First Touch of Light by Ruth Pettis

Author:Ruth Pettis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742288635
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Minqar Qaim, Northern Egypt – late June 1942

Memories of Syria and its plentiful rivers and creeks were fading fast. It had been a little oasis, the camp near Alfrine. Its lush grass and plentiful crops were a paradise after the desert, and the valley floor blushed with tiny red anemones. Too good to be true. Unlike some of the others, George wasn’t surprised when the call came to up sticks because the Jerries had entered Egypt. He knew not to trust this kind of peace. Now, they were digging in again, just a few miles from where they’d been in ’41, after scurrying over a thousand miles south in just five days. It was hot and the rock seemed harder than anything they’d struck before, jarring their bodies as the spades bounced off it. This was the second spell today – they’d moved once already – and the men were exhausted. They took it in turns, some digging and some piling up the rocks. With so little water and the blinding heat, they were all shattered by the time the job was finished. It wasn’t so long ago that some of the boys had been talking about getting home early. The Alfrine valley had been a reminder of what they’d left behind, and for some of them, it was too much. A few of them even entertained the idea of staying put in the little settlement where the daily routine was the main event, and George and his battalion, all of the soldiers who passed through, were merely a brief distraction.

At the top of the escarpment, they had a good view of the desert below, and just before dusk, thick, black smoke billowed into the sky from the demolitions that were well under way. They’d be on the move again soon enough. For now, George was happy to sit tight, have a quiet smoke and, if the noise wasn’t too bad, try to get some sleep. His shoulders ached from the day’s work, and another night on hard ground wouldn’t ease things. But the physical hardships were nothing. They were a sign, at least, that he was alive and still functioning. Unlike Charlie. The thought of him, sitting in the corner of the trench, looking as large as life, but not a spark left in him, was still too unbelievable. Not Charlie. The weak and puny ones, the kids barely wrenched from their mothers’ breasts, the cocky ones, the foolhardy blokes who marched right back into the thick of it before their wounds had healed – he could understand them being taken out. They had it coming sooner or later, just as he probably did. This was no picnic. But Charlie was too big, too alive to be knocked flat so quickly and absolutely. He wasn’t even granted a last, gusty breath, asserting himself over death the way he always had over life. And it wasn’t only Charlie who’d been cheated. George had been denied the chance to say

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