by Peter Watt
The silence was no more as rifles and machine guns sowed the fields with a deadly crop of metal. Some of the advancing men fell as the bullets ripped through their bodies. Paul Mann felt no pity seeing the young men of another nation fall. He knew that they would not show his men any if they reached his lines. He prayed that the advancing Australian soldiers’ reputation did not affect his men. Germany was fighting for its very survival. Winter was once again coming to Europe and so too were the bitter winter snows to Munich. With the winter would come famine as the British naval blockade had not been broken.
Captain Jack Kelly also knew acute fear. He was known as one of the ‘fair dinkums’ by the men he commanded. A soldier who had enlisted after the heavy losses inflicted by the Turkish soldiers on the Australian and New Zealand troops in the Dardenelles at Gallipoli back in 1915, it had taken him some time to travel from the Australian administered territory of Papua where he had lived for some years to enlist in a New South Wales infantry battalion.
Since landing in France he had survived the battles of the Western Front to be promoted through the ranks from private to captain. His natural skills were acknowledged by an army that accepted leadership above authority invested in mere rank alone. Twice wounded, he had been recognised for his courage a year earlier with the Distinguished Conduct Medal and a bar added since then for further courage.
As he now advanced on the German trenches he once again experienced the dread that caused his hands to shake as they gripped the Enfield rifle tipped with a seventeen-inch bayonet. But his fear was more of letting his men down in the attack. This was his first battle as their company commander. His promotion was very recent, the result of his predecessor being killed a month earlier. Until then he had commanded only a platoon. Many of the senior non-commissioned men of the company were mates he had soldiered with as one of their own. His promotion had been popular as he had a reputation for knowing what he was doing in the worst situations. Jack’s colourful past as a gold prospector in the mysterious jungles of British Papua and German New Guinea had honed his abilities to turn things around. Initiative, toughness and a lot of luck had rubbed off onto the men who followed him into hell. He had an easy informal manner that belied his intense reading of tactical situations. He also had an animal instinct for danger that had helped keep the men around him alive. Before the war he had learned to listen to his instincts when living in territory inhabited by warlike tribesmen who sought human heads as trophies to display in the longhouses of their villages.
Jack Kelly stood an inch less than six feet tall and had the build of a finely tuned athlete. His sandy coloured hair had just the faintest first streaks of premature grey. For a man aged twenty-five this was not reassuring. But a consolation was that at least he still had his thick crop of hair, even though he kept it shaved close to his skull to deter the lice ever present on the battlefields. He was not dashingly handsome but had a strong face that inspired a sense of trust in men and willingness on the part of women to engage his company. A woman who met Jack Kelly instinctively knew that his face spoke of an intelligent and mysterious man who could be relied on for protection. But Jack’s was also a face that could have an unsettling effect. It was in his hazel eyes – a kind of faraway dreamy look that could suddenly turn cold and dangerous. He was a man who came with no guarantees of being around when the sun rose on a new day.
The German machine guns had been well placed to enfilade the approaches with a deadly crossfire, Jack noted, as he half crouched to check his map. But the Germans had little in the way of barbed wire to disrupt his infantry in the assault. What they did have had been cut in many places by the artillery although its tangles could still snare a man’s ankles. It must be a very forward position, he thought as he studied the ground ahead. They would have to be quick to engage the Germans before they could fall back to more fortified positions closing on the Hindenburg Line.
Jack had a great respect for the German soldiers. They were as brave as any and well trained. He even mused that maybe one or two of his mother’s family – his cousins – might be in the opposing force. Although his family name was Kelly his mother’s maiden name was Schulenburg. She had met his father in the colony of South Australia when she immigrated with her family from a little village on the Rhine to settle amongst the many German expatriates living in that colony. The German immigrants were growing some of the finest wine grapes in the world and had assimilated easily into Australian society with their reputation for hard work, honesty and warm hospitality. Mixed marriages were common and Jack Kelly was the result of Irish Celtic and Teutonic German blood.
Captain Jack Kelly’s task was to advance his company on the right flank of the attack. The battalion’s CO had decided to attack with all assaulting companies forward but one back in reserve. Jack watched as the forward companies began to take heavy casualties. With a touch of guilt, he was glad it was they and not his own men. But the forward company had gone to ground to return fire as they had rehearsed and he knew it was up to them now.
He raised a whistle to his lips and gave the signal for his platoons to cover the ground with fire and movement as they made the final attack. His lieutenants were to run the battle at their level. He would move with his small company headquarters group at the centre of the attack. They were only three hundred yards out from the line of trenches and Jack could see the face of the enemy.
Major Paul Mann kept his head low. The first line of enemy had gone to ground and were carefully sniping at anything above the level of the parapet. With deadly accuracy an enemy Lewis machine gun had temporarily knocked out the crew of one of his fast firing guns. The crew was quickly replaced and it now became a personal and almost grudging duel between machine gunners.
Paul cursed the new team. They had taken the fire off a company of infantry advancing on his left flank and were coming in fast despite the rifle fire that met them, causing significant casualties in their ranks. If the gun on the left flank did not engage this new company attack then the Australians might break through to within bomb range and their grenades cause havoc in the confinement of his trenches. He looked around desperately for a man to send a message to the gun crew engaged on the flank. But every man was firing desperately into the advancing enemies who were coming on with a terrifying and determined speed. He decided that he would get the message through himself and forced his way up the trench now littered with his dead and dying men. He did not reach the gun crew.
They were running and screaming curses now through a steady rain of spiralling German hand grenades. The tin-like bombs with the long handles could be thrown a greater distance than the dimpled, egg-shaped British Mills bomb before exploding in the ranks of attackers, spraying them with shrapnel.
Jack was screaming with his men as they reached the edge of the trenches. He was hardly aware that shrapnel had torn a long furrow along his arm. As in past attacks he had disassociated himself from his body and experienced nothing other then the blind savagery of a killing machine. Three hundred yards had taken a toll on his men but he had made it to the enemy trenches where the possibility of an impersonal death from bullets and shrapnel was replaced with the very personal form of killing known as hand to hand fighting.
The faces staring up at him were white blurs. Whether they reflected fear or hate was irrelevant as Jack fired point blank into them. Around him the survivors of the attack did the same. Screaming, shouting, grunting, the two forces met as the long bayonets were used to stab through the grey uniforms but the Germans fought back with desperate courage to hold their line.
Major Paul Mann did not see the hand grenade that had landed behind him in the trench. It had been fired from a device fitted to a rifle to further its range. All he remembered was something with the force of a mule knocking him to the ground where he lay in a daze of pain and semi-consciousness. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up under the eiderdown beside Karin in their big double bed, to smell the warmth of her milk white skin and breathe in
the sweat of their lovemaking. He wanted to cry for the futility of it all but the tears would not come. He had survived the long years of war despite the odds stacked against him but then his world went black and he knew the war was over for him. He had done his duty to his country as best as he could – only his family might not think that his duty was as important as having him come home alive.
Jack Kelly sensed that the handsome young soldier pointing the Luger pistol at him was an officer. They stood almost toe to toe and stared into each other’s eyes. ‘Drop it, my friend,’ Jack snarled in perfect German.
For a second the younger man seemed startled by his enemy’s good grasp of his language, but in the blink of an eye, Jack could see a pride that could get him killed. The young German had hesitated and Jack did not wait for a reply but lunged with the bayonet. His aim was true and the honed point took the German under the rib cage below the sternum. With a savage upward twist Jack caused the maximum amount of internal damage. The young officer attempted to scream but could only gasp in his agony. His eyes rolled and his legs buckled under him as he slid to the ground. The Luger fell from his hand as he died. Jack placed his foot on the chest of his enemy and with all his strength dragged the bayonet from the body without any remorse. Either him or me had always been his philosophy since he had first killed a man with his hands in a trench raid three years earlier.
‘Captain Kelly! Jack!’ a voice called to him. ‘The bastards have packed it in.’
Jack looked down at the dead man at his feet. ‘Sorry, Fritz,’ he muttered as the still pounding adrenaline surged through his body in waves at the news of the German capitulation in the trenches. ‘Just a bit late for you,’ he said in German, gazing down at the face of the young officer strangely serene in death.
The voice that had shouted the news down to the trench to him belonged to the company sergeant major, an old friend who had enlisted with him in Sydney, back in 1915. He was an Englishman and had once served with an elite British regiment as an officer but for reasons never spoken of had been forced to resign his commission. He had been in Sydney when the war in Europe broke out and had been in line behind Jack at a recruiting depot when he enlisted with the Australian army. Although he had been offered a commission because of his previous experience he had declined – and continued to decline as the war went on. But he had accepted the position of CSM when it had been offered by Jack who had never raised the issue of why George had resigned his commission. It was a friendship based on a respect for each other’s prowess as a soldier. George was an intelligent man who could discuss any subject from Greek drama to geological aspects of mining alluvial gold – the latter a subject near and dear to Jack’s heart.
The men of the company accepted the former British officer as their senior NCO because he knew what he was doing. And no one questioned George Spencer’s physical courage on the battlefield. He not only wore a DCM riband on his chest but also that of a Military Medal.
George was a tall and slightly stooped man in his late thirties. He had the fine features of an English aristocrat and always seemed to wear an expression of bemusement as if all that occurred around him was nothing more than a bad joke. But now that expression was gone and his face reflected the terror and relief of the past minutes – minutes that had seemed like years to the men who had survived the attack.
He stood in the trench briefing his company commander.
‘I’ve sent a runner to battalion headquarters to report the situation,’ he said, wiping his face with the back of a grubby hand. ‘We took more prisoners than casualties, Jack,’ he added to reassure his friend who had the blank look of a man not comprehending reality. George knew the responsibility of command ultimately balanced the books between how many would die and how much could be achieved in a battle. He did not envy Jack’s responsibility for the butcher’s bill to be tendered for human lives. ‘Looks like you took a hit yourself,’ he added. ‘I will get someone to look at it.’
‘Thanks, George,’ Jack replied in a tired voice. ‘But I can bind it myself. Didn’t even notice it until now so it mustn’t be too bad. Definitely not a blighty.’
The strain was showing but had held off until after they had taken their objective. Only Jack’s hands shook but he could hide them from an observer. He did not want to bind the wound until his sergeant major was out of sight. To do so now might reveal how badly his nerves were on edge.
‘We hold here until the brigade catches up?’ George queried. ‘Can I tell the men who are not engaged in immediate duties to stand down?’
Jack nodded. ‘Give the order to reinforce this trench in case Fritz decides to counter attack,’ he said as his world of command came back to him. ‘But between you and me, I don’t think they will. They seem to be falling back to their main lines. Guess that’s where they are going to chew us up as we advance.’
‘You realise, old chap,’ George said as the look of bemusement began to replace the expression of battle fatigue, ‘that the men we fought today are amongst the best regiments the Hun have left. And yet we were able to rout them. That has to say something about German morale at the moment. It may be possible that this war is almost at an end.’
Jack made a feeble attempt at a smile. ‘Your British generals have been saying that every year for as long as I can remember. This war is never going to end while their bloody incompetence rules.’
The sergeant major did not reply. Although he had enlisted in the Australian army, the generals Jack disparaged were his by nationality and his loyalty was still primarily to Britain, not to a nation that was only seventeen years old. The mantle of colonialism still hung over the thinking of many in Australia after the Antipodean colonies federated to become a nation but still existed under the British crown.
Along the trench men moaned in their pain and the hostility towards the foe was temporarily put aside to treat those in urgent need of medical attention.
‘I will go and check on the boys,’ Jack said. ‘See how they are bearing up. Tell the platoon commanders I want to see them in twenty minutes for an orders group here.’
‘Sir.’
Sergeant Major Spencer also left to carry on with his duties. There was food, water and ammunition to be brought up and the evacuation of wounded and prisoners to the rear to be organised. He snapped at men who were sitting around smoking to go about their duties of fortifying the trench and made mental notes on the condition of the troops still standing. As the company sergeant major his responsibility to the welfare of the men was no less arduous than that of his commanding officer. The onus for keeping the company supplied with the vitals to wage war rested with him. He would talk to the platoon sergeants who would give him their lists of supplies needed to replenish their stocks. Snapping at the men lounging about reasserted his position in the company as their disciplinarian.
Jack made his way down the trench, stepping over the dead and wounded. He was pleased to see that his company was going about its duties as a professional army should. His attention was drawn to one of his men arguing with a badly wounded German officer. The officer was speaking English, but with some difficulty, and lapsed into German to make his point. The soldier tending the wounded man glanced up at Jack when he approached. ‘You know what this bugger wants, sir?’ he asked.
‘He seems to be concerned about someone, Private Casey,’ he replied. ‘I will talk to him.’ The officer was of the rank of major with a finely chiselled face and intelligent eyes. Jack felt a touch of sympathy for the man. The officer seemed to be around his own age and had the handsome appearance of a German aristocrat. Jack could also see that there was more than the pain of his wounds reflected in his eyes. There was also the pain he himself feared most – to lose a fight and lose your men.
‘I am Captain Jack Kelly, sir,’ Jack said in German. ‘How can I help you?’
The officer looked up at him. He seemed surprised. ‘I am Major Paul Mann and I must say that you speak German very well.’
‘My mother was German,’ Jack replied as he squatted beside the wounded officer. ‘She couldn’t speak very good English so German was my first language when I was growing up.’
Private Casey partly rolled Major Mann onto his side and Jack noticed that the major’s back had been shredded by shrapnel although his thick trench coat had helped absorb the shock of the metal fragments. The major did not complain although Jack could see that he was in great pain.
‘You are also wounded,’ the major said.
Jack shrugged off the observation. ‘Nothing to write home about.’
‘I would ask a favour, Captain Kelly. There is another officer with me. A captain. Could you tell me if he is still alive?’
‘Certainly, Major. What is his name?’
‘He is Wolfgang Betz. He is to marry my sister when this is all over.’
Jack glanced around to see a corporal oversighting the reinforcement of the rear edge of the trench. ‘Corporal!’
‘Sir!’
‘Have a look around and see if you can ascertain the whereabouts amongst the prisoners of a Captain Wolfgang Betz. When you find him, send him down here to me.’
‘Will do, sir,’ the corporal replied.
‘Thank you, Captain Kelly,’ Paul said. ‘I understood what you said to the man.’
‘It can only be for a short time, you understand,’ Jack cautioned. ‘We have to get your lot back behind the lines.’
The major nodded. ‘Were you the officer who commanded the attack against us?’ he asked.
Jack hesitated. This was a question of tactics but he broke the rule when he realised that the question was asked at a personal level, as if they were two prizefighters introducing themselves in the ring. ‘On your section I was the officer who led the attack.’