My Brother's Keeper (7 page)

‘Exactly how old are you, Barnes?' the Lieutenant asked, not looking at him.

‘Nineteen, sir,' said Alfie, instantly on guard, his heart racing now.

‘Are you sure about that?' The Lieutenant met his eyes, voice soft. ‘If you are too young to be out here, then you only have to say. You wouldn't get into trouble, and you could be at home in a few days. You have my word on that.'

‘I'm nineteen, sir,' Alfie repeated stubbornly. ‘I just look younger.'

The Lieutenant frowned and held his gaze for a moment. ‘As you wish, Barnes,' he said at last, turning to walk away. ‘Let me know if you change your mind.'

Alfie almost called him back then and there. The idea of leaving this hell and not having to go back into the front line was tempting indeed. But Ernie and George couldn't go home, could they?

He did have a question for the Lieutenant, though.

‘Er… begging your pardon, sir,' he blurted out. ‘But did you really mean what you said at Cyril's funeral? About us all being just sheep for the slaughter?'

The Lieutenant paused. ‘I'm sorry, that just slipped out. That's the problem with being a vicar's son, I'm afraid. I have a Biblical quote for every occasion.' He glanced at the church, his face taking on a thoughtful
expression. ‘In fact my father didn't want me to join the army at all. He brought me up to believe that I should care for my fellow man, not kill him. That I should always be my brother's keeper.'

‘I'm sorry, sir,' said Alfie, confused now. ‘Did your brother join up too?'

The Lieutenant smiled. ‘No, he's far too young – he's only fifteen.' He paused, and Alfie felt his cheeks redden. ‘The phrase is simply a figure of speech,' the Lieutenant went on. ‘A way of saying that we should all look after each other. I joined up partly because I thought I would be able to look after the men under my command.'

‘Like Captain Wilkins, sir,' said Alfie. ‘And not like Captain Johnson.'

A silence fell between them. The line of the Lieutenant's jaw tightened, as if he wanted to say something and was resisting the temptation. The guns were rumbling somewhere in the distance, but it was impossible to tell whose they were.

‘Captain Johnson is a very brave man,' said the Lieutenant eventually.

Then he turned away once more, and walked off without looking back.

After three days in the rest area Alfie almost began to feel normal. His nerves were still on edge and he found it hard to sleep, his dreams full of images from the last few weeks that easily turned into nightmares. But the horrors faded in the morning light, and he spent most of his waking hours roaming the countryside, enjoying the calm of a small wood where he climbed the trees, forgetting everything for a while.

Ernie clearly wasn't happy. To begin with Alfie assumed he was still suffering because of Cyril. But then they all were, and Alfie soon realised it was more than grief. Ernie was worried about something else – and that worried Alfie too.

‘What's wrong, Ernie?' he said at last. They were in the barn, eating the dinner Ernie had prepared. ‘You've got a face like a wet week in Margate.'

Ernie sighed. ‘The word is that we'll be getting an invitation to the party after all. I asked Jonesy and he reckons it's definite.'

‘He doesn't always get it right.' George's face was serious now too. ‘I heard it's going to be happening further south, to help out the French.'

‘Maybe,' said Ernie. ‘But I wouldn't bet on it. All the signs are there – Battalion HQ isn't making us work, they're leaving us alone so we can build up our strength. And they're giving us plenty of great grub, too. We're being fattened for the slaughter.'

There was the Lieutenant's word again, thought Alfie. Ernie was right. That lorry had been in the village every day, and had been joined by two more. Alfie had never been as well fed, but now he felt sick, and put down his dinner unfinished.

‘So you reckon we're going to be in an attack,' he said. ‘Like the raid.'

Ernie and George glanced at each other.

‘Yes, I think we're going to be in an attack, Alfie,' said Ernie. ‘But it's going to be bigger than the raid. A hell of a lot bigger.'

Early the next morning the Battalion was summoned to a parade in a field outside the village, the men forming up by company behind their officers and sergeants. Alfie stood in the front rank between Ernie and George, with Jonesy, Lieutenant Reynolds and Captain Johnson in front of them. Tension seemed to hover over the assembled men like an invisible thundercloud. At last a group of officers on horseback arrived: Colonel Craig, Major Sanderson, others Alfie recognised from Battalion HQ.

‘ATTEN…TION!' yelled Jonesy as the officers reined in their mounts, his command echoed by the other sergeants. The men did as they were ordered, a thousand booted right heels thumping down on the mud, a thousand chins snapping upwards.

‘At ease, men,' said Colonel Craig, raising his voice so everyone could hear. ‘I won't keep you long today, but I wanted to bring you some excellent news…'

‘Don't tell me,' whispered George. ‘Fritz has surrendered and we're going home!'

Ernie smirked and Alfie snorted with bitter laughter, loud enough for Jonesy to hear. Jonesy turned to frown at him, and Lieutenant Reynolds
looked round too, his eyes holding Alfie's for a second. The Captain seemed not to have noticed.

‘…I know you're all as keen as me to show Jerry what we British are made of, and you're about to get your chance,' the Colonel was saying. ‘There's going to be a big push in this sector, one that will finally knock the Hun for six. And because one of our brave officers has recently proved that the Battalion has plenty of fighting spirit, I'm delighted to say the Commander-in-Chief has agreed to us taking the lead.'

The Colonel nodded at Captain Johnson, who did his best to look modest. Alfie could feel Ernie bristling with anger beside him.

‘Fourteen dead to prove that,' Ernie muttered. ‘Fourteen, including Cyril.'

Your officers will brief you on your tasks, and I'm sure you'll be doing some training,' the Colonel went on. ‘I'm also sure that you will do your duty for King and Country and honour the great tradition of the Regiment. Carry on.'

The Colonel saluted, and the sergeants yelled ‘ATTEN-TION!' again as the staff officers rode off. The men weren't dismissed and allowed to return to their billets, though. They were to be briefed immediately about the attack, the Big Push.

It was done by company, each captain explaining to his men the overall strategy in which they were to play a part. Alfie and his mates and the rest of their company squeezed into a small hall behind the village church and listened to Captain Johnson. He summarised the intelligence that had been gathered about the German units they would encounter, pointing as he did so at a large map of the German trenches that had been pinned up on the wall. He also said there was to be a massive bombardment first, three days of heavy shelling before they went over the top and attacked.

‘Which means, of course, that all the Huns will have been blown to pieces,' said the Captain with a grin. ‘We can simply stroll across and capture their trenches, then next stop Berlin! The cavalry will be waiting behind us to complete the breakthrough.'

‘That's good, isn't it?' Alfie whispered to Ernie. ‘We'll be all right, won't we?'

‘You saw how deep Jerry's dugouts are,' said Ernie, whispering too. ‘It doesn't matter how heavy the shelling is, they'll survive it. As soon as the bombardment stops they'll come back up into the trench with their machine guns and wait for us.'

Alfie felt his stomach turn over at the thought of walking towards a trench-f of Germans pointing
machine guns at him, and found it hard to concentrate on the briefing after that. It didn't last much longer, but there was more to come the next day. There were briefings about objectives, strong-points in Jerry's system they were to seize by certain times, and what signals they should use to send messages.

The shelling began on the following day. It wasn't the usual dull rumble that Alfie had almost got used to, but rather the angry roar of a giant, a furious rolling thunder that went on and on and made the ground shake beneath your feet and your teeth ache. Alfie thought about what it had been like to be under bombardment, and he knew this would be much worse, however deep your dugout might be.

Things moved quickly after that: weapon and kit inspections, ammunition and Mills bomb distribution, the march back to the trenches the day before the attack was to take place. Nobody sang this time, the Company swinging down the road in almost total silence, each man lost in his own thoughts. They spent a cold, wet night in the reserve line, a thousand men with rifles and full packs crowded together, trying to sleep, all of them failing. The guns were still roaring, the sky full of the sound of shells whistling down to explode a few hundred yards away.

Alfie sat huddled between Ernie and George, clutching his rifle. Further down the trench a man was muttering a psalm, starting again as soon as he finished, one line sticking in Alfie's mind: ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…' Another man was moaning and rocking back and forth where he sat. Others were praying, or trying by candle-light to write last letters to their families. Somebody else was going round with a sack, getting men to put into it whatever money they had to be shared out by the survivors after the attack.

‘This is mad, totally barmy,' Alfie muttered. ‘We're all going to die, aren't we?'

Ernie turned to look at him and squeezed his shoulder. ‘I'm not going to lie to you, Alfie. There's a good chance you're right. But you never know.'

‘I just hope it's quick and clean,' said George. ‘And that Mad Jack cops it too.'

‘I'm with you there, George,' said Ernie. ‘I'd like to blow his head off myself.'

Alfie huddled down even further, remembering when he'd reported to the Colonel that Captain Wilkins had been killed, and the Colonel had asked him for his thoughts about a replacement. If he had
known then what he knew now, Alfie told himself, then he would have begged the Colonel to keep Captain Johnson as far away from him and his mates as possible. Not that it would have mattered. The whole war was crazy, and the Colonel might have found them a captain who was worse.

Just before dawn Jonesy came down the trench, telling the men it was almost time. The guns fell silent, the absence of their roar shocking, the only noise now the soft murmuring of the men, the clicking of bayonets being fixed. Ladders were raised to the parapet and queues formed at their feet, the men waiting as the sky slowly grew lighter in the East, the sun rising over the battlefield.

Alfie shuffled forward with Ernie and George, a memory of trying to get on a packed London bus coming to him. This was one bus that none of them should be getting on.

Just then Captain Johnson arrived with Lieutenant Reynolds. The Captain strode along the trench, Webley in one hand, a whistle in the other, both on lanyards round his neck. ‘Right, my lucky lads!' he said, grinning, raising his whistle. ‘Remember, advance slowly, keep well spread out, and give them hell! Everyone ready?'

Something snapped inside Alfie. If this was madness, then why were they doing it? He turned away from the ladder and moved back through the crowd.

‘No, we're not,' he said, looking Captain Johnson in the eyes.

Then he threw his rifle down between them.

Further down the trench in both directions Alfie could hear voices and the clink of equipment and the scrape of boot-soles on wooden rungs as men started climbing onto the ladders. But a pool of stillness had formed around him and the Captain, everyone nearby staring at them in tense silence for several heartbeats. Then Jonesy came bustling through the crowd, roughly pushing the others out of his way.

‘Come on, son,' he said, stopping in front of Alfie, his voice gentle in the way it had been when he'd spoken to Alfie on the night of the raid. ‘That's no way to speak to an officer, is it? Now be a good lad and pick up your rifle. We've got a job to do.'

‘You're wrong, it's not a job,' said Alfie, his eyes still fixed on the Captain's. ‘It's slaughter, that's what it is. He's going to get us all killed, and for nothing.'

‘Arrest that man and have him removed, Jones,' said the Captain. ‘We can't afford to waste any more time listening to riff-raff like him spreading sedition.'

‘I hardly think there's any need for that,' Lieutenant Reynolds said hurriedly, pushing his way through the crowd too. ‘Especially as it will mean that…'

‘He'll be court-martialled and shot?' said the Captain. ‘Well, good riddance – it's no more than the little coward deserves. I've half a mind to shoot him myself.'

Then Ernie was beside Alfie, holding his arm and whispering, his voice full of urgency. ‘Don't give him the satisfaction, Alfie. Pick up your rifle and come with us. At least that way you'll have a chance. We'll take care of you, I promise.' Then Ernie turned to address the Captain. ‘Sorry sir, he'll be all right once we get going.'

‘What are you talking about?' Alfie yelled, trying to pull himself free of Ernie's grasp. ‘Cyril's dead because of him. None of us are going to be all right.
We'll just get slaughtered so he can get another pat on the back from the red-tabs. I'm doing this for you, Ernie, and for George, and for everyone else who doesn't need to die!'

‘That's enough,' snapped the Captain. ‘Sergeant Jones, I gave you an order.'

‘Er… yes sir,' said Jonesy. He grabbed Alfie's other arm, but Alfie shook him off and advanced on the Captain, Ernie desperately trying to hold him back. Alfie stepped over his discarded rifle, his boots skidding on the muddy duckboards,