***
The sun was warm on the back of his neck. At first he thought he was back at High Wood. Then he realised he was crouching barefoot in the shallows of the river that ran along the bottom of his parents’ property. The silt from the riverbed squelched up between his toes. He looked down at his feet and hands and was surprised at how small and smooth they were. He saw that he was a boy, innocent and unblemished, and felt a swoop of happiness.
The breeze soughed through the hazel trees. Soon the nuts would be good enough to eat. He could pick them off while they were still green, before the squirrels got them, and crack them between his teeth. On the opposite bank the old weeping willow trailed its branches in the water. He noticed all these small things and was deeply contented.
He was trying his best to keep still, standing a few feet out from the river’s edge, looking out for the tell-tale fin, the quick curl of a tail that would make his whole body tauten. Dixon, his parents’ gardener, was schooling him in the art of tickling trout. He made it look so easy. Now Robert wanted to try it on his own, prove that he had the skill and patience, like a proper countryman. He waited, watching the water. Everything was quiet and still.
‘Caught anything yet?’
Robert looked up, surprised. A man was standing on the riverbank, silhouetted against the sun. Robert shaded his eyes, but it was impossible to make out the man’s face.
‘Not yet,’ he said, a little shyly.
The stranger struck a match. A few seconds later, Robert smelled the smoke from his cigarette. It was strong, the sort of cigarette that Dixon would smoke, or the men who delivered meat and groceries to the kitchen door, with their rolled-up sleeves and flat caps.
‘You have to go a bit further out,’ said the man. His boots creaked. ‘How do you know a fish isn’t there already, under that rock? If I was a fish, that’s exactly where I’d be on a hot day like this.’
‘You know about catching fish?’
The man pulled on his cigarette. ‘I know many things.’ He nodded towards the rock. ‘Go on, don’t be afraid. You have to go a bit deeper yet.’
‘Well… all right then.’ Robert rolled up his flannels and waded further out.
‘That’s it,’ said the man. ‘Keep your hands low. Make a pincer movement. Close your eyes and feel your way. You must be gentle, just like you’re caressing a woman, working your way slowly up her thighs. Don’t let her know your true intentions, though!’ He laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh.
‘I say, who are you?’ Robert ventured. ‘Do my parents know you’re here?’
‘Go on, that’s it. Slowly now, feel your way. Is it a fish, or something else? If it’s a fish, you need to rub its belly. Gently, very gently.’
He realised the man had an accent but didn’t know what it was. ‘I don’t think it’s a fish,’ Robert said.
‘There are plenty of fish,’ the stranger said. ‘You just can’t see them. Go a bit further out.’
‘But it’s deep. Dixon says I mustn’t go beyond these rocks.’
‘Do you want to catch a trout, boy, or not?’
Tentatively, Robert waded further out, the water now nudging at his thighs. He’d never been out this far. The current was surprisingly strong. There were more rocks submerged under the water.
‘That looks like a good spot,’ said the man.
Robert bent down, immersed his arms once again and waited. Then:
‘I think I’ve got one!’ he called out.
‘Bravo! You see? Didn’t I tell you that patience would pay off? All right, now start to rub its underbelly. Gently, ever so gently. It’s like trying to catch hold of a bar of soap in the tub. Work out which way around it is. Then slowly move your hands up towards its head. Tighten your grip around his gills, finger by finger, and then he’ll be yours.’
The water shuddered. ‘I… I can’t quite catch hold of it,’ Robert called.
‘Come on,’ said the stranger. ‘Concentrate. There’s no feeling quite like catching your quarry with your bare hands. When you’ve got hold of it, put your thumb in its mouth and give its head a good crack back. Break its neck, Robert.’
‘I’ve got it! Wait.’ Robert looked up. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘Oh, we’ve met before.’ The man laughed. ‘You just don’t remember. Well then! That’s a fine-looking fellow you’ve got there.’
Robert looked down. But saw that, instead of a fish, he was holding a severed arm, the hand a rigid claw, the nails blackening before his eyes. It was bleeding profusely. He screamed and dropped the monstrous thing back into the water, where it bobbed sickeningly between his legs, the black hairs across the forearm scraping against him.
The man laughed. ‘Don’t be daft, boy! It’s just a bit of offal is all.’
Robert tried desperately to clean off the blood but saw, horrified, that the whole river was now turning scarlet. And meanwhile the riverbed was shaking beneath his feet. The water was coming faster and faster. He struggled to stay upright, bracing his legs apart. If he so much as lifted a foot, he would fall in.
‘Please, help me!’ he called to the man.
‘I can’t help you.’ The man came out from the shadows and for the first time Robert saw his face. ‘No one can help you now.’
With a sickening lurch, Robert saw that it was the young Bavarian soldier he’d killed near Loos, the lower part of his face shot away and his tongue hanging to one side, tattered and useless. Behind him stood other men. Not Germans, though, but Robert’s own men – all the men of his platoon who’d gone west, many of whom had died on his watch. And there was Bray, and Fleming too, tenderly holding his guts like a mother cradling her newborn baby, Geoffrey Carew – and even the Old Man, who’d been blown to bits back at High Wood; Robert could smell his pipe. They all looked at him incuriously, their eyes not so much angry as resigned.
‘Please,’ Robert called, choking with fear. ‘I’m just a boy!’ The water was turning dark, thickening, becoming a hideous slick of mud and human body parts. And rats the size of dogs.
‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ the young German sighed. ‘We were all boys once.’
The deluge lifted Robert off his feet and tipped him over. They all stood on the bank, watching impassively as the filth forced its way into his mouth, his nose and down his throat.
Then, in the middle of his agony, he heard her voice, soft at first, but then clearer, calling him back to everything that was pure and good.
He sat up in bed, choking the air back into his lungs, heart galloping, the black tentacles of the dream loosening. It was very dark. He could just about make her out, perched on the edge of his bed.