Coming Home

by Roy E. Stolworthy

  A hundred thousand killed you say, and more,

  Tell me, what did they kill each other for,

  Ah, that is something no one knows, says he,

  But it will dwell in history, as a famous victory.

  He raised the monogrammed silver-plated whisky flask – a farewell present from his wife, Lorna – to his mud-caked lips with trembling hands. Most of the fluid dribbled down his chin onto his tailor-made tunic and he wiped it away with his sleeve, fighting like a chastised child to keep the tears from his eyes. Tonight laudanum would provide him with the respite of a night’s sleep and null the devils that danced and whirled in his confused mind.

  As a result of his outstanding bravery Thomas was deducted three days’ leave and two days’ pay for leaving the trenches without permission. Lucky to escape a court martial, they told him. Seven days later he was promoted to Lance Corporal. Stunned, and for the sake of peace and quiet, he accepted the promotion, still craving for a quick death.

  “Well done, Archie,” the men shouted. “You’ll soon be going home to Ruby.”

  “Aye, the sooner the better, best not keep the lass waiting,” he smiled wanly, cleaning the mud from his rifle in the trench dugout.

  When he finished he ignored the dampness and stripped to his waist. Shivering with cold, he lighted a candle and attempted to burn the lice from his clothes, paying particular attention to sewed seams where lice eggs lurked, waiting to hatch and gorge on his blood. Turning his clothes inside out, he dressed. It didn’t help to get rid of the lice, but it was better than nothing. He couldn’t remember the last time he bathed. It must have been a long time ago and he felt his feet hurting; maybe frostbite was setting in. He needed dry clothes. Tomorrow night, alone, he would go close to the German trenches further north and infiltrate their lines, confident he would find decent clothing.

  There was no moon the night he slipped unnoticed through the German lines alone. As he went further, he felt his breathing grow faster and he slowed. At Mametz the sudden hoot of an owl startled him, sending the hairs on his neck tingling. He stopped, crouched, and strained his ears, and then slowly made his way north into the dark interior of Quadrangle Wood. Behind a thick clump of hedgerow bushes he knelt and gently levered the branches apart for a better view of a German heavy gun emplacement hurriedly making ready to pull back behind new lines.

  To his right the sudden yellow flicker of a sentry lighting a cigarette illuminated a brief burst of green vegetation and, dropping belly down, he waited. Ten minutes passed into what seemed an eternity, as the sentry dutifully patrolled his allotted section with expected Teutonic thoroughness. With the palm of his hand he wiped away the stinging sweat blurring his eyes, and crawled away on hands and knees, then began to silently work his way round to the sentry’s flank.

  Without thinking, he recalled his training in armed combat: no hesitation, only commitment, they had ground into him. It seemed so simple performed on men who had no intention of resisting. Immediately he loomed to his feet with his bayonet gripped tightly in his hand, he felt himself trembling. The sentry looked no older than himself, and his protruding Adam’s apple jerked up and down while he struggled for words. The cigarette fell from his mouth, and making no attempt to raise his rifle he stood stock-still, rigid like a statue, with fear raking his face.

  “Nein Kamerad, nein!” he shrieked.

  Thomas stood rooted to the spot. The bayonet hung limp in his hand like a ton weight. The German recovered first, his eyes narrowed and his lips curled into a sneer. Raising his rifle, he slipped off the safety catch. Time faltered and the world slowed. The fear on the German’s face transformed to naked hate. His finger whitened and pressed against the trigger. Without thinking, Thomas lunged and sunk the bayonet between the German’s ribs, pushing and twisting, he searched for the heart. The sentry stiffened and, exhaling a great breath reeking of spices and cigarettes, he shuddered, fell to the damp grass and lay still.

  Thomas quickly pulled off the boots and socks, and stuffed the socks into his pocket. His breath came fast and he wiped away the warm tears running down his blackened face. He’d just killed a man with his bare hands for a pair of dry socks. A man who could have been the solution to his anguish and released him from the nightmare of life if only he’d waited a moment longer. Instinctively he’d chosen life over death. He let out a shuddering breath, cleaned the blood from the blade and hated himself. It was war, and it didn’t matter, he told himself, other opportunities would arise. Instead of walking away he rummaged through the dead German’s pockets and took a bar of black chocolate, an opened packet of cigarettes, a Swiss knife and a letter written in German, which he crumpled in his fist and threw away. Still feeling rattled, he made his way farther behind enemy lines.

  Crouched in a half-filled ditch he listened to the sound of jingling harnesses while sucking on a piece of the black chocolate and watched a fat sergeant breathlessly hitching horses to a huge 77mm field cannon. Angry at his brutal treatment of the horses, he squinted down the sights of his rifle and curled his finger around the trigger. Then he changed his mind and moved away to a row of tents glowing like yellow ghosts from the thick white candles burning inside. He hesitated and listened for the sound of voices. Silently drawing his bayonet he slit the canvas and peered inside. Propped against a low wooden camp bed he saw a rifle with a tube attached above the magazine where the rear sights were normally situated. Curious, he took the weapon plus three pairs of socks, a thick green woollen jumper, a packet of small cigars, a photograph of a woman wearing stockings and little else, and half a bar of white perfumed soap. From under the bed he took a coalscuttle helmet, grinned, and urinated in it, and then contentedly headed back to his own lines.

  “German Mauser 7.92mm sniper with a telescopic sight, that’s what that is, lad,” Sergeant Bull told him when he showed him the rifle. “Fine weapon, eh, give Fritz a bit of his own back.”

  Thomas hefted the weapon onto his shoulder and smiled with pleasure at a blackened tree stump a thousand yards away. It looked less than a hundred yards.

  “Get down to ordnance, bound to have cases full of captured ammunition to fit the rifle,” Sergeant Bull told him.

  He was right – Sergeant Bull was always right – so he gave him the woollen jumper.

  “Eh, right good fit that is, lad, bit on the baggy side mind you, but I’ll overlook that, ta very much.”

  Although the Mauser was slower to load than the Enfield and held only a five-cartridge magazine, its unerring accuracy made all the difference. After closely studying the photograph for what seemed an eternity, Sergeant Bull said he didn’t recognise the woman.

  “Best throw it away, lad. Looking at it for too long will send you blind,” he said. “And if you intend to use that perfumed soap, don’t bend down in the trenches.

  That night Thomas stared at the photograph wondering what part of the woman would cause him to go blind. Unsure, he threw it away to be on the safe side. The remark about not bending down in the trenches left him feeling nonplussed.

  For days snow fell and froze and entrenched men suffered. Some endured the hardship in silence. The majority sat morose, shadow boxing in their minds whether to attempt desertion. Without restraint frostbite and trench foot quickly depleted the platoons, and extra guard duties were pulled by men already tired from sleepless nights beneath the continual bombardment of the German guns. Those who had signed up to fight because others did and they didn’t want to miss the fun found ample time to regret their misguided stupidity. Not that it mattered that much. Conscription would have taken them anyway.

  Christmas neared, morale sank and talk of mutiny once again began to circulate. The arrival of tanks caused a stir of hope and they were welcomed as wonder-weapons by the infantrymen, until they were discovered to be unreliable, prone to breaking down and unable to cross trenches. Men considered the drivers blind when they failed to avoid the wounded, and crushed many allied troops to death. But they frightened the life
out of the Germans, and most were only too happy to surrender at the sight of them.

  “Got no stomach for a fair fight, the Hun. Bunch of bullies, that’s all they are,” someone grumbled.

  “Yeah, they drop their weapons quicker than a London tart drops her drawers,” Slippery Stewart chipped in to a muffled round of laughter.

  Content to be busy the four snipers found themselves continually employed in keeping the Germans’ heads down, thus lowering their morale. Occasionally Thomas ventured alone into No Man’s Land accompanied with his newly acquired rifle, and wearing a white camouflaged suit against the backdrop of snow he wreaked havoc with the German gunners. Wherever possible, he stole anything of use he could lay his hands on before returning. Often, he walked slowly back to the British lines in full view of the German snipers, hoping for a bullet in the back of his head, but with bullets zipping around and troops cheering he never received a scratch. Soldiers hailed him as a lucky charm.

  “Good on you, Archie,” they called. “You show the bastards, eh, soon be going home to Ruby.”

  Sergeant Bull watched him through quizzical eyes and thoughtfully rubbed his stubbly chin with the palm of his hand.

  The following morning sat in the trench on an empty ammunition box Thomas drank tea brewed from a cut-down petrol can. Should someone be foolish enough to strike a match, there was a good chance he would go up in a ball of flames. Even so, it tasted good, so he persevered until he’d had his fill. All around the air reeked of stale tobacco smoke, burning candlewicks and brews of Oxo cubes flavoured with the less pleasant stench of an overcrowded dugout. Overhead the grey sky offered a slight breeze and he gave a small shudder in defiance and smiled at two men arguing noisily over a packet of Woodbines. There seemed no point, cigarettes were plentiful enough. But a heated argument always provided a means of forgetting the war for a fleeting moment, and after a time the protagonists would invariably shake hands, light up and go their different ways. Such was life in the trenches, where No Man’s Land sat dark and friendless, impatiently awaiting its next victims.

  Pale-faced replacements drafted in to bring the battalion up to strength were shown little interest and given short thrift. Some would cry themselves to sleep every night, others would defecate daily in their trousers, most would be lost to German bullets, and occasionally one or two would attempt unsuccessfully to instigate a sing-song. He arched a brow and turned his mind to the past few days, the force necessary to drive him to his death had waned and spluttered to a halt. The small part of his mind that remained calm accepted this as his good fortune. The larger part accused him of blatant cowardice. He had cheated his way to the trenches in a bid to make reparation for the death of his brother, yet when death became inevitable he instinctively chose life.

  The thought provoked him and he thought that perhaps he was a coward; his promises made of dust and ready to blow away at the slightest whiff of a breeze. His face reddened with shame and like most others he needed someone to comfort him, and he could tell himself it was merely a lapse due to the excitement of war. But that wasn’t about to happen. Softness was played upon and ridiculed in the trenches. Firmness and strength, when the occasion demands it, was taken for granted. Or perhaps he hadn’t tried hard enough to fulfil his promise. The heat ran down his shoulders and through his arms until his fingers tingled. His mind was made up. Tomorrow he would desert again and this time there would be no mistakes like before, when Robert McCaughey had paid with his life. To make sure everyone knew of his intentions, he went looking for Neil Letts. Not that Letts spoke much, but when he did it surprised people so much they never failed to listen.

  “I’m going to desert tomorrow. I’ve had enough of all this shit. If I can reach Holland before I’m captured, I’ll be safe,” he said, watching Letts clean his rifle with Vaseline.

  “Aye, lad, and best of luck,” he grinned. It wasn’t like Archie to tell jokes.

  “I’m serious, Neil, I mean it. I’ve had enough of this shithole.”

  Neil looked up, still grinning. “Aye, send us a postcard.”

  At daybreak the next day, Thomas slipped away before roll-call and headed south, with no idea where he was going. Three days on the run would be sufficient to prove his intentions of desertion and warrant a court martial. On the fourth day, he’d give himself up.

  Chapter Eight

  He stood for a long time, not knowing his whereabouts or what to do. The gentle rustle of green fields and trees trapped in a chilled breeze were things of the past. He gazed at the lapping waters of a small lake and imagined he existed in another far-off world. Gone were the blackened battlefields cloaked by drifting clouds of cordite, stinging unwilling eyes; no more screams of the wounded. Hunkered down on a dry patch of grass beneath a beech tree he pulled out a half loaf of thick brown bread and chomped hungrily at the crust. Then all at once it was there, on the other side of the lake with his head held high, antlers pointing to the sky. He watched the black-tipped ears twitch, his back, a reddish brown in the dim forest light, sloped gently and rose to the head, proud and alert. For a moment he stood suspended in time then his stiff forelegs splayed out like stilts, he reached down for the water, his head bobbed for seconds and then he was gone.

  Contentment came quickly and, slumping back against the trunk, Thomas closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine the farm on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors: the pungent smell of carbolic soap wafting from the stone-floored scullery and the tin tub, so small that when he bathed his chin rested on his bony knees. Large, succulent hams suspended from metal hooks in the outhouse that tasted grand with boiled potatoes and fresh vegetables from his mother’s small garden. Even the dust and chalk of the classroom and the maddening charge of eager bodies escaping the trauma of learning at going home time stayed clear in his mind.

  Then he remembered why he was here and he wanted to shout and scream, demand forgiveness. But who would forgive him? Who would want to? He was destined to die, unloved and un-mourned.

  With a sigh he forced his mind to relax and stretched out his legs, the torpor of the afternoon lulling him from his torment. In the distance he thought he could hear the tolling of a church bell. Closer by the brisk resonant sound of birdsong raised his mood by the smallest of notches.

  Late in the afternoon, roused from his solitude, he strained his ears. The voice sounded harsh and biting and he struggled to make sense of the words. Completely unprepared for the sight standing before him his breath swamped his throat. The glistening steel tip of the bayonet pressed into his throat, forcing him back tight against the tree to escape the stinging pain.

  “Stay where you are, Englander.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  The prick of the bayonet punctured his skin, and he felt the warm trickle of blood run down his neck.

  In disbelief his body twitched with fear. The German glared at him as though he’d never set eyes on an English soldier before. Thomas noticed the olive-green riding breeches and knee-length boots. Over his uniform he wore a sheepskin shaped like a jacket with the fleece on the outside.

  “Where are your comrades?” the man snapped.

  “I don’t know, I’m lost,” he stuttered.

  “Lost? You fool, how could anyone be lost in this Godforsaken country? For you, my friend, the war is over; you are now a prisoner of the German Imperial Army. Disarm him,” he said, turning to one of his men.

  “Jawohl, Herr Hauptman.”

  They kept all they found: the rum they drank immediately and hurled the empty bottle into the woods.

  “You are a long away from your lines, perhaps you have run away, eh, perhaps you are a coward, a British deserter?” the Hauptman sneered.

  Thomas stayed silent. The officer shrugged his disinterest and at gunpoint pushed Thomas through the wood until they reached a narrow, rut-filled track covered in deep, thick mud. Immediately, rough hands grabbed him and two German soldiers hurled him down onto the track.

  “I will shoot the next m
an who ill-treats this man; he is a prisoner-of-war and will be treated as such. Do I make myself clear?” the Hauptman intervened.

  With his hands tightly lashed behind his back, the soldiers shoved him into the back of an open lorry. The wind blew bitter and cold, and hardly able to maintain his balance he struggled to remain upright while the vehicle lurched and skidded over the pockmarked road. Finally, when darkness smothered the landscape and his muscles screamed for release from the ropes that held his hands, they juddered to a halt. Untying his hands, they shepherded him at bayonet point though a wooden gate criss-crossed with thick rusting strands of barbed wire into a muddy enclosure measuring approximately twenty square yards. A small windowless wooden building with a mixture of coloured tarpaulins covering the roof stood in one corner; a trail of wispy smoke rose and drifted lazily from a metal chimney stack into the freezing still air. A German soldier wearing a grey balaclava beneath his helmet hammered impatiently against the door and shouted words he couldn’t understand. Seconds later, the door swung open and two men dragged him inside.

  “Bladdy hell, cobber gave you a bit of a going over. Where did they pick you up?” one said.

  “I don’t know. Where am I?” Thomas said, wincing at the pain.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, mate, you’re a prisoner-of-war now. On your own are you?”

  “Yes, they caught me trying to desert.”

  “Did they now? Sounds like a bladdy good idea, and I can’t say I blame you. Let’s get the wet clobber off you before you catch your death. Barnes is my name, Digger Barnes, 3rd Australian Division. This is my mate Ned, the rest of us are all Aussies. You’re the only Pom, and seeing as there’s a war on we won’t hold that against you,” Digger grinned. “Fritz will come for you later and take you down to their medical station, wash you down and de-louse you. More like bladdy torture it is. Mind you, they’ll give you clean clothes and some tucker. Don’t know why we’re fighting them. Treat us better than our own bastards do. Ain’t anybody here looking to get back in the bladdy war,” he rambled, raking the ashes of a small log fire with a charred stick. “It might be different for you though, being bladdy English.”