In the turmoil of a division preparing to move, no one noticed the temporary absence of two officers in the night. They left the motorbike where they had found it and made their separate ways back to the front line, both feeling more sober than they had expected.

The next day Weir had his orders. They would move the following evening to a billet not yet specified, then march to Albert. They were expected to help complete the digging that had already begun near the village of Beaumont-Hamel. There was no indication of whether this was part of a larger strategy or merely a routine redeployment. Since the whole division was on the move, however, it appeared that the rumours were true: they were going to attack.

Weir slumped down on to the lower bunk in his dugout. He ran his hand back over what remained of his hair. So this was the attack at last. No more peace and tranquility. The big push. He managed a snort of dry laughter. No more the quiet sector with its friendly routine patrols. With the men of the new army, he would sweep the Germans out of France.

He was resigned to it. He felt that he had lost control of his own life: when he had finally tried to alter some central part of his existence it had come to nothing but humiliation. The guns would not be much worse.

When he returned from his nighttime shift underground, Jack went to a quiet part of the trench with a cup of tea and took out Margaret’s letter. He read it very slowly, not allowing his eyes to glance ahead.

My Dearest Jack,

How are you? We think about you all the time and our prayers are for you. Thank you for your letters which have been a great comfort to us. It is good to know you are keeping cheery and well.

I have to tell you that our boy died this morning. The doctors said he suffered no pain and was very restful at the end. There was nothing they could do for him. I saw him in the hospital but they would not let me take him home. I do believe they cared for him to the last and did not let him suffer.

I am sorry to have to tell you this my dear Jack because I know how much you loved him. You must not let it get you downhearted. You are all I have left now and I pray God will send you home to me safe.

I am to collect his little body this afternoon, the funeral will be on Friday. I will light a candle from you in the church.

I will write again but I haven’t the heart to go on now. Please do take care of yourself and come home to me.

With love from Margaret.

Jack put the letter down on the ground and stared in front of him. He thought: I will not let this shake my faith. His life was a beautiful thing, it was filled with joy. I will thank God for it.

He put his head in his hands to pray but was overpowered by the grief of his loss. No polite words of gratitude came, but only the bellowing darkness of desolation. “My boy,” he sobbed, “my darling boy.” They arrived at Albert in the first week of June. The tunnellers were at once despatched to the Front, but the infantry were allowed to pass the time in rest, with fewer drills and inspections than usual and a suspiciously improved diet that included oranges and walnuts.

Captain Gray took Stephen to see Colonel Barclay, who was staying in a large house on the west side of town.

“He’s an irascible fellow,” said Gray. “But you shouldn’t be taken in by his manner. He’s a fine fighter. He enjoys hardship and danger.” Gray raised an eyebrow as though to question Barclay’s judgement.

They discovered the colonel looking at maps in the converted study. He was younger than Stephen had expected; although grey, he had a lean, ferrety presence.

“Pretty nice house, isn’t it?” said Barclay. “But never you mind, I’ll be in the trench with you chaps when you go over the top.”

“Are you actually going to go over the top yourself, sir?” said Gray, with a note of surprise.

“I should bloody well think so,” said Barclay. “I’ve been stuck on my arse with creeping-Jesus staff officers for the last six weeks. The day the balloon goes up I’m aiming to have dinner off the regimental silver in Ba-paume.”

Gray coughed. “That would indeed represent a remarkable advance.” His accent seemed to have become more Scottish in Barclay’s presence.

“And do you know who I’ll be having it with? The C in C of the Second Indian Cavalry.”

“I had not appreciated that the cavalry would be involved.”

“Of course they are. We punch a hole, they pour through. Haig’s dead set on it.”

“I see.” Gray nodded his head slowly. “This is Lieutenant Wraysford, who has some knowledge of the terrain. You may remember I mentioned him to you.”

“Yes, I remember,” said Barclay. “The Somme expert. Well, you’d better sing for your supper.”

They went out into the gardens of the house for a stroll, and Barclay asked Stephen about the lie of the land. At Gray’s suggestion, he had refreshed his memory by looking at a map and was able to tell him of the marshy flanks of the river Ancre, the rising ground toward Thiepval on one side and the ridge on the other.

“Hawthorn Ridge,” said the colonel. “That’s what they call that. We’re attacking on that line toward Beaumont-Hamel. They’re going to blow a bloody great hole in the ridge first.”

“I see,” said Gray. “So that will give the enemy plenty of warning and a nice bit of natural fortification.”

Barclay looked at him with a stern pity. “We’ll get to it first, Gray. But it’s going to be a long day. I expect we may be asked to reinforce other units at various stages depending on how it goes.”

“But we will be in the first wave of attack?”

“Oh yes,” beamed the colonel. “Over at dawn, don’t worry. Regroup and take a breather at midday. Back in the early evening to put the shoulder to the wheel if necessary. Your men ready for it?”

“Oh, I think so,” said Gray. “What do you think, Wraysford?”

“I think so, sir. Though I’m a little worried about the terrain. Also they’ve been here a long time, haven’t they, the enemy? They will have built defences like–“

“Good God,” said Barclay, “I’ve never come across two such fainthearts. There is going to be a six-day bombardment which is going to cut every bit of German wire from here to Dar es Salaam. If there’s any Boche left alive after that he’ll be so bloody relieved it’s over that he’ll come out with his hands up.”

“That would certainly constitute an unexpected bonus,” said Gray. And another thing,” said Barclay. “I don’t need tactical advice from a platoon commander. I’ve got Rawlinson breathing down my neck already, as well as brigade orders every day. You just do what you’re told. Now let’s go and have lunch.” Barclay’s second-in-command, Major Thursby, and the three other company commanders joined them at an elegant table in a room with long windows at the side of the house. Stephen wondered if he should not offer to do the waiting rather than converse with these superior officers, but there seemed to be ample mess waiters, augmented by an elderly French couple.

“What’s this stuff?” said Barclay holding up a bottle to the light. “GevreyChambertin. Hmm, tastes all right, though I don’t know why we can’t have white wine with fish.”

“There was no white wine in the cellar, sir,” said the colonel’s batman, a small white-haired Londoner. “But I knew you were partial to a bit of fish. Trout, sir. From the local river.”

“Very well, Davis,” said Barclay, refilling his glass.

A thin stew followed, then ripe cheese and fresh bread. Lunch went on past three o’clock, when they went to the sun-filled sitting room with coffee and cigars. Stephen felt the softness of the chair beneath him and allowed his hand to linger on the brocade. One of the company commanders, a tall man called Lucas, was talking about the fishing on the river Test in Hampshire near his parents’ home. The others were discussing a battalion football match. An Edinburgh unit who were coming into the line nearby contained the entire Heart of Midlothian professional team and had proved unbeatable.

The colonel’s batman brought brandy, and Stephen thought of the men in his platoon and the way they conjured cups of tea on tiny spirit stoves in damp trench walls. A sullen decorator called Studd used to fix a piece of cheese on his bayonet to entice the rats, then pull the trigger. Stephen felt that he was betraying them by eating and drinking in this elegant house, though in fact the men themselves believed you took what was available. They would barter and scrounge what they could in rest or in the line; food parcels were common property and a recent one addressed to Wilkinson, some weeks dead, had been the cause of particular celebration.

Stephen smiled to himself, aware that his brief flight from reality would soon be ended.

*

The battalion marched to a village called Colincamps. They sang on the road and swung their arms. It was a warm June day and the sun lit up the pallid green of the countryside. In the elms the rooks were calling dreamily, and in the plane trees and chestnuts was the constant sound of blackbirds and thrushes. The village was a babble of accents from Ulster, London, Glasgow, and Lancashire. The men overwhelmed the resources of the local families in their search for billets. They played football in the evening and their sweat awakened the memories of action in their unwashed, lice-filled clothes.

Stephen took his platoon to a barn where Gray was attempting to make a deal with a reluctant woman and her son. By nightfall they had got the men inside with clean straw and a hot meal from the mobile cooker.

That night the guns began. Stephen was reading a book by candlelight in the hayloft of the barn when he heard them. A howitzer was embedded not far behind and was shaking down the dust of centuries from the rafters.

The bombardment was not much to begin with; it was like a clearing of the throat, but the echoes went on and on over the soft downland, on a ringing bass note. When the echo was starting to become so deep it was no longer audible, another low boom could be made out in the continuous murmur of sound, then another, so that the walls of the barn began to tremble. Stephen could feel the vibrations run through the wooden floor of the loft. He pictured the gunners beginning to warm to their task, stripping off their shirts in the deep-dug emplacements, pressing the protective wax deeper into their ears. He was awed by the sound the guns were making; so many of them in rolling sequence on a line of sixteen miles, the heaviest providing the continuous rumble like a sustained roll of timpani, and the lighter adding unpredictable pattern and emphasis. Within an hour the whole line was pouring out shells, filling the night sky with a dense traffic of metal. The noise was like thunder breaking in uninterrupted waves.

There was some consolation to be taken from the evident power of the bombardment, though none at all from the scale of the conflict it portended. Stephen felt that the odds had been dramatically increased; there seemed to be no question any longer of escape or compromise; it was only a matter of hope, that his own side should prove stronger than the enemy.

They stayed in Colincamps for two more days before moving off toward the front line.

“Won’t be long now, sir,” said Byrne, grinding out his cigarette and taking his place next to Hunt. “I never thought you’d be with us when you went down in that tunnel.”

“Nor me neither,” said Hunt. “I wish we’d all bloody well stayed underground.” Stephen smiled. “You didn’t much like it at the time. Never mind. This’ll be different. Get Studd and Barnes over here, will you? Leslie, you’ve had two days to clean your rifle. Don’t do it when you’re just about to start marching.” The platoon fell in under the eye of CSM Price, who strutted from one edge of the ragged square to the other before taking instructions from Captain Gray. Price was the only man who seemed to know which cart track would take them to the right place and which long defile would ultimately bring them to their appointed position in the frontline trench. The countryside was shaking beneath their feet as the bombardment entered its third day.

The company had a nervous joie de vivre as it set off on the prepared road toward Auchonvillers. The traffic of ammunition and supplies was so heavy that the men were obliged to take a farm track across the fields.

Stephen felt his skin and nose begin to itch with the dust and seed that were blowing from the crops and hedgerows. Beneath their laden packs the men began to sweat, and the smell of them rose on the warm summer air. They sang marching songs with banal, repeated words of home. Stephen looked down at the ridge of grass along the centre of the track where the cartwheels had not pressed. He thought of the generations of farmers who had worked their way along it on such clear summer days.

As they rounded a corner, he saw two dozen men, naked to the waist, digging a hole thirty yards square at the side of the path. For a moment he was baffled. It seemed to have no agricultural purpose; there was no more planting or ploughing to be done. Then he realized what it was. They were digging a mass grave. He thought of shouting an order to the men to about turn or at least to avert their eyes, but they were almost on it, and some of them had already seen their burial place. The songs died on their lips and the air was reclaimed by the birds.

They moved in silence, back on to the prepared road and down into Auchonvillers. Everything had changed in readiness for battle. The café where he had had lunch with the Azaires had been converted into a temporary hospital. On the main street of the village, flanked by piles of hay and carts full of animal feed, Colonel Barclay was sitting on a bay horse with shiny, barrelled flanks. As the companies formed a square and stood in silence, gazing at him, he coughed and told them what they had guessed, but had not until then officially known. He looked like a character from comic opera with his attempted grandeur and indolently snorting horse.

“You are going to attack. I know you’ll be relieved to hear it because that’s what you’ve come for. You are going to fight and you are going to win. You are going to inflict such a defeat on the enemy that he will never recover. You can hear the artillery going to work on his defences. The bombardment will stop tomorrow and you will attack. The enemy will be utterly demoralized. His defences have been shattered, his wire is cut, his dugouts are obliterated. I confidently expect that only a handful of shots will be fired at you. The enemy will be relieved to see someone to whom he can surrender.”

He overcame an initial nervousness that made him bark. His enthusiasm and simple belief in what he said was communicated to the men. Some of the younger ones began to shed tears.

“However, I have to warn you that you must be extremely careful about accepting any such surrender. My instructions from the chief of the General Staff are that it lies with the enemy to prove his intention to surrender beyond possibility of misunderstanding. If you have any doubts, then I think you know what to do. The bayonet remains in my view an extremely effective weapon.

“I need hardly remind you of the glorious history of this regiment. We acquired our nickname, the Goats, in the Peninsular War, when we proved our worth in rocky terrain. We did not retreat; and the Duke of Wellington himself commended our bravery. I can say to you no more than this: that you must honour the memory of those men who bore the colours before you. In your conduct in battle you must be worthy of the great deeds of this regiment’s history. You must strive to win for your families, for your king and your country. I believe you will do so. I believe we shall take dinner in Bapaume. God bless you all.”

An outbreak of cheering was instantly quelled by the military police, who began to shout a list of instructions to each company. The strictest discipline would be enforced. Any man shirking his duty would be shot on the spot. There would be no questions in the heat of battle. As the men’s enthusiasm faltered, the police concluded with a list of men who had been executed for cowardice. “Kennedy, Richard, desertion in the face of the enemy, executed; Masters, Paul, disobeying an order, executed… “

Stephen turned his head from the sound of the list, looking at the baffled, fear-filled faces of Hunt, Leslie, and Barnes. Tipper, the boy who had been carried screaming from the trench, had been brought back just in time, with the same vacant expression. Even Byrne’s long, sanguine features had gone pale. Many of the men had the look of questioning boys, torn between excitement and a desire to be back with their mothers. Stephen closed his ears to the sound.

“Simpson, William, desertion, executed… “