At three o’clock an order came that they were to advance and dig a hole
on the far side of the hill. Corporal Williams again set forth with his
men. Now there’s only seven souls in the section.
Not a shot was fired as they trudged along through the mud. When they
crossed the brow of the hill there was no sign of the enemy anywhere.
They marched in silence, slowly, without interest. Now they were too
bored to notice where they were going or to look around them. They had
become merely figures, that moved when ordered, halted when ordered,
lay down when ordered and dug when ordered. The silence was a drug.
When they had covered the required distance the Corporal ordered them
to halt. He then walked about, choosing the best place to dig. After
consultation with Reilly and Shaw he chose a spot and ordered them to
dig. They spread out in a line and seized their tools.
But they had no sooner begun to dig than the enemy opened fire on them.
It seemed as if the cunning fellow were playing a game with them,
enticing them into a trap, firing at them when they came to a spot on
which his weapons were trained, and then retiring when he had killed a
few of them.
They lay flat on the ground while bullets whizzed over their heads.
Then the firing stopped. They waited. Corporal Williams raised his
steel hat on a shovel. Nobody fired at it.
“Snipers,” he said. “Come on. Dig.”
“Why not open fire on the bastards?” said Reilly.
“There are orders not to waste ammunition,” said the Corporal. “We may
need all we have to-night. Can’t get any up.”
“God! What a life!” said Jennings.
They began to dig rapidly. An enemy machine-gun opened fire on Corporal
Wallace’s section, which was digging a hole on the right.
“Why the hell don’t they use their Lewis gun?” said Gunn. “Is this
supposed to be a funny joke?”
“Shut your trap,” said the Corporal. “Dig in.”
“This is a funny engagement,” said Jennings. “It should be set to
music and produced as a comic opera.”
“Dig in and stop talking,” said the Corporal. “Christ!”
A shower of rifle grenades came whining through the air, almost on top
of them. They lay flat while the grenades burst. Nobody was hit.
“He’s out there somewhere,” said Reilly, with his face in the mud.
“There’s a nest of them near here somewhere.”
“Come on, lads,” said the Corporal. “Dig in.”
Again they began to dig furiously. Here the ground was firmer. After
they had removed the muddy crust of the earth, their tools worked
efficiently.
After a few minutes, Jennings ceased to dig, and called out, “Say,
Corporal, I have to fall out for a moment.”
“What’s the matter with you? Keep your head down or you’ll lose it.”
“I simply can’t wait another minute,” said Jennings.
Forthwith he unfastened his uniform and crouched like a cat on the
little hole he had scraped in the mud.
“Lie down,” said McDonald, who was beside Jennings. “See here,
Corporal, he’ll draw fire on us.”
“I simply can’t wait,” whimpered Jennings.
“Knock him down,” cried the Corporal. “What’s your number, Jennings?”
A rifle grenade whizzed and burst right in front of the post. At the
same time a machine gun opened fire on them. They lay flat. Jennings
fell forward and grunted. The machine-gun stopped firing.
“I say, fellows,” said Jennings, in a strange tone. “I say, you chaps.
Look! Do look!”
“What?” cried McDonald, raising his head. “What are you...? Holy
jumping son of.... Look at him!”
“Say, Mac.,” said Jennings, holding out his right arm, “Do you think
I’m wounded? Am I cut? Do you see any blood?”
He had thrown up his right arm to shield his face when the grenade
burst. It was hanging by a strip of skin within the sleeve of his
great-coat, shattered below the elbow. The sleeve of his coat had been
ripped to the shoulder. His hand hung incongruously downwards as he
held up his arm. Blood was pouring from the wound in a full stream. His
sleeve was becoming dark as the blood soaked through the cloth. His
trousers and underwear had fallen down about his heels. His thighs, as
thin and frayed as those of an old man, were spattered with blood. His
eyeballs protruded like those of a rabbit, whose neck has been smartly
broken. Froth bubbled on his lips as he babbled.
“Lie down, blast you!” cried the Corporal, crawling over on his belly.
“Cut that bloody sleeve, Crap. Off with his puttees.”
“Oh! I see,” whimpered Jennings. “I’m really wounded. I do hope it’s
not serious. I’m bleeding. By Jove!”
“Bloody artery is cut,” said the Corporal. “Off with his puttees.
Something to burn it... quick. Stop talking, blast you!”
They threw Jennings on the ground with violence, as he insisted
on trying to stand up. They had no means of treating such a wound
properly, so they tied puttees about his arm and lashed it double; but
still the blood gushed forth. Jennings began to rave. His face became
an extraordinary colour. Already his uninjured hand looked like the
hand of a corpse. He could not hold his head steady on his neck. At
last, Shaw was detailed to drag him back over the brow of the hill,
while McDonald hurried back to call the stretcher-bearers.
“That is three,” said Reilly in a gloomy voice after they had gone.
“What did I tell you? Not one of us’ll come out alive.”
“He’s got a blighty one, anyway,” said Lamont. “Wish I had.”
“Shut up, you bloody little ferret,” said the Corporal, wiping
Jennings’ blood off his hands on to his great-coat. “Wish you had gone
instead of him. You haven’t dug an inch. Get on with your work.”
“That’s not a blighty one,” said Reilly. “He’ll never reach the
dressing station alive.”
Drrrrr. The machine spattered its bullets through the air to the left
of them.
“The bastard is firing on the wounded,” cried Gunn. “By Christ!
somebody is going to pay for this.”
He dug furiously.
“I’m under cover now,” said Reilly. “What about a rest, Corporal?”
“Dig,” said the Corporal. “We’re not digging for cover. We’re making a
post.”
They went on digging. After a while, Shaw and McDonald dashed up and
threw themselves into the hole, followed by a shower of bullets.
“He got another packet as I was taking him back,” said Shaw. “Right
through the heart, I think. He’s gone West.”
“Did you hand him over?” said the Corporal.
“Yes,” said McDonald. “I got the stretcher-bearers. There’s been a
lot hit in No. 4 Platoon. It is just like old Jennings. He was always
getting taken short at the wrong time. Too much beer.”
“Stop talking,” said the Corporal. “Dig.”
“We’re all for it,” said Reilly, gloomily.
“I wish it hit me instead,” said Lamont, plaintively.
Gunn seized the boy roughly by the arm and whispered in his ear, “If
anything happens to you, kid, they can watch out for themselves.
I’ll....”
“Stop talking, Gunn,” said the Corporal, “Dig.”
They continued to dig. Now the hole was over three feet deep in places.
It began to grow dark. Utterly exhausted, they began to pause for
breath, one after the other. The Corporal, himself exhausted, urged
them back to work again. Now they could only scoop out a few ounces of
clay at a time, and their hands moved with the slowness of snails.
Then Lamont dropped his shovel and lay down.
“Get up and dig,” whispered the Corporal, hoarsely.
Lamont did not move. McDonald lay down. Shaw sighed, sat down and
dropped his head on his chest. Reilly swore and fell forward on his
pick. The Corporal sat down and dropped his head on his right shoulder,
mumbling, “We’ve got to dig down deeper... deeper... we got to... dig.”
He spoke like a drunken man. Gunn laughed aloud, sat down, folded his
arms on his chest and began to strike his teeth together. Reilly began
to titter.
“What’s the joke?” muttered the Corporal.
Lamont began to snore.
“I’ll bet any man five francs,” said Reilly, “that we’ll be told to
move on out of here in a minute. The whole idea is to wander around in
this mud, scratching. Nothing to do but scrape up mud. Dig, dig, dig.
Scratch, scratch.”
“Ha!” said Gunn, “I see it now.”
“What?” said the Corporal, without looking at him.
Gunn started and wiped his face on his sleeve. He looked at the
Corporal. Then he uttered an exclamation and leaned back with
outstretched hands, horrified. There was a blur before his eyes and
through the blur he saw the Corporal, not in his human shape, but
transformed into a hairy brute. He wiped his eyes fiercely and looked
again. He stopped breathing with terror. Instead of the Corporal he saw
an uncouth animal, like a gorilla, crouching in sleep. He shook Reilly
who sat next to him.
“Hey! Hey!” he whispered. “Wake up, Reilly.”
“What is it?” said Reilly, slowly raising his head.
As soon as Reilly spoke, the blur vanished from before Gunn’s eyes, and
he saw the Corporal in his human shape. He sighed with relief.
“Eh?” said Reilly. “What did you say, Bill?”
“I said to wake up,” cried Gunn in a loud voice. “Don’t all go to sleep
here.”
He was trembling and the soles of his feet itched. Now his head seemed
to be a heavy weight that lay on his neck.
McDonald began to snore.
“Wake up there, that man,” mumbled the Corporal. “Who’s that man
asleep there? What’s your number?”
They all had their eyes closed now except Gunn, who sat with his hands
clasped, rotating his thumbs, whose movements he forced himself to
watch in order to prevent himself from....
What? To his horror, he had a suspicion that if he looked anywhere but
at his rotating thumbs he would see hordes of hairy brutes wandering
about, all watching him with bloodshot eyes as they wandered about,
floundering in the mud.
Around and around, his thumbs spun, round and round one another, while
his head became heavier and heavier, a ball that spun round and round
on his neck.
He breathed ever so gently, lest the brutes might hear him.
Darkness was coming, again hiding the horror of the battlefield within
the shroud of its own eternal ugliness. But the gloom only increased
Gunn’s distorted vision. The brutes kept springing up all round him,
moving about, making strange gestures with their paws, calling on him
to join them.
His countenance was assuming the expression of a brute and his body
was becoming hard--so he thought--becoming possessed of superhuman
strength.
Heavy steps approached. Gunn, thinking they were sounds made by the
creatures of his hallucination, took no notice. Then he heard a bored
voice say, “What post is this?”
He looked up and saw Lieutenant Bull crouching above the hole. Gunn did
not speak, being only faintly impressed and not at all intimidated by
the appearance of the officer. The Corporal, on the other hand, at once
sprang from his sleep and instinctively tried to bring his fists to his
thighs in salute.
“Sir,” he said, “No. 2 bombers.”
The officer’s face was drawn and still more melancholy than on the
previous night. Although he looked well nourished and almost quite
clean, his countenance was even more repulsive than that of the
soldiers because it contained the ghost of intelligence that had died
of horror.
He still smelt of whisky and carried his club.
Shaw and Reilly, as soon as they heard his voice, began to dig. Lamont
and McDonald still slept. The officer said, “Where are the others?”
“Dead, sir,” said the Corporal.
“I see,” said the officer. “Why are those men asleep?”
He stepped into the hole and whacked the sleepers with his club,
saying, “Wake up! Wake up! You can’t sleep here. You mustn’t let your
men go to sleep, Corporal. Take their names.”
“Sir,” said the Corporal in a trembling voice. “What’s your number,
McDonald?”
McDonald, rubbing his eyes, chattered, “No. 8637 Private Jeremiah
McDonald. I lost my--eh--eh... rations, sir, when...”
“You are to move on, Corporal,” said the officer, “and occupy...”
“Sir,” said the Corporal.
The officer, without finishing his sentence, leant on his elbows
and looked out towards the enemy. He lay beside Gunn, who was now
grinning, twitching his lips and sniffing. A maniacal joy had now taken
possession of Gunn.
“Any definite idea where that fire was coming from?” said the officer.
“Yes, sir,” said the Corporal, lying down beside him and pointing.
“Just about there. Can’t be far, as they got the range with rifle
grenades.”
“Hah!” said the officer. “It’s a machine-gun nest. We must try and
capture them. You’ll probably... later... go... just about there, I
should think. Probably just the one lot. They keep moving about under
cover of that.... You’re to come along. Follow me.”
They picked up their tools and their weapons. They followed the
officer, leaving the hole which they had dug with such trouble and
where No. 11145 Private Simon Jennings, formerly an officer in the Army
Service Corps, received a mortal wound in the right fore-arm.
Now it was freezing. The earth’s surface had already begun to harden.
There was dead silence on the battle front. Stooping, they walked about
three hundred yards, until they came to a large shell hole, shaped like
the sole of a shoe. The officer pointed at the hole with his stick.
“Here you are,” he said. “Occupy this. Corporal Wallace is on your
right, over there. If anything happens, get in touch with him. Later...
I’ll let you know.... You’ll send a man for rations... later... you’ll
be warned. Good luck in the meantime. We may have to send you out to
capture...”
Again he drifted away into the gloom.
The men stepped down into the hole and gaped at it. The narrow end of
it, the heel of the shoe, was a puddle. The wide part, the thick of the
sole, was littered with refuse. It had been occupied recently by the
enemy.
“Come on, lads,” said the Corporal. “Dig in.”
Gunn burst out laughing. All looked at Gunn. They could barely see
him in the dusk. Now it was almost night. They could only see his
figure outlined against the horizon. His head was thrust forward. His
shoulders were hunched. He was looking into the distance, laughing.
They were so exhausted that they did not comprehend the meaning of his
laughter. They themselves were almost insane. But his insane laughter
goaded them into an outburst of hysteria.
“What are you laughing at, you fool?” said the Corporal.
Then Reilly, the old soldier, burst out laughing, and cried, “Take his
number, Corporal.”
“I have an awful pain in my guts,” said Lamont, dropping his rifle to
the bottom of the hole.
“I’ll give you a worse pain, Lamont,” said the Corporal, “if you laugh
like that again.”
“I didn’t laugh,” said Lamont.
“Well! Dig, then,” said the Corporal, almost in a scream, although his
voice was scarcely audible. “Dig! I say!”
“What’ll we dig?” cried Shaw, striking the side of the hole with a
pick. “It’s as hard as iron. Hear it ring as on an anvil.”
“God!” said McDonald. “We’ll freeze here. Oh! Christ! What cold! Oh! My
bloody bones!”
“We’ll never come back,” said Reilly.
“Not one of us.”
“Dig,” said the Corporal.
Gunn laughed again, and seizing the pick which Shaw had dropped, he
hacked at the side of the hole.
Then stupidly, moving their limbs like figures in a dance, with their
eyes almost closed, they began to prod the sides of the hole. The earth
rang, as if jeering at their impotent blows.
Then the Corporal cried out, “Blast it! I’m fed up. Sit down lads and
have a smoke. It’s no bloody use. Look at this hole. We go from bad to
worse. No dug-out. Nowhere to drum up. Nothing. Then they expect us to
go out on a bombing raid and capture some ---- Jerries.”
He sat down and folded his arms. They all sat down. The Corporal almost
immediately called out angrily, “Hey! Someone has to go on sentry. It’s
your turn, Gunn.”
“I’ve just been on sentry,” said Gunn.
“Then it’s your turn, McDonald.”
McDonald grumbled. He got up and laid his rifle over the edge of the
hole.
The Corporal lit a cigarette.
“Nobody else has a smoke, Corporal,” said Reilly. “How about dishing us
out one each, from that packet, till the rations come up?”
“Who said there were going to be cigarettes in the rations?” said the
Corporal. “There might be no rations.”
“The officer said there would,” said McDonald. “I’ll do myself in if
there are no rations.”
“All right, Corporal,” said Reilly. “Keep your fags.”
“Here they are,” said the Corporal, with an oath.
He struck Reilly on the face with the packet.
“Don’t do that again,” said Reilly, clutching his rifle. He was panting.
Gunn, grinning, reached over and caught the packet. The Corporal
kicked Gunn on the hand.
“Leave that alone,” he growled. “You’ll get none, you bastard.”
Gunn moved back slowly, seized his rifle, clubbed it and then rose,
very slowly, breathing loudly.
“Who’s a bastard?” he growled.
Shaw jumped up and stood between them.
“Fall in two men,” gasped the Corporal, struggling to his feet.
“Do you know what you’re doing, Gunn?” cried Shaw.
Still gripping his rifle by the barrel, Gunn stepped back and crouched
with his back to the side of the hole, beside Lamont, watching the
Corporal like an animal at bay.
“Stay close to me, matey,” he whispered.
“He’s going to attack us,” cried McDonald.
Shaw and Reilly held down the Corporal, who was trying to unfix his
bayonet, in order to use it as a dagger.
“Keep your hair on,” they kept saying.
McDonald pointed his bayonet at Gunn.
“Don’t move,” he cried, “or I’ll stab you in the guts.”
“I’m not interfering with you,” said Gunn. “Turn away that bayonet.”
At that moment a shell burst to the rear, quite a distance away. They
all ducked, although there was no danger. A machine-gun began to fire
still further away. Somebody called out, “Bombers.”
“Here,” said Reilly, standing up. “Who’s that?”
A man ran towards the hole and plunged down into it. He was one of
Corporal Wallace’s men.
“One of your men for rations,” he said, panting.
“Eh? What’s that? Rations?”
Food!
Like a wild dog, who, when he sees a strip of raw beef in an intruder’s
hand, covers his snarling teeth, thrusts forth his lolling tongue and
comes forward with limp tail, smelling, so these men, who had a moment
before been snarling at one another like madmen, became transformed at
the thought of food. Their faces shone with joy. They uttered excited
cries. They gathered around the Lewis gunner, questioning him.
He knew nothing, being as excited as they were and just as stupefied by
mud, rain, cold, lice, hunger, terror and long, aimless wandering from
hole to hole.
“Hurry up!” he said in answer to their questions. “One of you come
along.”
“I’ll go! Corporal,” said McDonald.
“Better send me, Corporal,” said Reilly.
“You go, Shaw,” said the Corporal.
Shaw at once unfixed his bayonet and followed the Lewis gunner out of
the hole. They called after him, urging him to hurry. The Corporal
rubbed his hands.
“There are only six of us,” he said, “for nine men’s rations. There
might be two men to a loaf. I know there’s bread.”
“I don’t care what there is,” said Reilly, “provided there are fags.”
They grew silent, thinking of food.
Gunn’s face now began to work feverishly. The thought of food had
disturbed his hatred of the Corporal. It had weakened him, relaxing his
muscles, causing a void in his stomach. He could not resist wanting to
fawn on the enemy who held the strip of beef.
“Say, Corporal,” he said, “can’t you give a bloke a chance?”
“Eh?” said the Corporal.
There was a heavy silence in the hole. They all peered at Gunn, again
aware that they had with them a man who seemed to be going mad.
“What have you against me?” continued Gunn.
Even though he wanted to fawn, his voice was arrogant. The Corporal did
not reply, being in doubt as to what he should say. As it were, he had
at last been stripped of his Corporal’s stripes and of his authority by
exhaustion. He faced Gunn now as man to man and was silent because he
was an inferior man. It was a struggle between two brutes, and Gunn was
the superior brute.
Lamont tapped Gunn’s arm and tried to whisper something, but Gunn
roughly brushed the youth aside.
“I leave it to any of the men here,” said Gunn. “Haven’t I always done
my share of soldiering, Reilly?”
“Always found you a good mate,” said Reilly.
“I’ve nothing against you,” said the Corporal. “I’m responsible for
discipline in this section, though.”
“When you got wounded at Loos,” said Gunn, “I carried you under heavy
fire back to the dressing station. You were whining like a dog. You had
only a bloody scratch. First thing you did when you came out of dock
was to get me No. 1. I was tied to a bloody tree for seven days.”
“You broke camp and got into a fight with a lot of Froggies in an
estaminet,” said the Corporal. “You sold your boots for Vin Blanc.”
“You always had your knife in me,” said Gunn. “Every time I did you a
good turn you hated me all the more for it. You might be drowned now
with Appleby only for me. You have your knife in my chum because he
won’t give you half his parcels. It is no damn good. It seems I won’t
be let soldier in this mob. I ain’t the sort of a bloke that gets
sour over nothing. I was doing field punishment No. 1 when I got the
D.C.M., on the canal bank for capturing six of a Fritzy raiding party
single-handed. I’ll fight my share with any man in this mob. I’ve
always done my bit. I was one of four out of the whole company that
finished the march to Arras standing up. Why can’t I be let alone?”
“I ain’t got nothing against you,” the Corporal repeated.
Reilly, deeply moved by Gunn’s speech, came over and struck Gunn on the
back.
“Forget it, mate,” he said. “See?”
“Reilly,” said Gunn, “you’re the only bloody soldier in this mob. I
hope you get out of it.”
“That doesn’t worry me,” said Reilly. “I know I’m for it, sooner or
later. I know I’m unlucky. I’ve been out since the first shot was
fired in nineteen-fourteen without a scratch. So I know I’ll get mine
shortly. But that doesn’t worry me. I’ve drunk a nice lot of beer in my
time. Had a good few tidy wenches. Something to look back on when I’m
dead. But look at it this way. Every good soldier has his grouse, but
he never lets it get hold of him.”
“To hell with being a good soldier,” said Gunn. “A good soldier means
one thing to you and me, but it means another thing to THEM. To you and
me it means a MAN. To them it means a ---- clod.”
“I’ve been through it, mate,” said Reilly. “You needn’t tell me. The
only clink I ain’t copped is the Tower. The best place to look for a
good soldier is tied to the wheel of the cookhouse cart. A bloke has
got to stick it.”
“That’s all right, mate,” said Gunn. “Don’t worry. They’ll never have
to crime me again.”
“That’s the ticket, Gunn,” said the Corporal in a friendly tone. “You
muck in with me. I muck in with you. Savvy?”
“Why are they so friendly towards me?” thought Gunn. “They are treating
me as if I were a child.”
Now he could not remember that there had been anything the matter
with him all day, or that he had done, or said, or thought, or seen,
anything odd or irregular. He was greatly worried by the soothing
manner of Reilly, who was always so cynical and utterly devoid of
feeling. He was especially worried by the Corporal’s friendly tone.
Now the four men in the post seemed to have become entirely remote and
alien to him; just as when a man is falling asleep under the influence
of ether, he hears the voices of the doctors and the nurse as voices
heard from afar, entirely inhuman.
This was a great torture, from which he could not save himself. He felt
bound, hand and foot by it. He tried to talk to Lamont; but Lamont
answered him in the same tone as the others.
The others had now become very quiet. They were whispering to one
another. Why were they whispering so quietly? He must talk to them.
“I say, lads,” he said.
“What?” said Reilly.
He could not remember what he wanted to say for nearly a minute. Then
he burst forth, “I know now who’s running this show. Up here ye want
it.” He tapped his forehead. Then he shuddered and glanced around him
furtively, ashamed of what he had said. “Why don’t they let us fight?”
he cried. “It’s this crawling around in the ---- mud that’s killing us.”
Nobody answered him. Reilly tipped the Corporal and then walked over to
the narrow end of the hole. He began to void his bladder. The Corporal
followed, leaned up against the side of the hole and began also to void
his bladder.
“Better send him back,” said Reilly. “He’s going mad.”
“Eh?” said the Corporal. “Do you think so?”
He himself was quite sure that Gunn was mad, and he had been thinking
for the past few minutes that Gunn should be sent back at once. But
now, on being advised by Reilly to let Gunn go back, his hatred of Gunn
made him oppose the idea.
He said to himself, “He won’t escape me that way.”
“He’s only malingering,” he whispered. “He and the kid have it
made up between them. He knows he’s for it when he gets back for
insubordination in the line, so he’s gamming on mad. That’s all.”
“That may be so,” said Reilly, “but I doubt it. I think he’s really
going bugs. You remember ’53 Jones, that went daft on the canal. He
killed two men before he could be knocked out. He started just that
way. He was in the same dug-out as me. Fritz shelled us for twelve
hours without a break. He began the same sort of gibberish about the
war and everything. I’d send him back, Corporal.”
The Corporal looked towards Gunn, and saw Gunn looking towards him.
“He’ll go back when I go back,” he said, “and not before. I’m not
afraid of him.”
“In that case,” said Reilly, shrugging his shoulders, “none of us’ll
ever go back. I can see it coming.”
“Talking about me?” cried Gunn, angrily.
They walked back.
“It’s all right,” said Gunn. “I can guess what you were saying.”
“I think I’m poisoned,” said McDonald. “I have an awful pain in my
guts. I ate a piece of black Jerry bread I found here.”
“There are worse deaths,” said Reilly, casually. “You’ll die soon
anyway, one way or another. I saw a fellow die of eating a feed of
dirty straw.”
“Why don’t they let us fight?” cried Gunn.
“You’ll soon get a bellyful of fighting,” said the Corporal.
“When I went on leave,” said McDonald, “I said to myself I’d spend all
day and night eating. But ye can’t eat there either. Not enough.”
“That’s right,” cried Gunn, eagerly. “You can’t get away from it.
They’ve got you everywhere, in London as well as here. They’ve got
everybody, us, Jerries, Froggies, the lousy Russians and those dirty
little Belgians. You’ll parade everywhere as well as here, full
marching order, housewife and hold-all complete. Hear that, Louis.
Don’t hide your bloody head. Face it, kid. You got to fight them. As
Reilly says, we’re all for it. Let’s have it then and be done with it.”
A cold sweat was breaking out all over his body. Red stars began to
dance before his eyes. Reilly tipped the Corporal. The Corporal
growled.
“You can’t work it that way, Gunn,” he said. “Why not try something
cleverer than that? Can’t you work a trench foot?”
“Don’t you worry, Corporal,” said Gunn, tapping his forehead. “Up here
you want it. I’ve got it now.”
Reilly got to his feet and moved about restlessly.
“Jesus!” said McDonald. “I think I have trench feet. It’s freezing like
hell. My guts are freezing too.”
“Go sick, quick,” said Reilly. “Then I’ll have your rations.”
“Christ!” said Gunn. “A General! That’s what I want. A bloody General.
Why don’t Generals come into the front line. Them are the blokes I want
to talk to. I’ll tell ’em something.”
They all looked at him again in silence. He now spoke in an exalted
voice and although they could not see his face in the darkness, they
could feel a strange force in his presence. Something alien and
terrifying had taken possession of him.
“Something the matter with my kidneys,” said Reilly, again moving over
to the puddle.
The icy ground now crackled under his feet.
“Don’t worry, Reilly,” cried Gunn. “You won’t be long now.”
Lamont had not spoken or moved for half an hour. He had surrendered to
the cold and lay at the bottom of the hole, with his head fallen on his
chest, rapidly losing consciousness. There was a smile on his lips and
he was dreaming of his home.
There was now heavy firing on the left. The enemy was firing at the
ration party. Several machine-guns were in action. Rifle grenades were
bursting. But nobody in the hole took any notice of the firing. Their
limbs moved continuously, jerking, twisting about. Their mouths and
nostrils twitched. They kept getting to their feet and sitting down
again; all except Lamont who sat very still. They could no longer speak.
When they touched one another by chance they started violently. The
slightest noise in the hole excited them, the scraping of a boot on the
icy earth, the rattle of a gun butt on a stone, a cough.
Now the sky was bright with stars. The enemy began to rake their post
intermittently with machine-gun fire. Single shots rang out, like
the popping of corks. In the distance there was a heavy roar, like a
mountain river pouring through a gorge. On the far left, a corner of
the sky was covered with a bright red arc of flame, above which rolling
clouds of smoke rose in widening wreaths. Verey lights passed through
the sky in beautiful curves and fell in streamers of fire. The earth
shone with frost.
The night was very beautiful.