The Last Lady from Hell

by Richard G Morley

  Being in the communications corps of Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry provided him with more than his share of danger. The outcome of a battle and in fact the lives of thousands of men could hinge on good communications. Alan had been well trained in the use of Lucas signal lamps and the handling of carrier pigeons as well as field phones and the new Fullerphone, but the bulk of communications relied upon the runner and Alan was a good runner.

  As one passed through the maze of trenches, one could easily get lost, so, there was a system of numbered signs posted to help point soldiers in the correct direction. That is if the signs had survived the continuous shelling from enemy and allied artillery. Compared to the main trenches, the communication trenches were smaller and not as well constructed or maintained.

  There were some twenty miles of trenches for every mile of Western Front, so a map of the trench system was a necessity. Unfortunately, if such a document fell into enemy hands it would be disastrous, so Alan was provided with nothing more than coded directions.

  He glanced at the directions briefly. “Runner? That’s a laugh,” he said to himself.

  The spring rains had turned the trenches into mud. Trenches were really just ditches that would collect the water that could no longer be absorbed by a barren landscape that had long since been bombed beyond recognition. The main trench floors were covered with duck boards, a series of batten-like boards laid out to keep the soldiers’ feet above the water and alleviate the mud problem, unfortunately most communication trenches were dirt, now mud with no duck boards.

  The mud was sticking to Alan’s standard issue hob-nailed boots making the already heavy boots feel like lead weights. Running was out of the question, just walking was a struggle.

  Alan headed for Bunker 153, an outpost in the forward trenches. He sniffed the rancid, rotten-smelling air like a hound dog looking to catch scent of its prey. Alan wasn’t looking for prey, it was looking for him. He was sniffing for signs of the new killer: chlorine gas.

  Chlorine gas in itself was not what killed you, but when mixed with water it formed hydrochloric acid. When the moisture of your eyes, mouth and lungs came into contact with the gas it created acid that burned your tissue in turn causing a long and painful death.

  Two days earlier, on 22 April, the allied troops defending the Ypres Salient had tasted the first German gas attack of the war. The salient was defended by the French to the north, the Algerians (French Colonials) in the center, and Canadians to the south.

  The Algerian forward spotters noticed a massive green cloud rolling along the ground coming from the German lines and assumed it was a smoke screen, so they readied for an attack. Instead, the lethal gas was upon them before they recognized the peril they were in. Many died an agonizing death where they had stood. Others ran, but that only kept them in the cloud longer and they also died. The result was a large gap in the allied line of which the Germans, not willing to rush into the dissipating gas, did not take advantage.

  The Canadians, however, closed the hole from the south, braving the dissipating gas and preventing a German breakthrough.

  Alan had seen the poor wretches that had encountered the attack. Many were blind. All were coughing foamy blood or had horrible labored breathing. This was a new, diabolical weapon that struck fear into the troops, yet the psychological impact it had was much greater than the actual loss of life it caused.

  The biggest flaw in using chemical gas as a weapon was that it needed the wind for its delivery. If the wind turned, the weapon would turn on you. Also, the gas dissipated and diluted as it rolled farther away from the gas canister making the area of maximum potency unpredictable. Despite these drawbacks, gas would remain atop the list of things most feared throughout the war.

  Before Alan left on this mission, a friend quipped, “There’s no wind today Al, you can breathe easy.” It was a saying that had become commonplace in the trenches with the advent of gas.

  Alan continued to sniff despite the lack of wind. Gas artillery shells remain a danger so he had to keep his guard up. His hand instinctively reached to his side and he touched the gas mask that hung there. Infantrymen found that a wet rag held tightly to the face would cancel most of the lethal effects of chlorine gas, but runners were given the scarce masks because of the importance of their job. Even though the wearer of these masks looked somewhat like an anteater, the comical appearance was a small price to pay to for protection against the gas.

  Alan stopped again to recheck his directions and kick some of the mud off of his boots. His pause was interrupted by a series of bombardments hitting some fifty yards away. A shower of mud and debris rained down around him as he ducked instinctively and protected himself.

  A helmet clunked down into the trench next to him and rolled several feet before it came to rest in the muck. Alan hoped it had not been worn by a fellow B.E.F. or C.E.F. infantryman just moments before. He waited another few moments collecting his thoughts and his composure before continuing his journey to Bunker 153.

  Most bunkers were underground rooms dug below trench level and covered with corrugated metal roofs and sandbags. They could withstand a fairly good pounding, but a direct hit from large howitzer shell would more than likely be a disaster.

  The bunkers did provide a welcome shelter and were often crowded with men looking for any relief from the trench. There were many bunkers placed throughout the trench system and they would regularly be filled in and dug again to lessen the possibility of the enemy attacking a known position.

  Alan popped out from the small communications trench into a main trench. The floor was covered with duck boards. The duck boards were a welcome sight after the schlep down the muddy communications trench, so he stamped his feet to loosen the caked mud from his boots.

  His feet were soaked and he had been well warned of the danger of trench foot, so he always carried three pair of socks stuffed into his tunic. It was a pointless exercise in as much as he was putting a dry sock into a thoroughly soaked leather boot, but it was a momentary reprieve and headquarters believed it reduced the incidence of trench foot.

  Alan turned left and noticed a shell casing hanging from a stick protruding from the trench wall. A mallet was tethered to the shell. This was one of the innovations someone had come up with to warn of a gas attack. The brass casing made a fine bell sound when hit and carried well over the vegetation free terrain. There were also an abundance of empty casings so they were perfect for the job.

  As Alan continued around the corner of the larger trench he encountered two soldiers sitting in a funk-hole. A funk-hole was a type of dugout in the sidewall of the trench. It was up and out of the mud and provided a place to sleep, rest or just dry out for a while.

  Both men seemed to be resting with their feet toward each other and their backs against the walls. They were too still. Alan had seen this before. He knew they were both dead and he knew that gas was not the cause. The faces of the gas victims were contorted and their lips were purple and bloated and covered with bloody froth. No, these men had been killed by the concussion of a nearby artillery explosion. Sometimes when a shell exploded and you were below ground level, the explosion was so powerful that its concussion could crush ones internal organs and brain leaving no outward sign of injury. Such was the fate of these young men. Alan made a mental note of their location and would pass on the information to the stretcher bearers upon his return.

  According to his directions, Bunker 153 was just around the next bend which was closer than he had estimated and he came upon the bunker unexpectedly. A sentry was momentarily startled by Alan’s appearance and raised his rifle to the ready in a quick reflex move.

  “Bloody hell!” he scolded. “You scared the piss out of me man!”

  He was one of the Canadian Scottish, a kilted regiment of tough fighting men.

  “I’ve got some troop and artillery movement information for your commander,” Alan said.

  The man turned and banged on the door in some coded kn
ock. The cigarette that hung from his mouth dribbled ash down the front of his heavy wool tunic as he waited for the door to open.

  “A runner for Sergeant Warner,” he yelled at the door.

  It slowly opened and a voice said, “Come in man, don’t just stand there!”

  Alan stepped through the doorway leaving the cool April air of France behind and entering the musty damp sweaty stench of a bunker filled with too many filthy soldiers and a smoldering coal brazier stove. The place was poorly ventilated at best and it was a wonder the bunch of them weren’t dead from the exhaust of the coal burner being used for heat and hot tea.

  Alan blinked his eyes to try to adjust for the sudden lack of light when the door closed behind him.

  “I have a communication for Sergeant William Warner,” he yelled into the darkness.

  From deep within the poorly lit bunker came a strong, loud voice. “Warner Here! Make way lads!”

  The men shifted positions to allow him to pass. A tall wiry man with a long stride moved through the group of wet and tired soldiers. His dark thick hair, along with a large bushy mustache, accentuated his already dark features. He looked to Alan as if he were a coal miner or a chimney sweep before the war. He led with an outstretched hand and a broad toothy smile. Alan quietly admired the look of the kilt that the man wore. The seemingly nonsensical refusal by some divisions to abandon the kilt for trousers in trench warfare only cemented the feeling that these were fighting men of an ancient order.

  “I’m Sergeant Bill Warner” the man said.

  “Alan Macdonald, sir,” he said, handing Warner a sealed tube with some papers inside. Warner twisted the top off the canister as he walked over to a nearby candle for better light. They used candles because they would flicker and go out when the oxygen in the bunker was too low. From his pocket, Warner removed a pair of filthy spectacles which he smeared, in an effort to clean them, on his equally filthy shirt.

  “Madness,” he grumbled as he read the note.

  Warner pulled his glasses off his rough leathery face and turned back to Alan.

  “They risked your life to send me a message that nothing has changed! Fools! Guess what lads? We’ll be here another night!” he shouted.

  The men responded with a mock “Hip, Hip, Hurrah!”

  “I love these men” Warner said looking sternly into Alan’s eyes. “They ran with me into that green cloud of death two days ago and bravely fought back the Huns. Most are coughing and wheezing, they’re underfed, overworked and are suffering the dysentery, lice and God knows what else and still they can kid around. I want you to send this message to Headquarters. We need R&R, we need better food rations–the rats won’t even eat the crap we’ve been getting–and we need more rum!”

  “I’ll pass that along sir” Alan responded.

  “Good! Now back with ya, and Godspeed. Oh, and the next time they send a duck board courier, make it for a reason! You can tell them that, too!”

  He slapped Alan on the back and ushered him out the door.

  They both stood in the sunlight stunned by the momentary change in lighting. Both instinctively took a deep breath of air.

  “Not much better out here” Warner said with a cough.

  The sound of bagpipes came from down the trench. Alan looked at Warner questioningly.

  “Our piper likes to practice,” Warner said with a chuckle, punctuated by another cough. “I believe he does it because it drives Fritz mad. They expect a charge every time they hear the pipes.”

  “My brother’s a piper,” Alan said, ”but he’s back home.” Warner lit a cigarette. “Well, if he comes over here you tell him to be wary. They shoot the pipers first. They call us kilted regiments ‘The Ladies from Hell,’ you know! And the piper is considered the Queen mum,” Warner said.

  “I’ll pass it on in my next letter home,” Alan said as he turned and began a slow trot.

  “Keep your head down, lad!” Warner yelled after him.

  YPRES SALIENT, 24 APRIL 1915

  German 4th Army, Pioneer regiment # 35

  Gunter Bruner was tired. His job required hours of extreme concentration and it proved to be more stressful and exhausting than he had ever imagined. This was only compounded by the relentless pressure being put upon him by Oberst (Colonel) Petersen and the high Command.

  But there was additional stress for Gunter. He was torn by his own personal, internal objections to his mission. Gunter Bruner was twenty-nine years old and had studied at Heidelberg. He was an accomplished chemist with a successful career at Bayer chemical a company founded in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer.

  “A company responsible for discovering the wonder drug Aspirin is forced to use its resources to create something so sinister,” Gunter had complained to closest friends.

  Gunter had been chosen personally by Professor Dr. Harbor who was tasked with setting up the Pioneer regiment #35. This was a regiment specifically formed to deal with the handling and dispersing of gas. The regiment had two battalions, each made up of three companies. There was a group of meteorologists, a group of specialists, and a telephone detachment and supporting troops in each battalion.

  The attack had been planned for some time and it seemed now that the weather was the only determining factor. Gunter was in charge of two kilometers of the gas line. The entire gas attack was to take place over an eight-kilometer line and had to be released in unison. There were almost 6,000 canisters, a total of 168 tons of chlorine gas required to create a dense enough cloud to travel the several hundred meters into enemy trenches before it began to dissipate and lose effectiveness.

  The dispersal procedures had been inadequately calculated and only briefly tested, but not to the satisfaction of Gunter and his fellow chemist specialists. There was quiet dissension among his group.

  “We don’t really know, fully, the potency of the gas,” Gunter complained to a comrade. “And the rate of dispersal must be more properly calculated to take into account the speed of the wind and the type of terrain.”

  “Ja, the trenches are water logged as is the surrounding area of No Man’s Land. As the gas comes into contact with water it diminishes rapidly. If we were to have a rain shower it would render the gas useless,” his comrade responded.

  “Just as well by me. I hate this weapon. It is dishonorable,” Gunter said.

  They were both fully aware of the outcome of exposure to this gas and were revolted at the idea that their intellect and skills were being used in such a base way.

  There had been some obvious miscalculations on the first attack of 22 April. It was essentially a test that had gone quite well, but the Germans could not take full advantage of the weapon because of a lack of working knowledge of its properties. Overly cautious, the Germans waited too long before moving into the “kill zone” allowing the Canadians to close the breach. Risking their lives in the face of such a horrific weapon was madness.

  Outwardly his troops ridiculed the Canadian kilted troops—the “Ladies from Hell”–but inwardly Gunter knew that there was a deep respect for these fierce fighting men.

  As the German troops moved into the gassed area two days early, Gunter and his specialists followed to document the results for Dr. Haber’s weapon. They were revolted at what they found. The contorted bodies of the Algerian and French troops, their eyes puffed closed, lips red and bloated and their mouths flowing with a bloody froth were everywhere.

  The Germans used three basic gas types. First there was Lachrymator, a form of tear gas, non-lethal, but effective in disabling troops for a brief period of time. Next were a group of gasses that were all lethal and debilitating. These included chlorine, phosgene (which damaged the respiratory system), disphosgene (which could dissolve the filters in gas masks), and asphyxiant gas (which displaced oxygen and caused suffocation). Even if initially survived, these gasses would cause slow death or long term damage.

  Finally there was dichlorethylsulphide, a blistering agent commonly called mustard gas. It was inexpensive to
produce, easy to handle and its ability to sink into trenches and linger for long periods made this the most frequently used gas throughout the war.

  The Fourth Army was standing ready for the word from the Pioneer’s meteorologists and specialists. The next opportunity would not be lost to over-caution. This time they had increased the amount of gas canisters, thereby creating a far more lethal and long lasting attack.

  The artillery was also ready to lay down an initial barrage short of the allied lines to cover up the approaching gas cloud. Then they would pound the back of the allied positions to prevent the troops from advancing from the rear as well as retreating from the front. It was a death trap.

  The attack plan was to open a gap wide enough to send a large number of the Fourth Army troops through the center of the hole with enough room on each side to reduce the possibility of being flanked. Then they would push for the coast and cut off the allied supply lines.

  Gunter knew of the plan; it was no great secret. A lot was riding on the outcome of today’s attack because this infernal trench war provided little movement in either direction. If the attack proved successful and allowed the Germans to advance, the gas attacks would increase and it would be the new weapon of choice.

  But there are so many variables, Gunter thought to himself. He lit up a cigarette and took a long draw on it. As he exhaled the smoke, the field telephone rang causing both him and the telephone operator to jump.

  “The meteorologists in the north sections say they have wind! They are asking for our observation,” the operator relayed to Gunter.

  The meteorologist who should have given the information was at that moment indisposed with a rather persistent case of the trots. Gunter looked over at the latrine and took another deep drag of his cigarette. As he exhaled, he realized that his smoke was drifting away in a north westerly direction. Perfect.

  “Tell them that the wind is North westerly at three to five kilometers,” Gunter said. The operator quickly passed the information along, then looked questioningly at Gunter.