A box respirator was circulated among us and we tried it on. Tuck explained how it worked. He informed us that the entire battalion would be issued with these in a matter of days.
“In the meantime,” he said, “we will be relying on the temporary respirator handed to you as you came in.”
I looked at the cotton pad in my hand. I wondered how it would stop me from coughing up four pints of yellow liquid in an hour. Suddenly I felt an acute, rotting fear. I saw the dead men on the beach. I glanced right and left. Everyone seemed to be smiling; even Tuck had a grin on his face.
“In the very unlikely event of a gas attack in this sector, this is what — it says here — you must do.” He opened a pamphlet and read from it. “ ‘When the gas alarm goes, first put on the goggles. Then soak the cheesecloth pad, or a handkerchief or a sock, in fresh urine before applying it to the face, making sure both mouth and nostrils are covered.’ ”
He paused for effect. His audience took this in for a second in silence before baying hoots of skeptical laughter and cries of disgust erupted.
“Gentlemen, please!” Tuck shouted above the din. “A final word of advice.… According to this document, the urine of older men is particularly efficacious! Dismiss.” Tuck strode out of the tent very pleased with his performance. D Company were most amused.
The next day I went in search of Louise and asked if I might cycle over to the field hospital to return Nurse Fjermeros’s watch. He agreed reluctantly, signed a chit and I drew one bicycle from the quartermaster’s stores. I pedaled off down the drab lanes in a fine drizzle. I noticed a curious fizzing sensation at the back of my head. I recognized the symptoms of mild euphoria.
It took me twenty minutes to get to St. Idesbalde. A Belgian sentry directed me to an office in a wooden shack where I waited for Dagmar. She arrived wearing full uniform. I handed over the watch.
“It’s very kind of you.”
“Not at all.… I wondered if the men — if you knew.”
“We think they are Dutch. A fishing boat, perhaps hitting a mine.” She shrugged, then smiled. “Can I offer you something to eat, Mr.…?”
“Todd. John James. Yes, please.”
We walked through the hospital. It had originally been a rather grand farmhouse with numerous outbuildings. Large tents had been pitched in every available space and duckboard walkways laid between them. Looking inside one tent I could see neat rows of patients in low camp beds. We crossed the lawn of a small walled garden and emerged from it onto the graveled driveway of the main house. Three motor ambulances were pulled up at the door. Some men, in filthy uniforms and stark, almost indecently white bandages, were being helped inside.
“We’re very quiet at the moment,” she said. “Waiting for spring offensives.”
I nodded and followed her across the driveway and into a stable block. There was a row of loose stalls and for an instant I was back in Minto Academy. I had paused involuntarily, and now Dagmar stood at the door of an old barn waiting for me. I followed her in.
The noise of conversation was colossal. The barn had been converted into a canteen and was filled with trestle tables around which sat dozens of injured soldiers, some in uniform, some in pajamas and dressing gowns, eating, drinking, playing cards, and all — as far as I could hear — talking at the top of their voices. Smoke from their cigarettes drifted up into the exposed rafters. A big fat iron stove stood in the center of the room and at the far end was a makeshift kitchen and serving area staffed by nuns. There I was given a plate of stew, three slices of coarse grayish soda bread and a tin mug of coffee.
Dagmar and I found two unoccupied seats and sat down. Here and there among the groups of soldiers were nurses and nuns. I suddenly felt a shaft of envy for these wounded Belgians, with their loud conviviality, their plentiful food and their female company. I looked at Dagmar — she was tucking stray hair back under her cap. Her hair was a fine reddish blond.
“Not eating?”
“No,” she said. “I already finished. Please, don’t mind me.”
I ate the stew. A curious-tasting meat — half pork, half venison (it was mule, I learned later). We chatted about something or other. She told me she was Norwegian and had joined the Red Cross in 1915. I let her know something of my past, lying blatantly only when I said I had abandoned a place at university to enlist.
“I think you were better to stay at university.”
“I think you’re right,” I said spontaneously, my new mood of apprehension prompting me. I smoothed my moustache with thumb and forefinger. I took out a tin of cigarettes — Trumpeters — offered her one and received a wry refusal. I lit mine and passed the tin across the table to her.
“Have it,” I said. “I’ve got tons.”
She smiled and quickly slipped the tin into a pocket in her uniform. This mild illicit act joined us as fellow conspirators. I felt my face hot and a curious sense of disequilibrium afflicted me for an instant. I looked at her round face, her random freckles … Her hands were on the table, one nail tapping gently. I saw fine red-gold hairs at her wrist. I wanted to ask her if we could meet again, but the words seemed to form in my stomach rather than my throat, as if only vomiting would release them.
“I keep thinking about those drowned men,” I blurted out. “They’re the first actual dead … I mean, like that — casualties.”
“You should stay here for a day. We filled two cemeteries since I’m at St. Idesbalde.”
“Of course. I see. It’s just that, for the first time …” I gave a weak smile. “This quiet sector, it’s very misleading.”
She met my gaze. “I know you’ll be all right,” she said seriously. “I get these sensations about people.” She smiled. “I’m almays right.”
“Sorry?”
“I’m almays right.”
“Oh. Good, good.”
That was what it sounded like to me. “Almays.” Was it a speech defect? Did she think it was an actual English word: a conflation of “almost always”? Did she mean “almost” or “always”? I decided to take it for the latter. I felt a benign sense of release spread upwards through my body from my bowels, a kind of erotic fatigue. I felt I had her word for it. I was going to come through.
“I hope you are,” I said. “Right, I mean.”
She looked at her watch. “I should go.”
She walked me to the camp gate. I put on my cap and climbed on my bicycle. She leaned towards me.
“Thanks for the cigarettes,” she said in a low voice. Her sweet breath hit the side of my face.
“Do you ever go walking on the beach,” I asked, “at Coxyde-Bains?”
“Me? No.…”
“I do, as often as I can.”
“Maybe I’ll see you one day.”
“Yes. Fine.… Well, good-bye.”
It was the best I could do. I cycled back to camp in a dull, vexed mood; too dull even to be angry with myself. At the camp, teams from A and D companies were playing soccer with each other, thirty a side.
I went into our tent. Teague was there, his foot up — sockless — on a pile of blankets.
“Twisted my bloody ankle,” he said, “playing bloody footer.” His thick face was red and sweaty. The normally immaculate ridges of his hair were mussed.