Our trench and our dugouts have been left in a mess by the previous occupants, a company of Jocks from the Seaforths, so when we’re not on stand-to at dawn, brewing up or sleeping, we’re set to clearing up their mess. Captain Wilkes — or “Wilkie” as we call him now — is meticulous about tidiness and cleanliness, “because of the rats,” he says. We find out soon enough he’s right again. I am the first to find them. I am detailed to begin shoring up a dilapidated trench wall. I plunge my shovel in and open up an entire nest of them. They come pouring out, skittering away over my boots. I recoil in horror for a moment and then set about stamping them to death in the mud. I don’t kill a single one, and we see them everywhere after that. Fortunately we have Little Les, our own professional rat-catcher, who is now called upon whenever a rat is spotted, whatever the time, day or night, he doesn’t mind. He jokes that it makes him feel at home. He knows the ways of rats, and kills with a will each time, tossing their corpses up into no-man’s-land with a flourish of triumph. After a while the rats seem to know they have met their match in Little Les and leave us be.
But our other daily curse, lice, we all have to deal with ourselves. Each of us has to burn off his own with a lighted cigarette end. They inhabit us wherever they can, the folds of our skin, the creases of our clothes. We long for a bath to drown the lot of them, but above all we long to be warm again and dry.
Our greatest scourge is neither rats nor fleas but the unending drenching rain, which runs like a stream along the bottom of our trench, turning it into nothing but a mud-filled ditch, a stinking gooey mud that seems to want to hold us and then suck us down and drown us. I have not had dry feet since I got here. I go to sleep wet. I wake up wet, and the cold soaks through my sodden clothes and into my aching bones. Only sleep brings any real relief, sleep and food. God, how we long for both. Wilkie moves among us at dawn on the firestep, a word here, a smile there. He keeps us going, keeps us up to the mark. If he has fear he never shows it, and if that is courage then we’re beginning to catch it.
But we couldn’t do without Charlie either. It’s Charlie who keeps us together, breaks up our squabbles (which are many and frequent now that we are so closely confined together) and jollies each of us along when we get downhearted. He’s become like a big brother to everyone. After Sergeant Hanley and the field punishment, and the way Charlie managed to smile through it all, there isn’t a man in the company who doesn’t look up to him. Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadow, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.
We have a few more miserable days in the line, all of us longing for the comforts of rest camp. But when we get there they keep us endlessly busy. We clean our kit, march up and down, turn out for inspections again and again, do our gas mask drill again, and then there are always more ditches and drains to dig to take away the incessant rain. But we do have letters from home, from Molly and Mother, and they have knitted woollen scarves and gloves and socks for us both. We have communal baths in great steaming vats in a barn down the road and, best of all, eggs and chips and beer at the estaminet in Pop. The beautiful girl with the doe eyes is there, but she does not always notice me, and when she doesn’t I drink even more, to drown my sorrows.
The first snow of winter sees us back in the trenches. It freezes as it falls, hardening the mud — and that certainly is a blessing. Providing there is no wind we are no colder than we were before and can at least keep our feet dry. The guns have stayed relatively silent in our sector and we have had few casualties so far: one wounded by a sniper, two in hospital with pneumonia, and one with chronic trench foot — which affects us all. From what we hear and read we are in just about the luckiest sector we could be.
Word has come down from Headquarters, Wilkie says, that we must send out patrols to find out what regiments have come into the line opposite us and in what strength — though why we have to do that we do not know. There are spotter planes doing that almost every day. So most nights now, four or five of us are picked, and a patrol goes out into no-man’s-land to find out what they can. More often than not they find out nothing. No one likes going, of course, but nobody’s been hurt so far, and you get a double rum ration before you go and everyone wants that.
My turn soon comes up as it was bound to. I’m not particularly worried. Charlie’s going with me, and Nipper Martin, Little Les and Pete — “the whole skittle team”, Charlie calls us. Wilkie’s heading the patrol and we’re glad of that. He tells us we have to achieve what the other patrols have not. We have to bring back one prisoner for questioning. They give us each a double rum ration, and I’m warmed instantly to the roots of my hair, to the toes of my feet.
“Stay close, Tommo,” Charlie whispers, and then we are climbing out over the top, crawling on our bellies through the wire. We snake our way forward. We slither into a shell hole and lie doggo there for a while in case we’ve been heard. We can hear Fritz talking now, and laughing. There’s the sound of a gramophone playing — I’ve heard all this before on lookout, but distantly. We’re close now, very close, and I should be scared witless. Strangely, I find I’m not so much frightened as excited. Maybe it’s the rum. I’m out poaching again, that’s what it feels like. I’m tensed for danger. I’m ready for it, but not frightened.
It takes an eternity to cross no–man’s–land. I begin to wonder if we’ll ever find their trenches at all. Then we see their wire up ahead. We wriggle through a gap, and still undetected we drop down into their trench. It looks deserted, but we know it can’t be. We can still hear the voices and the music. I notice the trench is much deeper than ours, wider too and altogether more solidly constructed. I grip my rifle tighter and follow Charlie along the trench, bent double like everyone else. We’re trying not to, but we’re making too much noise. I can’t understand why no one has heard us. Where are their sentries, for God’s sake? Up ahead I can see Wilkie waving us on with his revolver. There is a flickering of light now coming from a dugout ahead, where the voices are, where the music is. From the sound of it there could be half a dozen men in there at least. We only need one prisoner. How are we going to manage half a dozen of them?
At that moment the light floods into the trench as the dugout curtain opens. A soldier comes out shrugging on his coat, the curtain closing behind him. He is alone, just what we are after. He doesn’t seem to see us right away. Then he does. For a split second the Hun does nothing and neither do we. We just stand and look at one another. He could so easily have done what he should have done, just put up his hands and come with us. Instead he lets out a shriek and turns, blundering through the curtain back into the dugout. I don’t know who threw the grenade in after him, but there is a blast that throws me back against the trench wall. I sit there stunned. There is screaming and firing from inside the dugout, then silence. The music has stopped.
By the time I get in there Little Les is lying on his side shot through the head, his eyes staring at me. He looks so surprised. Several Germans are sprawled across their dugout, all still, all dead — except one. He stands there naked, blood spattered and shaking. I too am shaking. He has his hands in the air and is whimpering. Wilkie throws a coat over him and Pete bundles him out of the dugout. Frantic now to get back we scrabble our way up out of the trench, the Hun still whimpering. He is beside himself with terror. Pete is shouting at him to stop, but he’s only making it worse. We follow the captain through the German wire and run.
For a while I think we have got away with it, but then a flare goes up and we are caught suddenly in broad daylight. I hurl myself to the ground and bury my face in the snow. Their flares last so much longer than ours, shine so much brighter. I know we’re for it. I press myself into the ground, eyes closed, I’m praying and thinking of Molly. If I’m going to die I want her to be my last thought. But she’s not. Instead I’m