Pat Barker - Toby's Room

But then, suddenly, it didn’t matter. They were being pulled out of the line, going back far beyond the reach of shells, to prepare for the big attack, the one that everybody knew was coming. But you could forget about that, as you marched away from the trenches into open country where birds still sang and there were flowers, trees, streams … Even as far back as this, some of the buildings had holes in their roofs and there were craters in the fields, but soon they’d leave all that behind. There’d be villages where no bombs had fallen, cafés, food that didn’t come out of a tin, drink. My God, yes, drink.

Increasingly, he needed a drink to take the edge off his fear. With one part of his mind he could, quite objectively, analyse his condition because he’d seen it so often before, in other men. You began by being appropriately, rationally afraid, the extent of the fear always proportionate to the danger. With luck, and a sound constitution, that stage might last for many months. But the process of erosion is unrelenting. After repeated episodes of overwhelming fear, you start to become punch-drunk. You take stupid risks, and sometimes you get away with it, but not for very long. If you’re lucky you may be wounded, but don’t count on it. If you’re not, the third stage is just round the corner. Fear is omnipresent. Sitting in a café, with a beer in front of you, you’re neither more nor less afraid than you are in the front line. Fear has become a constant companion; you can’t remember what it’s like not to be afraid. He was at that stage now.

And the next? Breakdown: stammering, forgetting how to do even the simplest things, shaking, shitty breeches … Oh, he’d seen it. And he knew it wasn’t far away.

As stretcher-bearers and orderlies they played little direct part in the rehearsals for the coming attack. Brooke held a sick parade at six o’clock every morning, dispensed laxatives, listened to chests, attended to blistered feet. One man, a tall, yellow-skinned, cadaverous sort of chap, older than the rest, became really quite ill with a septic throat. How did you get that? Neville wanted to ask. If he’d thought it was contagious he’d have climbed into bed on top of the chap and gone through the whole Kiss me, Hardy routine, though he probably wouldn’t have got it, no matter how hard he tried. Beyond the usual coughs and sniffles, he couldn’t get anything.

Many of the soldiers were young recruits fresh from home. They had no knowledge of the men whose places they were taking in the line, very little idea of what lay ahead, and the others, those who knew, who remembered names and faces, were silent.

When not actually rehearsing for the attack they played a lot of football. Neville’s bulk and laboured breathing kept him off the pitch, though he liked watching. Rain pelted down; the men’s shirts stuck to their backs and their mouths were wet and red in muddy faces. He remembered the same men as they’d been ten days ago: pinched, grey faces, stumbling along, many of them half asleep. They’d been old men, then. And the smell: that evil yellow stench of a battalion coming out of the line. And look at them now. Yes, but in a few days they’d be back in the line, and this time, everybody said, this time they’d really be in the thick of it. Of course rumours were always flying round, but he thought there was some truth in this one. You could tell from the jumping-off points in the rehearsals that they were going to bear the brunt of it.

All this time, whether drunk or sober, Neville was aware of the revolver lying at the bottom of his kitbag. Knowing it was there both disturbed and comforted him. Two days before they were due to start the long march away from safety, he went and sat by himself in the barn where the men slept at night and took it out of its wrapping. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he put the muzzle against the skin of his bare arm, trying to imagine what it would be like to squeeze the trigger: the agony of torn muscles and shattered bone.

An act of cowardice, people said. And he didn’t dare do it. So what did that make him? His fingers as they stroked the cold metal left prints that quickly faded. If only he could get wounded, a slight wound, nothing too serious, just enough to make sure he got sent home.

An illness would do. Trench fever: that was a good one. Oh, for God’s sake, he didn’t need to get ill, he was ill. He’d had rheumatic fever as a child; there’d been a question mark over his heart ever since. He’d been excused rugby for a whole year. And the symptoms he’d been experiencing recently: racing pulse, indigestion — ah yes, but was it indigestion? Skipped beats … His heart skipped so many beats it was a wonder the bugger kept going at all. Even now, this minute, he could feel his heart thudding: skipping beats, every vein in his body pulsing and throbbing, as if he’d suddenly become transparent. Honest to God, if he stripped to the waist now, you’d be able to see it beating. Nobody could say that was normal …

Brooke was the problem. Why couldn’t he stay in the Casualty Clearing Station like every other MO and wait for the wounded to be brought to him? There’d be no disgrace in that, none whatsoever. In fact, it was the way the system was meant to work. But no, Brooke had to be in the front line, or preferably in front of it, crawling around on his belly in the dark. Sometimes, after the wounded and dead had been brought in, he’d go out again, searching for identity discs. Anything, he said, to bring down the terribly long list of ‘Missing, Believed Killed’. How could people grieve, he said, when they didn’t know? And Neville had to go with him; there was no choice. That was the crux of it, really: Brooke had a choice; he didn’t. He was ordered to go, and so he went, crawling about in bright moonlight over what felt like the eyeball of the world, searching through a mess of decomposing body parts to find the little scraps of metal.

Six: that was the score from their last excursion into hell. Ah, yes, Brooke said, but that was six families rescued from the pain of not knowing. You couldn’t fault him: not on that, not on anything. Only, if he went on like this, he was going to get them all killed. For one brief moment, Neville let himself imagine the unthinkable, pointing the revolver away from himself. Levelling it. Then, quickly, he pushed it back inside the sock and returned it to his bag.

Next evening, after a particularly bad day, Neville decided he couldn’t put off talking to Brooke any longer. He went round to the farmhouse where the first-aid post was currently located, but found it empty except for Evans and Wilkie, who were rolling bandages and grumbling over a smoky fire.

‘Where’s Doc?’ he asked.

‘Where do you think?’

He set off to the stables. As soon as he opened the door he heard Brooke’s voice and followed it, between lines of tossing heads and manes, to a box at the far end where he found Brooke kneeling down, peering at a horse’s hoof that one of the stable lads was holding between his knees.

‘Can’t see anything,’ he said, straightening up, ‘but she’s definitely limping on that side.’

He jumped as Neville came up behind him. So perhaps even Brooke’s nerves weren’t perfect? ‘Do you think I could have a word, sir, if you’re not too busy?’

‘Yes, of course, I’m nearly finished here.’

Neville went back to the farmhouse, sat on his bunk and waited. He was trying to work himself up into a state of desperation, but couldn’t manage even that. After a while Brooke came in, wiping his hands on his breeches.

‘Did you have a good ride?’

‘Huh, not really, she went lame on the way back. I think I might have to rest her a day or two.’ He looked more closely at Neville. ‘What’s the matter?’