No Man's Land Read online

  But Sergeant Renton put the damper on this momentary good humour by saying, ‘You’ll all get your share of fighting soon enough. What the fuck do you think this is all in aid of?’

  Silence fell. The men all knew. There was no need to bring it closer by saying it.

  Meanwhile, at much the same time about four miles to the south-west, another wounded soldier was being welcomed back.

  ‘Sergeant, you’re back! We thought you’d given us up!’

  ‘Have a coffee, Sarge! Real German acorns, none of your French muck!’

  The unaffected pleasure of the greetings brought Lothar close to those tears which he had thought were dried up for ever. He had found his unit in a wood near Neuville in support of the Siegfried Stellung. This was yet another allegedly impenetrable line of defence to which the Germans had recently withdrawn, leaving a wide tract of devastated land for the enemy to occupy.

  ‘Sergeant Seeberg! Welcome back. Come to my quarters and I’ll bring you up to date.’

  He followed Dieter Loewenhardt into his billet. As soon as they were out of sight of the men, the captain turned and embraced him warmly.

  ‘Welcome back, Lott. It’s good to see you. I heard about your brother …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lothar sharply. ‘War’s a great leveller.’ Loewenhardt said, ‘I’m sorry. I was pleased about your medal, though. Congratulations.’

  ‘Oh. They haven’t told you, then? No, I suppose they would prefer to keep it quiet. I turned it down!’

  ‘You’re joking,’ said Loewenhardt in amazement and alarm. ‘For God’s sake, why? You earned it.’

  ‘By my courage, you mean? The only true act of courage left to any of us, Dieter, is to stop this carnage,’ said Lothar with sudden passion.

  ‘If you feel like that, why the devil have you come back here?’

  Lothar said, ‘I’m a soldier, I obey orders. Isn’t that what we’re paid to do? Besides, it would be easy back home to make a fuss and cause a scandal, but the Government would soon have found a way to silence me. Hospitalized with shell-shock. Or, at the best, taken into “protective custody” like so many others.’

  ‘And you imagine the Army will let you speak subversion?’ said Loewenhardt incredulously.

  ‘The Army is more than the idiots who direct it,’ said Lothar. ‘The Army is these fine fellows in our section, and thousands like them. This war could be over sooner than you think and then the real battle begins:’

  ‘The war over? What do you mean?’

  Lothar laughed. ‘Don’t they let you hear news from abroad out here?’

  ‘You mean America coming in? For God’s sake, Lothar, that’s defeatism!’

  And Lothar laughed again.

  ‘Not America!’ he said. ‘Russia! They’re having a revolution there, Dieter, a people’s revolution. That’s where the hope lies, in their success and their example!’

  Loewenhardt grasped his arm and looked closely into his face.

  ‘Lott,’ he said urgently. ‘Why are you talking like this? I can respect a man’s beliefs, even when I don’t agree with them. But this sounds like mere wildness! Listen to yourself! Are you sure it’s not just a bit of playacting, another scene in the famous Lothar von Seeberg melodrama?’

  Lothar dragged his arm free. He felt a terrible and irresistible rage surge up inside him.

  ‘Is that what you think of me?’ he said bitterly. ‘In that case perhaps you’d better start examining your own motives for being so familiar with an NCO. What do you like best? Me? Or my money and family influence? Perhaps we’d both better stick to our appointed roles in future. Sir!’

  He gave a formal, very correct salute, turned and marched away.

  It was curious. Later as he sat alone on his bed and analysed his danger it did not diminish one jot with the recognition that much of it was caused by the large amount of truth in what Loewenhardt had said.

  Was there anything, had there ever been anything, deeper inside him than his own pain, his own uncertainties, his own sorrow? Hadn’t everything he had ever said or done been simply an act of self-indulgent exhibitionism?

  He thought, not for the first time, of suicide. Perhaps the thing to have done was to have followed Sylvie into that deep, drowning pool in the wintry lake.

  Immediately the thought disgusted him. Again the posturing, again the self-dramatization! No, if he was after death, let it be some simple uncomplicated, anonymous kind of death. Stick his head up over a parapet in the front line! Become a statistic, one of hundreds of thousands!

  That was the reality, the only reality to grasp at. Those deaths had happened, and they need not have happened. He knew no way to stop them, but there was in him, as there must surely be in any man, a sense of outrage at them, a genuine pain which linked itself surely and unbrokenly with the pain he felt at Willi’s death. Sylvie was something else., Sylvie was a secret to be locked in the innermost chamber of his feelings. But this other deserved to be spoken out loud.

  So he started to talk. He talked reasonably, dispassionately, about the war, its causes, its course, its casualties. He talked about the situation at home, the effects of the harsh winter, the Allied blockade, the failure of the potato crop. He talked about what was happening elsewhere in the world, about America’s entry into the war and Russia’s exit from it, and the reasons for these things. He spoke openly to all ranks of all units, to anyone who would listen.

  Loewenhardt made no effort to remedy the coldness between them. Indeed he seemed deliberately to distance himself, leaving more and more of the everyday running of the battery to his under-officer, Lieutenant Bermann, a cold, unyielding young man with dead eyes and a grey complexion.

  Bermann listened to what Lothar had to say, openly taking notes on occasion.

  ‘You realize, Sergeant,’ he said in his flat, grating voice, ‘that at home there are men and women kept under protective custody orders for saying less than you. And others jailed for subversion for saying as much.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should order me to be jailed or put in protective custody, sir,’ said Lothar calmly.

  ‘We are all in protective custody here, Sergeant,’ said Bermann, his lips twitching in his version of a smile. ‘And it will take a stronger man than I think you are to break out of it. I doubt if such a man exists on either side.’

  ‘We must live in hope, sir,’ said Lothar.

  ‘Or die in it,’ said Bermann. ‘Carry on.’

  It was as if he were addressing the war. And obediently the war carried on.

  3

  Sergeant-Major Maggs hated Australians. He was used to the common soldier bending in the gale of his command, and to the common officer cooperating in whatever he cared to do to the common soldier.

  But Australians were different.

  As soon as his cracked head was bound up after the riot in Barnecourt, he had headed out to the unit of the fat Australian corporal they had in custody.

  To his amazement, the captain in charge, indistinguishable from his men by any badge of rank, had flatly refused to organize an identification parade. Further, when Maggs had by chance spotted the huge bulk of the sergeant who had assaulted him, the captain had asserted without turning a hair that he must be mistaken, for Sergeant Viney had been on duty all. that night to his personal knowledge.

  But at least Corporal Coleport was his.

  It had given him great satisfaction to hear Denial refuse the Australian captain’s request to have Coleport transferred into unit custody.

  ‘The matter is too serious,’ Denial had said. ‘This man is charged with maliciously wounding one of my NCOs.’

  ‘Charge him then.’

  ‘As soon as the wounded man is recovered sufficiently to give evidence.’

  Denial was a cold fish in a lot of ways, but at least he didn’t stand any shit, thought Maggs. Meanwhile they had Coleport nice and handy for a dose of ‘Mr Dunlop’ whenever things got dull in the Cage. The Cage was the name given to the Military P
olice restraint compound in the buildings of a worked-out mine some three miles out of Barnecourt, while ‘Mr Dunlop’ was an unofficial rubber truncheon made out of tyre rubber, much favoured because it left fewer body marks.

  Coleport seemed almost impervious to pain, however, but sat in his cell in the Cage, driving everyone mad with The Man From Snowy River and other similar recitations. He’d been there for nearly two months now. The trial had been set up once, but Corporal Parker had had a relapse on the day he was due to be discharged from hospital and was once more on the serious list.

  It occurred to Maggs as he stood at the huge metal gate which blocked the entrance to the pit yard that Parker’s death might be every bit as handy as Parker’s evidence. These fucking Aussies had their own rules, in which serious matters like cowardice and detention weren’t capital offences. But even in their ragbag of an army, they still topped murderers!

  ‘Mounties coming, Sar’nt-Major,’ called one of his men.

  This was what Maggs was waiting for on this cold February day. ‘Mounties’ was the semi-mocking term given to cavalry troop sections who from time to time combed the Desolation in search of deserters and stragglers. It was not a duty many of the horsemen cared for. But it was a necessary task and offered a substitute for the real cavalry action this war seemed unlikely to require.

  They came clattering out of the early twilight now. It was a poor bag, just two gaunt men, each sitting in front of a reluctant trooper. Maggs sneered in disapproval. If he was in charge, the miserable bastards would have been walking, or dragged along at the horses’ tails if they couldn’t walk. But that silly fucking cowboy in charge was soft as shit.

  He snapped up a salute.

  ‘’Evening, sir!’ he roared.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Maggs,’ said Lieutenant Augustus Cowper, who liked this detail even less than Maggs imagined. He was a young man in his twenties and his delight at getting a commission in an albeit unfashionable cavalry regiment had long since been eroded by an awareness of the kind of war this really was.

  . ‘Is Mr Denial about?’ he asked.

  ‘At his quarters, I think, sir. Or you can catch him later up at the Château, sir. He’s dining there tonight.’

  ‘The Château’ was the so-called Château d’Amblay, two miles to the north, where divisional HQ was housed.

  ‘Thank you. Take care of these two, will you? Give them some food straightaway. I think the poor devils are starving. Corporal Ackerman, take over.’

  ‘Sir,’ said the corporal.

  He watched the officer’s horse out of earshot and added scornfully, ‘Here’s another poor devil who’s starving! If we did it my way and just shot this scum on sight, I’d have been eating my supper by now.’

  Maggs regarded him approvingly. He had a singsong Welsh accent, but he spoke some sense for all that.

  ‘Open the gate!’ he called.

  As the new prisoners were being thrust inside a redcap came running across the yard.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ cried Maggs. ‘Don’t run unless I tell you to run or there’s a minnie on your tail.’

  ‘Sorry,’ gasped the MP. ‘But I’ve just heard on the blower, sir. It’s Corporal Parker. He’s dead.’

  ‘Dead? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was the hospital. They wanted us to get word to Mr Denial. A haemorrhage or something, they said. That Aussie bastard’s murdered him!’

  Maggs absorbed the news. They could probably catch Denial before he went off to dinner. Or later at the Château. On the other hand, it was a pity to spoil his evening and the morning would do just as well.

  He smiled in the sweetness of anticipation.

  ‘You’re right there, lad,’ he said. ‘That Aussie bastard has murdered him, right enough. Let’s go and tell him, shall we? Let’s go and tell him!’

  At just about the same time as Maggs was deciding that Jack Denial could be left in ignorance till the morning, the APM, was hearing the news of Parker’s death.

  He’d called at the hospital to tell Sally Thornton that he doubted if he’d get back from HQ in time to see her that night.

  She was sitting at the reception counter, bringing records up to date, and assured him that she had enough to do to keep her there till midnight. Then she told him about Parker, and all other thought went out of his mind.

  ‘I’d better get out to the Compound,’ he said.

  ‘Why? We’ve rung through.’

  ‘That’s why,’ he said laconically, and left.

  She watched him limp away and wondered what kind of future there could be with this rigid, duty-bound man. They never talked of the future. Fear was her inhibition, but what was Denial’s she could only guess.

  Meanwhile Denial was bumping along Barnecourt’s cobbles on the motorbike with sidecar which was his preferred method of transport. An APM had to be able to circumvent traffic jams if he was to clear them. Eventually he left the cobbles for the frozen ruts of the country road which were even worse, and it was a good ten minutes before he finally arrived at the Cage. Maggs, forewarned by the engine’s rattle, came forward to meet him, a little out of breath.

  ‘’Evening, sir. Didn’t expect you back this evening. Thought you were dining at HQ.’

  ‘I was till the hospital contacted me. Corporal Parker’s dead, I’m sorry to say. Had you heard?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Maggs. ‘Just now. Dreadful business.’

  ‘It means we’ll need to take special care of that Australian. Wheel him out, will you? I’ve got to apprise him of the new situation.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Maggs, ‘I’ll do it if you like, sir, if you want to get on to your dinner.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Maggs, but no. Just fetch him.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Maggs.

  He went into the Cage and returned a short while after, looking concerned.

  ‘Coleport’s ill, I’m afraid, sir. Looks genuine too. Must have been something he ate.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Denial impatiently.

  He strode into the Cage followed by Maggs. Right at the back in the darkest corner, covered by a blanket, he found Corporal Coleport.

  ‘Get out of the way, Mr Maggs!’ Denial ordered the sergeant-major, who was stooping over the recumbent man, making cooing noises as though to a sick baby.

  Maggs stood aside and Denial bent forward. The Australian’s right eye flickered up. The left was too swollen to join in.

  Through bleeding gums and crushed lips he whispered,

  ‘So he spread them out when they left camp wherever they liked to go,

  Till he grew aware of a Jackaroo with a station-hand in tow.’

  ‘Stow that!’ commanded Maggs. ‘Officer present.’

  Slowly Denial drew back the blanket. Gently he placed a hand on the man’s chest. He gave a little groan of agony and went slack.

  ‘Mr Maggs!’ said Denial in a quietly terrible voice. ‘Go and send for an ambulance!’

  4

  ‘Hey, Delaney!’

  Patsy Delaney paused and turned towards the speaker, who was the same scruffy captain from Brisbane who had so offended Sergeant-Major Maggs.

  ‘Yeah, Cap?’

  ‘How’s Viney? He snapped out of it yet?’

  Delaney didn’t ask what the captain meant. For more than a fortnight Viney had been plunged in a black and gloomy mood which had men walking on tiptoe and speaking in whispers around him.

  Delaney said to the captain, ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘Not me,’ said the captain. ‘I’m not going to tell him either.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘That redcap Coleport gutted. He’s died. I’ve just heard. That’s curtains for Blackie.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wake up, Patsy! He was a redcap and Blackie Coleport stuck a bayonet into him in front of half a dozen other redcaps. That’s murder, and it doesn’t matter which man’s army you’re in, they string you up for that. Even if he just got jailed, t
hem redcaps would kick him to death. I hear he’s been taken to hospital already. I can guess how that happened.’

  ‘Bastards,’ said Delaney.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a bastard. So you tell him, Patsy. He won’t like it. You three jokers have been together a long time, haven’t you? Some Holy fucking Trinity!’

  It was a trinity which had formed at base during training.

  There’d been no obvious reason for the trio to come together. Their backgrounds were very different. Viney’s father was an itinerant stockman, Delaney was an Irish dockworker’s son, while Coleport had revealed in his cups that his father was a Baptist minister in Alice Springs. It had seemed an act of nature that Delaney and Coleport, both notorious tough nuts, should gravitate towards Viney, who in an assembly of tough and violent men was accorded the ultimate compliment of never being called upon to prove his place in the pecking order. They had got through Gallipoli together, come to France together and so far survived the Western Front unscathed. Around Viney, you got a sense of immortality.

  Now he had to be told that for Blackie, the immortal days were over.

  Delaney found Viney lying on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. He told him what he had heard but there was no response. Delaney shut up and sat down in a rickety old chair and lit a cigarette. Thirty minutes later his feet were surrounded by dog-ends and his head wreathed in smoke. Viney had not once spoken or moved in this time; his eyes had scarcely blinked.

  Delaney put another fag in his mouth and struck a match. It was nearly dark now and the flame picked out the big sergeant’s profile like the marble effigy of some mailclad knight on a tomb.

  The eyes closed, then opened again. Then he swung himself off the bed and on to his feet in one easy athletic movement. Delaney held the match an inch away from the unlit cigarette and waited.

  ‘Let’s go get him,’ said Viney.

  At the Red Cross Hospital in Barnecourt, Sally Thornton was sitting behind the reception desk, trying to bring some records up to date.