Conscience: Volume 1

1.    September 1916, France

David cycled across the fields towards a horizon swollen with clouds.  Around him was the wreckage of undulating countryside, with an occasional stand of ragged trees.  Alongside the rutted track the tussocks of fading grass were still studded with late-flowering plants he recognised: scabious, fumitory, and that yellow thing – what was it called?  Rattle perhaps? And some sort of vetch, a blue-purple colour that he loved; it reminded him of one of the dresses his mother had worn when he was a child.   These few fragments of the underlying countryside remained dotted here and there across the battlefield, incongruous scraps which recalled his civilian life.  Looking up again he saw a black puff of smoke unravelling against the sky, heard the distinctive crump, and saw the group of soldiers he had noticed lounging around in the distance toppling like ninepins as a shell burst on the ground near them.  He wobbled on the bike as the vibration passed through him, and put his hand to his head to be sure he was wearing his tin hat.

David saw at once how narrowly he had missed being amongst them, a few seconds’ cycling away perhaps.  Although he was trembling slightly he felt calm. He pedalled onwards, into the disorder, hoping he could help somehow. 

Help me Lord, he prayed, help me do what you want me to here.  And thank you for keeping me safe from harm.

He knew that it was a matter of chance if another shell came or not, and he rode in amongst the wounded soldiers feeling he’d been saved for that day at least.   Some of the soldiers had dragged themselves to their feet, their uniforms spattered with clods of the dusty soil.   They looked shaken and seemed to be moving randomly about without purpose.  Others were still down: one of them lay flung near the path and David couldn’t avoid seeing his wounds.  The face was ripped away, and amidst the blood he thought he could see white bone – or was it muscle? – he couldn’t look at it for long, his stomach turned with the sight of it; he’d be no use if he started vomiting.    He had heard about shells, and how the serrated edge of a piece of metal flying through the air would slice  anything in its path.   Incredibly, the soldier was not dead.  He murmured something.  David slowly got off his bike; he wasn’t meant to be here.  He was taking a message to the dressing station.  He should leave at once, there was clearly nothing he could do, it had been a fantasy to think he could be any use here.  He clutched his bicycle fiercely, the one steady object in the midst of the confusion.

An officer staggered towards him, his face bloody with scratches, his uniform dirtied by earth thrown up by the shell.

 “You’re Medical Corps aren’t you?  Come over here – there’s one of my chaps, he – he needs looking at.”

Dear God, David thought, I can’t do this, let me go away.

But he followed the officer obediently, although he too seemed confused, as dazed with the noise and mess as David, and he’d been there in the thick of it when it happened.  David admired the fact that he was able to think of someone else.  He stopped, looked at David and gestured towards another soldier, lying in the mud, with some sort of head wound.  Nothing dramatic, very little visible, just blood trickling around his face, he looked dead.

 “Perhaps you can stitch him up” the officer said brightly “ – do something for him.  He’s a decent chap, got 3 kids.”

David looked at the officer, young of course, his pink and white complexion still unlined.  Couldn’t he see the man was dead?  He must be completely disoriented by the shell.  The noise alone had been unbearable, penetrating David, shaking his thoughts to pieces before they had a chance to form.  All he wanted to do now was run away.   

“Until last month, I was a curate in South London,” he told the officer, who was now gesturing with impatience at him.  “Now I’m just a cyclist messenger, I don’t think I can do anything for this man, he's beyond first aid.  All I can do is get a message to someone who will know what to do.”

The officer looked at him blankly – he didn’t understand – didn’t register what David was saying.   He must have been deafened by the blast.  But he must have got the gist of David's futility, barking abruptly

 “Well, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I was wondering that myself.”

David began to walk away back towards the path, recalling the injured man’s attempts to speak.  He was a non combatant, with no medical experience and this was his first morning at the front, his first exposure to fresh battle wounds and he knew he was completely out of his depth.  He felt he must go back to the man with the bloodied head, repulsive though the sight was; he was still alive at least.