Читать книгу Times of War Collection - Michael Morpurgo, Michael Morpurgo - Страница 15

I keep checking the time. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but I can’t seem to help myself. Each time I do it, I put the watch to my ear and listen for the tick. It’s still there, softly slicing away the seconds, then the minutes, then the hours. It tells me there are three hours and forty-six minutes left. Charlie told me once this watch would never stop, never let me down, unless I forgot to wind it. The best watch in the world, he said, a wonderful watch. But it isn’t. If it was such a wonderful watch it would do more than simply keep the time — any old watch can do that. A truly wonderful watch would make the time. Then, if it stopped, time itself would have to stand still, then this night would never have to end and morning could never come. Charlie often told me we were living on borrowed time out here. I don’t want to borrow any more time. I want time to stop so that tomorrow never comes, so that dawn will never happen.

I listen to my watch again, to Charlie’s watch. Still ticking. Don’t listen, Tommo. Don’t look. Don’t think. Only remember.

“Stand stall! Look to your front, Peaceful, you horrible little man!” …"Stomach in, chest out, Peaceful.” …"Down in that mud, Peaceful, where you belong, you nasty little worm. Down!” … “God, Peaceful, is that the best they can send us these days? Vermin, that’s what you are. Lousy vermin, and I’ve got to make a soldier of you.”

Of all the names Sergeant “Horrible” Hanley bellowed out across the parade ground at Etaples when we first came to France, Peaceful was by far the most frequent. There were two Peacefuls in the company of course, and that made a difference, but it wasn’t the main reason. Right from the very start Sergeant Hanley had it in for Charlie. And that was because Charlie just wouldn’t jump through hoops like the rest of us, and that was because Charlie wasn’t frightened of him, like the rest of us were.

Before we ever came to Etaples, all of us, including Charlie and me, had had an easy ride, a gentle enough baptism into the life of soldiering. In fact we’d had several weeks of little else but larks and laughter. On the train to Exeter, Charlie said we could easily pass for twins, that I’d have to watch my step, drop my voice, and behave like a seventeen-year-old from now on. When the time came, in front of the recruiting sergeant at the regimental depot, I stood as tall as I could and Charlie spoke up for me, so my voice wouldn’t betray me. “I’m Charlie Peaceful, and he’s Thomas Peaceful. We’re twins and we’re volunteering.”

“Date of birth?”

“5^th October,” said Charlie.

“Both of you?” asked the recruiting sergeant, eyeing me a little I thought.

“Course,” Charlie replied, lying easily, “only I’m older than him by one hour.” And that was that. Easy. We were in.

The boots they gave us were stiff and far too big — they hadn’t got any smaller sizes. So Charlie and I and the others clomped about like clowns, clowns in tin hats and khaki. The uniforms didn’t fit either, so we swapped about until they did. There were some faces from home we recognised in amongst the hundreds of strangers. Nipper Martin, a little fellow with sticking-out ears, who grew turnips on his father’s farm in Dolton, and who played a wicked game of skittles up at The Duke. There was Pete Bovey, thatcher and cider drinker from Dolton too, red-faced and with hands like spades, who we’d often seen around the village in Iddesleigh, thumping away at the thatch, high up on someone’s roof. With us too was little Les James from school, son of Bob James, village rat catcher and wart charmer. He had inherited his father’s gifts with rats and warts and he always claimed to be able to know whether it was going to rain or not the next day. He was usually right too. He always had a nervous tick in one eye that I could never stop looking at when we were in class together.

At training camp on Salisbury Plain, living cheek by jowl, we all got to know each other fast, though not necessarily to like one another — that came later. And we got to know our parts, too, how to make believe we were soldiers. We learnt how to wear our khaki costumes — I never did get to wear the scarlet uniform I’d been hoping for — how to iron creases in and iron wrinkles out, how to patch and mend our socks, how to polish our buttons and badges and boots. We learnt how to march up and down in time, how to about-turn without bumping into one another, how to flick our heads right and salute whenever we saw an officer. Whatever we did, we did together, in time — all except for little Les James who could never swing his arms in time with the rest of us, no matter how much the sergeants and corporals bellowed at him. His legs and arms stepped and swung in time with each other, and with no one else, and that was all there was to it. He didn’t seem to mind how often they shouted at him that he had two left feet. It gave us all something to laugh about. We did a lot of laughing in those early days.

They gave us rifles and packs and trenching shovels. We learnt to run up hills with heavy packs, and how to shoot straight. Charlie didn’t have to be taught. On the rifle range he proved to be far and away the best shot in the company. When they gave him his red marksman’s badge I was so proud of him. He was pretty pleased himself, too. Even with the bayonets it was still a game of make-believe. We’d have to charge forward screaming whatever obscenities we knew — and I didn’t know many, not then — at the straw-filled dummies. We’d plunge our bayonets in up to the hilt, swearing and cursing the filthy Hun as we stabbed him, twisting the blade and pulling it out as we’d been taught. “Go for the stomach, Peaceful. Nothing to get hung up on in there. Jab. Twist. Out.”