It seemed to Belle she was always waiting. Waiting in a queue of ambulances to get loaded up, waiting for letters, for a war that seemed interminable to end, and waiting for a morning to break when she didn’t wake wanting Etienne so badly that it hurt.
As Etienne sat cleaning his gun early in the morning, sheltering from the rain in a makeshift bivouac, the sound of English voices wafted over to him. This was the first battle in which his regiment would be fighting alongside the Tommies. He had the greatest respect for the ability of the British to endure all that was thrown at them; they fought doggedly and bravely, and showed far fewer signs of the apathy and weariness that was affecting so many of the French.
He had thought he’d caught a glimpse of Jimmy Reilly last night carrying a stretcher to a dressing station, but told himself his mind was playing tricks on him as there had to be many tall, red-headed men amongst their number. Yet the thought persisted and he found himself pricking up his ears in an attempt to hear what the Englishmen were saying.
The odd word he did catch meant nothing to him, just banter between soldiers, and he asked himself what good would come of knowing Jimmy was close by. The answer to that was that it would be a distraction he didn’t need. Belle was enough of a distraction already; thoughts of her dogged him constantly and if he closed his eyes just for a second he would see her dark curls framing her lovely face, clear blue eyes smiling at him and soft plump lips waiting to be kissed.
There were times when he regretted seeking her out at the hospital; if he hadn’t had that one night with her she wouldn’t be burdened with guilt now. He hated himself for putting her in such an impossible position, yet he wanted her so badly that he felt compelled to keep the pressure on.
He stood up, draped his waterproof cape around his shoulders and surveyed the scene around him. Thick, glutinous mud surrounded every waterlogged tent. The misery of it was reflected in every face as the men dragged on a cigarette, tried to shave, drank lukewarm coffee, wrote a letter or cleaned a gun. They had all but forgotten what it was like to be clean and dry, to eat a hot meal at a table and sleep in a warm bed. Etienne and all these men would be moving forward later today, off out on to that hellish No Man’s Land where the heavy guns would churn up bodies from both sides that had sunk beneath the mud on previous assaults. The stench of death, the ear-splitting barrage of gunfire, and the terror that today might be your last – that was the soldier’s lot.
In his twenties Etienne had always relished a fight. But smashing a fist into the face or belly of a man you had a grievance with was one thing; here it was kill or be killed. He’d seen enough Germans at close quarters now to know they were just boys, like the men under him. There was no satisfaction in seeing a man scream out in agony as a bullet hit home. On the occasions they’d got to a German bunker and been faced with terrified boys screaming ‘Nicht schiessen’ he’d felt sick to his stomach. How many of the soldiers here would revisit these grotesque images again and again in their minds after the war was over?
At two in the afternoon the whistle blew, and Etienne and his squad leapt out of their trench into No Man’s Land, protected to some extent by the heavy guns behind them firing over their heads at the enemy lines ahead. It was tortuous from the outset. The pack on each of their backs weighed around eighty pounds, some men had a shovel on their back too, and the extra weight made them sink into the mud up to their knees. Each step required great effort to pull out the foot which was being sucked down by the mud, and the driving rain made it impossible to see further than a few yards ahead. Etienne knew that there were supposed to be ten men to every yard of front, and in theory, after such a prolonged bombardment, if they were able to trek straight across to the enemy lines their numbers would be sufficient to take and hold that position.
But the theory hadn’t taken into account that a distance of one mile became four or five when the men had to wind their way around huge water-filled craters. Then the shelling began before they were thirty yards in. There was nowhere to take shelter, not a tree or building was left in this godforsaken place, just the odd gaunt tree trunk stripped of bark and leaves standing like a monument to devastation.
As shells hit the mud they sprayed muddy water thirty or more feet up into the air like huge geysers, making the visibility even worse. It was virtually impossible to keep his bearings; he could see Tommies who had strayed over with his men and doubtless just as many French had found themselves among the Tommies.
Etienne paused to signal to those lagging behind to keep up, and he hoped as they floundered in the mud that they had taken note of his last order before they moved, which was to make sure they kept their matches dry. Some of the newer recruits had looked puzzled at this order, but they would discover the reason for it later. The only thing worse than being trapped and wounded in a shell hole was finding yourself there and unable to light a cigarette.
As he was looking back for his men, the number of Tommies coming towards Etienne made him realize that by the time they all reached the German lines the two armies would be mixed up together. Another shell exploded and he saw two of his men thrown into the air and dismembered before falling back into a soupy hole in the ground. Then another shell exploded, and a Tommy went the same way.
No longer entirely sure that he was keeping to a straight line, but able to see through the rain that two Germans manning a howitzer were picking off men like fish in a tank, he paused momentarily to fire at them. He had a few seconds of grim satisfaction at seeing them slump forward over their gun. Then, looking around him again, he could no longer see any of his men behind him, only Tommies plodding determinedly towards the German lines.
Etienne had survived the horror of Verdun and been at the later stages of the Somme too, and it was because of what was cited at the time as ‘conspicuous gallantry’, in rescuing his wounded captain, that he was promoted to sergeant. Yet hideous as those battles had been, he thought this was far worse. The combination of slippery, sodden ground, torrential rain and the hellish shell holes filled with stinking water, often with bodies in there too, made it hard to make any real headway. Finding himself alone with shells bursting all around him, he paused in the shelter of a half-sunken tank, hoping that his squad would catch up with him and they could go on together. As he waited he fired his gun, picking off Germans who were firing relentlessly at the men running towards them. A stray bullet caught him on his lower arm, but he carried on shooting until he’d either killed them or they’d ducked back down under cover.
A Tommie ran past, so close to him that Etienne had to pause firing in order not to hit him. The soldier was slipping in the mud, then he fell, and as he did so his helmet fell off to reveal red hair.
Instinct told Etienne this was the same man he’d seen last night and thought was Jimmy. As he stared, considering going to his aid, a shell exploded in the space on the ground between them.
For a moment Etienne thought he’d been blinded by the blast as he couldn’t see anything. But though he could feel the wound in his arm, there was no pain in his face. He touched it gingerly, and recognized it was just covered in thick mud thrown up from the shell. He groped for his canteen of water in his pack and splashed it into his eyes. To his great relief he could see again.
But the red-headed man had not fared so well. He was writhing on the edge of a shell hole, his left leg and arm a bloody pulp. As he tried to move, Etienne saw his face. It was Jimmy Reilly.
This man had crept into his dreams many a night. It was always the same, Jimmy on one side of him, Belle on the other. He would look from one imploring face to the other, and he didn’t know what to do. He would try to run from them, only to find he couldn’t move.
The dream seemed prophetic now. And just like in the dream, he didn’t know what to do.
He had liked Jimmy when he met him in Verdun and his instinct was to run and help him. But then Belle flashed through his mind and he knew this could be the answer to her dilemma. Left here, the man would die of blood loss; maybe another shell would finish him off before that. Nothing and no one would stand between them.
But as he watched, Jimmy slithered over the edge of the shell hole and down into the fetid water. His hand was held up, fingers moving as he desperately tried to find something to cling on to.
It was something about the hand that got to Etienne. He’d shaken it that day near Verdun. He couldn’t let a man drown in front of him, especially one he’d liked.
Another shell exploded nearby, and Etienne darted out from behind his shelter and grabbed the man’s hand, hauling him out of the hole. Jimmy’s face was covered in mud, and he was so caught up in his pain he didn’t appear to realize anyone else was near. Etienne looked around him. It seemed the last of the troops had gone forward; there was no sign of any of his men. There were many others, both English and French, lying either dead or wounded, but as yet the shelling was still too heavy for the stretcher bearers to come and carry the wounded away.
One of the army rules was that no soldier was allowed to break off from an assault to rescue another man; they were supposed to press on to the German line and do their job. Jimmy would not drown now, but he could be hit by another shell.
Etienne was torn. As a sergeant, his duty was to find his men and lead them on, yet the image of Belle’s distress was too strong for him to leave Jimmy. He could imagine her tear-filled eyes, and knew that even if it meant that the way would be clear for him to have her for himself, he just couldn’t have it on his conscience that he’d left her husband here to die.
Frantically scanning all around for a stretcher bearer he could signal to come, but seeing none, he knelt down beside Jimmy and wiped the worst of the mud from his face. ‘I’ve got you now, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘You’re badly hurt but I reckon I can carry you back to the line.’
Jimmy looked up at him, tawny eyes full of pain. ‘You can’t help me,’ he croaked. ‘You’ll get into trouble and I’m not going to make it anyway.’
‘Allow me to be the judge of that,’ Etienne said. ‘It’s going to hurt like hell while I carry you, but I can’t leave you here.’
Etienne put down his pack, then hoisted Jimmy upright till he was standing on his one good leg. He was close to passing out, so Etienne put his shoulder into the man’s belly and let him fall forward across his shoulders. He managed to grab his rifle as he straightened up and then set off back towards the line.
It had been hard enough getting that far out into No Man’s Land on his own, but bent double with a dead weight on his back, making his way through thick mud, with shells exploding all around him, it was almost impossible. He plodded on, however, every muscle and sinew aching with the effort. At one point, when he almost fell sideways into a water-filled shell hole, he wondered why he was doing it.
A couple of hundred yards from the line French stretcher bearers appeared. ‘You’ll be all right now, Jimmy,’ he said as they drew closer. ‘I’ll leave you now, got to get back and join my men.’
The stretcher bearers lifted Jimmy down from his back and on to their stretcher. ‘Prenez bien soin de lui. Son nom est James Reilly,’ he said.
As the stretcher bearers reached the line and other men came forward to help, they turned to look at the Englishman’s rescuer. They knew he was wounded too, he’d had a gash in his tunic sleeve and fresh blood was running down his hand. But he was running at full tilt, leaping over shell holes and around obstacles towards the German line. They shook their heads in wonderment. ‘Il doit être fou,’ one said.
‘What was the name of the man who carried me back here?’ Jimmy asked some time later, after he’d been given morphine for the pain. He could only remember fragments of what had happened earlier. But he felt he knew the man’s face and that he’d called him Jimmy.
‘Je suis française,’ the nurse said, and shrugged as if that was the end of the matter.
‘He was French,’ Jimmy said. The man might have spoken to him in English but he knew he’d been wearing the French blue uniform. It was too hard to make any further attempt to make the nurse understand him because his mind was growing cloudy.
They moved him again later. He heard someone say Hôpital de Campagne, which sounded like a field hospital. The pain came back from ruts in the road as he was being driven in an ambulance with other men, and he intended to ask about his injuries, but they gave him another injection before he could and then he felt too sleepy to care.
It was daylight when Jimmy woke again, and he was in a place that looked like a barn with rough stone walls. In the light that came through two small windows, he saw there were perhaps twenty or more other men in there with him.
He was thirsty and tried to sit up, but to his horror his left arm was gone; there was just a heavily bandaged stump above where his elbow had been. A nurse saw him trying to move and she came over, putting her finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet. She helped him to sit up and drink some water, and it was only when he looked down at the bed that he saw just one mound instead of two beneath the covers.
‘They’ve taken my leg and my arm off?’ he blurted out, pointing to where they had been.
She nodded, and patted his remaining hand.
He lay down again after his drink, closed his eyes and tried to tell himself this was just a nightmare. Both his leg and his arm felt as if they were still there, he could even wiggle his toes and fingers. But when he slid his hand down under the covers there was only one leg on the right. And he couldn’t make his left arm move either.
Biting back tears, he lay there listening to the low moans and groans from the other wounded. There was no gunfire; whether that was a ceasefire or because he’d been taken far behind the lines, he had no idea. He could hear rain splashing down outside. It seemed to have been raining for weeks. He would get a Blighty ticket now, but how could he go home like this, a cripple?