by Eric Black
On the flight to Belgium he had read an account of the five month battle for the village of Passchendaele. The Entente forces of Britain, France and Russia attacked the Imperial German Army in July 1917. The objectives of the attack were to wear down the enemy, secure the Belgian coast and connect with the Dutch frontier. A hope of the attack was that it would lessen the pounding the French were taking in the Aisne. The moral there was low and there were many French deserters as a result. By causing the Germans to reassign troops to Passchendaele, there was optimism that the French army could reorganize.
The Battle of Passchendaele consisted of several battles over a period of many months and was finally won by the Allied forces in November as the Canadian Corps joined the fight and took Passchendaele. The battle itself was fought in the land between Dixmude and the Lys River: an area filled with streams and drainage ditches. The area, with the heavy rains, became a swamp with deep mud. The mud caused tanks to become entrenched and unable to move. Men and horses drowned in the mire.
The battle saw the death of 300,000 British soldiers and 200,000 German soldiers. A note of interest on the battle was that a young Adolf Hitler had fought in the Battle of Passchendaele as a member of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division.
The book Vincent had read during the flight showed several photographs of the battle, including a before-and-after aerial photo of the village of Passchendaele. The entire village, every building and structure, was destroyed during the battle leaving the village in complete rubble.
The photos flashed in his mind as he looked at the bleak landscape – the same mud, the same rain, the same tanks caught by the swampy terrain. It wasn’t possible and although he wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t dreaming, the land described in the book and the land before him were identical. He had come to Belgium to learn more of the battle that took the life of his great-grandfather and now, somehow, found himself experiencing that same battle.
As if someone thought he needed further convincing, he felt a hard kick to his ribs as a man tripped over his abdomen and fell in the mud next to him. The man did not rise. After several minutes of clawing through the mud, Vincent was able to make his way to the man. The mud could not disguise the hole from the bullet that had ripped through the man’s throat.
Then, another explosion came right next to him. He felt something strike his head and he knew nothing else.
He woke and discovered it was dark and everything was quiet. Vincent realized he must have blacked out again. I feel like an NFL quarterback. He groaned and clutched his head. At least I’m awake. What an awful dream.
He prepared to roll out of bed but realized he was stuck. He turned his head and saw that the soldier he dreamed had kicked him in the ribs was still there.
The weather, which had been cold before, was now below freezing. Vincent looked down at himself and saw that he was in a British uniform. The uniform was wool and he was somewhat warm but without a coat, lying in the wet mud, he would soon become hypothermic.
He turned his head to the right and in the distance through the field of bodies he saw the lines and armaments of one of the forces of the battle. There was no flag to identify to which side the line belonged – Allied or German.
He turned to the left and in the distance, again across a field of fallen soldiers, he saw the other line. In looking at the bodies, he thought on how death didn’t care which army was the good guy. Both the Germans and the Allies saw themselves in the right and in truth, perhaps neither of them was right. Both were fighting to protect their way of life; and in the years to come both sides would give books to their children that taught of the oppressiveness of the opposing side and the valor in which the soldiers of their own country fought against injustice.
Vincent tried to pick out the helmets worn by men in their respected trenches but very few men could even be seen moving around – only those pulling the wounded from the field of battle. The other men knew better than to stick their head above the side of the trench, knowing a sniper could be waiting to put a bullet through that head.
With little to go by, Vincent decided to move to his right. He would know soon enough if his decision was correct. Maybe if I’m shot by a German all of this will end and I can actually wake up?
The going was very slow. The mud was extremely thick. And although the night’s cold had somewhat hardened the mud, the mud was too thick to be frozen in all areas. It took him nearly an hour to crawl one hundred feet.
Finally, just before dawn, he reached the outer perimeter of the trench that served as the base and temporary home of those who fought on that side. He looked up and saw two men running towards him with a stretcher in tow. It was then that he knew he had chosen wisely. He was at the British encampment.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Passchendaele, Belgium – November 1917
They took him to the medical area, which was little more than a covered hole in the ground. A tent was placed over a large dug-out area in the earth. The walls were reinforced with sandbags that were undoubtedly filled with the same mud that was everywhere. Vincent reflected that it was definitely not the sterile medical environment of the 21st Century.
They laid him on a makeshift table and a physician covered in blood came over to him. “Can you speak?” the doctor asked with a British accent.
Vincent wondered briefly how the doctor would react when he replied back to him in an American accent. But at the same time he couldn’t not speak. “I can talk,” he answered, surprised to find he had a British accent as well.
“Very well. So what is your affliction?”
“My affliction?” the phrasing of the question threw Vincent for a moment.
The doctor appeared to grow slightly agitated but stayed calm. Vincent could imagine the doctor was exhausted and stressed for resources and assistance. “Are you shot?”
Vincent looked down at his chest and then at his arms and legs. “I don’t believe I was.”
The doctor looked closely at Vincent. “Which battalion are you with?”
Vincent didn’t know how to answer. He knew that he was more than likely with an infantry regiment but Britain had nearly seventy line infantry regiments during World War I. Each of those regiments was divided into several battalions.
“You seem confused,” the doctor noted. “Were you struck in the head?”
“Howitzer,” Vincent said softly.
“What was that?”
“I’m with the Howitzer unit,” Vincent repeated, this time a little more confidently.
The doctor leaned in and looked at Vincent closely. Vincent was sure he had named the wrong unit. Perhaps there was no Howitzer unit at this battle.
He watched the doctor’s expression and saw a sadness come across his face. “I’m sorry to tell you this, chap but most of your unit is dead. I’ve operated on many of your men today. I would guess that only a handful of you survived.”
Vincent was sad to hear that so many men had died but to pull off the effect he thought of his mother’s death two years ago and let that pain seep into his face. “I have changed units many times during this war. It appears I’ll be doing so again.”
The doctor nodded. “We’re fortunate to have men such as you on the front lines. From where did you come, before the war?”
“Birmingham,” Vincent lied, saying the first town that came to his mind. He waited for the doctor to tell him he was from Birmingham as well but the doctor merely nodded.
“Very well, if there is nothing else you require – you have no injuries that I can tell – I bid you good luck.”
Vincent thanked the doctor and left the makeshift hospital. As soon as he walked outside, the smell hit him. The inside of the medical unit had been somewhat contained by the sandbags and tent but the open air brought the fresh smell of death. He had been in the open field for many hours surrounded by dead bodies and must have grown used to the stench; now that he was freshly removed and reintroduced to the battlefield, the smell was ov
erwhelming.
He risked a peak over the top of the trench and saw that while many of the bodies had been retrieved by the field ambulance unit, many more still remained. The night ground was filled with the vultures that always pillaged the outcome of war.
He walked along a trench and was overpowered by the smell of human waste. The trenches allowed little privacy and latrines were often an obscure hole dug as far away from the place where the soldiers would sleep as possible. The stench of human feces was almost worse than the smell of decaying bodies awaiting shipment back to England.
He made his way slowly, careful not to take a wrong step off the boards into the deep mud at the bottom of the trench. The duckboards were laid on the ground allowing men to walk without becoming impeded. As he walked, he spoke with the men in other units trying to get a feel for everything. He was not sure which direction to go but the men were friendly enough and guided him to where he needed to be. He received several respectful nods from the other soldiers when he mentioned he was part of the Howitzer unit – apparently word spread quickly of the deaths that had occurred. He had expected to see the area where the Field Marshall, Douglas Haig had set up command but he did not recognize a command area as he walked through the trench.
Vincent slowly made his way to what was left of the Howitzer unit. Most of the men he passed in the trench were lying down, sleeping where they could. There were few blankets and men huddled together next to keep warm. Campfire would draw the German’s attention and bring gunfire.
Vincent learned he was in the fire trench at the forefront of the action. The trench was well made and nearly the entire way across was lined with sandbags. Vincent passed many dugouts as he walked: the areas dug into the side of the trench where the officers slept.
Finally, he came to the Howitzer unit and saw they were a sad lot. It was not that they weren’t valiant or noble men; it was the lack of number of men. The unit was assigned to man the eighteen artillery Howitzers that were heavy to move but were effective in slowing an advancing army. Vincent only counted thirty men including himself still left with the unit. He expected others to be reassigned and would soon join them.
He spoke briefly with a few of the men on duty and was relieved to find out that he had guessed correctly – he was indeed assigned to the Howitzer unit (he still wasn’t sure how they knew him but they did). He spoke with some of the other men near him for a brief time and then laid down for whatever sleep he could manage.
It was still dark when Vincent was called awake by an officer. Rising to his feet, Vincent was handed a shovel and ordered to repair a section of the trench that had been damaged in the previous day’s fighting. He looked around and saw other men refilling sandbags while others were cleaning the Howitzers. He counted the men who surrounded him and saw that other men had been assigned. His unit was not large but at least now they had enough men to manage the large guns.
They dug for many hours. It was hard laborious work, work to which Vincent was unaccustomed. Blisters had formed on his hands and they had already split and begun to bleed.
He kept digging but secretly hoped someone would come and save him from the unending mud. Finally a voice did, although that voice only served to move him from a menial task to a deadly one. The order came for them to prepare the Howitzers for fire. There would be a division moving to the front line.
“Shakespeare,” the Sergeant called out.
At first Vincent was too surprised to answer. How does he know my name?
“Shakespeare, do you have mud in your ears?”
“No, sir,” Vincent answered, rising and standing to attention. He was worried he would do a poor job as a soldier but coming to attention came to him as if he were well versed.
The Sergeant stepped forward, narrowing the space between them until Vincent could smell the man’s breath. “When I speak, you answer. Is that understood Private Shakespeare?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
The Sergeant stared at Vincent for a moment longer, then took a step back and smiled. “We sure gave those bloody Krauts all they could handle. They must have knackered you in the head which is why you don’t hear so well. Get on then, Winston, I’ll be right behind you.”
Vincent realized the Sergeant must have been among the few of the Howitzer unit that survived the earlier battle. Then, it hit him that the Sergeant called him Winston. Before he could ask the Sergeant about the name or where he was expected to be going, the Sergeant was off yelling at other men to get ready to move. Vincent was ushered along with other soldiers of the reformed Howitzer unit.
Vincent had taken about ten steps when he stopped suddenly, drawing curses from the men behind him. It dawned on him then why his shirt named him as Shakespeare (his actual last name) and why the Sergeant called him Winston. Winston was his great-grandfather’s name. Somehow in this dream he had assumed the form of his great-grandfather during the Battle of Passchendaele – the battle in which his grandfather had died.
Vincent turned to the man behind him. The man was still angry that Vincent had stopped suddenly, causing him to fall into the mud to avoid running into Vincent. Vincent ignored his anger. “How many days have we been fighting?” Vincent asked him.
“That is what you have to say to me after knocking me into the filth. The barrel of my rifle…”
Vincent cut him off. “I don’t care about your rifle right now. How many days?”
The soldier looked hard at Vincent but something in Vincent’s eyes caused him to answer. “We’ve been fighting for ten days. You were laid up in the mud for a day of it so I’m not sure all those days count for you.”
Ten days, Vincent repeated to himself. He knew the battle would last sixteen days, which meant sometime in the next six days, his grandfather would be killed, which meant he would be killed.
He was curious about this as he considered that if he were killed, he might actually wake from the dream in which he was obviously trapped. As he thought of dying, however, an uneasy feeling came over him. A small thought came into the back of his mind that everything that he was experiencing was real and that if he died, he would die for real. Vincent dismissed the thought as soon as it came as ridiculous but even as the thought left him, the feeling did not. In fact, the feeling grew.
He looked around at the men next to him. The soldier he had knocked in the mud started in on his rifle again but Vincent tuned him out. The soldier stood right in front of him but Vincent looked through the man and saw only the battle before him. He wondered briefly how many of the other men were aware as he was of what was occurring.
Then, the world turned white and he was knocked backwards.
He was dazed and the world around him was strangely muffled. He looked around and saw the sky above him – the rain clouds were moving back in. He raised his head and saw his boots. His rifle was still in his hands.
He looked to his right and saw that the man who only moments before had been angry was now lying in the mud. The man was fully covered in sludge, where before it had only been his legs and hands. In fact, whatever had caused the world to go white had pushed the man deep into the mud. Vincent looked closer at the man and realized he was also covered in blood. A large piece of shrapnel protruded from the man’s chest. The man’s eyes were open and he stared blankly at the darkening sky.
Vincent turned his attention back to that same sky. It was filled with clouds but soon became filled the face of the Sergeant. Vincent could see the Sergeant’s mouth moving but could not make out the words. Then, Vincent felt strong hands pull him upwards. He was standing on his feet.
The Sergeant yelled several times until the words finally came into focus and Vincent could make out the word, “Run!”
His head was still pounding but he let the command from his Sergeant sink in and instinct took over. He began to run. The Sergeant ran next to him, pulling Vincent by his shirt.
Vincent could not feel his legs but knew they were moving as he was upright and the world aro
und him was filled with horizontal motion. He looked down at the rifle clutched in his hands. He was thankful for that as he was sure he would need it later.
He ran several yards before half-falling into an open hole in the ground. They had reached the next trench. He was still dazed as he sat down in the muddy gouge; but then the adrenaline that had been coursing through him reached his brain and he was fully aware of where he was and what was happening.
“Are you better?” his Sergeant asked him concerned.
Vincent nodded. “What happened?”
“Mortar fire. It took out one of the Howitzers in the last trench. The shrapnel took out many of our men. Some are merely injured but several are dead.”
Vincent recalled the soldier next to him with the large piece of metal sticking out his chest. He didn’t speak.
“Are you injured?” the Sergeant asked.
“I don’t think that I am.”
The Sergeant smiled. “You’re as tough as an old doorknob, you are.”
Vincent laughed. He assumed the expression was a compliment. “So now what?”
“Now we hold the line. There will be more men that will join us on the front line. Our job is to make sure they get here. It won’t be easy. We only moved one of the large guns up before they began to bombard us. At some point, we’ll need to barrage them with cannon fire as we move the others up.”
“By barrage, you mean attack their lines with one Howitzer.”
“We have some mortars but yes, that is the idea.” The Sergeant looked at Vincent and smiled. “I never said it would be easy. But that is our order.”