End of the Line

The clouds were bruised with purples and greys and muddy yellows as were the men who sat beneath in two uniformed rows only a few yards opposite each other.  Bruised, battered and homesick.

Geoffrey Harper sat; his back starting to sink into the soft, wet mud wall that separated him from the vast wasteland above and beyond.  He grasped the slip of paper tightly in his frozen fingers as if, when he let go it would be lost forever.  It was yellowing and creased almost beyond recognition.  He held it close to his face, squinting to make out the fine writing that looped and scrawled its way across the page, rising in ‘l’s and ‘h’s like mountains and falling again into deep valleys. 

He only squinted because his small, round glasses were spattered with mud.  He would have cleaned them, had there been a point.  Everything was dirty here.  Trying to clean anything just moved the dirt around more so.  So instead, it was just left to build up.  Soon it wouldn’t be their problem anymore.  It would be the next company’s duty to let it increase even more but then, shortly afterwards, it would no longer be theirs to deal with but the next group of exhausted soldiers who trudged through the knee-high cesspits and stubborn sludge to get there.  And so it would go on, and on, and on with no definite end and no sight of victory or loss. 

Harper drew an earth-coated hand sloppily across his bright-red, throbbing nose, the skin sore and broken from the ceaseless work of his handkerchief.  He sniffed lazily, producing a sticky, choked sound that stuck in the back of his throat.  Oh, how his throat hurt.  It had swollen up, almost cutting off his air supply as if he had swallowed a straw.

With this thought Geoffrey coughed to check that he could still breathe.  Yes.  He wasn’t sure if he was at all pleased about this or not.

Slightly disgruntled, he went back to the letter. 

He wasn’t reading it.  He had read it so many times he knew it by heart.  No, he just liked to look.  To feel the smooth sheen of the paper that barely existed anymore.  To smell the delicate scent of home.  He did his best to smell it now through his stifled nose.  He knew it didn’t really possess the aroma of her perfume and freshly baked bread any longer, but he liked to pretend.  It brought him closer to her.

He had been pretending a lot recently.  What else was there to do?

Wait.

He pretended that he wasn’t really there.  He pretended that he actually knew what he was doing.  He pretended that the foul food that kept him alive was a succulent steak or a joint of gammon as he forced it down his gullet.  But most of all, he pretended beyond all other pretence that he actually cared.

Geoffrey couldn’t understand why he had been dragged into this giant argument.  He didn’t want to fight for his country.  He couldn’t have cared less about his country.  It was a cold, wet little island that could not be more mundane.  He had never been very patriotic.  It definitely wasn’t worth dying for.  It wasn’t worth any of this hassle.  Sleeping in filth, itchy uniforms, over-sized rodents and draughty outdoor holes in the ground for ‘toilets’.  He shuddered, holding the paper more tightly against his chest.

Was it too much to ask just to be sent home?  Surely they wouldn’t miss him.  He was of no use here as it was, surely one miserable, little, insignificant man wouldn’t make that much of a difference. 

The men in the dugouts had it easy compared to those out in the open.  Just because they had a motorbike or a well-off background they could suddenly command a group of a hundred or so men.

The commanding officer, Captain Rogers, had a motorbike.  He also had eleven less years than Geoffrey and his father twice the wage of Geoffrey ‘the mere grocer’.

It was all a big fix and a waste of time.

A loud, impressed roar interrupted his peaceful daydream.

Geoffrey glanced over at the two young men opposite him.

“Whoa!  Look at the size of that! “-exclaimed the taller of the two, holding out his hand to show the other what lay in his grubby palm.

“That’s one big louse “, the other muttered through the cigarette jammed tightly between his lips.

Geoffrey rolled his eyes to his other side in despair only to settle upon Private Jones next to him.  He was swaddled with various woollen garments sent through by his over-protective mother at home.  His right sleeve was rolled up past his elbow as Geoffrey watched him picking at a wound that refused to scab over.  There were maggots in it the other week.  Poor Jones.  Geoffrey felt truly sorry for the man.  He had the worst luck.  Not so long ago one of his toes came off in his sock.  He now kept it in a matchbox in his breast pocket, awaiting a German soldier to shoot at his heart purely for the excuse to say: “I got shot in me toe “-where everybody would then look to his mud caked boots for a sign of even more toe loss only to be disappointed.

Geoffrey couldn’t fathom how Jones managed to keep so optimistic and annoyingly cheerful about things.  He was probably the most loyal man Geoffrey had ever met.  He would sing the national anthem twice a day; as soon as he woke up and just before he went to sleep.  In between, he would chat inanely to anyone and everyone, including himself when no one else would listen.  As Geoffrey stared at him, Jones spoke enthusiastically to the large green and black gash on his forearm.  It was probably the most riveting conversation he had had all week.

There was another yell as the taller man opposite him pointed at a rat the size of a small dog that scurried unnervingly past them.  Again he stated the irritatingly obvious.

Naïve children.  It was all just a game to them.  When you were their age, death didn’t exist.  It was only a myth that happened when your hair was gone and your skin was so saggy it drowned you.  Oh no, they would never die.  Not them.  At twenty you were invincible.  A God.

“All right Jeff “, said Jones through a blocked nose, speaking louder than was necessary because, apart from him being a little bit deaf, his thick, black balaclava smothered his ears.  He nodded towards the letter.  “’Ow’s the wife then? “

Geoffrey’s eyes flitted to the page he seized in his unforgiving grip, and then back to Jones.  “This isn’t a new one “, he rasped in a bored tone, “I’m waiting for another to come through.  It’ll be any day now… “

There was a pause as Private Jones searched for words.

“Oh “, he breathed eventually, nodding.

Again there was silence as Geoffrey folded up the letter reluctantly and pocketed it.

“’Ere “, Jones started once more, an excited grin covering his face, “What about this attack the morra, eh? “  His eyes were giddy with the thought of some action at last.

Fool –thought Geoffrey, focusing on his companions gap where his front teeth had should have been.  They had been knocked out on his first day when, in the rush to get his gas mask on, he misjudged and slammed the metal into his teeth.  He would have been a goner if it hadn’t been a false alarm.

“Exciting innit? “-Jones continued.  “Finally get to shoot me some Boche!  Brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant… “

“Its suicide on mass, that’s what it is “, mumbled the cynical Geoffrey.

“Buck up Old Chap.  To think… this could be the end this time “.

There was nothing Geoffrey could do but agree.  These youngsters could never be told.  They had to learn from experience.

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The sun had barely risen and already the men were lined up, straight and still like toy soldiers, awaiting their instructions.

Lieutenants weaved their way through the rows of waiting men, checking equipment and uniform.

Geoffrey was determined to be back over the trench wall alive rather than dragged discourteously by the feet and thrown on the back of a cart with several other unfortunate souls.

He had seriously considered faking shellshock but shortly realised that it would be likely to result in a bullet through the head where he stood by a higher ranking officer.  Whether he chose to believe it or not, he would have more chance of survival if he went over the top and sat tight in some mud as far away from the Germans as was possible.

“Over the top! “  The dreaded words that filled each and every soldier with both terror and excitement.

Geoffrey felt a nervous hand clap him with false confidence on the back.  It was Lieutenant Davies.

‘Little Billy Davies’ who lived over the road from Geoffrey and his wife.  However, he wasn’t so little anymore.  He was a tall, strapping lad with a mind as sharp as a pin.  Maggie treated him like her own son and Geoffrey remembered her and Mrs Davies from across the street bubbling unscrupulously in the sitting room when he was sent for to come to the trenches.  Geoffrey had no sympathy as it was the boy’s own choice to sign up.  But he would never say such things to Maggie due to the risk of finding himself and several suitcases out of the front door and parked on the pavement tout suite.

Needless to say, they were close.

“No worries Mr Harper “, hissed the young man’s quivering voice.

Geoffrey smiled weakly at him and patted the hand on his shoulder in a fatherly manner.  “You best come back alive y’hear? “-he scolded firmly pointing an accusing finger at the Lieutenant.

Davies chuckled and moved on.

He was not aware of how serious Geoffrey was.

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The battle had been devastating like the one before it, and the one before that, and the one before that.  It never seemed to end or get any easier.  Each time someone else would die.  Several ‘someone elses’ most of the time. 

The stretcher bearers sat outside the officer’s dugout, drowning all memory of the horrific experience with whiskey.  They had seen the worst of it.  The dead, the dying, the one’s with no life worth living if they were saved, the young with their whole lives ahead of them, lying, bleeding to death in the mud, trampled and tripped over in a slow and undignified last hour.  They had to choose between the man who was worth saving and the man who couldn’t be saved.  They could decrease or increase the death toll by several persons.  And their work was not finished yet.

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Lieutenant William Davies sat slumped over the meagre table in the middle of the dugout, his handsome face a patchwork of red, glistening cuts and purple bruises.  He had got off lightly.  He fingered the corner of a letter in a grubby, white envelope that lay before him.  It had arrived this morning, before the attack, but it hadn’t been given to its recipient.  William had found it under a bed.  It was good for morale if the letters were given out before they met almost certain death.  This one had been missed. 

At his other hand lay another piece of paper.  A list of names.  Names of people who would not come if they were called any longer.  And these were only the ones who had been found. 

He combed his hand, brown with hardening mud, through his sandy blond hair as the finger he ran down the list of names stopped abruptly halfway through and his eyes widened with horror.

“Thompson! “-he called to a younger man that stood in the corner.  He scurried over.  “Check this name for me, will you? “-William asked trying to control his urgency.

The man hurried away and was back within a minute. 

“Sir, yes “, he panted, “Private Geoffrey Harper, Sir “.

“Thank you “, Lieutenant Davies rasped blankly, dismissing the soldier.

Numbly, William let the letter slip from his fingers and settle flat on the table.  After a moment of staring at it with unseeing, glazed eyes, William took up a pen and some paper.  He dipped the nib of the pen sloppily into the pot of black ink and began to write.

    Dear Mrs Harper, 
I regret to inform you that your husband Geoffrey Harper

He stopped, glancing towards the letter in the envelope and back to his poor attempt.  He crumpled the paper up in his fist and threw it across the room before dipping his pen in ink and starting once more.



      Dear Margaret,
There has been the most unfortunate tragedy that I cannot find strength within myself to inform you of.

This effort was also cleared from the table before the ink had time to dry.

After a minute or so of tapping the pen thoughtfully on the desk, William’s patience collapsed.  He snatched up the envelope addressed to his old friend and ripped it open viciously. 

        Julie next door had her baby the other day.  It’s a beautiful little boy.  A darling little creature.  Very quiet.  He has his father’s eyes, I told her.  They still haven’t named him, poor soul. 
Daniel is doing well looking after the shop.  I told you he would.  You will need to pay him well when you get back.
The church jumble sale did very well.  Mrs Collins’ cream cakes went down a treat as usual.  I bought one for you.  If you’re not back soon it will go off.  Let that be an incentive to those commanders of yours! 
You had better be back in one piece Geoffrey Gordon Harper or I don’t know what I’ll do.

Missing you dearly.

Maggie

Lieutenant Davies bit his bottom lip with worry.  It wasn’t even his duty to write the letters to the homes of dead soldiers.  This case was different.  He couldn’t tell her about Geoffrey.  Not just yet.  He didn’t know how to break the news.  It was too sensitive for a letter.  In a snap decision, William grabbed yet another sheet of paper and scribbled hurriedly.

         Dear Maggie,
         That is lovely news about the baby.  I wish them all the best.
Well done with the jumble sale, I am so proud of you.
I promise you that I will be back before the cake goes off.  A whole army of Germans wouldn’t keep me from Jackie Collins’ cream cakes.
I think of you every day and will never stop counting the days until I am back at home with you again.
Tell Danny to keep up the good work and no slacking.  I shall check for off vegetables when I get back, he can count on it.

I love you from the bottom of my heart until death do us part.  Forever and always.

Geoffrey xxx