How Many Miles to Babylon? by Johnston Jennifer

Author:Johnston, Jennifer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Published: 1974-04-12T23:00:00+00:00

Five days or so later I was lying on my mattress in West Outre. I was warm and I could smell bacon frying. There were only intermittent shells firing, somewhere quite far away. Rain thudded on the roof, but it was almost pleasant. The important thing was that someone was frying bacon, sometime soon we would eat it and drink great mugs of sweet tea. It had become imperative never to look beyond the immediate present, beyond, in fact, the bacon.

‘Horses today,’ said Bennett.

He was like that, one moment asleep, comfortable snores erupting from his throat, and the next wide awake and somehow well on into the day.

‘Bacon,’ he then said, with immense satisfaction.

It was still too dark to see him but I could hear each movement he made on his mattress as if it were amplified in some way.

‘Damn you and your horses.’

‘Why so?’

‘You know perfectly well why so.’

‘I feel the need to ride. My knees positively itch. I refuse to be terrorised by that… that… oh that… for God’s sake, look at all the others who go galloping.’

‘He categorically said…’

‘It’s all arranged anyway. Jerry’s game, so a fig for your objections.’

I got up and lit the lamp and started on my daily examination of the chilblains. The M.O. had given me a fine white powder with which to dust them, in an effort to dry up the running sores. There had been quite an improvement in the few days we had been out of the trenches, but they were far from cured, and drove me almost mad with their itching.

‘Just because you have it all arranged doesn’t mean I have to come.’ I began to unwind the first bandage. He didn’t answer. I rolled the bandage neatly round two of my fingers as I unwound it. It was stuck in places to my leg and I had to pull quite hard to get it off, which opened up the healing sores. I wanted to cry like a child because of the fact that I was having to inflict these jabs of pain on myself.

‘I will though.’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t sound surprised.

‘If you think we can get away with it.’

‘But of course.’

He scrambled out of his flea bag fully clothed apart from his boots and jacket.

‘Water. Ho. Water,’ he shouted. He clasped both his hands in front of him and cracked each finger joint in turn. It made me feel ill. Footsteps started up the stairs.

‘I find it hard to break the rules.’

I put the bandage down on the mattress beside me and looked in my kitbag for the tin of powder.

‘Rules,’ he repeated with contempt.

I shook the blue tin and powder floated down on to my leg. From the top of the calf to the ankle pus and blood glistened in the light.

‘I should cut it off,’ advised Bennett kindly. ‘Then they might send you home.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

The door opened and O’Keefe came in with a steaming jug of water.

‘Morning, sirs, one and all.’

‘Good morning. In the basin, there’s a good chap.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.