SIXTY-NINE
The first crater they came to was rank, the water in the bottom slimy and green. Even in the weak moonlight, they could see gas bubbles forming. Something was decomposing beneath the surface. Man or beast, it wasn’t clear. A rat the size and shape of a rugby ball was scurrying around the edges of the fetid pool.
‘Best push on,’ said de Griffon quietly.
Private Farrar looked longingly over his shoulder, back to the tumbled wire of his own lines.
‘Come on there, Farrar,’ said de Griffon in hushed tones. ‘Think about the leave this’ll earn you if we come back with a live one.’
‘Sir.’ The voice that came from the blackened face was tiny and devoid of any enthusiasm. The deal they had struck earlier no longer seemed such a bargain, out here in no man’s land. At any second, they knew the sky could burst into revealing light and machine guns spit in their direction. The sense of vulnerability had tightened their sphincters and loosened their bladders. Farrar thought he might vomit.
‘Now,’ hissed de Griffon, waving them on with his revolver. ‘Let’s be going.’
They slithered through the icy mud to the next depression in the ground and rolled into it. It was then that Tugman had his first seizure. ‘Jes . . .’ he started. De Griffon’s hand clamped over his mouth.
‘For God’s sake, man,’ said de Griffon. ‘You trying to get us killed?’
But Tugman had begun to thrash, he held his hands up, which were bending into claw shapes and apparently causing him fierce agony as they did so. His eyes, wide with fear, coupled with the boot polish on the face made him look like a music-hall minstrel.
‘What the f*ck’s the matter with him?’ Moulton, a boy of barely eighteen, asked in a terrified hiss.
Tugman began to groan and his feet lashed out, as if he were cycling. De Griffon grabbed the ankles.
‘Look, you two, I want you to move over there to . . .’ He took off his cap and risked poking his head above the rim of the crater. Steel helmets were avoided: there was a danger of them clashing, and any metallic noise was a magnet for enemy fire. ‘. . . that fallen tree there. See it? Good cover. Just watch for trip wires or booby traps, OK? I’ll take Tugman back and join you shortly.’
‘Shouldn’t we all go?”
‘Don’t get windy on me. You two go on.’
The two younger men looked doubtful. They exchanged glances. De Griffon pointed his revolver at the pair. ‘Now. If we go back empty-handed now, we’ll be strapped to gun limbers by dawn.’
The two men knew that, whereas they might face such a fate, it was unlikely the captain would suffer Field Punishment Number One. The blame for any failure would fall onto them, the lowest of the low.
‘’Ow you gonna get ’im back, sir?’
‘How do you think? Over my shoulders. I’ll be back before you know it. Now move.’
He watched the pair take their rifles and move off as if Satan himself was at their backsides. He laughed to himself at that. Satan was at their backsides, if only they knew it.
De Griffon turned his attention to Tugman. From his belt pack he took out the billiard ball he had purloined from the dugout. Then he put his gloved fingers in Tugman’s mouth, forced the teeth apart and rammed the ivory sphere home. With his cravat, he fashioned a gag, which went around Tugman’s head and fastened at the front. When the soldier struggled he punched him.
He leaned in very close, his lips next to the left side of Tugman’s head, his breath warm and cloying in his ear. ‘Now, let’s see how that holds up.’
He withdrew the man’s short trench-raid knife from its sheath and plunged it up to the hilt into Tugman’s thigh. His body arced in a spasm of agony, but hardly any sound came from the mouth. Tears welled out, skittering over the layer of boot polish on his cheeks.
‘Good enough.’
Machine-gun fire, some way to the south. Dat-dat-dat. Some other poor bastards out there, no doubt.
‘It was the rum, of course. The poison usually takes an hour or so to have an effect. You had quite a dose. So we haven’t got long. I’m going to tell you a story. Ready?’ He twisted the knife handle and Tugman thrashed. ‘Ready? Good. Then I’ll begin.’
‘What do you mean, he’s gone?’ Watson demanded.
Major Tyler shrugged. They were in the dugout recently vacated by de Griffon. Watson lifted a cigarette end from the makeshift tin ashtray. It was still warm to the touch. ‘He can’t have been gone very long. Why didn’t you detain him?’
‘As soon as I got your message, I tried to call the forward trenches,’ said Tyler, a remarkably young man for his rank, who spoke with the merest hint of Lanky burr. ‘But the Germans have severed the telephone lines. Absolute bloody fiasco. Engineers trying to sort them out now. So, I sent young Fairley here to put him into custody.’ He indicated a fresh-faced fop of a subaltern who was wearing a fashionable Yeltra trench coat and a pair of Harrods War Comfort knee-high boots. He was having trouble complying with the King’s Regulation that stated the upper lip must not be shaved. What was under his nose could hardly be described as a moustache. ‘But de Griffon had already left on a grab mission.’
‘A what?’ Watson asked.
‘To grab one of the enemy. More, if possible. We need to know why they have such good Intelligence about our movements. Patrols like that go out quite often. Volunteers. Which are in short supply. So, when de Griffon offered . . .’
They paused as a trench mortar round detonated nearby, dislodging dust, sand and straw from the roof of the bunker.
‘That’s just to stop us sleeping,’ said Tyler. ‘A way of keeping us disoriented. So, you can reckon on Captain de Griffon being back by dawn.’
No, he couldn’t, thought Watson. ‘His name isn’t de Griffon.’
‘So you said. Really, it’s quite a story you have there, Major Watson.’
He had to agree with that. ‘It is. I assume he hasn’t gone out on this patrol alone?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Tyler. ‘Lieutenant Fairley, do we know the make up of the raiding party?’
‘Sir,’ said the subaltern in his high, fluting voice. It was as if it hadn’t broken yet. ‘Quite a small one. Just the four. The captain, Corporal Tugman and Privates Farrar and Moulton.’
Watson groaned.
‘What is it? Do you know these men?’ Tyler asked.
‘Not at all. Not personally. But I tell you, when he comes back, if he comes back, he’ll be alone.’
‘What do you mean?’
Watson ignored him. ‘Lieutenant Fairley, how did they get out into no man’s land?’
‘Through a newly dug sap, sir. Engineers do the dig after dark. They run out under wire. Only good for a night or two before some Fritz sneaks over and lobs a concentrated charge in. That’s six stick grenades tied together. We do the same with theirs, mind, with Mills bombs. Up until then, there’s a ladder, up you pop and there you are. The famous no man’s land. If you want to be out there, that is. I’ve done it a few times. That’s enough for me, I can tell you.’ He giggled and cast an anxious eye at Tyler, but his commanding officer didn’t react to the admission.
‘Can you show me?’ Watson asked.
‘I suppose so, yes, sir.’
As Fairley pulled the gas curtain aside, a tardy thought struck Tyler. ‘Major Watson?’
‘Yes?’
‘One thing.’
The ground shook and heaved beneath them and for a moment Watson felt giddy. His ears popped as he opened his mouth to speak.
‘That’s a mine detonating,’ said Tyler, brushing off his shoulders the debris that had fallen from the ceiling. ‘I know it felt near but it could be hundreds of miles away.’
Watson had heard that British miners were tunnelling under the German lines and vice versa, the idea being to blow each other to kingdom come with no warning. ‘You were going to ask me something?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Tyler. ‘If de Griffon isn’t his real name. What is?’