Free Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson Page A

the sandbagged wall of the trench while Frank rolled a cigarette for each of them and one for Alf Simmonds who was ducked down on the firing-step above them on sentry duty. Then Jack sucked on his spindly roll-up and, without looking at Frank, said, ‘I’m not going,’ and Frank said, ‘Not going where?’ so that Jack laughed and pointed in the direction of No Man’s Land and said ‘There, of course – I’m not going there.’
    Alf Simmonds laughed as well and said, ‘Don’t blame you lad,’ because he thought it was a joke but Frank felt sick because he knew it wasn’t.
    It was silent before the order came. The guns had stopped and there was no laughing or joking or anything, just the silence of waiting. Frank watched the clouds pass over in the blue sky above, little puffs of white that were floating above No Man’s Land as if it was any other bit of countryside and not the place where he was going to die very shortly. The new lieutenant looked as green as the grass that didn’t grow there any more, you could see the beads of sweat as big as raindrops on his forehead, they’d never had a lieutenant quite as nervous as this one. Or as mean. Frank suspected it wouldn’t be long before a sniper got this one, and not necessarily the enemy’s either. The men were still missing Malcolm Innes-Ward who’d been with them for six months before he was shot through the eye. He was helping drag a wounded man back from No Man’s Land when a sniper got him. The private helping him was killed as well and the wounded man died of gas-gangrene anyway, so it had all been for nothing.
    Jack had got on well with Malcolm Innes-Ward, they’d spent long hours in his officer’s dug-out talking about politics and life and Jack had taken his death particularly hard. Innes-Ward and the noise, that’s what had done for Jack, Frank decided.
    When the order came to go over the top it was more like a relief than anything and everyone scrambled up the ladders and over the parapet until there were only three of them left – Frank, Jack and the new lieutenant. Frank didn’t know why he hadn’t moved, it was just a momentary hesitation really – he wanted to make sure that Jack was coming with him – but then the new lieutenant started screaming at them and waving his gun around, saying he was going to shoot them if they didn’t go over, so that Jack said, really quietly, ‘Officers generally lead from the front, sir,’ and before Frank knew what was happening he was looking down the barrel of the new lieutenant’s Lee-Enfield. Then Jack said, ‘You don’t have to do that, sir, we’re going,’ and he half-dragged Frank over the top, and before they were even over the parapet Jack was yelling ‘Run!’ at him, which Frank did, because now he was more frightened of being shot in the back by the new lieutenant’s rifle than he was of being blown up by the enemy.
    Frank was determined not to lose sight of Jack, convinced for some reason that if he could keep with Jack his chances of dying were lessened. He fixed his eyes on the regimental badge on the back of his jacket and the scrap of material tied as neatly as a girl’s hair ribbon on his webbing, but within seconds Jack had disappeared and Frank found himself advancing alone through what seemed like a wall of fog, but which was actually the smoke from the big guns which had started up again. The fog seemed to go on and on for ever but Frank kept on walking even though he didn’t come across Jack, or any other soldier, for that matter – living or dead.
    It was only after quite a long time that he realized what had happened. He had died – it must have happened when he’d first lost sight of Jack, probably a sniper’s bullet and now he was no longer advancing across No Man’s Land but was walking through Hell and that’s what Hell was going to be for Frank – to trudge for ever across No Man’s Land towards the enemy trenches.
    Just as Frank was trying to adjust