Men from Boys

Shadow on the Water Peter Robinson

We were meant to be getting some sleep, but how you’re supposed to sleep in a cold, muddy, rat-infested trench, when the uppermost thought in your mind is that you’re going to be shot first thing in the morning is quite beyond me.

Albert Parkinson handed around the Black Cats to the four of us who clustered together for warmth, mugs of weak Camp coffee clutched to our chests, almost invisible to one another in the darkness. ‘Here you go, Frank,’ he said, cupping the match in his hands for safety, even though we were well below ground level. I thanked him and inhaled the harsh tobacco, little realising that soon I would be inhaling something far more deadly. Still, we needed the tobacco to mask the smell. The trench stank to high heaven of unwashed men, excrement, cordite and rotting flesh.

Now and then, distant shots broke the silence, someone shouted a warning or an order, and an exploding shell lit the sky. But we were waiting for dawn. We talked in hushed voices and eventually the talk got around to what makes heroes of men. We all put in our two-penn’orth, of course, mostly a lot of cant about courage, patriotism and honour, with the occasional begrudging nod in the direction of folly and luck, but instead of settling for a simple definition, Joe Fairweather started to tell us a story.

Joe was a strange one. Nobody quite knew what to make of him. A bit older than the rest of us, he already had a reputation as one of the most fearless lads in our regiment. It never seemed to worry him that he was running across no man’s land in a hail of bullets; he seemed either blessed or indifferent to his fate. Joe had survived Ypres one and two, and now here he was, ready to go again. Some of us thought he was more than a little bit mad.

‘When I was a kid,’ Joe began, ‘about eleven or twelve, we used to play by the canal. It was down at the bottom of the park, through the woods, and not many people went there because it was a hell of a steep slope to climb back up. But we were young, full of energy. We could climb anything. There were metal railings all along the canal side, but we had found a loose one that you could lift out easily, like a spear. We always put it back when we went home so nobody would know we had found a way in.

‘There wasn’t much beyond the canal in those days, only fields full of cows and sheep, stretching away to distant hills. Very few barges used the route. It was a lonely, isolated spot, and perhaps that was why we liked it. We used to forge sick notes from our mothers and play truant from school, and nobody was ever likely to spot us down by the canal.

‘Not that we got up to any real mischief, mind you. We just talked the way kids do, skimmed stones off the water. Sometimes we’d sneak out our fishing nets and catch sticklebacks and minnows. Sometimes we played games. Just make-believe. We’d act out stories from Boy’s Own, cut wooden sticks from the bushes and pretend we were soldiers on patrol.’ Joe paused and looked around at the vague outlines of our faces in the trench and laughed. ‘Can you believe it?’ he said. ‘We actually played at being soldiers. Little did we know...

‘One day, I think it was June or July, just before the summer holidays, at any rate, a beautiful, sunny, still day, the kind that makes you believe that only good things are going to happen, my friend Adrian and me were sitting on the stone bank dipping our nets in the murky water when we saw someone on the other side. I say saw, but at first it was more like sensing a presence, a shadow on the water, perhaps, and we looked up and noticed a strange man standing on the opposite bank, watching us with a funny sort of expression on his face. I remember feeling annoyed at first because this was our secret place and nobody else was supposed to be there. Now this grown-up had to come and spoil everything.

‘“Shouldn’t you boys be at school?” he asked us.

‘There wasn’t much we could say to that, and I dare say we just fidgeted and looked shifty.

‘“Well,” he said. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. What are you doing?”

‘“Just fishing,” I said.

‘“Just fishing? What are you fishing for? There can’t be much alive down there in that filthy water.”

‘“Minnows and sticklebacks,” I said.

‘“How old are you?”

‘We told him.

‘“Do your parents know where you are?”

‘“No,” I said, though I remember feeling an odd sensation of having spoken foolishly as soon as the word was out of my mouth, but it was too late to take it back.

‘“Why do you want to know?” Adrian asked him.

‘“It doesn’t matter. Want to play a game with me?”

‘“No, thanks.” We started to move away. Who did he think he was? We didn’t play with grown-ups; they were no fun.

‘“Oh, I think you do,” he said and there was something about his voice that made the hackles on the back of my neck stand up. I glanced at Adrian and we turned to look across the canal to where the man stood. When we saw the gun in his hand, both of us froze.

‘He smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Told you so,” he said.

‘Now, I looked at him closely for the first time. I was just a kid, so I couldn’t say how old he was, but he was definitely a grown-up. A man. And he was wearing a sort of uniform, like a soldier, but it looked shabby and rumpled, as if it had been slept in. I couldn’t see the revolver very clearly, not that I’d have had any idea what make it was, as if that even mattered. All that mattered was that it was a gun and that he was pointing it at us.

‘Then, out of sheer nerves I suppose, we laughed, hoping maybe it was all a joke and it was just a cap gun he was holding. “All right,” Adrian said. “If you really want to play...”

‘“Oh, I do,” the man said. Then he pulled the trigger.

‘It wasn’t as loud as I had expected, more of a dull popping sound, but something whizzed through the bushes beside me and dinged on the metal railing as it passed by. I felt deeply ashamed as the warm piss dribbled down my bare legs. Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice it but me.

‘“That’s just to show you that it’s a real gun,” the man said, “and that I mean what I say. Do you believe me now?”

‘We both nodded. “What do you want?” Adrian asked.

‘“I told you. I want to play.”

‘“Look,” I said, “you’re frightening us. Why don’t you put the gun away? Then we’ll play with you, won’t we, Adrian?”

‘Adrian nodded. “Yes.”

‘“This?” The man looked at his revolver as if seeing it for the first time. ‘But why should I want to put it away?”

‘He fired again, closer this time, and a clod of earth flew up and stung my cheek. I was damned if I was going to cry, but I was getting close. I felt as if we were the only people for hundreds of miles, maybe the only people in the whole world. There was nobody to save us and this lunatic was going to kill us after he’d had his fun. I didn’t know why, what made him act like that, or anything, but I just knew he was going to do it.

‘“Don’t you like this game?” he asked me.

‘“No,’ I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking. ‘I want to go home.”

‘“Go on, then,” he said.

‘“What?”

‘“I said go on.”

‘“You don’t mean it.”

‘“Yes, I do. Go.”

‘Slowly, without taking my eyes off him, I backed up the bank towards the hole in the railings. Only when I got there, and I had to turn to squeeze through, did I take my eyes off him. As soon as I did, I heard another shot and felt the air move as something zipped by my ear. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “Come back.”

‘Knowing, deep down, that it had been too good to be true, I slunk back to the bank. The man was muttering to himself, now, and neither Adrian nor I could make out what he was saying. In a way, that was even more frightening than hearing his words. He was pacing up and down, too, staring at the ground, his gun hanging at his side, but we knew that if either of us made the slightest movement, he would start shooting at us again.

‘This went on for some time. I could feel myself sweating and the wetness down my legs was uncomfortable. Apart from the incomprehensible muttering across the water, everything was still and silent. No birds sang, almost as if they knew this was death’s domain and had got out when they could. Even the cows and sheep were silent, and looked more like a landscape painting than real, living creatures. Maybe a barge would come, I prayed. Then he would have to hide his gun and we would have time to run up to the woods. But no barge came.

‘Finally, he came to a pause in his conversation with himself, at least for the time being. “You,” he said to Adrian, gesturing with his gun. “You can go now.”

‘“I don’t believe you mean it,” Adrian said.

‘The man pointed the gun right at him. “Go. Before I change my mind and shoot you.”

‘Adrian scrambled up the grassy bank. I could hear him crying. I had never felt so alone in my life. Inside, I was praying for the man to tell Adrian to come back, the way he had with me. I didn’t want to die alone by the dirty canal. I wanted to go home and see my mum and dad again.

‘This time my prayers were answered.

‘“Come back,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind.”

‘“Are you going to shoot us?” I asked, when Adrian once again stood at my side, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

‘“I don’t know,” he said. ‘It depends on what they tell me to do. Just shut up and let me think. Don’t talk unless I ask you to.”

‘They? What on earth was he talking about? Adrian and I looked at one another, puzzled. There was nobody else around. Who was going to tell him what to do? You have to remember we were only kids, and we didn’t know anything about insane people hearing voices and all that.

‘“But why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this? We haven’t done you any harm.”

‘He didn’t say anything, just fired a shot — pop — into the bushes right beside me. It was enough. Then he started talking again, and I think both Adrian and me now had an inkling that he was hearing the voices in his head, and that maybe he was having a conversation with the mysterious “they” he had mentioned.

‘“All right,” he said, the next time he calmed down. He pointed the gun at me. “What’s your name?” he asked.

‘“Joe,” I said.

‘“Joe. All right, Joe. You can go. What’s your friend’s name?”

‘“Adrian.”

‘“Adrian stays.”

‘I stood my ground. “You’re not going to let me go,” I told him. “You’ll only do the same as you did before.”

‘That made him angry and he started waving the gun around again. “Go!” he yelled at me. “Now! Before I shoot you right here.”

‘I went.

‘Sure enough, when I got to the hole in the fence, I heard him laugh, a mad, eerie sound that sent a chill through me despite the heat of the day. “You didn’t think I meant it, did you? Come back here, Joe.”

‘Somehow, the use of my name, the sound of it from his lips, on his breath, was worse than anything else. For a moment, I hesitated then I slipped through the hole in the railings and started running for my life.

‘I knew that there was a hollow about thirty feet up the grassy slope, and if I reached it I would be safe. It was only a quick dash from there to the woods.

‘I heard him shout again. “Joe, come back here right now!”

‘I ran and ran. I heard the dull pop of his revolver and sensed something whiz by my right side and thud into the earth. My heart was pumping for all it was worth and the muscles on my legs felt fit to burst.

‘But I made it. I made it to the hollow and dived into the dip in the ground that would protect me from any more bullets. I heard just one more popping sound before I made my dash for the woods and that was it.’

Here, Joe paused, as if recounting the narrative had left him as out of breath as outrunning the lunatic’s bullets. From our trench, we could hear more shots in the distance now and a shell exploded about two hundred yards to the west, lighting up the sky. Further away, somewhere behind our lines, a piper played. I handed around my cigarettes and noticed Jack Armstrong in the subdued glow of the match. Face ashen, eyes glazed, lips trembling, the kid was terrified and it was my guess that he’d freeze when the command came. I’d seen it happen before. Not that I blamed him. I sometimes wondered why we didn’t all react that way. There but for the grace of God... I remembered Harry Mercer, who had tried for a Blighty in the foot and ended up losing the entire lower half of his left leg. Then there was Ben Castle, poor, sad Ben, who swore he’d do it himself before the Germans did it to him, and calmly put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. So who were the heroes? And why?

‘What happened next?’ asked Arthur. ‘Did you run and fetch the police?’

‘The police? No,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t really remember what I did. I think I just wandered around in a daze. I couldn’t believe it had happened, you see, that I had been so close to death and escaped.’

‘But what about your friend? What about Adrian?’ Arthur persisted.

Joe looked right through him, as if he hadn’t even heard the question. ‘I waited until it was time to return home from school,’ he went on, ‘and that’s exactly what I did. Went home. The piss stains on my trousers and underwear had dried by then, and if my mother noticed the next time she did the washing then she didn’t say anything to me about it. We went on holiday the next day to stay for a week with my Aunt Betty on the coast near Scarborough. Every day I scoured my dad’s newspaper when he’d put it aside after breakfast, but I could find no reference to the lunatic with the gun. I even started to believe that it had all been a figment of my imagination, that it hadn’t happened at all.’

‘But what about Adrian?’ Arthur asked.

‘Adrian? I had no idea. That whole week we were with Aunt Betty I wondered about him. Of course I did. But surely if anything had happened it would have been in the papers? Still, I knew I had deserted Adrian. I had dashed off to freedom and hadn’t given him a second thought once I was in the woods.’

‘But you must have seen him again,’ I said.

‘That’s the funny thing,’ Joe said. ‘I did. It was about two days after we got back from our holiday. I saw him in the street. He started walking towards me. I was frightened because he was a year older than me, and bigger. I thought he was going to beat me up.’

‘What did he do?’ Arthur asked.

Joe laughed. ‘That’s the funny thing,’ he said. ‘Adrian walked up to me. I braced myself for an assault, and he said, “Thank you.”

‘I wasn’t certain I’d heard him correctly, so I asked him to repeat what he’d said.

‘“Thank you,” he said again. “That was a very brave thing you did, dodging the bullets like that, risking death.”

‘I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I must have stood there looking like a complete idiot, with my mouth hanging open.

‘“Had he gone?” he asked me next.

‘“Who?” I replied.

‘“You know. The lunatic with the gun. I’ll bet he’d gone when you came back with the police, hadn’t he?’

‘Now I understood what Adrian was thinking. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, he’d gone.”

‘Adrian nodded. “I thought so. Look, I’m sorry,” he went on, “sorry I didn’t hang around till you got back with them, to help you explain and all, but I was so scared.”

‘“What happened?” I asked.

‘“Well,” Adrian said, “as soon as you made it to the woods, he ran off down the canal bank. He must have known you’d soon be back with help, and he didn’t want to hang around and get caught. I probably stood there for a few moments to pull myself together, then I headed off in the same direction you did. I just went home as if I’d been to school and didn’t say a word to anyone. I’m sorry,” he said again. “I should have stuck around when you came back with the police.”

‘“It’s all right,” I said. “They didn’t believe me. They thought I was just a trouble-maker. One of them gave me a clip around the ear and they sent me home. Said if anything like that ever happened again they’d tell my mum and dad.”

‘Adrian managed to laugh at that. I was feeling so relieved I could have gone on all day making things up. How I went back to try and rescue Adrian by myself and found the man a little further down the bank. How I carried the loose railing like a spear and threw it at him across the canal, piercing him right through the heart. Then how I weighted his body with stones and dropped it in the water. But I didn’t. It was enough that I was exonerated in Adrian’s eyes. Good enough that I was a hero.’

Joe began to laugh and it sounded so eerie, so mad, that it sent shivers up our spines. Jack Armstrong started crying. He wasn’t going anywhere. And Joe was still laughing when the black night inched towards another grey dawn and the orders came down for us to go over the top and take a godforsaken blemish on the map called Passchendaele.