The Blasphemer: A Novel (14 page)

Andrew and William, ‘Andy & Will’ as they styled their wouldbe music-hall act in Market Drayton, stare in wonder at the unfamiliar objects around them: a box periscope attached to the wall, a bayonet thrust next to it, acting as a peg for water bottles, an empty shell case hung from a bracket serving as an improvised gas alarm. They have all heard about the chlorine gas, about how it turns the skin greenish black and makes the tongue protrude. They have also heard the rumours about a new type of gas which smells of mustard and blisters the skin. The Devil’s Breath they call it. You know you have inhaled it when your armpits begin to sting.

The weather is changing. It has turned colder and a fine drizzle is fattening the air. By the time they reach a trench marked
CLAPHAM COMMON
their uniforms are damp. They press their backs to the trench wall as the shapes of men loom up. It is the remnants of the battalion they are relieving, the 2/Rifle Brigade. As they ghost past like sleepwalkers, Andrew studies their cork-blackened faces. They are gaunt and chapped. There is matter in their eyes. Following behind them is a man with his arm in a sling leading a party of walking wounded – men with raw, blistered skin and bandaged eyes, each with his hand on the shoulder of the man in front.

Colour Sergeant Major Davies can sense that his platoon is spooked by this encounter. He holds up his arms and says calmly: ‘All right, lads, we’re going to wait here while we check this is our assembly trench. Don’t make yourselves too comfortable. Cookie, let’s get a brew going. The rest of you, check your equipment. Stand to at …’ he glances at his watch, ‘five o’clock. Kennedy!’

‘Yes, Colour Sarn’t Major?’

‘You’ve just volunteered to check the officers’ dugout in the next trench along. We’re looking for …’ He consults a piece of paper. ‘A Major Morris of the Second Rifle Brigade. Tell him we’re here.’

‘Because we’re ’ere!’ Macintyre says from the back.

‘All right, lads,’ the CSM growls. ‘Keep it down.’

While Andrew opens the gate to the next trench, the other men try to take in their strange new environment, looking around the
trench like nervous teenagers entering a dance hall for the first time. They talk in whispers, thinking the Germans over the sandbags will be able to hear them and guess a new battalion has arrived. But when a lance corporal points out that no attempt has been made to keep the attack secret, they talk at normal volume. It’s true. The clues that an attack is imminent have not been subtle. Metallic thunder has been building over the past three weeks, destroying the land drainage system and leaving the lowlying clay a succession of muddy pools.

When Andrew returns five minutes later, his face is freckled with dry mud. ‘Couldn’t find him, Colour Sarn’t Major,’ he says. ‘Checked the next trench along as well. There was a bloke with a beard, but he wasn’t an officer. I think he was suffering from shell shock or something. Waving his arms about, he was.’

‘All right, Kennedy. Well, we’ve got through to BHQ on the field telephone now, so they know we’re here.’

Andrew tamps tobacco into his pipe and, having been told what trench veterans do to avoid the unwanted attention of snipers, turns the bowl upside down before lighting it. He begins coughing and looks around to see if anyone has noticed. No one has. Keeping the pipe stem between his teeth, he removes from his wallet a photograph of Dorothy, his wife of only one month. It is a formal portrait in which she is wearing an ankle-length dress and is holding a parasol. Her long hair is coiled up in a bun. Her smile is false. She looks florid and plain, but not to Andrew’s eyes. He has known Dorothy since school but only summoned the courage to ask her to marry him when he finished his training. Macintyre was his best man.

‘How you managed to persuade a nice girl like that to marry you, I’ll never know,’ Macintyre says over his shoulder.

‘She likes a soldier with a moustache,’ Andrew replies, stroking his whiskers.

‘
That
’s a moustache? I wondered what it was.’

‘Least I can grow one, Will.’

‘You know she were always sweet on me, don’t you, Andy?’

‘Whatever you say, Will.’

‘When you get shot, Andy, I’m going to go back and marry her.’

‘You’re a true pal, Will.’

Andrew is enjoying the musicality their Midlands accents bring to the exchange – to their ‘Andy & Will’ routine – but Macintyre ends it. While others in the trench sharpen bayonets and polish boots,Andrew finds an empty funk hole and rereads his most recent letter from Dorothy, the one in which she tells him she’s volunteered to work as a ‘canary’ in a munitions factory, and her hands have turned yellow from handling TNT. As he takes out a small sheet of lined paper and a stump of pencil sharpened at both ends, he notices his own hands are shaking. He holds his pencil firmly between finger and thumb and presses it against the paper until the shaking stops.

30th July 1917

11/Shropshire Fusiliers

B. E. F. Ypres, Belgium

My Dear Dorothy,

I am writing to you this short note to say we have arrived safely at the Front and are all verry cheery & bright so dont fret youre little self. The trenches are a wonder, they go on for miles. The engineers have done a marvellus job. Even the plumbing works! As I write, the shells are fair hairing over. You know, you get bemused after a few thousand of them. Still, itll be a great experience to tell our children about.

We are going over the parrapet tomorrow & let me tell you the Bosch is going to get a right hiding in our quarter. I hope to spend a few merry hours in chasing him all over the place. I am sure that I shall get through all right, but in case the unexppected does happen I shall rest content with the knowledge that I have done my duty. So long, my dear, dont worry if you dont hear for a bit. Im as happy as ever. You will receive this only if anything has happened to me during the next few days.

Will sends his best.

Bye-bye ownest & best of love

From yr hub

Andy

Macintyre takes off his webbing and tunic, slips his braces and tugs out the tails of his collarless greyback shirt. The harsh texturing chafes his skin. He begins scratching feverishly.

‘You’ll only make it worse, Will,’ Andrew says as he slides the letter under the canvas of his haversack.

‘Look,’ Macintyre says as he opens a medical certificate and brandishes it under Andrew’s nose. ‘Says here I’m free of vermin and scabies. I wish someone would tell the bloody vermin and scabies that.’

‘No self-respecting chat would want to go near you, Will.’

‘Chat?’ Macintyre says quietly, unable to disguise the uncertainty in his voice.

‘Chat,’ Andrew repeats confidently, pleased with his superior knowledge of military slang. Lice, he has recently discovered, are known as ‘chats’ and soldiers are ‘chatting’ when they run a candle flame along the seams of their trousers. The term is to do with the crackling noise the burning lice make, or so he’s been told. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know what a chat is.’

‘Course I do.’

Tea is poured and men cup both hands around their tin mugs, taking comfort in the familiarity of the act. As it has been brewed in an old petrol tin it is almost undrinkable.

‘Anyway,’ Macintyre continues. ‘
I
…’ He slips his braces back on and tucks his thumbs behind them. ‘
I
have got a tapeworm up me arse.’

Andrew spits out a mouthful of tea.

‘The MO says it’s the size of a cobra,’ Macintyre goes on.

‘Only thing of yours that is.’

Other men stop what they are doing and listen in to the routine.

‘Look, Andy, me old chum, it may not be long but at least it’s thin.’

Andrew is trying not to laugh. ‘Anyway, Will, I being a gentleman have a gentleman’s illness.’

‘What’s that then, Andy?’

‘Trench foot, Will.’

‘Trench foot. That’s nothing. I’ve got trench leg.’ Macintyre
pulls his leg up behind his back and starts hopping around.

It begins to rain steadily. Men unwrap their ground sheets and use them as capes, swinging them over their shoulders and clipping the two sides together at the neck.

An officer appears at the entrance to the trench wearing a helmet and the uniform of a major in the Rifle Brigade. This is an unusual sight because trench officers usually avoid wearing any insignia that might make them high-value targets for snipers. Andrew does not recognize him at first – now that he has shaved off his beard and taken off his sleeveless leather jerkin. Then their eyes meet and he shivers. It is as if the heat has been drained from the major’s face, as though the blood that pumps through him is cold. As he walks silently past, Andrew can see that his beard had been covering up a livid scar that runs the length of his jaw to his chin. As he opens the trench gate on the far side, the major passes Colour Sergeant Major Davies coming in, closely followed by Second Lieutenant Willets.

Macintyre notices the CSM approaching and whispers to

Andrew: ‘Look out, here comes the Creeping Barrage.’

‘That was ‘im,’ Andrew says. ‘That was the bearded bloke I saw. Major Morris.’

‘Smarten up, lads,’ the CSM says, ‘the officer is coming to have a word.’

The men set down their mugs, button up their tunics and stand to attention. ‘Bet you half a shilling he says that lessons have been learned since the last Big Push,’ Macintyre says out of the corner of his mouth.

‘You’re on.’

Like every soldier in the PBI, Andrew and Macintyre know all about the last Big Push, one year and one month ago. They know that men were ordered to walk; not that they could have run if they had tried, weighed down as they were by 66lb of kit. They know that where the wire hadn’t been properly cut, bodies had piled up seven deep, a scaffolding of bones. They had still been civilians when the cinemas played
The Battle of the Somme
, stunning audiences into silence. They had read the casualty lists in the papers
– 20,000 British dead on the first day, 40,000 wounded – but seeing the news footage had given the abstract figures an unwelcome reality. At least those who went over at the Somme had been afforded the luxury of ignorance. Along with the other quarter of a million soldiers now preparing for the Big Push at Ypres, Andrew and Macintyre know exactly what to expect.

Second Lieutenant Willets is the same age as them – a ‘one-pip wonder’ – but he bears himself like an older man. His tunic is well cut and made of whipcord, his brown field boots have been freshly polished by his orderly and, as he prepares to talk, he fingers the flounce of worsted braid on his cuff as if to remind himself of his own superiority. ‘Stand easy, men,’ he says in a clear, steady, high register, his public school having taught him well how to project. ‘Now. Can everyone hear me?’ There are affirmative murmurs. ‘Tomorrow we will do battle in this place. For generations to come this battle will be spoken of in the same breath as Agincourt and Waterloo. Men who did not fight with us will think badly of themselves.’ He folds his arms and adjusts his voice, lowering it a semitone. ‘The first wave will be going over the bags at three fifty tomorrow morning. Zero hour. The second wave an hour after that. We will be going over in the third wave. Fire and movement. No walking.’ He presses his fingertips together over his chest, as if he is a vicar about to give a sermon. ‘Lessons have been learned since the Somme offensive.’

Macintyre elbows Andrew.

‘We shall be following the Seaforth Highlanders who will have already taken the first Hun trench, which is on a ridge two hundred yards across. Our first objective is the village of …’ He looks at an order paper in his hand. ‘Gheluvelt. If you get lost just ask the Hun for directions.’ Grim laughter at this. ‘The overall objective for tomorrow is the village of Passchendaele, which is five miles due east of here. I don’t need to tell you the importance of the channel ports.’ He pauses. A coldness enters his eyes. ‘Be bold in battle, men. Be brave. Be savage. Do your duty. Charge with hatred in your hearts, that way victory will be ours. Do honour to your uniform and your king. Ours is a noble cause and our enemy does not
deserve mercy. Kill him before he kills you. We take no prisoners.’ He pauses again and, while this order sinks in, he taps the wooden revetting that supports the wall of the trench. ‘Any wounded men should wait in a crump hole and our stretcher-bearers will come and collect you after dark.’ He pauses again and swallows. ‘Some of you may not return. There will be no time for mourning tomorrow, but a time will come. You will have dignity in death and your bodies will be buried. Your graves will be marked.’ He pauses and meets in turn several of the eyes staring widely back at him. ‘You may have heard a little artillery bombardment going on these past three weeks …’ There are more appreciative snorts at this. ‘I promise you, nothing could have survived it. All their wire has been destroyed. Now,’ he slaps his hands together, ‘the padre will be coming round shortly. Try and get some rest. Stand-to will be at two fifty.’ He pauses again. ‘Remember what you are fighting for, men. This battle will bring the end of the war closer, and this war will mean the end of all wars.’

There is a thoughtful silence as the lieutenant returns to his dugout. As if to dispel the mood, the CSM says. ‘Piece of advice, lads. Leave your mucky pictures here. You don’t want them sent back to your nearest and dearest.’

As Macintyre empties his wallet of postcards, he says in an undertone: ‘At least you know what a cunny feels like.’

Andrew looks embarrassed.

‘You do know, don’t you? … Don’t tell me you don’t know.’

‘Don’t want to talk about that. It ain’t right.’

‘I’m going to find some French tart. Pay for it first chance I get. Speaking of which …’ He rubs his finger and thumb together.

Andrew hands over the sixpence. ‘Seaforth Highlanders, eh,Will?’ He wants to change the subject, to diffuse the tension, to retreat to the familiarity of their routine. ‘They’ll put the wind up old Fritz.’

‘Saw the jocks marching past in their kilts yesterday.’

‘We all saw ’em, Will.’

‘I heard they’ve got a piper going over with them.’