating, did you say?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think we should press on and do our work.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “but they may have laid a charge. I mean, there are any number of reasons why—”

“We’ll wait for five minutes,” said Lorimer, “then we’ll proceed.”

“For God’s sake,” said Stephen. “You don’t risk the lives of all these men to—”

The air was driven from his chest before he could complete the sentence as an explosion drove them backward into the tunnel walls; it was as though the soil in front of them had been hurled back by some violent, compacted earthquake. Stephen’s head struck wood. By the jagged light that burned into the earth he saw
the flailing limbs and flying parts of cloth and kit, helmets, hands, and spitting chalk that ricocheted round the hollow tube, taking the human detritus with it in a roar of condensed fury.

He lay on the tunnel floor beneath the fields, and still he was not dead. He was aware of earth in his eyes and nose, and of weight. He tried to move but felt himself pinned down, as though the earth had wrapped him in heavy, comfortable blankets and was urging him to sleep. The noise of the explosion seemed trapped in the narrow tube. He pictured his way back sealed off, and a flicker of panic rose in his belly, but died again beneath the heaviness of his pinioned state. The captive sound eventually diminished.