Easterleigh Hall at War (16 page)

Auberon clapped Jack on the shoulder. ‘The Germans respect rank, unlike you, my lad. No need for thanks.'

Jack smiled. ‘None given, sir. But thank you.'

They marched the next day, still thirsty to a point where they could have groaned, had they the moisture in their throats. It had been drizzling overnight and raining with the dawn, and close to midday the rain stopped, and the sun emerged. They steamed in the sun. They had not eaten for three days but there was a war on and no one cursed their captors; they understood.

At thirteen hundred hours they walked and limped through a village and then into the outskirts of a town, before they reached a railyard. Jack's wounds were infected, but whose weren't? Engines huffed and puffed as they edged along the track. One halted and German soldiers streamed down the ramps from the carriages, staring at them. Some were marched off, but a small group were gathered up and marched to the Uberleutnant who was in charge of the prisoners. He was an old man, but it was the uniform the troops respected, and the salutes were smart. Within half an hour all the sergeants were called to a wagon and handed cards to be given out to their men. They were to list basic details of name and battalion and say that they had been captured and were not injured. This would be true, because the wounded had been carted off in trucks the day before. The cards would be forwarded to Britain via the Red Cross, and in due course food parcels would be sent, their own officers told them. It was this information that cast a hush over the men, because it hit home that this situation was not a temporary one; it would last until the war was won, or lost.

Jack hunkered down, drawing out his pencil, feeling bleak and despairing and wondering how he would survive his shame. Simon said, ‘Evie will be pleased, she'll want me safe.' Jack said, ‘And you?' Simon nudged him, grinning. ‘Better than the alternative, isn't it, bonny lad.'

Jack smiled. ‘Aye, you could say that.' But he knew that he never would speak or think those words. At that moment, he missed Mart more than he ever had.

Dry biscuits were given out as the men were formed into squares of forty, Charlie staying with Jack, and a bucket of clean water was dispatched to each group. Jack nodded his thanks to the German who brought theirs. In an open field there was none but trough water and the Germans, no more than the British, had wands to wave. Everyone understood.

The cards were collected. An engine arrived pulling cattle trucks. The wheels screeched as it ground to a halt. The air was full of smuts and the smell of sulphur was similar to that of Auld Maud. Jack smiled and saw that Auberon and the Lea End lot were grinning too. They exchanged a nod. ‘Home from bloody home,' he could hear Mart say, as loud as though he was here. Steps were brought and they were gestured up into the trucks, forty to a truck. Jack heard Auberon being ordered by Major Dobbs to travel with his fellow officers, but Auberon shook his head. ‘I'll stay with my men. I have one in trouble, my batman. If you don't mind, sir, of course.' The major turned away, red-faced with rage. Roger had not stopped grumbling since he had had to walk on his own, even though Auberon and Jack had hauled a stocky branch from a hedge and passed it to him to use as a walking stick. He still grumbled as he limped up the steps.

They travelled with no water, or food, and only one excrement bucket, not knowing when it would end, or where they were going. They feared it was Germany. Jack sidled across to Auberon, who was hunkered down as far from the bucket as possible. It had been on the point of overflowing until Sergeant Major Dawson and Corporal Vance had hoisted Jack up to the small barred window at the end of the first day. He had tipped out the contents, but the wind had thrown back a good percentage all over him. He smelt like a cesspit and to save anyone else having to undergo the same trial and have more soldiers stinking, it had become his job.

‘I don't remember volunteering to empty the bucket, sir,' Jack told Auberon. All they could hear was the clattering of the train. The sound of the guns was fading with every mile as they powered away from them.

Auberon was sitting with his arms on his knees. Charlie was beside him in the same pose. Jack and Auberon had taken him under their wing. ‘In the army volunteering is not a decision you necessarily make yourself, Jack.' Auberon grinned, so did Charlie.

Jack sat as close to his captain as he could. ‘I expect you're rethinking your response to Major Dobbs, aren't you, sir?' he murmured. Auberon nodded, his face as filthy and drawn with tiredness as the rest of them. ‘You've read my mind, Sergeant, now perhaps you'd move away, at least a fraction.' They were both laughing. ‘You are no violet, and I simply fail to believe that I couldn't smell burning onions at one point, so sensitive does my nose seem to be now.'

Jack inched as far from him as possible, but came up against the corner. He had moved barely six inches away, but better than nothing, or so Auberon seemed to think. Everyone else had left a circle around them, preferring close proximity rather than the smell of Jack. Auberon had clasped his hands together, and Charlie followed suit. Jack smiled to himself. Auberon muttered, ‘I wonder if Ron Simmons has a sense of smell?' Jack made no reply. ‘What must they be thinking?' Auberon said. ‘They'll have been told Missing in Action, believed killed.' They lapsed into silence, listening to the rackety-rack of the wheels on the track. ‘What will they think when they know?' Jack murmured.

Two day later they were all herded into a transit camp, but it was in Belgium, not Germany. They had thought something was amiss because the sound of artillery had grown louder and louder again. Unknown to them they had been rerouted back to where labour was needed, Auberon had discovered. As they detrained, they could see flashes in the dusk. It was chaos at the camp: captured soldiers, French, Indian and British, were all milling about. Jack stripped and had bucket after bucket of fresh water thrown over him by Simon, Charlie, the Lea End lot who were delighted to get their own back for the Fordington rout, and Auberon. Jack then doused his uniform, shivering.

He dressed again, in soaking clothes, but what else could he do? He lay in the old pigsty they were allotted, on the bare ground, and shivered all night. In the morning it was still damp and cold, though it was only drizzle that fell. They were told they had to start work immediately, the officers too. Major Walker, Dobbs' friend, spluttered, ‘This is against the Hague Convention.'

The officer in charge said, through Auberon whose schoolboy German was improving with each day, ‘Once in your proper camp, rules will be observed. Here, there are no rules. Officers will work. No one expected so many of you, so many months of war. We have no proper place. You must work.'

The major replied, through Auberon, ‘We should not help your war effort.'

The officer sighed, and broke into English. ‘You are filling in roads, you are not handling munitions. Work.' He was as tired, worn, drawn, as the Allies were.

‘You will transport munitions over those roads,' Major Walker protested. The Uberleutnant spun on his heel, his revolver in his hand. ‘You chose disgrace over death. I can oblige you with death now, if you prefer?' There was no feeling beyond impatience in his voice. Auberon and Jack exchanged a look. Walker capitulated, avoiding everyone's eyes as he turned away. They all felt the same shame.

There were boulders in the nearby quarry to be split and crushed for road repairs. Auberon worked alongside Jack, Simon and Roger, wielding a sledgehammer, while most of the other officers supervised, and not a word of complaint was made by any of them at the end of the first day. Auberon tore off some of his shirt to make rags to wrap around his blistered and bloody hands once they straggled back to the camp, a camp which was strung around with barbed wire, not once, but twice. Their guards watched them all closely and escape seemed far away.

‘You'll get out of it soon enough, into your officers' camp,' Jack told Auberon as he undid his bandages, washed the wounds and redressed them, finding it hard to be sympathetic, because it was true, the enlisted men were to be workhorses, but did any of them deserve better? They were out of the firing line. They had surrendered. They were safe. He still couldn't believe it. He had to get out, get back to the lines, and at least they were near the Front, from the sound of the guns. It should be possible. ‘I won't go,' Auberon protested. ‘It's better I stay with you men, keep you out of mischief.'

The next day they worked slowly on the roads, because lorries bound for the Front were passing, and how could they justify working hard for such a cause?

That evening they all poked at one another's embedded shrapnel, as the sick-bay orderly had advised. Auberon had collected all the medication that had been missed by the searching uhlans, and gave out a little iodine to share. Some shrapnel was near to the surface and working its way out and it was like getting out splinters, but much worse. The pus gushed, along with blood. ‘It's a good thing,' gasped Auberon, as Jack dug into his back. ‘Gets rid of the poison.'

Jack dressed Auberon's hands again, and that was when Auberon told him of the compass in the heel of his boot. ‘We should get out while we're still near the lines,' Auberon muttered. Jack laughed. ‘You don't need a compass, just follow the sound of the guns, bonny lad.'

Out on the road the next day his group watched the changes of the guard, checking for any moment that would give them a chance. There were none. That evening Jack strolled the perimeter again and again. Another fence had been created, and the wire was coiled and wicked, with prongs fit to rip a cow to pieces, let alone a man. They knew all about that from the advances they'd made, when the wire should have been cut by artillery. He paused where the ground rose in front of the perimeter. What if coats were thrown over the wire? He stood looking over the countryside. There was a wood half a mile distant over the thick clay of the early barley field. They had a chance if they reached the trees. He inched closer to the wire, looking both ways along the length of it for possible breaks.

There was a thud, a grunt, and he was shoved hard into the barbs, and pushed again and again with the guard's rifle butt. He was ripped and torn, and he screamed. He was knocked again, the barbs digging deeper. He strained to keep his face from the wire, his eyes. God, not his eyes. There were shouts, British shouts. ‘Leave him, you bastard.' It was Sergeant Major Dawson. Another shove, and the barbs tore deeper. Jesus, the pain. He heard Auberon shout, ‘Enough, God damn you.'

There was a shot. The Oberleutenant yelled in German, ‘Put down that rifle. Put it down. Get him off the wire.'

Hands hauled at Jack. He groaned quietly. ‘Gently,' Auberon shouted. ‘Gently with him.' Slowly now, Jack was unhooked, and held up by Lea End Dave and Simon. Auberon gripped his face, looked closely. ‘Pain, or worse?'

‘Pain,' Jack grunted. ‘Take him to the sick bay,' Auberon ordered, Charlie his shadow behind him. ‘Swab those cuts.' Jack pushed Simon, Dave and Charlie away. God, it was a ruddy party. ‘I can walk.' He couldn't. They half carried him, while behind he heard Auberon berating the Oberleutenant. ‘I will not have my men hurt, do you understand? I hear you when you say the guard's brother has just been killed, but that is no excuse.'

The sick-bay tent was humid, and smelt of grass and guts and dirt. Several men were laid out on groundsheets. An orderly came to meet them. Dave said, ‘Daft bugger's had an argument with a bit of wire, no more than he deserved for punching me lights out on Fordington beach a while ago.'

Simon laughed; the orderly looked at Dave blankly. Later, in the sick bay, Auberon sat next to Jack. ‘It is, of course, a sufficient excuse to want to avenge a brother as you and I well know, after Timmie,' Auberon said. ‘If you wish to complain, the commandant will listen.'

Jack was shrugging into his shirt, the jagged rips in his flesh covered by corrugated paper bandages which would only last a few hours, but would soak up the blood. ‘We've gone past that, Auberon. The guard'll get over it too, so no complaint.' The two men paused, looked at one another, and nodded. Jack continued, ‘There's a wood, you know, Aub, just half a mile away. We could use coats to throw on the barbs when it's a moonless night, and go over the top.' Auberon handed him a cigarette from the dwindling supply in his silver cigarette case, which he had somehow retained. ‘My thoughts exactly.' They headed off for the potato-water queue which served as an evening meal. ‘Evie would not be best pleased by their food standards,' Auberon muttered. ‘Take what bread you can manage tomorrow. We could need it. Let's make it sooner rather than later. Tomorrow night, eh Jack? Talk to Simon and see if he's coming, but on the other hand, he'll be safer here, behind the wire.'

Jack stared at him. What the hell was he talking about? They were soldiers, and should want to get back to finish this bloody war off, shouldn't they?

The next day, after the pushing and shoving in what was supposed to be an orderly queue to grab a slice of black bread, the men gathered for the forced march to the quarry. Every muscle in Jack's body ached, every tear ground deep, but he'd managed to grab two slices and stuff them in his tunic top. His stomach hurt with hunger, but excitement roared. They'd be back in the line soon, holding their heads up, but not Simon, he wanted to stay and keep an eye on Charlie. Jack had said the four of them could go, but Simon thought it too risky for the lad. Perhaps he was right. He shot a look at his sister's fiancé. He was kind, no doubt about it, or . . . He left it; things were complicated enough as it was.

As the roll call proceeded he saw that there was activity near the exit. The Uberleutnant was issuing orders, some lorries were parked, their engines idling. The major was being escorted to the Uberleutnant and a discussion ensued. As the roll call continued, all the men watched. Jack felt a fury like nothing he had ever known sweep over him. Had someone escaped? Where, how? How could they have missed the chance? The guards would be on alert, how could they get away now? He snatched a look at Auberon, who stood at the front of the North Tyne roll call square.