Justin Go - The Steady Running of the Hour

— C Company is to the north. If we get nearer the enemy wire, we can link up with them.

— We’re closer to the Huns than we are to anyone else, sir. Only the six of us. We’ll never make it—

— Nonsense. Let’s go.

Ashley dashes forward before the others have time to consider. The soldiers follow. They stumble through glutinous mud, passing clusters of khaki and gray corpses floating in shell holes. Ashley fires his revolver stupidly in the direction of the flashing German machine gun. They reach the German wire. Slowly they zigzag between small openings cut by high-explosive shells. The machine gun to the north rattles off well to the left of them, the mist very thick. They approach the enemy parapet and Ashley makes a signal. Each man hurls a bomb into the trench. There is a thudding series of blows. The men jump over the parapet and stand on the neat planked floorboards of the German trench. It is empty.

— Bloody eerie, sir, Sergeant Bradley says.

— Careful, Ashley says. They could be anywhere—

They walk down the trench, Sergeant Bradley in front with his bayonet, Ashley behind with his pistol drawn, his other hand fingering the pin of a Mills bomb. They round the corner of a fire bay and turn another corner into a traverse. There is no one. Around another fire bay they find the entrance to a dugout, a wood frame with stairs descending into the darkness. Ashley begins to reload his revolver. He looks at the men.

— You will stay with the sergeant to consolidate the position. Mayhew will come down with me.

Mayhew looks at Ashley but says nothing. The men throw bombs down the staircase and wait for the concussion. A series of bangs, smoke and acrid fumes rising from the doorway. Ashley and Mayhew start down the staircase. The walls are lined in concrete and the ceiling is hung with electric bulbs at intervals, but the lights are off. They go down ten feet. The staircase goes on in the darkness. Ashley does not have his torch, so he strikes a match and holds it before him. He sees the steps under him, then farther below the ruined timber where one of their bombs exploded uselessly, scrapping the wooden steps. They walk carefully over the splintered wood, descending fifteen feet. Twenty.

They enter a room with a wooden floor. Mayhew pushes a metal lever attached to the wall, but the lights do not come on. Ashley finds a candle and lights it. The walls are papered and hung with pictures in wooden frames, colored lithographs of forests and churches. There are the remnants of a table, severed and splintered by the bombs. Broken china plates and shattered glasses. On one wall there is a bookcase filled with four neat rows of books, the spines stamped with gilded Gothic text. Ashley finds a trench map on one of the lower shelves and folds it into his tunic pocket. He walks into the far corner of the room, thrusting the candle before him. A large black shape — an upright piano, twisted ribbons of shrapnel embedded in the glossy wood. Mayhew fingers one of the ebony keys, shaking his head in disbelief.

— A bloody piano. And us living like rats just across the wire.

— Must be the battalion headquarters, Ashley says. What’s through that door?

They go through the narrow corridor into a small kitchen, then an adjoining room with rows of bunks and shelves of supplies and foodstuffs. Mayhew finds a pair of dry socks and cries out in joy. He unties his boots and begins changing his socks. Ashley finds a square lantern-style electric torch and switches it on: a small yellow beam of light. At the end of the room there is another descending staircase. Ashley shines the torch down into the darkness. A rat dashes up the stairs and disappears into the shadows behind him. Mayhew double-knots his boots and stands up.

— Don’t think we ought to go down there, sir.

— Naturally we ought to.

There is dull roar as a howitzer crashes above them, shaking the dugout. Clumps of dirt fall from the ceiling.

— Hope the men didn’t catch that, Ashley says. Hell of a dugout. Quite deep.

Mayhew spits onto the floorboards, his thumb rubbing the bolt of his rifle.

— It’s not the shells that worry me, sir. There’s Huns about—

Ashley starts down the staircase, the torch hanging from one hand, his pistol in the other. Mayhew follows. There is a strong stench, the sickly bouquet growing as they descend. A rat squeals up the staircase between their feet, then another one, then a dozen, until they are treading on the rats. The staircase opens into another large chamber, this one dirt-floored. Sturdy rafters support the room and there are rows of iron bunks, shadowy figures upon them. A few of the shapes wheeze and reach toward the torchlight.

— Kamerad! Kamerad!

Ashley swivels, holding his pistol high.

— Mayhew, don’t touch them—

— No intention, sir.

Ashley’s torchlight darts around the room. The floor is a sea of obese rats scurrying back and forth, their fat pink tails sooted with grime. Empty tin cans and bottles. On the lower bunks, German corpses in their greatcoats, perhaps a week dead, faces blue or green, eyes sunken in black sockets. Some of the dead seem to move. Ashley approaches one of them, the chest throbbing under the greatcoat. Ashley comes closer. Maggots swarm from the neck and crevices of the coat, pulsing the body with a synchronized horror. Ashley jerks back, raising the torch. On the upper bunk a man is muttering in strange German, his head bound with a large bandage blackened with dried blood. He holds his hands over his eyes, blocking the light.

— What’s he saying? Mayhew says.

— It’s gibberish, Ashley says. He’s not talking sense. They must have been wounded in the show last week. Probably they couldn’t evacuate them since.

— It’s awful, sir. I can’t stand the smell—

— Go upstairs and tell the sergeant it’s secure down here, then come directly down. I want to know if that howitzer caught them. And see if you can find any water.

Mayhew goes upstairs and Ashley passes along the row of bunks, shining his light. He is halted by a figure raising his hand in bed, beckoning to Ashley. The young man is beardless, his face jaundiced and sickly. His mouth is stained and his eyes are crusted. On the shoulder boards of his tunic there is the single diamond star of an Oberleutnant . He waves Ashley closer.

— Herr Leutnant .

Ashley squats beside the bunk and shines his torch at the officer’s face. The German raises his hand to block the light.

— Too bright, he says in German. We have been in darkness all morning. They cut the electricity when they left. You speak German?

— Ein Bisschen . Are you the officer in charge here? What regiment are you — the second Marine-Infanterie?

— Let me see your face better, Herr Leutnant , you look familiar. Or perhaps you are a captain? There are very young captains now—

Ashley shines the torch on his own face and points it back at the German. The officer smiles faintly.

— I thought it was you, the German says. We met before, don’t you remember? You were in Berlin before the war. We met at the old Café des Westens, you came with that other foreigner who would speak only French with us, she didn’t like to talk German. Vous parlez français, non?

— Nonsense, I’ve never been to Berlin. Are you the officer in charge here?

— I think no one is in charge here, Herr Leutnant . Tell me, what happened to that girl? She wasn’t really French, was she? But she had a camera, she took wonderful photographs. She may have forgotten you, but you can’t forget her—

Ashley stands up, no longer listening. Private Mayhew clambers back down the stairs, the dark outline of his head peeking from the doorway.