Good Hope Road: A Novel (41 page)

Visibility so poor in the mist that guns on both sides gone quiet. We get outta the graves, stretch our legs in the open. George the cook, he taken advantage of the cover and brought the mess kitchen right up to the ridge. We crack jokes and warm our hands around steamin’ mugs of coffee into which a bit of rum find its way. George, he let go his royal manners to join right in the banterin’. He keep slappin’ Karan on the back, like a long lost friend.

‘
Alors
!’ Gaillard cry, and like a magician with a hat, pull loops of that
Landjäger
sausage from his musette as we cheer and clap, along with a fat log of
Erbswurst
.

The mist start to thin. We’re hunkered ’bout the stoves, enjoyin’ the soup that George gone and whipped up from Gaillard’s pickings and raisin’ toasts to the Boche mammy who done sent her boy such delicious vittles, when the enemy albatross come into view. We scramble to put out the fires, lyin’ still as we can. For a long, slow minute, ain’t nothin’ happen. Maybe he ain’t seen us, I think hopefully, just as it come – the long tail of a smoke bomb, plain as an arrow in the clearin’ sky. Two more come sailin’ down, markin’ our exact position. We race for cover as the Boche guns swing slowly towards us.

Their singin’ start up once more, shells slammin’ into the make-do kitchen, callin’ to us by name.

Our losses from the bombardment are the worst since the offensive begun. Karan, he stand lookin’ down at what left of George’s body. Somethin’ pass through his eyes, then it gone.

‘Long live the King,’ he say flat like, and turn away.

Our Colonel riled up real bad by all the gun bait orders the Legion gotten so far, all the lyin’ ’bout in graves and this mornin’s shellin’. So badly he want a chance, just one chance, to get back at the Boche, to show them what the Legion all ’bout, that he practically beg headquarters for permission to advance.

He get his wish. We to engage with the Boche tomorrow afternoon: a blind attack, on the Bois Sabot.

The Bois Sabot, or Horseshoe Wood, is an earthwork fortification the Boche done built, shaped like a horseshoe around the Butte Souain. It one of the strongest positions the Boche got on all the Front, thick with machine-gun nests, and with plenty artillery support. These our orders: advance into the face of the horseshoe, divertin’ enemy fire so that other French divisions might take the Sabot from the flank.

The Legion headed for a suicide mission.

eem a waste, to leave them bottles of wine behind. I open them with the tip of my bayonet, settin’ one to my lips and passin’ the other around.

‘
Préts
?’ Gaillard grin like a wolf as he call out to James and me. ‘A fine pair of wind chimes you two are going to make, dancing from their wire!’

‘Dance we surely will,’ I return the compliment, ‘but on
your
grave, that where.’

‘Long as I go facing the enemy.’ He shudder. ‘No leaving arms and legs out there for me. A clean shot, that’s all I ask for.’

We know not many of us goin’ to make it back from the Bois Sabot but after all the gun-bait waitin’ ’bout of the past days, it a relief to know we advancin’ into attack at last. Maybe it the wine, but I feel sort of light-headed, like I can’t hold on to no thought for too long. Time seem to rush past awful quick and slow down so terrible that a minute feel like it stretch for ever. I try and hold on to it, the notion that these here might be our last few hours on this earth, but it brush through my fingers, like a stone skippin’ over a river, and go jitterin’ off again. We laughin’ a little too loudly, talkin’ quicker, our jestin’ touched with death-talk tonight.

‘A clean shot,’ Karan agree with Gaillard. ‘And if I do have to donate a leg or an arm, I hope I get the
Medaille Militaire
or at least a citation in exchange.’

‘I don’t know about a citation,’ James say, ‘but we’ll certainly get you a buskin’ permit for the streets.’

I laugh. ‘What do you reckon . . .’ I ain’t sure I want to know the answer. ‘What do you reckon our odds are?’

James move the chaw ’bout in his jaw. ‘Poor.’

I wait for actual numbers, but he ain’t givin’ none. ‘The bobwire ain’t been touched, I hear tell. Underbrush and long grass everywhere, hard to see much of anythin’. One patrol walked right into the Boche – got shot up all to pieces.’

James steady cleanin’ his rifle, as if he listenin’ to the weather forecast is all. ‘They beat the rest of us to it by a day then,’ is all he say.

He keep polishin’ the rifle when suddenly – ‘How come you don’t get any mail?’ he ask. ‘Never seen you get anythin’, not a letter, not a parcel.’ He frown, as if this here question been botherin’ him a while.

‘Ain’t nobody there no more. I got some distant family down South, but Pappy—’ Ain’t a story I told too much, but I tell it now to Yankee James. I tell him ’bout the brick they sent flyin’ through the schoolhouse window. The same broken window with the rags stuffed into it at night, but this time, they been bold enough, hate-filled enough to throw the brick in the middle of the day. It come sailin’ clean through that open window. Catch Pappy on the side of his head. He never the same after that. Couldn’t teach no more, was in bed for months till he died, and after that, well, wasn’t much point in me stickin’ around there no more.

Yankee James don’t say nothin’ more. We go on readyin’ our gear. They given us orders before in the reserve lines, to make real sure we got on clean underwear – ‘It lessens infection if you are wounded.’ Guess the generals ain’t figured we be wearin’ the same uniforms for days.

Gaillard, he takin’ all what still left of his pickings from the Boche trenches into the attack. ‘No way to send these for storage at the back,’ he point out, ‘and they will be worth some real francs in Paris.’

His sack bulge out at the back, filled to the top, but he hoist all that extra weight on his back easy as a feather.

We go real quick through the communication trenches. The French troops we pass look real surprised – who these men advancin’ before they can? Hard to tell if they jealous or feel powerful sorry for us.

‘Ah,
La Legion, La Legion
,’ they mutter when they learn who we be.

Legion of Honour, Legion of the Brave
.

There’s somethin’ I been meanin’ to ask Karan. ‘That war in India that you talked ’bout,’ I ask urgently as we press forward. ‘What happened in the end? Who won?’

‘Arjun and his brothers did.’

Ain’t realised that my shoulders been all tensed up till I feel them relax. They won. In the end, they won. That the answer I been hopin’ for.

Karan still speakin’. ‘It was a war unto death, though. Nearly four million men went out on to the battlefield. When it was over, only twelve were left standing. Twelve. They won, but their sons, relatives, friends – all were dead.’

Given me gooseflesh when he say that. Then the humour of it strike me. They won alright, but what exactly?

Feel ’bout right, it do.

Here now, our jumpin’-off point from the trenches. We got to go through a small scrub of pine and then out into a clearin’ with no cover in sight. James hold out his hand as we wait for the whistle. ‘Gaillard was right,’ he say, by way of wishin’ me good luck. ‘A handsome wind chime you’re going to make on the wire. Run fast,’ he add then, urgent like. ‘When the firing gets severe, and the columns break, run fast as you can, you hear? Either straight ahead, or off to the side, it doesn’t matter, as long as you aren’t in the centre of the advance. There’s a reason why we’ve been lucky so far. Most soldiers, they aren’t exactly sharpshooters, and so they aim for the general heart of the advance.’

Now what he say make sense, the Yankee awful smart, but I know the reason we be comin’ back safe each time is the gris-gris. Ain’t no time to reply though – the whistle sound, and we leave the trenches for a storm of bullets and shrapnel.

It like walkin’ into a silver rainstorm. A high-pitched whine, as the Boche guns light into us. Its and bits of tree-hide and leaves still wet from that rain of the past days, fallin’ all ’bout us. A hot sting through my thigh. Men droppin’ in waves, so many bullets still slammin’ into them that their bodies roll over and over on the ground, like leaves in a fall breeze.

I run fast as I can, slippin’, slidin’ down the slope. Faster, Obadaiah, pick up your ninny feet and run. Bullets swipin’ around me, faster, across the valley at the bottom, part way up the next, its rise out of sight of the Boche guns. I throw myself to the ground, flippin’ on to my back and pantin’ hard. James just up ahead, a wildness in his eyes as he grin.

‘Having fun yet?’ he mouth at me through the racket.

A wetness down my leg, and I ’member the wound. Tear open the medical kit, tie a rough tourniquet to stop the bleedin’. Don’t feel no pain, not yet, not with the rush of battle still strong in my blood. Wop, wop, wop, the steady sweep of the machine guns.

‘
Avancez
!’

On our feet again, charge up the rest of the slope, past a knot of pines. Mud flyin’ knee-high and more, bullets tillin’ the earth. I’m jumpin’ over bodies, so many, all ours, rollin’ like they made from thistle weed and cotton down. I’m runnin’ a little to the side, I find, just off the centre of our advance. James, where James? His voice in my head, ‘Run as fast as you can.’

‘
Avancez, mes enfants
!’ I actually hear the Captain, through all of this noise. He just ahead of me, I see him sink to the ground. Roll, roll, roll. I nearabout trip over my feet: Karan, he liftin’ into the air. I know it’s him – what left of his robe, it spill from his torn musette, like a fire-coloured cape.
His robe, he carried his damn robe into battle
. I laugh out loud in the madness.

Maybe it the smoke, must be on account of the smoke, ‘cause I only see the upper half of his body and arms. Just half of Karan’s body, thrown clean into the air, the robe flyin’ out behind him, all torn up at the bottom from those Russian socks he been steady cuttin’ from it. His arms spread wide, as if blessin’ us all.

Forward, Obadaiah, run. Men dyin’ all around me, my brothers, goin’ down like rag dolls.
James
, ahead, on his stomach, clippin’ at the bobwire. He fine, I known all along he goin’ to be fine with the gris-gris in his pocket. At the wire now, onward, followin’ James through the break in the belt.

Forward, advancin’,
to where?
We throw our grenades wildly before us – can’t see too far with the smoke. Loose dirt ahead, the sandbags of a Boche outpost. James, half crawlin’, half runnin’ towards it. I’m followin’ right behind, when my leg give way from under me. I grip my rifle tight, hold it above my head as I fall.
Une bonne mort
, a legionnaire’s death. Pappy’s voice in my head, callin’ my name.

It dark when I open my eyes. I’m laid out near a water-filled hole, shell flash and Verey lights off to the side. The leg hurt now, throbbin’ somethin’ bad. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I work it loose, tryin’ to swallow as I feel ’bout for my canteen, but it long gone, lost somewhere in the advance. I inch towards the edge of the hole, dip my head in and drink. Another flash of Verey lights and now I see that what I taken to be a floatin’ log is a body. I rest my achin’ head against the mud, just glad I drank the water before I seen he in there.

Where everybody? What happened to James? I raise up on my arms to get my bearin’s. I see the observation trench we been runnin’ towards when I fell. Its parapet directly ahead, sandbags torn, blasted by what must’ve been a direct hit of a grenade. I crawl towards it, my leg draggin’ behind me.

Somethin’ move in the half-light, near the lip of the trench. This, of all the devil-spawn horror of the battlefield, raise the hairs on my neck like nothin’ else do before. The squat shape of it not human, not animal. I freeze. Verey lights go off again, and now I spot the bayonet, one of ours, stuck blade down in the earth.

The shape, it slowly sort itself. It human alright, men, two of them, one bendin’ over what left of another. My heart start to pound as I crawl nearer, and I’m awful close to burstin’ into tears. James, the man bent over the other is James. He taken a nasty hit to his head, an arm hangin’ bent and useless as he try to get morphine into the shape on the ground, but he seem okay. The wounded legionnaire though, he ain’t got much legs no more. The left arm shot away, from below the elbow. His face got hit too – most of the jaw is gone. He moan through the mess of bone and blood, turn towards me as I come closer.