Pat Barker - The Ghost Road

But then, something perfectly dreadful is going to happen. So that's all right.

Sunday, 22 September

Morning — about the nearest we ever get to a lie-in (I've been up and on the go by 5.30 every day this week). Wyatt's shaving and there's a voluntary service starting just outside. Smell of bacon frying, sound of pots and pans clattering about and Longstaffe whistling as he cleans my boots. Hallet's on the other side of the table writing to his fiancée, something that always takes hours and hours. And the rain's stopped and there's a shaft of sunlight on the ground and the straw looks like gold. The razor rattling against the side of the bowl makes a pleasant sound. The ghost of Sunday Morning at home— roast beef and gravy, the windows steamed up, the News of the World rustling as Dad drops half of it, the Sally Army tuning up outside.

Onward, Christian soldiers,

Marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus

Going on before.

Twenty — perhaps a few more — male voices in unison. Longstaffe's singing the alternative version:

Forward Joe Soap's army

Marching without fear

With your brave commander

Safely in the rear.

He boasts and skites

From morn till night

And thinks he's very brave,

But the men who really did the job

Are dead and in their grave.

Sung very cheerfully with great good humour. We're all looking forward to Sunday dinner, which is roast beef and roast potatoes. I'm famished. And there is not going to be a gas drill during this meal. I know.

Tuesday, 24 September

Bussed forward. Men sang all the way, in high spirits, mainly I think because they didn't have to march.

Thursday, 26 September

The nearest village is in ruins. Extraordinary jagged shapes of broken walls in moonlight, silver mountains and chasms, with here and there black pits of craters thronged with weeds.

Some of the other villages aren't even ruins. You're not supposed to mention the effects of enemy fire, but a lot of this is the effect of British fire so perhaps I can mention it. Nothing's left. We passed through one village that hadn't a single wall above knee height. Old trenches everywhere, tangles of rusting barbed-wire, rib-cages of horses that rotted where they fell. And worse and worse.

The men, except for the one or two I remember from last year, are still reserved. Sometimes when they're alone at night you hear laughter. Not often.

They guard the little privacy they have jealously. Most of the 'devotion' people talk about is from officers— some of the officers — to the men. I don't myself see much sign that it's reciprocated. If they trust anybody they trust the NCOs, who're older, for the most part, and come from the same background. But then I wasn't born to the delusion that I'm responsible for them.

What I am responsible for is GAS. Either the Adjutant wasn't joking or if he was it's a continuing joke. My old nickname — the Canary — has been revived. Owen for some reason is known as the Ghost. Evidently when he disappeared into Craiglockhart — and I suspect didn't write to anybody because he was ashamed (I didn't either)— they concluded he was dead.

Gas drill happens several times a day. The routine lectures aren't resented too much (except by me — I have to give them), but the random drills are hated by everybody. You're settling down for the night, or about to score a goal, or raising the first forkful of hot food to your lips, and wham! Rattles whirl, masks are pulled on, arms and fists pumped, and then the muffled hollow shout GAS! GAS! GAS! Creatures with huge eyes like insects flicker between the trees. What they hate — what I hate — is the gas drill that comes while you're marching or doing PT or bayonet training, because then you have to go on, flailing about in green light, with the sound of your breathing — In. Out. In. Out. — drowning all other sounds. And every movement leeches energy away.

Nobody likes the mask. But what I have to do is watch out for the occasional man who just can't cope with it at all, who panics as soon as it comes down over his head. And unfortunately I think I've found one, though he's in my company which means I can keep an eye on him.

The attitude to gas has changed. It's used more and feared less. A few of the men are positively gas happy. OK, they think, if a whiff or two gets you back to base and doesn't kill you, why not? It's become the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot and a lot harder to detect.

At dinner I told Hallet and Potts that four years ago we were told to protect ourselves from gas by pissing on our socks. You folded one sock into a pad and used the other to tie it over your mouth and nose. They gaped at me, not sure if I was serious or not. 'Did it work?' asked Hallet. 'No,' I said. 'But it didn't half take your mind off it.' And they both laughed, quite relieved, I think, to know I was only having them on.

It used to give you spots round your mouth. Not that that was our main worry at the time.

And today was pay day. After an afternoon spent crawling running falling crawling again across wet fields, the men were so caked in mud they looked as if they were made of it. Tired, but pay day's always good, even if you've nothing to spend it on, and they were chattering, jostling, laughing as they queued. Then the rattles whirred. A groan went up — (with the real thing there isn't time to groan — more practice needed) and then the usual routine: clenched fists, pumping arms, GAS! GAS! GAS!

They went on queuing. Mud-brown men standing in mud, the slanting rays of the sun gilding the backs of their hands, the only flesh now visible. I was sitting next to Hardwick, ticking off names on the list. One man, waiting immediately behind the man who was being paid, turned his face a little to one side, and

I saw, in those huge insect eyes, not one but two setting suns.

Friday, 28 September

Since yesterday evening there's been a continuous bombardment. All the roads forward are choked, drivers stuck in the mud, swearing at each other, a flickering greenish-yellow light in the sky and every now and then the whine and thud of a shell. A constant drone of planes overhead, all going one way.

We move forward tonight.

Rivers walked along the path between the tent and Narovo village, the full moon casting his shadow ahead of him. All around were the scuffles and squeals of the bush, the scream of some bird that turned into a laugh, then silence for a moment, more scuffles, more squeals, the night-long frenzy of killing and eating.

Once in the village he went straight to Ngea's hall, stooped and went in. The scare ghost shivered at his approach.

The women were asleep, the widows who tended Emele. He tiptoed past them, and knelt down, calling, 'Emele! Emele!', an urgent whisper that caused one of the widows to stir and mutter in her sleep. He waited till she settled before he called the name again. When there was no reply he pushed the door open and there, curled up in the prescribed position, back bent, hands resting on her feet, was Kath.

'Kath, Kath,' he said. 'What on earth are you doing here?' And the movement of his lips woke him up.

He sat on the edge of the bed, peering at his watch. Four o'clock, never a good time to wake. His throat was very sore. He swallowed several times, and decided what was needed was that good old medical stand-by, a glass of water.

In the bathroom he blinked in the white light, caught a glimpse of himself in the looking-glass and thought, My God, is this really what you've done to yourself? He took a moment to contemplate baggy eyes and thinning hair, but he wasn't sunk so deep in neurosis or narcissism as to believe an overhead light at four a.m. lays bare the soul. He drank a glass of water and went back to bed.