Birdsong (54 page)

"Hold on," he said. "Just keep still. I can get you out." He thought it unlikely that he could, because of the weight that had clearly fallen on the man's legs, which were shot out ahead of him toward the original face of the tunnel, but he kept digging and clearing and gasping through his efforts the automatic words of encouragement.

Jack Firebrace, entombed in his heavy burial place, felt his life come and go as the air thinned in the cavity about his head. The pain from his crushed legs swept up and down his spine and made him faint, then gasp back into consciousness, then drift away again. He tried to move them because he felt the agony would keep him from dying. If he could feel the pain then he would be conscious and therefore still alive.

In this state he recognized the voice of the man who had once pitched naked into his arms with a dry imprecation, himself on the verge of dying. He could feel the weak hand picking at the soil that trapped him, and he felt a sense that it was right, that he should be rescued by someone he had himself saved; he felt confident that Stephen would deliver him.

Jack's struggle was with himself. He narrowed his efforts to the battle against the soft, rolling waves of sleep that were his body's natural response to the pain in his legs. His head at least could move, and he thrashed it from side to side in an effort to stop it clouding over.

Stephen's soothing voice came in his ear. Jack felt a hand grip under his armpit and try to pull him.

"It won't work," he said. "My legs are trapped."

"Can you hear me?" said Stephen.

"Yes."

"Who are you?"

"Jack Firebrace. The one supposed to get you back safe." Jack was surprised that he was able to talk so well. The restored human contact had revived him.

"What happened?" said Stephen.

Jack grunted. "Camouflet probably. They were right above us. They've got our tunnel well marked down. They must have been waiting for weeks."

"Will there be more?"

"God knows."

"How badly are you trapped?"

"My legs have gone. I can't move them. My arms are all right. I can help you if you make enough space. I'm... "

"What's the matter? Are you all right?"

The effort of speech had made Jack faint. "Yes. Don't talk now. Dig."

"What if we bring down more?"

"Chance it," gasped Jack.

Stephen pulled off his shirt and resumed his toil. Jack felt him crawl in alongside in the space he had cleared. He told him to try to support the earth above them by using bits of timber that lay in the wreckage. For hours Stephen worked on one-handed under Jack's instructions. He was able to create a miniature selfcontained chamber within the fallen earth. Jack helped him push and heave the timbers into place above them; he used his hands to pull back more debris until his body was clear to the waist.

Eventually Stephen said, "I must rest. Even if it's only for a few minutes." He lay down in the nest they had made and fell asleep at once, his head resting on Jack's chest. Jack felt the rise and fall of his breathing. He envied him his sleep, but dared not join him for fear that he would not wake up.

He had said nothing to Stephen, in order not to raise his hopes too far, but he assumed a rescue party would have been dispatched from the trench. Even if they sensibly waited to be sure that there were no further enemy camouflets, they could not be long in arriving.

There was no time in the darkness, but Jack estimated they had been underground about six hours, for about five of which he had been trapped and Stephen had been working to free him.

He pictured Cartwright organizing the rescue party in the bright summer day above them. He made a vow that if he made it up to the surface he would never go underground again. He would pass the rest of his days in the air, with the feeling of sun or rain on his face. He found that he was drifting again: his mind began to follow itself in slow, dreamy circles.

He decided he would have to wake Stephen. If not, he was going to die. He took him by the shoulders and shook him, but Stephen fell back on to him. He slapped his face, and Stephen groaned, then fell asleep again. The weariness of four years seemed to have overtaken him.

Jack began cursing. He thought of the vilest things he could say and shouted them at Stephen. He slapped him again. Nothing would penetrate his fatigue. Then from behind them, back toward their own line, there came the sound of another explosion. Jack closed his eyes and crouched against the ground. He expected a core of soil and flame to come leaping down the tunnel, driven by the power of the blast.

Stephen was awake. "Christ. What was that?"

Jack could make out Stephen's anxious face in the light of the lamp.

"Another one. Back toward our line. They've got us marked out all right."

"What does it mean?"

"Nothing. We must try to get out."

What it really meant, Jack thought, was that it might now be impossible for a rescue party to reach them. It depended on precisely where the explosion had come.

It also meant that if Stephen had returned without trying to rescue him he could have been safely back above the ground some hours ago.

He said kindly, "You'd better try and pull me out. I'll be more use to you then than if I'm stuck here."

Stephen resumed his delicate work, trying under Jack's instructions to build a wooden tent over his legs. It reminded him of the construction they had put over the legs of the gassed boy opposite him in the hospital. He had to clear and build at the same time. Jack helped him force the earth out behind them.

As Stephen worked he thought about the second explosion and the damage it might have done. He felt the death he had wanted come closer to him. Still he could not embrace it.

Eventually the weight on Jack's legs was small enough for Stephen to pull him free. In the end he came out like a cork from a bottle, though with a bitter scream as the crushed flesh was dragged against the debris round it.

He lay trembling on the floor of the tunnel while Stephen tried to comfort him. If only they had brought some water. It had occurred to him as they left that a bottle would be useful, but he was only supposed to have been underground for an hour.

"How bad is it?" said Stephen when he gauged that Jack could speak.

"I think both legs are broken. And my ribs. There's an awful pain in here." He touched his chest.

"There's a bad cut on your head. Do you feel pain there?"

"Not really. But I feel weak. I feel dizzy, as though I've been hit."

"I'm going to have to carry you," said Stephen.

Jack said, "That's right. Like that time I caught you."

"I'll do my best for you, I promise. Do you think we'll get out?"

"It depends on where the earth fell."

"I think I should look for other survivors first."

Jack said, "You'd better understand. This'll be difficult. There'll be no one else. We can search if you want to, but I've seen what happens underground. Two of us surviving's a miracle."

Stephen put on his shirt and tunic and manoeuvred Jack on to his shoulders. He was not a big man, but the weight of him on Stephen's back as he went at a crouch down the tunnel made him have to stop every few yards. Jack was biting the fabric of Stephen's tunic to keep himself from screaming.

They got back to the junction with the second lateral gallery and sat down against the wall. Jack was trembling all over. A fever had started in him, and he had an urge to sleep. Stephen panted in lungfuls of the warm, thin air and tried to shift his position to give respite to the muscles of his back.

When they had rested a little, he said, "Which way did we come? I'm lost."

"It's quite simple. I'd better explain in case I... in case you lose me. Imagine a three-pronged fork." Jack put all his strength into making himself clear. "The middle prong leads to the listening chamber at the tip. We were halfway up it when the camouflet went off. The two prongs either side are the fighting tunnels. A lateral section joins the three prongs at their base. That's where we are now. This is where Lorimer sent us to our separate tunnels."

Stephen looked around at the anonymous tube beneath the ground with its bits of wood and earth.

"To get back," said Jack, "we go straight ahead, back down the shaft of the fork. Halfway back, that's where we first stopped to listen. It's very narrow, you remember. Then when the handle of the fork ends, where it would meet the hand, is the main lateral gallery. We cross that and it's only a short way to the shaft." He lay back against the wall, exhausted by his explanation.

Stephen said, "All right. I understand. What I'm going to do is leave you here while I go and look in the fighting tunnels for survivors."

"You don't need to go into that one," said Jack pointing to the left. "They all went into the right-hand one."

"Are you sure? I think I'd better check the other one."

Jack breathed in tightly between his teeth. "You must understand. I've got a fever now. If you leave me for long I won't survive."

Stephen saw the anguish in Jack's face. It was not the physical pain: he was weighing his own life against the chances of saving any of his friends'. "I don't want to be alone for long," he said.

Stephen swallowed. His instinct was to make it back to the foot of the shaft as fast as possible, but he imagined what the others in the tunnel must be thinking, if any of them were alive. They would be begging him to come to them. It was not fair to leave them without a chance. Something about Jack's blue face did not in any case make him hopeful.

He took Jack's arm. "I'll go very quickly up this one, the empty one. Then I'll come back and see how you are. Then I'll look quickly up the other one. I promise I won't be more than ten minutes in either." He searched his pockets to see if he had anything to give him that might make things easier. He found some cigarettes and a piece of chocolate.

Jack smiled. "No flames allowed. Gas. Thanks for offering." Stephen left him and took the lamp into the left of the two fighting tunnels. It was not as well supported as the main one. He could see where they had hacked it out with their picks. In a way it was more like a passageway, a thoroughfare that would emerge in light and understanding.

He made quick progress in the shambling crouch he had seen the miners use. He came to the end of it and saw the evidence of the explosion. It had not been so bad as in the central tunnel, but a good deal of earth had come down. He could not tell how much further the original face of the tunnel had been.

For a moment he stopped. There was no danger. It was quiet. He sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. He became aware of himself and his circumstances as the immediate imperative of action lifted. He would not go back until he was sure that he and Jack were the only survivors. If by searching he brought death closer, it would not matter; there would be some decorum in their dying deep beneath the country they had fought so long to protect.

He shouted out in the darkness. He went up to the blockage and pulled some loose earth away. He put his lips to the hole and shouted again. The debris was compacted so tight that the sound did not penetrate. Anything beyond it that had been living would long ago have been crushed to death.

He turned and made his way back to where Jack was lying. He knelt down beside him. Jack's eyes were closed, and for a moment Stephen thought he was dead. He felt for his pulse beneath the coarse cuff of his shirt. He had to dig between the tendons with his fingertips, but he found some small beat where life still ran.

He slapped him gently in the face to bring him round. Jack stirred and looked up.

He said, "Don't leave me again. Don't go." His voice was dry but Stephen could hear the weight of feeling in it.

"There'll be no one alive," said Jack. "That's where the main blast was, in that tunnel. We got it through the wall."

Stephen looked at him. He was in pain and he was frightened of dying, but there was no reason to disbelieve him. He knew about working underground.

"All right," said Stephen. "We'll try and get out. Are you strong enough? Do you want to rest some more?"

"Let's try now."

Stephen stretched himself, then bent down again. He levered Jack's upper body on to his shoulder, and supported him beneath the thighs with his left arm. He carried him as he would have done a sleeping child. Jack held the lamp over Stephen's shoulder.

After a few yards Stephen had to stop. His own damaged right arm could not support the weight and his left, naturally weak and further tired by digging, was dropping Jack's legs. He propped Jack against the side of the tunnel, then knelt in front of him and manoeuvred him on to his left shoulder. With both arms wrapped round him he could keep him on for bursts of ten yards at a crouch. Jack fainted each time Stephen stood him up, so after the first three attempts Stephen took his rest kneeling, with Jack still on his shoulder, and his own face pressed to the soil. He closed his eyes against the sweat that ran down from his forehead. He cursed his life and the shards of chalk that pierced his knees.

After an hour of the slow, dragging bursts they reached the end of the tunnel. There was nowhere to go; in front were only thousands of tons of France. Stephen swore at Jack. He meant the words to be beneath his breath, but they escaped. Jack stirred on his shoulder, and Stephen laid him down on the ground.

"You've brought me the wrong fucking way." He was exhausted. He lay panting with his face down.

Jack was stirred from his delirium by the impact of being set down. He shook his head and tried to concentrate.

"We went straight, didn't we?" He peered back behind them. There was still a lamp hanging from the roof that Evans had put there on their way through. It was a terrible sign. Jack looked ahead of them again. He said softly, "This is the right way. This is not the end, this is where the second explosion went off. We're about twenty yards short of the main gallery."

Stephen let out a groan and closed his eyes. Now death had him, he thought; now he would go with it.

They stayed where they were for an hour. Neither man had the energy to move. There was one way out and it was closed to them. Jack would shortly die of his wounds; Stephen would die of thirst and starvation.