by Thomas Wood
He toyed with the Captain for half a second more, enjoying immensely the small amount of power that he suddenly seemed to have. He had captivated us all.
Then, just one word came from his lips. One that we all recognised and feared immensely.
“Sturmtruppen.”
Stormtroopers.
12
I had always wondered what I was going to think about when my time to die was nearly upon me, but it still surprised me nonetheless that I was thinking of my family once again. It was more the guilt over the fact that I still had not written that letter to my sister, the one that I had been promising myself to write ever since I had walked out of the front door of the family home.
If I was to be truthful with myself, it was more because I had absolutely nothing to say to her anymore. How could I tell her about what I had been doing since I had returned when she more than likely simply wanted to know that I was safe? In all likelihood whatever it was that I really wanted to say would simply be erased by the serial censors that my letter would have to pass through, before being allowed on its way.
I thought that the whole thing seemed ever so slightly pointless. But still, I should at least write to let her know that I was still alive.
You’ll have to start writing soon. Otherwise it will be too late.
I tried to refocus my mind on the situation at hand, as I had begun to drift off in my attention, which was incredibly dangerous, considering the predicament that we were in.
We could try and make a dash for our lines before they got to us, which might result in a hot pursuit that would end up with us riddled with holes from bullets on both sides. It was still a possibility, but one that I knew was dwindling the longer that we left it to try and identify the shadows.
“Over there, movement.”
It was Hamilton who had spotted them, his crystal-clear diction working wonders to my battered and assaulted eardrums. I followed his finger, hoping that what it was he pointed at was much further away than it was.
Blimey. They’re getting close.
They moved slowly, as one large mass, crouching and crawling into shell holes and behind bits of debris every now and then. At this rate, they would be on top of us in less than a minute. We needed to deal with them, and quickly.
Lawrence and Chester suddenly began to squirm around in their places, their rifles twitching as if they were as nervous as their handlers.
“How many of them are there? I can’t see. I can’t tell.” Lawrence was getting agitated, the sweat dripped from his hairline now beginning to wash away the heavy layers of black that he had plastered all over himself. He was really nervous.
What had happened to him before? Where had the knife wound come from?
“Calm down, Lawrence. Be quiet. Just stay still.”
I was glad that Captain Arnold had somehow relocated his marbles, now asserting the authority that had been expected of him in the first place. It wasn’t just the orders that we craved but the physical presence, the one where we could feel him standing there with his shoulders upright and chest puffed out. His confidence rubbed off on us all.
Still, no one seemed to know what to do, despite the vicarious confidence that we had all benefitted from. Not even the Captain seemed to have any ideas. But he quickly locked himself in his own mind again, trying to recall anything from history that he possibly could that might help him in the slightest.
He would need to work quickly, as we really did not have long at all until we would be surrounded.
“What do we do?” asked Lawrence, apprehensively.
He was beginning to frustrate me, a seasoned Sergeant who should have known better than to put the wind up the younger and less experienced men around him.
“Should we take them? I have one that I could take now,” rasped Chester, excitedly. These two boys really wanted the fight to be over and done with before it was on their doorstep. But it was simply not feasible now. We were going to have to think of something else.
The only thing that I could think of was engaging the enemy troops, while one man alone tried to make his way back to the British line. We had all of the information that had been requested of us, but if all of us were to perish in the farmhouse then the whole thing would have been futile.
If only one man made it back, then we could turn this defeat into something of a success.
But I could see that Captain Arnold had different ideas about what we were going to do. As always, he wanted to stand his ground and fight. In his eyes, we were still far away from completing what it was we had set out to achieve. He still wanted to get back in their line and steal a canister, before it was too late.
He had a strange and uneasy optimism about him.
The German cleared his throat once again, making us all jump in unison. I was surprised to see that he was now perched at the wall, without a weapon, but otherwise adopting exactly the same position as his enemies had done.
“You should use me as bait. They will come if they know that I am here. That way you can have them all in one place. It will make it easier for you. You will likely make it home that way.”
We all stared at him in complete disbelief for a few seconds, no one said anything.
“Maybe not home,” he said, his trembling voice correcting himself, “but safety, at the very least. That is what you want isn’t it?”
We looked at one another, for perhaps a little too long, trying to read one another’s minds, before I realised that we had advancing enemy troops directly ahead of us. I checked my gaze and refocused on the darkness in front of me. I could see no movement for the time being.
“Why are you helping us to kill your countrymen?”
He shrugged, “I do not care for them. There is only one person that I care about right now. And she is on her way to England. Please…take me with you.”
I did not know what to make of his proposal, as to me at least, he seemed quite slimy, as if he was the kind of person that would merely agree with the person who was pointing the biggest gun at his head. And, if that turned out to be the German patrol on its way to introduce themselves to us, then we would very much be in even more serious trouble than before.
“What do you think?” Captain Arnold whispered across to me.
“It is an option, Sir. It is one of the only ones that means we’ll be able to get back relatively safely…It does mean taking him back with us though.”
“Not necessarily,” he said coldly, making sure that the German had got the message.
Any funny business and you’re just another corpse.
“We can’t trust him, surely,” muttered Lawrence, his compatriot seemingly in complete agreement with him.
“He seemed sincere about this girl, Sir. If he remembers that we are the only ones that can help him get to England, then I’m sure he’ll play along.”
The Captain gave it a brief thought, “You do realise that you will be arrested as soon as you get into our lines? You will spend the rest of the war in a prison camp?”
“But at least I will be safe. I will be one step closer to finding her again.”
There was an uneasy silence, where all of the conflicting views suddenly began to clash in the air above the Captain’s head. It all fell on his shoulders to make the call, whatever he said, we would do. But I was still ever so slightly concerned that, in his mind, we weren’t finished yet. He was still trying to find a way of getting back to the enemy frontline.
Eventually, he must have thought better of it.
“Okay,” he grumbled. “Okay. You have a deal. But we will kill you the moment we get wind of anything that isn’t as we agreed. Understood?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“So…what do you suggest?”
Maas began to shuffle around, as if he was about to retell a story that his mother had relayed to him years ago. He was finally beginning to enjoy himself.
“Leave me in here, towards the rear of this building and let me call out to them. I will say that I am w
ounded and was left here by you lot. All you have to do is let them come in to get me and then wipe them out the minute they’re all inside.”
“What do you reckon?”
I did not like the way that Captain Arnold was continually asking me of my opinion, as in truth, I did not have one. I did not have a clue as to what to add to this discussion. Neither, it seemed, did anyone else.
I shrugged, “I don’t see any other way out. They know we’re here. We’re going to have to tackle them eventually. Might as well be on our own terms.”
“It means that we won’t be able to go back into their lines.”
“That is your call, Sir.”
There was a slight delay, “Okay, let’s do it. Let’s set it up. Lawrence you keep watch out front. Keep your head down. And you,” he pointed accusingly at Maas, “I’ll be standing right here, the first round is reserved for your head if I get a whiff of anything off.”
“What is a whiff?”
“Everyone else, in the corners. Stay still. We do this as quietly as we can. Revolvers only if absolutely necessary.”
I watched as Maas began to drag himself across the ground, before propping himself up on the smallest wall possible, that once upon a time must have stood proudly at least eight feet tall. As he winced and pulled himself around, I caught a few syllables of his prayer-like whisper once again.
“Für dich, mein Geliebter…für dich…”
I did not understand a word that he was saying, but it did not sound like he was praying to any God, but to someone who meant far more to him than anything that I could understand.
The girl must have meant an awful lot to him, as I watched him grab the gaping wound that had opened up on his lower leg from his own barbed wire, before squeezing it on either side, so much that I thought he would pass out.
The blood spilled out faster than if he had upended a bucket of water, before he practically collapsed into the wall as he released his skin. Blood had gushed all around him, leaving a far greater amount than he had needed to.
I looked across in the darkness towards the Captain, who was standing there, as equally dumbfounded and full of admiration.
At least he was committed.
Hopefully that was a sign of things to come. Hopefully he was on our side now. Hopefully.
My eyes fell on Hamilton, who was already staring at me, as if he was trying to tell me something from the other side of the ruins.
I put my thumb up towards him and mouthed “You okay?”
He stared at me, statuesque for a moment and just as I was about to move over to him to check up on him, I got a trembling nod of the head. He didn’t look all that convinced with himself.
He was a good soldier, but I wasn’t sure if he actually knew it or not. He was a hard worker, one that always wanted to know answers to his newfound questions and to adapt to whatever situation he was in.
He possessed a courage that I thought was unequalled by any man that was currently with us, superseded only by McKay, who was now paying the price for a slight anomaly in his bravery.
I thought about his father for a few seconds and wondered if it was really true that he did not know where his son was. I was sure that a man of his standing would work out that his housemaid’s son had still not signed up and would start to ask questions.
How long could a housemaid’s son last against the interrogation of a man of such high stature?
Maybe he was proud of his boy, the one that had been so desperate to join up that he had joined the ranks, where he knew he would see a decent amount of the action. But, then again, surely a father would want his son to survive as long as possible, in which case there would have been no way that he would have joined our team. His father couldn’t have had a clue.
I hoped he did find out soon enough, as I wanted Hamilton to be recalled by his father. I had started to like him far too much to see him dead under my jurisdiction.
“Maas. Now. Do it.”
He nodded, before calling out.
“Hilfe. Bitte hilf mir…Hilfe…”
13
Maas continued to call out to his comrades, but I had no knowledge of whether or not they were responding to him at all. Maybe they had direct orders to ignore such a call and go straight after the British intruders that they were hoping to come across.
“Meine Freunde…ich bin hier drüben…Die Engländer haben mich hier gelassen.”
He spoke confidently and without the trembling and crackling that I had got used to in the last twenty minutes or so. He seemed like he was happy with what it was he calling out.
I began to wish that McKay was with us, as he would have known exactly what it was Maas was calling out. He would have known the exact moment to have pulled the trigger, even before Maas said something that he shouldn’t have done.
For all we knew, Maas was telling them that we were here, how we were armed and exactly where we were hidden. He might have even been telling them to head back to their lines and call for more artillery, we were simply in the dark.
I thought of McKay some more, trying to work out what it was he might have been doing around about now. I looked at my watch. It was three twenty-six in the morning. Sleeping in all likelihood.
But then I wondered how easy it would be for a man to get some rest like that, when he knew that his court martial was looming over his head, now just a matter of hours away from starting. I hoped that he had had a change of heart, and that he wasn’t happy in just resigning himself to a firing squad.
McKay had been born and brought up a fighter. He deserved to go down fighting if he could help it. There was not a thought that I detested more in the world at that moment in time than picturing McKay being led out at dawn, his arms bound and tied, before staring down a firing squad.
No man deserved to die like that. There was no such thing as cowardice when you had fought as bravely as McKay had done in the past.
The German began to call out, as confidently as ever, the false strain that he put into his voice just about convincing me that he was still feigning a far greater injury than the one that he possessed.
“Kommst du? Bitte helfen!”
But then, everything changed in a flash. Everyone heard it and, at the noise, everyone’s muscles tightened dramatically.
“Ja…Bleib ruhig…Dummkopf.”
I was sure that Lawrence had been the first to have heard it, the one that had been closest to the source of the voice. He peered over the top of the ruins, just enough so that only his eyes and forehead would be visible if a light was suddenly shone on him, even his rifle down by his side now to conceal himself for a precious few seconds longer.
Then, there was silence. An eternal one that felt like it was daring us to break it. But I was determined to keep a hold on it just for a few more seconds.
I wanted to try and enjoy my last few moments of life. But then, I heard one of the boots slip on a piece of rubble.
They were here. We were about to find out if Maas had kept his side of the bargain.
14
There was no real way of knowing whether or not Maas had been true to his word, but before too long, the sounds of boots on broken walls became even louder than they had before. They were inside the confines of the old farmhouse.
I held my breath and looked to the stars, as if they could give me some guidance or good fortune and everything else in between. They glistened defiantly behind the man-made curtain of dust that was slowly thinning out and turning to nothing more than wispy clouds.
It was odd to look at the stars, hundreds of thousands of miles away, and realise how small I would be in comparison to just one of them. And yet, they appeared so small, so insignificant, to my human eye.
It made me think of McKay and his trial, as I realised that to me, and most other people, the hearing was nothing more than a formality. But to McKay, this was the biggest thing in his life, it would decide his fate. I would be sad if McKay was sentenced to death, but I would still be aliv
e. I would live, I would be happy again, I would still feel things. McKay would stop being. He would no longer breathe, no longer speak, no longer exist.
But then again, I supposed the same could be said of me in the next few minutes. Who knew what was about to happen?
My breath was still sucked in and threatening to make my whole head explode, but the tension suddenly dissipated when I saw a figure skulk past me, quite unaware and careless, his only eyes for the German soldier who had now feigned a moment of unconsciousness.
I waited and waited, as the German made his way over to Maas and began to check for his vital signs of life. His breathing, his pulse, the warmness of his skin.
Another figure passed inches in front of my face, so transfixed on Maas that he did not even notice the stench of my skin. He must have just put it down to all the corpses that were littered around the place.
Then another and another, until there were no less than four bodies standing around Maas, each of them trying something different to revive him. I hoped that he continued to play dead until we had decided that the moment was right, otherwise we could be found out before we were ready.
In the accentuated darkness, I could see the whites of the Captain’s eyes, glowing in the darkness. I was suddenly filled with an intense warmness, as I saw that the embers behind his eyes had changed and were now roaring with the intensity of a newly lit fire.
We stared at each other for a few moments more, as I waited for his eyes to tell me something, to urge me to action. But nothing came. Not yet anyway.
I could hold my breath for no longer, as it felt like my whole body was about to explode under an almighty pressure wave.
I slowly let the breath escape from my mouth, consciously limiting myself, in case I released it all in one almighty gasp.
Crack.
Cra-Crack.
Three blasts, all of them from rifles, all of them from the British Lee-Enfield.
That acted as the only starter pistol that we required, as we each began to pick a target and make our way towards them.