The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Page 11

At two o’clock rations came along. These were handed down the trench from man to man. Bread, jam, tea. For three hours the men had been standing up to their thighs in water. O’Garra had loosed from his angry and tormented being a series of curses. Likewise Elston. All the men murmured. The orders were now known. Objective five thousand yards. On the right, the Aussies, on the left, the French. Centre body would make for the Albert-Roye road. The barrage would open up shortly after five. Something approaching awe seemed to hang over the trenches. All was silent.

  But soon the secret rage lurking in the ground beneath their feet would burst forth. The attack opened up on the very stroke of five. O’Garra was half drunk. He had very rarely taken his ration of rum, but Elston had used persuasion to such effect that O’Garra had drunk another soldier’s ration as well as his own. A whistle blew. The earth seemed to shake. They were over the top.

  And now every sound and every movement seemed to strike some responsive chord in the Irishman’s nature. He hung on desperately to the Manchester man. For some reason or other he dreaded losing contact with him. He could not understand this sudden desire for Elston’s company. But the desire overwhelmed him.

  It was not the sound, the huge concourse of sound that worried O’Garra. For somehow the earth in convulsion seemed a kind of yawning mouth, swallowing noise. No. It was the gun flashes ahead. They seemed to rip the very sky asunder. Great pendulums of flame swinging across the sky. In that moment they appeared to him like the pendulums of his own life. Swinging from splendour to power, from terror to pity, from Life to Death. More than that. There was a continuous flash away on his right. It was more than a flash. It was an eye that ransacked his very soul.

  ‘Jesus! Jesus!’

  The earth was alive – afire. The earth was a mouth, it was a sea, a yawning gulf, a huge maw. Suddenly Elston was drenched in blood. Like a stuck pig he screamed out:

  ‘Oh funkin’ hell. I’m killed. I’m dead. O’Garra. O’Garra. O’Garra.’

  ‘Shut up,’ growled the Irishman. ‘Can’t you see that bugger behind you. You got a belt in the back with his head. See. He hasn’t any now. That whizz-bang took head and arse off him at the same time . . Phew! Everybody’s mad.’

  ‘If ever I get out of this,’ screamed Elston, ‘I’ll – I’ll—’

  Grundy came up.

  ‘Shit on you. Get forward. What the hell are you fellows standing here for? You bloody cowards,’ he roared into their ears.

  ‘What the bloody hell’s wrong with you,’ growled the Irishman. ‘This fellow here thought his head was off. Everything alright, isn’t it? We’re going forward. Are you? You lump of shite. How long have you been in the line anyhow? When you’ve learned to piss in your cap, you sucker, you’ll have room to talk.’

  And Sergeant Grundy thought to himself.

  ‘I suppose he thinks he was the only one in the first gas-attack. H’m.’

  ‘I’ll put a bullet in the first man who wavers,’ he roared out.

  The men struggled forward. It was impossible to see, to hear, to feel. All the senses were numbed. O’Garra’s face was almost yeasty with sweat. He spat continually, at the same time cursing Grundy, and endeavouring to keep this man from Manchester upon his feet.

  ‘Oh hell!’ he yelled. ‘Are you utterly helpless? Stand up.’

  With the speed of terror Elston screamed out.

  ‘Yes. Yes. I’m frightened. Oh, mother! Mother! Mother!’

  ‘Shut it, you bloody worm,’ growled O’Garra, and continued on his way, dragging the Englishman after him.

  ‘Where are they drivin’ us to, anyhow?’ asked a man from Cork.

  ‘Towards the bloody objective of course. Where in hell d’you think.’

  ‘We fairly fanned his backside,’ yelled another man from Donegal.

  The screams of the shells, the plop-plop of the gas-shells, the staccatto drumming of the machine-guns, the shouts and squeals and blubberings, almost upset even a man like O’Garra.

  ‘This is not so bad,’ he murmured. ‘The thing is – will these blasted sods come back? That’s what we have to look out for.’

  ‘Come back,’ yelled a voice. ‘Christ, you’ll want running pumps to catch the swine.’

  Then suddenly O’Garra stopped. He no longer heard the sounds of voices. True, the man from Manchester was at his side. But where were the others? And a thick fog was descending. For a moment he seemed to lose contact with the whimperer at his side. And O’Garra shouted:

  ‘Elston. Elston. Hey Elston! Where are you. Something’s happened. Can you see? Hey! Hey! Can you see? This bloody fog’s thickening.’

  Elston blinked and stood erect. Then his face paled. He said slowly:

  ‘We must have gone too far. Lost contact somehow. We must search about quickly.’

  ‘Too far. Too far,’ shouted O’Garra, and he burst out laughing.

  Yes. There was the possibility of that. He had seemed to eat up distance after that scrap with the sergeant. And then he must have dragged this English coward some distance too. Before they were aware of it, the fog had blotted everything out. They were now conscious only of each other’s presence. This fog had separated them from all that madness, that surging desperate mass of matter; that eyeless monster; that screaming phalanx. The fog became so thick it was almost impossible for them to see each other.

  ‘We must do something,’ said Elston. ‘God knows where we landed.’

  ‘Maybe into his bloody line,’ growled O’Garra.

  They both sat down on the edge of the shell-hole to consider their position.

  They seemed oblivious of the fact that the attack had not abated. That to the right a team of tanks was shooting forward on to the machine-gun positions; that a thousand yards to the rear a mopping-up party was at work. Oblivious of war and life itself. A strange silence seemed to overwhelm them. O’Garra rested his head in his hands. Suddenly he sat up, gripped Elston by the throat, and said:

  ‘I’ve a mind to choke you. To put you out of your misery. How funny that in the moment I first realized your cowardice, I became unconscious of my own strength. I must have pulled you a mile, you swine.’

  The blood came and went across Elston’s face in a sudden gust of fear and passion.

  ‘What good would that do you. Especially at this moment?’

  O’Garra once more buried his face in his hands, and remained silent. Elston was thinking. What was wrong? And had O’Garra really dragged him a mile? And had they really lost contact? Where in Christ’s name had they landed? And did this man really mean to murder him? By God, then the sooner they found the others, the better. Perhaps he had suddenly gone mad? By God. That was it. He had gone mad. Mad.

  ‘O’Garra,’ called Elston to the man now seated on the edge of the hole. ‘O’Garra! O’Garra!’

  There was no reply, for the Irishman had fallen asleep. This discovery petrified Elston. The consciousness that he was absolutely alone; alone, save for this sleeping figure, caused a kind of icy mist to descend upon his heart, almost suffocating him. He too, sunk his head between his hands. The action was profound, for it seemed to the man to shut out thought, action, all external contacts with the world. But O’Garra was not asleep for long. He opened his eyes, looked across at the huddled form of the Manchester man, heaved a sigh, then fell back again into a kind of torpor. O’Garra suddenly began to think, and to think deeply. This process he found painful, as it always is for those who have ceased to think over a period of years. His was an atrophied mind. But now the whole of his past shot across the surface of that mind. He asked himself, if he would not have been better off in Tara Street after all. Even those lonely nights, those fruitless endeavours beneath the clock in Middle Abbey Street, surely they took on a richer texture now. Surely all those common-place things achieved a certain significance. Those times when his mind had remained simple; when he had been wont to enjoy those sweet charities of life itself. After all there was something in it. Why had he come into all this muck and
mud and madness. He could not find any answer to the question. Then again, there was that after the war question. Would the men be compensated for all the inconveniences. All the inconveniences. All the men. Would they? He had a grudge. Only this morning he had had one against a foolish officer, and yet the sight of that officer’s headless body had stirred something deep down in the bosom of his soul. He had borne a grudge. But that was forgiven. There were so many. Did not this state of affairs warrant some kind of vengeance? Perhaps it did. But how would a man get it? Everyone in the war must bear a grudge. But would they all demand retribution? Would they all wreak a terrible vengeance. Ah!—.

  ‘Elston!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh! you’re awake. I say, we must have slept a hell of a time. My watch has stopped too. This blasted fog hasn’t risen yet, either. We’d better move.’

  ‘What’s that you say?’

  ‘What’s up now. Got the bloody shakes again,’ asked O’Garra.

  ‘Listen,’ said Elston.

  Somewhere ahead they could hear the movement of some form or other.

  ‘Let’s find out,’ said O’Garra, and jumped to his feet.

  ‘No need now,’ said Elston. ‘Here it comes. Look!’

  They both looked up at once. Right on top of them stood a young German soldier. His hands were stuck high in the air. He was weaponless. His clothes hung in shreds and his face was covered with mud. He looked tired and utterly weary. He said in a plaintive kind of voice.

  ‘Camerade. Camerade.’

  ‘Camerade, you bastard,’ said Elston, ‘keep your hands up there.’

  And O’Garra asked: ‘Who are you? Where do you come from? Can you speak English? Open your soddin’ mouth.’

  ‘Camerade. Camerade.’

  ‘You speak English, Camerade?’

  ‘Yes – a little.’

  ‘Your name,’ demanded Elston. ‘What regiment are you? Where are we now. No tricks. If you do anything, you’ll get your bottom kicked. Now then – where have you come from, and what the hell do you want?’

  ‘My name it is Otto Reiburg. My home it is Muenchen. I am Bavarian. I surrender, Camerade.’

  ‘That’s all,’ growled Elston.

  ‘I am lost, is it,’ replied the German.

  He was a youth, about eighteen years of age, tall, with a form as graceful as a young sapling, in spite of the ill-fitting uniform and unkempt appearance. His hair, which stuck out in great tufts from beneath his forage cap, was as fair as ripe corn. He had blue eyes, and finely moulded features.

  ‘So are we,’ said Elston. ‘We are lost too. Is it foggy where you came from? It looks to me as if we’ll never get out of this hole, only by stirring ourselves together and making a bolt for it.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said O’Garra. ‘True, we can move. But what use is that? And perhaps this sod is leading us into a trap. Why not finish the bugger off, anyhow?’

  The two men looked at the young German, and smiled. But the youth seemed to have sensed the something sinister in that smile. He began to move off. Elston immediately jumped up. Catching the young German by the shoulder he flung him to the bottom of the hole, saying:

  ‘If you try that on again I’ll cut the rollocks out of you. Why should you not suffer as well as us? Do you understand what I am saying? Shit on you,’ and he spat savagely into the German’s face. From the position the youth was lying in, it was impossible for either of the men to see that he was weeping. Indeed, had Elston seen it, he would undoubtedly have killed him. There was something terrible stirring in this weasel’s blood. He knew not what it was. But there was a strange and powerful force possessing him, and it was going to use him as its instrument. He felt a power growing on him. There was something repugnant, something revolting in those eyes, in their leer, and in the curled lips. Was it that in that moment itself, all the rottenness that was his life had suddenly shot up as filth from a sewer, leaving him helpless in everything but the act he was going to commit? O’Garra was watching Elston. He too, seemed to have sensed this something terrible.

  His gaze wandered from Elston to the young German. No word was spoken. The silence was intense. Horrible. These three men, who but an hour ago, seemed to be charged for action, eager and vital, looked as helpless as children now. Was it that this fog surrounding them had pierced its way into their hearts and souls? Or was it that something in their very nature had suffered collapse?

  One could not say that they sat, or merely lay; they just sprawled; each terribly conscious of the other’s presence, and in that presence detecting something sinister; something that leered; that goaded and pricked. Each seemed to have lost his faculty of speech. The fog had hemmed them in. Nor could any of them realize their position, where they were, the possibility of establishing contact with other human beings. What was this something that had so hurled them together?

  O’Garra looked across to Elston.

  ‘Elston! Elston! What are we going to do? We must get out of this. Besides the place stinks. Perhaps we are on very old ground. Rotten ground; mashy muddy ground. Christ the place must be full of these mangy dead.’

  Elston did not answer. And suddenly O’Garra fell upon him, beating him in the face, and screaming out at the top of his voice:

  ‘Hey. Hey. You lousy son of a bitch. What’s your game? Are you trying to make me as rotten as yourself, as cowardly, as lousy. Its you and not this bloody Jerry who is responsible for this. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Jesus Christ Almighty, why don’t you answer. Answer Answer.’

  The young German cowered in the bottom of the hole, trembling like a leaf. Terror had seized him. His face seemed to take on different colour, now white, now red, now grey, as if Death were already in the offing. Saliva trickled down his chin.

  These changes of colour in the face seemed to pass across it like gusts of wind. Gusts of fear, terror, despair. Once only he glanced up at the now distorted features of the half crazy Irishman, and made as if to cry out. Once again O’Garra spoke to Elston. Then it was that the Englishman opened his eyes, looked across at his mate, and shouted:

  ‘O’Garra! O’Garra. Oh where the funkin’ hell are you, O’Garra?’

  He stared hard at the Irishman, who, though his lips barely moved, yet uttered sounds:

  ‘In a bloody mad-house. In a shit hole. Can’t you smell the rotten dead? Can you hear. Can you hear? You louse, you bloody rat. Pretending to be asleep and all the while your blasted owl’s eyes have been glaring at me. Ugh! Ugh!’

  ‘Camerade.’

  A sigh came from the youth lying at the bottom of the hole. It was almost flute-like, having a liquidity of tone.

  ‘Ah! uck you,’ growled O’Garra. ‘You’re as much to blame as anybody. Yes. Yes. As much to blame as anybody. Who in the name of Jesus asked you to come here? Haven’t I that bastard there to look after. The coward. Didn’t I have to drag him across the ground during the advance? Yes. YOU. YOU. YOU.’ and O’Garra commenced to kick the prisoner in the face until it resembled a piece of raw beef. The prisoner moaned. As soon as O’Garra saw the stream of blood gush forth from the German’s mouth, he burst into tears. Elston too, seemed to have been stirred into action by this furious onslaught on the youth. He kicked the German in the mid-riff, making him scream like a stuck pig. It was this scream that loosed all the springs of action in the Manchester man. It cut him to the heart, this scream. Impotency and futility seemed as ghouls leering at him, goading him, maddening him.

  He started to kick the youth in the face too. But now no further sound came from that inert heap. The Englishman dragged himself across to O’Garra. But the Irishman pushed him off.

  ‘Get away. I hate you. Hate you. HIM. Everybody. Hate all. Go away. AWAY.’

  ‘By Jesus I will then,’ shouted Elston. ‘Think I’m a bloody fool to sit here with two mad-men. I’m going. Don’t know where I’ll land. But anything is better than this. It’s worse than hell.’

  He rose to his feet and commenced to c
limb out of the hole. He looked ahead. Fog. And behind. Fog. Everywhere Fog. No sound. No stir. He made a step forward when O’Garra leaped up and dragged him back. Some reason seemed to have returned to him, for he said:

  ‘Don’t go. Stay here. Listen. This state of affairs cannot go on for ever. The fog will lift. Are you listening, and not telling yourself that I am mad? I am not mad. Do you understand? Do you understand. Tell me?’

  ‘Is it day or night, or has day and night vanished,’ asked Elston.

  ‘It might well be that the whole bloody universe has been hurled into space. The bugger of it is, my watch has stopped. Sit down here. I want to talk. Do you see now. I want to talk. It’s this terrible bloody silence that kills me. Listen now. Can you hear anything. No. You can’t. But you can hear me speak. Hear that ucker moaning down there. They are human sounds. And human sounds are everything now. They can save us. So we must talk. All the while. Without resting, without ceasing. Understand. Whilst we are conscious that we are alive, all is well. Do you see now. Do you see now?’

  ‘I thought the bloody Jerry was dead,’ muttered Elston.

  ‘Dead my arse. Come! What’ll we talk about. Anything. Everything.’

  And suddenly Elston laughed, showing his teeth, which were like a horses!

  ‘Remember that crazy house down in Fricourt. Remember that. Just as we started to enter the God-forsaken place, he began to bomb and shell it. Remember? We both went out in the evening, souveniring. Went into that little white house at the back of the hotel. Remember that?’

  ‘Well!’

  ‘Remember young Dollan mounting that old woman. Looked like a bloody witch. I still remember her nearly bald head.’

  ‘Well!’

  ‘And you chucked young Dollan off, and got into bed with her yourself.’

  ‘Was it a long time ago. In this war, d’you mean?’

  ‘Yes. Are you tapped, or what. Course it was in this bloody war. What the funkin’ hell are you thinkin’ of, you loony.’

  For the first time since they had found themselves in this position, they both laughed. And suddenly Elston looked up into his companion’s face, laughed again, and said softly: