Jack Firebrace's War Read Online Free

dugout he saw that parts of the walls were covered with fabric. It looked like expensive foreign silk or cotton. On top of a small locker were more wooden carvings of human figures. There were no photographs on the bookshelves in the corner, though there were some amateurish sketches of heads and bodies. He became aware that the lieutenant had been following his gaze.
    “Do you draw?” he said.
    “A bit,” said Jack. “I don’t get enough time now. Or the quiet.”
    A tray with three mugs of tea was brought in by Riley, a small grey-haired man in neat batman’s uniform. He reached up to a bag suspended from the ceiling, out of range of rats, and produced some sugar.
    Jack watched the lieutenant go over to the shelves and take down a sketch. “The human anatomy is extraordinarily simple,” he said. “The construction of the legs for instance: two long bones with a simple joint for flexing, and the proportions always the same. But when you draw them it’s difficult to suggest the shape. Everyone can see this muscle on the thigh, the quadriceps. I never knew there was another one here, inside, the sartorius. But if you emphasize it too much the figure looks muscle-bound.”
    Jack watched the lieutenant’s finger trace the lines of the leg on the drawing as he spoke. He was not sure whether the man was teasing him, extending his agony, or whether he really wanted to talk about drawing.
    “Of course,” the lieutenant said with a sigh, “the war has provided all of us with daily lessons in anatomy. I could write a paper on the major organs of the British private soldier. Liver in section. Bowel, extent of, when eviscerated. The powdery bone of the average English subaltern.”
    Jack coughed. “Excuse me, sir. Can I ask about the charge?”
    “The charge?”
    “For God’s sake, Wraysford,” said Weir. “You told this man to report to you because he was asleep. He wants to know if you are going to have him court-martialled. He wants to know if he’s going to have an art lesson or whether he’s going to be shot.”
    “There’s no charge. You are not under my command.”
    Jack felt a hot stinging in his eyes.
    “I’m sure your own company commander will punish you if he wants to.”
    Weir shook his head. “No further action.”
    “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
    Jack looked at the two men with love and gratitude. They understood the difficulties of a man who had been stretched too far. He felt sure that their mercy sprang from compassion for him. He took out Margaret’s letter. In his enthusiasm for living he wanted to share the burden of his son’s illness.
    “You see here, sir. I had this letter from my wife. Our boy’s been taken poorly. I was worried for him. I’d not slept when I came up from the tunnel, I was so worried about him.”
    He handed the letter to Weir, who nodded. “See this, Wraysford?” he said, pushing it across the table.
    “Yes,” said Stephen. “I see it. Diphtheria, it says. That’s serious.”
    “Will I be allowed leave to go and see him?”
    Stephen raised an eyebrow toward Weir. “I doubt it. We’re undermanned as it is,” said Weir.
    Jack said, “Have you got children, sir?”
    Weir shook his head. “Not married.”
    “You, sir?”
    “No,” said Stephen.
    Jack nodded a few times to himself. “I suppose it’s funny when I’m out here with men getting killed all round me and it’s him that’s in danger.”
    Stephen said, “Every one of the men we’ve killed is someone’s son. Do you think of that when you see them dead? Do you wonder what their mothers thought when they first held them to their breast—that they would end like this?”
    “No, sir. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
    The three men drank their tea. From outside came the whiningof shells. They could feel the reverberation of the explosion in the dugout. Fragments of dried earth fell from the ceiling.
    Stephen said, “Two of my men were in a shellhole listening for eight hours last