Harvest of War (6 page)

Suddenly Tom's legs buckled under him and he felt himself caught in Ralph's arms. He pressed his face into Ralph's shoulder and began to weep: silent, shuddering sobs that shook his body and tears that scalded his eyes and soaked into Ralph's tunic.

Above his head he heard Ralph murmuring, ‘What have they done to you? It shouldn't happen like this. Not to you! I won't have it. It's got to be stopped.'

At length the paroxysms of weeping exhausted themselves and Ralph led him to the side of the room, where a camp bed had been set up. They sat side by side, Ralph's arm still round Tom's shoulders.

‘Look at you!' he murmured. ‘You're a walking skeleton. When did you last have a square meal, or a decent night's rest – or a bath?'

Tom shook his head. ‘God knows. I've been living like an animal for weeks. What about you? What happened to your leg?'

‘Broken ankle. I tripped over some barbed wire and fell into a trench. Bloody stupid! I've been stuck back here at HQ while you chaps are out there doing the business. I look at you, Tom, and I'm ashamed.'

‘It's not your fault,' Tom muttered.

‘Where are you wounded? Is it your arm?'

‘No, my shoulder. It's just a flesh wound. But apparently I've lost a lot of blood.'

‘Right!' Ralph straightened up. ‘You are going to have the best that this godforsaken place can provide. You are going to have a meal and a bath and sleep in a proper bed and then you are going on sick leave.'

‘The doc said it wasn't bad enough to warrant being sent home.'

‘I don't care what he said. I'll make out the necessary pass. Now, what do you want first?'

‘Please can I have a drink of water?' Tom croaked.

‘Water? Of course! What have I been thinking of? Here.'

There was a jug on the desk. Ralph poured water into a mug and placed it in Tom's good hand. His throat was almost too dry to swallow but he allowed the water to trickle into his throat and almost wept again with sheer relief. Ralph was shouting for his orderly and when the man appeared told him to see to it that Tom was given the best meal the kitchen could produce.

Next morning, still weak but in control of himself after a long sleep, Tom was eating breakfast when Ralph came in and sat opposite him.

‘Now, about this leave. Where do you want to go?'

Tom struggled to adjust his thoughts. ‘I don't want to go home. I think I'd like to go to Paris. Is that possible?'

‘Certainly. I'll make out the paperwork.'

Within the hour Tom was provided with a new uniform and handed a warrant that allowed him to travel to Paris for two weeks' leave. Ralph even arranged for a car to take him to the station and came to see him off.

‘Don't overdo it now,' he counselled. ‘No riotous nights with girls from the Folies Bergère.'

Tom looked at him. ‘That's not my style – and you know it.'

For a moment their eyes held, then Ralph did an extraordinary thing. He leaned into the car and kissed Tom on the cheek.

‘Off you go! Have a good leave – and don't worry about the future. You're too valuable to be wasted.'

In Salonika the days passed too slowly for both Leo and Sasha, but for opposite reasons. Sasha was bored and frustrated with the lack of agreement over tactics. Leo longed for the summer to end so that the time for campaigning would be over for another year. They would have the whole winter together. But even as she thought of that she felt a tremor of dread. She was not sure how Sasha would cope with being confined to Salonika for all that time and she feared he would embark on some rash exploit without waiting for his allies.

One evening Sasha came quickly into their room at the hotel in Salonika and Leo felt her heart give a jolt.

‘It's come!' he said. ‘Serrail has finally decided to attack. There are rumours that Romania is about to declare for the allies and they want a diversionary assault here to draw away German forces that might otherwise be deployed against the Romanians.'

‘When?' Leo asked, almost unable to breathe.

‘In five days, on August the fourteenth.'

Five days! Now that the time was almost upon them, Leo cast about desperately for some way to delay their separation. At the hospital she waylaid the chief medical officer on his rounds.

‘I suppose you have heard that there is to be a new campaign?'

‘Of course.'

‘I assume you will be sending out a field hospital to care for the wounded.'

‘Are you trying to tell me my job?'

‘No, of course not. I just want to volunteer to go with them. I have had experience of working in the field – and I speak Serbian and Bulgarian.'

‘Very well. I'll bear that in mind.'

‘Then I can go?'

‘I'll let you know when I've made my decision.'

Leo was left to chew her nails until news came that changed all the plans that had been drawn up. The Bulgarians, presumably warned in advance by friends in Greece, launched a pre-emptive attack and Sasha and his men, along with their British and French allies, were caught up in a desperate defensive action. The planned advance was put off until September the twelfth.

‘Isn't that too late to start a new campaign?' Leo asked when Sasha told her. ‘Winter comes early in the mountains. You don't want to be caught up in the sort of conditions we suffered last year.'

‘If we don't go then we shall have to wait until spring,' he said. ‘And who knows what might have happened? We have to take our chance. With any luck we shall be through the mountains before the bad weather comes.'

As September the twelfth loomed closer it occurred to Leo for the first time that she might be pregnant. Her periods had stopped after the privations of the winter retreat and, although they had restarted while they were on Corfu they had been irregular, so she had not paid much attention to when the next one was due. But one morning she woke feeling queasy and all day she was aware of a tightness in her breasts. Thinking back, she realized that she had not had a period since the night when she had first slept with Sasha. He had taken precautions since then but in that first passionate encounter neither of them had thought of the risk. She wondered whether to tell him of her suspicions but immediately decided against it. If he thought she was carrying his child it would only add to his burdens. He would have enough to contend with, without worrying about her. He would probably forbid her to join the field ambulance, assuming she had the opportunity. Worse still, he might insist on her going back to England, where she could be sure of better medical attention. She had no intention of obeying such an order, but she did not want to quarrel just as they were about to part. She decided to say nothing until winter brought an end to the fighting, at least for the time being.

On the night of the eleventh they made love with an aching tenderness and in the morning she watched him mount Flame and said goodbye to him with all the courage and optimism she could muster. Then she reported for duty and was told to make ready to leave with the field hospital the following day.

In Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, Luke attended a medical board and was passed fit for active service.

‘Congratulations!' the chubby doctor in charge said to him. ‘I'll bet you're itching to get back to your mates and give the Boches what for.'

Luke restrained an impulse to punch his self-satisfied face. ‘Not if it's going to be anything like the last shambles,' he said bitterly. ‘Besides, I'd been hoping for a few months longer. My wife's pregnant. I'd like to have been around for the birth.'

Tom spent the first two days of his leave sitting in Notre Dame, absorbing the atmosphere of indestructible peace. From time to time he got up and wandered round, gazing at the windows, the statues, the works of art of all kinds that adorned the cathedral, but most of the time he sat and let his mind go blank. On the third day, he got out his sketch book and began to draw, filling the pages with details of soaring columns and intricate carvings. When he felt stronger, he made his way to the Louvre and stood for a long time in front of the Winged Victory, contemplating the product of another warrior society and wondering if anything of beauty could result from the brutal conflict he had just left behind him. A few days later he summoned the energy to climb up to Montmartre and stroll through the narrow streets where every shop front, it seemed, exhibited the work of another painter. It reminded him of his first visit, four years earlier, in pursuit of Leo; a visit which had opened his eyes to so many possibilities.

He did not think about what awaited him at the end of his leave. He had learned to live in the moment, whether of joy or terror. But from time to time he did allow himself to contemplate Ralph's final, enigmatic words: ‘Don't worry about the future. You're too valuable to be wasted.' Too valuable to whom? To the world in general? That was patently nonsense. To his country? Only in a very marginal sense. To Ralph himself, then? Perhaps. He held the thought close, like a child clinging to a favourite toy.

At the end of two weeks, stronger in body from eating well, as it was still possible to do in Paris in spite of the war, and sleeping as long as he needed to, he took the train back to Amiens and from there managed to get a lift back to battalion HQ. He headed straight for the room where he had found Ralph on the previous occasion, but it was occupied by a stranger.

‘I'm looking for Malham Brown,' he explained.

‘Not here, I'm afraid,' was the answer. ‘He went back to his company two days ago.'

‘Back to the trenches?'

‘Yes. They are somewhere near Morval, I believe.'

‘Thanks.' Tom turned away. It had not occurred to him that Ralph might have gone back to active duty and the disappointment left him feeling chilled and empty. He made his way to the office of the adjutant and reported.

‘Ah, Devenish! I've got news for you. You're being posted.'

‘Posted? Where to?'

‘They want you back at GHQ.'

‘Why?'

‘No idea. No doubt you'll find out when you get there. I'll make out the necessary travel documents for you. You can leave tomorrow.'

The British Fourth Army had taken over as its headquarters the Chateau de Querrieu, an elegant rose-coloured building lying in the gentle valley of the River Hallue. When Tom reported he was told that none other than the C-in-C, General Rawlinson, wanted to see him. He found the general with several junior officers in the ornate salon, which had been converted to serve as operations centre for the army, its walls hung with maps and much of the furniture shrouded in dust sheets. When Tom saluted and introduced himself Rawlinson dismissed the others with a courteous, ‘Thank you, gentlemen,' and led him over to a table by one of the windows. There, among the piles of papers and diagrams, Tom was astonished to see one of his own sketch books. He recognized it as one he had left behind when he was transferred to the First Battalion, after that disastrous encounter with Ralph. Ralph must have found it, he guessed, but how it had come into the general's possession he could not imagine.

‘So, you're Devenish,' Rawlinson said. ‘And I gather this is your work.'

‘Yes, sir.' Tom wondered if he was about to be reprimanded for wasting his time when he should have been devoting himself to military matters.

‘You have a remarkable talent,' the general went on. ‘I have been told that on several occasions your sketches of the battlefield have been of considerable use to your commanding officers.'

‘I'm glad to hear it, sir,' Tom mumbled, wondering where this conversation might be leading.

‘I'm also informed that you volunteered for officer training and elected to go on active service and have put up a very good show in the recent fighting. But now I have a new commission for you.'

‘A commission, sir?'

‘Yes. I'm withdrawing you from front-line duties. I want you to paint a series of pictures – pictures that will show future generations what we lived through. I'm not laying down any specific requirements, only that your pictures should tell the truth about conditions in the trenches and about the courage and determination of the troops. You can have a room here as a studio, put in a requisition for whatever materials you need, and I will see that you have a pass allowing you to travel to any area of the conflict you may wish to record. Any questions?'

Tom stared at him wordlessly for a moment. The prospect of being reprieved from the horror of battle and allowed to spend his days doing the thing he loved most was almost too dazzling to contemplate, but at the same time his conscience told him it was cowardice.

‘I'm sorry, sir,' he said. ‘I can't accept.'

The general glared at him. ‘What do you mean, “can't accept”? I've given you an order, dammit! You either obey it or you go before a court martial.'

‘I'm not trying to be insubordinate, sir,' Tom said. ‘It's just that it doesn't feel right for me to be painting pictures while other men are dying out there.'

The general's expression softened. ‘It does you credit. But consider this: when this war is over, what are we going to be left with? Isn't it right that some good things should come out of it? You are an artist. Isn't it the role of the artist to transmute experience into something beautiful, even if the experience itself is . . . very far from beautiful?'

Tom remembered the Winged Victory in the Louvre and how his thoughts had run along exactly the same lines. After a moment he said, ‘If you put it like that, sir, I can't argue. I'll do my best to fulfil the brief you have set out. But can I ask one thing?'

‘Go ahead.'

‘I'd like to make it a limited commitment, as far as time is concerned. When I feel I've done all I can do – or when I feel that I no longer have the necessary inspiration – will you let me return to my regiment?'