Michael dipped his pen in the inkwell and ended his letter, saying aloud the words in a low voice as he wrote, “Your affectionate son, Michael.”
Finished, he wafted the single sheet in the air, folded the page, and smoothed the crease hearing the gentle rasp of his own thumb over the straight edge beneath.
In another time, he imagined the warm, French, summer night might have been beautiful, with a glistening black sky and a warm breeze, scented with summer flowers that bathed the skin. But in 1917, from his trench in Arieux, the haze of smoke from far-off artillery bombardments obscured the stars, fanning over their world in a diaphanous miasma. Tonight, to Michael’s relief, war sounded like a fleeing herd in the distance. Even at night, no silence existed, but the focus of the battle sounds, the bang and flash of shells, the death storm, rained elsewhere tonight. The warm air smelled of cordite, tasted of a metallic, fine grit, inhaled with every breath. The men coughed intermittently. In the gloom, the brown of their bodies seemed half-absorbed in the surface of the earthen trench walls. Michael thought the ever-present smell of damp soil that of his own grave. He was afraid.
Wilkinson came in, crouching to pass through the entrance. The sudden movement made the candle flame flicker and smoke, so the shadows of the two men danced like puppets. He handed Michael tea in a scarred tin cup with a dented lip. Michael held out his hand to take the drink and had a vision of their disembodied hands. Wilkinson’s were brown, as though digging in mud had stained the thick fingers, coloring the lines and whirls to look like a fingerprint before it’s transferred to a page. His own hands were white and slender. Those grubby hands had stirred his tea. Yet he knew his own appearance of cleanliness only an illusion. He itched from the lice infesting his clothes.
“Need owt else, sir?” Wilkinson asked. He was a young man, probably only as old as Michael himself, with a ridiculously thin attempt at a moustache and red patches on his neck from scratching.
“No. Wait. Yes, there is something. I have a letter that needs to go to my family. There may not be a chance after tomorrow. I’d like to know it has been taken care of,” Michael said.
“Give it ‘ere then an’ I’ll take care of it, sir.”
Michael clutched the corner of the white envelope for a moment as though reluctant to part with it, already regretting the words contained within, knowing them to be inadequate, knowing his brother Lawrence would have done better. Lawrence had done everything better. He sighed, still feeling the lesser in comparison despite the death of his brother. Tiredness numbed his thoughts, revealed his indecision. A fine tremor passed from his fingers to disturb the letter with gentle vibrations.
“Summat up, sir?” Wilkinson said. “Shall I take it?”
“Yes, yes of course.” Michael released his hold. When he was dead too, and his family received this letter, the fingerprints marking the paper would not be his.
“Thank you. I won’t need anything else tonight. I’m going to sleep for a while.” He blew out the flame and stretched out on the grey army-issue blanket over the narrow cot. Mud formed two walls of the tiny shelter, trench walls. He turned to face one, so the smell of the soil grew stronger, and he thought of himself as reduced to living like an animal, a rabbit in a burrow, waiting to die. Above him, corrugated sheets formed a roof, invisible in the dark. Instead, he saw in his mind’s eye what lay above the thin metal -- the piles of sandbags heightening the trench, then the barriers of coiled barbed wire snaking the length of the trenches. Orders to take his company over the wire in the morning kept away sleep. The battle drew closer. He regretted his hurried decision to join the army after Lawrence’s death in Belgium. A gesture to mimic his brother’s bravery he always recognized as sham and folly. He thought of the day he had spoken to his father about obtaining a commission, and the fleeting glimpse of pride he searched for in the mild smile, the nod of acknowledgement. Immaculate troops formed his naive image, volley fire, Rorke’s Drift perhaps; not this, not daily waste and futility.
He remembered a family holiday at the seaside, he’d been eight, Lawrence eleven. The beach remained almost deserted so early in the season and the cool, salt-scented wind gusted sand grains.
“I’ll teach you to swim today, you’re big enough. How about that?” his father said one morning as they sat around the breakfast table. He read The Times and his voice came from around the printed screen of newspaper. It was early. Michael concentrated on knocking the top of his boiled egg. When he did not reply the paper lowered and his father looked at him, his heavy eyebrows raised beneath his dark hair. Michael knew he must answer.
“In the sea?” he asked.
“Of course in the sea, where else?” his father said. Lawrence sniggered. Michael didn’t like the sea but he tried not to reveal anything, though he could feel the tips of his ears burning, aware of Lawrence watching from his freckled face. His brother had wheat colored hair and was solid and tall, as though he worked outside on a farm all day. Michael focused on his egg, warm in its cup, dipped bread into the soft yolk. Lawrence could swim already. Lawrence wasn’t afraid of anything. Michael decided he would be brave too.
“I’d like to swim,” he lied.
He liked the beach but the sea was vast-- he could not imagine how far it stretched. Sometimes he took off his shoes and socks and waded in the water, right up to his knees. He felt no pleasure. Cold waves pushed against his legs and some surprised him with their size breaking high on his body, wetting his clothes with saltwater and making him turn away and shriek. Lawrence laughed at him, called him a baby. Worse, seaweed lurked beneath the dark water, a long dark monster, with arms like snakes undulating with the current, coiling around his legs, wishing to claim him. He imagined the clinging fronds pulling him, gently at first then engulfing and dragging him into deep water until he became part of its mass. A shudder ran shoulder to toes. The egg felt curdled in his stomach so he didn’t want any more of his breakfast, but he would be brave, he would allow his father to teach him to swim and Lawrence would not laugh at him.
They walked the short distance from the rented holiday cottage to the beach with the paraphernalia for the day, a wicker basket of food, a rug, towels, the cricket bat and ball. The cool wind gusted against them carrying sand grains that stung his bare legs and billowed their clothing like sails.
The tide was out, the sea a grey bar on the horizon leaving, exposing the immense bed that would become covered by water at high tide. Michael walked out over the surface. When he rubbed his foot through the damp, rippled sand, the grains felt sharp against his skin, as though they could abrade his flesh. Screwing his toe in made shallow holes that filled immediately with saltwater, so he believed himself standing upon a thin crust covering more sea beneath. Creatures lie buried here leaving evidence of their burrowing in the many mounds of sand, formed like little piles of worms. Far out the grey sea drew closer in an ominous line. He retreated. His father and Lawrence played cricket on the dry beach. Their running kicked up faint puffs of sand. Snatches of their voices carried to him on the wind, and the familiar sound of the hard, red ball connecting with the willow bat. The ball hurt his hands when he caught it, their scorn hurt his feelings when he let it fall, so he didn’t like to play.
Dry and wet sand met along a clear line, marked by lengths of dehydrated, black seaweed with its fishy, salty stench. Stranded and lifeless, it looked innocuous now. Here the grains of sand were rougher and studded with a profusion of deposited shells, some broken and sharp-edged. A biscuit-colored crab tiptoed over the surface looking unbalanced.
Farther up the beach his mother sat, her bright green dress startling against the pastel colors surrounding her. She had a parasol, perhaps in case the sun appeared on this grey day. Gulls circled and cried overhead. Lawrence had become hot from exertion, pulled off his sweater leaving it in a crumpled red heap on the sand, where Michael, shivering now, picked it up as he passed to wear over his own. The wool retained a trace of his brother’s warmth and energy. The sleeves covered his hands and the body stretched down towards his bare knees. It smelt of saltwater.
He sat with his mother for a while. She shared the same blond hair and freckles as Lawrence but was diminutive. Michael knew he got his thin legs and arms from her. Pushing his feet aimlessly through the sand, he watched the slate of sea edge closer.
“Please may I have a cake?”
“No, you know you shouldn’t eat in the hour before you go swimming,” she said. She moved the wicker basket away from him ensuring he wouldn’t just put in a hand and take one anyway. Michael sighed.
“It’ll be all right. You’ll be able to swim, it’s just a knack. Don’t be frightened,” his mother said. She reached out and ruffled his dark hair. Sand grains rubbed against his scalp.
“I’m not afraid,” he said. Perhaps it would rain before the tide came in. There’s plenty of clouds. Please let it rain.
He stood up and wandered away.
“Don’t go far,” his mother called after him. The sea drew closer now. He could see waves swelling, hear them, as though it were a live thing, a monster breathing, and the sounds of Lawrence and his father faded as he reached the top of the beach where the sand formed dunes. Land and beach seemed to fight over territory, each trespassing into the space of the other. In the shallow, scooped, depression of a dune, he lay down. It was quiet here. The pale sand, so close to his face, revealed all the different colors and shapes of the grains. The surface felt warmer than the air. An occasional sand fly hopped. The dune rose like walls all around, entombing him, and on the ridge grew the marram grass, the type that was tall and sharp enough to cut his legs and feet if he didn’t take care where he walked. If he rubbed his fingers down a blade, tip to base, it had a kind of dry stickiness. Lawrence could hold a blade to his lips to make a piercing whistle.
Time passed and he listened to the sea dragging itself up the beach towards him. He could hear his family calling for him.
“Michael, Mikey.” Their voices sounded first far away, then closer, then far again and he listened to them searching for him without moving. Instead, he closed his eyes. He had tried to be brave but he was afraid. Here, he’d remain in safety, hidden down in the sand, behind the sharp grass, pretend to have fallen asleep, not heard them. His mother would believe him. Lawrence would sneer. I’m glad I’ve Lawrence’s sweater on. Let him swim. He hoped his brother would be cold afterwards and he wrapped the sweater more snugly around him.
Michael turned on his cot, and wondered how anyone could sleep. Amidst constant battle, even at a distance, the cannons, they served as a constant reminder of their fate. No Man’s Land lay between them and the enemy’s trenches, ground littered with bodies of men, and he imagined himself out there with them. He wished he could think of a way out of tomorrow’s assault, even considered wounding himself. Others had done it, lost a few toes, but preserved their lives. He sat up and picked up his Webley from his box of belongings. Not just the common model, but the Webley Fosbery, the one his father had given to Lawrence on the day he left to join his regiment. Lawrence’s death had made him an old man, and though Michael knew his father loved him, he’d always been second best. Perhaps his father thought giving him Lawrence’s Webley would help him become more like his brother somehow. Musing, he turned the gun, rubbing it on his sleeve in the darkness, feeling weight and balance, the cold metal of the barrel. Experimentally, he aimed the weapon in the general area of his left foot. If he pulled the trigger, he would forever bear the mark of a coward. The shame would be unbearable for his family -- but would he be ashamed? I’d be alive. To muffle the tap of metal touching wood he laid the gun back on the box very gently so the men outside would not know what he had been thinking. Laying back on the cot, staring up into the darkness, he wondered why he had been born so afraid.
No sun appeared in the morning. Eating nothing left his throat dry and closed. The company ranged the trench in line, close enough to feel each small movement of his neighbor. Kaye stood beside Michael, squat and thickset for his youth. He said he’d been a miner, had thought the army an escape from the coal face, and seemed surprised to find himself in another tunnel, shoveling different dirt. Michael could hear the man chanting softly in prayer, “Hallowed be Thy name,” and then the voice faltered, unable to remember any further.
They waited for the order.
Behind them the rats had come, their claws silent in the soft mud. They came as though the men had gone already, as though they knew there would be no return and they would be able to feast at will. Michael shuddered. He stared solidly at the earth in front of him, so close he could see every particle of soil and grit.
The sky above attained the same color as the drifting smoke. The Webley Fosbery hung in his holster. He would not tempt himself by taking it out. The bugles would sound their signal and they would leave their protection, go over the top. Nothing made any sense. He didn’t care if the Germans were in France. They could have the whole bloody country if he could go home, right now. In a few years, would anyone know the difference? He thought about the letter he had written to his family. Tomorrow is our turn to do our duty. The men are in good spirits. No one is afraid. They would not believe that any more than he did, but he’d made his pen strokes firm in an attempt to persuade himself. He wondered what Lawrence had thought in the end. Had he believed in what he was doing?
Someone handed him a periscope and he looked out over the No Man’s Land that lay between them and their target, the German trench. A vast space. Any grass had long since died. Previous assaults had left dead men lying on the ground, citizens of no country now. Without the mud wall to lean against, he thought he might fall down. He doubted his legs strong or capable enough of functioning. Could they carry him up the ladder, run towards the machine guns? Then he was running without remembering even climbing the ladder, men all around him, rifles ready, half crouched. Voices shrieked and howled in some desperate rage, maybe at the enemy, maybe at themselves, at war and waste.
The world seemed different up here, as though he was on the summit of something, and he ran fast. Fear drove him on with a desperation of wanting the act over, and he did not crouch as he ran, and his feet did not mire into the mud but skimmed over the surface. His body achieved a lightness and looseness as he raced ahead, a feeling of flying, that he should stretch out his arms like he had as a child in the hope he might leave the earth. He leaped over those fallen, then felt a blow that stalled him and he crashed into the mud, skidded. No pain revealed his injury, but blood and heat spread over his side, saturated his jacket. In the wasteland he lay and laughed, because he was breathing, alive, with no reason to be afraid anymore. He could go home. Blood sprinkled the handle of the Webley that he left purposely in the mud.
2.
Incessant rain fell for days. Not a storm, no dramatic thunder, just a steady fall of life-giving water that made the world look grey. Michael had waited it out in the comfortable farmhouse he had bought when he married, and never wanted to leave. For ten years now, he had rubbed the earth over his fingers, and tended it through the seasons, encouraging crops. The cycle of planting and harvesting became all-consuming. Margaret had made hot tea, and he drank from the fragile china cup that made his soil-colored fingers look clumsy. At last the rain had stopped. Out of the window, he gazed across the flat Lincolnshire land, wondering about drainage, whether to plow. The hedgerows looked green and fresh. Along the lane, birds sat in silent rows on the telephone lines. Margaret stood beside him.
“You should wait, it looks too wet,” she said.
“I think it’ll be all right. I’m afraid to wait or the rain will begin again,” Michael said. Inactivity made him impatient. He pulled on his jacket and his woolen gloves, stooped as he exited the low back door.
Riding the tractor, the steady rhythm of plowing, soothed him. The constant engine noise blocked out everything else and so isolated him. Behind him, the soil turned, row after row as he went slowly up and down taking pride in his straight tracks, the pattern he created, some inherent satisfaction. Birds flocked down in his wake to tease out unearthed food.
Today the neat furrows immediately filled with water. Margaret had been right -- still too wet. As he turned the tractor by the hedgerow, the ground squelched away beneath the back wheel sliding mud into the drainage ditch, and the machine leaned too far over, hung in the air, balanced on a fine point of gravity, with Michael perched on top. Gravity claimed them in slow motion, toppling, he tried to leap from the seat and clear the mass of metal. He hit the far side of the ditch grasping wildly for a hold on the wet grass but sliding back inexorably into the hollow. Somehow, man and tractor had reversed and now he lay beneath. The great weight crushed him, ground his body down.
Despite the shallow sides of the ditch Michael could barely see over the edge. A layer of cold, muddy water almost touched his face as he strained away from it. The good clay soil, looked dark and shiny, chocolate smooth. If he craned his neck around, he could see the red tractor above him, the sharpened plow blades reared up against the grey sky. He thought how fragrant the world smelled after rain, clean earth, new shoots and damp wood. Blood spread into the tea-colored water around him, seeping his strength away so that he couldn’t keep his face high enough. It occurred to him, first as a calm thought, he would die here. Then panic warmed within him like something tight squeezing his lungs together, swelling his heart to fill his whole body. Had Margaret been watching from the farmhouse? Was she running to him now, through fresh-turned channels? In his mind, he could see her, skirt clutched up to her knees, her calves mud-splattered. He suppressed his urge to call out, knowing water would flood in if he opened his mouth and he would drown. The water drew closer though he struggled, tried to twist his head away, still the cold wetness cupped his cheek, slipped between his lips. His face slid lower. He remembered he’d never learned to swim, thought about fear and fate, the irrelevance between them. Lawrence must have always known nothing connected the two. Water invaded his nose, covered his eyelids, closed his world to silence.
