ahead of Tom, in Fletcher’s party, one of the Tommies slipped on the side of a shell crater and went slithering down to its muddy bottom. Though he swore, he swore quietly, but his equipment broke from his pack and rolled clanking down the short slope.
The noise rang out like a siren.
For a moment, Tom held his breath. He could feel everyone behind and ahead of him doing the same. The night air remained quiet.
Then a gun opened fire, a rifle, sounding repeatedly. Whether the rifleman was German or British was never quite clear, but it took just seconds for the German lines to light up with fire. Tom felt the sudden, shocking horror of finding himself under attack. For an instant, he felt dull, stupid, incapable of action.
He looked around. Over to his right, he saw a shellhole, deep and – for the moment – safe.
‘Get into the shellhole now,’ he screamed, using all his lung power to bend his soldiers to his will. The force of his voice shocked them into compliance.
The men piled into safety. Tom counted them in, then followed.
The German fire intensified. A rising flare lit up the night sky. With the utmost caution, Tom raised his head to look out. First he saw nothing. Then, lifting himself still further, he caught a glimpse of Fletcher’s crowd, shockingly far off, in a crater much closer to German lines, and witheringly exposed. The light of the flare faltered and died. Tom lowered his head, just as bullets began to spatter into the earth above and around him.
He looked at his men, who were sitting safe but terrified in the bottom of their crater. He began to speak, but the men were still distracted and shocked. One of them – Tinsey – was nodding his head and rhythmically chanting: ‘Stupid, fucking, German, bloody –’
Tom struck Tinsey hard on the arm. Tinsey stopped. The other men looked wildly at Tom.
‘Now listen, all of you. You men are to get back to shelter, as quickly and safely as you can.’ Another burst of fire interrupted his words. Tom was sprayed with earth and he assumed everyone else was too. ‘You will leave in pairs and move when I say the word, not before. You will run like hell. If you find any man wounded or hurt, you will not stop. You will just run.’ One of the men was struggling with a big clumsy satchel of hand-hurled Mills bombs. ‘Denning, leave that. Leave it! Just put it down, man. All you others, are you completely clear about what to do?’
They were clear. Detaching the men in pairs, Tom sent them running for safety. The shellhole emptied. Tom was alone.
Particles of chalk moved grittily beneath his tongue: soil put there by a German bullet. Anger lit a fuse in him.
‘You stupid bastards,’ he screamed. He screamed it at everyone. The Germans, Wallace Fletcher, Colonel Jimmy, the good-natured riflemen of his battalion. He was screaming at High Command, whose war this was. He was screaming at Guy, who’d never been under fire and probably never would be.
The shooting was still intense, but it was concentrated on the party further ahead, pinning them down, leaving them unable to move. They’d be finished off by mortar fire, come the morning. Shifting position, Tom noticed his foot knocking against young Denning’s bag of Mills bombs.
His tide of anger rose higher.
He picked up the satchel and began to run.
It was three weeks later. Midday. The battalion had dropped back out of the front line, for two weeks of rest in the pretty village of Le Hamel, just six miles from the front.
Alan jogged along a narrow lane that wound down to a tiny stone-built cottage. His boots scuffed up the white dust that settled gently on the roadside flowers, poppies and saffron weed. As he reached a bend in the lane, Alan’s jog turned into a run. He ran up to the cottage and thumped on its crude wooden front door. From a window upstairs, he heard a voice.
‘Up here, old man.’
Tom had lived, but only just.
His anger had carried him all the way to within spitting distance of German lines. Once there, he’d thrown himself flat and begun hurling Mills bombs like a bowler at some demented cricket match. His fury kept him at it, aiming and throwing with an extraordinary intensity. What he managed to hit, nobody knew, but this much was certain: the fire that had swept over Fletcher’s men became scattered and confused. Fletcher seized his opportunity and raced home with his men: their lives saved.
Once Tom had finished his satchel of bombs, he’d done everything he could. His anger left him. Clarity returned.
Somewhere to the east, dawn was getting ready to light its lamps. Tom was so close to the German lines, he could hear their sentries break wind. Slowly and with infinite care, he’d backed away. As he’d crawled, he must have been hit, because he felt a sudden impact in his left arm, followed a few seconds later by the slip and slither of blood. He’d found a shellhole and tumbled into it. He’d put a dressing on the wound, closed his eyes a moment – then woke at noon with the sun high in a perfect sky and larks singing crystal in the echoing air.
He had no food or water.
The crater around him was hopelessly shallow.
So he’d lain there. All day, all through a golden evening into night. Then when darkness had fallen, he’d begun to crawl home, desperately weak. He would never have made it, except for Alan.
About three in the morning, Alan found him, stretched out unconscious, head pointing for British lines. He’d hooked a hand into his belt and dragged him home.
Alan crashed open the wooden cottage door, and leaped up the rough ladder leading into the loft. Tom lay on his bed, half-dressed, left arm in a clean white sling. He put down a book and smiled. Except for his wounded arm, he looked astonishingly fit and healthy. Soldiering had given Tom (and Alan supposed, himself as well) an extra edge to his physique: more hardness, more confidence. The two men clubbed hands together, a new gesture for them.
It was the first time they’d seen each other since the raid. They were changed men. They’d both experienced danger and death close at hand. They’d both come to understand fully what war might mean.
‘By God,’ said Alan, ‘so now we know what it’s all about.’
Tom nodded. ‘Yes. It was one hell of a night. Two nights, actually. I didn’t think I’d see a third.’
Alan nodded. Then his expression lightened and he released Tom’s hand. ‘Anything to bunk off duty, eh?’
‘One of my brighter ideas, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes, well, everyone has you marked down for an MC now. And a bloody well deserved one at that.’
He was pleased for Tom, of course. He knew that Tom deserved a Military Cross and would almost certainly get it. And yet … the twins had always been competitive. They’d
