Black Diamonds Page 20

  ‘Watch it!’ one of them says as I splash past; as if another drop of shit is going to make a difference to the state of him.

  ‘Right-o. Keep your hair on.’ We’re off.

  Stratho and I get demoted again a few weeks later.

  It’s late, on a night off, in the mill that’s become a temporary pub serving only one kind of drink: Instant Plastering Don’t Ask What’s In It But Thank God. I’ve wandered in, just for something to do; don’t know where Dunc is, probably playing bridge somewhere with his own kind, and I can’t sleep. The others are having a singalong and it’s gone well beyond dreadful, one too many trips to Tipperary with Matilda and her Old Kit Bag, and one bloke starts singing ‘Abide With Me’. Sergeant Watkins is so rotten on the snake juice, he’s sliding down the back wall, slowly, and not attempting to stop. Jesus. I suppose it’s one disadvantage of not being a drinker, that you get bored easily with others when they’re at it. I’ve just received France’s new photo too, and she looks so … I don’t know, but I can’t lie, sit or stand still. Not helped by the jumper she sent along with it: I can still smell her in it, even over the stench in here. Stratho’s had a skinful, of course, probably assisted by the consumption of France’s cake this afternoon. She wasn’t joking about the brandy; it might have been able to survive a trip over the moon on a donkey, but I couldn’t eat a crumb of it. When Stratho says: ‘Oi, DT. Want a race on the bikes to the gas sign and back?’ which is a decent distance up to the rear communication trenches at the front, I can only say: ‘You’re on.’

  We’re not supposed to take the bikes, obviously, since someone might need to use them for a better purpose. But they are for officer use only, and we’re officers now, sort of, very noncommissioned ones, and there are a dozen of them, so who’s going to miss two for an hour or so? And it’s all fairly quiet out there, a big fat moon is shining and it’s just too irresistible: proving to Stratho once and for all the major advantage of abstinence.

  I win of course, since Stratho falls off, twice, the second time down the ditch that runs along the side of the road. And buggers his ankle. I don’t need to be told that this was idiotic, but Duncan’s waiting to tell us all about it as we walk the bikes back, slowly, on account of Stratho who’s sobered up enough to feel it now.

  Dunc doesn’t raise his voice. ‘Strathlyn, you are a disgrace. But, Ackerman, you’ve got no excuse.’

  That’s true, and that’s the end of it. My one act of stupidity, one lapse of discipline. Out of my system.

  Stratho’s off for a week while I cart sandbags and ammunition, or run rations up to the shooting gallery, a job that cops you more verbal abuse than any other, for the quality and variety the infantry have come to expect of what could well be their last meal. But we’re corporals again within five minutes because there’s not a lot of choice for Dunc, who hands me his pistol and says to me now in another special private moment out the back of the billet: ‘You can shoot yourself if you like, in the head, in the foot, however you’d like to leave us.’ And looks at me.

  I give him back the pistol; I’ve got the point. There’s a piper playing somewhere, sending off today’s dead, just in case I missed it.

  ‘You have a responsibility to others before yourself from now on, Ackerman, and if you fail again on this issue I’ll have you sent home with a brand on your fucking forehead to that effect. You don’t want to end it like that, do you?’

  ‘No.’ Obviously not, but for Christ’s sake it was only a bike ride and I’m not going to do it again.

  He hasn’t finished. ‘Would you like your wife to know that you came all the way here to be killed skylarking about on a bicycle in the middle of the night, or would you prefer her to know that you were doing something a little more useful?’

  I don’t need to answer that. Wish that fucking piper would shut it off. He does.

  Dunc still hasn’t finished, though. ‘You haven’t seen anything yet. Think about how all those corpses in the trenches might have got there: that’s just a fraction. Do you know how many are lying out there up and down between the lines? Hundreds and hundreds of thousands. We’ve just arrived and it’s not going to stay nice and quiet like this forever. Are you frightened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  He sits down and starts unlacing his boots to clean them and dry out his lice-dipped socks; that’s why I’m here too, so I do the same, not mourning the recent death of several colonies of vermin off the rest of me. While we’re being so chatty, I just have to change the subject: ‘You’ve got the smallest feet I’ve ever seen.’

  He snorts and looks across at me. ‘You’ve got more nerve than is good for you.’

  ‘I meant for a big bloke, you know, like you were given the wrong pair.’

  ‘They do the job,’ he says, scraping out his toenails.

  ‘I know — it’s bloody amazing. From an engineering point of view.’

  First proper laugh out of him, not that lazy chuckle, and we’re back to normal. He says: ‘So, how are we?’

  He means how are we all today, or at least those I’ve been with and seen about. I say: ‘Tiptop chaps we all are.’ And we are, I think, for now. It occurs to me that whether I want to know these blokes or not, I should make more of an effort to not be so aloof while I’m telling people what to do, so maybe I’ll be more useful when things get worse. Not sure how to go about that but, like everything else, I suppose it’ll come.

  Dunc says: ‘Glad to hear it.’

  I’m about to get up to go inside, to go to sleep. I’m that bloody tired. I haven’t had a proper sleep for three days, but I can feel another little word about to come on, like my knees have picked it up before he’s thought it.

  He says: ‘You haven’t by any chance …’

  What.

  ‘… ever played rugby?’

  I think I might have. I say: ‘What?’ just at the question, throwing me.

  He says: ‘I didn’t imagine so.’

  I say: ‘No, I’ve played rugby. But why are you asking?’

  He says: ‘Union? Thug’s Rugby rugby rugger et cetera?’

  Like I might not know the difference. I say: ‘Very probably.’

  Chuckle, chuckle: ‘Of course, and I’d put you in the second row.’

  ‘That’d be right.’ What is it about me that even here, with a bloke who talks in riddles at me, it’s assumed that I am second row: do I look as though I must enjoy having my head wedged between the arses of a front row?

  ‘Excellent,’ he says. ‘Would you like to play for Australia tomorrow?’

  What? No. I’d like to go to sleep and have my day off; I couldn’t think of anything worse right now than running anywhere. But this is Rugby rugby, as in playing the gentlemen, with the gentlemen. I know I wouldn’t be asked unless a spot for a big bloke needed filling, and unless Dunc could see an opportunity for his own amusement in it, but I might never get another opportunity to have a go at this, so: ‘Who we playing?’

  ‘Blighty.’

  Twist my arm. Go on.

  So these are the gentlemen’s rules for today’s friendly match between Australia and Great Britain. First, if you play for Australia and didn’t go to King’s, or Newington, or Brisbane Grammar, or Scots College, where Dunc went, you’re an idiot: that’s me. One and only. Hired help, making up a very small number in a spare blue-and-maroon that’s too small, until they realise you can actually play. Except they don’t tell you that; they just suddenly start letting you go for a run with the ball. Again, and again, and again. Very enjoyable for me up until confrontation with the second rule: if you play for Great Britain it’s acceptable rucking behaviour, apparently, to lay the boot very hard and repeatedly into the kidneys of the opposition in full view of the referee, who happens to be a Kiwi, and either has a very confused sense of loyalty or is completely blind. The first time it happens you let it go — could have been unintentional. The second time it happens, you lose your temper. Well, I do: ring-in Wallaby
goes right off at this particular Lion. And I get sent right off, ten minutes into the second half. Not that it matters: it’s a walkover for Australia anyway, forty-two to six. But there’s rule number three: hired help is not invited to the officers’ mess for the celebration.

  Dunc says: ‘Come on in. No one’s going to object.’

  I tell him: ‘Except me.’

  He says, chuckle: ‘Don’t take it so hard. You played well, very well in fact — that’s all that matters. Great show. You’ll definitely be asked back.’

  ‘And I’ll definitely say no thanks.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve had a very good lesson in authority. You were very right in saying that I would not want my wife to hear I was killed skylarking about on a bicycle, just as I would not want her to hear that I was kicked to death by a British officer.’

  He says: ‘It wasn’t that bad a knock, surely?’

  I lift up the back of the jersey to show him, mostly because I’m wondering why it still hurts to stand upright.

  He says: ‘Oh. You’d better get that seen to.’

  Yes. I do. And I’m off for a few days pissing blood.

  Not very useful at all.

  Except in one way: the whole company finds it amusing. Not the damage to my kidneys, mind, but that I king-hit a BEF lieutenant colonel and got away with it.

  Not laughing now.

  Another letter from France, just before we move on again. She says:

  Darlingest Daniel,

  I’m not knocking on wood any more, but trusting that you will come home. You can be sure that every minute awake or asleep that is what I am thinking of. You should also know that without you I wouldn’t be who I am. I shudder to think of how different I would be had I not stumbled around the back of your house that day and seen you sitting there carving. And the rest of you! How different things would be if Father had not brought you home that horrible day, had I stayed that rude, spoiled girl who couldn’t say thank you to a miner in the street. Luck has been on our side from the first, well, almost, and there’s no reason it should run out now. If luck does run out here, and this is the one and only time I am going to say or think it, then I want you to know now that we’ve already had the best. A lavish best. The rest just doesn’t matter. No one on this earth could have given me the joy you already have. Except perhaps our baby, who is kicking me indignantly right now as a reminder.

  I do understand your dilemma now, and more than that, I am proud to be married to someone who would do such a brave thing despite all his misgivings. I was angry and hysterical but that’s only because I didn’t want you to go. Fair enough, too. But since you’ve left I’ve done even more growing up. I won’t bore you with the details; suffice to say that your ‘stupid’ decision hasn’t been all bad at this end. Nothing with us is ever bad. The greatest gift you’ve given me is that in virtually everything you do you make me think harder and work harder. And that is what I will continue to do regardless.

  You will come home, and you will behave yourself. I want you to do something different when you do; I want you to study, to sit on the verandah and carve and draw, do the things you need to do to bring you out of your state of ‘stupidity’. And there’s not going to be any argument about it. You’ve done your bit already, for everyone, and you deserve to know what it is you’re really blessed with. For now, you can go back to shovelling dirt or whatever filthy thing it is you’re doing, but you’ve been warned.

  You are right: love’s just not a word for us, it’s more magical than that — and I’m not afraid to use its power. Baby should arrive in about a month’s time — wish me, us, luck.

  Your very wise, very beautiful, very demanding France.

  Duncan walks in and catches me having a bit of a moment with myself and my France and wondering if the date makes me a father yet, and I’m just holding it in. If he wants a word with me right now, I’m going to job him and take my court martial all the way home. He sees, I think, and pisses off.

  Things have got worse, did so to be sure I wouldn’t miss it, and I’m just about feeling my luck has reached its limit. But I’m doing very well on my list of things I didn’t want to do while I was here. Last night I lost three men in one go. There wasn’t anything I could have done about it, or maybe there was. But it’s … the worst. We were re-rigging entanglements one moment, we’d almost worked our way backwards to our line, me and Anderson up one end and two others, Smithy and Durban, at the other, not much more than a spit away, when Fritz decided to make a big move ahead of ours. The sky lit up like daylight and the wall of noise from both sides was enough to break bones, but it was all happening at least two hundred yards or so south, Fritz clearly determined to blast his way through the wire there, and there was a deep empty trench just a hop behind us so we tried to hurry it up and get it done before scarpering. No, not we, I yelled out to them and signalled to them to hurry it up, since we’d nearly finished anyway. Then a stray shell wiped out Smithy and Durban; I watched it hit them, where they were, whacking in the last corkscrew on their side, and felt the wire rip across my hands as Anderson and I got knocked backwards into the trench, which I then scrambled over the back of as it began to collapse. I couldn’t see Anderson: the whole thing had collapsed as far as I could see back that way. He should have been no more than five yards away from me. And then Fritz doesn’t light any more flares, since he’d decided at that moment to finish his fireworks, so I couldn’t see a fucking thing till my eyes adjusted to the dark again. I jumped back in anyway and started digging but I couldn’t find him. Kept going till I did. And he was dead, the corkscrew he’d been holding rammed into his chest, propping him up in the hole I’d made around him.

  Would it have mattered if we’d all hopped into the trench, which was the only place to go? Was it a stray shell or did I draw fire when I yelled out: ‘Stay.’ Couldn’t have been that: Fritz is accurate, but not that accurate. I’ll never know, though. There was that much noise and light. But still, I’ll never know.

  And then it got worse from there. I left Anderson where he was, had to, and belted back through the relative quiet, which consisted of intermittent machine-gun fire at who knows what from who knows where, and dived in with the infantry, just in time for Fritz to commence part two of his objective.

  ‘Good of you to drop in,’ said this Tommy corp, still dragging on his smoke, leaning back against the rear wall, like he’d just kipped through part one. Then he pushes himself up, leans forwards on his elbows to aim, as they all are down the line, and yells down at me as the shelling starts up from behind and the machine-gunners give it all either side: ‘You could make yourself handy.’

  I could. I couldn’t have done anything else really, since the trench was clogged full of rifles, other than go over the back and make a decent target of myself, or wait for them to go right over the top so I could get past. Couldn’t say Sorry, mate, I’m not an assault pioneer, see this little purple patch on my shoulder, says I’m an engineer. Couldn’t just stand there like an idiot. So I got up with them like an idiot, and when I saw the shapes running out at us through the mad flashes of light, I can say that I had no trouble firing, and I doubt very much that I was shooting like a girl. No idea if I actually hit anyone, but it wouldn’t have been for lack of trying.

  What did Fritz achieve last night other than killing three Australian sappers in the wrong place at the wrong time, a handful of Tommy infantry and a ridiculous number of his own? Buggered if I know. And I realise, after all this time, that I can’t remember Anderson’s first name. Who’s the best goose here? Me or Fritz?

  Coming back to camp last night, alone … I can’t tell you what that was like. Duncan just let me tell him what happened and then he said it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; what could I do? I had a responsibility first to getting the job done. Did I want to say anything else about it? No. Right, well I’d better get those hands seen to. Very attractive they were last night too: looked like I’d had a figh
t with a length of barbed wire, or tried to kill Fritz with my bare hands. Nothing a bit of iodine won’t fix.

  Now we’re getting ready to head off for a camp outside a town called Albert; there’s a big move planned for the village of Pozieres. A proper Australian assault it’ll be, apparently. Can’t wait to get there. Fritz is terrified, I’ve heard that’s not a joke, and so am I. And I’ve been keeping to myself all morning. Now Duncan’s back, and I’ll have to speak to him. I’m not angry any more, I’m just … nothing.

  He says: ‘Which was worse? Losing the men or shooting at Germans?’

  I say: ‘Toss a coin.’

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to let it show a bit, you know.’

  ‘Show what?’

  ‘That you’re upset about it, the men.’

  ‘I’m not in the habit of that.’ Listen to some and you’d think this was stuff all.

  ‘I’m aware of that. But you’re not the only one who’s upset about it.’

  ‘Mmn.’ Why don’t you go and tell everyone how upset you are then, Dunc. Why don’t you stop being so fucking aloof with everyone except me. I’m a bit busy right now not making sense of how it is I’m still alive.

  ‘No one blames you.’

  He looks like he’s about to put a big-brotherly hand on my shoulder. Don’t you fucking touch me. And he does. Of course. I lose it, not much, but enough.

  ‘It’s not a good idea to bottle some things. The mill’s cleared — why don’t you go in there and get it out of your system before we go?’

  I do. I go into the empty space that stinks of dust and men and lice dip and endless farting and frustration, put my head against the back wall and let the weep go, quietly.

  Stratho comes in and sees me at it; says, ‘You big girlie cunt,’ and jumps on me. It’s not funny. He says, ‘Mate,’ holding onto the back of my collar, ‘it happens. It’s going to, isn’t it. You think too much, DT. Everyone thinks you’re champion, you know, getting in there and evening the score afterwards.’