The Lost Soldier (40 page)

All round him the sounds of battle still raged, the unremitting pounding of the heavy guns, the whistles and booms of the shells, the clatter of the machine guns, none of them abated; yet Tom could see nothing. He dropped back down beside the wounded boy. Sam’s breathing was harsh and ragged, his face deathly, the face of an old man.

If I am going to get him back to safety it has to be now, thought Tom. I can’t shift him alone, so I’ll have to crawl back to the trench and bring a stretcher-bearer back with me.

He looked at the haft of the entrenching tool, twisted into the tourniquet and decided to leave it there. There was a rifle sticking out from underneath Corporal Shapwick. Tom pulled it free and tying a rag from Sam’s shirt to it, left it projecting a foot from the shell hole as a marker. He wanted to be quite sure that he and the stretcher-bearer would be able to find the hole again. Then, clutching his own rifle, he scrambled up over the lip of the hole, and, in crouching run, scurried back the way he thought he had advanced that morning.

Tom heard the shell, screaming its way through the murk, and once again dived flat in an instinctive effort to save himself, and then there was the boom of impact and explosion and the world went black.

When he came round again, Tom had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but it must have been some hours as the day was fading into twilight. He lay, more than half buried, with only his head and shoulders and right arm free, a weight of earth and debris pinning his lower body and legs. It was hard to breathe, and there seemed to be no feeling in his feet. Cautiously he wriggled his shoulders and moved his arm. Some of the earth fell away, and he pulled his other arm free. The noise of battle was intermittent now, with the whistle and crash of shells, and the occasional burst from a machine gun, not the ever-present thunder of earlier, but in the swirling smoke he could see nothing and no one; he could have been alone in the world. He scrabbled at the constraining earth with his hands, gradually shifting the stones and earth that imprisoned him. It was slow work as he could only reach so far, but at last he managed to loosen himself enough to lever himself to a sitting position and then finally to ease himself free. He lay for a long moment face down on the ground, exhausted by his exertions, and completely disorientated. His feet began to tingle and then to ache as the blood was restored to them, but he welcomed the pain, he knew it meant that there was no permanent damage done.

He had a sudden vision of a severed leg, still in its boot and he remembered with a jolt, the dying Sam Gordon. Trying to orientate himself, Tom raised his head and looked round in all directions for the shell hole in which he had left the boy. He had no idea from which direction he had come. There was no sign of the rifle with its tiny flag, no sign of the shell hole. The shell that had buried Tom must have finished the work of its predecessor; Sam Gordon, David Shapwick and John Dewar had vanished, they had been completely obliterated. There would be nothing left of them to find or to bury, their burial had been completed by a German shell. Tom didn’t even have their identity discs. Their names in his memory would have to be enough.

His rifle had vanished and without any weapon, his pack or his tunic and his uniform in rags, Tom decided it was better to go back rather than forward. He had seen the everlasting coils of wire still stretching out between him and the day’s objective, and knew there was little likelihood of him getting through them, let alone achieving anything useful even if by some miracle he did make it. The coming dark and the mist added to his disorientation. Which way was forward? Which way was back? With the guns thundering from both sides of the line, it was impossible to tell from which direction he had come.

Still shaking from his efforts to drag himself free, Tom knew only that he had to get away from where he was. Keeping his head as low as he could, he began to crawl. Slowly he dragged himself across the uneven ground; he tried to move in a straight line back to where he thought the British lines must be. Downhill must be right, they had been moving up a slight incline this morning. There were shapes and shadows in the swirling mist, but when Tom called out to them his voice was swallowed by the thunder around him. Here were men, the remains of men, the debris of human bodies; flotsam tossed aside, grotesque in death. He could hear an occasional scream or cry, a voice begging for water, but Tom knew there was nothing he could do for the wounded man who uttered them. He had no field dressings, no water bottle, his own clothes were in rags; the shreds of his shirt wouldn’t even supply a makeshift bandage. He shut his ears to their pleas, and continued to make his way tortuously across the battlefield, at times falling into shell holes as the ground gave way in front of him, at others, crawling round them, becoming muddier and more exhausted by the minute. Once he saw the sprawled figure of a man he actually recognised, Sid Jackson, a private from his own platoon. Sid’s face was twisted to the sky, his eyes staring, his mouth open on a shriek of pain. Gently Tom closed the wild eyes, and crawled on, but to his horror, what felt like hours later, he found himself face to face with Sid’s lifeless body again. He had been crawling round in circles.

Tom collapsed full length on the ground beside Sid, and wept. He wept for himself and for Sid and the thousands of others he knew must have died that day. He thought of the thousands at home waiting for those who would never come back and he thought of Molly, his Molly, so pretty and bright and clean. He remembered the way her eyes shone as they laughed up into his own, the shy way she had kissed him and the passion that had followed. He thought of the child, his child, that she carried, and of his promise to marry her. They would be a family, he and Molly and the baby, a real family and it would be the first he’d ever known. For Molly and the baby he had to pull himself together and get out of here. In his tunic pocket was the permit to travel back to Albert and the convent, for forty-eight hours’ precious leave. Forty-eight hours in which they would marry, after which Molly would go back to England to have their baby in the safety of her parents’ home. Tom knew he had to get back, behind the lines, back to the convent, back to Molly. Even as these thoughts made him raise his head, he realised with a stab of panic and despair, that his special leave pass had been left with Sam Gordon in his shell hole. Intent on keeping the wounded man warm, he had wrapped his service tunic round Sam’s shoulders, and when he had been obliterated by the German shell, so the tunic and the leave permit had been obliterated with him. The precious letter of leave, Molly’s last letter and her photograph; he had kept them all in the pocket over his heart and now they were gone. He gave a bellow of fury and despair. There would be no leave.

Molly. She was now his aim and his talisman. He had no idea where his unit was, if indeed there was anything left of it to be anywhere. Tom’s sole intention now was to get back to safety behind his own lines. Molly needed him.

Once more he set himself to crawl back over the battlefield, and as the charcoal of early evening deepened into night, he gradually edged himself clear. The barrage seemed to have lessened, though there was still sporadic gunfire and the occasional whistle and crump of a shell.

At last he came to the edge of a trench, not a firing trench, nor living quarters, perhaps a communication trench, or a sap pushed out into no-man’s-land for a listening post, or to give some sort of shelter to the sappers. It was hardly more than a slit in the ground, but Tom dived into it with relief, able to move at a crouch in its cover. He saw no one; there was no sign of life, no sign of death, indeed no sign that anyone had ever been there, except for the hardened, churned mud which lay along it. Rough going though it was, Tom made swifter progress here than he had on the ground above. He had no idea where it led, but clearly it was going somewhere, so he followed, hoping it led to safety, but before long the trench petered out, becoming shallower until he was crawling once more above the ground. The summer darkness surrounded him, but the feeble starlight showed him the emptiness of a lunar landscape. All he could see before him was a flat and blighted land, pitted with craters and broken earth. Round him were the sounds of war. Though the crashing boom of the artillery was intermittent, the darkness was still punctuated with the occasional rattle from machine guns on either side and the single, angry rifle shots of the snipers; and all the while there were the sounds of men, moans and cries, scufflings and scrabblings like the rats which scuttled about the trenches.

I must get back behind our lines, Tom thought desperately, but which way? He crept cautiously through the darkness, making very slow progress as he skirted shell holes and crawled over the wreckage of battle, edging his way towards what he thought were the British lines. Occasionally a flare exploded into the sky and hung there illuminating the earth below in horrifying detail. Each time, Tom froze, lying motionless, face down, like so many around him who would never move again, until the merciful darkness covered him once more and he could begin to crawl forward again.

Suddenly he was aware of soft voices nearby, only yards away. Once more he froze, straining to hear what language they were speaking. It was clearly a stretcher party that had crawled out into no-man’s-land to search for wounded, but from which side? A sharp cry of “Oh God!” hastily stifled, told him they were British, and he edged towards them over the pockmarked ground.

“Who’s that?” The challenge came sharply through the darkness. “Who’s that? I can hear you. Show yourself.”

Tom was about to do exactly that, when there was the whistle and crump as a shell hurtled to earth and exploded close by, blowing them flat, knocking the wind from them and setting their ears singing. As Tom shook his head, trying to clear it, he heard the same voice rasp, “Come on, mate, let’s get you out of here.” There was the sound of scuffling, grunting and a deep moan as the wounded man was heaved onto the stretcher, and then the whole scene was flooded with light from a bursting flare above the enemy lines. Tom saw the stretcher party grasp the handles of the stretcher and make off at a crouching lope away from him, zigzagging round the shell holes and stumbling over debris which barred their way to the safety of the British lines. Tom followed, also running at the crouch to the illusory safety of a shell hole. As he dropped into its shelter, he heard a husky voice coming from a parched throat, and, in the light of the still blossoming flare, he saw a white face, only inches away, peering at him.

“Give us a hand, chum,” said the voice, calmly.

The very calmness off the voice made Tom pause. He reached out a hand and was greeted with a tired grin. “Glad you could drop in,” the voice drawled. “Can’t get out of this bloody hole; legs don’t work.” The control in the voice faltered for a moment, and the owner added, “Have you got any water?”

Tom found his voice at last. “No, sorry, no water. But I’ll get you back to the dressing station. How bad is it?”

“Legs broken,” came the reply, with only the slightest waver in its tight control. “Both buggered.”

For a moment the vision of Sam Gordon flooded Tom’s mind, the pumping blood and the severed leg, but he forced it aside. Clearly this man’s wounds were different or he’d be dead already.

“Can you take any weight?” asked Tom.

“Doubt it, but I’ll try.”

“What’s your name?” Tom asked as he knelt beside the man and prepared to lift him.

“Jimmy Cardle… at your service!” Jimmy drew a sharp breath as the movement jolted his injured legs.

“Well, Jimmy, hang on to me and I’ll get you home.”

Tom gathered Jimmy in his arms and heaved him up over the edge of the shell hole. There was an agonised moan and then Tom felt Jimmy go limp as he passed out.

Best thing, thought Tom as he scrambled up beside him. The darkness had reclaimed the field, but guns were never silent. Trying not to listen to the staccato fire around him, Tom heaved the unconscious man up on to his shoulder and with Jimmy draped across him, his useless legs dangling behind, Tom set off awkwardly in the direction that the stretcher party had taken moments before.

It was not easy to cover the broken terrain, Jimmy was a big man and heavy, the ground under foot was treacherous, but as his eyes had adjusted to the darkness again, Tom could make out the front line of trenches ahead. As he approached he saw another stretcher party crawling out to search for more wounded. There was the rattle of a machine gun and the zip of rifle fire and even as the men came forward, they pitched into crumpled heap and lay still. Terrified, Tom fell, tumbling to the ground with Jimmy, mercifully still unconscious, on top of him. He expected, any moment, to be ripped from behind with another burst of fire, but at that moment a burst of firing came from a position in the British trenches, and, taking advantage of the possible cover this might give him, Tom crawled backwards towards his own lines, dragging Jimmy Cardle, his broken legs bumping over the rough ground behind him, yelling as he came, “Wounded coming in! Don’t shoot, wounded coming in!”

“All right, mate, bring ’em in,” called back a voice, and Tom made the last few yards at the crouch, Jimmy still hoisted awkwardly over his shoulder. As he reached the trench, hands reached up to grab him and help him haul Jimmy down into the relative safety it offered.

“Well done, man,” said an admiring voice as Tom collapsed on to the duckboards below the fire step. “That was a brave effort. Are you wounded too?”

Tom looked up to see a lieutenant he didn’t recognise, bending over him and taking in his sorry state. “No, sir,” he replied. “But this bloke is bad.”

“We’ll get him to the dressing station,” said the lieutenant, and turning round called down the trench behind him, “Stretcher!” He turned back to Tom and passed him a water bottle. Tom grabbed it and drank greedily. Jimmy Cardle moaned beside him and Tom reached over and dribbled some of the water between the man’s lips.

“It’s all right, Jimmy. You’re safe now,” Tom reassured him. “You’re back behind the lines. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”