He said, ‘Barton.’
He was panting with the effort of trying to go more quickly, he was forced to stop and rest for a long time. But he was out of the wood now and going inch by inch through the mud. Every couple of feet he came up against a body or a pile of bodies, odd limbs or rifles, helmets, packs. A full water-bottle. He ripped the cap off and poured the contents down his throat, crying with the relief it gave him. The next few yards were better, he could get on to his knees for a short way.
Until he came upon Parkin. He did not see who it was until the man’s face was almost under his hand. He was lying on his back, arms stretched out wide and his chest and stomach half torn away. But his face was relaxed, his eyes open and looking up into the night sky, the rain splashed down gently on to him. Hilliard touched his flesh. It was cold, moist. He wondered why Parkin had come so far and whether he had been on his way back with the dressing. But looking behind him he saw that in fact he had only come a few yards out of the wood, it had taken perhaps two or three hours and felt like fifteen miles. He lay down, putting his face against Parkin’s arm, and wept with frustration. Somewhere close by another man was groaning. Hilliard said, ‘Shut up, shut up, for God’s sake shut up!’ But it was only a whisper. He felt helpless. He let his face fall forwards again.
The next time he moved, remembering that he had to get back to the dugout to find Barton, the whole of his left leg and part of his side had gone numb, so that crawling was easier, though he did it clumsily. The shells were bursting around him again now but they seemed to have nothing to do with him, and he went on. He only wished there were some other sign of life apart from the crying of the wounded and the blasting of the guns.
It was not until the middle of the following morning that he reached their trenches. As he staggered forwards and then tumbled down the firestep, almost knocking over a sentry, he saw that he was nowhere near his own end of the front line, the men who came along were strangers. It seemed to matter, he wanted to get up and go on, to leave them, find his own platoon. Find Barton. He heard them calling for stretcher bearers.
‘You’ll be all right.’ Who was saying that? A man with a large nose, bending over him. ‘You’ll be all right.’
But it should have been Barton. Where was Barton? Vividly, then, he remembered the first time he had seen him, as he had climbed up the ladder to the apple loft at Percelle, and the sense of that place was so great, he thought that the smell of the old, sweet apples was in his nostrils and he wondered if he were not still there.
Someone put water to his lips but as he was drinking it, he wanted to get up again, he tried to sit and resented the hands of the men who were pushing him back.
‘It’s only my leg.’
‘Yes, sir. You’ll be all right now.’
He was crying, his body ached all over, his head was throbbing.
‘They keep coming in like this. We had another half an hour ago but he died as soon as he got here. How do they do it?’
‘How did he get here? B Company lieutenant, is he?’
‘They got most of the way up, as well – this one must have been near the top of the slope.’
‘I didn’t think there were any of them left.’
‘One or two, I suppose.’
‘Let’s get him up, Hammond.’
‘It’s all right, sir, we’ve got you. You’re all right.’
He heard their voices and saw their mouths opening and shutting and was too tired to take any of it in, he had no idea what they were talking about, forgot where he was and did not care. He felt himself lifted up and the pain in his leg was so bad that he yelled out as they bumped him, beginning to walk along the trench.
Twice they had to get into a traverse or duck down because of shells coming over and exploding nearby. Hilliard wondered how it could be worth their while to send down shells, for how many men were left alive after all those he had seen dead, on his way down here? The stretcher bearers were swearing as they lifted him up again.
‘Oh Jesus Christ!’
‘Sorry, sir. We’ll be as steady as we can. But they keep sending stuff over.’
Hilliard was puzzled. What were they saying? Were they talking to him? Who were they talking to? What was happening? He did not know. He knew nothing.
‘Hilliard.’
The voice came from somewhere else, it had nothing to do with him. And then suddenly it was near, his ears were full of it, he felt the words hitting him in the face like blows.
‘Hilliard.’
He remembered someone saying, ‘Lift him down.’
Who was talking to him?
‘Hilliard.’
He opened his eyes. Captain Franklin’s face came into focus, the same, blank face, behind the gingerbread moustache.
Then he remembered that people had been before, people he knew, his name had been spoken to him. Who had come? There was something he wanted to remember.
‘How do you feel?’
‘I don’t know.’ So he could speak then? ‘Yes,’ he said aloud. Then again, ‘I don’t know.’ And he heard the words quite clearly, that was his own voice. He tried again. ‘I’m in a hospital.’ ‘Yes.’ That was Franklin’s voice. ‘The Battalion’s been moved down here for a couple of days. We’ll be on our way again after that. I managed to get in to see you though.’
Hilliard found difficulty in piecing together the meaning of what he was saying.
‘I’m sorry you had such a knock.’
He did not know exactly what Franklin meant by that, either. He was still uncertain what had happened to him. The nights and days slid into one another like cards and were full of disconnected noises and the pain in his leg. People came and gave him food and drink and spoke to him, he saw them staring down.
Oh God, what had he to remember? What must he try to remember?
He had heard the rain, too, pattering on and on against the windows behind his bed. Rain.
‘You’ll be here for a week or so. They won’t send you home until they think you can cope.’
‘No.’
‘Is there anything you want?’
Was there?
‘Has your mail been getting through all right?’
He did not know. He knew nothing.
The light went pale and then dark again around Franklin’s head, Hilliard tried to focus his eyes and could not. The light went very bright, then broke into millions of shiny silver pins in front of him.
After another week they let him sit up and then he read the letters which had come from his mother and father and Beth, the letters full of formal expressions of love and sympathy, behind which lay whatever they were truly feeling.
‘You’ve got another parcel. You get a lot of parcels, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Would you open it for me?’
She opened it and he made her take things around the ward again, share out figs and chocolates and cigarettes. He wanted nothing at all.
‘There’s another letter today, too.’
He looked at the postmark and the handwriting, and did not open it.
Yesterday a letter had come from the old Major, a short letter dictated to his daughter.
We hear things are improving out there. It’s a good cause. We send our regrets that you’ve had bad luck with your leg. We send kindest wishes for your recovery.
They had amputated his left leg though he still did not believe it, because of the continued pain.
‘Could you close the window? It’s raining on my pillow.’
‘Oh, we can’t have you getting wet!’
She stood up for a moment looking out. She had red hair. ‘Will it ever stop raining!’
Now that he was feeling so much better he did not care about his leg, he cared about nothing. But he wondered whether Franklin would come back and talk to him again, tell him what he wanted to know, tell him all of it.
There was no news. He had no visitors.
They let him sit up in a chair one morning. Then he knew what he m
ust do. The letter had been on his table for ten days. He had to open the letter. Outside it was still raining.
‘Drink your soup, Mr Hilliard. You’ve got to eat and drink now.’
He drank his soup.
‘You’re going home next week.’
In the night the sound of the guns rattled the windows. Still his leg hurt him.
Dear John,
We do not know exactly where you are – whether you are in England yet or still in hospital in France. We have no news of you but we hope that you will get this letter and, when you are better, get in touch with us. We do not know, either, how much you have heard but we beg you, if you have news, whatever news it is, to write and tell us. We have only had the telegram and then a typed letter informing us that David is missing believed killed, but we have received nothing else, none of his belongings. And we had not had a letter from him either, for some time, we were becoming anxious.
We made contact with your family at Hawton, who have replied to our letter and told us that you have been wounded and have lost your leg. But the letter took a time to reach us because ours was wrongly addressed. So we are hoping that if you are not still in France the hospital will forward this to you.
John, we have only you to ask for news, you have been with David, and we can only talk of him to you. There is no one else. And you have been close to him, you are sure to have so much to say to us. Please write and we will either come and see you in hospital or where you are convalescing, or at home, or hope, most of all, that you may be able to come to us. Please do that if you can, we feel that we are friends and know you so well already, we should so like to have you here to stay. I cannot write more now, I am too anxious for this to reach you, and I am afraid of distressing you when you are ill.
Yours with love
Miriam Barton.
But by the time he had read it another letter had come, there were two in the same handwriting, the same postmark at which he could hardly bear to look.
I am letting you know that we received a letter from a Captain Franklin – we think he was your Adjutant? He could tell us nothing at all about David except that he was believed killed in the wave of men going forwards into fire at the battle of Barmelle Wood. But he wrote very sympathetically and kindly and now we have had forwarded to us some things of David’s, mainly books and clothing and odd personal belongings. There was also an unfinished letter which he was writing to us perhaps the night before the fighting. He had not dated it. We will not send it to you for fear that it may be lost – we still have no news of you. But if and when you come here to us, we should like you to read it. Unless you have already done so, for we know David shared his letters with you.
We are still hardly able to believe in this terrible thing, because there is no certainty. We hear stories of men who have been reported dead and who have walked in at their own front doors, fit and well, weeks later, and so we cannot stop hoping against hope, just because of this lack of final, certain news. David may be alive in a hospital somewhere?
Then, he wrote to them, because he could not do anything but tell them the truth. He half-thought of inventing a story, as he had done in the past about the deaths of other men, forming the usual, smooth phrases about gallant deaths, killed instantly, having suffered as little as possible. When Fawley had blown out his own brains, he had written such a letter, none of the man’s family would ever know. He thought of it.
He wrote.
I have to tell you that I do not know anything at all, anything, about David, but that it is now very unlikely indeed that he will be alive. There are not often unidentified men in hospital because we all wear tags and these are almost always forwarded to the Division. I do not believe that David can be alive after having seen where he was that day. It is likely, as the Adjutant has said, that he was walking into the line of fire and was shot down. But I do not know.
Please do not think that I am deliberately trying to kill your hopes but it seems best to me that you should know what is the most likely truth.
I am glad that you have now his things at home with you.
I am returning to England in two days’ time now, and will probably be in hospital and then convalescent near Oxford. I am out of the war for good, of course, but cannot look ahead at all. I am feeling better and learning to manage crutches.
Please, I would rather that you did not come and see me in hospital or especially, at home. I would rather wait for a while. But I should like to have a letter if you can write to me and I should like to come and see you when I am able. It will not be for some time. I want to see you in the places I have heard about. I will let you know when it can be.
No, I did not see the last letter, we were very busy for nights before the battle, and we saw very little of one another at all, for talking or reading. There were only a few hours, the night before the battle, when we had a word, and I will tell you of that, though there is little to tell, when I do see you.
It was another hour before they finally pulled away from the harbour. The boat was not so crowded as Hilliard had expected, and he managed to find a corner and ensure some privacy by hemming himself in with cases and crutches. For, more than ever, now, he wanted to be private, set apart, he drew back from anyone who tried to come near to him. Only within himself, he was forced to think, to think. The worst of it was that he did not know. Their letter had made him realize that. He would rather have seen anything, so long as it had been certain.
Would he?
He no longer knew. He wanted to return to the past, nothing more.
After some time, he got a Corporal who was passing to help him up on to his crutches and he tried to walk down the boat to one of the seats by a porthole. Twice, he overbalanced, as the ship rolled, fell and swore. They got him up again. He knew that it was easier here than it would be when he got home. Here, everyone was wounded, men were bandaged, deformed, sick, nobody stopped to stare, everyone had themselves to think about most of all. He dreaded the eyes that would follow him, once he got back. Dreaded everything.
The sea was grey as gunmetal and heaving, under a livid sky. It was snowing and the snow was taken up and whirled about by the wind and splattered softly on to the glass.
He did not want to be back in England.
A gull came out of the greyness of sea and snow, beating its wings and skidding over the water.
He had a sudden complete picture of Barton in his mind, he could have turned and seen him standing there, could reach out a hand and touch him. He could …’
The boat dipped, nose-down, into a trough of dark water, lifted again.
He would be at home for Christmas. Christmas …
He turned and began the painful journey back to where he had left his things.
At Dover the sleet blew down on an east wind into their faces. Some of the men were singing.
‘Is there anything you would like us to bring for you, John? We shall be coming early next week. Is there anything you would have us send?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Books? Do you have plenty to read?’
‘There’s a library here.’
‘Well, you should take advantage of it, you should be reading, dear, there is always some diversion to be had from a good book, it will take your mind off things.’
‘Yes.’ Then he remembered. ‘There are one or two books I should like.’
‘Well of course, but tell me quickly, dear, I have to be ready to leave at four, the Garnetts are coming to dinner.’ His mother took out the small gold notebook and the small gold pencil.
‘The collected works of Sir Thomas Browne.’
‘B-R-O-W-N?’
‘No, with an E at the end. And The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, and a novel called A Room with a View.’
‘Mr Forster.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Yes, Harrods will have that, certainly.’
‘Harrods will have them all.’
‘Wouldn’t you like som
ething light? I could ask them to find you some more novels.’
‘No. That’s all I want.’
‘Do they feed you well enough? Shall I have Mary bake you a plum cake?’
‘They feed us very well. Don’t fuss now, mother.’
‘Well, it is the least I can do, to make sure you are properly cared for.’
‘I am.’
‘And how long before you will be home?’
‘About another fortnight. But they will let me come for Christmas Day and Boxing Day, before that.’
‘I should hope so!’
He did not want to think about Christmas. Constance Hilliard rose.
‘You look very beautiful, mother. You always look very beautiful.’
She inclined her head, smiled at him, as Royalty would smile. She wore a dark fuchsia dress, full-skirted, and with a coat of deeper, more purplish red, a hat with purple feathers. When she walked away, the other men in the room looked up from their books and letters, watched her go.
Hilliard turned back to the window.
It was an old house, someone’s mansion given over for the duration of the war, so that they sat among beautiful pictures and tapestries on beautiful chairs at beautiful tables. Down the long lawn between the beeches, a man swept up the last of the leaves. It was growing dark, the sky was full of great, scudding clouds. He knew no one here and had made no friends, he spoke as rarely as possible, so that they watched him and formed their own judgements, assumed that he was shell-shocked or unable to accept the loss of his leg. Men left, others came. Hilliard sat by the window, watching the sky and the black trees. He thought endlessly about Barton.
But when the books came he could not bear to read or even to open them, he only stared at the covers and kept them in a pile on the locker beside his bed.
He woke one morning and wondered what he was waiting for, how long it would take before he ceased to feel simply dazed, as though life were suspended forever and had no longer anything to do with him. When would it begin?