The Care and Management of Lies (18 page)

“W
hat’ve we got here, then? A letter for Private Gravy from his little wife at home. Here you are, Gravy. No nice cake this time.” Knowles turned to the other lads. “Amazing, ain’t it, that Gravy’s wife manages to bake him a cake, and I bet your old mum or your wife can’t get hold of a pound of flour, or the eggs, or butter.” He passed the letter to Tom and went on along the line, keeping up his line of dialogue. “Makes me wonder, it does, what Mrs. Gravy might be up to, to get things special.”

Tom felt the anger rise in his chest, and made to step forward. Cecil put up a hand to block him, even before he moved.

“Steady, Tom. Steady up,” said Cecil, his voice low. “He’s goading you, so let him go on his merry way. Remember what I said, toe the line and keep your nose clean. He’s got it in for you—and if it hadn’t been you, it would’ve been me, or one of the other lads. Hold on, don’t bite, and just read that letter from your missus and tell us what she’s cooked for you this time.”

Once the sergeant turned the corner, the men clustered around Tom.

“Come on, what’s on the table, mate?” said a voice from the back, and in the front of the gathering, a younger soldier, a boy some years from manhood, watched Tom as he removed the letter from its envelope.

“You hungry, lad?” asked Cecil.

The boy nodded, and pushed back his helmet. “Not ’alf. Go on, read us the dinner.”

Tom cleared his throat and began halfway down the page, changing some of the words as he went on.

“Seeing as I’d used fruit in the gravy—which as I’ve said, really brought out the flavor of the liver, and did away with that bitterness the meat can sometimes hold—I thought I should give you something quite different for your pudding. Well, I’d never made a soufflé before—it always seemed so much trouble—but I thought it was time I made my peace with the recipe. It’s just as well you weren’t in the kitchen, because I know your fingers would have been in the bowl for a taster before I’d poured the mix into a tin for cooking. In fact, cooking with chocolate gave me another idea for gravy, so—”

“What do you think this is—effing storytime?” Knowles had returned to shout his orders. “Atten-shun!”

The men came to attention. Tom felt his heart leap in his chest, and with a swift movement crumpled the letter into his pocket.

“You can all get back to your posts toot sweet, or haven’t you noticed there’s a war on? The bleedin’ Hun are having a party over there while you’re all listening to Private Gravy go on about the liver or duck or whatever it is he’s having for his bleedin’ dinner. Quick march! And I’ll be along the line to check those shining rifles, so make sure every barrel is fit to blind me.”

The men scurried back to their positions. Knowles came close to Tom, as close as he had ever been.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you, Private Gravy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir is right. And what am I going to say, Private Gravy?”

“You’re watching me, sir.”

“Too bleedin’ right I’m watching you. Now then, I want a volunteer to go out on sentry duty tonight. Not just standing-on-the-fire-step sentry duty, but a bit of time-out-there sentry duty. Lovely starry night it is for it. And who do you think should be my volunteer?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

Knowles mimicked a schoolboy voice. “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

Tom remained still, his eyes looking past Sergeant Knowles.

“Well, let me give you a little clue, Gravy, being as you’re so nice and warm and filled up with a good dinner inside you, and you know what duck means. You, lad, are on sentry duty. I’ll be along after the stand-to, to tell you when to go over, all right, Gravy?”

“Yes, sir!”

Knowles nodded. “You’ll have a bit of string on your leg. I’ll give it a yank when it’s time to find your way back—that’s if that sniper over there don’t find you first. Thank your lucky stars I’m not sending anyone out on a raiding party tonight. Bit too clear. Now, then, you’ll want to get that there rifle shining like the moon, because I’ll be back in a minute to inspect it. Thought I’d give you a minute or two to get going with a bit of cloth. Back to your post, Gravy, on the double!”

Tom saluted and marched two steps to his position, where he began to clean his rifle, an almost impossible task in the front-line trench, part of which had collapsed earlier and had been hastily rebuilt with sandbags and an old brass bedstead brought up from a supply trench. But when he was sure Knowles was well away, Tom took out another letter, this one from Thea. He would not have known that Edmund Hawkes read his letter from Kezia, or that the officer had, in his hurry to find a letter to Tom from his wife, missed an envelope bearing Thea’s return address. There was only one page, half filled with writing, and in that moment, looking at her distinctive strong hand with large letters looped together, Tom felt a chasm open in his heart. The weight of love in Kezia’s pages seemed to shine a light on the shallowness of Thea’s message, as if she had nothing to say to him, and he wondered how they had come to this division, though at the same time he suspected he knew—Thea felt left out. In fact, Tom knew she had always felt as if she were something of an outsider, and though he had tried, in his way, to make her feel less so—even in boyhood—it was easier to pretend that everything was all right with Thea. And she would never have spoken the truth of her feelings anyway. Instead she allowed her frustration to emerge in a bitter comment or in something she did—or, more likely, didn’t do. She can’t even bother to write a decent letter, and she was a teacher! thought Tom.

Dear Tom,

I thought I would let you know that I am leaving for France tomorrow, so you won’t be the only Brissenden over there. Father would still say you were the brave one though, wouldn’t he? My training has more or less finished, but we will be doing more once we’re at the hospital. I was going to say that perhaps I’ll see you, but I hope I don’t because I’ll be driving an ambulance, so you won’t want to think about seeing me.

I’ll tell you all about Christmas with Kezia’s parents when our paths cross again. Kezia and her father are so tight, I’ve never known two people discuss so many subjects in such a short time. Not only that, but when I look at them together, I can see Kezia in her father. But Kezia’s people have always been good to me, and to you as well, so I think a lot of them. Reverend Marchant is a military chaplain now, though I don’t think he’ll be in France. He wears a uniform, and keeps on at the church while he’s back and forth to the camp on the town recreation ground.

In any case, I’ll write when I can.

Your sister,
Thea

Night drew in, and as Knowles predicted, it was a clear midnight-blue sky above. Cecil mentioned something about it being like a Vincent van Gogh. Tom had no answer for him. He had no idea who this Vincent was, with his—what did Cecil say?
Starry Night
? Soon Knowles came along the trench, which was quieter now that most of the men were bedded down, though few would sleep more than a snatched few minutes here and there. No one wanted to die in their sleep, set upon by an enemy raiding party, or with a shell landing on them. You had to stay awake, listening, ready to move. Knowles poked Tom in the ribs with the business end of his gun and marched him to the fire step. Though there were only a few men in the trench, Tom felt as if they were watching and waiting. Only a fool or a young too-curious soldier new on the front line was stupid enough to put his head above the parapet, but here he was, sent out into the night on sentry duty. He wondered if Edmund Hawkes knew about this—or was he tucked up in the officers’ dugout, toasting tea cakes and drinking tea that tasted like tea? At that moment, Tom longed for the burn of his rum ration bathing the back of his throat.

“Up you go, Gravy, and mind your noddle. That Hun ammo can go straight through your helmet—it makes you wonder why they bother to give ’em to us.” Knowles grinned, then looked around him. “Unless any of you lads not kipping want to go too, I reckon you should pay attention. Them of you whose time it is for forty winks had better take it, and them of you who’s on watch, well, you’d better watch!”

Tom set one sodden boot on the next rung on the ladder, then the next and the next, keeping his head down as much as he could, his chin almost on his chest. Scraping against the soil, he crawled out of the trench. A few shots came from the German trenches, but they were without target, a discharge of ammunition meant to bring terror into the hearts of the enemy. The evening hate, the lads called it. Dawn would bring the morning hate. Behind him, Tom knew his muckers would be doing some shooting hate of their own. He just hoped they aimed high.

“Don’t you worry, Gravy, I’ll keep an eye on you. We’ll tug you back in time for you to get some shut-eye before the show tomorrow.” Knowles seemed almost cheery.

Tom had no reply. He crawled along the ground to the sentry position, the low stump of a shelled tree. He moved to one side, then lay down on his stomach, his Lee Enfield pointed towards his foe. His eyes, now accustomed to the dark and focused on the German trenches, were searching for shadows across no-man’s-land, the telltale sign of an enemy raiding party on the move under cover of night.

Was it minutes passing, or hours? Did he see something move? Yes—rats. He’d never tell Kezia about the rats, the size of them, like cats, and the way they feasted on the dead. They said—the boys who’d been up the line a few more times than him—that the rats didn’t wait until the cease-fire, until the stretcher bearers from both sides came out to collect the dying. No, they said the rats, especially those big black bastard rats, would be eating a man even before he met his maker, that you could hear them gobbling up intestines while men with just seconds of life left in them called out for their mothers.
Keep still, it’s only the rats moving.
Tom knew he would be here again, running past this very spot, the next morning, God willing he made it through the night. And God willing he was able to run that far. Was Knowles trying to kill him, or make an example of him? And why him? He’d never been one to be singled out—mind you, he’d never been anywhere much to be noticed in his entire life, just the college, then back to the farm, and the farm was his. His mind seemed to jump like electricity, a spark bounding from thought to thought. Yes, the farm was his.
We’re not serfs with a lease any more, thanks to old man Hawkes
. Tom smiled, then widened his eyes. What was that? He fingered the trigger.
No, better not. Don’t make a sound—the minute they know where you are, they’ll fill you full of holes.

Tom felt like two people, one on watch, and one telling him what to do. One looking back and one forward. And looking back, he saw Kezia, in the kitchen, preparing his dinner. He could smell the lavender in the linen cloth as she shook it across the table, and felt the soft fabric as he took up the napkin, pulling it across his lap—embarrassed for himself and the womanness of it all.
Table napkins!
Yet he felt more of a man for having Kezia by his side, a wife who loved him enough to cook a meal even when he wasn’t there. He thought of the duck, of the succulent meat falling dark from the bone. He saw it on his fork, pushing into the sweet plum stuffing, and then into the gravy, filling it with a mouthful of flavors. In his mind’s eye Tom ate that meal, felt his stomach stretch to satiety and his eyes grow heavy. She goes a bit silly with that sherry, my Kezia, thought Tom. Was that a noise?
No, it’s only Kezia clearing the plates.
He didn’t have enough room for the apple and cinnamon, and the fresh cream, but perhaps, perhaps just a bite . . .

The string tugged at his leg.

“Still watching, Gravy?”

“Sir?” Tom tried to shout a whisper, keeping his voice low.

“Just checking. You can come back to the fire step.”

Tom crawled backwards, his eyes still searching.

“Right then. Young Mott here is on watch now. You can go to quarters, Gravy.”

“Sir!”

“And remember, Private Gravy. I’m watching you.”

“Sir.” Tom saluted, and quick-marched to the dugout.

F
resh orders arrived by runner before dawn, informing Hawkes that the attack had been canceled, pending further intelligence. They were to continue their pressure on the Hun but wait for further instructions, which could come as soon as this afternoon.

Hawkes looked at the runner, his grey eyes outlined by rolls of skin. He was a lad who had to depend only upon the speed with which his legs could carry him to avoid death. Killing a runner was a prize shot for a sniper. The young soldier waited for a reply. Hawkes nodded, and wrote a quick note to the effect that the message had been received, and that he awaited orders. He also awaited the engineers, who were supposed to be laying telephone wire. He hoped they’d turn up before this boy was shot for his trouble.

The runner took the envelope, ran back through the zigzagging front-line trench, to the turning marked “Maidstone Market,” and from there to the second line, and then the reserve trench, past the advance dressing station, and out onto the land. Hawkes listened to him splash-splash away, until he could no longer hear his boots meeting the mud with speed in his heels. Then he turned back to his desk and lit a cigarette. He had been in the midst of writing a letter when the message arrived. “I regret to inform you  . . . ,” it began. Hawkes sighed and picked up his pen, but instead of continuing the letter, he spoke aloud the words in his mind, another message that would not be laid down on paper.

“I regret to inform you, Mr. and Mrs. Mott, that your son could not keep his head away from the parapet, no matter how many times he was told, so he was picked off like a ripe fruit. Fortunately, Private Brissenden was close by, and managed to catch most of his brains before they hit the ground; however, he was unable to put them back in again. Sergeant Knowles of course says it was all the boy’s stupid effing fault—well, not to me he didn’t say it, but I heard him. I wonder why it is that the younger men who have just marched up to the front line for the first time feel the need to try to look over at the enemy. Is it part of the adventure they signed up for, this looking out at men their own age with guns? Perhaps you might know, Mrs. Mott, being the mother of boys. How many do you have out here now? Four, wasn’t it? Well, let’s hope the others listen to the men who manage to march back to camp after a few weeks in the trenches—find out the key to staying alive—”