IN A FIELD not too far from Lille, Jack, Simon, Charlie and three of the Lea End lot, Tiger, Dave and Jim, hunkered around the empty can a German guard had tossed to them, and which they’d suspended from a makeshift tripod over a weak fire made of sticks they’d collected. ‘Dawn’s too bloody early this time of year,’ Charlie grumbled. Around them everyone was doing the same, on grass that was dry, and flattened by the prisoners, who slept beneath the stars. A few had tents, a few were in the barn, but that comfort was confined to those who were sick. When the water was passably hot they tipped in the camouflage coffee, which was burnt barley, and let it brew.
The dawn chorus was the usual rattle and roar of the guns, even two kilometres behind the lines. The star shells, used by both sides to spot wiring parties in no-man’s-land, had ceased with the dawn.
Simon nudged Jack. ‘What d’you reckon we’ll be doing today, Jack?’
‘Whatever our masters tell us, but what you lot won’t be doing is eating the crusts you should have kept for your five-course breakfast, but which you ate last night, again, before slipping between your linen sheets and wool blankets.’ The men hooted. Si grunted, ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
Dave poked the fire with a stick, watching it smoulder, before ramming it into the ground. ‘Should have been born an officer then, laddie. They’ll be waking up between sheets that their batmen will have washed, dried and spread with rose petals, won’t they, Jacko boy?’
Jack dug into his pocket and brought out his bread, so hard it could have doubled as a hammer. He soaked it in his coffee, then shared it out. ‘This is the last time,’ he warned. Charlie muttered, ‘You say that every time. Doesn’t your stomach lining stick to itself at the end of the day then, Jack? Mine hurts.’
Dave cuffed him, and gave him half of his small piece. ‘That’s because you’re a growing lad whereas we’re just canny raddled old men.’
Si laughed, cramming his piece into his mouth, and licking his fingers. ‘Speak for yourself, bonny lad. I’m in me prime.’
The Feldwebel, who spoke a little English and had worked as a waiter on the Strand, approached. Jack asked him where they were to go today. Gerhardt looked around, eased his rifle on his shoulder. He was nearly sixty and relieved to be too old for the front line, he’d told them. ‘The dye works again. You break up the machinery, legally this time, Jack, so you won’t end up punished for sabotage. It must all be in bits. No use, no more. They will watch you close, in case you try to get to your lines again.’
Simon said, ‘What about work in the field party? Did you tell them I was a gardener, not a basher, like these pitmen?’
Dave looked at him and frowned. Gerhardt shook his head and leaned forward. ‘You must not speak of pitmen, Corporal. The mines and salt mines are not places to work, and if it is heard that . . .’ He walked on.
Jack kicked Si. ‘You need to keep your mouth for eating because if we go, you’ll go, Si. They think you’re one of us. Those mines are in Germany, and then how do we escape? Come on, we’ll be late for roll call.’
Simon flushed. ‘I am one of you.’
Dave stood, drowning the dregs of his coffee before swilling his cup out with water from the bucket. ‘Then act like it, you daft beggar, and it’s not the bloody first time we’ve told you. I’m sick of hearing about your gardening, your need for the soil. We live, eat and sleep on the bloody soil, whether it’s wet, dry or indifferent, what more do you want?’
After roll call they marched to the factory, and again they bashed apart perfectly good machinery for scrap metal to be transported back to Germany to make more guns. The concept stuck in their throats and they worked as slowly as they could but still their backs were near to breaking, and their heads close to bursting, but they were safe. The thought of all that was happening not too far from them, beneath the shells and the machine guns, made Jack determine to find a way back, somehow.
Turnip soup was waiting for them as evening fell, or was it mangel-wurzels? Even Simon didn’t know but at least it wasn’t maize soup, which tasted like paraffin. No matter how hungry Jack was, he could never finish it.
Every day he, Dave and Charlie scanned the wire entanglements which surrounded the field. They did the same that evening. Every day they were alert on the march to and from the factory, the railway yard, or wherever they were to work, for any escape opportunities. Only one had occurred, and it was Gerhardt who had clubbed Jack to the ground, saving him from the uhlan’s lance. It had earned him a kicking, and solitary for a week in the pigsty.
No further opportunity had presented, so the most he and Dave had been able to do was tip coal out on to the tracks after derailing one of the carts, which was easy enough with a piece of pig iron. The first derailment had earned Jack and Dave a beating and two days’ loss of bread for their group. No one had minded, because others had shared their rations. The same thing happened the second time.
Jack’s ripped skin from the barbed-wire incident was long healed; his shrapnel was either lying still or had been eased out. It was the same with the others. They were hungry and exhausted, and because they moved billets constantly they had received no mail or parcels, so they didn’t know if their relatives thought them dead. It was this that kept some awake at night.
All week they bashed apart the machinery and on the evening of 28th August, thirty of them, including Jack, Simon, Dave, Frank, Danny and Jim, were called to stand out at the front and herded off to one side, guarded by several uhlans. They were told they were moving on. Jack noticed that all but Simon bore the blue scars of the miner, and swallowed his anger at his marra’s big mouth. Charlie stepped forward out of the ranks, panic in his eyes. He called, ‘Ask them to take me, Jack.’ Gerhardt came abreast, his rifle across his chest, pushing Charlie back.
‘Jack,’ Charlie pleaded. Jack called, ‘I suspect you’ll be better here, bonny lad.’
Dave nudged him. ‘Poor wee bairn, let him come, we’ll take care of the little bugger. We can’t leave him, he’s your bloody shadow, you know he is now the captain’s gone. It might not be a pit.’ Jack took a moment, then sighed, and stepped forward to salute Uberleutnant Bauer. The man was standing in front of the hundred prisoners, watching the proceedings as though they were specimens in a jar. ‘Permission to speak, sir.’
The larks were singing above the fields. How strange these birds were, somehow impervious to the guns, which seemed muted this evening. Somewhere a lamb bleated, because it was far enough from the front line for there to be fields which contained something other than prisoners. God, he was so tired, so hungry. He mentally shook himself.
Uberleutnant Bauer was nodding at him. ‘Carry on, Sergeant.’ He had been at Cambridge University studying some sort of science, so the story went, and his English was impeccable. Jack said, ‘Permission to include Private Meadowes, sir.’
‘Ah, the one who called out?’
Charlie stepped further forward. ‘Private Meadowes reporting, sir. I’m part of them, sir.’
Bauer tapped his swagger stick against his leg. His gaze swept the troops lined up in squares of twenty for ease of counting, then back to Charlie. ‘You are young and are not strong. Where your friends are going, you need that strength. You should choose to stay, Private Meadowes.’
Charlie stood ramrod straight. ‘I choose to go, sir. I am stronger than I look.’ Jack started to shake his head. ‘No, Jack, I don’t want to stay here without you all.’
Bauer seemed to be looking at the larks, watching as they swooped. Jack followed their movements too. The lamb bleated again. Bauer looked for a long moment at Charlie, then raised his voice. ‘I need one of the thirty to step back into line.’ Behind him, Jack heard Simon step forward, then someone from B Company marched quickly back to the line. The moment was over, and Jack wondered what he would have done if Simon had tried to duck out of a situation he had caused. He wanted to smash the bugger.
Bauer strolled across to Jack, coming close, his voice no more than a whisper. ‘Our young friend is your responsibility now. Protect him well and perhaps you’ll get him home in one piece. I pray so, and that we all survive. It is a ridiculous situation, do you not agree? And perhaps tell your young gardening friend that he talks too much, so now he too is bound for the salt mines in Germany, though you would perhaps have gone anyway at some stage. Blue scars are like a badge, sadly, Sergeant Jack Forbes.’ He nodded, looked down at his immaculate boots. ‘It was my decision to include Corporal Preston, I fear that he has not half the internal strength of even this boy, Meadowes. You will need to be on your guard, my friend, with that one. His thoughts are seldom far from himself, not quite the sort I’d want for a friend whether I was man or woman.’
Bauer moved on, his hands clasped behind his back, his swagger stick under his arm. ‘Carry on, Sergeant,’ he ordered Gerhardt. Jack stepped back. Had Simon heard? He didn’t care, because they were moving back from the lines, making it more difficult to escape. He saw that Dave was thinking the same, and cursing Simon under his breath.
They travelled in cattle trucks, but this time, however, there was more room, and stops for the emptying of latrine buckets. They travelled for days, it seemed, and they slept, Charlie tight in with his marra group, for that was what Jack realised they had formed. They were not just friends, they were to be pitmen, and marras. They would watch one another’s backs, they would take one another’s loads, and because Simon was the love of Evie’s life, he would be enclosed within their group. What did Brampton have, in his comfy cosy camp, that came close to that?
They disembarked near the Hartz mountains, miles from the front line, into pure air devoid of the crash and grind of guns, with towering peaks and searingly blue skies. Here there were wooden houses with balconies, flowers hanging from them. How the hell would they get back to the front line?
‘Bloody salt mines,’ the men cursed as they marched along the roads. The people, thin and tired, looked at them warily. Simon was quiet, but the men ignored him. Dave marched alongside Jack. ‘Makes you thirsty, I expect, all that salt.’
Jack shrugged. ‘I expect you’re right, bonny lad, but doubt it’s as hard as coal.’ He didn’t know, and what he didn’t know frightened him. Would it be white, friable, easy? Would they be shovelling, not hewing? Simon marched beside him. ‘I’ve told you before, and will tell you now I’m right sorry. Me and my bloody great mouth. Jesus, Jack, I’m right sorry, man.’
Jack slung an arm round his shoulders, and pulled Simon to him. ‘Don’t go on and on, Si. We’ve all got gobs on us. We’d have ended up here anyway, and you might still get to a garden.’ If he forgave him so would the lads, and he was too bloody tired to do anything else.
Simon grinned. ‘Aye, maybe you’re right. But let’s get through this day first.’ He pulled away. ‘What say you, young Charlie? One day at a time, eh?’ Charlie was grinning as Dave joshed him about something. ‘Who knows, I might get some rabbit snared here. Better than potato-peel soup?’
They arrived at a small town at eight in the evening. The sun had gone behind the mountains and there was a chill in the air, even though it was still August. What would the winter be like? Would they bivouack in fields? If so, they’d bloody well freeze. The guards who were, like Gerhardt, too old for service, marched them to a building which it became clear was an old school.
Their boots rang on the wooden floors as they entered a dormitory with narrow beds. ‘Real beds,’ sighed Charlie. ‘Aye, and a roof,’ Dave added, guarding their corner from incomers. ‘Nah, get your own space,’ he muttered to some Welsh pitmen. Danny, Jim and Frank joined them in the corner, with Simon dithering on the edge. There were no mattresses, just bare boards, and gaps in between those. There was one grey blanket per man, but who needed more? They were off the ground, the dirt, the mud. It was bloody heaven.
Guards approached. ‘Schnell.’ They were led to the ablutions, basins and toilet stalls, then to a kitchen with the luxury of a cooking range and huge pans. They were told that they would collect their own wood for cooking, under guard, tomorrow after work. For tonight they were given black bread, two slices, and potato-peel soup.
They marched to the mine the next day, and entered a world in which the air was clean. It was remarkable. There was none of the smell of a coalmine. They took their tokens, and a lamp, and then plunged down in the darkness of the shaft. Simon and Charlie stood between Dave and Jack. Jack yelled above the rattling and crashing of the cage, ‘Think of those larks, lads, and that blue sky. Think of the forest because that’s where we’ll be picking up the wood when we’re out of here. Mart used to hum. Have a go yourselves, and remember the larks, or whatever, or whoever, takes your fancy.’ All the while his chest was constricted, his heart beating too fast, because they were bloody falling. That was the nub of it.
They reached the bottom of the shaft. There was no white salt, glistening and ready to be shovelled. Instead there was salt deposited in old seabeds, which looked like granite. They worked in a huge cavern. ‘It is your task to drill, blast, cut it out. Once your work is done, it will be removed and crushed,’ they were told in halting English. They were to work with an equal number of civilians, to prevent sabotage. We’ll see about that, thought Jack. Si gripped his arm. ‘Listen to him, Jack. We can’t do anything here and it’ll be short rations for the rest of us again, if you try.’
They worked for ten hours without stopping, or eating, though they were allowed to drink. Jack and Dave bore the brunt of the work in their group, hewing whilst Simon and Charlie collected the broken-up rocks into carts. ‘They say the air is good for you,’ a skeletal figure muttered as he brought water to them. He was from the Nottingham coalfields. ‘They say salt heals, and I reckon it does, but so does food. Trouble is, they don’t have much themselves, our blockade is too good, poor buggers.’ He took the leather water flagon on to the next group.
Within three days Simon and Charlie had abscesses on the palms of their hands from the non-stop shovelling of the rock salt, though the pitmen fared much better, so hard were their hands. On the fourth day Jack received the first of his beatings, for derailing a cart. The beating took place in the cavern, the pick handles and rifle butts slamming into his curled-up body. The other pitmen stopped work. Charlie was held back by Dave. ‘He knows the score, lad, let it be.’
‘Schnell,’ the guards called, threatening them with their rifles, and they began work again as Jack was dragged to the cell carved out of the rock, with an oak door. Normally it would hold picks. Now it held recalcitrant prisoners. He was locked in solitary for twenty-four hours, in pitch dark. Dave banged on the door as he passed at the end of the shift. ‘Keep strong,’ he said quietly. Charlie, Jim, Frank and Danny echoed him.
The guard banged on the door with his rifle butt. ‘No food for your men. This your fault.’
Jack crawled to the wall and dragged himself into a sitting position, his arms resting on his knees. His bruises would heal, and his back, where it had bled, would scab, but the others would go hungry. How long could he carry on the fight while his men also paid the price? Perhaps Simon was right? The seconds, the minutes and the hours passed, and as the darkness pressed in on him he cursed Auberon, who had promised he would get them out. And then he cursed him again for leaving them, because he was part of the group, wasn’t he? And he cursed the bloody war, and the endless movement of his group. They had still had no letters, because no one knew where they were.
He cursed the bloody dark, and bosses, and the crashing and blasting and hewing that continued day and night and was making his head split, or was that because of the rifle that had crashed into the back of his skull, or the thirst that was driving him mad? He cursed the civilians that stumbled past his door, free, with a water bottle on their belts, and bait in their tins, and he cursed himself for hurting his own marras. Charlie’s stomach would be aching, his hands throbbing, his abscesses bursting. He buried his head in his hands. The salt on them stung his eyes. He should never have brought the lad. He should never have derailed the cart. Shit, shit.
They let him out after twenty-four hours. His bruised hips and ribs had stiffened and he could barely stand. He was handed his pick by the overseer, his sleeves rolled up, muscles rippling. ‘You work.’
He was led to his men, and his shame for their suffering meant he could not meet their eyes. But they met his and came to him, heedless of the guards, and the civilians who busied themselves elsewhere, calling the guards to them. After all, they were miners too, and they spent minutes pointing out faults on the wagons and the carts while Charlie handed him a flask of water, which he gulped down, then bread. ‘The Welsh miners shared theirs with us. Here.’ Dave had barley coffee in a bottle. Cold, but coffee. Jack shook his head. ‘No, it’s yours,’ he croaked. Dave grinned. ‘What’s ours is yours, except for the beatings. You can have those all to yourself, bonny lad.’
‘Aye, he can an’ all,’ Simon said, handing him a crust off his bread.
They worked for the next ten hours, each with their civilian minders, who never spoke. The skeletal Nottingham miner brought water at regular intervals. They worked while the civilians broke for lunch, eating black bread and some spicy sausage. With each hour Jack blessed his years as a pitman because he could do it, blindfold, and like a machine. He could do it, and he kept telling himself this until the shift was over.
As he stumbled back to the cage the civilian miners handed them each some of the sausage they had saved, and one gave Jack three cigarettes. ‘You brave man. You need these.’ The man’s hands were scarred, his forehead too. ‘My son in war. War bad.’
Jack nodded, unable to speak for a moment. ‘Yes, war bad. Danke.’
They travelled up in the cage, Jack slumped against the side, drifting, hearing the larks, seeing the blue sky, then the cedar tree at Easterleigh. So strong, so solid, and the memory of it made him stand up straight. At the school he broke the cigarettes in half and shared them with his group, ate mangel-wurzel soup, grieved for the prisoners who had died that day in a roof fall, or from illness, as so many did throughout the camps apparently, and slept as though dead.
Every day they worked, then slept. They grew thin. At the end of September, Charlie, Dave, Simon and Jack were marched back to the station, shoulders hunched against the icy wind. They were shepherded on to a train which was already getting up a head of steam. They were locked into the last carriage, a proper carriage, with slatted wooden seats. There were only two guards. Was there a chance of escape? Jack stared out of the window, and at the door, but the guard reached across and waved his hand. ‘Nein,’ he warned.
They travelled all day with bets being taken on their destination, passing ploughed fields, haystacks and stooks, and slowing to go through towns. They suspected they were going to a mine, but which sort? They arrived at a railyard as the sun was lowering. Close by they could see winding gear, and coal was heaped high in the yard. Dave took his IOUs and stuffed them into his back pocket. He had bet on a coalmine. They were escorted into a camp with wire and posts, and barracks with the smell of sulphur overlaying everything, and coal sleck on the roofs. ‘Home from bloody home,’ Jack murmured. Dave laughed. ‘At least Mart’s out of it now.’
There were vegetable patches between the barracks. Si said, ‘It’s a proper camp, we’ll get mail, we can write too. Must have been an army barracks.’ They felt they had reached heaven. The light was dying. They were taken through into a white-tiled room and told to strip. They did, and were given a black uniform with KG in red, for Kriegsgefanger, a prisoner of war, on the back of the tunic, and their POW number on the front in red, with a yellow patch on the sleeve and a wide yellow strip inserted down the outside of each leg. Their cap was black with a vivid yellow band. They kept their boots. ‘This is who you are now,’ the Feldwebel said, pointing to the POW number. They didn’t mind. They were within an established culture, there would be order, there would be mail. Yes, letters. They grinned at one another, and Charlie poked Jack. ‘See, I told you I was right to come, man.’
‘Aye, lad,’ Jack said, ‘but you’ve not been blooded in a pit yet.’
Dave smoothed his uniform. ‘Neither’s Simon, but we’ll take care of you, aye, that we will. Do we wear this fancy dress while we’re hewing, d’you reckon, Jack?’
Jack was saved from answering, as they were given singlets and shorts. ‘That answer your question, bonny lad?’
They were given black bread and barley coffee and put into a small room, with beds with no mattresses but a base of chicken wire, and a blanket. The wire was more comfortable than the bare boards in the school had been, and they slept like logs. The next day they were roused before dawn and quick-marched out on to a lorry with several French and Belgian prisoners, who told Jack they had been there almost a year. They said there was a routine, there was mail, there were food parcels and some had put on weight, just a little but enough to make a difference.
Dave nudged Jack. ‘You’re the one speaking French, so ask if there are dancing girls?’ Jack did and everyone laughed and no one bothered to answer. Charlie and Simon examined their abscesses. They were almost healed.
As they approached the mine and the seething slag heaps, the smell of sulphur grew stronger. At the shaft head they queued ten by ten to take a lamp from the cabin, and a token from the board to be returned after the twelve-hour shift. Charlie moved confidently, Simon less so, towards the cage. Jack stood close to them. Coal was a different beast to salt and an outsider would need to be supported, or he’d not make it. After the banksman had rapped three times, they squeezed in with the smell of the coal all around. The last time he’d been in a coalpit was with Mart, and his gut twisted, and he could almost see the silly bugger, almost hear him.
Jammed like sardines in the cage, Jack felt his chest constrict, as it always did. At two raps they were almost ready to fall through the air. They waited, he swallowed. To his left, crammed against him Charlie was humming, remembering Jack had said it might help. To the right, Si closed his eyes and said, ‘I’m thinking of the larks. It’s not helping, I’m still scared shitless.’ Dave agreed. ‘As are we all, bonny lad.’
One day, Jack thought, he might not mind. One day his breath might not catch in his throat, but he wouldn’t place a bet on it. Charlie was still humming; it was getting louder and louder. ‘Shut your noise,’ someone yelled from the back. Charlie muted it, but didn’t stop. Jack grinned at his balls. Bauer was right, the lad had inner strength. He glanced at Simon, and waited for the last single rap. It came. He braced, and down they went, rattling and heaving. Dave eased his water bottle, and the packet containing two pieces of bread, which he’d attached with wire to his shorts waistband. He knocked against Jack. ‘Sorry, lad,’ he said, but his words were almost drowned by the creaking and clashing.
With a jolt they were down, in the dust and the heat. It smelled of Jack’s world. He snatched a look at Si, and then Charlie. It was as well they’d been in the salt mine as some sort of preparation, though here there’d be no huge caverns, just seams, just noise, just heat and dust. Soon he’d be able to read it as he’d done Auld Maud: the creaking of the pine uprights, and the coal, the roof, the movement of the air. Soon he’d be able to almost taste her moods.
They waited for the lower banksman to come and release the barrier. The lamp hung from Jack’s hand. A few of the others talked, some cleared the coal dust from their throats. Some were silent, like Charlie and Simon. Guards waited with rifles over their shoulder. In the following cage would come the civilian miners, for yet again the prisoners were forbidden to work without a German beside them to forestall sabotage. Jack stared around, wondering how he’d blow up a seam, for that was what he’d decided, and how would he get the workforce clear, for he’d not take any lives with it, and where were the explosives? But that was not for today, or next week. It was for when an opportunity arose, and before that he might have managed an escape. It was a bloody long way back to France, so he’d have to head for neutral Holland. Bugger Auberon. His captain’s German was coming along grand, and if they could have escaped together . . . Well, he’d just have to work on the language and do the best he could.
Jack could see that their picks were in a pile near the cage. Their guards were strolling about. An elderly banksman with a limp unlatched the civilians’ barrier. Dave nudged Jack. ‘Howay, man, takes you back a bloody lifetime, doesn’t it.’
The barrier went back.
Simon elbowed past them, sweating, his face pale. He leaned down, his hands on his knees. ‘You all right, Si?’ Jack held his shoulder. Simon coughed, straightened, and grimaced. ‘Just loving it, Jack, bloody loving it. Me and my mouth. It’s not bloody fair.’ Jack sighed. Dave shook his head.
The civilian cage was down. They were motioned towards their picks, and the foreman pointed ahead. They started their single-file trudge to the coalface, one behind the other with a German in between. Charlie was kicking up the coal dust, and Simon too, and they were shouted at by the German miners just behind them. ‘Heben sie ihre füsse.’
Jack called, ‘Lift your feet. Just lift your feet the pair of you, or we’ll all choke to death before we reach the face.’ He repeated the German phrase in his head. Yes, he’d bloody learn to speak the bugger, then he’d have more of a chance.
Miners were streaming towards them on the other side of the coal road, back towards the cage: prisoners, some like skeletons, and the better-fed Germans, their eyes visible, their faces black, their shoulders hunched. Jack and his file pressed themselves against the sides as the full coal wagons passed, shoved back to the cages by putter boys and prisoners. It was the end of one shift and the start of another. There would be trappers on the doors, controlling the flow of air. Timmie had been a trapper, then a putter, driving the wagons heaped with coal, as the men were doing. But Timmie and Tony had Galloway ponies to do that, except when they carted coal out from low seams to meet up with the wagon.
Their lamps cast light only over the immediate area. Rats scurried, dust rose, the roof sighed, men shouted to each other above the clatter of the wagons. There was a lull. More prisoners were coming up behind them. Charlie was slowing the line down. A prisoner just behind him called, ‘Pick your feet up and get along, man.’
Jack called back, ‘Leave him be, he’s young and only a gamekeeper. He’ll learn.’
They plodded on, and in the continuing lull the man behind Charlie called again. ‘Is that him humming? Bloody hell, I’ve been here a month and I get the bloody hummers. There’s a bloke down in C seam who got here a day after me and then another couple from three weeks ago, who hum for bloody England. They should open their mouths and sing, then they’d choke to death. Geordie thing, is it? Thank Christ I’m from Nottingham. One of ’em says it made his memory come back, coming here. Didn’t have a bloody clue who he was but the Germans guessed he was a miner from his scars. They’re getting us all here, all the miners. It’s a pit they’ve just pumped out. The C seam chap’s on about losing something, some foot or other, but he’s got both of his, and never stops bloody humming.’
Jack stopped dead. A German miner pushed Jack from behind. ‘Schnell, hurry, hurry, work to do.’ A guard came alongside and shoved at his shoulder. Jack dug in his heels, calling back to the German, ‘Stop your pushing. I know you speak English. Ask if I can go to C seam, it’s me marra, friend. I think it’s him, but he’s dead.’ The guard was shoving him again. Jack repeated, ‘I think he’s my friend. I thought he was dead. Ask if I can go, I’ll give you my cigarettes.’
The Nottingham miner called in German to the guard, who pulled at Jack’s singlet, and shouted something and shook his head, and just pushed him forward. Simon said, ‘It can’t be him. He’s dead, Bernie saw him, you know he did. The foot could be anything. Get a move on, Jack.’
Jack and Dave hewed for six hours with their German minders while Simon, Charlie and the German putters shovelled the coal into the carts. Their hands became swollen, the abscesses flared up and made Charlie groan but he never stopped, not for a moment, not until they broke for a drink, and bread, black bread. ‘All of you, just chuck your picks,’ Charlie said, sitting down and chewing. ‘Use me bread, it’ll be harder.’
They laughed. Simon threw a piece of coal at a rat scuttling along just outside the lamplight. ‘Hate the bastards.’ He muttered to Jack, ‘You feeling better now? Went a bit strange back there for a moment, didn’t you, lad?’ Coal dust trickled from the roof. Jack counted the uprights. There weren’t enough. He pointed at them, and then nudged the German miner, counting out the number needed on his fingers. The miner nodded, grimaced and shrugged. He said something, which Jack didn’t understand, but no doubt it was ‘Bloody bosses’.
He leaned back, closing his eyes. It would have been too good to be true. Mart was gone and one day soon he’d have to really feel it, deep inside, where belief lay. He’d told Grace he couldn’t feel it, and that was the bloody trouble. He couldn’t, not even here. Many hummed, of course they did. He worked for the next six hours and by the end his legs were shaking. Guided by the civilian miners, they took this shift-end slowly or they’d have never made it, but at last it was over, and they shouldered their picks and almost crawled back down the seam, towards the cage. It seemed further than on the way out. The glow from their lamps bobbed along the walls, and as before they passed miners, incoming this time, and were joined by others heading for the cages, some staggering under the weight of their picks.
Jack listened for humming in the lulls, and continued to do so even as the noise picked up, and how bloody silly was that? Charlie was lifting his boots as he walked. He was a canny lad, a right quick learner. The cage was ahead, but there was a queue. Dave said, ‘Same old stuff, the world over.’ Jack and he leaned against the wall, letting their picks drop to the ground. Charlie and Simon sagged, their heads down. Here it was quieter, and as Jack examined the abscesses on Charlie’s hands he heard someone call out, ‘If you don’t stop that bloody humming, I’ll do for you.’
‘Sorry man, don’t know I’m doing it. Can’t hear too well, since the shell. Nearly took my bonce off, it did.’
Jack straightened, letting go of Charlie’s hands. Another man shouted above the banging and clattering of the approaching lift, ‘Sorry, man, didn’t know. Been here long?’
The cage landed. It was quiet. ‘Just a few weeks. Lost me memory but they knew I was a pitman from me scars, when they collected us up from the farm. Minute I got here I started to remember. It’s like a bloody home from home for me.’
Jack was moving now, Simon in his wake. ‘It’s him,’ Jack said. ‘I know it’s him.’ His German partner was with him, pulling him back. Jack shrugged him off. Simon hauled on his arm. ‘Come back, man. You’ll get us all into trouble. God dammit, Jack.’ Jack shrugged him off too. Dave called, ‘Howay with you, Jack. Find him.’
He was almost running along the queue, pulling round one man after another, checking their faces, yelling, ‘Mart?’ again and again. Men were cursing him as he blocked their way from the cage to the start of their shift, shoving him to one side. A guard unslung his rifle, stopping him. Simon pulled at him again. ‘For God’s sake, come back man.’
Dave was there, armlocking Simon. ‘I told yous to leave him be, you bloody bugger.’ He turned to the guard. ‘And you can stop poking me with that bloody rifle or I’ll stuff it up your arse.’
Another guard made for Dave, who called, ‘Get on with it then, Jack. I’m not doing this for the sake of me bloody health.’
Jack hurried along the line, being patted now by the prisoners, one of whom shouted, ‘Good luck.’
A German miner put up his hand to a guard, saying, ‘Sein freund ist hier.’ The guard hesitated, blocked him for a moment longer and waved Jack on.
Jack continued searching, grabbing shoulders, swinging people round. ‘Mart, Mart,’ he called repeatedly. ‘Mart.’
‘What the hell . . .?’ one man shouted.
‘Mart, Mart, is it you? Mart?’ A figure stepped out from the line. ‘Jack?’
Jack stood quite still. He’d know that bloody idiot’s stance anywhere. His shoulders weren’t the same height. The miners in the queue fell silent, though those heading away from the cage continued, heads down. ‘Mart? Mart, we thought you were dead.’ He broke down then, running towards his marra, who threw down his pick and met him halfway. Jack picked him up, slapped him on his back. He was so light. Mart pounded his shoulders. ‘I’ve found you,’ Jack said, his voice muffled. ‘I’ve bloody found you.’ Mart was sobbing, clinging to him.
The queue moved forward but the guards said nothing, just bypassed the pair of them. Jack could feel Mart’s ribs, the backbone, the shaking that ran through him. He saw the mouth that drooped on the right side, the scar that sliced across his brow, his cheek. He rubbed Mart’s hair. ‘Look at you, you messy bugger. Got to get some food in you, lots of lovely black bread, and then get a letter off to your mam and get some parcels from our Evie.’ He drew his marra to him again, and whispered, ‘Then we’ll get you home, my bonny lad. Never fear, we’ll all get home.’
Mart stepped back, gripped Jack’s shoulders. ‘Aye, that’d be grand.’ Tears were still running down his face, just as they were down Jack’s.
Auberon stood to attention at the start of the second hour of the punishment roll call or appel as he now called it. It was the end of November, so not surprising it was snowing, with the wind whipping across the square, but did it have to bloody snow and blow quite so hard? He felt it on his eyelashes, in his eyes, down his collar, and he thanked God for his cap. Saunders, his boyhood tutor, had told him the head was the greatest area of heat loss and to keep it covered. As he swayed, just as his neighbour had done a moment ago, he grabbed on to a thought, any thought, to keep him upright. The cedar tree. That would do; strong, and immovable. He was a tree. He shifted his weight from his toes to his heels as Jack had told him to if he ever had to stand for a long time. It could stop you fainting, he said. Well, you would faint wouldn’t you, standing like this with all the blood sitting down there, not up here, in his head, leaving a damn great space which was wobbling about all over the place.
All the prisoners of the Offizier Gefangenenlager were standing to attention as a punishment for Colonel Mathers’ complaint about parcels and mail being withheld without cause, and the insistence that the prisoners continue to write innocuous letters home to allay the concern of relatives. Mathers’ adjutant, Captain Crawford, had had a bash at the Kommandant, Oberst Habicht, first, standing to attention like some naughty bloody schoolboy he’d said later, spouting that it was totally against the Hague Convention, but was chased from the office. ‘Chased, you understand,’ he’d exploded in the mess hut, ‘with a bloody bayonet up my backside but what can you expect from some jumped-up clerk, made up to maître d’hôtel for God knows what reason.’
Auberon thought it might have done the arrogant sod Crawford a bit of good had he had his buttocks pricked, but it was bad form, nonetheless, and what was worse, the rations were then cut, and no one was allowed to buy from the village, or have access to their parcels. Crawford had ordered a hamper from Fortnum and Mason, so he could kiss goodbye to that for a while.
Mathers had taken it on next and was now in solitary, and they were standing here. It was a bloody disgrace, but the Kommandant was a nightmare and even the guards were nervous and on their toes all the time, likely to get a belt round the ear for nothing. German officers had a right to lay hands on their men, and that was a bloody disgrace too, and wouldn’t be tolerated in the British army.
Auberon swayed again, and grabbed on to the cedar tree, taking himself under the lower branches, laughing alongside young Harry Travers, and John Neave, and waving Jack and Si into its shade. For he had brought the sun into his head, just as it was when he imagined the whir of his fishing line, the light catching his fly as it descended to the reaches of the river Somme which were well back from the front line, because that was his first stop after this bloody war. It was his road to tranquillity, for tranquillity was what everyone had come to realise was what they most longed for.
His neighbour pressed against him, whispering, ‘Can’t be for much longer, old chap, surely?’ Smythe was a good sort, a former Territorial Force officer, and therefore a bit beyond the pale, as Auberon was. Not proper army. Well, as Frost, another former Terrie who shared his quarters said, in the front line he couldn’t see much ruddy difference.
Major Dobbs had kept his eye on him on the journey here, and subsequently, disapproval in every glance, but why should the officers leave their men? This was what Auberon had said, and that was the stain on his reputation now, all put down to his Territorial roots. Dobbs had said they’d find a way to get his blokes here as orderlies, but so far there had been no opportunity. What was needed was an upsurge in prisoners. Well, the one certainty in this bloody war was another futile push, so that was a definite possibility.
He transferred his weight from toe to heel and back again, and straightened his back as Uberleutnant Baader inspected and counted them, yet again, followed a step behind by Krueger, his hauptfeldwebel, a sergeant major whose boots were like mirrors, even in this weather, and whose every stride squeaked as he compressed the fresh snow. But his boots squeaked whether there was snow or not. Another inch had fallen since the last roll call an hour ago. Back to the cedar tree, toute suite, he ordered himself as he started to shiver again. He was just so damned cold, and wet. But so were they all. This time Veronica was there, with the baby that had been born in October and named for him, using his second name, James. Evie had taken over her commandant duties as well as the kitchen with Mrs Moore while Veronica was so busy with James, and worked hand in hand with Richard. Evie. He rolled the name round in his head. It was getting crowded now, under the branches, no room for her. No, it was safer that she was kept away.
What other letters awaited him in the mailroom? They had received none for a month. Was there more news about his men? Veronica had written that they had been taken to the mines and at last could write; were they still safe? He should have seized Dobbs by the throat and made him request them as orderlies there and then, when the officers were taken off and brought here. Why the hell hadn’t he? He shook his head. Actually he had, but not in so many words and perhaps that was the problem. He really should have throttled him. It was what Jack would have done. Shame enveloped him.
The Uberleutnant was in front of him now, looking as cold, if not colder than Auberon felt. ‘Achtzig.’ Eighty, dear God, another seventy men to go. The Hauptfeldwebel ticked him off on his clipboard chart soaked by the snow, his fingers white from the cold, and Auberon wanted to wrench the clipboard from him and beat him to death with it, beat them all with it, and in particular Dobbs, but how easy it was to be brave after the event.
Thank God he had a dry uniform to change into when they were dismissed. What a war that allowed officers to send to their tailors, but of course the Germans demanded that the prisoners be correctly dressed in order to salute their masters. Civilian clothes were also permitted, but only with the insertion of the yellow stripe. However, what one tailor could do, another could undo for escape purposes. He’d requested a grey uniform from his tailor, which might have surprised him, but khaki would have been a giveaway when he finally escaped.
They were also permitted to have contact with their banks and the money enabled him to buy food from the village, though the entente blockade was causing increasing shortages. Within the camp they had to exchange their money for that issued by the camp. He snatched a look at the orderlies in their squares. They had only their one uniform. He must check with Roger that he was sharing the blankets Auberon had bought off the baker in the village but it had to be said, never had the little brat been so helpful. He was determined not to be sent back to a work camp, because he had a relatively easy life here.
Auberon leaned back against the trunk of the cedar tree, looking up at Easterleigh Hall. He had been twenty-five in October, ten days after the birth of his nephew. With that birthday had come the release of his inheritance from his grandfather, his father’s father. He had instructed his bank to allow it to be accessed by Veronica and Richard for the upkeep of the Hall and hospital. That, with the fund-raising efforts of Sir Anthony Travers and his friends, had helped to make up the shortfall now that his father had totally withdrawn his support after that appalling drunken fiasco. Thank God for Evie and Richard, standing up to him; the upset could have caused Veronica to lose the baby. What about Harvey, too? The old boy deserved a medal.
Things were still difficult, however, as Sir Anthony hadn’t yet provided extra funds, so it seemed that weird and wonderful tea parties, and sales of work were under way to help, as well as many and varied economies. Auberon made himself remain unemotional as he thought about all this. His father would be dealt with, at an appropriate time.
The snow was lighter, surely? He looked ahead at the barracks opposite, and the steep roof that allowed the heavy snow to slide to the ground. Lieutenant Rogers had collapsed into the snow, and his friends either side were hauling him to his feet. He was unconscious, but perhaps that was preferable to the sheer misery of this. Auberon’s sense of powerlessness was growing, his rage too, and finally he understood Jack, and all the other pitmen, who had known that a strike couldn’t succeed, but had to do it anyway, just to be heard.
He stared ahead, straight at the Kommandant, who had come out of his office in which would be a stove throwing out heat. He strutted backwards and forwards, safe in the knowledge that he had total power. Or ruddy had he? Auberon thought of the union reps, Jack and Jeb, and now that held him, not the cedar tree, mulling the strike over, then creating detailed plans. At last they were dismissed, and once in his warm dry uniform, he marched to Major Dobbs’ room.
‘We need to strike,’ he said, without preamble, standing briefly to attention.
The major sat in his chair, his legs crossed, his novel on his lap, his pipe tamped but not lit. His nose was still red from the cold, his stove plentifully supplied with wood bought from the village.
‘We need a salute, old chap,’ Dobbs drawled, moving to his desk, laying his book and pipe neatly side by side.
‘You’re not wearing a cap, old chap, even Terries know that,’ Auberon snapped. ‘We need to strike to bring about a change of Kommandant. We should refuse to write home, to order uniforms, to contact our banks. We have sufficiently well-connected families who would be concerned enough to ask questions of their tame politicians, which would create waves, and even make headlines. The powers that be will then ask questions via diplomatic channels, and something will be done. We need the action to be universal. We don’t need strike-breakers.’
Dobbs was listening, but at this he barked, ‘We’re not a load of your ruddy miners, for God’s sake, we’re officers and gentlemen. Pull yourself together.’
‘I’m quite together, but I repeat, we do need to take action, and the only way we can do this is by striking. I repeat, we don’t need strike-breakers.’
Dobbs’ smile verged on contempt. ‘Ah yes, I was forgetting you are in trade and understand these things. I gather your father obtained his peerage through the good offices of the Liberals, no less.’
Auberon strolled around the desk, sat on it, and leaned so close to Dobbs there was a mere inch between their faces. ‘Do you, or do you not, want to rectify this situation and bring about the removal of Habicht? If so, forget your damned airs and graces, and remember what I said. Then you can trot to the adjutant to get a message to Mathers and present it as your idea, and earn a few points to buff up your sense of self-importance, not that it needs it.’
Dobbs leaned away, speechless it seemed, so Auberon proceeded to tell him what he had said, all over again, and the detail of what the major needed to do, and left.
The next day the order came round via the adjutant forbidding contact with home, bank, or tailor. By January 1916 Kommandant Habicht had been removed, and Kommandant Klein installed. Mail was released, and letters could be written again.
On 12th January, when work had begun on an escape tunnel under the dining hall, which doubled with the concert hall, to head out beneath the foundations of the barrack wall, Auberon entered Major Dobbs’ room again, and plonked himself down on the edge of the desk before speaking. ‘I have repeatedly asked for your support in my request for the transfer of my men. You have refused to take it to the colonel, though you promised before I agreed to leave the transit camp. I was told that to remain with my men would set a bad example. I know exactly where they are now, thanks to letters they have written home. We have had many more officers join us, many without orderlies, such are the hardships of war. Colonel Mathers will just have to hear whose idea the strike was, unless you explain to him that we have need for more orderlies, but more importantly, we have need of miners for the tunnel.’
Dobbs laid down The Thirty-nine Steps, borrowed from the camp library, and found his voice. ‘Get off my desk, and we dig our own tunnels. It is a matter of honour, and how dare you blackmail me?’
Auberon ignored him. ‘I repeat, my men are miners, there are four of them, these are their names, and the stalag where they are being held.’ He slapped the paper on Dobbs’ desk. ‘My sister, Lady Veronica Brampton, has been in touch with your family, to be supportive, you understand. If you do not, in turn, support this request they will hear of your duplicity. My men will be brought here as orderlies by the end of January, they will also help in the digging of the tunnel which should prevent falls as happened, last week, and injured Captain Frost. The existing orderlies will assume their duties. My men will, of course, be amongst the escapers.’
He stood now, his shaking hands deep in his pockets. His heart was hammering so hard he was surprised that Dobbs could not hear it. Throttling the bastard would not achieve anything, but doing so metaphorically could be extremely productive. Still keeping his voice level, he continued, ‘Finally, of course, this is your initiative, your idea to seek advice from such men, in order to expedite the work. Who knows, it could raise you to Lieutenant Colonel, especially if a remarkable number effect an escape from a well-built tunnel.’
He sauntered from the room, hearing Dobbs almost scream, ‘You bloody Terries, you have no sense of what is good form.’
Auberon whirled on his heel, and re-entered. ‘That reminds me. Smythe and Frost will be in the escape party. Frost’s arm should be healed by then. It will take a long time to tunnel, such is the subterranean composition of the ground.’
As he left he heard Dobbs’ high-pitched voice. ‘Go to hell.’
Auberon slipped and slid across the icy square where some officers had created skates and were twirling. No doubt he would do as Dobbs said, but at least hell would be warm. He entered his hut. Frost was lounging on his bed, his arm strapped, and Smythe was writing a letter. They looked up. ‘Well?’
Auberon grinned. ‘Carrot and stick. Now we wait, but he’s had a bloody bayonet up his backside and I reckon it will move him. He feels we have no sense of good form.’
‘Hooray to that,’ Smythe laughed. ‘If you could have gone straight to Mathers it would have been different. He’s a good sort. Let’s see now.’
On 30th January Auberon was called into Mathers’ office. He stood to attention. Major Dobbs stood at Mathers’ side and Auberon nodded, but let his body relax out of attention. Mathers said, chewing on his empty pipe as he always did, ‘Sit you down, Brampton. Now I hear Dobbs discovered that you have some miners whose expertise we need. As you know we normally do our own digging, but getting around the foundations has thwarted too many attempts, and the rocks beneath these barracks have proved insurmountable. We need a miracle.’
He tapped his pipe on the desk, and replaced it. It was extraordinary how easily the man could speak with it gripped between those teeth.
Auberon wanted to punch the air, but instead smiled. ‘Jack Forbes is used to pulling those out of a hat, trust me.’
There was no heat coming from the colonel’s stove. He would only light it as the sun went down as part of his war effort; the other was to organise as many escapes as possible. Auberon wished he wasn’t quite so principled. It was bloody freezing. The colonel continued, frowning, ‘Ah yes, Sergeant Forbes.’
Auberon’s heart sank. What the hell had Jack done now?
‘The problem is that I have already contacted him, and word has just reached us that Sergeant Forbes has refused, therefore so have Corporal Preston and the two privates. It would have been a good idea, but as it is, it is a balls-up and time-waster.’
Auberon felt his jaw drop, saw the fury in Dobbs’ eyes. What the hell was Jack playing at, the stupid bugger? He’d told him he’d bring them out. He coughed. ‘Was a reason given, sir?’
Mathers scanned a note on his desk. ‘It seems that there’s a fifth miner, Corporal Mart . . .’ He strained to make out the name.
‘Dore,’ said Auberon. ‘Of course, Mart Dore.’
‘Unless he’s included, they won’t come. It seems that an order is not an order in this man’s army. Another strike on our hands, I feel.’ Mathers’ tone was dry.
Auberon wanted to laugh with relief. Bugger Jack, bugger him for being as strong and awkward as he’d always bloody been. It meant he was fit and well. He said, ‘Mart Dore worked with them back home, I had forgotten my sister’s news on that. They’ve all been drafted into this mine that’s been reopened. There’s a shortage of coal in our enemy’s house, it seems, though knowing Jack he’s slowed production up a bit.’
Mathers threw the letter down. ‘Not sure we want trouble-makers here.’
Auberon felt like crossing his fingers as he lied, ‘Oh no, not Jack. Never caused a moment’s trouble in his life, just doing what we have all been ordered to do, a bit of sabotage and try to escape.’
Dobbs wriggled, because he was one who had declined to join the escape, preferring, Auberon was pretty sure, to sit out the war playing chess and reading novels. But who could really blame him?
Mathers pointed to the note. ‘Deal with this immediately in the affirmative, Dobbs. We have a huge intake of officers and we can’t have them denied their servants, can we?’ He shared a glance with Auberon, one of distaste, or was it despair. Perhaps it was both.