The Foreshadowing (29 page)

“Up until a fortnight ago, the front line was just ahead,” Jack said. “The big push has moved it farther east. These people are still scared.”

I couldn’t blame them, but I was desperate to find Tom.

“You said they’d be here,” I said, angrily, though I knew I’d have been lost without him. I would have got nowhere.

And now, as it is, I seem to have got nowhere anyway.

I am just sitting, waiting, on the edge of death.

7

Jack continued to ask around, and finally found an answer, but not the one I’d been hoping for.

He came back from a queue of men at a delousing machine standing at one end of the village. I could tell immediately that it was bad. He didn’t have to say anything.

“They’ve gone,” I said. “They’ve gone, haven’t they?”

He nodded, a brief, small gesture, but one that dealt me a massive blow.

“Yes. Before dawn. No one knows where, except that they were headed for the front. Left most of their kit behind. They’re heading for it, all right. Could be anywhere.”

“But where?” I cried.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. No one seems to know.”

“What do we do?” I cried. I couldn’t admit we were defeated. It couldn’t happen.

“Someone must know something” was all I could say.

“It’s chaos, Alexandra. Nothing’s clear. There’s fighting everywhere. There’s been a big mauling in a place called Mametz Wood. I was talking to the lads over there, they’re some of the survivors. We’ve got control of it now, and the fighting’s moved on to some villages beyond. Bazentin, Delville Wood, High Wood. They could be anywhere.”

Something struck me, and I don’t know why I bothered to say it, but if I hadn’t, then it might all have ended then and there.

“That’s strange,” I said. “Why does it have an English name?”

“What?” Jack said.

“High Wood. Why does it have an English name?”

“That’s just what the army calls it. The French call it Raven Wood.”

Raven Wood.

I went cold.

Jack saw; I must have gone as white as death itself.

“What is it?” he said. He grabbed my arm, thinking I was going to faint.

“That’s it,” I said. I trembled. “That’s where he’s going. High Wood.”

Now I know what the raven means, now at last I can answer that question from my dreams.

I know what the raven means. It means death.

It means High Wood.

It’s where Tom is going to die.

6

I am waiting now, on the edge of a place called Death Valley. That’s not its real name, just one given to it by the soldiers. Some of them call it Happy Valley instead, which is supposed to be a joke, but how anyone can laugh here I do not know. Yet they do. I’ve seen them.

Jack knew I was right. He trusts my vision as I believe in his.

As soon as I saw the connection with the raven, it was obvious, and so we made our way here. I was feeling utterly desolate. We were surrounded by men on all sides, streams of troops marching to the front, or staggering back in ragged lines. Once Tom’s battalion has gone up to the front itself, I will be unable to reach him. My only hope is that I can get him away before that happens.

We left Meaulte and rode on clogging mud tracks through the remains of other villages, one of which had only its church tower left standing. I don’t know what they were all called, but a place called Fricourt was no more than a vast pile of rubble, with buildings that looked as if they had just collapsed and died.

Farther on, small copses of trees lay around us, some intact, some just fields of broken stumps. Jack explained that the front line ran through the area until the big push began a fortnight ago. There’s been lots of fighting here, and I cannot describe the things I have seen that prove that fact.

Dead men lie at the side of the road.

Jack rode on, and though I stared, they were soon behind us.

Suddenly there was a strange whistling hum in the air, and seconds later we were at the edge of a storm. It was not a storm of nature, but one of machinery and artillery.

Explosions ripped the ground ahead of us, and Jack frantically pulled off the road.

“Five-nines!” he shouted. “Get in that ditch and keep your head down!”

He didn’t have to tell me. We flung ourselves from the bike and cowered on the ground until the barrage stopped.

It didn’t last long.

“Are you all right?” Jack asked me as he got to his feet.

I couldn’t answer; I was too stunned to speak.

I nodded. We moved on.

Then the bike gave out.

We had been struggling through oceans of mud. The chalky land around us is covered by a thick clay, which had been churned into a gray-brown paste that binds and sticks.

The faithful Triumph had worked its way deep into this mud at the bottom of a hollow, and no matter how much Jack tried, we could not shift it.

We got off, and tried to push it free, Jack revving it all the while, but I only managed to lose my footing and fall facedown in the mud.

Some Scots were passing. They laughed at me, but I didn’t care. No one could recognize me now, I thought, and two of them came over and lifted the bike free with Jack’s help, but we had only made our way a little farther when it ran out of petrol.

I was too tired even to cry now, and we stood staring at the useless bike, lying on its side like a dead animal in the mud.

With a strangely unnatural speed, the mist began to clear, the sun burning it off in a matter of minutes, and we could see it was going to be a hot day after all.

We saw we were surrounded by the dead. Bodies lay here and there, uncared for, unburied, almost unnoticed. I tried not to look at them, but couldn’t help staring at the huge corpses of horses that lay among the human dead.

The old front line was ground covered with debris, with old and new shell holes, rifles, clothing and all sorts of other equipment strewn around and abandoned. I found it hard to take in. Even the word
desolation
comes nowhere near describing what I saw. It was a twisted and broken world, made by men.

More wounded came by. Going forward, streams of soldiers were marching, and more Indian cavalry trotted past on horseback.

Then, standing, staring in despair at the bike, I looked up at the file of men passing us, and I saw Tom.

Jack saw me start, and before I could call out, clapped a hand over my mouth.

The movement was enough to catch Tom’s eye.

I barely recognized him, and as he stared back at me, as he stared straight through me, I realized that he didn’t recognize me at all.

Jack stepped back.

“Tom,” I said, mouthing the word at him.

Then he knew me, and a look of terror and wonder spread across his face. I saw what he saw. A thin, gangly boy, covered in mud, with rough shorn hair. And who looked a little bit like his sister.

He came over to us, glancing nervously back at the line of men he should have been marching with, and at Jack, and at me.

As he came closer I could see he finally believed it was me.

“What?”

That was all he said, and I could not speak.

“Why?” he said. “Why are you here?”

He glanced again at his battalion, but no one seemed to be bothered that he had fallen out. In fact, it seemed they had reached their destination, for just ahead in a low curve of land, we could see the start of a huge encampment of men, guns, equipment and horses. Battalions of men were camped around on all sides.

“Why, Sasha? How did you get here?”

He glanced at Jack, then back to me.

“I’ve come to take you back,” I said at last.

“You’ve . . . what?” Tom said, perplexed, his face dark.

“I’ve seen what’s going to happen to you,” I said. “Tom, you must believe me, I’ve seen what’s going to happen. You’re going to be killed if you don’t come away. You’re going to High Wood, aren’t you?”

“How do you know that?” he asked, scowling.

“Tom, you have to believe me. You have to, no one else does, but it’s true. You’re going to be killed.”

“Oh, God,” he said. “Why can’t you understand?”

He reached out to me.

“Go away, Sasha,” he said. “Go home. Get this stupid man who’s brought you here to take you home again. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you, because it’s not true, and even if I did, I wouldn’t leave. I can’t. I belong with these men. I can’t run away because my sister tells me to, and if I did, I’d be shot anyway!”

He stopped; then he turned and looked at his battalion, which was nearly out of sight at the head of the valley.

“I must go,” he said, sadly. “Go home and be safe.”

He went.

Jack and I argued over what to do, but in the end it was obvious. We had to go home. Tom wasn’t going to come, and even if he did, he’d be shot for desertion.

All my hopes and plans lay in ruins. Everything I’d worked for. But I couldn’t leave it like that.

I had to talk to him once more, and say goodbye properly. Then I would leave it alone like everyone wanted me to. I knew I couldn’t risk being seen in the valley in daylight, and now that the mist had lifted, it was much too risky. We found an out-of-the-way crook at the top of the valley, a little hollow among some sickly-looking trees. Away in front of us was the valley, and beyond that, the awful sight of Mametz Wood. The whole place like a biblical scene of pestilence and death.

I begged Jack to go into Death Valley, find Tom and bring him to talk to me.

He agreed—grudgingly, but he agreed.

And that is where I am now, waiting for Tom, to say goodbye.

As Jack left, he lifted his tunic and pulled his revolver out from the case at his hip.

“Here,” he said. “In case you get into trouble. Just squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull. And keep your arm strong.”

He really meant me to use it.

I knew what he was afraid of. If someone came across me, out here, away from the sight of the rest of the men, anything could happen.

I sat down in the hollow, using the greatcoat as a blanket, and waited.

And I am waiting still, for Jack to return with Tom.

If he doesn’t, then what?

What if something happens to him? How will I get away then? I will be lost without him, and anything could happen to me. And if it does, my story will stop here, with me in this hole, clutching the revolver tight with every hour that passes.

My story could end right here.

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