The Mission (UH Writing Award Short Story)

This short story was for the UH Writing Award, which is probably short for the University of Hertfordshire or something. I’ve thought about this story a lot since I wrote it, and even though I don’t think I like it that much, it had a huge impact on my style from then on. The brutality of the imagery I was trying to achieve is really obvious, and I used that for years and years before I realised a bit of light can do wonders. There’s loads I want to change with it: for example, the thing about getting a drink before you signed up isn’t true, and the stuff before the trenches is pretty forgettable, but I remember the brief was to do with sight, or eyes or the senses, and it’s quite a neat conclusion. I put a lot of work into this over a number of weeks, and there were indications that this might have been included in the anthology of prize-winners, but then they contacted everyone and said the competition wasn’t going ahead after all. So I’ll never know, but I can take an educated guess from this remove.

THE MISSION

By Christopher Stanley

   ‘What do you see?’

   ‘Nothing, sir’

   ‘To your right, Taylor.’

   Tactics were always off-the-cuff these days. Since the first day in the Somme, watching in disbelief as soldier’s uniforms were ripped through holes in their backs, there hadn’t been much of a plan except to stay alive. Captain John Oakes had managed it, and he had done since fighting the Dutchmen in South Africa and the darkies in Zulu country. Oakes was a hero, so Harry knew whatever Oakes told him to do was the right thing. It didn’t stop him from being petrified beyond measure, though.

   Oakes had called on Harry, the platoon signalman in XIV trench, to commandeer his periscope. His had been blown to bits by a high-velocity shell during a night assault two evenings ago. The war of attrition had made men realise many things, but chiefly it gave them a sense of what was important, and a canvas covered tube could hang if it meant that thread of life, ever thinning, could stay intact for one more hour.

   Harry didn’t know Captain Oakes in person, only as a legend. Why would he, being just a private? Not only that, but a sixteen year old from the Midlands. How did he end up here in the middle of France, cowering in a man-made scar in the earth, ducking at every creak and shivering because of the cold and the fear? It didn’t make sense to him. King and country, that’s why he took the shilling, but everyone else was doing it too. Sometimes, in the quiet moments, he thought back to that day in the dusty recruitment office.

   It was the hottest day of 1916. Harry was working for the glass-blowers Farr & Co, so every day was hot. Walking up Hanley High Road in the early afternoon sun, his nailed soles clattered on the potted street. There was a gentle bustle, as if the new century hadn’t quite reached here yet.

   ‘Oi, Watto!’

   The voice came from Fred Sumner, strolling with his twin, Bobby. Harry had been in their class at the village school, but that seemed a long time ago. Most of the boys he’d played with growing up were gone; fighting in France, Belgium, Turkey. It seemed like somebody had flown above his village and grabbed them all with an enormous claw. He’d hadn’t seen any of them since.

   Like Harry, Fred and Bobby had just turned sixteen, and for some of the lads that had gone off to do battle, it was an age they’d never see. Thirteen, fourteen, some of them. Dennis King, Harry remembered. The first his mother had heard of it was when he didn’t come home from his shift at Wheatley’s butchers. By the time she’d given the recruiting officer hell, Dennis was on his way south to Dover.

   Dennis bought it at Ypres in a mortar attack. As soon as she heard, Mrs. King had a serious turn, her mouth frothing like a lunatic. When she came out of it, she never spoke again, and just used to wash and wash, staring out of the window.

   ‘Eh up, Fred. Bobby,’ said Harry, nodding faintly. ‘Where’re you off?’

   ‘Recruiter. Dad said we could. “You ain’t no use round here, lads.”’ This was Fred, the eldest by two minutes. Although they were twins, Fred and Bobby didn’t look alike, or even act it. But they looked out for one another, and when they got into scraps because of Bobby’s big ears, or Fred’s smart mouth, they always, always came out as bloodied as one another. It was a Sumner family trait.

   ‘Are you bloody loony?’ said Harry in surprise. His father had told him to forget the war; if a recruiter came knocking then he’d have to go but before that time, he didn’t owe King bloody George anything, and he certainly didn’t owe the bloody French. His father was careful not to stand out from the crowd too much though – many’s the night Harry had looked over in puzzlement at his father, belting out ‘God Save The King’ in the Potter’s Arms.

   ‘It’ll be over by Christmas, anyhow,’ Bobby replied.

   ‘Yeah, that’s what they said last Christmas.’

   ‘If we go now, we can choose where we fight anyway. Better to fight in France than in the desert.’ Bobby and Fred worked in the stables, looking after nags rather than thoroughbreds. Either way, they still had the musty odour of sweaty hay and horse-shit.

   ‘Balls.’

   ‘Come with us, anyway. It’ll be a laugh.’

   ‘Nah, I can’t, lads. Me mother’ll have the tea on, and it’s liver tonight.’

   ‘What kind of liver?’ asked Fred excitedly. He was the bigger of the two, paunchy, but it suited his face well, with his black hair swept up above his forehead.

   ‘Does it matter?’

   ‘Nah,’ said Fred, suddenly downcast.

   This struck Harry as one of the funniest things he’d seen in ages, and he started to giggle.

   ‘What?’ said Fred, genuinely mystified. This started his brother off, and soon he and Harry were in the road, doubled over and wheezing. Still Fred didn’t see it. ‘What? Come on, soft boys.’

   As soon as his laughter subsided, Harry agreed to go with them.

  

   The recruitment office was a corner of Hanley town hall, set up permanently since January 1915. When it became clear that the conflict being over by Christmas was optimistic, every big town started to accrue them. They sprang up like smallpox; once caught, the buggers weren’t shifting.

   Hanley was served by a bluff sergeant with a walrus moustache. His grey hair was perfectly brilliantined, as if it hadn’t moved, just changed colour under the gloop. He reeked of pipe smoke, and consequently so did the room. When the sun shined through the high windows, as it did today, you could see dust dancing in the spirals of smoke.

   There was a queue at the desk, standing. There were no chairs; the intimation being that if you needed to sit down, a soldier’s life wasn’t for you. Harry, Fred and Bobby took up at the end of the queue, and continued chatting as they waited.

   Each man at the front was given a shot of cheap brandy by the sergeant, and there was a brief discussion. Then, trembling, each man would lean forward and sign his name under the eye of the king’s representative. Then, reeling from the booze and the swell of shock and pride, they’d stumble out into the daylight to await their transfer.

   Bobby and Fred walked up together, drank together and signed together. The sergeant seemed to find this rather amusing, and drank a toast of his own to them. It seemed slightly out of place, two years into this horrible war, with its ticker-tape casualties and its reports of death and brutality.

   The sergeant turned his ruddy face, suddenly serious, to Harry.

   ‘Well then, get on with it.’

   ‘I’m not joining. I came with these pair.’

   The sergeant’s face took on a veneer of crimson. ‘Not joining, lad? And why not?’

   ‘I haven’t asked my parents.’

   ‘How old are you, boy?’ the sergeant wheezed.

   ‘Sixteen, sir.’

   The sergeant rose slowly from the desk and advanced on Harry, his heels echoing off the ancient wood flooring. He took the young boy by the elbow and let him to a corner of the room. Fred and Bobby looked on.

   ‘Let me tell you something, lad. When I was your age I was fighting the dib-dabs in India. It were kids like you, and men like me that built this great British empire. That land that you’re so proud of, the land that belongs to King George, is the same land that’s under your feet. So you owe your King.’ The sergeant hacked for a few seconds, caught up with emotion and caught out by his own lack of breath. ‘You owe this bloody country

   Harry started to reply, to protest, but the sergeant eyeballed him with piercing brown eyes, waiting for a chance to have another go. The air in the hall seemed more stifling than when they came in. Harry’s armpits were soaking his shirt.

   Harry found himself automatically walking over to where the sergeant had returned, The military man was looking at him with a mixture of contempt and impatience. His lips were pressed together; two smaller red slugs joining the huge grey furry one in the middle of his face.

   The sergeant poured a small measure of the spirit into a dirty glass and offered it to Harry. In the olden days, before this new-fangled war, the King’s shilling would be at the bottom of a mug of booze, and by the time a prospective recruit reached it he was too pissed to realise what he’d agreed to. This time, it was merely symbolic.

   The sergeant spat the King’s oath at Harry, and flecks of spittle congregated at the bottom of his moustache. His breath reeked of the same booze. In his mind, he was shooting Indians, thrashing them, forcing them underfoot. In reality, he recruited youngsters too raw to even shave to throw at the Kaiser’s guns.

   ‘Congratulations, lad,’ said the sergeant as Harry signed the paper. ‘You’re a man now.’

   Harry didn’t feel like a man. In a month of being on the front line he reckoned he’d seen hell for the very first time. Before this war, he’d been religious, reasoning that if God was wrong, and the Bible wrong, then people wouldn’t believe it. Satan was waiting, alright.

   But you lost all religion in the trenches, probably until that final moment when you sensed the bullet coming your way, the one that was going to rip through your throat or your belly or your leg, and leave you to die with the rats and the rest of the decayed flesh.

   Hell was here, Harry thought. The entire place reeked of shit, death, vomit, cold and cordite, and decay. He’d done two assaults and miraculously survived both, and a third was not far away. Harry began to think he was going to get it here, in a cramped rat-hole in a foot of water. He’d hoped at first to get a debilitating injury so he could go home, but that didn’t happen to raw recruits. New soldiers died. Veterans survived.

   Harry had witnessed first hand what happened to new blood who tried to get themselves back to Blighty. A bayonet or a bullet in the hand led to certain death. The officers who carried out the sentence didn’t like doing it, but they had no choice. Most of the time, the offender was stripped of anything useful, and then chucked over the top of the trench with a rifle trained on him. Usually you’d hear the crack of a rifle before he made the barbed wire.

   Harry knew he’d made a rash decision before he’d even reached France. His parents had reacted typically, screaming and moaning at him but knowing there was nothing they could do. He’d tried to placate them with the news that it would probably be over before he got there; after all, there was training and this new assault in France would break the Kaiser’s troops in half.

   The army gave him just enough time to learn how to fire and reload a rifle and cut a piece of barbed wire before they loaded him on a troop train bound for the south-east. The docks were a mixture of fear and bellowing. As they embarked, wide-eyed and shaking, patients were being carried off in the other direction. Soldiers covered in red dressings, reeking of pus and leaking fluids. No limbs, no eyes, covered in holes.

   The strangest were those soldiers wheeled straight into ambulances, as if they were the most contagious of all. Every effort was made to keep the new blood from them, but what Harry saw was comparatively normal men, sitting still or shaking slightly but no more.

   ‘Here we go, it’s the loonies,’ shouted a loudmouth Cockney ahead of Harry, and this got everyone talking. Everyone seemed to have experience of them, or a tale about them, but Harry didn’t. All Harry knew were dead lads and grieving families.

   He got a taste of shell shock on his second day at the frontline. A shell attack, running back and forth from trains, had descended on his section of line while they were brewing up. The shell seemed to aim straight for the pan of boiling water, and in particular, the chap holding it at the time. Harry hardly knew him, a sandy haired Cornishman called Hoare, but for those that did it was too much to take. His best friend, Lutterworth, had retreated to the floor of the dugout and not moved for two days. Harry and another newbie were ordered to take him to the field clinic, and they had done, dragging Lutterworth all the way.

   Since then it was a matter of urgency that Harry stay alive by any means necessary. It meant making a pact with himself, to not do anything foolish or volunteer for anything, because it seemed like suicide to do anything that stupid. If you knew you would be killed, was that suicide? Harry didn’t want to die a sinner. He didn’t want to die at all, and the thought that he would bought tears to the brink of his eyes.

   The two times he’d been forced over the top, Harry managed to have the good fortune to always be behind someone while they were striding towards the Jerries; three men had been cut down in front of him close enough to leave blood on his uniform. His jacket had once been green, but now it was of indeterminate colour; spattered by war.

   He was quite happy with his role as an observer for his line, although it was obvious even to him that he’d seen way too much already. There was not a single piece of green, not a single complete tree or path between him and the enemy. Sometimes, he could swear he was looking into another soldier’s eyes through his periscope.

   So Harry stayed quiet, hoping he’d fall between the cracks. If he was going back to Britain, he’d have to be injured; it would hurt but it was better than never seeing home again. There were nights, and long periods of the day, too, where the conflict dropped and it was peaceful. In those moments Harry allowed his mind to climb up out of the trenches, to wander about on the wet, dimpled earth.

   He wondered what they were doing back at home, and who’d replaced him at work. He wasn’t an expert by any means, but he took pride in his work. He hoped whoever it was took the same pride. And, in those hours of silence, waiting sullenly for the next shell, he wondered how he was going to die.

   The answer came the afternoon that Captain Oakes visited as he tugged on a fag. He’d never smoked in his life, but the trenches were a fine place to start. He’d begun to notice that his cigarettes shook slightly between his fingers. But it was winter, so Harry blamed it on the cold.

   Oakes had led him up the trench to the opposite of a German machine gun nest. Grabbing the periscope, Oakes had grimaced and swung the tube from side to side, looking for something. He offered the periscope back to Harry and asked him to look at the gun.

   Harry looked up to Oakes in more ways than one. Oakes had tremendous strength and was broad across the shoulders – a circus performer’s physique. He always led his line, so Harry was told, and had been at the Somme since the opening day. He must have been twice as old as Harry but looked younger somehow, like he needed a good argument to keep himself fresh. War bought out the best in him. Harry wanted to be him, to have the man’s confidence and spirit.

   Grabbing the periscope back, Oakes scanned the horizon before quietly exclaiming ‘Gotcha!’

   Clocking a quizzical Harry, Oakes asked him what he could see. Harry couldn’t see anything. Oakes directed him to his right. ‘See that tree stump? Well, next to that, there’s a hollow that runs for about six metres, until it comes to another tree. By the time somebody pops out from under that second stump, they’re virtually on top of the Bosche trench.’ He had a gleam in his eye and calm in his voice. Harry could see why he’d gained a reputation.

   ‘Of course, sir,’ replied Harry, nervously. He was expecting to be allowed back to his stretch.

   Oakes spoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Fancy it, Taylor?’

   ‘What?’ cringed Harry.

   ‘Knocking out that gun. Fancy it?’

   ‘I don’t…I wouldn’t know how, sir.’ Harry babbled, a deathly panic in his voice.

   ‘Nonsense. You’re as good as any man here. Come and find me in an hour and we’ll go over specifics.’

   ‘Yes sir,’ replied Harry, weakly. He turned and it took all his effort to move. Now he knew how Lutterworth had felt.

   The plan was simple. Under cover of darkness, Harry would slither out of the line towards the dip. Establishing position, he was to wait until a phosphor flare went up, and five minutes after that he was to be followed by another squad of luckless tommies. By the time they reached the dip Harry was to have taken the machine gun, hopefully preoccupied by one of the British guns, and they were to hold the section until a dawn attack.

   It all seemed hopelessly optimistic to Harry. He could see it wouldn’t work. But that was Harry’s problem – he could never stand up for himself. His bowels were water; he’d occupied the latrine for most of the afternoon. When he wasn’t shitting, he was sullen, uncommunicative and didn’t look up from the filthy trench floor.

   Eventually someone asked him what was up, a burly corporal from Yorkshire called Bell.

   ‘What’s up with you, Taylor?’ It was his affectionate way of checking Harry was still compos mentis; undiagnosed shell-shock was on the increase.

   ‘I’m heading a raid,’

   ‘So?’

   ‘So I’m scared, you prat!’ shouted Harry, sobbing now.

   Bell chewed on his filthy nail for a second and then replied thoughtfully ‘Best ask McLary if you’re coming back, then.’

   ‘Who?’

   ‘McLary. He’s a gyppo. He sees things.’ Bell hissed to his right. ‘McLary. Oi, McLary.’ He tutted at Harry’s convulsions.

 Donald McLary was a fifty year old veteran. He had a lined face like he’d been concentrating for a lifetime, and no personal vanity to speak of. He reeked of sweat, booze, damp and excreta. But Donald was popular, especially amongst the older soldiers, because he always seemed to know who was coming back from an assault. He’d been in over thirty during his time in the Great War.

   Harry explained the raid and Donald listened patiently. Then, without warning, he took Harry’s hands and clasped them between his own filthy scarred ones.

   ‘Look me in the eyes, Taylor.’ Harry did, but found it unnerving. ‘Look into my pupils, lad.’

   His tone was serious, and Harry did what he was told.

   ‘My grandmother was a seer, Taylor. It’s a gift. I can see what nobody else can. She called it “the vision.” I’m looking to see your vision.’

   Harry had never believed in that sort of gypsy rubbish; it was against God. But there was serenity in McLary’s eyes, a relaxing effect. Besides, God seemed to have deserted everyone nowadays. Maybe there was something in it.

   McLary took a long, deep breath, sagging slightly with his lids shut, when suddenly they sprang open, and his gaze seemed to look past Harry’s eyes into the very depths of his soul. It terrified the youngster, and his legs felt like giving way. He could smell McLary’s scent strongly now, and it hung in his nostrils like it had taken root.

   ‘Taylor, I see you lying in a field in the sunshine. The day is warm, and there’s a light breeze. You’re looking up at the sun, and there is nothing to worry about anymore. You’re surrounded by flowers; big, tall red ones.’

   ‘So I’ll survive?’ Harry felt the relief wash over him, hoping it was true. McLary’s soft voice told him to cling onto the thought.

   ‘It’s dark now, isn’t it?’

   ‘Yeah. But…’

   ‘But nothing. You’ll be lying calmly with the sun on your face one day. Take that as a good sign.’ McLary straightened up and walked off.

   Harry thought his chest might burst. There was no way the plan could fail now, and Oakes would be so proud of him. There was time now, to be a hero. It had to be true, because McLary had “the vision.” Harry smiled, feeling his luck had changed forever.