The Absolutist by John Boyne

Author:John Boyne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781590515532
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2012-07-09T17:00:00+00:00

SQUINTING IN THE

SUNLIGHT

France, July–September 1916

ACRY OF DESPAIR and weariness emanates from the pit of my stomach as the wall behind me begins to crumble and dissolve into a slow-moving river of thick, black, rat-infused mud that slides down my back and slips into the gaps at the top of my boots. I feel the sludge seeping its way into my already sodden socks and throw myself against the tide, desperate to push the barricade back into place before I am submerged beneath it. A tail passes quickly across my hands, whipping me sharply, then another; next, a sharp bite.

“Sadler!” cries Henley, his voice hoarse, his breathing laboured. He’s standing only a few feet away from me with Unsworth, I think, by his side and Corporal Wells next along the line. The rain is falling in such heavy sheets that I’m spitting it from my lips along with mouthfuls of foul dirt and it’s difficult to make any of them out. “The sandbags—look, they’re over here—pile them as high as you can.”

I make my way forward, trying to pull my boots out of three feet of mud. The terrible sucking sound they make as they emerge reminds me of the echo of a man’s last breath, deep and frantic, gasping for air, failing.

Instinctively I open my arms as a sandbag filled with excavated earth comes at me, almost knocking me off my feet when it hits me in the chest, but although I am winded I am equally quick to turn back to the wall, slamming the sandbag where I think the base must be, turning for another, catching it, padding the wall again, and another and another and another. Now there are five or six of us all doing the same thing, piling the sandbags high, crying out for more before the whole bloody place collapses about us, and it feels like a fool’s errand, but somehow it works and it is over and we forget that we have very nearly died today as we wait to die again tomorrow.

The Germans use concrete; we use wood and sand.

It’s been raining for days, an endless torrent that makes the trenches feel like troughs for the pigs rather than defences in which our regiment can take cover as we launch our sporadic attacks. When we arrived, I was told that the chalky ground of Picardy, through which we have been advancing for days now, is less liable to crumble than that of other parts of the line, particularly those miserable fields towards Belgium, where the high wetlands make entrenchment almost impossible. I can scarcely imagine any place worse than where we are. I have only these whispers and rumours to take for comparison.

All around me, what was this morning a clear pathway is now a river of mud. Pumps arrive and three of the men have a go at them. Wells shouts something at all of us, his voice gravelly, lost in the conquering environment, and I stare at him, feeling close to laughter, a sort of disbelieving hysteria.

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