The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel Read online

  —Could be worse, one man says.

  —How’s that?

  —We could be going to Patience Trench.

  The column arrives at a blockage in the road. A horse has fallen into a trap of mud, a deep crater filled with tacky gray sludge. The horse is sunk nearly up to its shoulders. The driver has unyoked the animal from its wagon and is coaxing it forward, but he cannot get it out of the mire. The horse brays and snorts, its shoulders thick with foaming sweat, its legs skittering hopelessly for footing. With every motion the horse sinks further down, with every suck of air.

  —She’ll never make it, Ashley tells the driver. You oughtn’t let her suffer like that.

  —He’s a stallion, sir. A strong brute. He might get out yet—

  —Bollocks.

  Ashley watches the horse struggle, stirring up the mud with its forelegs only to collapse further down. A captain from the Durhams arrives from the other direction and halts his soldiers behind the wagon. He comes around the cart and Ashley salutes.

  —That horse is drowning, the captain says. What’s the holdup?

  The captain does not wait for an answer. He draws his automatic pistol, approaches the channel of mud carefully and levels his pistol at the horse’s head, aiming at the base of the brain, behind the eyes and below the ears. The captain fires. The horse jerks and its neck collapses. It goes on sinking with a soft gurgle, its eyeballs huge and grotesque, the fine musculature of its neck tense and rigid. The driver stands stupidly by the road, watching the dead animal. The captain orders Ashley’s men to push the wagon to the side of the crater. It is impossible to move the horse.

  —Just tread right on him, the captain instructs. That’s right, on the withers, safest place to step.

  They go on eastward. The men are no longer singing. The trench water gives way to thicker mud and their progress is slower. As they advance the shelling grows fiercer and several times they dive deep into the mud to seek cover. They come out dripping with sludge, several pounds heavier.

  The column passes more stalled carts with dead horses still attached, mouths grinning in the darkness. Below the mud lie worse things, spongy or rigid forms that collapse under the men’s boots and send up bubbles of foul gas. The soldiers follow only the man in front of them, too dumb and tired to think for themselves. The road disintegrates into a mess of shallow channels breaking off in different directions. The column goes in one direction, then another. The soldiers become lost in the night and the shells that fall upon them could be theirs or those of their enemy, for it makes no difference. A huge howitzer detonates at the rear of the column and two men are pulverized into a mess of blood and bone. One of the new recruits starts gathering the meager remains into a sandbag, but Ashley shakes his head, calling over the booming artillery.

  —It’s not safe here. We must keep moving—

  They trudge on toward the flashes of the front line, making their way along another drowned road, the ground sinking until it is waist-deep and impassible. Jeffries comes back along the column to consult Ashley, bearing his torch and a map in a waterproof case. The two officers go a few paces away so as not to be overheard. Ashley’s boot slips into a hole and he tumbles into the mud. Jeffries pulls him up by the shoulders, stifling a laugh.

  —We’re at Ten Bells, Jeffries says. Must have passed our turning point under the shelling. I suppose A and C companies made the turn. We must come out of this road and traverse to the north. It shan’t be easy, but it can hardly be fouler than this. How are your men?

  —They know we’re lost. We’re always bloody lost.

  Ashley leads his men up out of the sunken road. On hands and knees they scramble up the slope of mud, tossing rifles up and clawing at the gunk, sliding back down and squirming up until they flop over. They travel northeast across the refuse of old battlefields. The men march with their eyes half-open. They can no longer feel their feet. Some collapse and they are ordered forward, and when this fails they are cajoled and insulted and dragged back into the column. The soldiers drain their water bottles and even in the frost they sweat under seventy-pound loads until the sweat turns clammy and makes them shiver. Once an hour the officers halt to let the men rest, but later Jeffries worries that once halted the men will not start again, so there are no further breaks.

  The sky goes from rain to icy rain. At three o’clock in the morning it begins to snow, the thick flakes silhouetted under the star shells flaring and sinking over no-man’s-land in the distance. The column descends into a shallow basin of limbless trees and a few minutes later a barrage of shrapnel opens upon them, the metal pellets bursting and singing through the broken forest. Two of Lieutenant Bennett’s men are killed and Ashley loses another, a lance corporal who is all but decapitated by a huge metal shard. The wounded are taken to the aid station and Ashley leads his men around a vast shell crater. At the far side of the crater Ashley sees a shadowy figure sunk up to his waist in mud. Ashley halts his men and calls out to the figure. It is difficult to hear over the crashing artillery.

  —Just leave me be, sir, the man begs. Soon I’ll be out of everyone’s misery.

  —Who are you?

  —Evans, sir, C Company. Hit in the leg. Fell in here and they never saw me. I don’t want to trouble no one. No point in bringing me out, only for me to die under the Empress. You can shoot me, sir—

  —Rubbish.

  It takes ten minutes to extract the man from the mud, and then he has to be half-carried by Ashley’s men, dripping and exhausted. His leg wounds are slight, but he has lost his rifle and most of his equipment. He repeats over and again that he wishes he had drowned where he lay. Ashley tells him to shut up.

  At dawn they reach the ruins of Patience Trench. The Berkshires relieve a ragged battalion of the Manchester Regiment identifiable only by their accents, their uniforms too caked with mud to reveal any insignia. The Manchesters begin to file out as soon as Ashley’s platoon approaches. One of the Manchesters cadges a cigarette from Private Mayhew.

  —Yous are after the Empress, aren’t yous?

  —Suppose we are, Mayhew says.

  —Did you know, you can tell the weather by her?

  —Is that so?

  —Look up at her in the morning, and if she’s there it’s going to rain today.

  —Very funny.

  A second Manchester takes a drag from the cigarette and joins in the conversation.

  —There’s more to it than that. So long as she’s looking down on you, you’ll suffer more than you could believe. She belongs to the Huns. She’s their good luck, and you won’t believe the misery we’ve had under her. Last night we went out to cut the wire for you lot. We had two lads wounded and drowned in the mud, sucked into the ground. Let me tell you, you’re better off never looking in her direction. If you look up at the chalk and see her face in it, your number’s up. All them that drowned, they seen her face—

  Mayhew shakes his head. —She won’t be winking at me, chum.

  The Manchester raises his hand in protest.

  —Listen. I didn’t say wink. You look at her, she looks right back. A pair of blue eyes. That’s all it takes.

  A captain from the Manchesters debriefs the B Company officers for the handover. The captain says the mud has gotten much worse over the past week. The dugouts have all flooded and there is no decent cover. A few days ago they lost a Lewis gun to the mud. The men nearly drowned trying to extract it. Last night the Manchesters opened a hole in the British wire in preparation for the attack, but even that simple task was torture.

  —We’re barely keeping our heads above water, the captain says, and now they’ve sent you in to attack.

  —We’ll manage, Jeffries says.

  Ashley tries to guide his men into position for the attack tomorrow, but the ground bears little relation to the neat lines of his field map. He is looking for the second line of Patience Trench, a short lane called Patience Support from which his platoon will attack. But everything has been decimated by
rain and shelling. In some places there are sandbags stacked a few feet high, in others only fortified shell craters linked by shallow flooded ditches. Patience Trench was held by the Germans until the July fighting and their dead are strewn everywhere. Among all the crevices hangs the same sweet rotting stench. The corpses are built into trench walls and parapets, their boot soles or black hands jutting out from the chalk.

  In the grim half-light of dawn Ashley searches the shadowy ground with his torch, looking for a safe place to step. Bodies everywhere. A set of ivory teeth gaping from the dirt. It is impossible not to step on the corpses, so Ashley switches the torch off. In some places the trench is impassible, a well of bubbling silt, and the men have to climb onto the parados and dash under gunfire to their positions. Two men are hit in this way, one of them shot through the head and killed instantly. By late morning the four platoons of B Company have reached their positions. They will stay here until they attack the next morning.

  Ashley spends the next hour inspecting the men for trench foot. He kneels before them holding a candle in a murky ditch as the men strip off their boots, struggling to wipe their feet with socks already black with mud. The best feet are merely caked with filth; the worst are red and swollen, dangerously close to gangrene. He orders the men to massage whale oil into their feet, watching them change into spare socks that will be soiled again in minutes. Ashley blows out the candle and hands it to Sergeant Bradley, whispering to himself as he walks back along the trench.

  —If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.

  In the afternoon Ashley studies the layout of the country using his pocket periscope from the Army & Navy Stores on Victoria Street. He scans the flat horizon, all white snow and gray morass, the occasional wisp of smoke or khaki figures dashing around the flanking positions. B Company will be the second line of attack, in close support of the first wave. Ashley’s platoon is on the far right of the attack: Lieutenant Eaton commands the platoon to his left, beyond this the two other platoons of B Company under Lieutenant Hawkes and Lieutenant Bennett. Beyond no-man’s-land the redoubt is conspicuous, a tower of chalk above a heap of snowy mud. Ashley watches it for some time before he can make out the figure of the Empress, but once he has seen her he can see nothing else. The figure remains faceless.

  All day the men wallow in the mud, hungry and cold, waiting for the ration party to arrive. They have marched all night without water and there is nothing to drink here. Ashley sends a pair of men to scout for water in the vicinity, but they bring back only a sackful of canteens gathered from the German dead. Some of the men will not drink from these, saying it is bad luck, but when one of the canteens is found to be full of schnapps there is great jubilation.

  Near dusk the ration party finally arrives. They have taken seven hours to carry their loads through the mud, their rifles slung on their shoulders, in each hand a petrol can full of water. Some of them carry sandbags full of biscuits and bully beef. There is no hot food. The water tastes of gasoline and the men have trouble drinking it even as they pinch their noses. Ashley mixes in a little whisky from his flask and gulps it down. The smell of bully beef makes him queasy, so he eats only a couple of biscuits and prepares to sleep a few hours. Zero hour for the attack is 06:00 tomorrow.

  Ashley lies as the men lie, against the wet remains of a trench wall, his gas mask bag for a pillow. As he grows drowsy, he whispers a few words to her, indulgently.

  —I could stand even worse. Anything for you. Imogen.

  It thrills him to speak her name, but he feels embarrassed even though no one can hear him. It snows most of the night. Ashley is not fully awake, but he is shivering too much to sleep.

  By four o’clock in the morning Ashley is wide-awake and feeling quite nauseated. He rises from the ground and walks a few yards toward a hole designated as a latrine, no more than a ditch dusted with quicklime. He urinates into the hole. Then he tries to vomit. Over the sleepless night his mind has become a wreck of nervous anxiety, and he imagines it might help to empty his stomach. Ashley bends over the ditch and the odor makes him gag, but nothing comes out. He straightens and stands there for a moment, the frigid breeze singing past his ears in the darkness. He wonders if this is how his last morning on earth begins. It is a useless question, he decides.

  Soon afterward Ashley meets the other officers of B Company, the five men standing in the muck at a crossroads of crumbling trenches. They synchronize their watches and Jeffries says a few words about the attack. Everyone already knows the plan. Jeffries has brought an empty ammunition box and the officers fill it with addressed parcels for their wives or lovers, letters and mementos to be sent if they should be killed. Ashley drops in a short letter to Imogen, but he has no keepsake to leave behind. Jeffries latches the box shut. They shake hands all around.

  At a quarter to six the order goes down the line. Fix swords. The men each draw the long bayonet from the scabbard at their waist, setting them onto their rifles with a soft rustling of steel. They wait in the trench, many smoking cigarettes. Morning breaks colorless and bleak. It has stopped snowing and a thick mist curls over the ground.

  At six o’clock the British batteries open all at once with a clank of shells jetting overhead, then thundering blows in the distance. The German lines on the horizon explode with color: bursts of red and yellow, geysers of dirt and smoke. The bombardment is short, a twenty-minute prelude to the attack. Ashley lights a cigarette to calm himself. Feigning cheerfulness, he walks among the men making trivial jokes, checking rifles and equipment. He eyes the sweep hand of his watch, forty ticks until the first wave goes over. The Germans send up signal flares in pink and green flashes. On both sides the machine guns rattle ferociously. Above the mist hovers the obscene white prow of the Empress.

  Fifty yards ahead there is a low groan as the first wave clambers over the frontline parapet. Ashley watches them through his periscope: the men crawl up the mud and many are caught by a traversing machine gun as soon as they step over the top. The line wavers, men dropping their rifles and crumpling to the ground. A few stagger forward and disappear into the mist.

  Ashley collapses the periscope and sets his whistle in his mouth. All around him the men look at Ashley expectantly, the whites of their eyes showing through the fog. It has begun to drizzle again. Ashley draws his pistol from its holster, the gun attached to a long lanyard around his neck. He eyes his watch, the sweep hand curving up toward twelve. It is time. He raises his arm and blows the whistle. Awkwardly he scrambles up the lip of the parapet, but he slides backward in the mud. He steps up again and waves the men forward, blowing his whistle in a burst of shrill notes. The line of men goes forward with a primordial bellow, their rifles leveled.

  At once half the line is cut down as a machine gun opens on Ashley’s left. It traverses at shoulder height and the taller men catch bullets in the neck, the shorter ones in the eyes. They crumple to the ground, spewing blood. Ashley urges the remaining men onward, expecting the machine gun to catch him at any second. The soldiers struggle to move quickly, sinking with each step over mud and ice and refuse. They waddle forward under heavy loads, shovels swinging on their packs as they walk over a set of planks strung across a long muddy ditch. They have reached the British front line.

  Ashley urges his men forward, waving his arm. They step around the bodies of wounded and dead Durhams from the first wave. The gunfire is deafening. Farther on the ground is a latticework of mud and snow, icy in some places, sticky in others. Ashley has lost sight of all but a small party of his men, Sergeant Bradley and Mayhew and a few others. He cannot see far in the mist. He charges on, his eyes on a flashing machine gun ahead, but he stumbles on the rim of a shellhole and falls flat into the mud. A shrapnel shell bursts high overhead. Half-swimming, half-walking, his revolver lifted high, he limps out of the shellhole, dripping with mud. Mayhew follows close behind. They meet Sergeant Bradley and three men taking cover below a tiny ridge.
/>   —Where are the rest of the men? Ashley demands.

  —Don’t know, sir, the sergeant says. Dead, I think. The machine gun caught most of them when we come out. Mr. Eaton and Mr. Hawkes was shot before we crossed our own lines. Haven’t seen Mr. Jeffries or Mr. Bennett.

  —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.