SIXTY-THREE
Lieutenant Metcalf moved along the fire trench, fighting for grip on the slimy duckboards, past the gas alarm stations and the snipers, the observers with their periscopes and the machine-gun crews in their raised strongholds. He kept his head down, below the sandbagged parapet. The water table was high here and the trenches relatively shallow. Sandbags and wooden planks were used to give the excavations extra depth, but even so, it was far too easy to expose yourself to enemy fire for his liking.
He found Tugman, Farrar and Moulton together, as always, in a sodden funk hole, looking miserable as they chewed on their hard tack biscuits.
‘Don’t get up,’ he said, even though they had shown no inclination to do so.
‘No hot breakfast this morning, sir,’ said young Moulton.
‘No, so I heard,’ said Metcalf, who had enjoyed a meal cooked by their batman in a rather spacious dugout. ‘The supply column didn’t get through. They’ll be here this evening.’
‘Funny how we got more bullets through, though,’ said Tugman, indicating a new ammunition box.
‘Tugman, a word, please,’ Metcalf said.
The corporal struggled to his feet and stepped out of the alcove into the body of the trench. Metcalf indicated they should move along, out of earshot of the others. They turned the corner of the trench and halted at a small redoubt, excavated to protrude a little way into no man’s land as a forward observation post. At the far end a box periscope, unmanned, had been nailed to an upright plank of wood.
Metcalf offered the corporal a cigarette, which he took. ‘Tugman, I know we don’t always get on or see eye to eye, although I confess I have no idea why.’
Tugman lit his cigarette and didn’t offer an answer.
‘Well, Captain de Griffon and I were talking, and we were saying that, despite that, you are the most senior and capable of the men.’
Senior? Well, he was thirty-five, which made him an old ’un for a Pal. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, with Shipobottom and Platt gone—’
Tugman began a laugh that turned into a hacking cough.
‘You all right, Corporal?’
‘Blimey. You’re not offering me an extra stripe are you, Lieutenant?’
Metcalf didn’t like the tone one bit. ‘As a matter of fact, we are.’
‘Must be mad,’ Tugman muttered.
‘I beg your pardon, Corporal?’
‘I said it makes me sad, sir.’
‘What does?’
Tugman puffed on the cigarette. ‘To have to turn you down.’
Metcalf put a foot on the firestep. ‘And why would you do that?’
‘Because the last two who got that stripe ended up dead, that’s why. Permission to speak freely, sir.’
‘Granted.’
‘The men is frightened. They ain’t stupid, not a bit of it. Someone killed Shippy, then Platt tries to kill a f*ckin’ major and gets shot for his trouble. We all saw Captain de Griffon rolling around in agony; lucky to be alive he is, I reckon.’ He pointed over into no man’s land. ‘When we signed up for this, we thought we knew who the enemy was. Over there. Fritz. The Hun. But who’s the enemy now? Time was you could stand on that firestep and at least know your back was covered. Not now, though. The enemy might be the bloke next to you, the one bringing the tea, even your lieutenant.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
They both heard what sounded like a ragged volley of gunfire.
Tugman shrugged. ‘I’m just sayin’. You were in with the captain when he took queer, like. You tell me what’s goin’ on?’
‘I have no more idea than the next man. But the Military Police are investigating.’
Tugman curled his lip at the mention of the despised ‘cherry-knobs’.
‘So “no” is your final answer?’
Tugman nodded and said something, his words drowned out by the roar of a misfiring engine. A crippled German plane came low over their heads, trailing oily smoke as it tried to maintain enough height to reach its own lines. That’s what the shooting had been. Pot shots from trenches further back.
Without thinking, Metcalf unbuttoned his holster and raised his revolver to have a pop at the now vanished plane. He levered himself up on the firestep. As he did so, Tugman heard the faintest of metallic pings and Metcalf stepped back.
He turned to stare at Tugman, a dazed expression on his face. ‘Damn,’ he said softly.
A curtain of blood oozed down his forehead towards his eyes and his knees buckled. The revolver clattered onto the firestep and bounced off into the sludge. As the young officer collapsed onto the duckboard, Tugman stepped back to give him room to fall, looking down at the neatly drilled hole in the Brodie helmet that clearly showed where the sniper’s bullet had entered Lieutenant Metcalf’s skull.