Major M.K. Grayson V.C.

“Wake up, Sarge. It’s half-past-four.”

Catherine walked away from me across the village green. It was a Sunday in May and we had nothing to do. Swallows cut the clean spring air into cloudless curves. She was carrying her shoes. She looked back at me and opened her mouth to say something.  

“Sarge! Wake up. It’s half-past-four.”

“Thank you, Grayson,” I said, stretching a hand out from my cocoon of grey wool to take back my watch. Grayson was a black shape in the burrow of the dugout. The tiny stove gave off just enough light to make twinkling orange stars of a few beads of water seeping through the ceiling. They flickered in and out of existence as Grayson bobbed back and forth in the weak glow making tea. Water was spitting and hissing to the boil and a breakfast of yesterday’s stew had been put on to warm, sending the scent of beef fat out to skirmish with the thick fug of unbathed men and damp earth. I swung my bare feet out of the bunk and the black shape that was Grayson thrust a pair of socks at me.

“I put them on the stove for you, Sarge.”

“Bloody hell, well done, Grayson. You’ll make someone a lovely little wife one day.”

He grinned, youthful teeth catching the stove light.

I pulled on the stove-warmed socks and my boots and set about binding my legs, taking extra care over an arthritic ankle which disliked the damp. A trench was no place for a man who could see forty on a clear day.

The heat of the stove had warmed the stew, but not enough to melt that layer of fat that sat on top of it in hardened pools. I picked the milky blobs out and scraped them onto a piece of bread. There was many a time I’d been happy with meals half as good as this. The tea was strong. I could have sat there letting its botanical steam wash over my face until every last trace of its heat was gone, if it hadn’t been a waste of tea leaves, and time.

Rising from the bunk I stretched, my straightening spine sounding like a distant volley of rifle fire. I dropped into a few quick squats and briefly shadow boxed for the benefit of young Grayson. Soldiering hadn’t completely ruined the muscle I’d earned in the mines.   

“Right, Grayson, go and wake up the sleeping beauties. We stand-to at six.”

“What do I do at six, Sarge?”

“Check all of the bunks, wish us well, and then keep watch and await further orders. Barkess will be to your right minding Victoria Avenue, beyond the sentry post, and Potter will be on Kitchener Way to the left, after the latrine.”

“Why me, Barkess and Potter, Sarge?”

“You’re the three ugliest men in the regiment, Grayson. The captain decided it would be against the Geneva Convention to use you against the Germans today.”

“Seriously, Sarge. Shouldn’t I be coming with you? Leave Maitland behind. He’s got six kids.”

“Well, when you get back to England you can make a point of having seven. If anyone’ll have you. No more of this talk now, lad, go and get ‘em up.”  

I shaved, dressed and left a note for Grayson on the bunk with my kit. I found Catherine in the breast pocket of my battledress. I ran my thumb over the smooth back of her photograph to make sure she was still with me and fastened her in. I took one last drag on the stewed tea and strode out into the darkness of the trench to find the captain.

Robson, a drayman and scrum-half from Blyth, was at his post between my dugout and the captain’s. I gave him all the cigarettes I had left, keeping two back, slipping them into my breast pocket with Catherine, and took a look through his periscope. The land rolled up in a ruined hump between our trench and the objective. The softening night revealed the nearby horizon, the summit of the small rise that we would advance up before dropping down towards the enemy trench on the other side. A ragged patch of grass that the men had christened ‘the wicket’ still ran down the spine of the ridge. At one end of the spongy lawn stood ‘the batsman’, a branchless trunk of about five feet in height that was regularly mistaken by tired sentries for a lone trench raider. It had been shot several times by snipers from both sides. When we reached the wicket we would be silhouettes on the enemy’s horizon, the dawn breaking in front of us, lighting us up for him. We’d be there on his lime lit stage like music hall conjurors who thought we could magically walk through barbed wire. As I watched, the first tint of stove-light-orange found a few puddles on our side of the ridge and gave the stretch of land its familiar day-time shape. As the light strengthened, the puddles became a mercury delta, a serpentine silver path up to the wicket, where we would soon be presented to the cobblers and shopkeepers of the opposing trench. They would be watching now, over the barrels of their well-oiled maschinengewehrs.

“Good morning, Gordon,” said Captain Matthews.

I turned from the periscope to salute the career soldier in miraculously mudless boots and uniform. 

“Major Larkham’s battery is going to give us a barrage ending at six precisely,” said the Captain, checking his watch. “He’s a good man Larkham. I think he’ll make a mess of their wire.”

“Are you determined to wear your sword today, Sir?” I said, looking down at the polished steel of the guard hanging at his belt.

“Yes, I am, Gordon. My father took it to the Sudan and today I’m taking it over the wicket. I know it’s against regulations, but you won’t squeal to the Brigadier will you, Sergeant?”

“Certainly not, Sir. But I think the regulation is intended to keep your uniform free of holes for a little bit longer, Sir. If you carry that, well, Sir, if you don’t mind me saying, you’ll draw more fire than Guy Fawkes.”

“Very good, Gordon! You are a wit! I may well draw more fire than the poor old batsman up there, but I suspect that that is inevitable. If it’s not the sword it’ll be the swagger stick that marks me out, and I know which one I’d rather be holding if my morning walk ends with a jump into a German trench.” He gripped the sword and pulled it slightly out of its scabbard to expose a few inches of the gleaming blade. He smiled at something engraved there before snapping it back in. “I will take the centre of the line and aim for the highest point by the batsman. I will crest and then charge on the downward slope. You will lead the right of the line. Wait until I press the centre and then accelerate the right. I’ve asked Larkham to focus his fire on that side, the approach will be clearer.” The captain turned his back on me and stooped to look through the periscope before he continued. “If I should be delayed during the advance, Gordon, then please use your best endeavours to recover my sword. It’s not an order, of course, just, you know, should the opportunity arise.”

“I will, Sir. Once we’ve taken the enemy trench Private Grayson will fetch it forward when he follows us up to the new position. Unless, of course, you’ve already carried it there yourself, Sir. I’ve left him a note of his orders. I’ll let him know to watch out for your sword.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Gordon. Young Grayson got the short straw, did he? Bad luck.”

“He did, Sir. He’ll have plenty more chances. Turns out he’s only just seventeen. He let slip to Private Gallagher how old he was at the time of King Edward’s coronation.”

“Gallagher. The butcher?”

“Docker, Sir. Private Gallagher’s a docker. Private Martin is the butcher. No, a brave lad is Grayson, not much good at mathematics though. I thought he’d be a good candidate for securing the dugouts.”

The captain turned from the periscope to face me and clasped his hands behind his back.

“You’ve had a few goes at this now yourself haven’t you, Gordon? Took a tilt at the Boers, didn’t you?”

“I did, Sir. I was at Belmont and Paardeberg, with the Fusiliers.”

“Ah, Bloody Sunday. A dark day.”

“I’ve had better Sundays, Sir.” I reached for my pocket to seek out Catherine and a bare-footed May and remembered the two cigarettes I had saved for us. “The Germans are much worse shots than the Boers.”

“Very good, Gordon.”

“Cigarette, Sir?”

“Thank you, Gordon. I will.”

I reached into my breast pocket for my reserved cigarettes and ran my thumb over the smooth back of Catherine’s picture. Captain Matthews took the cigarette from me with a freely shaking hand.

“Forgive me, Gordon.”

“No need, Sir. Put your gloves on, you’ll be fine.”

“Scared, Gordon?”

“Not afraid to lose a Sergeant’s pay, Sir.”

“Very good, Gordon.”

We stood quietly for a few minutes watching our smoke rise up beyond the protection of the trench, to fade into the lightening sky.

“To the men, Sir?”

“Lead the way, Sergeant Gordon.”

The first shell of the barrage cut a ragged curve through the November cloud and crashed into the land of our future, beyond the ridge.