“Write to her there, then. Telephone her.”

“To say . . . ?”

“You told me about going back to the place you were injured. How you thought for a moment that might be your end. Did you think of her on that day?”

“Yes,” he eventually replies.

“Tell her that.”

Chapter Thirty-Three: Harry

Chapter Thirty-Three

Harry

Canal Wood, east of Epéhy, Somme, August 1917

IT HIT JUST TO THE REAR. EARTH LEAPT UP AND SHOWERED OVER them. Harry leant against the wall of the jumping-off trench and listened to it all falling down.

“Two minutes,” said Captain Wear. He peered at the luminous face of his wristwatch.

It was all that Harry could see, the glow of the watch hands and then flashing in the sky. They hadn’t expected the incoming shelling. There had been no preliminary wire-cutting, Captain Wear had been telling them ten minutes earlier, as they didn’t want to give any indication of a planned raid. Did this bombardment signify that they knew anyway?

“Official report is that the wire is thin. The barrage is going to roll forward and we just follow it through. All right? The wire isn’t going to be an issue.”

“I do have a bit of a personal issue with getting strafed,” said Pembridge under his breath.

“At least there’s no moon.”

“This war has made me hate the moon,” said Jones, “its dozy great silvery beams. Big silvery-beamed bastard.”

Harry felt the earth jolt. “How long?”

“Thirty seconds.”

“. . . Loving Jesus, gentle lamb, in thy gracious hands I am . . .” Nicholson’s voice quavered as he worked through the rhymes of a childhood prayer.

“Jesus, I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

Another explosion hit just behind. Harry pushed his fingers into the earth. He could hear the rapid whistle of Nicholson’s breath to his left.

“You know the routine, right?” said Corporal Wright. “In and out. Get an identity if you can, but really this is just a diversion. Is that understood?”

“Have these, Blythe,” said Lieutenant Redmond. Harry felt a pair of wire cutters—the weight and the cold of the metal—placed in his hand. They had blackened their faces and he could just see the here-and-there glimmer of the whites of the lieutenant’s eyes.

“But I thought—”

“Just take them.”

With another lurch of the earth, Harry felt Redmond’s hand momentarily grip his shoulder. He tasted blood in his mouth and realized that he had bitten his lip.

“All right, lads. Keep low. Keep quiet.”

He saw Captain Wear’s profile as he clambered over. Harry heard his own heart racing.

The land sloped down toward the canal, which was a ribbon of light. Between here and the canal was just clotted darkness, dense and entirely quiet now.

They slid out on their bellies. He could smell the wet grass. There was dampness and roots under his hands. He pushed his fingers into the soft cold.

“Straight forwards,” hissed Redmond’s whisper.