Florry scurried out.
He went on back and spread the word. But someone had vanished.
“Where’s Julian?”
“ ’E said ’e wanted to do a bit of poking about, and off ’e went.”
“Christ, you let him go?”
“Aw, ’n
Florry supposed he couldn’t. He looked down the communications trench through which Julian had purportedly disappeared. The seconds ticked by, turning to minutes. They heard bugles again. The Maxim began to pepper the air over their heads.
“Damn him,” Florry cursed. “And if he’s out there when the bastards hit us, what then?”
“ ’E’s kippered certain, that’s wot. Relax, chum. The bloke figured to catch ’is doin’ somethin’ bloody ignorant. ’E’s too bloody brilliant for this ’ere world.”
Well, here it was. Julian off on some mad toot, sure to buy it in the neck.
Leave him, he thought. Leave him and be done. It solves everything. Your life can continue. Your obligations have been met. Everybody’s happy.
Yet what Florry discovered himself saying surprised himself as much as the men to whom he spoke.
“Look, I’m going to mosey down there a bit, see if I can’t rein him in, all right? Sammy, you keep watch.”
“Florry, chum, no point
“I told bloody Billy I’d look after the fool.”
“Florry, mate, it’s bloody fool?”
“Christ, chum, no need to get so worked up.”
Florry could see nothing down the trench except some broken timbers and eerily reflective puddles. About twenty yards ahead it took a jagged dogleg off to the right and vanished from his vision. He set down his rifle, which would do him no good in close quarters, and pulled out the Webley.
“Don’t be gone long, chum. No tellin’ when Billy’s going to pull us back. I don’t think we’re here for the season.”
“Yes. I’ll just be a while.”
He began to creep forward edgily, feeling his way with his hand in front of him. He advanced for what felt like hours in this fashion ? it was more like fifteen minutes ? while the odd shot popped overhead and the odd bomb exploded in the far distance. He had begun to feel like a Nottingham miner in the deepest, loneliest shaft. He imagined he could hear the groaning of the walls and smell the dust heavy in the air as the cave-in threatened.
Damn you, Julian, where the devil are you?
At one point something moved just ahead, and Florry brought his pistol up; it was a rat, big as a cat, with filthy rotten eyes and quivering whiskers. It perched on its hind legs barring the way. Florry hated rats. He felt about on the gummy trench floor for a rock, found one, pried it free, and hurled it at the beast. The throw was off and the thing just stared balefully at him with what seemed to be Oxbridge arrogance. A university rat, eh? A bloody Trinity College rat. Finally, bored, it ambled haughtily off.
Florry was surprised to discover himself breathing hard at the ordeal. Gathering his nerves back in a tight little bundle, he proceeded along, adding rats to his worries. He clambered over a broken timber. A body lay nearby but Florry could make out nothing of it in the dark, so coated with mud as it was; it was like a sack of sodden rags. He went on farther. There was no movement and the only sound was the splashing of the drops into the puddles.
“Julian? Julian?” he whispered.
There was no answer. A fusillade sounded above, and then an angry reply. The Fascists were getting ready to counterattack. At the same time, a mist rose to cling to everything, a kind of ghastly soup lapped everywhere in the trench.
“Julian?” He thought Julian was probably back by this time, full of marvelous stories and having appropriated a flask of Fascist brandy and treated the troops to a sip. Damn you, Julian, so like you! And here I sit out on a bloody limb.
“Julian!” he whispered again. How far out was he? How close to their position? The urge to retire grew heavy and tempting. It was almost an ache. But he knew somehow that he could not. He could not abandon Julian, not here. He was bound to him in peculiar ways.
He squirmed ahead a few more feet, tripping through the mist. He reached another zigzag in the trench. He eased around it.
“Shhh! God, they’re right ahead, Stink.”
“Jul?”
“Shhh! Do you know I heard you the whole way? It’s a good thing they’re not paying attention.”
Julian was crouched in a niche in the wall.
“Thank God you’re all right. Come on, Mowry says they’ll attack any moment.”
“Of course they will. Now listen here, they won’t come through this trench because it zigs and zags so furiously and because they’ll assume we have it covered. They’ll be above, moving through the mist. When they go by?”
“Julian!”
“Just listen, chum. They’ll go by and we can squeeze ahead another few yards or so. It’s not far off. I was almost there. And I’ll chuck a bomb into that Maxim gun.”
“Julian, no. Christ. Listen, Mowry says the attack is all fouled up. We may be out here all by ourselves. The Germans never jumped off. We’re out on a limb.”
“Well, if that doesn’t just prove you can’t get good help any more. The cheeky bastards.”
“Come on, we’ve?”
But Florry was stunned into silence by the awkward shambling noise of a large body of men beginning to move up ahead. Julian pulled him back into the niche and they lay in the mud, enwrapped in each other. Florry could barely breathe. He felt his heart throbbing and his chest aching. He pressed himself into Julian’s chest and sensed the heart pumping madly. They could hear the low squish-slip of boots moving through the mud close by, but Florry was too scared to focus. Whispered commands in Spanish flew softly through the mist like sparrows. There was the jingle and clink of equipment, the occasional harder clack of a bolt being thrown.
Each second Florry knew they’d be discovered. Wave after wave passed by. They must have gotten reinforcements. A whole army seemed to be creeping by above them through the mist.
“Get ready,” Julian commanded, at last disconnecting himself from Florry. He began to slither down the trench with the bomb in his hand. Florry followed, cocking the Webley.
A sudden spatter of shots announced the beginning of the attack. Florry heard the pop and snap of rifle bullets and the bursting of bombs. With the cover of the noise, Julian rose and began to close the distance to the main trench with manful strides. Florry hurried after him.
The Maxim opened fire from quite nearby: its clatter was tremendous. It poured bullets out into the night at an incredible rate and seemed to Florry like some industrial instrument for the manufacture of wickets or camming gears, sparking and laboring mightily in its moorings. He could see Julian pluck the first pin from his bomb and then begin to slide toward the gap that marked the intersection between their trench and the larger enemy one.
What happened next happened fast, particularly after the long, slow miner’s descent toward it. A youth appeared as Julian stepped into the trench and pointed his rifle at him. Florry, just behind Julian, shot the young man in the face.
“Good show!” shouted Julian, bounding ahead and pulling the second pin, as he lobbed the bomb underhand toward the sound of the machine gun. In another instant he was back, knocking Florry flat. The burst, so close, lit the sky with burning fragments and hot wind and hurt their ears. The Maxim quit abruptly.
“Come on,” yelled Julian, clambering past him. Florry rose. There seemed other dark shapes coming from the Fascist position at them and he fired his remaining five chambers of four-five-five at them, driving them back, and turned to race after Julian.
