Master Georgie Part 9

We had to rush past the poor wretches surrounding the Colours and attack the Russians from behind. Those who were out of ammunition or had left their bayonets in flesh screamed like madmen and hurled stones and debris. Enemy reinforcements stole up and shot us in the back.

Impossible to say how long it lasted; time stood brutally still. There was a moment, staring down that avenue of slaughter, when I swear I saw Potter sauntering towards me. Behind him, a ball from a heavy pounder bounced in pursuit like a stone skimming water. I opened my mouth to shout a warning, and just as it leapt to tear him apart he swerved aside as though pushed; it hurtled on and took off the head of a man in front. I reckoned an angel kept watch over Potter.

I was still alive when it ended. The Russians retreated up the hillside, leaving their dead and wounded where they'd fallen. The cessation affected the living in different ways; some lay down and slept, others walked about in a trance, plucking at their faces. For myself, I shook all over and could barely stand. It was the silence that was unnerving.

I found George two hours later, plying his trade at the Quarry end of the valley, Myrtle at his side. He was bent over a man with a hole in his chest. I tapped his wrist and he glanced up and didn't know me, but then, so altered had we grown I only knew him by his blood-spattered ap.r.o.n. He took in the gash on my forehead and said dismissively, 'It's only a scratch. Move on.' Then I spoke his name and he sprang upright; for the first and last time he took me in his arms.

I helped dig trenches to bury the dead. The ones who had perished lying flat were dragged away by the heels. Those that sat upright we lifted under the arms, if arms remained. We found six men, comrades and foes, linked together, bayonets quivering in a daisy chain of steel.

George was fetched to see to an officer who had lost both feet, his stumps stuck in a barrel of gunpowder to staunch the bleeding. I was sent to find a stretcher and we laid him on it, barrel and all, and set off towards the hospital table, George leading. Myrtle followed, as she had always done.

We had got no more than twenty yards when Myrtle called out George's name. She said later that she'd hurt her foot on a stone. He stopped and wheeled round, still holding the stretcher. Behind him, a wounded Russian, propped against sandbags, lifted up his musket and fired. George let go of the stretcher and the barrel rolled away trailing grey powder. He was looking at me, eyes wide with surprise. 'You're a good boy,' I thought he said; then he fell down.

Potter was in the hospital tent when we arrived at the camp. He said he'd turned back earlier that morning owing to the fog settling on his chest. The photographer had returned and was preparing the plates. I was to hurry because the light was going.

I said, 'George is dead.'

'You've a cut on your forehead,' he replied, and tearing some pages from the book on his knee, stuffed them into the stove.

Myrtle was outside, dry-eyed, cradling George in her arms. She was crooning to him.

I walked back to the van and found the photographer nearby with his camera set up and five men slouched before him.

'What we want,' he said, 'is a posed group of survivors to show the folks back home.' Squinting down the lens he called out, "The balance isn't right. I need another soldier. Fetch one.'

I walked back to George. Myrtle had gone and he was lying in the mud. I humped him over my shoulder and carried him to the camera. The men were now standing and I propped him between them. He slumped forward and the soldier to his right supported him round the waist.

'Smile, boys, smile,' urged the photographer.

Behind, on the brow of the hill I saw Myrtle, arms stretched wide, circling round and round, like a bird above a robbed nest.

About this t.i.tle

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Also by Beryl Bainbridge

Fiction

An Awfully Big Adventure

Another Part of the Wood

The Birthday Boys

The Bottle Factory Outing

Collected Stories

The Dressmaker

Filthy Lucre

Harriet Said

Injury Time

Mum and Mr Armitage

Northern Stories (ed., with David Pownall)

A Quiet Life

Sweet William

Watson's Apology

A Weekend with Claude

Winter Garden

Young Adolf

Non-fiction

English Journey, or, the road to Milton Keynes

Forever England; North and South

Something Happened Yesterday