SEVENTY-ONE
Watson was standing on the filthy wooden ladder, looking out over no man’s land, when he saw the briefest muzzle flash. For a second, he thought he was dead, having taken a step too far. He fell back into the wet, newly excavated sap, and slipped onto the duckboard that covered the bottom. His hand sank into the yellowish mud that caked everything as he tried to steady himself. As it went in he felt something hard to his touch. Bones. They were everywhere, glistening and protruding from the walls. This wasn’t a trench; it was an open-topped ossuary.
With some effort, Watson extracted his hand from his glove, then recovered the glove itself and shook the glutinous clumps from it. ‘You all right, sir?’ Fairley asked, shining his blackout torch with its slit-like aperture onto him.
‘Yes. Fine,’ Watson said, feeling anything but. There was a gurgling at his feet. Freezing water was seeping into the trench. Soon it would be an ankle-deep slurry. And they hadn’t been exaggerating about the stench of the front line or the size of the rats. He swore you could have saddled some of the ones he had seen darting from the water or scurrying along the duckboards.
‘Sniper,’ Fairley said with a frown. ‘That was a Mauser, I believe. They might be having a little trouble out there.’
Watson struggled upright and brushed himself down. ‘More than you can imagine.’
‘I can imagine a great deal out there,’ he said, with a slight tremor in his fluting voice. Watson realized just how very young he was. ‘The army can train you for almost everything. Except what it’s like to be frightened day and night.’
He said it without self-pity. It was, Watson knew, absolutely true, fear was a long-term, almost subliminal companion on any front line. Watson was touched he would dare to confide such a thing to him. ‘Rugby was it, Lieutenant?’ This was a wild guess.
‘Winchester, sir.’
‘Very good. Always reassuring to have a Wykehamist at your back,’ Watson said.
The lad brightened at that. Complimenting his old school was a surefire way to gain a subaltern’s trust.
It was icily cold in the trench, but Watson shrugged off his greatcoat and handed it to the lieutenant. He didn’t need the bulky item restricting his ease of movement out there.
Fairley took it with a puzzled expression. ‘What are you doing, sir?’
Watson unclipped the top of his holster and took out the Colt .45 automatic that poor old Caspar Myles had presented to him. He pressed the button and dropped the magazine. Full. But he had no spare. Seven rounds would have to suffice. ‘Going to try and stop him, Lieutenant.’
‘The captain? Stop him doing what?’
‘Murdering any more people.’
Fairley looked taken aback. ‘Are you serious, sir?’
Watson realized how ridiculous he must look to the youngster. An old man about to go ‘over the bags’ and charge into one of the most lethal few yards of ground on the planet. A flutter of fear began in his stomach, as if a small bird were trapped in there. ‘Completely.’
‘Right.’ The lieutenant folded the greatcoat in the crook of his left arm. ‘If you must go, sir . . .’
‘I must.’
With his free hand, Fairley scooped a fistful of wet soil from the sides of the excavation and smeared it all over Watson’s face.
‘In the absence of a balaclava.’ He stepped back and examined his handiwork. ‘That’ll give you a fighting chance.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’
‘And keep your gloves on. Hands show up out there, too. And hold on.’
Fairley disappeared for a second, leaving Watson shivering in the brutal cold radiating from the excavated earth and the water ascending his legs in increments. At least, he hoped that’s what the shivering was from.
Fairley returned with a Very flare pistol.
‘No, really,’ Watson said, balking at the size of the barrel.
The lieutenant unbuttoned the major’s tunic and shoved it inside. ‘Take it from one who spent a whole night and day out there once. Hiding among the dead men. There’s a red flare in it. Not white. In this section of the line, red means “Man fallen. Come and get me.” You fire that, someone’ll try and reach you. At least we’ll know you are alive and out there.’
‘Thank you, Fairley.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’ll try not to be that much trouble.’
Fairley took the hand. ‘That would be jolly kind, sir. I wish I had a tot to give you. Helps no end.’
The last thing Watson wanted was alcohol. ‘I’ll manage.’
The lieutenant looked over his shoulder. ‘Go on, sir, there’s someone coming. Probably wondering who is raiding the sap supply locker. They might not be as accommodating as me about the flare, sir. Might think you’ve taken leave of your senses.’
Watson put a foot on the first rung of the ladder and waited until the moon was masked. The jittery bird in his stomach had returned to its perch and a strange calmness had come over him. ‘They might be right, young Fairley. They might be right.’
As if in agreement, lighting up the blackness behind him and cracking open the sky, the British guns began firing.