I remember that there’s something I never did for her. I go back to my turned earth, with my eyes searching the ground for the finest patch. I stoop, and pick up a handful of soil, then crumble it even finer with my fingers. I ought to have cast it into the grave, but it’s not too late. Maybe there are some seeds in the earth too, and they’ll sprout into flowers. I tread back up to the grave, and sprinkle the earth on it.
Although the breeze is slight, the noise of the sea surges up in it. And behind the noise of the sea there are cries, like children playing. I brush my hands off. I’ll finish the hoeing.
As I walk down the field, a movement catches my eye. Far away, on the coast path that runs up from the town, there are specks moving. I shade my eyes. I count five, ten, twenty of them. There must be a wreck, I tell myself, and they are going out to the cliffs to watch the lifeboat. That’s the only reason for such a stream of people. But I know that there’s no wreck. The sea is bare.
I have my hoe in my hand, clenched tight. They are coming up the coast path, disappearing into the dips of the land, and then suddenly they’re much closer as the path rises. Soon they’ll be at the point where the path to Mary Pascoe’s cottage separates from the main path, and runs left between walls of furze.
I plunge my hoe into the earth. At the top of my land there is a broken-down wall, with a bramble entanglement over it. I’ve no wire-cutters but I can get through. I stand still, watching for them to come to the turn. I don’t think they can see me yet, although I can see them. The doctor with his hat: no, he’s not there. He’s too old and fat to be in the advance party. There are men in uniform: well, of course. What else do you expect? They surge and swarm. Now the first ones are coming to the turn, and the others push and shove in behind them. If they go ahead, I’ll still see them. If they disappear—
They are gone. I leap to the wall, and am on it and over it as stripes of blood spring out on my hands. The brambles pull at me to drag me down but I don’t let them. I raise my boots high and trample them, kicking, wading, shoving myself forward through the stench of bracken. I’m making for the field path that runs off the downs to the sea. I duck into the dense mass of stalks and thorns. They tear me but I don’t flinch. I’m on my belly now, wriggling through. Blood runs down my face into my mouth and I lick it away and shake my head to clear my eyes.
A narrow snaking path runs between the roots. I’m not sure if it’s the right one but it’s going downhill and I decide to risk it. Still crouching low, I run with fire in my back. But the cover is falling away now, to my hips, to my thighs, to my knees. I am exposed. I glance back and see that they have come to the top of the wall and are plunging after me. A cry rises behind me. They are baying as they pour over the wall and I know that I can’t hide now, I must run. I pump my legs high so my feet won’t catch in the roots and my boots pound the path. I am upright now, visible for miles. I run with my blood thundering in my head. My feet find their way blindly. The path won’t run straight but I daren’t leave it for fear of being tangled and caught. I run on, jinking stones, sending up the whirr and shriek of a pheasant. Even then I think: If I had my gun, I could have got him.
They are no nearer. I’m losing them. I’ll outrun them and double back like a hare to my hiding place until dark, and then I’ll walk over the moors and downs all the way to Simonstown. Or no. They’ll be watching the station. I glance behind me again. They have fallen back for sure. But my eye catches another movement and I see that they’re peeling away, left and right, to cut me off. They will block the coast path in both directions, and chase me down to where they can catch me. Whichever way I go, they’ll be there. It’s the advantage of numbers, I think to myself, and I laugh, or I would laugh, if I had breath, remembering Sergeant Morris and the German trench we were to walk into, cool as cucumbers.
If they’d taped out the ground, I couldn’t know it better. Left here, behind this boulder. I stop, and peer round the side. They have stopped too, and are lagging, faltering at the loss of me. I might dig myself in here. But no. They’ll surround me, and then they’ll move forward, beating the ground, until they’re so close they can join hands and have me.
They’ll shut me up in a hole in Bodmin. I thought of hanging as if it was stepping free into the air, but it’s a man in a dark hole dropped into a darker. They’ll put quicklime on me and bury me in the prison yard. I shall never get out. A flash of panic goes over me, brighter than a flare. It sears me through but it lights up the ground I’ve got to cover.
I push away the boulder. Breath burns in my chest as I run on and I hear the cry come up behind me, ragged at first and then strengthening as it’s taken up from all sides. They’ve occupied the paths, but ahead of me the sea shines. All at once confidence floods into me. I am sure that I can outrun them this time. I’m not a child now. I’ll do what they don’t expect: I’ll double this way, and race back for the town. I know a hundred places to hide there. I reach wet granite where the stream runs down, and splash into the water, thinking to hide my traces. The furze grows high again and I duck down, going lightly, willing my back not to show above the furze. But again it tricks me, thinning out and showing me to them. I smell myself, the stink of fear that’s drawing them.
They show baldly now. A party behind me, coming on, six or seven making inwards on my left, the coast path blocked to my right. I know them all. Mark Relubbus, the Sennen cousins. There’s Quicky, with the rest of them, come up from the lodge. There’s Dolly Quick, picking up her skirts and racing in the rear. Who’d have thought the old woman would have so much speed in her? Geoff Paddick is pounding down from Venton Awen, and his sisters in their breeches. Even Enoch’s come out of his hole, with his tangled hair flapping in the breeze. Wherever I look, there they are.
I can’t hide, so I go higher, up to the steep edge of the rock-strewn slope that slants seawards. I look towards the town. It’s too far away, and there’s no cover anywhere.
I can still outrun them. I push off from the rock and hurl myself down the path. I’m in no-man’s-land, ahead of them all. They come in from the left and from the right but the path shines grey ahead of me. Now I’m out of the furze and on to close-bitten turf that bounces under my heels and makes me go faster. Boulders rise up to block my way but I swerve past them. It’s steep now and I’m going down so fast that I am almost flying. Behind me the noise rises to a roar but the breeze carries it away. They won’t get me now. I look up and ahead of me there’s the coast path and beyond it the lip of turf. My feet touch the path and drag me to a stop. I can’t go forward. The cliff edge stands in my way. Far below I hear the sea boiling. I look behind, and see them still coming. I look to my left and to my right, and they are closing in like cats from both directions. Mark and Tony Relubbus, the Sennen boys, Andrew Sennen lagging back, his sister screeching insults into the wind. Two policemen in greatcoats and helmets. There’s the doctor’s hat, bobbing down the furze. Dolly Quick and Ellen Tehidy. I even think I see Mr Dennis, dodging for a better viewpoint, but it can’t be him. I see all their faces within a couple of seconds, as bright as if the flare had lit them. I am trapped. They’ve got me.
‘You old blowviator,’ says a voice in my ear. I spin round. I can’t believe I didn’t see him before. There he is, standing on the edge of the cliff, easily balancing. We always dared each other to stand as close to the edge as we could. He’s winning this time.
‘Frederick!’
He’s not in uniform. Of course he wouldn’t be, not back here. The war’s over. He’s wearing a dark blue jersey, and there’s not a speck of mud on him. He looks just as he always did.
‘Come on,’ he says, and he stretches out his hand to me. I can’t quite reach it. I go forward, one step and then another. Behind me I hear a groan of disappointment. They don’t like it that Frederick’s helping me. They want me hanging on the wire. But the sun’s shining, the same old sunlight as ever. It shines on Frederick’s hair and his clean skin, and on the wild sea behind him. I still hesita
te. I’m not sure that I can reach him. He seems to understand this without my saying anything, because he says, ‘Come on, I’ll give you a hand,’ and suddenly he is very close. I breathe his skin and his hair. He holds out his hand to me, and this time I take it easily. It’s warm now. ‘That was a hell of a stunt, BB,’ he says, and we step out together.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The epigraphs to Chapters 1 to 17 and 20 are drawn from material produced by the Army Printing and Stationery Services during the period of the First World War, including Notes for Infantry Officers on Trench Warfare, March 1916, and Notes on Minor Enterprises, March 1916. Notes on Minor Enterprises is reproduced in a volume of First World War pamphlets and publications, An Officer’s Manual of the Western Front 1914–1918, edited by Dr Stephen Bull.
I have also drawn on Hand Grenades: A Handbook on Rifle and Hand Grenades, compiled and illustrated by Major Graham M. Ainslie, 1917.
Other epigraphs are from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The poem extracts, in order of appearance, are taken from:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
‘The West Country Damosel’s Complaint’, Anon., traditional (When will you marry me, William . . .)
‘Invictus’, by William Ernest Henley (Out of the night that covers me, / Black as the Pit from pole to pole . . .)
‘When We Two Parted’, by Lord George Gordon Byron
‘Peace’, by Henry Vaughan (My soul, there is a country / Far beyond the stars . . .)
‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’, by Lord George Gordon Byron (The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold . . .)
‘Dover Beach’, by Matthew Arnold (The sea is calm tonight . . .)
‘There Was an Old Man Called Michael Finnegan’, Anon., traditional
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Helen Dunmore, The Lie
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