The Ghost Road (20 page)

The other expression was the trench expression. It
looks quite daunting if you don't know what it is. Any one of my platoon could
have posed for a propaganda poster of the Brutal Hun, but it wasn't brutality
or anything like that. It was a sort of
morose disgust,
and it
came from living in trenches that had bits of human bone sticking out of the
walls, in freezing weather corpses propped up on the fire step, flooded latrines.

Whatever happens to us it can't be as bad as that.

Wednesday, 18
September

Today we went to the divisional baths, which are in a
huge, low barn. For once it was sunny and dry and the march, though long, was
not too tiring. They weren't ready for us and the men sat on the grass outside
and waited, leaning on each other's knees or stretched out on the grass with
their arms behind their heads. Then it was their turn.

The usual rows of rain butts, wine barrels, a couple
of old baths (proper baths).
The water any temperature from boiling to tepid
depending on where you were in the queue.
They take off their clothes,
leave them in piles, line up naked, larking about, jostling, a lot of jokes, a
few songs, everybody happy because it's not the dreary routine of drills and
training. Inside the barn, hundreds of tiny chinks of sunlight from gaps in the
walls and roof, so the light shimmers like shot silk, and these gleams dance
over everything, brown faces and necks, white bodies, the dividing line round
the throat sharp as a guillotine.

One of my problems with the baths is that I'm always
dressed. Officers bathe separately.
And...
Well, it's
odd. One of the things I like sexually, one of the things I fantasize about, is
simply being fully dressed with a naked lover, holding him or her from behind.
And what I feel (apart from the obvious) is great tenderness—the sort of
tenderness that depends on being more powerful, and that is really, I suppose,
just the acceptable face of sadism.

This doesn't matter with a lover, where it's just a
game, but here the disproportion of power is real and the nakedness
involuntary.
Nothing to be done about it.
I mean, I
can scarcely trip about with downcast eyes like a maiden aunt at a leek show.
But I feel uncomfortable, and I suspect most of the other officers don't.

Through the barn, out into the open air, dressing in
clean clothes, a variety of drawers and vests, most of them too big.
The army orders these things to fit the Sons of
Empire, but some of the Sons of Empire didn't get much to eat when they were
kids. One of the men in my platoon, barely regulation height, got a pair of
drawers he could pull up to his chin. He paraded around, laughing at himself,
not minding in the least when everybody else laughed too.

Watching him, it suddenly struck me that soldiers'
nakedness has a quality of pathos, not merely because the body is so obviously
vulnerable, but because they put on indignity and anonymity with their clothes,
and for most people, civilians, most of the time, the reverse is true.

March back very cheerful, everybody singing, lice eggs
popping in the seams of the clean clothes as soon as the bodies warm them
through. But we're used to that. And I started thinking—there's a lot of time
to think on marches—about Father Mackenzie's church, the huge shadowy crucifix
on the rood screen dominating everything, a sheaf of hollyhocks lying in the
chancel waiting to be arranged, their long stems scrawling wet across the
floor.
And behind every altar, blood, torture, death.
St John's head on a platter, Salome offering it to Herodias, the
woman's white arms a sort of cage around the severed head with its glazed eyes.
Christ at the whipping block, his expression distinctly familiar.
St Sebastian hamming it up and my old friend St Lawrence on his
grid.
Father Mackenzie's voice booming from the
vestry.
He loved me, the poor sod, I really think he did.

And I thought about the rows of bare bodies lining up
for the baths, and I thought it isn't just me. Whole bloody western front's a
wanker's paradise. This is what they've been praying
for,
this is what they've been longing for, for years. Rivers would say something
sane and humorous and sensible at this point, but I stand by it and anyway
Rivers isn't here. Whenever a man with a fuckable arse hoves into view you can
be quite certain something perfectly dreadful's going to happen.

But then, something perfectly dreadful
is
going to happen. So that's all right.

Sunday, 22
September

Morning—about the nearest we ever get to a lie-in
(I've been up and on the go by 5.30 every day this week). Wyatt's shaving and
there's a voluntary service starting just outside. Smell of bacon frying, sound
of pots and pans clattering about and Longstaffe whistling as he cleans my
boots. Hallet's on the other side of the table writing to his fiancée,
something that always takes
hours
and
hours.
And the
rain's
stopped and there's a shaft of sunlight
on the ground and the straw looks like gold. The razor rattling against the
side of the bowl makes a pleasant sound. The ghost of Sunday Morning at home—
roast beef and gravy, the windows steamed up, the
News of the
World
rustling as Dad drops half of it, the Sally Army tuning up
outside.

Onward, Christian soldiers,

Marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus

Going on before.

Twenty—perhaps a few more—male voices in unison.
Longstaffe's singing the alternative version:

Forward Joe Soap's army

Marching without fear

With your brave commander

Safely in the rear.

He boasts and skites

From morn till night

And thinks he's very brave,

But the men who really did the job

Are dead and in their grave.

Sung very cheerfully with great good humour.
We're all looking forward to Sunday dinner, which is
roast beef and roast potatoes. I'm famished. And there is
not
going to be a gas drill during this meal. I
know.

Tuesday, 24
September

Bussed forward.
Men sang all the way, in high spirits, mainly I think
because they didn't have to march.

Thursday, 26
September

The nearest village is in ruins. Extraordinary jagged
shapes of broken walls in moonlight, silver mountains and chasms, with here and
there black pits of craters thronged with weeds.

Some of the other villages aren't even ruins. You're
not supposed to mention the effects of enemy fire, but a lot of this is the
effect of British fire so perhaps I
can
mention it. Nothing's
left. We passed through one village that hadn't a single wall above knee
height.
Old trenches everywhere, tangles
of rusting
barbed-wire, rib-cages of horses that rotted where they fell.
And worse and worse.

The men, except for the one or two I remember from
last year, are still reserved. Sometimes when they're alone at night you hear
laughter. Not often.

They guard the little privacy they have jealously.
Most of the 'devotion' people talk about is from officers—
some
of the officers—to the men. I don't myself see much sign that it's
reciprocated. If they trust anybody they trust the NCOs, who're older, for the
most part, and come from the same background. But then I wasn't born to the
delusion that I'm responsible for them.

What I am responsible for is GAS. Either the Adjutant
wasn't joking or if he was it's a continuing joke. My old nickname—the
Canary—has been revived. Owen for some reason is known as the Ghost. Evidently
when he disappeared into Craiglockhart—and I suspect didn't write to anybody
because he was ashamed (I didn't either
)—
they
concluded he was dead.

Gas drill happens several times a day. The routine lectures
aren't resented too much (except by me—I have to give them), but the random
drills are hated by everybody. You're settling down for the night, or about to
score a goal, or raising the first forkful of hot food to your lips, and
wham!
Rattles whirl, masks are pulled on, arms and fists pumped, and then the muffled
hollow shout GAS! GAS! GAS! Creatures with huge eyes like insects flicker
between the trees. What they hate—what I hate—is the gas drill that comes while
you're marching or doing PT or bayonet training, because then you have to go
on, flailing about in green light, with the sound of your breathing—In. Out.
In. Out.—drowning all other sounds.
And every movement
leeches energy away.

Nobody likes the mask. But what I have to do is watch
out for the occasional man who just can't cope with it at all, who panics as
soon as it comes down over his head. And unfortunately I think I've found one,
though he's in my company which means I can keep an eye on him.

The attitude to gas has changed. It's used more and
feared less. A few of the men are positively gas happy. OK, they think, if a
whiff or two gets you back to base and
doesn't
kill
you, why not? It's become the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot and a
lot harder to detect.

At dinner I told Hallet and Potts that four years ago
we were told to protect ourselves from gas by pissing on our socks. You folded
one sock into a pad and used the other to tie it over your mouth and nose. They
gaped at me, not sure if I was serious or not. 'Did it work?' asked Hallet.
'No,' I said. 'But it didn't half take your mind off it.' And they both
laughed, quite relieved, I think, to know I was only having them on.

It used to give you spots round your mouth. Not that
that was our main
worry
at the time.

And today was pay day. After an afternoon spent
crawling running falling crawling again across wet fields, the men were so
caked in mud they looked as if they were made of it. Tired, but pay day's
always good, even if you've nothing to spend it on, and they were chattering,
jostling, laughing as they queued. Then the rattles whirred. A groan went
up—(with the real thing there isn't time to groan—more practice needed) and
then the usual routine: clenched fists, pumping arms, GAS! GAS! GAS!

They went on queuing.
Mud-brown men
standing in mud, the slanting rays of the sun gilding the backs of their hands,
the only flesh now visible.
I was sitting next to Hardwick, ticking off
names on the list. One man, waiting immediately behind the man who was being
paid, turned his face a little to one side, and

I saw, in those huge insect eyes, not one but two
setting suns.

Friday, 28
September

Since yesterday evening there's been a continuous
bombardment. All the roads forward are
choked,
drivers
stuck in the mud, swearing at each other, a flickering greenish-yellow light in
the sky and every now and then the whine and thud of a shell.
A constant drone of planes overhead, all going one way.

We move forward tonight.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Rivers walked along the path between the tent and
Narovo village, the full moon casting his shadow ahead of him. All around were
the scuffles and squeals of the bush, the scream of some bird that turned into
a laugh, then silence for a moment, more scuffles, more squeals, the night-long
frenzy of killing and eating.

Once in the village he went straight to Ngea's hall,
stooped and went in. The scare ghost shivered at his approach.

The women were asleep, the widows who tended Emele. He
tiptoed past them, and knelt down, calling, 'Emele! Emele!
',
an urgent whisper that caused one of the widows to stir and mutter in her
sleep. He waited till she settled before he called the name again. When there
was no reply he pushed the door open and there, curled up in the prescribed
position, back bent, hands resting on her feet, was Kath.

'Kath, Kath,' he said. 'What on earth are you doing
here?' And the movement of his lips woke him up.

He sat on the edge of the bed, peering at his watch.
Four o'clock, never a good time to wake. His throat was very sore. He swallowed
several times, and decided what was needed was that good old medical stand-by,
a glass of water.

In the bathroom he blinked in the white light, caught
a glimpse of himself in the looking-glass and thought, My God, is this really
what you've done to yourself? He took a moment to contemplate baggy eyes and
thinning hair, but he wasn't sunk so deep in neurosis or narcissism as to
believe an overhead light at four a.m. lays bare the soul. He drank a glass of
water and went back to bed.