Shoulder the Sky Read online

  There was no question of advancing. The relief poured in with terrible casualties, men falling forward as they were shot, faces in the mud, or floundering as the gas filled their lungs and they drowned from the inside, screaming and gurgling.

  But at last the Germans fell back and the line held. By dark the guns and flares showed a landscape of torn wires, trenches barely recognizable in the cratered mud, and the still-lingering pockets of gas.

  Joseph was at the dressing station, his head pounding, body so exhausted he could barely feel the pain of burning muscles, bruised flesh, and torn skin. He looked at the blood soaking his tunic and trousers with surprise, not even sure if any of it was his own.

  Opposite him, sitting on another upturned box, Sam was stripped to the waist while a young VAD stitched the long gash across his chest and placed a bandage on it.

  Sam’s dark face was smeared with blood and smoke, his eyes bloodshot. “What a hell of a mess,” he said with a slight smile. “Good thing it won’t show. I’ll tell you for nothing, I wouldn’t let you touch my jacket with a needle.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the VAD apologized. He looked about twenty, gray-faced with horror and exhaustion, and Joseph recognized his accent as Canadian, although he could not place it more closely than that.

  Sam winced as the thread was cut, pulling the skin a little. “Don’t worry. By the end of the war you’ll be good enough to stitch shirts, I daresay,” he said with a gasp. “If that’s your idea of a straight seam, they’ll fit Quasimodo.”

  The VAD looked puzzled. “Quasimodo, sir?”

  “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Sam replied, moving his arm tentatively, then catching his breath with pain. “Bit before your time. French classic.”

  “Oh. Can I get you a shot of rum, sir? You look all in.”

  “You can. And one for the chaplain there. He frequents all the same pubs I do.”

  Joseph had only a couple of deep scratches; a little cleaning and bandaging were all that was needed. He drank the rum and tried to rise to his feet, but the tent swayed around him and he fell forward on his knees.

  “No more rum for the chaplain,” Sam observed. “He’ll need to stay sober for weeks to bury this many dead.” He watched as the young Canadian carefully helped Joseph to sit again. “On the other hand,” Sam added, “perhaps he’ll need to stay drunk to bear it! You’d better get him another, but get him something to eat at the same time.” He turned to Joseph, his face suddenly tender. “Sleep it off, Joe. These poor devils deserve a priest who knows what he’s saying, whether anyone believes him or not.” He stood up himself, his face went ashen, and he toppled over just as the VAD caught him and eased him to the ground. “Stretcher!” he shouted, his voice rising sharply.

  Joseph rolled over and lay down on the earth. If he tried to stand again he would only cause more work. Let them put him in a corner somewhere until he came back out of the black hole of oblivion. Please God it was a black hole, full of darkness without shape or sound, no agony, no awareness at all. He hoped they would leave Sam somewhere near him.

  When Joseph opened his eyes again it was morning. He saw the sky above him delicate blue with the light pouring through it, still touched with the cool silver of dawn. Then he moved. Every muscle in his body hurt. He felt as if he had been beaten. He was lying on the ground outside the first-aid post. He must have been injured.

  Then he remembered the gas.

  He rolled over and sat up, his head pounding, his stomach knotted. Someone came to him with a cup of water, but he brushed it aside. Where was Sam? He stared around. The earth was littered with bodies, some bandaged, some splinted, some motionless. He saw Sam’s dark head. He looked to be asleep. There was a bandage around his chest, under his tunic.

  Now he remembered it all, the choking, the pall of death over everything, the struggle to save, the overwhelming failure. It came back with a taste of despair so intense he sank back to the ground, breathing hard, unable to force strength into his limbs. He was barely aware of it as somebody held the water to his lips. He drank only because it was less trouble than arguing.

  He lay there for a while. He must have drifted off into sleep again, because the next thing he was aware of was someone easing him up into a sitting position and offering him food, and hot tea with a stiff lacing of rum.

  Sam was sitting cross-legged opposite him, pulling a face of disgust at the taste of the drink in his hands.

  “I wonder what else was in the crater they got this out of!” he said sourly. “A dead horse, I should think!” He took a deep breath, coughed, and then finished the rest of it. He grinned across at Joseph. There was nothing to say, no hope or sanity, nothing wise or clever. The only thing that made it endurable was the knowledge that he was not done.

  Half an hour later Joseph was still sore, his body aching and skin torn raw where he had scratched it because of the fleas and body lice that afflicted everyone, officers and men alike. There had been no time or opportunity to try to get rid of them.

  It was now nearly midday. There was an air of anxiety even more profound than usual, and Joseph became aware of it as he saw how many men there were still on the ground. Ambulances pulled up, were loaded, and drove away again, always five men or more in each. There was very little laughter; people were too stunned to joke.

  Joseph stood up slowly, realized he could keep his balance, and set off to find the surgeon and see if he needed any help. But what could he say to a dying man, or one in appalling pain? That there was a purpose to all this? What? A God who loved them? Where was he? Deaf? Occupied somewhere else? Or as helpless as Joseph himself in the face of endless, senseless, unbearable pain?

  There was nothing to say as he sat beside young, dying men. He repeated the Lord’s Prayer, because it was familiar, and it was a way of letting a man already sinking into the blindness of death know that he was there. For some it was the sound of a voice, for others it was touch, a hand on a limb that they could still feel. Some wanted a cigarette. Though Joseph himself did not smoke, he had learned the trick early to carry a packet or two of Woodbines.

  The bombardment picked up in the evening and went on all night. It was one of the worst he could remember; there were so many men gone that in places, sentries on watch were alone, exhausted, and fighting against falling asleep. Apart from the fact that it was an offense for which a man could be court-martialed and face the firing squad, no one wanted to let down their friends or themselves.

  There were no reinforcements yet. The Canadians had suffered the worst along this part of the line, and the French Algerians farther east. Now, far from a shortage of food, there were no men to eat it, and it was rotting.

  By dawn there was some respite in the attack, possibly because with the slackening of the wind, pockets of gas still lingered over the craters and in the lower lying trenches. As full daylight spread over the vast wasteland with its shattered trees and gray water, its mud and corpses, Joseph made his way back to his own dugout. He washed in cold, sour water, shaved, and sat down at his makeshift table with pen, ink, and paper, and a preliminary list of casualties.

  He hated it, but it was part of a chaplain’s job to write to the families of the dead and break the news. He tried not to say the same thing each time, as if one man’s death were interchangeable with any other. The widow or parents, whoever it was, deserved the effort of individual words. Nothing would make it better, but perhaps a little dignity, showing that someone else cared as well as themselves, would make a difference in time.

  Here in his dugout he had a few possessions from home, things he had chosen because they mattered most to his inner life: the picture of Dante from his study in St. John’s, that marvelous tortured face that had seen its own hell and bequeathed the vision to the world; a couple of books of verse, Chesterton and Rupert Brooke; a photograph of his family, all of them together three Christmases ago; a coin his friend Harry Beecher had found when they had walked together along the old wall the Romans had built fifteen h
undred years ago across Northumberland from the Channel to the Irish Sea. They were all memories of happiness, the treasures of life.

  In the dugout the air was close and humid. Somewhere in the distance a windup gramophone was playing. The cheerful, tinny sound of dance music was at once absurd and incredibly sane. Maybe somewhere people still danced?

  Outside he knew men were digging, shoring up trench walls, carrying in fresh timber and filling sandbags to rebuild the parapets. He could smell food, bacon frying, as well as smoke, the rot of bodies, latrines, and the faint lingering odor of the gas.

  He had many letters to write, but the hardest was going to be of a captain he had held in his arms while he retched up his lungs and drowned in his own blood. It was one of the worst deaths. There was a horror and an obscenity to it that was not there in a shell blast, if it had been quick.

  Of course many other deaths were appalling. He had seen men torn in pieces, their blood gushing onto the ground; or caught in the wire and then riddled with bullets, jerking as the metal tore them apart, then left to hang there, because nobody could get to them. They could be there for hours before death released them at last.

  He wrote:

  Dear Mrs. Hughes,

  I am deeply sorry to have to tell you that your husband, Captain Garaint Hughes, was among the victims of last night’s attack. He was a brave soldier and a fine man. Nothing I say can touch your grief, but you can be proud of the sacrifice he made, and the fortitude and good humor with which he conducted himself.

  I was with him to the end, and I grieve for the loss of a man who lived and died with honor.

  Captain Joseph Reavley, Chaplain

  He looked on it and read it again. It still seemed formal. Should it be? Perhaps that was the only way to keep the dignity—if there could be any dignity in mud and blood and pain, and coughing your lungs up.

  Then he picked up the pen again and added,

  We sat in the lamplight together and he spoke to me with great frankness. He had the courage to call my bluff, and ask me what I really believed. I think in trying to answer him honestly, which he deserved, I answered a few of my own questions also. I owe him a gratitude for that, and I shall not forget him.

  Joseph Reavley

  Before he could think better of it, or feel self-conscious, he folded it and put it in one of the envelopes. Perhaps the fact that it was personal would one day make her feel closer to the man she had loved.

  That afternoon Joseph went with Sam to perform the duty he hated most of all, worse even than writing to families of the dead. The court-martial of Private Edwin Corliss had been unavoidable. Since it was a capital charge, it was presided over by Major Swaby, from another division, with two junior officers, Lieutenants Bennett and MacNeil, neither of whom looked to be over twenty-three. They were all pale-faced, stiff, and profoundly unhappy.

  They were all behind the lines. Such proceedings were not conducted under fire. One room of a café had been temporarily commandeered and it had an oddly comfortable look, as if a waiter might appear with a bottle of wine any moment.

  Swaby came over to where Joseph and Sam were waiting. He spoke to them briefly. “Your man, Major Wetherall?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sam said stiffly, his face pale and tight with anxiety. “He’s a good man.” He did not add any details of his service. This was not the time. Swaby understood.

  “Don’t worry,” Swaby said calmly. “Straightforward case. We’ll hear it and debate for a few minutes, then send the poor devil home. Wouldn’t have brought it at all if the sergeant hadn’t been pushed into a bit of a corner. Can’t be seen to overlook these things.”

  “No, sir.” Sam relaxed only a fraction.

  Swaby went up to the front and sat down at the table. The proceedings begun.

  Sergeant Watkins gave evidence, looking acutely unhappy, but he told the truth exactly as he saw it, standing to attention and facing forward.

  Every accused man was entitled to ask an officer, usually of his own unit, to defend him, and Corliss had chosen Sam. Now Sam stood to question Watkins. He was courteous, even respectful. He knew enough to take great care neither to embarrass the man, nor seem to be condescending to him. Watkins was a career soldier. He would rather be abused than patronized.

  Sam did not argue with the facts, he simply allowed Watkins to tell as little as possible, and choose his own words. It was apparent that if he had been allowed to, he would have let the matter go.

  “Then why didn’t you, Sergeant Watkins?” Sam said tartly. His face was pale, his eyes glittering with anger, his body stiff. He leaned forward a little and winced, probably as the bandage tightened over the gash on his chest.

  “Civilian present, sir!” Watkins said bitterly. “Newspaperman. Couldn’t let them write up that we ’ave no discipline. And ’e’d take it ’igher, sir!”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  The surgeon looked so tired Joseph was afraid he was going to pass out before he was finished giving his evidence. Even Major Swaby seemed concerned for him.

  “Are you all right, Captain Harrison?” he asked gravely.

  “Yes, sir,” the surgeon answered, blinking. “I really can’t help you. I know Corliss lost two fingers in the accident, and we had to take a third off later, but I have no idea how it happened. Don’t have time to think about such things, if it doesn’t matter to the treatment. I certainly didn’t ask him, and I’ve no idea if he said anything. People behave differently when they’re in shock, and a lot of pain. There was an accident. That’s all I know.”

  The prosecuting officer did his duty reluctantly. He had several of the men from Sam’s command who had been present just before the accident, and those who were there immediately after. He may not have wished to question them, but he clearly had been given no choice.

  Joseph sat in wretched unhappiness, aware of Corliss’s misery and his strong sense of guilt, although whether it was because he had unintentionally injured himself, or because he felt he had let his unit down, it was impossible to tell.

  The verdict was given within minutes. Surely they would understand that the case was only brought because of Prentice? They could find Corliss not guilty, say it was an accident, whether it was or not.

  It was customary that the most junior officer on the panel should give his opinion on sentence first, so he might not be influenced by his seniors.

  Everyone waited.

  “Lieutenant Bennett?” Swaby asked.

  Bennett looked everywhere but at Corliss or Sam. Joseph had seen him fumbling through the handbook, his fingers trembling.

  “Lieutenant Bennett?” Swaby repeated.

  “I can’t say anything else, sir,” Bennett mumbled. “It’s a capital charge, sir.”

  “I know what the charge is, Lieutenant. What is your recommendation for sentence?”

  Bennett gulped. “Death, sir.”

  Corliss was already sitting. He was considered medically unfit to have to stand. His hand was very heavily bandaged and in a sling. Sam gripped hold of him, supporting him upright.

  Swaby let out his breath, then gulped. “Lieutenant MacNeil?” he asked.

  MacNeil looked as if he might be sick. “I . . . I have to agree, sir. I . . . I’m not sure that . . . I mean, is there . . .” He tailed off in profound distress.

  “Would you prefer to suggest something else, Lieutenant?” Swaby asked.

  MacNeil was clearly floundering. “No, sir,” he said hoarsely. “The law . . . the law seems quite clear,” he said, his hand on a well-thumbed red book, The Manual of Military Law.

  Swaby was ashen. It was not what he had expected, but they had left him no way out. He was too inexperienced in such things himself to know what latitude he had in reversing what his juniors had said, and there was no one to help him. The officers who usually conducted such courts-martial before were either dead or too badly injured to be here.

  He gulped again, gagging on his own breath. “M-morale must be maintained. An
y man who deliberately inflicts a ‘Blighty one’ on himself in order to return home and escape his responsibilities to his country and his fellow soldiers must be made an example of.”

  The room was breathless.

  Sam was gray-faced.

  Swaby looked like a man in a nightmare from which he could not escape. “Private Edwin Corliss,” he said miserably. “It is the judgment of this court-martial tribunal that you have committed a serious act of cowardice in the field, and for this you should be sentenced to death. Major . . . Wetherall . . .” He gulped again. “Have you anything you wish to say in mitigation of the accused?”

  Sam stood up. He looked so ill Joseph was afraid he was going to pass out himself. He half rose as if to help him, then realized the futility of it and sank back. Sam was almost as alone as Corliss.

  “Yes, sir,” Sam struggled to find his voice. “I have been Private Corliss’s commanding officer for seven months and have seen him face conditions worse than those faced by the men in the trenches under fire. The saps are unique. It takes a very special kind of man to dig into any earth, and go into the tunnels he makes, but especially this. It’s wet, it’s cold, it’s suffocating, and pretty often we come across dead bodies—sometimes Germans, sometimes our own men, men we’ve known, talked to, shared tea with or a joke. If such a man reaches the end of his concentration, sir, and makes a mistake that takes his hand off, I think he’s more to be pitied than blamed! Especially by a civilian newspaperman, sir, who’s never faced anything more dangerous than his editors’ blue pencil!”

  “Thank you, Major Wetherall,” Swaby said quietly. “I shall take your plea for mercy into consideration when I pass our verdict on up the command. It will have to go right to General Haig, of course. All capital cases do. In the meantime, Private Corliss will be kept under arrest, and taken to military prison to await his sentence. This court is dismissed.”