Alone In The Trenches

by Vince Cross

  I Was There...

  ALONE IN THE

  TRENCHES

  For my late grandad Bertie, who probably met my grandma while he was on army training in Thetford, Suffolk, and who, although he served during the Great War, like many of his generation would never talk about what he saw.

  While this book is based on real characters and actual historical events, some situations and people are fictional, created by the author.

  Scholastic Children’s Books

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  London NW1 1DB, UK

  A division of Scholastic Ltd

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  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2014

  This electronic edition published 2014

  Text © Vince Cross, 2014

  Illustrations by Michael Garton

  © Scholastic Ltd, 2014

  All rights reserved

  eISBN 978 1407 14711 6

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage or retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical or otherwise, now known or hereafter invented, without the express prior written permission of Limited.

  Produced in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  The right of Vince Cross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  www.scholastic.co.uk

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  CHAPTER ONE

  We’d run out of flour at the farm. Again. At six in the morning Mum was already at the end of her tether.

  “You’ll have to go into Ypres. Get enough bread to last us a couple of days. And as much flour as you can carry.”

  It was more than an hour’s walk. And yesterday I’d been sure I’d heard explosions from the direction of town. “Oh, Mum,” I moaned. “Do I have to? I’m so scared…”

  I was lazy as much as frightened.

  “Can’t you see I’ve got my hands full?” she shouted. “I’ve been up half the night with Grandma. Don’t you think we’re all scared? You’ll go and say no more about it if you want to eat today.”

  I was starting to hate living in the cold farmhouse now that Dad wasn’t there to spoil me.

  In Ypres the bell on Madame Peyroux’s shop door tinkled. She hobbled from the shadows to look me up and down accusingly.

  “It’s very early. And you’re on your own. Where’s your mother then? It’s far too dangerous for you to come here by yourself.”

  “Didn’t you know?” I answered. “It’s just the three of us now. And Mum can’t leave Grandma…”

  “But what about your father?” she began, and then broke off, realizing she’d put her foot in it.

  “I’m not sure,” I said miserably. “He disappeared. With Michel. They went out and they didn’t come back. It’s been a fortnight…”

  Madame Peyroux looked uncomfortable. She was probably a bit shocked she hadn’t heard any gossip, but I could see she’d misunderstood. She was thinking Dad had just walked out and left us. People were doing stranger things just then.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, doing her best to sound as if she meant it. Madame Peyroux didn’t look well. Her cheeks had a high colour and her movements were fidgety. Her eyes seemed small and frightened. She shoved two loaves in my hand with a few centimes change. “Please send my regards … my sympathy. Tell your mother to let me know if there’s anything I can do … if we’re still here, that is!”

  I couldn’t wait to get out of her poky little shop. I’d only known Madame P. a few months, but long enough to dislike her. It would be all over the city before the day was out: “Poor Madame Martin. I never did trust that man…” As I shut the door behind me my chest began to heave and tears stung my eyes.

  It was a very beautiful, clear November morning. When I’d left at first light, the sky had been a deep, unbroken blue shading into gold behind the silhouettes of the trees on the horizon. A first scattering of winter frost was showing across the deep brown ridges of the ploughed fields, like icing sugar on a chocolate cake. At half past seven the streets and squares of Ypres were still empty of people. Everything was calm and peaceful around the ancient stones of the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral. “Where is everybody this morning?” I remember thinking. And then, without warning, came a terrible, monstrous sound that cut the sky in half. It sounded like a cross between the tearing of a sheet and a sudden vicious scatter of rain, but so much louder and more sinister. On its heels was a deafening explosion that shook the ground beneath me. I staggered, and nearly lost balance. A fierce gust of wind and dirt whipped past my face. A shower of plaster from somewhere above fell onto my hair and shoulders. I was terrified and thought that I was about to die.

  Suddenly the streets were filled with men and women, heads down, tucking shirts into breeches, wiping their hands on aprons. They were running around shouting and gesturing. They gathered buckets and brooms as if all they had to do was mop up some spilled milk. But as they swept and tidied, a second shell whined in towards the city, and then a third. It was obvious this was no accident or mistake. Ypres wouldn’t be put back together today, or tomorrow, or perhaps ever again. The Germans had us in their sights.

  “How dare they destroy our beautiful homes!” said one man. “It’s downright criminal!”

  “Remember what happened in Louvain,” retorted another. “The guns didn’t leave a building standing or spare a single family. Why should we be any different?”

  A church bell started tolling, and then another. An electric alarm bell began to ring somewhere close by and wouldn’t stop. In the distance a trumpeter started to play the Belgian national anthem. Horses and carts appeared, as well as one or two motorized lorries. Overhead I began to hear the noise of an aeroplane engine. People in the street looked up anxiously. I could see the ’plane circling out beyond the Grand Place. There were two men inside it. One was throwing bombs down into the streets. The horses bucked and shied as yet more shells from the distant German howitzer guns rained in. Each explosion seemed closer than the last, and even louder than before. I could hear the rumbling of collapsing walls. Men shouted. Women and children screamed.

  I had no idea what to do! The doorway was certainly no place to be. I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. A covered wagon had drawn up at the kerb beside me. The horse was panicking and the driver had dismounted to fiddle with its harness before he moved off again. I thought that if I stayed where I was I would certainly be killed. Hitching a lift would be better than running! While he tried to soothe the poor animal, I hauled myself up into the cart among its cargo of groceries, still clutching my two loaves. As if it would keep me safe, I covered myself with a smelly blanket from a pile that was lying there. I heard the frightened driver tell the horse to “giddy-up” and found myself being bumped away from the confusion and dust at an unsteady gallop. Peeking out from under the covering, I could just make out the scars that were beginning to appear on the ancient and lovely face of Ypres. A corner of the Cloth Hall had been completely blown away. Its windows were broken. Its huge wooden door hung at a crazy angle from one hinge.

  Despite the blanket and my overcoat, it was icily cold i
n the back of the cart. I was shivering, probably from the shock of all that had just happened. I twisted my hands together to get some warmth back into them and tried to slow my breathing down. To calm myself I set out to count slowly to a thousand. I was still alive, wasn’t I? Looking back now, what a clever and brave little girl I was! Yes, but how silly and stubborn too… as you’re about to hear.

  *

  My name is Annette. When all this happened I was just nine years old. I’d always been small for my age, but my legs and arms were strong. I had short fair hair which I liked, and freckles which I didn’t. My dad was an Englishman who ran away from home to find his fortune in far off countries when he was sixteen years old. He got no further than Belgium. To his surprise, he found that his name – Albert Martin – worked just as well in French as it did in English. The spelling stayed the same: they just said it differently. He must have had a very quick ear, because he was soon speaking French too – with only the slightest accent. As you probably know, Belgium is a country with two languages, but he found himself among French-speaking people, and he never really got to grips with Flemish. It probably didn’t help that within a year or so he’d met my mother, Elise, and before long they were sweethearts. Her Flemish wasn’t very good either. Once they were married, my brother Michel came along quite quickly, and I followed two years later.

  Dad was a blacksmith, and he was always at his happiest working in the heat and sweat of his forge, bending hard iron to his will. His customers loved him.

  “You’re a genius, Albert,” they would say. “Is there anything you can’t make?” And he would smile shyly, and accept their generous tips with a touch of his cap.

  After they married, my parents moved to the city of Antwerp, which is where we spent my happy early childhood years. Then, in 1913, it was on everyone’s lips that war was coming. I can remember Dad saying to Mum as we sat at the kitchen table, “It will happen, Lizzie. It’s just a question of when. The Germans will want to get their hands on Paris, and Belgium’s in the way. If we’re smart we’ll make our exit while we still can.”

  “But where to, Bertie? Where?” she replied with big eyes, smoothing her long hair away from her face. “You’d never go back to England, would you now?”

  And he’d looked up at her solemnly from beneath his dark fringe, shaking his head sadly in agreement. He’d always said he’d left England for good. It would be a total failure to turn up like a bad centime in Witney, and have to start again.

  In the end we did make a move, but a shorter distance to just outside the city of Ypres. My grandpa had died when I was very small, and my mum was his only daughter. Now Grandma had become ill. She was just about surviving on the family farm, but it was going to rack and ruin around her. Her mind had gone.

  “This place is disgusting,” Mum had whispered when we first arrived. “It’s more fit for an animal than a human.”

  Grandma couldn’t even feed herself properly, and there was no one close by who cared enough to help. So we’d packed up our nice life in Antwerp and moved east to the little village of Maninghem, five kilometres from Ypres. I didn’t like it there. Grandma was really very difficult, and my mother was usually tired and cross. She was always yelling, particularly at me. Despite my small size, I’d been born with a strong will. I could never take “no” for an answer. I made up stories too. They entertained me, and I think I even half-believed some of them. I would rattle on about ghosts I’d seen, or rabbit-sized rats, or unlikely people I’d met in the lane. The stories didn’t amuse Mum one bit.

  “You’re a bad girl, Annette. And you’ll come to a sticky end. I can’t ever trust a thing you tell me,” she would shout, as she smacked my legs and bottom. Her smacks stung and so did her words. I didn’t think I deserved them.

  Dad wasn’t happy either. The farm was hard to organize and control. Every day he felt he was losing a battle with nature. There was precious little time free to spend in his workshop, apart from mending tools that broke in the difficult ground. And all through the autumn of 1914 it seemed as if any minute we’d have to abandon the farm. Just a few miles away thousands of soldiers from the German and British armies were digging deep trenches. During the previous few months they’d chased each other backwards and forwards over most of Holland and Belgium. But now the ground was slowly becoming sticky with mud. Soon it would be hard enough just walking across the fields, let alone moving heavy guns over them or carrying a heavy pack.

  “They’ll not go anywhere before the spring now,” my dad said. “Perhaps we’ll be all right for a while. And anyway, this war isn’t about anything. Surely the politicians will see sense soon.”

  I’m sixteen years old now. The nine-year-old Annette of 1914 constantly amazes me. She might have been naughty and a storyteller, but I think she was much braver and more confident than I am. How on earth did I cope when Dad and Michel disappeared that dreadful October day? When I think about it, a wave of sadness washes over me.

  It had been another horrible wet morning after a glorious early autumn. The two of them were soaked through before they’d even started, yet they still waved a cheery goodbye to Mum and me as they traipsed off to help fix the fences in a neighbouring village. They never came back. I still hope that one day I’ll see them again, but in my heart of hearts I know I won’t. Not unless the priest is right and we all meet again in heaven some day.

  What happened to them? Well, I used to wonder if they’d been taken prisoner by the Germans. More likely they were shot by one side or the other. Maybe someone thought they were soldiers. But how could anyone mistake my eleven-year-old brother, Michel, for a soldier? He could scarcely pick up a rifle, let alone shoot one.

  CHAPTER TWO

  So that’s how I came to be in the centre of Ypres, trying very hard not to get killed by the Germans. The driver of the wagon I’d climbed into was now pushing his horse and cart along at breakneck speed, and who could blame him? The wagon pitched and rolled. The horse whinnied and bucked as it felt the whip bite into its flanks. The driver swore loudly and often. I thought we’d end up in a ditch. Between the canvas covers at the rear of the cart I could see we were moving out of the town. From the direction of the sun I thought we might be heading north-east. It was a part of Ypres I didn’t know, and a horrible thought suddenly struck me. I’d assumed that the driver was a true Belgian and on our side, but for all I knew, he might be taking food to the Germans. I had no idea exactly where the front lines were, or if there were ways of crossing from one set of trenches to the other. I thought to myself that if the wagon ever came to a halt, I should hop out and make a run for it, but nothing ever seemed to get in our way.

  I can’t say how long it was before the pace slowed, the cart stopped moving and I began to hear the chatter of voices around us. It felt as if we’d been on the road for hours, but thirty minutes was probably more like it. I held my breath and listened carefully. To my great relief the voices were speaking English. Then the canvas covers at the rear of the wagon were pulled fully open, the sun streamed in, and someone said, “Well, bless my soul. What ’ave we got ’ere?”

  My eyes were blinded for a few seconds, but then I found I could make out the shapes of two men. One was wearing a soldier’s uniform. The other was the driver.

  The driver swore in French and said roughly, “What’s your game? You little rascal! Fancied stealing a few groceries, eh?”

  He reached in and pulled me out of the cart. I fell into his chest and, probably because I was in a state of shock, completely lost my temper. I went at him like a mad dog, banging my fists against him, screaming, scratching and biting. He tried to hold me back by gripping my wrists. The English soldier just laughed.

  “Your daughter’s a bit fiery, monsieur. We should set her on the Huns and see how they like it.”

  “She’s nothing to do with me,” the driver hissed. “I haven’t the faintest idea where she came from. She must have caught a ride somewhere in town.” He was still fending me off.
“Ow! You look after her!”

  He threw me at the soldier, who caught me neatly and wrapped me up against his greatcoat, pinning my arms so that I couldn’t move.

  The driver sucked at the wound on his hand where my teeth had sunk into him. He looked at me angrily and spat on the ground. Then with a bad grace he banged his boxes of produce down in front of the soldier.

  “That’s all for today, Corporal Warren,” he growled. “I’ll be back tomorrow and we can settle up then. I’m off to Ypres to see if the wretched Germans have left one brick on top of another.”

  “Bad up there today, is it?”

  The driver shrugged his shoulders. “More shells than before. Bigger bombs. Even using one of those newfangled flying machines. We’re at their mercy, unless your lot can do something about it. Why do you think I sell to you and not them?”

  “What about the girl? You’re taking her back with you?” the corporal asked. The driver swore again. “You must be joking,” he said, with a coarse laugh. “Think of her as part of today’s delivery. You deal with her!”

  And before the soldier could argue, he whipped the canvas covers back across the back of the wagon, heaved himself into his saddle and kicked his old nag into a trot, waving a rude goodbye over his shoulder as he went.

  “Oh good,” said the soldier to himself. “So what am I supposed to do with you?” He called across the yard in which we were standing. “Oi, Perkins! You seem to have time on your hands. I need you here. Now, private soldier. Not tomorrow morning.”

  “What’s your name?” Private Perkins asked me gently. I told him it was Annette, and he said his was Charlie. “And how old are you?” I answered that I was nine.

  Charlie was very young – too young to shave – and slimly built. A mop of unruly dark hair poked out from inside his soldier’s cap. He was the first person who’d smiled at me all day.