A snake, crawling on his belly, Howard inched around the land that belonged to no one. Every movement ripped at the skin on his leg. He had not bothered to look at the injury; it seemed pointless as he couldn’t treat the burns. The bleeding from the bullet wound had slowed, almost stopped, that was something. He pulled the weight of his torso on to his elbows and progressed inch by agonising inch through the dead and the dying. Dehydrated, injured, exhausted, he clawed his way through hell. His goal was to collect as many flasks as he could, and perhaps some food too. In his own pack he’d had two days’ supply, but he wasn’t sure if his pack was still intact; he’d forgotten to check before he set off. It was perfectly possible that the men in the trench had raided it, assuming he would never regain consciousness. He didn’t even resent the thought. It was understandable. Even so, he took care only to gather supplies from those who’d definitively never need anything again – men who had finally found peace. When he came across an injured man, he did what he could. He tied bandages around limbs, found them water, held their hands as they died.

Time ticked on, the loose dusk hardened into a sheet of blackness and he lost count of how many men he helped, perhaps nine or ten. Some thanked him. Others were past that. It reminded him of his time with Basil Clarke, when he’d attended the wounded at Dunkirk, Nieuwpoort and Yser and had sworn he would never be part of the destruction. The thought made him stony and forlorn. He didn’t have the energy to be disgusted. How many men had he killed? Some men took pride in keeping count. They bragged about it, brought back souvenirs when they could: a lighter, a button. He didn’t know the number, not for sure. He’d lobbed hand grenades on several occasions and he’d fired relentlessly in two other battles besides this one. For sure it was five, including the man he’d shot through mercy, but he couldn’t imagine that all his grenades had missed their targets. It might be as many as fifty, it might be one hundred. He didn’t know, and that caused him to feel both relief and repugnance.

Once he had collected several canisters of water, he set off back towards the trench. After twenty yards or so, he thought he might be moving in a circle, or certainly an oblong. The lack of light rendered things not only gloomy but obscure. It was unfeasible to know what ground he had covered. It was all the same: mud, blood, bits of uniforms and limbs, empty shells. He pushed on. For hours he crawled between the wounded, still helping if he could, although by now he was dizzy with the pain of his own wounds, all the time thinking of the burnt man in the trench who was waiting for water, who would need him to return. It was odd that he cared about one man when there were so many in need of attention. The truth was, he cared about them all; he had fixated on the burnt man because he couldn’t help them all. Helping one particular soldier gave him a much-needed sense of focus; without focus he might despair. From time to time he heard voices, someone calling, ‘Over here!’ or ‘Bring morphine, for the love of God.’ It was possible that the stretcher-bearers had started their work. He hoped so.