That Fugitive Peace

Part One: 1916, Endurance

Chapter One

The air was still reverberating with the booming of the guns, and yellow flashes lit the darkening sky as they squelched their way back across the shell-hole ridden expanse they had crossed that morning, leaving others to hold the line. Apparently they'd won; stumbling in front of his small group, Lennox wished it felt more like victory.

"You made it back then, Corp?" a voice asked out of the dusk.

Lennox stared at the familiar figure for a moment, a sarcastic comment fluttering at the edge of his consciousness, but he was too tired to do more than give a bald acknowledgement. "Aye." Then it occurred to him to add, "I see you did too, Howie."

The sudden glow from a distant Verey light threw Howie's creased and muddy face into sharp relief, his wide grin reminding Lennox horribly of a three-day-old battle corpse. Trying to shake off the comparison, he peered into the fading light at the shadowy figures standing behind Howie in the trench. "Is that you, Turnbull?"

"Nah," a voice croaked. "'S me, Corp, Redpath from number two section. Turnbull's no' here."

"Did you see what happened to him?" Lennox asked, then as Redpath shook his head, he glanced at Howie standing in front of him. "Bert?"

But Howie shook his head too. Bugger, another one. "What about Nairn?"

"He's no' here, but I seen him shauchlin' to the rear," one of the other figures piped up. Lennox recognised the voice of Nairn's mucker, Wattie Scott; he thought the boy sounded jealous.

"Dickson barely made it over the top, and we haven't seen either Kerr or Carmichael since this morning," Lennox said with a jerk of his hand to include Williams and the other three men standing behind him. "How 'bout you?" But Howie and the men with him shook their heads.

"They might turn up yet," Howie murmured, but it was clear to Lennox that he was just saying that; he didn't really believe it.

"Aye, an' that's the Kaiser comin' tae congratulate ye for coming through alive," muttered Redpath nodding at the figure of Lieutenant Jamieson, the company commander, advancing round the traverse. He had lost his tin hat and as he approached, Lennox could see a trickle of blood running down his forehead, but he hadn't even bothered to staunch it.

"Right, Lennox, who's here?" Jamieson's voice sounded as exhausted as he looked.

With an inclusive sweep of one hand, Lennox said, "Unless there's any we haven't seen, we're all that's left of number four platoon, sir, and I'm the only corporal. I don't know what happened to Sergeant Kelly." He reeled off the names of those he thought were missing or that one or other of them had seen fall, then listed the walking wounded. He paused for a moment looking at the trickle of blood, as Jamieson made a disgusted grunt at the back of his throat. "And you're wounded too, sir."

"Thank you, Corporal; I had noticed."

Lennox flushed at the officer's sarcasm; he wasn't so stupid he had thought the man had never noticed. He'd only been suggesting that Jamieson should perhaps consider doing something about it. But that was officers for you.

Jamieson continued, "Sergeant Kelly is now acting CSM. Did anyone see what happened to Lieutenant Stewart? There seem to be half the company missing."

"I think Mr Stewart's wounded - I saw him fall early on," Williams said.

Lennox turned round and looked at Williams. "No he's not, he's dead," he contradicted, trying to expunge the memory of the split second their platoon commander had died, but it wouldn't go away. He could still see the moment the back of the lieutenant's head had exploded, splattering brains over Lennox's legs as the man fell backwards. Just above the lieutenant's left eyebrow there had been a small hole where the bullet had hit him, and as he fell, other bullets caught his flailing arms, covering them with blossoms of red. Lennox blinked. The image was still before his eyes, like a photograph, only in colour. "Shot," he explained, gesturing at his head, forcing himself to keep his mind on the business of the moment.

Jamieson nodded in comprehension. "At least you're here, Corporal, someone in number one platoon thought they'd seen you get hit."

Lennox snorted, but all he said was, "Not me, sir."

"Good piece of work capturing that Bosche Major," Jamieson said then, to Lennox's huge embarrassment. He could hardly remember the incident.

Jamieson continued, asking about other men on the missing list and some of the others teased out memories of seeing them fall, or if lucky, hobble back the way they had come. He knuckled his eyes, as if trying to stay awake. "We're to stay here in support tonight - there's a dugout back there you can use." He waved his hand behind him back the way he had come. "We'll get it all sorted out tomorrow. The cooks are going to try and get some hot tea up to company HQ - it's at the junction with Shetland Alley." Then before continuing along the trench added, "Well done." He disappeared round the traverse.

Lennox watched him go then turned back to the remnants of the platoon. "Let's find this dugout and have some chow - we've got our rations."

Williams spat on the muddy A-frame at the bottom of the trench. "So we're staying here all bloody night then? Aw, fuck!"

"Shut up, Joe! You think any of us want to stay here? Get your arse along to the dugout, now!" Before he could stop himself, Lennox found he was shouting at the man. It took an effort to rein his temper in, and he rubbed his face and sighed. Then he said in a quiet voice, "Let's just get some sleep while we can, eh? There's no telling what they'll want us to do tomorrow."

But although utterly exhausted, Lennox found it hard to sleep. It had nothing to do with the sounds of heavy shelling and gunfire that continued from further forward. He was used to that. After he had seen to his men, organised the collection of the by-now lukewarm tea, and dealt with everything else that needed dealing with, he found that he couldn't stop thinking about the events of the last few days. He lay, curled up in the dugout, hoping none of them had noticed the way he had started to shake. His mind was alive with a confused blur of smoke and noise, interspersed with short scenes of devastating clarity. Most of the Jerries had melted away as they attacked, but he remembered a group of them blown apart by a shrapnel shell, leaving dismembered body parts littering the trench. Not exactly the sort of thing you could put in a letter home. He imagined for a moment trying to describe the exact shade of red the spattering blood had been and the contrast with the white shards of bone from the end of one man's leg, and suddenly felt nauseous. He managed to crawl outside before he was sick. What a waste of good bully!

Looking at them in the grey light of dawn the next morning, Lennox didn't think his men had had much sleep either, their faces drawn and haggard with dark circles under their eyes. He found himself thinking about some of those that weren't there, about Kerr and Turnbull, two of the few originals that had been left, and Carmichael, a more recent arrival. He remembered meeting Kerr on the train from Berwick to Bordon, where they had trained. The boy had been sitting on the edge of his seat, choking on a Woodbine looking pleased with himself. He had claimed to be 19 but Lennox hadn't believed it and neither had any of the others in the compartment. He'd eventually confessed he wouldn't even be 18 until the following summer, not that anybody really cared. He had been a shepherd, brought down off the hills in the same mad rush of patriotism and adventure-lust that had brought them all here. Not all of them, Lennox reminded himself; Turnbull was one of those who could never quite explain why he was in the army - with six bairns at home it certainly wasn't because of the money. And as for Carmichael! Lennox felt a shudder of guilt that he hadn't known the man better, but the conscript had only been drafted in the previous week. All that had registered was the man's resentment at being there. He hadn't had time to buckle under and get on with it, like the rest of them. Now he never would. Lennox blinked, feeling a wave of sadness almost overwhelm him. Then he sighed and dragged himself back to those who had survived.

Wattie was standing looking totally lost without Nairn. He'd ended up mucking in with the Fifer despite the fact that they argued constantly about football. Lennox clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Alfie'll be back in a week or so. He can't have been hurt that badly if he was walking."

Wattie didn't look reassured. "Aye, but we thought that about Jimmy Smith, and we've never seen him again."

Lennox looked at him and smiled. "I came back. In fact, I came back twice." He ticked off his fingers. "The first time was after Loos - that was before your time wasn't it?" Scott nodded. "I was in hospital for a week and was back before I'd even had a chance to relax a bit. The second time, was back in April when I had trench fever - I was in quarantine for two months and got back just in time to march down here with the rest of you." He kept to himself the shock he had felt when he realised so many of his mates were no longer there. Nairn would find that out soon enough, if he did get back.

Scott gave an uncertain grin. "Aye, I suppose you're right, Corp."

"You'll see." Satisfied that he'd reassured the boy, he turned to Howie and said, "Bert, see if the cooks have done us proud again, and I'll go and see what the lieutenant wants us to do today."

When Lennox came back, Howie thrust him towards the smell of tea, and Williams filled the mug he automatically held out. They waited while he took a gulp of the hot, sweet liquid, feeling the warmth trickling down his middle. Howie looked at him quizzically, one eyebrow raised. "You look sick. Dinnae tell me, burial detail?"

Lennox stared grimly at them. "Aye, sorry, boys. Best not have any breakfast. We've to meet the padre up in Bottom Trench." He gulped the rest of the tea down, emptying the dregs onto the ground and chivvied them back towards what had, until a few days ago, been No Man's Land. He had found through experience that the best way to cope with work like this was to force his mind blank, to try and see what he and his men carried as lumps of meat, or try and turn the whole thing into a joke as Williams and some of the others did, but it was always harder when it was people he had known.

They had been working for a couple of hours when Redpath found what was left of Kerr amidst the bodies of several men from another battalion, the one that had been on their right, Lennox thought irrelevantly. There was enough of his face left to recognise him. To avoid thinking about what he saw in front of him, Lennox started composing the letter he would send to Kerr's Ma - he was shot through the head and died instantly - which was true in a way. He'd get the others to sign it too, even Williams who'd always been slagging him off.

They worked until they were exhausted again. It felt strange to be moving around in the line during daylight with no one firing at them, but Lennox realised that the Germans had been pushed far enough back so it was safe to work where they were. Gradually a trickle of the missing appeared from where they had become attached to other units in the fighting or been unable to find the battalion afterwards. But there weren't many of them, and neither Carmichael nor Turnbull was among them. By the late afternoon, Lennox felt he had got to that point where it was easier to keep going, keep moving, than to stop and risk falling asleep. He almost didn't notice when they were relieved from the trenches and shambled back to a nearby camp with the rest of them.

He barely listened when told where they were going - but followed the man in front of him. It crossed his mind that he was probably following the man in front of him too. Lennox was too tired to smile at the thought they could all well be marching round in circles following each other. Arriving at the camp, stumbling with tiredness, he nearly fell asleep on his feet as Jamieson carried out a roll call of the whole company. Then he was directed to a hut and just had time to register that it was dry, and that there were rough beds, before he collapsed into unconsciousness on one of them.

He was driven from sleep the next morning at sunrise by the need to urinate, but knew he could have more than slept the clock round if his body and the army had been minded to co-operate. As he wandered over to the latrines, shivering in the chilly morning air, he remembered being at the camp a month or so ago. The quarter bloke had arranged for them to have a bath, lining a pit with canvas and filling it with warm water. Lennox had been lucky - he'd been one of the first in while the water was still clean. They'd even been able to wash their clothes. It didn't look like there would be much chance of that now. The spaces between the huts had deteriorated into a muddy morass in the recent rain, churned up by thousands of feet. Once finished, he negotiated with the cooks for a bucket of lukewarm water. Then he stuck his head in the bucket and soaped up his face, squinting into the scrap of mirror he had while he scraped the bristles off his chin.

Once finished, he thought he looked a bit less like a gypsy, but his eyes were still red-rimmed and strained. Not for the first time he wondered how he was ever going to fit into his old life again once this madness was all over. Even Alice hadn't understood when he'd tried to explain how he felt, that time on leave in the spring.

Shaking his head at himself, he rubbed his gritty eyes, and wandered towards the smell of frying bacon to get some breakfast from the cooks. Some part of him was still amazed that apart from a few bruises, he had managed to come through without a scratch, when so many had not.

Hot tea and a bacon sandwich later, he felt even more human. Looking round, and knowing that the battalion were all together once more, he shuddered at how few of them there were left. His own platoon hadn't suffered the worst; he looked in vain for familiar faces from other platoons, and the other companies seemed as badly affected. The only sergeant majors he could see were men who the day before had been platoon sergeants, and there weren't many of those. Surely they couldn't all be dead?

During the morning, stragglers continued to wander into the camp, including another half dozen or so from his platoon - they'd got lost and somehow ended up with a mob of Canadians, or so they said. Williams, Redpath and the others appeared; Lennox looked at them and thought that despite the night's rest, they still looked as if they had been through hell. They went over their things together. Everything had suffered some damage, whether it was a torn tunic, ripped haversack, or punctured water bottle.

"Aw bugger!" exclaimed Armstrong, one of the men from number three section. He was holding up a mess tin with a bullet flattened on it. "If that had hit me I'd've had my Blighty ticket!"

Howie snorted, prising the blob of metal off the tin with his knife, and examined it. "Aye, right! A letter of condolence from the colonel for your missus, and a nice wee patch of French soil for you, mair like."

There were murmurs of agreement from the others, although Lennox found it hard not to sympathise with the man's feelings. Nevertheless he still said, "Be careful what you wish for, Armstrong, you could find yourself on a hospital train with no legs, or worse, no arms, like that poor bastard in D company."

They all blenched, and Lennox left them to think about it. The transport hadn't yet arrived with their packs, and he wondered if this was because it had got stuck somewhere, or if it was waiting for them somewhere else. Until it did, he wouldn't get a clean shirt, and despite his wash he still felt dirty. Scratching himself, he sat in a patch of sunlight against the wall of one of the huts and pulled out his pocketbook to write to Alice.

He always wanted to let her know he was all right as soon as possible after they had been in action, and now more than ever, he didn't want her to worry for longer than was strictly necessary. However as always on these occasions, he got as far as My Dear Alice, and inspiration dried up. After a few minutes staring at the page, he wrote, as you can see, I have once more had the good fortune to survive. Then he paused, brow crinkling in dissatisfaction. It seemed distant and impersonal, not the literary equivalent of the hug he desperately wanted to give her. He flipped to the back of the pocketbook, where he kept her photograph and letters. He gazed at her picture for a moment, regretting the way the stiff, formal pose rendered her dumpy features remote and severe. Then he smiled at the way that even in this pose, her hair was starting to come down, as it always did. He pulled out her last letter, and read it again, imagining her sitting there, eyes twinkling, as they must have done when she wrote it.

Dearest Jonathan,

Your son has been making his presence felt in the most uncomfortable manner! I realise that it is premature to refer to the baby as your son, but indeed such conduct is most unbecoming in a girl! Mother always swore that George behaved in just such a way before he was born too, so perhaps I am right…

"Right, Lennox take that silly smile off your face and sew these onto your sleeves." Lieutenant, no, Captain Jamieson's voice broke into his thoughts.

It took a moment for Lennox to drag himself back to reality as he blinked up at the officer. Then as he recollected himself and stood up to attention, he realised Jamieson was holding out a pair of sergeant's chevrons. "Me, sir?"

"At ease. Yes, Lennox, you. Add them to the ones you already have." Jamieson smiled.

Lennox relaxed, frowning at the scraps of cloth. "But, sir, I've only been a corporal for a couple of weeks! How can I possibly become a sergeant?"

Jamieson snorted. "Don't be daft, man; that's more experience than some. Lance Sergeant Wallace over in C Company had been a lance corporal for five days before he got promoted today. They'll be new drafts coming in over the next few days and new officers too. Everyone's going to be doing new things. Besides, " he gestured at the letter Lennox was holding, "I should think your wife will be glad of the extra money."

"Yes, sir." He was right about that: Lennox took the chevrons.

"While you're sewing them on, have a think about who would make good junior NCOs, and let me know who you recommend. I don't promise I'll accept your recommendations, but I'll listen."

Lennox was surprised. "Yes, sir, thank you, sir."

"Okey doke, as soon as you've finished, you'd better go and see the colonel. He wants to see you… Sergeant."

Lennox knew he must look horrified because Jamieson looked as if he was trying to stop himself laughing. He gulped, wondering what on earth it was about. It couldn't be anything bad, surely?

Once the captain had left, he quickly tacked the chevrons onto his sleeves. He did his best to think about whom to suggest: Howie, obviously and perhaps Redpath. Then there was Dod Graham from number 3 section, and Jim Robb who'd come in with the stragglers today. Good steady men, all of them. But this was far easier than trying to fathom out what on earth the colonel wanted to see him for. It couldn't possibly be anything disciplinary, because then Jamieson wouldn't have given him another stripe.

He finished the last stitch and broke off the thread. Best not to keep the colonel waiting.

At the hut currently acting as battalion HQ, he didn't have to wait for long before he was allowed into the colonel's office. "Cor - I mean, Sergeant Lennox reporting as ordered, sir," he said inwardly cursing his gaucheness.

Underneath his moustache, Colonel Sinclair's lips twitched. "Quite all right, Lennox, we all take time to accustom ourselves to a promotion. And stand easy, man, stand easy."

Lennox allowed his rigid posture to relax, but he still stared at a fixed point in the wall behind the colonel's head.

The colonel leaned back in his chair. "Captain Jamieson has been telling me about your conduct during the battle."

Lennox looked at Sinclair in surprise. "He has, sir?"

"Yes, and there's no need to look so worried. I understand it was exemplary."

Lennox felt that familiar prickle of discomfort he got whenever anybody praised him excessively. "Just following orders, sir," he muttered.

"Nevertheless, the capture of an enemy officer along with several men in most trying circumstances and at considerable personal risk to yourself, warrants comment." Sinclair paused. "And commendation. Captain Jamieson recommends that your name be put forward for the Military Medal, and I agree. Of course, this does not mean that the award will be made, but whether it is or not, I should like you to know that in my opinion, you thoroughly deserve that it should."

Lennox swallowed and said, "Yes, sir."

Sinclair smiled. "It will probably be several weeks before we hear one way or the other." He nodded in a friendly manner. "Dismiss."