Birdsong (35 page)

They were in their own view a formidable group of men. No inferno would now melt them, no storm destroy, because they had seen the worst and they had survived.

Stephen felt, at the better moments, the love for them that Gray had demanded. Their desperate courage, born from necessity, was nevertheless endearing. The grimmer, harder, more sardonic they became, the more he cared for them. Still he could not quite believe them; he could not comprehend the lengths to which they allowed themselves to be driven. He had been curious to see how far they could be taken, but his interest had slackened when he saw the answer: that there were no boundaries they would not cross, no limits to what they would endure.

He saw their faces wrapped in woollen comforters, their caps sticking out beneath their helmets, and they looked like creatures from some other life. Some wore cardigans and waistcoats sent from home, some had strips of cloth or bandage wound around their hands in place of gloves mislaid or stolen from their packs by the less scrupulous. Any cloth or wool they could find in the villages had been pressed into service as auxiliary socks or as extra layers about the head; some had Flemish newspapers stuffed inside their trousers.

They were built to endure and to resist; they looked like passive creatures adapting to the hell of circumstances that oppressed them. Yet, Stephen knew, they had locked up in their hearts the horror of what they had seen, and their jovial pride in their resilience was not convincing. They boasted in a mocking way of what they had seen and done; but in their sad faces wrapped in rags he saw the burden of their unwanted knowledge.

Stephen knew what they felt because he had been with them and he himself did not feel hardened or strengthened by what he had seen; he felt impoverished and demeaned. He shared their conspiracy of fortitude, but sometimes he felt for them what he felt for himself, not love but pitiful contempt.

They said that at the very least they had survived, but even this was not true. Of their original platoon only he, Brennan, and Petrossian were still at the front. The names and faces of the others were already indistinct in his memory. He had an impression of a weary group of greatcoats and grimed puttees, of cigarette smoke rising beneath helmets. He remembered a voice, a smile, an habitual trick of speech. He recalled individual limbs, severed from their bodies, and the shape of particular wounds; he could picture the sudden intimacy of revealed internal organs, but he could not always say to whom the flesh belonged. Two or three had returned permanently to England; the rest were missing, buried in mass graves or, like Reeves's brother, reduced to particles so small that only the wind carried them. If they could claim survival it was by closing ranks and by the amalgamation of different units with conscripted reinforcements. Gray became battalion commander, replacing Barclay and Thursby, who had been killed, and Stephen took over his company. Harrington made the long journey home to Lancashire, leaving part of his left leg on the north bank of the Ancre.

It was night when they arrived at the front line. The men they were relieving passed out thigh-high rubber boots that had been in continuous service for eight months. The decayed pulp of the interior was a mash of whale oil and putrid rags that could accommodate feet of almost any size. None of them stayed quite calm in the hours of darkness. The bursts of light as shells exploded could be viewed as comforting in their remoteness, but there were always noises and shapes close to the trench itself that excited the old reflex. Stephen sometimes thought it was the only way they could be sure they were still alive.

The dugout, which acted as company headquarters, was a roofed hole in the second trench. Though small, it had an improvised bunk and a table. Stephen unloaded some of the kit he had brought up the line: a sketchbook, bars of chocolate and cigarettes, a periscope, and a knitted waistcoat he had bought from an old woman. He was sharing with a young redheaded subaltern called Ellis, who liked to read in bed. He was no more than nineteen or twenty, but he seemed composed and cooperative. He smoked incessantly but refused all offers of drink.

"When we have our next leave, I want to go to Amiens," he said.

"It's miles away," said Stephen. "You won't get that far."

"The adjutant said we could. He said it was all part of the new efficiency. Officers should have a decent time off in the place of their choice."

"1 wish you luck," said Stephen, sitting down at the table and pulling a whisky bottle toward him.

"Won't you come too?" Me? I shouldn't think so. It's just a railway junction."

"Have you been there?"

"Yes. I was there before the war."

"What's it like?"

Stephen poured a drink. "It's got a fine cathedral, if you like architecture. I didn't care for it myself. It's a cold building."

"Well I'm going anyway. Let me know if you change your mind. The CO said you spoke very good French."

"Did he? I'm going to see if everyone's settled in." Stephen drained the glass.

"Do you know where the tunnel head is?"

"It's about fifty yards that way."

There was a hole in the ground roughly where Ellis had said. Stephen asked the sentry when the shift was due to come up.

"About half an hour, sir."

"Is Captain Weir with them?"

"Yes."

"If he comes up before I get back, tell him to wait for me."

"All right, sir."

Stephen went along the trench, twice tripping on the outstretched legs of men who had scraped sleeping holes for themselves in the front wall. He wondered if it would really be possible to get to Amiens. It was almost seven years since he and Isabelle had left on the night train. Surely now it would be safe to return. After occupation and bombardment by the Germans, after the passage of almost seven years, surely the place could hold no disquieting reminders.

Michael Weir was emerging from the tunnel as Stephen arrived. There passed a moment of physical awkwardness between them when neither offered to shake hands. Weir's company had been sent back to its original position soon after the initial attack on the hot July morning. He was delighted when, some months later, Stephen's battalion also returned.

"Good rest?" said Weir.

"Yes. Fine. What's happening underground?"

"We've had a new consignment of canaries. The men are delighted. They were worried about gas."

"Good. Come and have a drink if you like. It looks pretty quiet. We've got a patrol going out later but it should be all right."

"Have you got whisky?"

"Yes. Riley always seems to get it from somewhere."

"Good. I've run out."

"I didn't think that was possible. Can't you just order some more?"

"Apparently I've been through my ration."

Weir's hands were shaking as he took the bottle and filled his glass in the dugout. Ellis watched silently from the bunk: he was frightened by Weir's dishevelled appearance and his inability to talk sensibly until the liquor had put some strength and reason into him. He looked too old to be crawling underground with explosive charges, especially in those trembling fingers.

Weir gulped at the drink and shuddered as it ran down inside him. He found it more and more difficult to last out the long underground shift, even with the help of what he took with him in his hip flask. Increasingly he found reasons for instructing someone else to take the men down.

Weir had been on leave to England. He arrived at dusk at his parents' Victorian villa in Leamington Spa and rang the front-door bell. The maid opened it and asked him who he was. His telegram had gone astray; they were not expecting him. His mother was out, but the maid told him she thought his father would be in the garden. It was an October evening, three months after they had attacked on the Ancre.

Weir took off his greatcoat and left it on a chair in the hall. He dropped his kitbag on the floor and made his way through to the back of the house. There was a large flat lawn with laurel bushes and a giant cedar in one corner. He saw the gnats in the damp air ahead of him and felt his boots sink into the short-cropped lawn. The packed grass gave luxurious support to his steps. The air was thick with garden scents at evening. The denseness of the silence pressed his ears. Then he heard a door bang in the house, he heard a thrush; then a motor lorry backfiring in the quiet suburban street.

On the left of the lawn was a large greenhouse. Weir could make out a trickle of smoke coming from the door. As he approached it he caught the familiar smell of his father's pipe tobacco. He stood in the doorway and looked inside. His father was kneeling beneath a shelf on which small boxes of seeds were neatly laid out. He appeared to be talking to someone.

"What are you doing?" said Weir.

"Feeding the toad," said his father, without looking up. "Quiet now." From an old tobacco tin on the ground beside him, he took a small dead insect, pinched it between finger and thumb, and pushed his hand slowly forward under the shelf. Weir could see the polished seat of his trousers and the back of his bald head, but little else.

"That's it, that's my beauty. He's a champion, this one. You should see the size of him. We've not had an insect in here for weeks. Come and have a look at him."

Weir went over the uncemented paving that his father had laid down the middle of the greenhouse and knelt on the gravel next to him.

"You see there? In the corner?"

Weir heard a fat croak from the direction his father indicated. "Yes," he said.

"A fine specimen."

His father backed out from under the seed boxes and stood up. "You'd better come on in then. Your mother's at choir practice. Why didn't you let us know you were coming?"

"I sent a telegram. It must have got lost. I didn't know until the day itself."

"Well, never mind. We've had your letters. Maybe you'll want a wash after your journey."

Weir looked across at his father's portly figure as they walked over the lawn. He wore a cardigan over his shirt, still with its stiff collar from the day at the office, and a dark, striped tie. Weir wondered if he was going to say any word of greeting. By the time they reached the French windows to the sitting room it was clear that the moment had passed.

His father said, "I'll get the maid to make up a bed if you're stopping."

"If that's all right," said Weir. "Just for a night or two."

"Of course it's all right."

Weir took his kitbag upstairs and went to the bathroom. The water roared in the pipes, stalled, gurgled with an airlock that shook the room, then thundered from the wide mouth of the tap. He dropped his clothes on the floor and sank into the bath. He expected that he would soon feel at home. He went to his old room and dressed carefully in flannel trousers and checked shirt: he was waiting for the moment when the familiar wash of normality would come over him and he would be restored to his old self; when the experiences of the last two years would recede into some clear perspective. He noticed that the clothes were too big on him. The trousers rested on his hipbones. He found some braces in a drawer and hitched them up. Nothing happened. The polished mahogany of the chest looked alien; it was hard to imagine that he had seen it before. He went to the window and looked down on the familiar view, where the garden ended by the cedar tree and the corner of the next-door house with its rear terrace and long drainpipe blocked the skyline. He remembered afternoons of childhood boredom when he had looked out at this view, but the familiar recollection did not bring back any sense of belonging. When he went downstairs he found his mother had returned.

She kissed him on the cheek. "You look a bit thin, Michael," she said. "What have they been feeding you on over in France?"

"Garlic," he said.

"Well no wonder!" She laughed. "We got your letters. Very nice they were, too. Very reassuring. When was the last one we had?"

"About a fortnight ago. You'd moved, you said." Weir's father was standing by the fireplace, loading another pipe.

"That's right," said Weir. "We moved up from Beaucourt. We're moving again soon, up toward Ypres. Near somewhere called Messines, where we were at the start. I'm not really supposed to tell you too much,"

"I wish we'd known you were coming," said his mother. "We had our tea early so I could go to choir practice. There's a bit of cold ham and tongue if you're hungry."

"That would be nice."

"All right. I'll get the maid to set it out in the dining room."

"You're too late for my tomatoes, I'm afraid," said his father. "We had a champion crop this year."

"I'll ask the girl if she can find a bit of lettuce."

Weir ate the meal alone in the dining room. The maid set a place with a glass of water and a clean napkin. There was a slice of bread and butter on the side plate. He swallowed quietly, the sound of his own chewing magnified by the lack of conversation.

Afterward he played cards with his parents in the sitting room until ten o'clock, when his mother said it was time for her to go to bed.

"It's nice to see you all in one piece, Michael," she said, as she gathered her cardigan around her and went to the door. "Don't you two sit up talking all night." Weir sat facing his father across the fireplace.

"How's the office?"

"It's all right. The business doesn't vary as much as you'd think." There was a silence. Weir could think of nothing to say.

"We'll ask some people over if you like," said his father. "If you're stopping till the weekend."

"All right. Yes."

"I expect you'd like a bit of company after all... after, you know."

"France?"

"Exactly. Make a change."

"It's been terrible," said Weir. "I've got to tell you, it's been--"

"We've read about it in the paper. We all wish it would hurry up and finish."

"No, it's been worse. I mean, you can't imagine."

"Worse than what? Worse than it says? More casualties, are there?"

"No, it's not that. It's... I don't know."

"You want to take it easy. Don't get yourself upset. Everyone's doing their bit, you know. We all want it to end, but we just have to get on with things in the meantime."