‘Instead, we’ll be running through no- man’s-land,’ he said ruefully. ‘Miss McLain . . . Jean . . . I’d also like to say . . .’

  She pulled her second headphone closer, then held her hand up. ‘The interference has stopped.’ The hissing from the headphones that had been there all the time had changed to silence.

  ‘You mean the line is clear?’

  ‘No. I mean we’ve lost the connection.’

  ‘Damn. The cable has been broken again. Excuse my language. I’ll have to send a party out with spare cable to find the break and join the broken pieces together again, and in daylight too. We’ve been putting down another cable every night but we still don’t have two complete lines. I’d better go . . .’ He paused. ‘I just wanted to say though, when you dived off the ship . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They were the best pair of legs I’ve ever seen.’ He smiled at her tiredly and vanished out the curtain.

  Alan Galbraith had flirted with her. No, he had been honest with her, even telling her that another officer had nightmares. She was suddenly sure he had made that remark about her legs because a shell could hit this trench at any moment, blowing them up or burying them all. They had very little chance of both surviving — most officers on the front died within a few weeks or months, and he had carefully not told her how many signallers had died under his command, so now all they had to send was a chit of a girl. In war you need to say the words, or they might never be spoken.

  I am sixteen, she thought. I’m too young to have a major admire my legs. I’m too young to be in a dug-out, about to advance on the German lines.

  But she didn’t feel young. She had been working with far older women for over half a year, working sometimes eighteen-hour shifts without a break, knowing she could not afford to make a mistake with a single letter, with the threat of being bombed any minute, seeing the dying and the maimed at the station every day she was given leave, conditions she was sure her parents had no idea she would face when Papa had said she was twenty-one. She wasn’t sure she’d ever feel young again.

  How long would it would take to fix the cable? Five minutes or five hours?

  A good linesman might take only five minutes to strip back the sheath that covered the cable, leaving the two wires exposed, then cut back the coverings on both those wires till he could twist their strands together with a new bit of connecting cable, then cover the whole lot again with sticky electrical tape, making sure there was no speck of mud or moisture.

  But repairing the break was the easy bit. Finding where it was broken and laying cable between the two broken areas would take much longer. Whoever was doing the job would be exposed to the enemy in broad daylight, in a place the enemy had already successfully bombed.

  But this was not a day to have communications lost. Even now the tanks might be beginning to thunder towards them, to push a way clear through the German lines.

  At least she would have time to visit the sandbag, and even, possibly, find some water for a wash.

  Chapter 18

  SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, NOVEMBER 1917

  The first person she saw when she left the dug-out was Lieutenant Seabrook, speaking quietly to one of the sentries who lined the trench, bayonets at the ready, several with periscopes to peer above the protecting walls.

  ‘Water for a wash?’ Lieutenant Seabrook managed a smile for her. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  He was waiting when she came out of ‘her’ dug-out, holding a basin of water of pale brown water. ‘I’ve f-filtered it through my handkerchief four times,’ he said proudly. ‘But don’t drink it,’ he added quickly.

  ‘Don’t worry about that! Thank you.’ She smiled back at him, noticing how his hands trembled as he held the basin. ‘You’re very kind.’

  He seemed to stand straighter. ‘It’s a p-pleasure, Miss McLain.’

  She wondered where to wash. She would like to take her time, but didn’t want to be away from the headphones in case the line became active again. ‘Would you mind, er, standing outside the dug-out while I wash? That way I can keep an ear open for any sound from the headphones.’

  ‘Of course. Give me a call when you’ve finished.’

  It was strange washing with headphones on. The water had even been warmed, or at least slightly deiced. She decided she trusted Lieutenant Seabrook to keep the dug-out guarded sufficiently for her to use her handkerchief to wash down as far as possible, and up as far as possible, remembering the old joke: what had poor ‘possible’ done to be left out?

  She also managed to squash several fat lice, but had a feeling there were many more to be found. If life got boring with rats, Morse code, shelling and the imminent advance, she thought, she could spend the time squashing lice. Men back in Rouen had called lice-hunting ‘chatting’ — a handy occupation for spare time.

  She felt better for the wash, and the sleep. Already she was almost used to the shelling. There seemed a pattern to it — several vast explosions, then a period of quiet, then another burst.

  At last, she pulled back the curtain again, and handed the water to Lieutenant Seabrook. ‘Thank you. The water was lovely. Will you come back in, or do you have something else to do till the line is mended?’

  ‘The major ordered me to stay with you. It’s no hardship.’ He seemed to relax even further as he came in and sat down. Of course, a dug-out was safer than the trench outside, she realised, with less chance of being hit by flying bits of shrapnel if a shell burst nearby. Even if their trench collapsed, they stood a good chance of not being buried if the roof above them held. They might even survive if the roof collapsed if they managed to shelter under the table. She suspected, once again, that simply talking to a girl brought a hint of normality into the relentless life of the trenches.

  She gave Lieutenant Seabrook a quick glance while she straightened her notepaper. The shadows were deep under his eyes. ‘Why don’t you have a nap yourself, Lieutenant?’ She pushed the blanket she’d been using as pillow towards him.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Miss McLain, but I’m on duty.’

  ‘There isn’t any duty till the cable is fixed,’ she pointed out. ‘I’ll wake you as soon as I hear anything. I think Major Galbraith would like everyone to be as fresh as possible.’

  Lieutenant Seabrook hesitated, clearly tempted. ‘I . . . I think I could sleep,’ he admitted. He took the blanket and put his head down. Within half a minute his breathing had steadied into a light snore.

  Jean waited till she was sure he was asleep, then reached into her coat pocket for her sewing kit and began to sew up the hems and cuffs of her overalls. She had half completed the second arm when suddenly her headphones hissed.

  They’d fixed it!

  ‘Lieutenant Seabrook!’ she said softly. He had been muttering in his sleep a while before but seemed deeply asleep now.

  He woke at once, with a small scream, then looked embarrassed. Jean pretended she hadn’t heard. ‘The cable has been fixed.’

  ‘What? Oh, right.’ He handed her the message he must have coded earlier. Jean assumed it just meant, Connection restored.

  Lieutenant Seabrook stuck his head out of the dug-out. ‘Private,’ he called to someone Jean couldn’t see, ‘tell the major the line is live again.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The reply was already coming through: a longer one. Jean copied it, and watched Lieutenant Seabrook laboriously translate it. She suspected she could have decoded it much faster, but this was the way it was always done — one person receiving, one doing the cipher. The army preferred ‘habit’ to ‘efficiency’, and never ‘flexibility’.

  Lieutenant Seabrook handed the message again to someone unseen outside, then sat back down next to her.

  Jean listened to the hiss and hum through the headphones. Lieutenant Seabrook said nothing, but seemed steadier after his sleep.

  The curtain opened, and Major Galbraith came in. He handed Jean a message. ‘Send this would you please, Miss McLain? I’ve already done the code, Lieutenant,’ he added to Lieutenant Seabrook, his voice carefully emotionless. ‘The repair party is back.’

  ‘All four, sir?’

  Major Galbraith cleared his throat. ‘Only one of them. Private Humphreys has been sent back to an aide post, with Private Coghlan to help him. Humphreys can walk, but he needs the shrapnel out of his back. Sergeant Lawson didn’t make it.’

  Neither man made any comment about the loss of Sergeant Lawson. How could they be so cold about it, as if people were just numbers?

  Jean tapped out the message automatically. It was a long one. She felt suddenly dizzy. Sergeant Lawson had been taciturn, but kind — so many men in these trenches had been kind — and he had done his best to prepare her.

  ‘I’ve written a message to send to his family, in case I don’t get a chance later,’ added Major Galbraith.

  Jean suddenly realised the major had said nothing, because with the deaths of so many friends and fellow soldiers Lieutenant Seabrook knew exactly what the major was feeling, and now so did she: loss, hopelessness, grief, and this final task — to write the impossible to Sergeant Lawson’s family, to try to make this letter different from the hundreds of others he must have sent. Jean had even heard a wounded man joke grimly about those letters, back in Rouen, how miraculously in this war every single man had died quickly, and with no pain, instead of hanging from the barbed wire screaming with his guts hanging out for hours before life and agony finally left him.

  Lieutenant Seabrook had gone white. ‘Yes, sir. Lawson was a good man, sir.’

  ‘Could you send a message from me, too, sir?’ asked Jean impulsively, still tapping, the headphones on one ear again.

  ‘What do you wish to say, Miss McLain?’

  ‘That if I survive this war, it will be because Sergeant Lawson showed me the basics of staying alive in the trenches. That the world is the poorer for his loss.’

  ‘Good words. Seabrook, did you copy that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The lieutenant was already writing.

  ‘Say the message comes from a young recruit and indicates in what high regard he was held.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Jean took the new message, and added it to the other, then took down a reply she was sure was simply, Message received; over and out at the end.

  ‘Sir . . . how did he die?’ she asked tentatively.

  Major Galbraith hesitated. At last he said, ‘Seabrook, would you bring dinner for me and Miss McLain? After that you are dismissed for two hours. I’m sure everyone knows exactly where I am,’ Major Galbraith added dryly. ‘But please inform them, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Major Galbraith waited till he’d gone. ‘Seabrook looks better.’

  ‘He had a sleep.’

  ‘Good. The cable had been broken by a shell — a good six-yard gap that had to have a new bit of cable laid and then both ends cleaned and joined up. They’d just managed it when another shell exploded a few yards away. That’s pretty standard — the big guns are hard to move, so you get a cluster of explosions in much the same place. A piece of shrapnel got Lawson in the neck. The men knew the risk, but we had no choice but to head out straight away — we need constant communication with headquarters, especially now.’

  ‘I see, sir.’

  ‘Do you blame me for ordering them out in daylight, to a place that would almost certainly be shelled again?’

  ‘No, sir,’ she said, firmly, so he’d know she spoke the truth. ‘I am sorry you had to do it, and even sorrier you have to bear what happened to them.’

  Major Galbraith said nothing for a while. A couple of rats scuffled in a corner. ‘Thank you for that,’ he said at last. ‘What would you be doing if you weren’t here, Miss McLain?’

  ‘Selling stamps at the village post office, listening to old Mr Lamprey complain about his gout, or taking down telegrams.’

  ‘And if there was no war?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘Now it’s autumn maybe I’d be wandering through the woods behind our home picking crab apples and hawthorn berries to make jellies for the winter. I like being among trees. There’s a kind of particular hush about trees. What about you?’

  ‘I’d have graduated by now. I’d be at my desk drawing up plans for a bridge, perhaps. We’re primarily a construction company.’ He gave a wry grin. ‘I’d like to say that being an officer has taught me valuable skills about managing men,’ he added, ‘but if we ran our family business the way the army operates, we’d have been bankrupt decades ago.’ He paused, then said tentatively. ‘Perhaps I might even be rambling about the woods with you, carrying your basket of crabs and haws.’

  ‘I’ll carry the fruit. You can lug the picnic basket. It’s much heavier.’

  Major Galbraith smiled. ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘A vacuum flask of tea that doesn’t smell of petrol, and maybe a flask of coffee too,’ she said dreamily. She had developed a taste for coffee that didn’t come from a bottle of essence while she’d been in France. ‘I’d have made a batch of those scones you promised me. My scones are better than any you can buy in a café. Mum passed on the family secret.’

  He laughed. ‘What’s the secret?’

  ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Use a mix of cream and lemon juice instead of milk, and icing sugar instead of ordinary sugar. You get the richest, lightest scones in the world.’

  ‘I can taste them now. What else is in the basket?’

  ‘Scotch eggs and jointed chicken,’ she said, almost able to taste them. ‘And lettuce hearts with salad cream. Maybe we can have watercress and cream cheese sandwiches on brown bread, too, and a punnet of strawberries, with a bottle of cream wrapped in a wet tea towel to keep it cool, and apricot tarts — we have an apricot tree against the wall at home — oh, I nearly forgot the bread and butter, and the plates and cups and cutlery. That’s why the basket is so heavy.’

  ‘Where are we taking this basket?’

  ‘If it was spring I know a clearing filled with bluebells, but now we’d head for a log up on a sunny hillside in the farmer’s field beyond the woods. Your job is to shoo away the cows that want to share our picnic — and the bull if he’s there — and I’ll put out the blanket to sit on, and lay out the food.’

  ‘That sounds the most perfect day possible. I almost feel we’ve even just been there. I apologise for the remark about your legs, Miss McLain. I meant it, but I should never have said it.’

  She smiled back. ‘I decided I was glad you made it. I think you have excellent legs too.’

  Major Galbraith blinked at her. ‘Do you have any idea how many regulations we have just broken?’

  ‘No.’ She grinned at him. Rats and shellfire and the dribble of mud had vanished. The world was the two of them, and the only time was now. ‘What are you going to do about it? Send me back on a discipline charge? You need me here. You might dock my pay, but it’s only half a crown a week, and anyway there’s nowhere to spend it.’

  ‘Half a crown a week!’

  ‘I’m still employed by the post office, despite my work here. I suppose you could complain to them. Tell me, why haven’t you learned Morse? The cipher isn’t all that difficult either,’ she pointed out.

  His grin answered hers. He picked up a pencil and beat a rhythm on the desk.

  ‘Who . . . says . . . I . . . haven’t . . .?’ she translated. ‘Then why’d you need me?’

  ‘Because I’m a major, and the army says that majors have to —’ He stopped as he heard the pulse from her half-dangling headphones. She began to copy it down, a long message, a page and a half, but she handed it to him in pieces perhaps a sentence or two long. He was quicker than Lieutenant Seabrook, translating as fast as she received, so he finished only a few seconds after the message ended.

  He read the messages twice before he looked up at her. ‘Tomorrow, six-twenty am,’ he mouthed.

  She nodded.

  He moved closer to her, so she could smell the mustiness of a uniform that, though it had not been washed for weeks, at least, wasn’t unpleasant. ‘Tanks first, to break down their defences, then six infantry divisions to consolidate the position, air support to stop any enemy reinforcements. We need to follow the infantry closely to lay the cables for communication.’

  His eyes lit with desperate hope. ‘Jean, we might just do it. This advance might possibly end the war.’

  ‘I’ll be ready,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you.’ He was thanking her for a lot more than being ready. He moved quickly out of the dug-out, yelling for Lieutenant Seabrook and others.

  She suspected Alan Galbraith didn’t even realise he had used her first name.

  Chapter 19

  SOMEWHERE NEAR CAMBRAI, 20 NOVEMBER 1917

  Dear Mama and Papa,

  I should have left a letter with the chaplain at Rouen but did not think to do so. I hope that if anything happens to me someone will find this one and send it to you.

  Papa, please do not feel guilty for sending me here. I believe I have been of real use to my country, and that is what matters. I have seen more of life in my time here than I ever might have back in Butterwood. I have known kindness and honesty in the most desperate times. It was my own choice to leave the comparative safety of my earlier posting to come here, and I do not regret it for a second.

  You are the best and most loved parents it is possible to have, and Arthur and William are the kindest and the bravest of brothers. I am so proud of my family.

  Your loving daughter,

  Jean

  The whole trench system knew the push was on now, and the basics of the tactics. The afternoon was filled with checking equipment, hauling rolls of cable out of dug-outs, and digging ‘saps’, small trenches that would allow the rolls of cable to be rolled out simultaneously at various spots along the trench.

  Major Galbraith seemed everywhere, inspecting the saps for stability — a collapsed wall at the wrong moment could mean the loss of precious minutes, equipment, men. The junior officers checked equipment; the sentries stood at their post, watching; the mess dug-out had queues of men waiting outside and an equal number coming out, though Jean only had a few seconds to take it all in during a quick visit to her sandbag. She supposed the queued men were waiting for provisions, for there might be no way to get cooked meals in the next few days.