by RA Williams
‘I find it impossible to accept your report.’
‘Such high enemy casualties are beyond belief,’ snapped Muirhead. ‘Whom are we meant to congratulate, the ruddy Easter Bunny?’
‘Since you ask,’ Taggart replied, relaxing on his cot, ‘you may congratulate me.’
‘You?’ Muirhead scoffed. ‘You have taken a hundred-odd prisoners and killed twice that, single-handedly?’
‘The Turks surrender of their own accord.’
‘And the enemy casualties?’
‘Personally, I don’t take prisoners.’
Taggart passed a Crosse & Blackwell jar to Muirhead.
‘A fortnight’s action. Last I counted, there were one hundred and sixty-nine identification discs in there.’
Captain Burrows rolled the jar in Muirhead’s hands, the discs jingling.
‘You suggest you alone caused the death of all these Turks?’
Taggart nodded.
‘Rubbish,’ Muirhead snorted.
‘Perhaps you would come round for a visit, Lieutenant?’ Taggart asked in reply.
‘And how exactly have you done this?’ inquired the captain.
‘Sorting Johnny Turk,’ Taggart said, and he stood, hatchet in hand. A strong seven inches taller than Burrows, he watched his captain back away. ‘I can’t imagine a more terrible place than right here and right now. As I am right here and now, I aim to win.’
Laying the hatchet on his bunk, he then directed his words towards Muirhead.
‘The only road to victory is by going into bandit country and slaughtering those poor Turks before they slaughter me. As it is, they’ve got four defiladed Maxim machine guns emplaced and I’ll keep going out until I’ve found them.’
‘It’s ruddy impossible.’ Muirhead shook his head cynically. ‘One man, an undisciplined officer no less, causing such a disruption.’
‘I must agree with the lieutenant – it’s utter flannel,’ Captain Burrows said as he dusted off his breeches. ‘We’re to make a consolidated push on Krithia, part of a big offensive to open the line and advance on Achi Baba. What I require is officers who follow orders. Your men will be sent across. I don’t care if you sacrifice every last one, you’ll do as ordered.’
Taking the jar from Muirhead’s hand, Burrows gave it a shake. ‘Discipline.’
Letting the jar fall, it smashed on the hard dirt floor, scattering the discs. ‘If there were not a shortage of officers, I’d have you on charge.’
He turned to step outside, putting on his pith helmet. ‘Am I making myself understood, Second Lieutenant?’
‘You are, indeed.’
Burrows gave him an authoritative glare before going off in a dust of poor leadership. Muirhead followed, slinging Taggart a mocking wink.
He looked at his thumb as blood ran down his arm.
Red stabs of flame lit the darkness. Salvo after salvo from the nightly Turkish barrage whistled overhead. The breeze shifted onshore, carrying with it a thick odour of putrefied flesh. Lieutenant Muirhead raised his head above the sandbagged sap, his shoulder pips proud in the crescent moon.
Taking hold of his collar, Taggart yanked him down.
‘You want your bloody head shot off?’
Muirhead looked to Corporals Davies and Dodds as they chuckled quietly. Taggart snarled at the lieutenant’s kit.
‘Take your shoulder pips off. A Turk marksman will slot you before you’re over the parapet.’
As the lieutenant fumbled to rip them off, Taggart surveyed the void ahead with a trench periscope.
‘And remove your hose tops. They get fouled in the barbed wire.’
Obediently, Muirhead began to unwind the standard battle-dress stockings.
‘And leave behind your flat cap and Sam Browne belt as well.’
Turk parachute flares began to pop, revealing Muirhead’s worried face as he fiddled with his wristwatch for the umpteenth time. Captain Burrows had sent him to the front to witness Taggart’s claims. From the first shell-burst, Muirhead’s arrogance had faded faster than he could dodge a Savile Row tailor’s bill. Taggart had no intention of shepherding him. There were chores to do, and the inexperienced lieutenant might lose his nerve before Taggart got to his work.
Muirhead swallowed dryly.
‘Been out there before, have you, sir?’ Corporal Davies asked.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’ve meant to.’
‘Down here, out of sight of Johnny Turk, there’s a bit of safety.’ Dodds passed him his periscope.
‘Out in that darkness…’ Davies crawled up next to Muirhead. ‘Up them gullies and over them ridges, is a slaughterhouse.’ Muirhead lowered the periscope.
‘Corporal Davies is right,’ said Dodds, enjoying this chance to unnerve a superior. ‘Stay close to Lieutenant Taggart.’
Taggart watched the last of the flares go to ground.
‘Ready for a bit of fun?’
Muirhead replied with a nod, his eyes saucers.
‘Do us a favour, Lieutenant,’ said Davies. ‘Tuck in them peepers. Johnny Turk will spot the whites of your eyes clear across no man’s land and put a bullet between them.’
Taggart had a little chuckle as Muirhead actually squinted. Edging over the parapet, he wriggled under the barbed wire entanglement. Muirhead followed.
‘God almighty,’ Muirhead whispered as he was hit by the odour of putrefaction.
‘Enjoy the fresh air while you can,’ said Taggart, tucking the hatchet into his service belt at the small of his back. His revolver remained holstered. Firing it would attract every Turkish marksman atop the spurs ahead.
They crawled in front of the first wire entanglement, propelling themselves by toes and forearms, drenched in sweat and covered in earth within minutes. Making his way through a morass of rotting corpses as clouds of bluebottles took to the air, sticking to his already gore-stained uniform, Taggart had become almost invisible.
‘My heart is beating nineteen to the dozen,’ whinged Muirhead, a sprung branch whipping across his face, cutting the bridge of his nose. ‘How on earth are we meant to make way through this?’
‘Shush,’ whispered Taggart angrily. ‘We’re in bandit country. I’ve already sussed out four Turk machine guns on the spurs ahead. But their marksman, he’s a crafty one.’
Muirhead would be his witness if he managed to stay alive. He wasn’t holding out high hopes though. Crawling under the last British entanglement, he directed Muirhead towards a split in the nullah. To the right, a goat track ascended a barricaded ravine.
‘We’ll stay well away from the Sunken Road,’ Taggart whispered, drawing Muirhead’s attention to a mass of barbed wire wrapped around seven-foot prickly oaks.
‘What are those bits hanging from the barbs?’
‘Strips of flesh,’ said Taggart. ‘The nullah beyond is a meat grinder. Our lads were so desperate to free themselves from the entanglements they preferred pulling off their own skin to facing Turkish machine guns.’
A gust of wind howled down from the ravine, the odour of putrefaction causing Muirhead to retch.
‘You’ve not smelled nothing yet,’ Taggart made mention.
A flare popped beyond the ridge above, revealing a dreadful sight. Bodies. Heaps of them, piled one upon another. Left where they’d fallen, the maggots had gone to work on them.
‘During the first days of landings, the Lancashire brigade got caught out by a fusillade of Turkish rifle and machine-gun fire. The brigade ceased to exist.’
‘How will we pass?’
‘We push through them. Now be quiet, unless you wish to join them.’
Taggart slid into a crump hole, pulling Muirhead in by the scruff of his collar. After an hour of crawling, they had crested the ravine. Rolling down the side of the crater, Muirhead’s hand went through the chest of a dead body. Whatever little was left in the first lieutenant’s stomach swiftly resurfaced.
Pulling his balaclava up over his nose, Taggart climbed over the dead for a look aroun
d. He was familiar with the terrain, having crossed the meadow innumerable times. There was another gully on the far side. Using the holes as cover, he could reach it unseen. What concerned him, though, was the Turkish marksman. He could be anywhere.
Sliding back through the morass of corpses, he came to rest next to Muirhead.
‘Right, Lieutenant. The stretch ahead is quiet. If we go up the gully to the left, I reckon we’ll be able to flank the first machine-gun position.’
Muirhead stared vacantly at him, spittle running from his lower lip.
‘Oi. You home?’
A soft huffing came from a corpse beside them, its head heaving. Straining for a better look, Taggart came eye to eye with a rat emerging from its mouth. Muirhead shrieked. Launching across the crump hole, hand cupping Muirhead’s mouth, Taggart held his hatchet to his throat.
‘Shut up! You want the Turk to rain mortars down on us?’ Swinging the hatchet, he cleaved off the rodent’s head. ‘Never a moggie around when you need one.’
‘What have you gotten me into?’
‘I haven’t gotten you into anything, Lieutenant.’ Taggart wiped the hatchet on the corpse’s uniform. ‘You’ve Captain Bitterballs to thank.’
‘You’re out of your box. You dragged me here to kill me.’
‘If Burrows had let me be, it wouldn’t be necessary for you to be here at all. You’re hampering my fun.’
‘Fun? For God’s sake, we’re in a crater full of corpses.’
Taggart leaned in close. ‘Don’t lumber me with your tosh.’
Turkish artillery whizzed overhead.
‘I’ll knock out those four Maxims and open this section of the line. Then the 29th Division can pour up Achi Baba, taking the Turkish big guns.’
Muirhead was shaking now. ‘I’ll tell Burrows anything you want. Don’t let me catch a packet.’
Taggart wagged his hatchet in Muirhead’s face, a drop of rodent blood spattering his cheek.
‘I don’t suffer fools gladly. Be still. Keep schtum. When this night is over, you can make your way down to the sap. Ring Brigade and inform them we’ve breached the Turk lines. You can take credit. I don’t give a damn.’
Muirhead nodded in agreement, clearly verging on mental paralysis. Taggart had seen it many times before.
‘Good man. Now be still.’
In an instant, Taggart vanished into the dark maw of no man’s land.
Festering corpses, rifles, spades and discarded overcoats littered the nullah ahead. Grasping bushes and roots, Taggart pulled himself up the ravine and onto the ridge, all the while set upon by buzzing flies. He easily flanked the Turkish machine-gun nest, slipping into a sandbagged communication trench. So confident were they of their advantage, the Turks had not bothered with barbed wire about their position.
Keeping to the shadows, Taggart got closer. Although heavy water-cooled machine guns normally had a crew of four, including a spotter and an ammunition porter, at night the Turkish machine-gun posts were manned only by a gunner and loader.
Perfectly situated on the edge of a crest and hidden in a thick overgrowth of camel thorn, the machine-gun crew had a clear field of fire sweeping the gully below. They had not the first idea of how Taggart had stolen away their advantage. It was all he could do to keep his impulses in check and not race the last ten yards downhill and lace into them.
Wiping his sweat-soaked hands on his sleeves, he reached for his hatchet. He was about to move when he saw the loader climb over a raised earthen parados. Approaching, he unbuttoned his kecks.
Taggart shoved his own face into the dirt. The snap of a twig under the loader’s boot came just a yard from Taggart’s head as the Turk began to wee on him. Rearing up, Taggart pulled him to the ground by his wank, slashing his throat with the sharpened hatchet blade.
Soaked in blood and urine, he moved downhill silently. Even if the gunner heard him, he’d presume Taggart was just his loader returning. Stoving in the gunner’s head with the flat of the hatchet, he left him slumped over his Maxim. He pulled the belt of ammunition away, tossing it down the ravine. One less machine gun to harvest his lads.
It had just gone midnight as he slunk away from the position, blood soaking through the bread bag he had buttoned to his belt. He felt euphoric, thankful to have learned of this new world where he could butcher men without fear of retribution. Already, he dreaded the day it would end. In the meantime, there were three other machine-gun posts and a marksman to be sorted.
Taggart watched the crescent moon reach its highest point in the sky from his eyrie on the ridge. Locating the third machine-gun position under a tree, he dispatched the gunner and loader with vim, wiped his hatchet on the gunner’s ragged uniform and tucked it away again.
He crossed the Turkish rear, passing through meadows of cornflowers and poppies, his movements drowned out by the unending racket of cicadas. How beautiful a place the peninsula had been before the British arrived. He made for the heights on the opposite side of the plateau and sat, picking through Turkish rations: olives, figs and grape leaves. He quite liked Turkish fare. Just not the Turks themselves, killing his lads by the score, as they were. Why wouldn’t they, though? This was their country. The British had no business here.
He surveyed a section of the enemy line below. Since learning how to quench his desires, Taggart had become curious as to what was over the next hillock. The next spur. The next ridge.
Lifting a set of binoculars he’d liberated from a dead officer, he surveyed the terrain below. He knew there remained a machine-gun crew somewhere – and a marksman to run to ground.
He was about to move on when he picked out movement. Adjusting the focus of his glasses, a wire entanglement sharpened before his eyes. A figure writhed. It was Muirhead. The lieutenant must have scuttled, attempting to regain brigade lines, and got himself in a muddle.
Shadowy figures crawled over the broken no man’s land towards Muirhead. Lowering the glasses, Taggart grinned. Unknowingly, the lieutenant was acting as a beater, drawing game to Taggart. Finishing off the last of the grape leaves, he moved.
Four Turks crept towards Muirhead. Hopelessly mired in a web of concertina wire, he twisted and thrashed, crying out for mercy. Moving downhill, Taggart spotted the remaining machine-gun crew poking their heads above a parapet. Further along the trench crouched the marksman Taggart sought.
Edging forward silently, Taggart blindsided the sniper. Pulling back his helmet, he exposed the marksman’s neck, severing his carotid artery and windpipe with a single blow from his hatchet. The marksman fell to the ground without a sound. Releasing his helmet strap, Taggart exposed the top of his head. Another instant and he had completed his bloody business.
The machine-gunner turned just as Taggart bashed him with the blunt side of the hatchet, crushing his young face.
The loader was next. Taggart swung and split his face open from forehead to jaw. Forcing him down, he chopped his neck, dousing himself with arterial spray.
With no time spare to enjoy the mess, Taggart turned his desires to no man’s land. The four Turks were now upon the lieutenant. Taggart knew he could chop the lot of them down with a single burst from the Turkish Maxim, but he wasn’t an especially good shot. He’d most likely cut Muirhead in half as well.
There came a scream. The Turks were tearing strips of Muirhead’s flesh away with the barbed wire. Laughing, they shook it further, eliciting despairing moans of agony from the lieutenant. His pain must have been exquisite.
Leaving the trench, Taggart closed in on the Turks, invisible among the churned-up earth. He drew close. So close that even in the darkness he recognised the terror on the lieutenant’s face. Drawing a curved sabre, a Turk pricked Muirhead’s chest with the tip, peeling off a strip of his flesh and eliciting another cry for mercy.
It was answered.
Launching to his feet, Taggart heaved his hatchet, burying it in the Turk’s upper back. Fleet of foot, Taggart had it out of him again before his knees buck
led, braining him with the blunt end of the weapon.
Turning, he kicked a second Turk in the balls before bludgeoning him, shattering his skull.
Two now remained, tormenting Muirhead with the wire. They made the mistake of moving too quickly, hopelessly ensnarling themselves with him.
Removing his Webley, Taggart shot both of them in the head. The echoing gunfire meant it wouldn’t be long before the Turks poured from their dugouts.
‘Half a mo’, Mr Muirhead,’ Taggart shouted, regaining his breath. ‘Gotten yourself well arseholed in there, haven’t you?’
‘Taggart,’ Muirhead bleated, face liverish. ‘Drive the beggars away!’
Taggart fired three quick shots into the air. From the direction of Gully Ravine came a sound of whistles. Flares popped and the sky filled with light. W Company’s fusiliers, awaiting Taggart’s signal, started their attack, now without opposition.
Taggart accompanied the stretcher party down the ravine, his hair a tangle of sweat and congealing gore. Men of 2nd Brigade were rushing up the ravine towards no man’s land.
As Taggart returned to his lines, Davies gave him a Craven A – his preferred tobacco. He took a drag, the caked blood in his fingernails adding a tinny tang.
‘Taggart,’ Muirhead muttered, gripping his hand tightly. All arrogance was gone thanks to the unpleasantries he had seen. ‘You’ve done it. You’ve opened the line.’
Taggart tipped his ash. ‘We gave Johnny Turk a good drubbing.’
‘You did.’
Muirhead winced from the wire barbs still embedded in his flesh. An orderly dispensed a tot of rum from a grey hen. Muirhead gulped it back.
‘I was done up like a kipper. Then you were there,’ he squeezed out. ‘Tossing your hatchet like a ruddy Mohawk. You saved my life.’
A stretcher-bearer looked to Taggart. ‘Mohawk, eh?’
‘You will look after him?’
The stretcher-bearer gave a nod. ‘Yes, Second Lieutenant Mohawk.’
Taggart’s feelings towards Muirhead had not changed, but he was glad the lieutenant had borne witness to his proclivities. Patting his arm, Taggart said, ‘I’ll give the captain your regards,’ and left.