To play their part in the ‘Big Push’ the 94th Brigade, of which he was a very small part, would cross No-Man’s-Land and capture Serre, a heavily fortified village and an intimidating German stronghold. Prior to their walk into No-Man’s-Land there would be several days of heavy bombardment by the Artillery, to cut through the German wire and weaken the frontline trenches. The first wave of British troops would then walk some one hundred and fifty yards across No-Man’s-Land, capture the first four lines of the German trenches in front of Serre, stay there and strengthen their position. The following waves would pass over them and drive the Germans out of Serre. This would then make way for the mighty Fourth Army to crush any German resistance.
‘It all sounds so simple and straightforward,’ Jude said sarcastically to the man sitting next to him when the officer stepped down from the platform.
‘I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been in a battle afore,’ his companion replied lugubriously.
‘Me neither,’ said Jude, sounding equally doleful. ‘Our lot had four days’ training up at Gezaincourt, that place where the Royal Engineers have made a model of Serre for us to practise on. Four days’ training for the first real fight I’ve ever been in.’
‘We got ten. You were unlucky.’
‘Aye, fighting in t’pub or on t’pithead doesn’t prepare you for this sort o’ thing.’ Had Jude known this was the biggest battle the British Army had ever faced he might have felt even less prepared.
‘I only joined because o’ Kitchener,’ said a young lad of no more than seventeen.
‘And now he’s dead and gone to the bottom of the ocean, torpedoed off the Orkneys aboard HM Hampshire,’ a knowledgeable-looking lad remarked.
‘I blame it on those flashing blue eyes and that pointing finger,’ said Jude. ‘That’s what brought me here.’
‘What day is it?’ asked a forlorn little voice to Jude’s rear.
Over his shoulder, Jude replied, ‘Thursday, the 29th of June.’
A short while later, several lusty speeches were delivered by those in command, but to be told that they were about to fight in the greatest battle in the world, and in the more just cause, did not ring with confidence in Jude’s ears. The words, ‘Keep your head, do your duty and you will utterly defeat the enemy’ made more sense, for these words he understood. Working down the pit, he was used to counteracting the long hours of toil with camaraderie to keep up his spirits but in between laughing off the hardships was the ever-present sense of duty; one man’s life depended on another’s vigilance. He knew how to keep his head in a crisis.
Darkness fell, the distant boom and crash of gunfire mingling with the wood’s night noises. For a while, Jude lay listening to the scrabbling of a small creature close to his head. Most likely a rat, he thought, sitting quickly upright. Then, to ease the tension of endless waiting, he oiled and then re-oiled his rifle bolt. The ‘Crown and Anchor’ lads had unfurled their little squares of linen and were out to make a few bob but Jude was not tempted. He wandered to the edge of the clearing and leaned against the gnarled trunk of a tree whose name he did not know. He thought about the trees in the woods at home, beech, oak and chestnut and remembered the day he had collected conkers with Amy and Kezia. In his mind’s eye he saw their happy faces and he thought he heard their laughter as they’d kicked up the carpet of gold and russet leaves in search of the spiky, green balls. They’d do it again when he got home – if he got home.
Saddened by the thought, he slumped down on his hunkers and withdrew a tattered copy of ‘The Riddle’ from his knapsack. Losing himself in the thrill of espionage, he eventually fell asleep.
The following evening, the 30th of June, the 94th Brigade moved up to the front. They trekked along muddy paths that led from Warnimont Wood to the assembly points in the trenches, and Serre. The long, straggling lines of men weighed down with a conglomeration of equipment reminded Jude of the tinkers who travelled the roads at home, the rhythmic clanking and clunking of mess tins against haversacks like jangling harness and pots and pans. Their bodies were like hat stands in busy hotel foyers, hung with entrenching tools, gas masks and shovels and their pockets bulging with Mills bombs; everything but the kitchen sink.
Jude slipped and slithered along the waterlogged tracks, attempting wherever possible to avoid the murky pools of water that were deep enough to cover his putees. He wore the yellow armband that denoted him as a wire cutter. The bright yellow band was not a mark of superiority, merely a marker; a marker that would make the wearer more visible if and when he fell. In such an event his comrades could spot him more easily and retrieve the wire cutters for future use.
‘It’s a bugger to think that these wire cutters are considered more valuable than the man himself,’ Jude had said angrily when the NCO explained the purpose of the band. Even so, he understood the logic.
The man marching ahead of him shouldered a Bangalore Torpedo as well as his standard equipment. An hour into the journey and he swore his right arm and shoulder had lost all feeling. The men carrying Vermoel sprays huffed and puffed behind him. ‘Hey up, do you think you can do summat about black spot? It played havoc wi’ my roses last year,’ the Bangalore carrier asked them, amused by the idea that a spray used to kill greenfly had now been adapted to neutralise the effects of chlorine gas.
Jude trudged doggedly in line, his body and brain an automaton, and as the hours slipped by and his feet kept moving, his brain repeated again and again the strategies he would soon turn into actions. Nine hours later he filed into Rolland trench along with the rest of the lads in ‘B’ Company; nine hours to cover a journey of no more than six miles. It was just after 5 a.m. Jude sat down on the fire step, and oblivious to the rumble of big guns and the incessant screech of shot and shell, he slept.
Weary though he was, he might not have slept so easily had he been aware that the Artillery had failed to pulverise the German batteries, and had he known that the Germans were expecting him and his companions he would not have slept at all.
Several hours before the troops had trudged into the slimy morass of the assembly trenches a party of Hull ‘Commercial’ had cut lanes through the British wire to allow access to No-Man’s-Land. Shortly after that a party from the Sheffield City Battalion had crept out to lay lengths of white tape, intended to guide the lines of British troops to the German trenches once they had crawled through the wire. At first light, although the scrubland was veiled in a light mist, the swathes of cut wire and the bright white lines of tape were frighteningly visible to the enemy. As the Artillery continued their onslaught on the German batteries, the Germans, now fully aware that the British were coming, replied with a fusillade of shot and shell, pounding John Copse and the entire length of the front line behind which ‘B’ Company now waited.
Shortly before seven o’clock Jude was roughly shaken and brought back to his senses. Thinking he had slept for only a matter of minutes he was amazed to learn he had slept for almost two hours. Peering cautiously over the parapet of mud and sandbags he saw dense smoke drifting over Gommecourt Wood. This he knew was part of the distraction planned to draw German fire before the whistle blew at 7.30 a.m. and the first wave of infantry entered No-Man’s-Land.
He sat down again and rubbed his hands over his grizzled cheeks and shaven head, willing the blood to rush to his brain and keep him alert. He arched his neck as far back as he could until the top of his head rested on the mud wall of the trench, gazing up into a perfect summer blue sky. In a sudden lull between salvos he thought he heard a bird singing. Did it know that it was in the middle of a battlefield? Was it not afraid of being blown to kingdom come by a bloody German sniper? He was.
A massive explosion, rending the air asunder, abruptly broke his reverie. He leapt to his feet. Far to his right, he saw a mountain of soil flying heavenwards and felt the ground beneath him tremble and, as the mighty rumbling faded, he heard the increased rattle of German guns. He knew what had happened. The mine beneath Hawthorn Ridge had gon
e off: too early. He’d helped dig the tunnels for that mine. It shouldn’t have gone off until they were over the top, and here they were, still lying in the trenches waiting for the whistle to blow.
In the minutes that followed the thunderous fulmination, the Artillery ceased its rigorous bombardment of the German batteries and withdrew to allow the British troops to take the crater. With the cessation of heavy guns, a strange, uneasy quietness hung in the foul air. Jude thought he heard the same bird chirp its song. The calm was shattered as a Stokes mortar spluttered into action, immediately followed by the rattle of German machine guns. Jude lit what he thought might be his last cigarette and pulled deeply on it, enjoying the simple action of something so familiar and comforting.
A frisson of expectancy flurried along the trench, and a voice cried out, ‘Uphold the honour of the regiment as you go over the top.’
This is it, thought Jude. I’ve waited for this for two years and now it’s come I’m not sure what it was I waited for.
He hoisted his pack and the wire cutters, shuffling forward in the footsteps of men loaded down beneath the weight of their equipment. The whistle blew and a blur of bodies scrambled up the ladders. Jude followed suit, rolling himself over the top of the trench and making for the holes cut in the wire and out into the unknown territory that was No-Man’s-Land. Wave upon wave, men climbed, rolled and crawled out into the unforgiving landscape. Wave after wave, one hundred yards apart, they walked with rifles held at port arms, following orders not to charge, but to walk. Britain’s finest and Barnborough’s best, the very best, walked into the jaws of hell.
Following orders to keep the lines straight, Jude looked anxiously ahead then to right and left and behind. The chaos of zigzagging men all around him made him realise that there was no order, no tapes to outline the way, no one to call the tune: it was every man for himself. Head down, he kept going towards the German wire. That was the only order to follow. Get to the wire; get through it. Take the position.
Machine gun bullets hissed in the grass and the air was foul with the acrid stench of explosives. Ribby Atkins, a wiry little bloke struggling under the weight of a bag of Mills bombs, hurried alongside Jude. Jude reached out a hand to help him over a hazardous ridge raked up out of the scrub, but before he could make contact the piercing whine of a shell snatched Ribby away.
‘That one was too bloody close by half,’ grunted Jude to the man on his left, but he received no reply. Although the man was still on his feet the life had gone out of him several seconds before. What’s that they say? Jude contemplated as he ducked and dodged. If your name’s not on it, it’s not meant for you.
He struggled on, some of the time running low to the ground, at other times crawling over the scrub and several times half burying himself in earth gouged up by shell and mortar. He stumbled over the lower torso of some poor chap whose head and shoulders were gone. He thought he recognised the boots. Sammy Dawson could only ever get a shine on the left one, no matter how hard he spat and polished. He passed the inert bodies of fallen men, some he knew and some whom their own mothers wouldn’t recognise.
As he neared the German wire the ground exploded around him and searing fragments of hot metal rained down on him. He threw himself face down in a deep shell hole, rolling over onto his back as excruciating heat penetrated his lower leg. Swiping the burning area with the palm of his hand, a singed scrap of his trouser leg fluttered loose. Crossing his wounded right leg over the left he inspected the damage. A tiny fragment of shrapnel had burned its way through his trousers and was now stuck to the skin on the fat of his calf. He groped for his water bottle. The shard of metal sizzled and he flicked at it with his thumbnail, freeing it from his flesh. A livid indentation the size of his thumbnail glared angrily through the hole in his trousers. He fumbled in the top pocket of his tunic for a field dressing and clumsily attached it to the wound.
A movement to his right whisked away any thought of his injured leg. His rifle cocked, Jude turned to see Charlie Sykes crawling towards him wearing a half-crazed expression, his naturally prominent eyeballs bulging even more than usual. ‘You nearly had your chips, creeping up on me like that.’
Charlie’s teeth chattered as his lips tried to form words. Jude pulled him roughly down into the shell hole and they huddled together as the carnage continued. At last Charlie’s shuddering limbs and teeth stilled and he managed a sickly grin.
‘They never told us it ’ud be like this. They said Jerry ’ud be gone by t’time we got here.’ Charlie sounded as though he might cry at any moment.
‘Aye, and now we know they were lying because they’re still there, and what the bloody hell we’re supposed to do about, I don’t know. And the buggers have burned a hole in me trousers, never mind me bloody leg.’ He grinned at this last remark and Charlie grinned back.
‘I was coming to get the wire cutters. I saw t’yeller band on your sleeve before you went down,’ said Charlie, covering his shame with reason.
‘Right,’ said Jude, not wanting to doubt him. ‘In that case I suppose we’d better make a move before Mr Hitler spots us. We’ve been lucky so far but we can’t stay here all day. They’re expecting us for tea. Jerry’ll have boiled the kettle by the time we get there.’
Jude’s light-hearted banter boosting Charlie’s spirits, he laughed and raised two derogatory fingers. ‘They can keep their bloody tea,’ he said. ‘I’d piss in it.’
Jude grinned back at him, but his heart was full of pity for the boy. Sykesy’s only a young lad, he thought, as he adjusted the dressing on his leg. He can’t be more than eighteen, if that. He’s seen nothing of life yet, ’cos you can’t call this living.
‘Hey up,’ said Jude as they prepared to move out. ‘Look over there. It’s Ernie Snell an’ that big lad from Heaton.’ The sight of familiar faces added to their determination to carry on and together they crawled over to where their mates were crouched. Shortly afterwards they were joined by four other ‘pals’ from ‘C’ Company. Above them the fortress that was Serre stood proud and impenetrable. Covertly they neared the German wire.
Ernie Snell snorted. ‘It’s not been cut anywhere as far as I can see; there’s not a bloody break in it. What the hell wa’ all that about artillery cutting through t’wire afore we got here? They’ve hardly bloody touched it at this end.’
Jude appraised the wire in both directions. Thick tangles of impenetrable razor-sharp barbs stretched as far as the eye could see. Here and there the remains of khaki clad figures hung like last week’s washing, suspended from the tangles.
‘They didn’t have much luck getting through,’ croaked Charlie, tears choking his throat.
A maelstrom of bullets from a machine gun nest above their heads had them diving for cover. When the fusillade slackened, they bellied forward, Jude attacking the wire with the cutters. His arms and hands growing weary the others took their turn and soon a hole large enough for a man to crawl through appeared in the mesh. They looked at the hole and then looked at each other. Who would be the first to enter?
Before such a decision could be taken a volley of shots from a sniper’s rifle dispatched three of the lads from ‘C’ Company and seriously wounded the fourth. Seconds later the lad from Heaton took a direct hit in the head. With all the strength he could muster Jude rolled to his left, and scrambling to his feet darted for the cover of a shell hole some yards away, screaming for Snell and Sykes to follow him. Plunging into the shell hole, Jude landed on something warm and soft. It was the body of a young officer. He lay there as though he were sleeping, not a mark on him. Just as Jude was attempting to feel for a pulse in the handsome chap’s neck the breath was knocked out of him as Charlie landed on top of him, closely followed by Ernie Snell.
‘Bloody hell! Are you trying to kill me?’ gasped Jude. They wriggled apart, making space for each other. Jude was still partially lying on top of the officer.
‘Is he dead?’ asked Charlie. ‘He doesn’t look as though he is.’
The sun, now high in the heavens on what had turned into a glorious summer’s day, beat down on them unmercifully. A putrefied stench seeped through the trench. The officer had soiled his trousers. Jude threw handfuls of soil over the officer’s rear in an attempt to mask the sickening smell. They lay silent, not daring to raise their heads, not knowing what to do next. Out on the battlefield lay the dead and dying: husbands, fathers, brothers, nephews, cousins, sweethearts – loved ones all.
Through a haze of smoke, Jude watched as daylight faded into rosy pinks and yellows then fiery red. Under the dark canopy of a velvet sky streaked with purple and a handful of stars the screeching shells and frenzied clatter of guns seemed at odds with the tranquillity of the heavens. The guns fell silent, the screams and cries of wounded and dying men echoing eerily over No-Man’s-Land. Jude flinched at each desperate call and cursed his impotence. What could he do?
He calculated that dawn was some three hours away: three more hours before the light of a new day would peel away the blackness to reveal the horror of what lay out there; three more hours to hide under the cloak of darkness. Sitting upright, he fiddled with his putees and tightened the strap on his helmet. Shifting his bulk in the confined space so that he was on his knees he brusquely announced, ‘I’m going back the same way as I came and if you two want to join me, I’d appreciate your company.’
25
And so, as Jude crawled out of a shell hole in No-Man’s-Land, his sister, Beattie, wallowed in a pit of her own making in Barnborough. She was pregnant.
The Collier’s Wife Page 20