Elizabeth Speller: The Return of Captain John Emmett

He felt awful: sick and sweaty. His neck ached and he rotated his head a couple of times to ease it. He was conscious of every breath forced in andout. If he couldn't control his breathing, how could he hope to control his behaviour and that of a whole platoon of men? He could hear Sergeant Collinsmoving up the trench, murmuring; he couldn't distinguish the words but the tone was of reassurance and encouragement. They had two new lads; both saidthey were eighteen but Laurence doubted they were.

Fifteen minutes.

The barrage had found its new range. He hoped it was accurate. His fingers were tingling and the tips had no feeling at all. He had been turning overthe signal whistle in his hands when his fingers lost the ability to hold it and it fell to the length of its lanyard. What would happen if he couldn't keep hold ofhis rifle when the time came and had to cross no-man's land unarmed?

Ten minutes.

The barrage stopped. He looked along to his right to check that his nearest NCO was ready. He could hardly see him but eventually he did andnodded. He took a furtive swig from the tiny bismuth bottle. He polished his watch face with his handkerchief. His eyes scanned the men closest to him. Whowould make it? Jones, the temperance ranter? Gaseley, the loner? The unfit, overweight Pollockwho had successfully lumbered his way in and out of twoyears of action? Sergeant Collins, once a stationmaster from Bromley? The East End scrap dealer, Levy, only twenty-two and yet already the father of fourchildren? Who else was out there? What else was out there? He had studied the maps, read the reconnaissance reports, but things changed; wholelandscapes altered in battle. They had seen aeroplanes, of both sides, crossing the sky during the late afternoon on the day before while it was still light. Hecould hear that high, distant noise of them even now, their apparently unhurried movements seeming to have nothing to do with what was going on below.

Even when one of them was shot down—though they'd seen and heard no firing—and fell to earth in silent flames, he had no sense that a man like himselfwas being roasted alive.

Five minutes.

He cleared his throat. Licked his lips. He had no saliva. The bismuth clogged his mouth. What if he couldn't blow the whistle? He felt for it again. Thepain in his chest was excruciating. He looked up, exchanged grim smiles with Collins who had taken a position down to his left. Watched him pat one veryyoung soldier—was the boy's name Russell?—on the shoulder. Looked at his watch. For a moment the numerals blurred.

Two minutes. He could hear Pollock's adenoidal breathing.

His arm rested on the ladder; momentarily he laid his forehead against it. He could sense every pore, every nerve ending and every alert hair on hisbody. How could all this suddenly cease in oblivion? It was unimaginable. Please God, he wasn't about to be sick. To his right one man crossed himself andhe could see his lips moving in prayer. Now his heart was thudding so hard he could hear nothing else. The field guns stopped. Would they have cut the wire?

Would they?

One minute.

Pollock belched. Someone sniggered. He kept his eyes on his watch, steadied afoot on the lowest rung of the ladder, raised the whistle to his mouthand started a prayer of his own. Please God, he said, keep me safe. Please don't let me die.

Ten seconds.

Take someone else this time. Not me. Take someone else. Anybody. I just want to live. Please. Don't let it be me. He looked at the slight, fair-hairedboy to his left. At Pollock, gasping, mouth open. Made his glance pass by Levy. Felt Russell watching him. Gaseley's eyes were shut, his face white andinscrutable. Not me. Not now. Please. The whistle was in his mouth; he could feel its vibrations but heard nothing. They started to climb.

Anybody.

'I remember a sergeant shouting at the men not to bunch up—it was human nature to cling together, a lethal instinct—and then I remember seeing Jones, a Welshman who'd been praying just before we went over, moving ahead of me even while the men to each side of him fel. I passed a soldier caled Levy lying on his back, the top of his head blown away. And then as we came towards the enemy lines, suddenly this German was right in front of me and he saw me and was so close I could see the muzzle of his rifle as it found me. I dropped down and got him as he fired, and a man caled Polock, who was right behind me, was hit. He went down clutching his bely and he just said "ouf" like a monstrous cushion deflating. I felt guilty and yet simultaneously elated. I thought God had answered my prayer; he'd taken Polock, not me. That was bad enough. But it was worse than that.'

Laurence leaned his head back against a pilar.

'We broke through. We overran their position. It was bayonets for hand-to-hand fighting. But the casualties were terrible. There were two lads, friends who had joined together ... I knew they were underage but we were short of men; it was easier not to ask. One of them was shot only feet from our position. His war had lasted less than five minutes. We never saw the other again. Eventualy we crawled back. Tried to pul in our wounded. A few days later—a lifetime later—we were back in bilets. We'd lost over half of our officers, nearly a third of our men. My men. I was drinking myself to sleep each night.

'A few days later, the colonel sent for me. I was hung-over and I thought he was going to promote me simply through lack of alternatives. But no, he had a telegram. Rather than look at me, he read it through without raising his eyes until he ran out of words, though it was so short he must already have known it by heart. It said that Louise had died giving birth and the baby had died with her. And they had died on the morning I was going into battle. Louise died—I made it my business to find out later—almost at the very hour I went over. When I was begging God to take another life instead of mine. The colonel's giving me a tot of his special scotch and apologising that he can't send me home quite yet and I'm realising that I sacrificed my wife and my son and the whole long life he might have had, just so that I could go on living my pointless existence.'

'Laurence,' Mary said gently but protestingly.

'I know. I know. It's a terrible, cruel, Old Testament God who would accept such an exchange. I know that. But I offered them up.'

'Laurence,' said Mary, putting her hand under his chin and forcing him to look at her. Her eyes were shining brightly. She blinked several times. 'Thousands—

millions —of prayers must have been said by desperate men in desperate situations. You think you were the only one who, faced with horrors I can't even imagine, asked to be spared at any cost? And what about al the mothers and wives and sisters back home? Do you think that perfectly nice mothers didn't hope and, yes, pray it would be someone else's boy? Their friend's son? Their sister's fiance? I prayed and prayed for Richard. I went to church, and I went through the motions of joining in prayers for victory and prayers for peace, but, selfishly, the only thing I wanted was Richard. I didn't care whether we won or lost. When he was horribly injured I prayed for him to survive, when, seeing him now, I should have wished for him to have been spared the living death he has. But I wanted him back. I didn't want to live in a world without him.'

When Laurence didn't answer she said, 'You weren't thinking of Louise then. You weren't suggesting a sacrifice, one for another; you wanted to live. It's a powerful instinct. Then you got the news of Louise's death when you were away from home, under enormous stress, and it's hardly surprising you made a link.'