Alone In The Trenches (3 page)

Charlie could see I was shivering. “I think we could both do with a mug of something hot,” he said. “Just hang on a mo’.”

He fetched a tin billy-can and some water, and used a stand made from twisted wire to heat up the billy over the stove. From his pocket he produced some paper wraps containing a sticky dark
brown substance, which went into the water.

“Oxo…” he smiled, “…beef tea. You’ll like it. Makes everything seem better.”

He was right. It was comforting to hold a hot drink and inhale the meaty aroma. However, when I took a sip it tasted vaguely of petrol. I must have wrinkled my nose. Charlie noticed and
laughed.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s those flimsies – the cans we store the water in. You’ll get used to it. It doesn’t seem to do
us any harm. And the sergeant says we’ve got to keep drinking plenty, otherwise we’ll be fit for nothing.”

While I’d been in the wagon, I’d stuffed half a stick of bread into my coat pocket and, despite my little fight with the corporal and the driver, it was still there. I pulled it out,
and offered some to Charlie.

“Well, thank you young lady, I don’t mind if I do,” he laughed. “Share and share alike! You’ve got to take it where you find it, I always say.”

As we talked, the sun moved round the angle of the roof and streamed into the barn. What with the tea and the stove and the additional heat from the sun, I quickly went from being chilly to
drowsily warm. I’d been up before six: it had been a long and dramatic morning. Charlie’s voice was low and soothing, and I fell asleep where I sat.

I must have slept for several hours, because when I woke the afternoon light was already beginning to fade. The soldiers had moved me and I was now lying on a camp bed covered with a coarse
blanket. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, but around me there was a pleasant hum of activity. The smell of cooking drifted towards me from one corner of the yard. Men were queueing by a cart. From
behind the cart two women in uniform were dishing out something brown and sloppy onto tin plates. The soldiers ate greedily, laughing and joking as they scooped up mouthfuls of food and wiped their
dirty mouths on their sleeves. From the other side of the courtyard came the snort and stamp of horses. Two fine-looking mares were being brushed down while a patient old carthorse stood next to
them with one leg raised, having a shoe replaced. A lorry had arrived at the entrance to the yard, and lengths of board and rolls of chicken wire were being unloaded under the corporal’s
beady eye. A few metres away, a row of men were carefully cleaning their rifles, pulling lengths of cloth through the gun-barrels. Immediately next to me a soldier with carrot-red hair was sitting
in his vest peering at his army jacket. He had a clown’s face with a squint and a broken nose. In his left hand he held a candle. He ran the candle up and down the seams of the jacket, one by
one. He caught me watching him and laughed.

“Don’t you mind me, missy,” he chuckled. “It’s the lice, see. The little critters likes to hide where you can’t see ’em. But a candle’ll always
find ’em out, don’t you worry. Like…that!” And he pounced on something with a thumb and forefinger, squashed it, and rubbed his finger in the dirt beside him. “Don’t you just wish to blazes the flippin’ Hun could be so easily squashed, eh? I’m Ginger, by the way. Charlie’s mate.”

I thought he was funny and sat up so that I could watch more closely. “Oi, Charlie,” Ginger hollered. “You’re needed over ’ere.” And then I saw Charlie coming
through a gap in the walls followed by a tall, slim, smartly dressed officer. They were talking. When Ginger saw the officer with Charlie, he added with another shout, “Begging pardon,
sir”. Charlie waved a hand in our direction either to show he’d heard or perhaps to shut Ginger up. He finished his conversation with a salute and crossed the yard towards us.

“I hope Private Phipps here isn’t getting you into mischief?” he said, smiling.

“As if I would,” Ginger replied. “I’m shocked you should ever dream of such a thing, Private Perkins.”

“Now, Miss Annette, you could probably do with a wash and brush up,” said Charlie, all business-like. “I’ve had a word with the captain, and he’s fine for you to
use the facilities in the house. Come with me and I’ll show you.”

“He’s a good lad, is Charlie,” Ginger called out as Charlie took me away. “Not like some. He’ll look after you all right, miss. And if he gets put upon for
something and can’t be found, you call on me or the corporal. We’re family men with daughters or sisters back home ’bout the same age as you.”

*

Les Roses
was a handsome building of three stories with four large sash windows on each side of the steps which swept up to its gracious front door. There was a strong
smell of polish around the hallway from the wood panels and banisters, but where there was paint, it was chipped, and the paper on the walls above the stairs was beginning to peel. It was a
soldiers’ house now. Rough and ready would do.

“There’s a toilet and bathroom just here,” said Charlie, opening a door at the top of the first flight of stairs, and then closing it again. “And tonight, because no one
can think what to do with you yet, the captain says you should sleep in here…”

The room we entered was more grand than any I’d ever slept in. The wallpaper was a beautiful pink and the bed linen was crisply white and deep red. The curtains were heavy and came
together with a satisfying swish when the cord was pulled. The bed was so high off the ground I had to clamber up onto it. Charlie handed me a key.

“When you go to bed, lock the door so you won’t be disturbed,” he said. “No one will bother you unless you call.”

Suddenly I felt very alone. “Where will you be?” I asked in a small voice.

Charlie cleared his throat.

“I’ve done a deal with Captain Garvey. He says he’s happy for you to stay here until the morning, but in return he needs me to go out with him tonight. I’m good at
cutting my way through barbed wire, see. If you were to walk a couple of miles up the road here, you’d find yourself at the beginning of our CTs – that’s ‘communications
trenches’ in army-talk. If you were to keep your head down so you didn’t get it blown off, then in another quarter-mile you’d find yourself at the front line. There are two lines
of trenches dug in facing the Hun, full of mud and water and Lord knows what, and the furthest of the two is the firing trench. Between our trenches and theirs is an area called No Man’s
Land, and in the middle of No Man’s Land is the barbed wire the Germans have laid down so we can’t get at them. Captain Garvey and me – we’re going to cut a big hole in the
wire, and then our lads can make a raid tomorrow morning to teach Jerry a lesson he won’t forget in a hurry.”

“It sounds very dangerous,” I said.

“Well, I suppose it is dangerous,” he answered. “But it’s not the first time I’ve been out there, and I daresay it won’t be the last. If you find yourself
with time on your hands tonight I won’t mind if you say a little prayer though. All things considered, I’d rather be home in Oxford.”

I knew all about Oxford. Dad had talked about its beautiful buildings and wide streets. He’d always said he thought Bruges or Ghent in Belgium were the best, but Oxford wasn’t half
bad.

“My dad’s family came from Witney,” I said.

“Well, I’m blowed,” Charlie replied, shaking his head. “Do they now? Witney eh? I had an auntie lived there once.”

For a moment there was a faraway look in his eyes, and for a few seconds I could tell Charlie was back home, warming himself in front of the fire in an Oxford parlour. Charlie recovered
himself.

“Now, we’d better find you some grub before I go and put on my make-up.”

I looked at him, puzzled.

“We have to cover ourselves with mud so we blend into the landscape and can’t be seen. Still, they do say it’s good for the complexion. Fine ladies pay quite a lot of money for
the pleasure, so I’ve heard.”

Down in the yard again, as the day faded into evening, Charlie found me some stew and a hunk of bread. There wasn’t a lot of meat in the stew, but there were plenty of white beans floating
around so at least it filled me up. He made me drink some more petrol-flavoured tea, and then said, “Right, you’re on your own till the morning now. There’s no one else to boss
you about, so I’m going to act like your big brother, and tell you to go and hunker down in that nice room of yours until the morning. Night, night, Annette, and watch the bugs don’t
bite. Only, out here you know they will! I’ll come and see you tomorrow as soon as I can.”

In the bedroom I thought to myself, “
But what if Charlie doesn’t come back?
” And then I tearfully remembered Dad and Michel. I even spared a grudging thought for Mum,
too. She was probably worrying herself silly wondering where I’d gone while she tried to get some food into Grandma. But it was too late now. I’d told my big fib. I couldn’t
change my story – what would Charlie think of me? And anyway I didn’t want to go back to the lonely farm without the protection of my father and brother. I felt very alone and sorry for
myself as I wept into my grubby handkerchief.

The sound of a harmonica floated up to my window from the yard, and a quavering voice began to sing:

In the distance I could hear the deep rumble of gunfire. Charlie and I were in for a very long night too.

In fact I slept very well and I was up with the lark. When I’d splashed some cold water on my face I went down to the yard. Charlie was nowhere to be seen but Ginger
Phipps was there.

“Good kip, miss?” he asked. I said it had been. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “Now, we’re not to worry, and of course I do because he’s such a good pal of
mine, but we’ve had a message sent down about Charlie.
He’s
OK, but Captain Garvey ain’t so clever, and apparently it was a bit of a do getting him home. Charlie’ll
be along in a while, but he’s spent a few hours getting some sleep in a dug-out up near the line. So just you sit tight for a while ’til he gets here.”