The Promise (21 page)

‘Not once you get your ear in. If you lived in France for a while, you’d get to know the difference between someone from Paris and someone from the south,’ he said, looking hard at the Londoner. He seemed familiar, but Etienne couldn’t think why. He didn’t think he’d ever spoken to a red-headed Englishman, not here or anywhere else.

‘How are your lot holding up?’ the corporal asked. ‘We heard it’s been a massacre, over eighty thousand dead.’

‘So it has been said, perhaps even more,’ Etienne sighed. ‘But then the Boche have lost almost as many. What are you going to French headquarters for?’

He noted the way they all exchanged glances.

‘You don’t have to tell me just because I bought you a drink,’ he said. ‘Only curious.’

‘Actually we’re picking up a couple of our men,’ Red said. ‘It’s not clear whether they deserted or just got lost. Your lot picked them up.’

‘But you’re not Red Caps, are you?’ Etienne despised military police and if he’d known these men were that he wouldn’t have bothered to help them.

‘Hell, no. This isn’t an official trip. Our captain’s a good man, and these two that went missing are old hands and good soldiers. We all thought they were on the wire when they didn’t get back after going over the top; we lost so many that night and some of the bodies just got buried in the mud. But then Captain got the message they’d been picked up and he remembered that there’d been thick fog on the night in question. It’s easy to lose all sense of direction in that. So he felt they should be brought back for him to question. If he’d sent the Red Caps after them they wouldn’t have a prayer.’

Etienne raised one eyebrow. He’d never before heard of any officer, French or English, giving anyone the benefit of the doubt where desertion was concerned. He’d been told French soldiers were shot as they ran away at Ypres, but they weren’t deserting, just trying to escape poison gas. ‘Then they are very lucky,’ he said.

‘I don’t think deserters, whether intentional or accidental, should be shot,’ the red-headed man said heatedly. ‘It’s a waste of life. If they’re windy, they should be given jobs as base rats – they need men there just as badly as in the trenches.’

‘Our Little Red Reilly would stick up for the rights of a rat if it was about to bite him in the balls,’ the corporal said with a wry grin. ‘Good job we know he’s not a windy bastard.’

The name Reilly gave Etienne a jolt. All four Tommies laughed, but he could only stare at Red in astonishment.

It couldn’t be Jimmy, surely? Not just because he was a Londoner, called Reilly and had red hair. It was too much of an outlandish coincidence. Besides, Belle’s Jimmy was a publican, he wouldn’t have enlisted, not until it was compulsory. And even if he had, was it likely that fate would bring two men who loved the same woman together at a wayside
estaminet
in France?

He had only seen Jimmy once, that day he went to Blackheath, and fleetingly and from a distance. All he really remembered about the man was that he was tall and had red hair; he hadn’t got a good look at his face. As for thinking he looked familiar, it could be that his mind was playing tricks on him and all these months of hell were finally making him crack. Reilly was a common enough English name; there must be hundreds in London alone.

‘What’s up, mate? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’

Etienne was jolted again by the corporal’s remark and forced a smile. ‘Just thinking how I’d react if a rat bit my balls,’ he said.

Conversation resumed about the poison gas attacks. ‘We was lucky we’d been stood down that day,’ Bin said. ‘Their faces went black, they was coming out of the trenches tearing at their throats, ’orrible it was.’

The corporal spoke of how they were told to cover their mouths and noses with a cloth soaked in water or their own urine, and said their captain had told them that the men who had died from it had actually drowned from the foam in their lungs.

‘You had any of it here?’ he asked.

Etienne was just about to say that he hadn’t experienced it himself, but he’d heard a great deal about it from men who had, when the corporal’s attention was diverted by the sight of a man just inside the door of the
estaminet
with a plate of food.

‘They’ve got egg and chips,’ he exclaimed. ‘Gotta have some of that!’

The corporal leapt to his feet, quickly followed by Bin and Donkey. Red asked them to get some for him too, and stayed with Etienne.

Being suddenly alone with Red seemed the perfect time for Etienne to scotch his daft idea.

‘Were you called Red back home, or did you get the name here?’ he asked.

The man grinned. ‘At Etaples the drill sergeant called me carrot head. Once he saw I could shoot straight it became Red. It stuck with the other blokes, but my name is really James, known always as Jimmy.’

Etienne felt a chill run down his spine and his mouth went dry. ‘What did you do before enlisting?’ he managed to ask.

‘Ran a public house with my uncle,’ Jimmy said. ‘Mostly I think I must’ve had a screw loose to join up. My wife was expecting, and I was still at Etaples when I got the news she’d lost the baby. I got sent home because she was so ill, and I can tell you, I was tempted not to come back.’

‘Is that why you are sympathetic to deserters?’

‘Maybe. Belle was in a bad way, she’d been attacked and robbed in the shop she ran, and I felt I shouldn’t have left her when I did. But she pulled through, even went back to her shop for a while. But she’s given that up now and she’s doing voluntary work at the Military Hospital.’

Etienne wished he’d stayed sitting against the tree stump and hadn’t intervened with these men. That way he could have gone on believing that Belle was living the kind of happy life she deserved.

‘Nursing?’

‘Well, she’s the ward dogsbody, but she’s made of the right stuff to nurse. She’s got the crazy idea that if she gets some experience at the hospital, she can join the Red Cross after a bit and come out here and drive an ambulance.’

‘That’s no job for a woman,’ Etienne said. He’d only seen a couple of female ambulance drivers, and they’d been hatchet-faced women with nerves of steel. ‘It’s dangerous, they often come in quite close to the front line. Don’t let her do it.’

Jimmy grimaced. ‘If my Belle gets an idea into her head, there’s no shaking it,’ he said. ‘But the hospital is so busy now with wounded, they depend on her, so I’m hoping she’s given up the idea. She hasn’t mentioned it in her letters for a long while now.’

Etienne’s whole being wanted to say he was aware how stubborn and hot-headed Belle was, but he knew he must not. If he admitted who he was, he might also reveal his feelings for her by accident. He couldn’t let the man go back to the battlefield with that on his mind.

‘I must go now, I’m due back,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘It was good to meet you. Keep your head down, and keep that wife of yours safe at home for when you get back.’

‘I’m very glad we met you,’ Jimmy said, getting up too and shaking Etienne’s hand. ‘You keep safe too. And thanks for the wine and the directions.’

Etienne walked away swiftly. He heard Jimmy call out that he hadn’t told him his name, but he pretended he hadn’t heard and kept on going.

‘Where’s the French bloke gone?’ the corporal asked Red as he came out with two plates of egg and chips. ‘I got him some too.’

‘He had to go back,’ Red replied. ‘Shame, he was a good sort. I meant to ask him for a few phrases to help when we get to the French HQ.’

‘Looked like a tough bastard,’ Bin remarked as he came out, also carrying two plates of food. ‘Did you see his cold eyes? No wonder the Frenchies backed off when he shouted at them. Before we got ’ere I thought the French were a load of nancy boys.’

‘Why? Had you “Bin” with one?’ Donkey asked teasingly and all the men roared with laughter.

‘I’ll have the Frog’s chips then,’ Bin responded. ‘And you lot can whistle for a share-out.’

As Etienne walked back to the camp he felt shaky. He’d managed to put Belle to the back of his mind after he left England in 1914, but today’s events had brought her right back into the front of it.

He might have spent less than half an hour with Jimmy, but that was long enough to see what he was. It might have been satisfying to find he was a dull weakling. But he was a strong, principled and forthright man, with that quiet steadiness which made a first-class soldier and the best kind of friend.

Would Belle come out here? Most women, he thought, would be far too scared even to consider going to a country in the grip of war, but Belle had more courage than was good for her. She was also single-minded when she wanted something, whether that was escaping from Martha’s in New Orleans, or getting her own hat shop.

Chapter Twelve

1 July 1916

‘That’s a bleedin’ lark!’ Donkey remarked, looking upwards at the clear blue sky, trying to spot the singing bird as he drank his rum ration. ‘’Ere, Red, reckon that’s a good omen, or is ’e just ’appy that the guns have stopped at last?’

It was seven thirty in the morning, already very warm, and after five days of constant and deafening bombardment of the enemy lines the guns had suddenly cut off. Now it was eerily quiet apart from the birdsong. Even the German guns had fallen silent.

Jimmy and his regiment had marched here to the Somme from Ypres two weeks earlier to join what had looked like the whole British army camped out for miles behind the lines. As always, no one had seen fit to tell them why this part of the Western Front was important to the generals. They had just been told that there were no major roads or rail centres close behind the German lines, and up till now it had been a quiet sector. Yet whatever the reasons for this being chosen for a major push, the men’s first reaction was mainly delight, as it wasn’t marshy ground like Ypres. Chalky soil meant trenches wouldn’t get flooded, and it was pretty, verdant farmland with the river Somme meandering through it.

Only yesterday Jimmy finally learned that this battle was to draw the Germans away from Verdun and ease the pressure on the French army still fighting there. His captain had said that the five-day bombardment had smashed the enemy’s barbed wire defences and wiped out all the men and guns in the first line. Now as they waited for the whistle to signal the first wave of men to go over the top, they all believed it would be like a walk in the park across No Man’s Land, and the fighting would only start once they reached the second line.

‘The lark is a good omen,’ Jimmy said, gulping his rum ration down in one. He wasn’t entirely convinced it was going to be as easy as everyone thought. But it was good to have the heavy guns silenced, and to enjoy the warm sunshine.

The peace was short-lived. All at once the British guns started up again, this time trained on the enemy’s second line of defence. At the signal the soldiers who were lying in position out on No Man’s Land rose up and set off with their officers at a steady, well-rehearsed pace towards the enemy.

Then it was time for the first wave of men to go over the top. Jimmy and his chums were in the second wave, and they held back, watching the officers running along the parapet shouting encouragement and leaning in to give a hand to over-burdened men laden with full packs on their backs to pull them up and over. From Jimmy’s position he couldn’t see what was happening elsewhere on the line, but he knew it would be identical to here. Once down on the other side there was their own barbed wire to go through, but sections had been cut the previous night, or duckboards would make a bridge over it.

‘Us next,’ Bin said cheerfully, stamping out his cigarette almost gleefully. ‘By God, I’m ready for this.’

It was then they heard enemy machine-gun fire. Not just a few guns, but hundreds of them, all firing at once. Bin’s grin vanished and Donkey turned to Jimmy with a look that said, ‘I thought we’d knocked them out.’

‘It sounds worse than it is,’ Jimmy said, but his insides were turning to water as he stepped forward and urged the others to do the same and take their places ready for their turn to go over.

The waiting, vision obscured by the high trench walls, was the worst. The sound of machine-gun fire ringing in their ears, the weight of their heavy packs on their shoulders and the sick feeling they might not even make it across to No Man’s Land was terrible. Men who had been laughing a short while ago were now pale and twitchy, and Jimmy saw one young lad vomiting further along the trench.

But all too quickly the order came. As they reached the parapet Jimmy saw the enemy front line was fully manned, and the Germans were focusing some of their guns on the gaps in the British barbed wire. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Men were lying dead on the wire with their comrades being forced to climb over them.

Yet further ahead was even worse. Jimmy thought more than half of that first wave were already dead or lying wounded on the ground and in the second before he too jumped down he saw still more of the remainder fall.

He got through the wire, waited a second to regroup as they’d been instructed, and with Donkey to his right and Bin to his left set off at a purposeful plod into a rain of bullets.

Donkey was hit within ten yards. His body jerked forward as if he’d got an electric shock, then fell back motionless. Just one glance told Jimmy he was dead; he’d been hit in the chest and blood was pouring out of a gaping hole.

‘Come on, Red,’ Bin urged him when he hesitated. ‘You can’t do anything for him. We’ll make it.’

On they went through the enemy fire. Jimmy offered up a silent prayer for his own safety as he saw more men he knew well stagger and fall all around him. The smoke, the rapid rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire and the screams of the wounded were terrifying, but he couldn’t falter, they had to reach the enemy lines at all cost.

A sudden searing pain in his upper right arm alerted Jimmy that he too had been hit. He looked down in horror and saw blood pumping out. He went on, but his arm felt as if it was on fire, the pain so bad he was lurching from side to side. He could barely hold his rifle – firing it would be impossible.