Jack Firebrace's War Read Online Free Page A

night in no-man’s-land. What do you think they were thinking about all that time? It’s not as if they’re allowed to talk.” He was looking at Jack.
    “I don’t know, sir. Perhaps it’s like when we’re in the tunnel. You stop thinking at all after a bit. It’s as though you’ve stopped living. Your mind goes dead.”
    “I’d like to go down your tunnel,” said Stephen.
    “No you wouldn’t,” said Weir. “Even the miners don’t like it.”
    “I’d like to see what it feels like. Some of my men think you don’t work fast enough down there. They think you don’t hear the noise of the enemy. They’re terrified of being blown up from underneath.”
    Weir laughed. “We know that all right.”
    Jack shifted in his chair. There was something strange about the two officers. He suspected they were drunk. He had always thought of Weir as dependable. Like all the tunnelling company commanders, he was a regular engineer who had been transferred. He was careful and reliable underground, even though he had had no experience of it before the war. But his eyes looked wild and red with whisky. The brownish stubble on his cheeks and chin was surely the result of more than one morning’s missed shave. The lieutenant, Jack thought, looked more sober, but in some ways even stranger. You could not be sure whether he was serious. He seemed forgetful and distant, but also enthusiastic about going underground. It was as though he was not all there, Jack thought. The affection and gratitude he had felt at first began to evaporate. He didn’t want to share any more of his personal feelings with them. He wanted to be back with Tyson and Shaw, or even Wheeler and Jones with their irritating chatter. At least with them he would know where he was.
    “Any idea when we’ll get some rest, sir?” he asked Weir.
    “Tomorrow, I should think. They couldn’t keep us here longer than that. What about your men, Wraysford?”
    Stephen sighed. “God knows. I hear rumours all the time from battalion headquarters. We will have to attack sooner or later. Not here, though.”
    “Are we going to have to lose a few lives just to placate the French?” Weir laughed.
    “Yes. Oh, yes. They want to feel they’re not alone in this. But I believe they will reap the whirlwind.”
    Riley appeared from the back of the dugout. “It’s nearly six, sir. Stand-to in ten minutes.”
    “You’d better go, Firebrace,” said Weir.
    “I’ll see you in that tunnel,” said Stephen.
    “Thank you, sir.”
    Jack climbed back out of the dugout. It was almost light outside. The low sky of Flanders met the earth at a short horizon, only a few miles behind the German lines. He breathed in deeply on the morning air. His life had been spared; the last trace of elation came to him as he looked toward the back of the trench and saw the plumes from cigarettes and steam from the tea that cold hands were now clasping. He thought of the stench of his clothes, the lice along the seams, the men he was frightened to befriend in case their bodies came apart the next day in front of his eyes. It was the hour of Tyson’s ablutions, when he would empty his bowels into a paintpot and throw the contents over the top.
    From the officers’ dugout behind him came the sound of piano music, a rising melody under the scratch of a thick gramophone needle.
    When they were finally relieved, the miners were allowed to go to a village further back than their usual billet for a rest. The men were so tired they found it hard to march. Three miles behind the front line they were on a prepared road with ditches on either side. The order “easy” had been given, and some men smoked as they walked. Jack Firebrace concentrated on keeping a straight line under the weight of his pack with its extra digging tools. There was a village dimly visible at the end of an avenue, but he found that if he focused on it he lost the ability to coordinate his feet. He felt as though he were walking