CHAPTER ONE

FRANCE

19 March 1918

Even in Albert there was always the sound of guns. Wherever he was near the line the guns formed an unremitting backdrop, so regular that it became part of life, unheeded unless the unseen gunner targeted him personally. Mostly the rumble came from the north, where the salient around Ypres was constantly under siege, but today they came from the French sector to the south. Lieutenant Ramsay disembarked from the train, lit a cheroot and allowed the sergeants to organise the unloading of the draft reinforcements.

A stocky NCO with the face of a boy and the eyes of an octogenarian stepped past him. “Right lads. I want the Royals to form up on the right, the Durhams to form in the centre behind me and the Fusiliers to the left!” The stentorian roar echoed around the railway station, competing with the sound of the train as it voided steam over the shifting mass of men.

“Should we not be taking charge?” Second Lieutenant Kerr adjusted his Sam Browne belt slightly and checked the holster of his revolver.

“I always find it best to allow the sergeants to do this sort of thing,” Ramsay said. “They do it so much better than us. It’s what they’re made for.”

Kerr forced a smile. “Yes, sir.” He straightened his cap so the peak was exactly square on his forehead.

Did I look as young as him when I first came out here?

Encouraged by the sergeant’s bellowing, the khaki-clad men filed into their respective units. The veterans stood at ease, their faces expressionless, while the recruits looked around in nervous excitement. The stocky sergeant was joined by two others; a taller, slender man who Ramsay guessed was in his late teens and an average-sized man with a greying walrus moustache.

“You’re with me, Durhams.” The tall sergeant barely raised his voice above a conversational tone yet when he gave the order to march the Durhams immediately moved out of the station towards the town outside.

The stocky sergeant blasted the Fusiliers in his wake, leaving the Royals standing, watching the officers with a mixture of frank curiosity and total disinterest. Ramsay noted the difference between the wide-eyed recruits who scarcely halted chattering even when the moustached sergeant barked at them, and the wary eyes of the silent veterans.

The Durhams and the Fusiliers filed into lorries, hauling themselves over the tailgate and taking their seats with non-stop noise and the clatter of equipment. One by one the lorries jerked away, leaving a blue cloud of exhaust fumes and rising dust. Kerr watched them go. “Is there transport for us, sir?”

“No,” Ramsay told him. “From here on, we march.”

Kerr indicated the disappearing files of lorries and the slowly dropping dust. “I thought they were all coming with us,” he sounded disappointed.

“They are replacements,” Ramsay explained, “to fill the gaps caused by casualties and sickness. They are fortunate that they are going to their own regiments. If there was a big push on, they would be spread out wherever they are needed along the whole line.” He glanced at the train. Already empty, it was heading back for more men. The front always demanded more men, like some starving dragon that devoured human bodies and drank human blood. Ramsay shook away the horrific images and glanced up as a new body of men marched past, arms swinging and rifles slung over their shoulder. They were singing, the words familiar, jaunty with sardonic humour.

“Après la guerre finie

Soldat Ecosse parti.”

Ramsay noticed that many looked terribly young, younger even than Kerr, and his face had never experienced the sliding hiss of a razor. Others were little older in years, but their mouths were hardened from experience and eyes embittered by the sights they had seen. Some had socks fastened over the muzzles of their rifles in preparation for the mud ahead. Many had one or more gold wound stripes on their sleeve; few of these were singing and then only softly; more as in prayer than with vigour. Their steel helmets seemed pitifully inadequate protection against the howitzers and mortars that would soon be targeting them. Yet still they marched and still they sang, with the veterans joining in one by one as they slid into the routine of the march.

Ramsay turned his attention to the single body of men who remained. They stood in the fading evening light, some with the patience of cattle, others lighting the ubiquitous Woodbine cigarette and talking quietly among themselves, a few staring at their surroundings in something like awe.

“That’s the men ready, sir.” The moustached sergeant saluted. “The guide is waiting for us.” He nodded to the station exit, where a tousle-headed corporal lounged against the pillar, smoking a cigarette.

The corporal lifted a single hand in acknowledgement and slouched forward. He eyed Kerr’s Sam Brown, raised a weary eyebrow and threw a casual salute to Ramsay.

“I am ready whenever you are, sir.” He was all of eighteen years old.

With the men formed in a short column of four abreast, the replacements for the 20th Battalion, the Royal Scots followed Ramsay toward the front. He felt the familiar mixture of emotions; the slide of despair that he was returning to carnage, the fear that was so constant a companion he had almost learned to control it and the strange exhilaration that he was returning to what now felt like home. This was his regiment; this was the First of Foot, the oldest regiment in the British Army outside the Guards; the right of the line, Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard: he was returning to his family.

There was the clatter of hooves on the central pave.

“Clear the road, lads!” The sergeant ushered the men to the mud in the verges. They moved reluctantly and the younger faces watched as the field ambulance hurried past, the red cross bright against the spattered background of mud.

“Blighty!” one of the veterans yelled. “Blighty!” He turned to the man next to him. “There’s another lucky bastard got a Blighty.”

His companion grunted. “Lucky bastard,” he echoed, and shifted his grip on his rifle. Neither mentioned the slow drip of blood that fell from the tail of the ambulance.

“Right, lads,” the sergeant stepped back on the pave. The corporal guide was watching, his eyes unreadable as he lit one cigarette from the glowing tip of the last. He led the way, shoulders hunched and feet sliding rather than marching.

The column trudged on, slower now as more vehicles approached. An ammunition limber growled past, then a water carrier. They marched through a village where every second house bore signs of shell damage. Many were uninhabited, but others contained civilians who watched the marching soldiers with no interest at all. A mother cradled her infant son as the men passed; a young girl skipped alongside for a few yards and laughed when one of the privates tossed a biscuit to her; she stuffed it in her mouth and ran away. The village slid away as they marched on, the drum beat of their feet monotonous on the cracked pave.

“How far is the front?” Kerr asked.

“Not far now; it’s just a few miles.” Ramsay recognised Kerr’s excitement. “You will know when you get there.”

The sudden roar made the recruits jump and Ramsay was not the only veteran who flinched as the battery of six inch guns fired.

“Give them hell, boys!” somebody shouted, the words lost in the concussion of the blast.

“That’s bon,” a smooth-faced veteran said, and looked to the horizon where the shells were travelling.

“I didn’t even see them there!” Kerr shouted. He held a hand to his ear. “What an infernal noise!”

The gunners threw aside the empty brass shell case and slammed in another. Stripped to the waist and perspiring, they did not look around as the infantry marched past. Ramsay watched them fire again and then looked away; the first shot had taken him by surprise, the second was a familiar entity in this world. He knew that each successive round would be less important until the shellfire became just part of the psychological landscape, accepted and ignored.

Ramsay glanced up as a shell ripped overhead. The sky above stretched to infinity, a void of nothingness marred only by the vapour trail of a single patrolling aircraft, thousands of feet up. The aircraft looked so innocent up there, harmless, almost angelic, that Ramsay had to force himself to remember what horrors such a flying machine could unleash. The devil had sent his winged emissaries to soil the purity of heaven.

At noon they stopped for a break. The men lit pipes or slender Woodbines, chatted in undertones or looked around in dismay at the increasing devastation. Ramsay bit the end off a cheroot, lit carefully and inhaled slowly. He looked forward, hoping the fear did not show in his face. With every step his excitement lessened.

Oh God, here we go again. Please, God, let this nightmare end soon.

They moved off again, trudging now as weariness settled on them. There were more gun batteries, more ambulances, and the occasional dispatch rider on a snarling motor bike. There were perspiring store men and a red-tabbed staff officer in a motor car, heading away from the front. They passed a cemetery where new planted crosses seemed to blossom like some obscene crop. One young soldier tried to count them but gave up after a few moments.

“Don’t look, son. Leave the dead in peace.” The sergeant sounded almost gentle. “You concentrate on staying alive.” He was only a year or two older than the recruit, but his eyes were timeless with fatigue and responsibility. The corporal guide watched and said nothing. He murmured something to the sergeant, glanced at Ramsay and altered their direction; they headed east, away from the dying sun.

The column moved on, relentless, the sound of their boots on the pave like the rhythmic clatter of some subterranean caterpillar, hollow and sharp, mocking the men who were so blithely marching to meet death. Ramsay counted his steps, each one was a millisecond of this life easing away, each one brought him closer to that other existence. Each one took him further from Gillian.

There was another battery of guns, eighteen pounders this time, firing slowly at the unseen enemy, the gunners moving like machines and the pile of empty brass shell cases head high at their side. Only the recruits turned their heads to watch; the veterans had returned to their front line selves, they had seen artillery before. There was a sound like an express train overhead and a sudden eruption in the flat fields, a hundred yards away to their right. The recruits ducked, some held on to their steel helmets, others stared open-mouthed at this ugly growth that subsided in a roar of falling mud and stones.

“What was that?” Kerr’s nose wrinkled at the reek of lyddite. He peered through the brown haze of dirt.

“That was the bloody receipt, sir,” one of the veterans explained, to be quickly hushed into silence by the sergeant.

“That’s Fritz replying,” Ramsay explained. He raised his voice. “Split the men up, Sergeant. Spread out the column.”

The sergeant nodded, wordless, and gave quick orders. The column spread out, men looking uneasy as they were deprived of the comfort of close companions who had been strangers only a few hours previously. The sky was darkening overhead, with the flare of shellfire bright on the southern horizon.

“Why did you split the men up?” Kerr asked. “They don’t like it at all.”

“Minimise casualties,” Ramsay said shortly. “If a shell lands in mud it will plunge underground before it explodes. The mud dissipates most of the force. If it lands on this pave,” he tapped his boot on the road, “it will explode on contact and spread shrapnel and shell casings and bits of stone for scores of yards. One Jack Johnson could wipe out the entire column.”

Kerr nodded. He looked around at the Royal Scots who now marched in a long, extended line.

“You take the rearguard, Kerr,” Ramsay ordered. “Try and bring them in safe.”

There were more ruins now, the shattered shells of houses, some sheltering small groups of soldiers on mysterious errands of their own. Behind one wall lay the bloated corpse of a horse, its flesh furred with flies. Behind another wall lay three soldiers sleeping in a heap, their uniforms so muddy and torn it was impossible to identify to which unit they belonged. An occasional gust of wind carried a smell of human waste, putrefying flesh and lyddite; the stink of the Front.

Ramsay halted the column in a muddy field. “The boys are marching by their chin straps now, Sergeant.” He raised his voice. “Bed down for the night, men,” he said, and watched the veterans show the recruits how to use straw and grass as a makeshift mattress. He lit another cheroot and looked up at the uncaring gaze of a million stars, already accepting the constant grumble of the guns as part of life. He leaned against a tumbledown wall at the edge of the field and drew on his cheroot until the tip glowed red.

Kerr joined him, shivering at the bite of the March night. “How far is the front?” Kerr asked again.

“Not far,” Ramsay said. “This is the support area. We will be in the front line tomorrow.” The words had the ring of doom about them. “But before you think of what tomorrow will bring, do your rounds – check your men. As an officer, the men are your first priority.”

“Yes, sir,” Kerr threw a smart salute.

“And please don’t salute when we are near the front.” Ramsay knew his nerves were showing. “It lets the Hun snipers know who the officers are.”

With the eastern horizon intermittently scarred by the brilliant flashes of gunfire, and an occasional distant star shell illuminating the sky, Ramsay found no sleep that night. He lay hard against the rough stone wall and fought the fear that mounted within him. I cannot go back again, he thought. I cannot go back again. But he knew he must. There was no choice. The alternative was disgrace, ruin and the loss of Gillian. He reached into his inside pocket, pulled out the silver hip flask and unscrewed the cap. The aroma of whisky was sharp in his nose. He tipped the flask into his mouth and swallowed. If I drink enough it will all go away for a while. Each time though, it got worse.

He listened to the sweet call of the larks and envied them their freedom.

Ramsay felt the flask tremble as he held it. The mouthpiece rattled against his teeth as he tipped it further back. Please God, if I am to be killed make it quick.

They marched on next morning, with Ramsay’s head throbbing in time with the pounding of iron-studded boots on the cracked pave. Sleep had refreshed the men and they marched faster now, the veterans keeping their heads down and the recruits looking around them, exclaiming at the shambles and flinching at even the most distant shell burst.

“Is this the front?” Kerr asked.

Ramsay grunted. “Not yet.” He kept silent for a few more minutes before he relented. “This is the area the Germans vacated when they retreated to the Hindenburg Line.” He waved his hand around. “Behold the civilisation of the Hun.” He stepped aside and looked around.

There was mile after mile of devastation. All the houses had been pulled down, all the wells filled in or polluted; even the trees were stripped – the branches were bare, naked fingers entreating pity from an uncaring sky.

“They make a desert and call it peace,” Ramsay flicked ash onto the ground, “to misquote Tacitus.”

“It’s frightful,” Kerr said. He ducked as a 5.9 inch exploded a hundred yards away. “We must win this war.”

Two of the passing veterans threw him looks that combined disgust with pity. Ramsay noticed but did not comment. He could appreciate their point of view.

“Oh, yes. You keep that thought in your head, Kerr, when the whizz bangs are falling.”

He looked upwards, to where two aircraft were pirouetting together, their vapour trails creating white patterns on the grey sky. It could have been pretty except for the distant chatter of machine guns. Somewhere the lark was still calling, the sound melancholic against the unheeded grumble of the guns. There are always bloody larks. I hate those birds.

Ramsay pulled hard on his cheroot. It was the smell that he objected to most. It seemed to seep into every pore of him; it stuck to his clothes and refused to leave. It was not a single smell, but a compilation of a hundred; from the sickening stench of decaying meat created by the dead and buried bodies that lay in No Man’s Land, to the stink from the latrines, socks: weeks unwashed and men’s lice-infested bodies, and the vicious stink of lyddite and phosgene gas. The stench remained with him long after the sights and sounds had vanished.

They reached the first trenches at seven in the morning, passing a battery of artillery whose gunners glistened with sweat as they fired a continuous stream of shells toward the German lines.

“The morning hate,” Ramsay explained as Kerr flinched. “You’ll get used to it.”

There was another small cemetery here; the crosses plain, with the name, number and regiment of each soldier the only sign that the grave beneath held a man who had lived, breathed and loved, who had planned for his future, who had a mother and perhaps a sweetheart or a wife. Now they were empty carcasses mouldering in France with the vitality and personality that had made them unique gone and already fading from memory.

Not all the dead were buried yet. There was one body lying outside the wall, covered in a single blanket. As they passed a twist of the wind flicked open the cover and the corpse glared out. He had not died easy; shrapnel had sliced him open, his intestines had escaped and he had tried to replace them with clawed hands. Fear and agony furrowed his face.

Ramsay watched as Kerr gagged, recovered and moved bravely on, muttering, “Frightful.”

“You’ll get used to that as well,” Ramsay said quietly.

“Here’s the Communication Trench, sir,” the guide said, and slipped into an entrance of muddy sandbags. “We call it Leith Walk.” He thrust a Woodbine between his lips and slouched on, his feet straddling the sludge of mud in the centre of the trench.

“Just keep behind me, sir,” the guide sounded bored, “and duck when I do.” He led them along the trench and through a maze of shoulder-high ditches, some with deeper trenches that led to the front. On either side the slimy mud was riveted by planking, with a wall of sandbags on top. Occasionally there were pools of water to negotiate, some crossed by duckboards, others without. There were dugouts from time to time, some containing groups of weary men, others piled with equipment or stores, with a bored sentry to prevent pilfering. The gunfire seemed muted down here.

“Watch yourself here, sir.” The guide ducked his head. “A shell knocked the sandbags to glory.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the German lines. “It’s not bon because Fritz occasionally sprays the gap with a machine gun.”

Ramsay nodded and passed the information back. He remained at the gap in the sandbags, waving his men through one by one until the sergeant at the rear nodded to him. “That’s them all, sir.”

“Make sure there are no stragglers,” Ramsay ordered, and pushed through to the head of his men.

A shell burst overhead, scattering shrapnel over a wide area. The veterans ducked into what cover there was, pulling the recruits behind them. “Come on, you!”

Nobody was injured, but the recruits grasped their shrapnel helmets closer and looked around, fear and anger replacing excitement. Somebody whimpered. Someone else shook a fist in the direction of the German lines and shouted a challenge. Something metallic thudded into the sandbag, a foot from Ramsay’s head. He looked at it without interest. He did not care about near misses, they did not matter.

Kerr had crouched down in the bottom of the trench. “Will our guns fire back?”

“That was one of ours, sir,” the guide said. His voice was flat.

“Keep going, boys,” Ramsay ordered. “But keep your wits about you.”

Twice the guide stopped them to warn of areas where snipers were active. The replacements ran past at irregular intervals, ducking low beneath the sandbag parapet. The gash in the back wall of the trench with the dribble of sand onto the ground beneath told its own story.

“No casualties?” The guide glanced over the replacements. “Bon. Now keep your heids down, eh?”

As they neared the front line the guide moved more slowly, checking every traverse of the trench until he arrived at the entrance to a dugout. The gas curtain was pulled back, revealing a long flight of steps descending into the dark.

“Here we go, sir. Major Campbell will look after you now. You too, Mr Kerr.”

Without bothering to salute, the guide ducked away leaving Ramsay and Kerr to negotiate the steps. Ramsay sniffed the familiar aroma of candle smoke, sweat and whisky, tinged with the cheerful scent of fried bacon. He pushed through a second gas curtain and stepped into the interior of the dugout. There was a single deal table, much stained, with three hard-backed chairs arranged around it and a larger, occupied armchair in the corner. A single candle burned low from its perch in the neck of an empty wine bottle.

“Ah! Douglas Ramsay I presume!” The major was short, stout and red-faced. He lifted himself from his lopsided armchair and advanced with his hand outstretched. “Welcome to the 20th Royals!”

“Thank you, sir,” Ramsay saluted, and accepted the proffered hand.

Campbell looked at his two pips, then at the wound stripes on his sleeve. His eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing. He glanced at Kerr; “And you must be Simon Kerr?”

“Yes, sir.” Kerr stiffened to as near attention as the low ceiling of the dugout permitted. He threw a salute that would have made any guardsman proud.

“There is no need for you to stay, Kerr,” Campbell said. “The sooner you get used to things the better, so just jog along after the guide, eh? There’s a good chap.”

Kerr flushed a little, but recognised the dismissal and withdrew toward the door.

“Oh, and Kerr,” Campbell called him back. “Lose the Sam Browne would you? There’s no sense in advertising to the Huns that you’re an officer.”

Kerr blinked, glanced at Campbell’s shoulder, bereft of any Sam Browne. “Yes, sir.”

Campbell waited until he was gone. “There is no need to scare the lad yet, but your timing is excellent, Ramsay. We’re expecting Fritz to try a push soon and we need all the experienced men we can get.”

Campbell’s eyes were weary, half-hidden beneath a spider’s web of wrinkles.

“Yes, sir,” Ramsay said. “I heard the rumours before I came.”

Campbell’s smile dropped. “This war is full of rumours, Ramsay, but this one may be true.” He shrugged. “I wish the defence line was completed, but if wishes were horses we’d all win the Derby, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” Ramsay took the chair that Campbell offered.

“Since we took over this section from the French we have done a lot of work to it, but it is far from completed yet.” Campbell shrugged again. “We will just have to manage as best we can.”

Ramsay realised he was supposed to comment. “Yes, sir. I am sure we will.”

“Have you brought your servant with you?” Campbell looked at the dugout entrance as though expecting a private to emerge from the dark. “Obviously not. We can get that arranged tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.” Only if Fritz allows us the time.

Campbell grunted, leaned across to the table and opened a drawer. He produced a half-empty bottle of Glenlivet and two glasses. “This is just to take the trench taste away.” He sloshed whisky into both and slid a glass over to Ramsay.

“Your health,” he said quietly. “Try and avoid bullets this time, Ramsay, and may God be with us both.”

The whisky burned its way down Ramsay’s throat and exploded in his stomach. He gasped and took a second swallow.

Campbell finished his glass in a single gulp, poured himself another and drank that too, before replacing the bottle in the drawer. “Now that you’ve been christened, Ramsay, have you any questions?”

Ramsay glanced at the map of the front line spread over one entire wall of the dugout. “Where are we, exactly, sir?”

Campbell unsheathed a bayonet that hung in its scabbard from the back of his chair, looked at the glittering blade for a second and jabbed it in the map.

“We are here, between the Durhams and the Northumberland Fusiliers. As you know, most of the Front is no longer a continuous line of trenches, but a system of strongholds – we call them keeps – which should be mutually supporting with interlocking fields of fire.” Campbell raised his eyebrows and waited for Ramsay’s confirmation.

“Yes, sir,” Ramsay said.

“Except the keeps are not complete yet,” Campbell said, “and we are lacking machine guns and artillery.” He opened the drawer again, looked at the whisky bottle and closed it with a bang. “How up to date with the situation are you, Ramsay?”

“I have been recovering from wounds for the past few months, but I have kept in touch with events in France.”

Campbell nodded. “You are quite experienced for a lieutenant. Remind me where you were wounded, Ramsay?”

Ramsay ignored the implied criticism of his rank. “Passchendaele.” He heard the flat intonation of his own voice.

Campbell heard it too. “That was a bad one,” he said. He glanced at Ramsay’s two pips and pushed harder. “Was that your first action?”

“No, sir.” Ramsay shook his head. “I was at the Somme as well.”

Campbell glanced again at the two wound stripes. “You were injured there as well?’

“Yes, sir.” Ramsay did not explain further.

Campbell nodded. “I will be blunt, Ramsay. I would expect an officer of your experience to hold a higher rank than lieutenant.” The weary eyes held Ramsay’s gaze.

“Yes, sir,” Ramsay sighed. “I was wounded on the first day of the Somme. I hardly cleared our own trenches before I was hit, so there was little time to gain promotion.”

Campbell nodded, but his eyes remained hard. “Was that your first action?”

“Yes, sir,” Ramsay said.

“And your second?”

“Passchendaele,” Ramsay told him. “In between I was recovering and then based in southern England.”

“Hence no chance of promotion,” Campbell agreed. “Even so, it’s good to have an officer of your experience here, Ramsay. We are fighting a different war to the one you knew at the Somme, and with different men.” He returned his attention to the map. “As I was saying, the front line should consist of a series of strong points with interlocking fields of fire, so in theory every inch is covered by machine gun and artillery fire.” He tapped the point of his bayonet on the combination of lines and dots that marked the British front line.

“We are here, in the centre left of General Gough’s 5th Army. I want you to take over this section of the firing line, from here, to here.” He moved the bayonet slowly across the map. “We are still creating our strong points, but we have a partially completed small keep which you will command.” Campbell sat back down, put a hand toward the table as if reaching for something, changed his mind and began tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. “As soon as you are settled in, Ramsay, I want you to send out an observation patrol. Tonight will do. See if old Fritz has anything planned, listen for anything unusual. Try and see when Fritz is coming.”

Ramsay nodded. “How many men do I have, sir?”

“Thirty three,” Campbell said quietly, “and you have three traverses with one Lewis gun. There is support behind you, of course. We have two Vickers machine guns, as well as artillery, so your front is well-covered if Fritz decides to call.’

Ramsay nodded. “Thank you, sir, that is good to know.”

“We call your section of the line Gorgie Road,” Campbell gave a wry smile. “I hope you are not a keen follower of the other Edinburgh football team.”

Ramsay did not smile at the Edinburgh connection. “I prefer rugger sir. How are the men?” he asked.

Campbell shrugged. “Mostly very young, with a stiffening of veterans,” he said. “You have a few originals and you will need Sergeant Flockhart and Corporal McKim.” Campbell shook his head. “McKim is a bit of a rogue, but there is no better man when things get rough, except perhaps Flockhart.”

“Sergeant Flockhart?” Ramsay started. He felt the blood rise to his face but took a deep breath. Calm down; it’s a common enough name. There’s no need for worry.

“That’s the man,” Campbell confirmed.

“Sergeant James Flockhart?”

Oh God, no! Of all the people to bump into out here!

“You know him?” Campbell looked up, smiling.

“Not personally, sir, but I have heard the name,” Ramsay lied easily. He tried to still the increased hammering of his heart as the memories crowded back into his mind.

Fresh spring grass; puffy clouds painted white against a blue washed sky, with trees waving only the tips of their boughs in the lightest of breezes. She looked up into his face, wide eyes of light blue laughing with him as they made soft love.

“Happy?” he asked, and she nodded her head, and then opened her mouth in a cry of ecstasy.

He smiled and allowed the sensation to linger as he gazed down at her, with those wondrous breasts now exposed to the kiss of the sun that highlighted the faint down on her arms.

In a few years, Ramsay knew, the breasts that gave him so much pleasure would be ponderous and her eyes hardened with toil and poverty, but for the time being she was all that he desired in a woman: young, willing and free.

He climaxed and lay there, panting slightly as she moaned in his ear. The world was good.

He listened to the sound of her breathing and reached out for her again.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“That’s not surprising,” Campbell’s words brought Ramsay back. The major studied a section of the map for a second. “Flockhart is a good man – one of the originals – a veteran of Mons, Ypres and the Somme. He’s seen it all and done it all, he can be trusted. McKim is an old soldier from way back. He’s been promoted and busted back to the ranks so many times the regiment has lost count. He was in the Boer War from Bird’s River to Paardeplatz, the siege of Wepener and with Dawkins in the Transvaal. He knows all there is to know about soldiering.” Campbell touched the two gold wound stripes on Ramsay’s sleeve. “Junior officers have to earn the trust of McKim and Flockhart, but these will help.”

The sergeant’s name had startled Ramsay but he glanced down. “Yes, sir.”

Campbell returned his attention to the map. “So you’re back for another helping of Fritz, then?” He sat down again before Ramsay could reply and waved his bayonet at the map. The twelve and a quarter inch long blade seemed to waver in the flickering glow of the candle. “Let me elaborate on the set up we have here. It’s not like it used to be, Ramsay. Now we have three distinct defence lines. The rear line that we can defend in depth. You have just come through that. There is the battlezone of strongpoints and redoubts, this is where we will hold any push by Fritz. Lastly, and most exposed, is the forward zone of small outposts and larger strongpoints.” He waved the bayonet vaguely at the map. “As our sector is not complete yet, we still have sandbagged trenches as well, while the strongpoints are not as strong as I would like them to be.”

Campbell held Ramsay’s eyes; his face was expressionless. “I am sending you to the forward zone.”

Ramsay nodded. Back again. Back with the mud and slaughter, back to the scene of my earlier failures. “Yes, sir.”

“Just leave my office here,” Campbell smiled at his attempt at humour, “walk down Gorgie Road for half a mile and you will reach your new home.” He held out his hand. “Well, good luck, Ramsay. You had better get out to the forward zone and look after things.” He smiled, briefly, but his eyes were still weary. “I repeat, I am glad to have an experienced man with us. These young lads like Kerr are good stuff, keen as mustard and brave as they come, but the men prefer an officer who’s been through it.” His smile was bleak as an Edinburgh November. “There are not many of us left.”

With that reminder of their own vulnerability, Campbell sat back down, glanced at Ramsay and recovered the bottle of Glenlivet. Raising it in Ramsay’s direction, he asked, “More?” and shrugged when Ramsay shook his head.

“You won’t mind if I do.” He poured whisky into his glass and did not stop until the liquid slopped over the rim and overflowed onto the table that bore a hundred similar stains. Ramsay left him to the sanctuary of alcohol and stepped into the sinister dark.

How long this time? How long before I catch a bullet and the men despise me?

A flare drifted across the night sky, casting a red light over the surreal landscape, momentarily highlighting a barrier of sandbags with crimson shadow. Like blood. Like the blood of a million dead men. Ramsay shivered, pushed the thought away and concentrated on finding his way through the shambles of barbed wire that linked the strongpoints together. What had seemed so clear cut on the map was only confusion on the ground.

“Are you looking for somewhere, sir?” The voice came out of the dark.

“I’m looking for Gorgie Road,” Ramsay said.

“You’ve found it, sir,” the voice said. “You’ll be Lieutenant Ramsay then?” A compact figure emerged from the shadow of the sandbags. When a signal flare soared up above No Man’s Land, he withdrew to the trench wall, but not before Ramsay had seen he was a stocky man with steady eyes and the three stripes of a sergeant on his sleeve.

That’s him. Oh, God, that’s Flockhart.

“Careful now, sir. There’s a sniper about. He’s a persistent bugger and he loves it when somebody lights us up with a flare.”

Ramsay stood still until the flare died away. He knew that movement meant death if a German sniper was on the prowl. Of the British, only the Lovat Scouts could outmatch the German snipers and there were none in this sector of the line.

“Can’t we deal with him?” Ramsay moved on, with the sergeant slightly behind, his feet quiet on the sparse duck boards. “I might send out a patrol of picked men and watch for him.”

“Not bon, sir. Your predecessor tried,” the sergeant’s voice was flat. He gestured over the wall of sandbags with a jerk of his head. “He’s still out there,” his face twisted in the sudden light of a flare, “hanging on the old barbed wire.”

Ramsay nodded. “I see. You will be Sergeant Flockhart, then?” He tried to keep his voice neutral as he narrowed his eyes against the glare of the flare. His hand edged to the flap of his revolver holster. Did Flockhart know who he was?

“The very same,” Flockhart agreed. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, would you like me to show you to your dugout? You look dead on your feet.”

The flare faded and fell to earth, leaving them in blackness that seemed more intense in contrast to what had gone before. Ramsay started at the sudden clamour of a machine gun. The noise echoed in the dark. “Sorry,” he said, “my nerves are not what they were.” He flicked open the catch of the holster. Do it now. Nobody will know. It will be one shot among a thousand.

“Nobody’s nerves are what they once were.” Flockhart had not moved. “That was up north, not in our parish.” He stepped onto the duckboards in the centre of the trench. “Come this way, sir. Mind and keep your head down.”

The trench was shallower than those Ramsay remembered, with sandbags making up more than half the wall. Rather than forming a permanent barrier across the whole line of the front, it served as a link between a number of more heavily fortified strong points, where Lewis gunners crouched behind castellated parapets and Vickers machine guns swivelled to cover all possible access points. As always, there were men on duty, standing on the firing step, peering through periscopes into the dark or crouching in the shelter of the sandbags as they gripped their rifles. Some looked up as he passed, others ignored him. Only one man jumped to attention and tried to salute. Flockhart pushed him back. “Don’t be stupid, Nesbit! If Fritz is watching you’ll have Mr Ramsay marked off for the sniper!”

“Oh God, I’m sorry, sir!” Nesbit appeared to be about fifteen years old.

“Just something else to remember, Nesbit,” Ramsay said. “You get back to duty, son.” He felt suddenly ancient. He was barely twenty-three, but it was hard to remember a time when his life had not been regulated by gunfire and punctuated by the wary eyes of private soldiers. Either that or the heavy smell of antiseptic in the white-painted wards of a military hospital, among the regulation blues that hid the wreckage of what had once been fit young men.

Ramsay borrowed a trench periscope and eased it over the parapet to survey No Man’s Land. At first his eyes could not penetrate the dark, but a providential flare drifted across the sky, casting a greenish hue over the landscape and reflecting from ten thousand barbs in a hundred coils of wire. Ramsay winced at dark memories.

Kerr joined them, his face tinted green by the flare. He said nothing as he filed behind them, but his breathing was heavy, indicating nerves.

“Good man, Kerr,” Ramsay encouraged.

Flockhart nodded to him, “If you just bear with us, sir,” and led them round a corner of the trench to where a wall of sandbags soared into the hostile sky. “Here we are sir. We call it Craigmillar Castle. This is our own private keep.”

The sandbags were six deep around this section of the trench, with firing positions every yard and a raised platform for the Lewis gun. One glance through the periscope revealed an eighteen foot deep barrier of barbed wire. “It’s not perfect, sir,” Flockhart said. “We could do with a heavy machine gun in our section and at least two more Lewis guns.” He gave a wry smile. “And a couple of Fritz’s pill boxes.”

Ramsay nodded. He looked around, assessing how his section of trench could be improved. “How has Fritz been behaving recently?”

“Tres bon, quiet as a baby on laudanum, sir.” Flockhart jerked his head back to indicate the German lines, a scant two hundred yards away. “No patrols, no morning hate, nothing. It’s like they are on holiday over there.”

“They are definitely planning something then,” Ramsay said. “We can expect a raiding party tonight or at dawn tomorrow. Is there a listening post in No Man’s Land, Sergeant?”

“There is, sir. It’s manned day and night in case the Huns try anything. We have Second Lieutenant Mercer there now, but it’s time for his relief.” Flockhart rolled his eyes toward Kerr.

Now! Now I can get rid of him. Ramsay nodded and turned to Kerr, who had been a silent spectator to the conversation. “Kerr, I want you to take Sergeant Flockhart and four men to the listening post. If you hear anything unusual, report back. Follow the advice of Sergeant Flockhart. I don’t want any heroics now.”

Kerr grinned quickly, “Thank you, sir.”

Thanking me for sending him into danger. That boy should still be at school.

“Remember what I said and don’t be a hero, Kerr. Do as the sergeant advises. He was cutting barbed wire when you were still cutting your milk teeth. ”

Flockhart did not look as pleased. He raised his eyebrows briefly, nodded and said, “Very good, sir.” He seemed to be studying Ramsay’s face, as though trying to recognise him

Yes, it’s me you bastard, your nemesis. Die!

Ramsay watched as Kerr divested himself of all his surplus equipment and followed Flockhart into a deep, sandbagged bay. There was a crooked tunnel that led into a sap which zig-zagged forward. Flockhart slid into the sap, with Kerr following eagerly and four anonymous privates who followed more slowly and with less enthusiasm.

Set ye Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle and retire ye from him, that he may be smitten and die. Ramsay shook the betrayal from his head. “Good luck,” he said. Kerr looked back and smiled and then the privates shuffled forward and they disappeared behind a dogleg in the sap. There were faint sounds of feet scuffing on duckboards and then silence. Suddenly it seemed lonely in the keep.

What have I done? Self-loathing uncoiled in Ramsay’s stomach and he turned away in disgust. He turned again, opened his mouth to call them back and a corporal hunched past, pipe between his teeth and his eyes as calm as midsummer. “Evening, sir,” he said. “Don’t you worry, you’ll soon settle in.” He stopped and removed his pipe but made no attempt to salute. Ramsay saw that he wore the King’s and Queen’s Boer war medal ribbon as well as the purple and green of the North West Frontier.

“Thank you, Corporal. . .?”

“McKim, sir.” The corporal appraised him frankly. “Kenny McKim. You’ll be the new lieutenant, then.” He grinned. “Welcome to Craigmillar Castle, sir.”

“Thank you,” Ramsay repeated. “Hardly a castle, is it?” He looked up as another flare soared into the night. The light illuminated this section of trench, showing the heavily sandbagged emplacement for the Lewis gun with its six man team trying to grab some sleep around its base. The barrel pointed skyward but the drum of ammunition was fitted in place and one man had his hand on the stock, as if holding the hand of a favourite child.

“Let’s hope Fritz stays at home for a few days,” McKim placed his hands in his pockets and sauntered down the trench. Although he did not look down, his feet found the driest places on the duckboards. “Here’s your own personal snug, sir.” He jerked an elbow toward a dugout. The top step was supported by sandbags and the side wall riveted by broken duck boards.

“Wake me in two hours,” Ramsay paused at the entrance, “and I will do my rounds.”

“Yes, sir,” McKim said. “Although the guns will wake you first.” He raised a hand in farewell and stepped around the traverse of the trench. His rifle was slung casually over his shoulder, but a canvas cover protected the muzzle and what Ramsay could see of the mechanism was bright and clean.

Ramsay negotiated the five steps that led to his dugout. It was not as luxurious as that enjoyed by Campbell, being little more than a depression scooped out of the ground, roofed with corrugated iron and protected by layered sandbags. Despite the chicken wire that lined the interior walls, mud and soil had seeped into the room and lay in small piles, while the smell of stale sweat from the last occupant was noticeable, even above the normal stench of the front. There was a garish picture on the wall, a scantily clad woman with ample breasts and a big smile – the accompanying script was in French and Ramsay did not bother with a translation. The table was small, unsteady and unwashed; the bed consisted of a duckboard plank balanced between two sandbags and a straw mattress on top. There was a telephone with a wire snaking up the steps, presumably connecting the dugout to Major Campbell. Ramsay lifted the receiver and heard the faint buzz that confirmed his connection; there was nothing else in the room, save mud.

I sent a man to the most dangerous post possible today, and I am safe and well.

Lying fully clothed on the damp mattress, Ramsay tried to close his eyes. The images returned to haunt him, reactivated by the sights and smells of the trenches. Images of men drowning in mud; images of fragments of men pleading for death; images of men mown down by the dozen, the score, the hundred; images of that deep shell hole filled with poisonous green water in which he had survived until the stretcher bearers came for him. He shook his head, feeling the sweat start from his pores and the familiar maddening itch that the memories always brought. He was back in the environment he loathed yet could never escape from, among men who were as doomed as he was. This was his reality and anything that had occurred before did not matter. Even that day did not matter, although it had nagged at his conscience with tearing claws and those accusing eyes were in his mind every morning he awoke.

All the horrors of the war formed a veil, behind which that reality cowered, but night always eased back a corner of the curtain and the guilt peered through. He screwed his fists into tight balls and writhed on the rustling straw.