The Moon Field by Judith Allnatt

Author:Judith Allnatt [Judith Allnatt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

12

EARTH

The next night, as predicted, they went down to the fire trench. After labouring most of the night alongside Turland and two regulars, helping to repair a part of the trench that had collapsed, George took his turn on sentry-go around four. He looked out over no man’s land, staring into the flare of Verey lights until his eyes ached and phantom after-images flowered in his head. He methodically scanned the long slope of the field for movement, staring at the monochrome scene until he knew every plane of shadow cast by the few shattered trees, every dip and crater, every hummock: khaki and feldgrau all one in the greyness before dawn.

Exhausted by the digging and revetting, and numbed by the cold, George’s anxiety that he would succumb to sleep grew. He knew the penalty, and that he had used up any credit with Sergeant Tate long ago. He chewed the inside of his cheeks in an effort to stay awake. He counted backwards from a hundred. The rise and fall of the flares was hypnotic – he drifted for a moment and came to with a start, realising that he had been dreaming of the spluttering gas mantle of the parlour lamp at home. His father was lighting it: the gas sucking the match flame and the white ball glowing into life, casting a pool of light on to his mother’s hands setting down plates on the table. He jerked his head upright and hastily scanned the field again. He took his Imperial Service badge and put the pin through his collar without fastening it, so that it rested against his neck: if his chin dropped in sleep, it would jab him and wake him.

Turland and two of the regulars, Smith and Wilmott, were talking quietly about the rumour that the Prussian Guards, who were reputed to be crack shots that fought to the death and took no prisoners, had replaced the Bavarians in the enemy line. Everyone agreed that an attack would come soon: the previous day, Taubes had flown over the rear areas trying to spy out the guns and estimate the range for their artillery. The ensuing bombardment left everyone in no doubt about the enemy’s intentions.

George peered into the gloom, working his way along the entanglements in front of the trench, looking for German scouts sent out to check the state of the wire. A patrol had gone out earlier to mend any gaps and the awareness that he must take time to discriminate between friend and foe made him hesitant and jumpy.

A quick movement, seen from the corner of his eye, out to his left among the bodies, made him hunch and recoil. The Alleyman’s snipers were positioned in saps, dug from their lines out into no man’s land, and he feared that one had crawled forward to lie behind the cover of the bodies of the dead. In the moment that he took aim, a flash of something round and white rose in front of him.

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