Page 71 of Last Letter Home
‘Sarah Bailey? I didn’t know you two were friends. Jennifer says she’s worked miracles at the Hall.’
‘She does work very hard, poor thing.’ There must have been something about the tone of his voice, a softness, perhaps, that Harry, who was a good reader of emotions, picked up on.
‘So that’s the size and shape of it. Sarah, eh? Jennifer didn’t tell me about that.’
‘I imagine that she doesn’t know. It’s a not a big secret, but I don’t think Sarah speaks about it in Westbury. Not everyone would understand.’ He didn’t like to say that Mrs Bailey was not altogether happy that Sarah was seeing him, although she’d not tried to prevent it. He was not a little hurt by this and by the fact that Sarah had not allowed the relationship to be known about, though he understood. Westbury had known him as the German gardener who’d been interned.
‘Listen, old man.’ Harry looked about at the soldiers passing through, signalled a greeting to one or two, then drew Paul to one side, where their conversation couldn’t easily be overheard. ‘I need to warn you.’
Paul felt a weariness, sensing what Harry was about to say. He approved of Harry, and trusted him, though he hardly knew him. He was straightforward and liked most people and wasn’t bothered if they didn’t like him back, though most did. His men would follow him because they trusted him, but he lacked, Paul guessed, a natural authority over them. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t seen promotion.
‘I shouldn’t mention Sarah to Richards, if I were you. It might add to your difficulties with him.’
‘I already know what he thinks of me,’ Paul said, trying not to sound bitter. ‘Thanks for the tip though.’
‘Major Goodall’s a fair sort. The men like him.’
Again, Paul took his point. Ivor Richards was only the second-in-command. He resolved at that moment to stay out of Richards’ way as much as possible.
When, the following evening, he found a quiet few minutes to begin a letter to Sarah, Paul wasn’t sure whether to mention the matter, but in the end found it impossible not to. You’ll understand that it’s not unexpected that I should come across them here, but that we should all three be in the same company was a surprise. I know that Richards is a friend of your family, but you understand my difficulties with him. He will always be watching me, and that is an extra strain.
It was dawn, two days after Paul’s arrival at the barracks, when the unit assembled in the parade ground ready to travel out into the desert. The army lorries were lined up nose to tail by the river, silvery silhouettes against a pearly veil of mist, through which glowed the great lemon disc of the rising sun. When Paul drew close he realized with concern how dented and worn the vehicles were, their famous Desert Rat logos almost erased. By the time the men had piled in and the supply truck was loaded, the mist had dispersed and the sun was beginning to blaze. One by one, engines fired into life, the lorries lurched forward and moved out of the gates into the awakening streets.
Despite the squash of men and possessions, Paul was thankful that they were actually on their way. The previous forty-eight hours had been onerous, a relentless round of packing kit, square-bashing on the parade ground and rifle training. The evenings had been free, but he’d felt too liverish to roam the streets much, and last night he’d felt the purging effects of some falafel he’d bought at a market stall.
‘What, are they them pyramids?’ Blackie cried suddenly, and they craned their necks to look, exclaiming at how rough-hewn they were close up, and what a dirty sandy colour, not the smooth gold that they’d imagined. There was much hilarity when they spied the Sphinx with its poor snubbed face. Paul guessed their next letters home would be full of it all. Some of those with him, he’d discovered, had never been outside their home county before the war, let alone beyond Britain’s shores. He felt a sudden sharp comradeship with them out here, all undoubtedly fearful of what they would endure, but determined to do whatever they had to with cheerful heroism.
The road bent north, or so he surmised from the direction of the sun, and after a couple of hours low white buildings began to appear on either side, harbingers of a city that rolled out towards a blue horizon. The city was Alexandria and the blue the Mediterranean. Though they quickly swung away from the buildings, the blue grew nearer and more glorious, and soon they were travelling alongside a wide stretch of beach and the cool breeze that blew set up a longing in them. At lunchtime the lorries bumped off the road to circle an oasis and the soldiers undressed as they ran, shouting ecstatically, leaving their clothes on the beach as they splashed into the cool water and cavorted in the waves. Paul struck out far from the shore and when he turned to look back, treading water, he was filled with an intense pleasure in the world and the beauties of the desert. He loved the sense of being accepted by these men and being a part of their endeavours.
It was to be a long time before he felt such joy again.
After tea and bully-beef sandwiches came the call to move on and, sticky with salt and sweat, the men scrambled back into the lorries. The sun had passed its full height and begun to descend. The long heat of the afternoon bore down. There was less energy for talking now and they had to hold on to their seats for the tarmac was full of potholes. From time to time they passed ominous signs of battle, twisted bits of metal on the side of the road, the wreck of a lorry or the burnt-out fuselage of a plane. A group of sappers who were fixing the road stepped back, waving their shovels and cheering as the lorries roared past with horns blaring.
Eventually, they left the tarmac behind and bumped out across the sand, following markers the engineers had left to show a safe route. The light deepened in colour towards sunset and still the desert rolled under the wheels. Everyone was heartily sick of the vast, grey expanses of sand with, apart from the abandoned rubbish of warfare, its featureless landscape.
He must have slept, because when Paul opened his eyes next it was dark, though he could make out, by the weak, shrouded headlamps, the solid shapes of tents. They had arrived at the camp.
‘Keep your head down, for Chrissake.’ Paul obeyed Harry Andrews’ harsh whisper. ‘Where’s Stuffy?’
‘Over here, sir.’ Private Stephen Duffy’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. There was no moon. Only the ancient stars stared down.
‘You and Hartmann, do a recce while we keep an eye on this little lot over here.’ Paul lowered himself carefully from his position as lookout, clutching his rifle. ‘Watch your backs now, will you, and don’t make a sound.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ Duffy whispered.
Paul rose silently on his haunches and followed Duffy along below the line of the ridge. He dreaded kicking any stones that might start a scree and advertise their presence to the German patrol they’d glimpsed a few moments before. How it had happened, he didn’t know, but his platoon had become separated from the rest of the company. One minute they were there, the next, they’d vanished without a shot fired. Now they were in danger of being surrounded, unless Harry Andrews’ idea was the right one, that this was a lone German patrol and not part of a bigger unit. They reached a break in the ridge and Paul sensed Duffy, ahead, sink down to negotiate their way round to the other side. Then Duffy froze and he froze, too. The seconds passed. ‘What’s happening?’ he started to say, but Duffy’s elbow jabbed him into silence.
Very faintly now he could hear soft sounds, breathing, the scuffle and scrape of boots on grit. Paul felt a chill shoot through him and his heart began to pound in his chest so loudly that he was sure others must hear it. How far away was this man, and was there only him or others? The scuffling was close now. He felt Duffy tense and his hand closed over his rifle. Then the man was upon them. Duffy leaped, Paul heard a whimper and a grunt as the bayonet went in. The man’s body hit him as he rolled past them, the life gurgling out of his lungs. It was the first time it had happened so close. He sensed the warmth of the man, the vain struggle against death, the terrible silence, then his mind snapped back alert, his hearing acute, listening out. There was another sound, someone trying to retreat silently, he thought, but Duffy was in action again, stabbing the air, and Paul followed, colliding with solid muscle and bone, a big man this time. He jabbed upwards and felt the blade slide in. The man gasped ‘Nein!’ and clutched at Paul’s weapon. Paul felt the full weight of him falling forward, the stink of hot sweat and blood and something else, fear. He lay there struggling uselessly beneath the dead man until Duffy pulled the body off him.
At that moment, further away, shots cracked the silence. Cries of pain went up and shouted instruction, then came a flare of light, an explosion, and sand rained down. ‘There’s a dozen of ’em there, did you see?’ Duffy whispered. ‘We must go back.’ He gripped Paul’s arm and dragged him away. Paul tripped over one of the bodies as he stumbled back the way they’d come to join the others.
Dim in the darkness they saw them, several hunched figures shooting from the top of the ridge, Andrews caught in silhouette tossing a grenade. Another explosion, more cries of grief. A German voice barked an order. Retreat. Paul and Duffy threw themselves beside their mates, rising and falling to shoot. A soft thud and Paul glanced to see someone along the line jerk forwards, collapse like a drunk, but he couldn’t see who. He raised his rifle, peeped over the top, sensed rather than saw the bulks of several figures scrambling away down the escarpment. He fired in their general direction then ducked again. Beside him, Duffy fired too, and then there was no more shooting. They listened, but all they could hear were fading footsteps and, close by, the grunts of one of their comrades abandoned and in pain.
A glimmer of light behind. ‘Briggsy, you poor old blighter.’ Duffy’s voice came cracked and shrill and Paul glanced down to see him bent over the ragdoll figure of Joe Briggs. Joe looked even slighter in death than he’d been in life and a lump came into Paul’s throat.
Andrews had appeared beside Paul and shone a torch down over the ridge, its shaded beam describing an arc of horror. There were corpses, Paul saw, six or seven, and a man curled up like a foetus, shaking in agony. He was the one making the awful sounds.
‘Let’s go down,’ Andrews said softly. ‘See if there’s anything we can do. Briggsy’s beyond help, I’m afraid.’
