The First of July(107)

The first star comes out like a sign, because then the British officer’s head rises up right in the middle of his field of vision. Franck curses when just as he fires the officer jerks his head and his binoculars to one side, so the clean head shot doesn’t find its target, but the man falls back silently.

The bullet hits the binoculars. Harry feels the blow ricochet down his hand, followed by the shock of finding himself down and fluid filling his throat, choking him. He puts up a hand and there’s a terrible lack of contour in his jaw, everything wet and sharp. Between him and the greenish sky, dark heads now loom like gargoyles, and black specks—birds? missiles?—whirl around above them.

“Fuck,” says a stranger.

“Dressing pack—get a bloody pack.” It’s Jones, sounding more Welsh than ever in his panic. “Oh, bloody hell, his face.”

“Keep calm,” another voice shouts, unsteadily. A hand is exploring his neck and chin. “His jaw’s smashed.”

Harry’s mouth is full of blood and fragments. “Turn him on his side,” he hears a voice say. “Keep the pressure on. Keep the pressure on!”

Am I fainting?, he wonders; am I dying? He wants to scream as they rotate him onto his broken leg. He can hear gargling and coughing, right there. His ears are ringing, the dark lines spread inward, and he’s bitterly cold. His legs and arms are dancing, he thinks.

“Sir.”

The movements make him feel sick. He heaves, vomits. Can’t clear his throat of blood and debris. Jones seems to be pressing down on him, preventing him from breathing. His legs are shuddering, something has trapped his arm, and he has, in the end, only a brief moment of panic before the roaring darkness, while Gordon Higgs tries to maneuver a dressing pack on the devastation of Harry’s lower face, muttering “I am a first-aider, I bring aid. I am a first-aider. God is with me.”

Harry is not thinking, in the approved style, of Marina, or Abbotsgate, of Teddy or his father, nor even of his regiment, his country, or of an all-encompassing regret; those are the fancies of dying men with time on their hands.

The animals in the winter zoo are restless; they squeal and gibber in this secret place; clouds of frost obscure the trees.





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


Jean-Baptiste, France,

July 1, 1916, Late Afternoon


THE SECRET OF THE ISLAND was the all-concealing greenery and, as Vignon had discovered to his advantage, unlike most islands it dipped rather than rose in the middle. For a while, Jean-Baptiste lay flat on his back in that hollow, getting his breath back. Only a solitary willow remained where once the small glade had been surrounded by a palisade of vegetation. He heard barges pass as he lay prostrate and invisible and the boum, boum, boum of shelling tolled across the fields. His ribs ached and he was very stiff, his mouth sticky. He spent a few minutes easing his limbs before returning to the river. This time, having looked in both directions, he jumped. The bank was sheer, the water deep where the current scoured and undercut it. The roots of long-dead trees still twined like monstrous serpents just under the surface. As a boy he had worried that they would trap and drown him. He sank into the water, his eyes stinging, and then he was heading for the far bank, though it was more of an effort than he anticipated and he was swept some way downstream. He reached the other side, pulled himself out, struggled to his feet.

He looked around to make sure the area was clear, and there to his astonishment he saw a survivor, a familiar friend, peering out from under two willows that grew more in the water than on land. He blinked twice to clear his vision in case what he was seeing was just the product of hunger, wariness, and wishful thinking. He edged forward, and the regular shape of the obstruction made it obvious, or obvious if you knew what you were looking for. It was a mound of greenish canvas, weighted down by rocks and mud and half-covered by rotting vegetation. He swept the branches aside, his heart beating as if at the sight of a long-lost lover. He moved a rock with his foot, pulled hard at the canvas, and there was Vignon’s boat. He rolled back the cover with some difficulty; it had become stiff and heavy. There was Sans Souci. She was on dry land, although holding water and dead leaves. The rowlocks, amazingly, were in place, and the blades of the oars were visible inside the boat. The bailer still hung on its hook.

He crawled over to the boat. The varnish had peeled a bit and a moorhen had nested in the prow, but it seemed sound. He stood up, bent under the overhanging branches, and clambered in. The boat rocked slightly in the earth. He sat down, noticing that the rowlocks had moss growing around them, and sat there for a while, feeling absurdly safe. He shut his eyes. The dappled light, the sound of the river breaking over some submerged obstacle, the birds, and even, in the thin fringe of dried grass, a cricket. With his eyes shut, the grumbling and explosions were the sounds of a summer storm. With his eyes shut, it was all right.