Harvest of War by Hilary Green Read Free Book Online

said.
    â€˜Don’t know about that, sir. Look at your tunic.’
    Tom looked down. His tunic was ripped across the shoulder and stained with blood, and when he tried to lift his hand a stab of pain went through him. The orderly efficiently cut away the remaining material, exposing a deep gash from which blood was oozing.
    â€˜That’s going to need proper attention, sir,’ the orderly said. ‘It needs stitching, and the bullet could still be in there. I’ll tell my CO.’
    He bandaged the wound tightly and a few moments later a captain, whose name Tom did not recall, came over to him.
    â€˜Can you get yourself back to the dressing station? We’re taking over here so all you chaps are being withdrawn. Bloody good show, incidentally! Do you think you can manage?’
    â€˜I expect so.’ Tom hauled himself to his feet. A steady stream of men was heading back down the hill towards the British lines, but it was a trickle compared to the flood that had swept the Germans aside. Bodies littered the ground and they had to pick their way over them. The Coldstreamers had paid a heavy price for their victory.
    Tom was never quite sure how he ended up at the dressing station. At some point he must have passed out, because he came round on a stretcher with a doctor bending over him. The doctor took a cursory glance at the wound and said to someone Tom could not see, ‘Not serious. He can wait.’
    He waited, the pain in his shoulder growing more insistent, until it seemed to consume his whole torso. Finally the doctor came back, probed the wound and pronounced it clear. He gave Tom a morphine injection, stitched the wound and put his arm in a sling.
    â€˜Right,’ he said. ‘I can’t see that that wound warrants sending you back home. The truth is, there are hundreds of men in a worse situation than you are. But you’ve lost a lot of blood so you need to take it easy. I’m going to send you back to Battalion HQ for them to decide what to do with you. If you’re up to it, there’s a car leaving in a couple of minutes that will take you.’
    Battalion HQ was in a ruined farmhouse a mile or so behind the lines. Tom reported to a corporal sitting at a table in what had once been the kitchen and was asked to wait. He sat in a kind of stupor, wondering vaguely how long it would be before someone offered him something to eat or drink. His throat was so parched he could barely speak.
    The corporal returned. ‘Major Malham Brown asks you to come this way, sir.’
    Ralph was sitting behind another table, spread with maps. He got up as Tom was announced and hobbled forward. Tom registered that his left foot was in a cast and he supported himself with a stick.
    Ralph grasped Tom by his good shoulder. ‘Tom! Dear God, what have you been doing with yourself? You look terrible. But you’re alive, that’s all that matters! I’ve been worried out of my mind.’ His voice broke. ‘I’m just so glad to see you!’
    Suddenly Tom’s legs buckled under him and he felt himself caught in Ralph’s arms. He pressed his face into Ralph’s shoulder and began to weep: silent, shuddering sobs that shook his body and tears that scalded his eyes and soaked into Ralph’s tunic.
    Above his head he heard Ralph murmuring, ‘What have they done to you? It shouldn’t happen like this. Not to you! I won’t have it. It’s got to be stopped.’
    At length the paroxysms of weeping exhausted themselves and Ralph led him to the side of the room, where a camp bed had been set up. They sat side by side, Ralph’s arm still round Tom’s shoulders.
    â€˜Look at you!’ he murmured. ‘You’re a walking skeleton. When did you last have a square meal, or a decent night’s rest – or a bath?’
    Tom shook his head. ‘God knows. I’ve been living like an animal for weeks. What about you? What happened to