The Dardanelles Conspiracy Alan Bardos (reading a book txt) 📖

his hand away from the parapet. A split second later it exploded in a puff of sand.

‘Watch it, sir, that bloody jacket doesn’t make you immune to every sniper’s bullet,’ Williams said, taking a swig from his rum jar.

Johnny realised that he was shaking again and threw away the rest of his bully beef. He took his tin of charms out of the right hand breast pocket of his jacket. He ran his fingers over the bomb fragment and could smell the violet scent of Libby’s letter. Although it was Staff Nurse Lee-Perkins’s letter that he wanted to see, now he’d proved her wrong and come through everything.

He tried to read it in the fading light, but couldn’t focus. Moments he’d scarcely noticed during the day came back to him, with disturbing clarity. The metallic taste of the sea turning red, the sand in his teeth, the shock on Winterbottom’s face when he was shot, the fresh smell of thyme when he rolled over the cliff, and the groans of the Turkish officer and the crunch of his ribs under Johnny’s boot.

‘Here, drink this.’ Williams passed Johnny his rum jug.

‘I tell you, Williams, if I can survive today, I can survive anything.’ Johnny drank a shot of the rum and passed it back.

Williams chewed for a moment, savouring his iron rations, as he considered that. ‘If you say so, sir. You should know, being an officer and all, but I’d say that this is going to be a long old war with plenty more opportunity for a brash young Englishman to get himself killed.’

Johnny opened a tin of apple and plum jam for want of something better to do, and retched at its rancid stench. ‘I really can’t tell you how much I missed all this, when I was in Constantinople, eating delicacies fit for a Pasha.’

He put the jam on the parapet in front of him. A line of large ants began to swarm over it. A familiar roar cut through the peaceful twilight, rooting Johnny to the spot. A 5.9 shell detonated in front of the trench, shooting a shrapnel ball through the parapet, smashing the jam tin and hitting Johnny in the chest.

Johnny struggled to breathe and closed his eyes not wanting to see the wound, as Williams examined him.

‘It looks like I won’t survive today after all,’ Johnny said stoically.

‘Hey, boys, take a look at this,’ Williams called to the other Fusiliers, who promptly laughed. ‘Don’t worry, sir, you weren’t tempting fate.’

‘I’m glad you’re finding this so amusing Williams. I’ve got a bloody great hole in my chest,’ Johnny managed to get out as his ribs began to throb.

‘Oh come now, boy bach, you can stop shamming. It didn’t even break the skin. Your jacket’s not much good at warding off shrapnel balls, but that bloody little box of tricks of yours probably saved your life,’ Williams commented in his typical melancholy manner. Then passed Johnny the tin and helped him up against the side of the trench.

The front of the tin had been bashed in a bit, but everything inside was alright. Johnny took out Gabrielle’s letter. He needed to read it now more than ever. He put the tin in his left hand jacket pocket, as the right hand one now had a shrapnel hole in it.

‘You’re a lucky bugger and no mistake,’ Boil, the signaller, said sullenly.

‘It’s the jacket, not me.’ Johnny had made Boil stand up and signal a report to the support ships, relaying the information Kurt had given him. The only way Boil would do it was if Johnny lent him his jacket. They didn’t receive an acknowledgment and the second time Boil tried to send it a sniper shot at him.

‘Reckon you’re right, sir,’ Boil agreed, ‘good jacket that, did for me anyways.’

Johnny smiled weakly and tried not to shake. Now that he knew he wasn’t dying the shock that he might have been started to come on. He took a deep breath and felt Gabrielle’s letter in his hand.

‘This does have a feeling of déjà vu though doesn’t it, sir?’ Williams pondered. He could still make ‘sir’ sound like a term of disrespect.

‘Why’s that?’ Johnny asked.

‘Well, this was supposed to be the second front that would open the back door of Europe and end the war and here we are sitting in a bloody trench, eating this muck exactly the same as we were in Flanders. Only this time the neighbours aren’t as friendly.’

Johnny knew he was right. This operation had already failed in its objectives, but as Williams quietly began to hum his hymn, Johnny consoled himself with the thought that at least he had done all he could to make a good show of it.

‘The views better than Flanders though.’ Johnny pointed at the bright purple sunset, filling the sky above the Aegean.

‘I’ll give it that much, sir,’ Williams agreed.

‘And at least we’re not wet and muddy,’ Johnny said.

‘What I wouldn’t give to be wet now. Oh, but for a glass of water, sir,’ Boil chipped in.

‘No indeed, I suppose I had better go and see about that.’ They hadn’t received fresh water all day and Johnny wondered if he should have paid more attention to water containers when he was in headquarters.

Johnny instinctively listened for the shriek of a 5.9 before standing up and was immediately knocked down by a violent kick in the chest, which was followed by a sharp pain. Williams swore and started to fuss around him once again. Johnny looked up at the purple sky and wondered if his life was fading away. He panicked struggling to breathe, feeling the grip of the Turk he’d fought with, around his neck.

‘Lucky bastard, clean through and through.’ He realised Williams was forcing a morphine tablet down his throat. ‘Cheer up, at least it’s not