The Winter Guest - Chapter Three

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Mud and water. As far as the eye can see. A dark, fetid brown, with the only variation the grey-yellow faces of the dead, the mud-smeared pallor of the living and, overhead, the iron sky. The water has the thickness and colour of mud and the mud has the consistency of water. It makes no difference. You can drown in either. The rain is a constant rattle on his helmet, from which it drips down onto his sodden trench coat. He is shivering with the cold, the wet and, of course, the fear. His orders are to hold this pockmarked string of shell holes, regularly added to by the German artillery. It is, apparently, the remnants of their second trench, although there isn’t much left of it. A torn sandbag here, a duckboard there and, across from him, the muddy grey cloth of a dead German corporal, his head half-buried, his left arm elsewhere. The trench has been filled and flattened so that it’s more of a dip in the ground than a fortification. Sometimes they are not even sure they are in the trench. It disappears completely in places. His company are like archaeologists discovering its remnants, digging it out as deep as they can before it fills with more of the mud. The Germans know where it is, though. Their guns are zeroed in on it and they send over a shell every five minutes, right on top of them. The stretcher bearers take the wounded back. The dead they leave where they fall. The mud buries them soon enough.

He looks at his wristwatch but his hand is shaking so much he can’t make out the time at first, and then he has it. Half past twelve. Lunchtime in Dublin. His mother will be sitting opposite his father at the dining room table, and the thought is so out of place here that he tries to put it from his mind.

It’s an hour since he went along the trench. Time to go again. He feels fear draining the energy from his limbs and breathes in deeply, filling his nose and mouth with the stench of earth and rot. A job to do is all it is. One knee in front of the other, one hundred yards that way, then one hundred back. It is an achievable task. He swallows, his mouth dry. Then, without a conscious decision, he is moving.

All the other officers are dead or wounded, and he’s at the point where he thinks they are the lucky ones. He knows this short journey is futile, that it will not make a blind bit of difference, but it is his duty to his men. The mud sucks at him, and he knows he must keep moving. If he stops, the mud will try to take him and, if no one is close and he has not enough strength, it may succeed. He nods to each man he passes, asks him how he does and they lie to each other that all is well, and then he moves on. He counts twenty still alive, three less than the last time, which is better than he had expected. He does not know how any of them have survived this long. It seems an impossibility. He stops when he reaches the end of the trench. The Glosters are meant to be on the left but they have become detached. They could have fallen back, for all he knows.

He does not know what they can do if the Germans come at them. The mud has made their rifles useless except as clubs or, with bayonets fixed, spears. At least, he supposes, it will be the same for the Germans. He hears another shell coming in, and buries his face in the mud. It explodes not far behind the trench, showering him with more mud and the scraps of the things it holds – metal, wood, cloth and flesh. The mud-caked private he has been talking to begins to sob. He tries to smile reassuringly, but he can’t. He feels the same terror. If he could only stop thinking and feeling and seeing, just for a little while, then maybe he could hold his mind together. But there is no pause to the horror.

He makes his way back, passing the survivors, barely enough for a platoon, let alone a company. They gaze back at him. They see him looking at his watch and how his hand shakes. He passes Sergeant Driscoll’s corpse, plastered in mud from head to toe, slumped against what passes for a parapet, when the man’s pale blue eyes open and stare at him, very much alive. Twenty-one. He nods to Driscoll, suppressing his surprise, thinking that the difference between being dead and alive in this place is nothing more than a flash of blue in a mud-encrusted face. He avoids looking at the others now, not wanting to see the paper-thin skin drawn tight over their bones. He hears another shell coming – high explosive, he can tell from the roaring and the whistle – and he doesn’t move or even try to cover himself. There is, he suddenly realises, no point. And then he feels the blast and he is up, weightless for a moment, turning over in the air, glimpsing the wide expanse of mud in all directions, and then he is coming down.

The mud is like a wet pillow when he lands.

When he opens his eyes – and it could be hours or moments later; he has no idea – his mind is blank. He looks around for a point of reference, feeling his whole body ache with the effort, even though only his head moves. All he can see is mud.

And he is alone.

W. C. RYAN is also known as William Ryan, author of The Constant Soldier and the Korolev series of historical crime novels. His books have been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the CWA's Steel, Historical and New Blood Daggers, the Irish Fiction Award and the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year. He has been published in 18 countries. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.