Free Starshine by John Wilcox Page A

us.’
    ‘Ah, Jim lad. You’re right. I never thought of that. You just can’t win in this bloody war, now can you?’
    Hot meals miraculously appeared via the shortened supply line and the refugees from the ridge were fed. Guards were posted and they were allowed to sleep until stand-to at dawn. No further attack was mounted by the Germans, however. It was as though the enemy were content to have forced back the British line and were themselves taking respite from the bitter fighting that had marked the last few days.
    A veneer of civilisation in the form of regular meals, only intermittent shelling and the occasional bursts of machine-gun fire now returned to the two comrades as they settled into line duty in the trenches, standing to at dawn, taking their turns as lookouts on the fire step and, once, joining a young subaltern in an uneventful night patrol in no man’s land. They both undertook the duty of writing home.
    ‘Are you writing to Polly, then, Jim?’ asked Bertie.
    ‘Yes. Would you like me to send her your love?’
    ‘No, thank you very much. I’m doing that myself, because I’m writing to her too.’
    A slightly uneasy silence fell on the two and they returned to their letters. It was broken, inevitably, by Bertie: ‘It’s a bit funny, this, when you think of it, isn’t it?’
    ‘Funny? What do you mean, funny?’
    ‘Well …’ The little Irishman wriggled his bottom on the firing step. ‘I mean, it’s funny. Both of us together like this and loving the same girl and not … well … not bein’ jealous and such. Not mindin’, I mean.’
    Jim sucked his pencil. ‘I suppose it is, when you think of it.’
    ‘I mean … Would you be glad if I was killed, see? And cleared the way for you an’ Polly and so on.’
    ‘No. Of course not.’
    ‘Neither would I – if you was killed, that is. Funny, though, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes. I suppose it is.’
    The two letters were given to the mail clerk at exactly the same time but neither knew the contents of the other’s. But Jim did ask Bertie a personal question that had been on his mind for some time.
    ‘You was only four when you left Ireland to come to Brum, weren’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why then do you speak with as broad an Irish accent as I’ve ever heard? Growing up in Brum – you’d think you’d talk like me.’
    Bertie scratched his head. ‘I suppose it’s me dad. Livin’ with him, I mean. And goin’ to the School of the Holy Mother. They’re all Catholics there, like me, of course, and though some of them are not Irish, most of them are. So it’s stuck with me.’ His eyes twinkled.‘Personally, I think it’s what gives me me roguish charm. It’s why Polly loves me much more than she loves you …’
    Jim gave him a playful punch in the chest.
    ‘Hickman.’ Captain Yates came down the trench, his arm in a sling. ‘You and Hawkeye here, get your stuff together. You’re going back down the line. You’ve been posted to a new Territorial battalion that has just arrived – part of the Warwicks. Sergeant Flanagan here has come to collect you and two others.’
    The captain smiled at them both, a smile that seemed to take years off his age and make him look like the captain of the school cricket team, congratulating them for taking wickets. He held out his left hand. ‘I shall miss both of you,’ he said. ‘You are both fine soldiers, if …’ he grinned at Bertie ‘… a little eccentric. I have commended you for your action back up on the ridge, Hickman. Whether anything will come of it, I don’t know. But good luck to you both. Now, grab your things and off you go.’
    They both shook hands with the young man and ducked away to find their meagre belongings. Then they joined the sergeant, who was waiting for them at the junction with the communications trench. He was a tall man, muscular and heavily jowled, wearing a Connaught Rangers cap badge and a forbidding scowl.
    Bertie gave him a welcoming grin. ‘Sorry to