Desertion

I begged him not to, told him the consequences of going through with it would be worse than staying put.

‘Nothing’s worse than this trench,’ he said. ‘Rats running over us in our sleep. Except I don’t sleep. I watch you sleep – if you could call it that – I watch you jolt and call out. I calm you. You’ve had nightmares ever since that day they came over the top and we turned the guns on them. Soon, though, the tables will turn, and it’ll be us going over and…’

He couldn’t say it, but I could see behind his eyes to what he was seeing.

He offered me a cigarette. ‘Come with me,’ he said, as he held the lit tip up to mine. His hand trembled like a field mouse hooked by a sparrowhawk. ‘We’ll have a better chance of making it together.’

The thrill of him asking almost made me say yes, but I couldn’t, not even for Davy.

‘I can’t. Nor can you. Stop talking about it. Stop thinking about it.’

I believed it was only talk. Only the crazed spoke this way, only the truly crazed followed through with it, like that Wilfie Shaw who took leave of his senses, stole food, disappeared into the night. Where did he think he was going? Some say back to India, to where he’d been born, into some fine family with a tea plantation and servants, back to late afternoon cricket and gin slings in the pavilion. The contrast for Wilfie – where he’d come from and where he’d ended up – must have been unbearable. Wilfie didn’t even make it to France before deserting. They caught him trying to cross the River Leie, brought him back to be dealt with.

For days, none of us could make eye contact, we didn’t know whether to be disgusted with Wilfie for putting us all through it, or disgusted with ourselves for going along with it, or with the firing squad who dealt him the ultimate punishment. Gave me the shits just thinking about those poor buggers picked to pull the trigger. Every single one of them puked their guts up afterwards, except for that Irishman, Houlihan, bloody barbarian. You can be sure he’ll make it out of this war alive. Houlihan just cleared his throat, spat a fat gob over his shoulder, and headed for the mess tent to eat the extra dinners that the others couldn’t keep down. Imagine that news making it back to Shaw’s mother in India. Killed in the war, but by his own side.

‘You don’t want to put that on your family,’ I said to Davy after we had both fallen silent. He needed to think about his people, the stigma. ‘It would be a terrible shame for them.’

He lay on his back, his eyes following the movement of the clouds overhead and I pressed my body closer to his. It was normal to lie together, to huddle close for warmth and comfort when things got tough. It was never mentioned how us two stuck together; there were other close friendships like ours, they weren’t even called that, ‘very thick’ was as much as was said. ‘Davy and Bertie are very thick’. Not an eyebrow raised.

The night I told him I loved him was the night he made a break for it.

‘Did you hear me?’ I asked. I couldn’t repeat it, but I needed to know he’d heard.

‘I heard,’ he said, and he put his hand on my head, and I’d never felt happier. That touch on my head was like a sleeping draught, and I fell into sleep like a lead fishing weight into dark water.

I remember wakening to the sound of larks, letting my eyes open slowly, finding a little dot in the sky and following the birdsong as it soared higher and higher. I felt hopeful, I even dared make plans for the future. I could remember my dream, which was remarkable as I couldn’t ever remember them before or after.

I dreamed we were on the other side of the war. Davy and I were in the Welsh valleys, we had taken on a farm and were working the land together. Two bachelors working the land, what is there to say about that? I turned in the trench to tell him, tell him I had dreamed of home, and I was ready to see him smile, but he wasn’t there. Up before me, as usual, off for a wash, a quick smoke under a tree. That’s what I supposed, until I saw the note tucked into the strap of my kitbag.

After I read it, I cursed and howled. I wanted to catch the lark and silence it. I wanted to squeeze it to death with my bare hands. I wanted to take its freedom and song and beat the life out of it. I did not want anything beautiful in the world now.

The Sergeant Major must have heard me. I saw him approaching and had time to hide the note.

‘Evans, why the shouting?’

‘Bad dream, Sir.’ I stood, shoulders back, chin down, eyes forward.

Cholmondeley was his name. Estate in Norfolk. Knew how to drink. ‘Just pretend they’re grouse in August,’ was his advice the day the enemy came over the top. He’d probably had a nip of brandy for breakfast, gave him false bravado. It was his habit to stroke his moustache before he spoke.

‘Where’s Jones?’ he barked, fingering his whiskers into place.

‘Don’t know, Sir.’

‘What do you mean, “Don’t know, sir?” You two are joined at the hip.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘So, you are joined at the hip, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Don’t know, Sir.’

‘You’re a bloody idiot, Evans, do you know that?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

And that was it, until he sent for me that afternoon.

‘No sign of Jones,’ he said, pouring port from a decanter. ‘Beardsley says he told him he was planning to desert. What do you have to say about that, Evans? Seems to me you’d be the first to know.’ He was sneering at me. ‘Well, Evans, what do you know about the matter?’

‘Don’t know a thing, Sir.’

If I moved my eyes at all, he would suspect, he would search my kit bag, and then he’d know I was lying. I stared at a point on his shoulder, all the while thinking I should have put a match to the note, but it was all I had left of him.

‘Bugger off then,’ Cholmondeley said with a wave of one hand, the other reaching for the decanter.

‘Thank you, Sir.’ I stumbled as I left.

Within twenty-four hours I was back in that tent. Cholmondeley’s eyes were more blood shot than ever. Seemed that even callous old bastards like him didn’t have much of a stomach for killing their own.

‘Jones has been found,’ he said, rubbing pomade onto the ends of his moustache. ‘Best deal with him quickly.’ He sounded tired. ‘Bad for morale when these things hang around.’ Did I notice a slight shake of his hand as he reached for his tumbler? ‘That brute Houlihan takes too much damn pleasure from killing. You’re taking his place.’ He couldn’t look at me, and yes, I could see, for sure, a tremor in his hand. ‘Bad business,’ he knocked back half a tumbler. ‘Though he knew the consequences.’

I waited, said nothing. He hadn’t asked me anything, nor had he given me permission to leave.

‘Well?’ He scowled. ‘What are you waiting for? Out the back with your rifle tomorrow at dawn.’

Beardsley, Coppin and Heppelthwaite were chosen. Four of us against one hobbled man in a blindfold. I would have thanked God that he was at least blindfolded and so couldn’t see me, but God wasn’t there to thank that morning.

I watched as he was led into the yard, that beautiful walk, tall and proud, that elegant step. He stopped, cocked his head to better hear the song of a blackbird, then a cockerel.

Someone counted us in, and when the moment came to fire, my arms and hands lost all function and my gun fell to the ground as though it were a torch burning my skin. My legs buckled. My knees folded and hit the stony dirt. I clutched my intact, broken body and looked upon Jones, my Jones, forty yards off, haloed in a red bloom.