Coming Home

by Roy E. Stolworthy

  “What’s your regiment?” Ned asked in a reedy nasal whine, going through Thomas’s pockets. “Don’t you bladdy smoke, mate? Strewth, a fat lot a bladdy good you are.”

  “I’m a sniper in the Yorkshire Rifles,” Thomas answered, crawling towards the fire.

  “Whoa, best keep that to yourself, son,” someone said in the background. “They’ll string you up and use you for bayonet practice; snipers put the fear of Christ in them.”

  “They use snipers as well as us,” Thomas answered sharply.

  Digger threw a fresh log onto the fire and watched the sparks dance up through the narrow piping acting as a chimney.

  “Course they do, we all know that, but Germans don’t like an even fight, they haven’t got the stomach for it. They like to kill easily, and when they can’t they do one of two things, chum: run away screaming or bladdy surrender. You’ll learn soon enough.”

  Thomas raised his head and gazed around the room. Twenty-five Australian prisoners-of-war existed in the hut, each assigned to a wooden bed with a metal-sprung mattress and one thin blanket. The fire offered sparse comfort and little heat, but it was better than nothing.

  “Christ almighty, mate,” Ned said, screwing up his nose. “You smell like a bladdy Abo’s armpit.”

  For the first time in months Thomas looked down and inspected his bare arms and legs, shocked at how much weight he’d lost. His toenails were long and deformed, his feet and bony legs were filthy and streaked with black dried mud. His body the same, with ribs protruding through his skin, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a mirror. Suddenly, all eyes turned towards the door when it swung open, revealing two German guards and a non-commissioned officer.

  “Aus!” the non-commissioned officer roared, pointing at Thomas. “Schnell!” he roared again, aiming a kick at Thomas’s head and catching him in the chest. They hauled him up by the arms and pushed him head first out into the freezing snow.

  Half naked, Thomas pulled himself to his feet and, at bayonet point, they kicked and prodded him in the direction of an old farmhouse, the roof riddled with holes from cannon shells. Inside a group of untidy men with long hair and vacant eyes, like men who’d suffered long spells under fire in the trenches, waited, dressed in white smocks. One of the men pushed him down into a wooden chair and began to hack at his hair with a large pair of scissors. When he was finished, he clumsily shaved his head with a razor, paying no attention to the cuts and gashes oozing bubbles of blood. Then, armed with a large sponge, he covered him from head to toe in slimy oil that reeked of petrol. Shivering uncontrollably and hardly able to remain on his feet, they frogmarched him outside and along a pathway of icy duckboards. Now so cold, his head dipped and swirled and he lost all feeling in his body, and slipping to the freezing ground he felt the dull thud of a boot against his flesh. Despair ripped away all feelings of humanity and he groaned and rolled over, staring into the swirling grey sky.

  “Kill me, kill me,” he whispered hoarsely. “Please kill me.”

  The German sergeant stared down at him, his mouth twisted into a sneer. “Pick the English pig up and continue,” he grunted.

  Like a sack of rags they dragged him by his ankles and entered a building with frozen puddles of water scattered around the floor and icicles hanging in rows from rafters, like dragons’ teeth waiting to chomp into his thin undernourished frame. He prayed for death. So desperate did he want to die, to escape from the darkness that had become his world, he felt as though he was confined to a coffin alive. All feeling of humanity drifted from his body, tiredness came and stole away his strength.

  From the gloom two soldiers wearing green gowns and squeaking thigh-length rubber boots, one bandy legged and the other stooped as though he carried a great weight across his shoulders, entered the room carrying brushes, sponges and rough brown towels. From a tank of cold water they began to soak him while the men in white scrubbed and brushed him clean. For over an hour they repeated the process until he thought his skin was on fire, as though it had been scraped with heated sandpaper. By now his swollen knees refused to support him, and reaching out he grasped at fresh air to stop himself from falling. His fingers became stiff and useless, and every joint in his body bulged and ached. Even the slightest movement became unbearable and he wanted to scream, to chase away the excruciating pain. He crumbled down onto the freezing cold floor, whimpering and whining like a newborn pup. When he tried to rise, the concrete floor scraped the skin from his knuckles and finally the joyful bliss of unconsciousness released him from further torment.

  The men in white, seemingly completely devoid of human kindness, ignored his suffering and continued until satisfied that their work was as it should be. Rough hands pulled him to his feet. His eyes flickered open and he felt himself being dressed in a clean pair of trousers and a thin cotton jacket. Hardly able to stand for more than a few seconds and with sunken bloodshot eyes staring vacantly into nowhere, they dragged him back to the hut and dumped him outside in the snow. Inside, two Australians quickly stripped him, and in front of the fire they began rubbing and slapping his naked body with their hands, fighting to get his blood circulating.

  “Christ, he’s done for that’s for sure,” Ned said, panting for breath. “He’ll never come out of this; poor little bugger.”

  Two hours later he lay shivering and alone in front of the fire, blocking the heat from the rest of the prisoners-of-war. He twitched first and then groaned.

  “Here, get this down you, you tough little sod,” Digger grinned, handing him a half cup of weak coffee. “Saved it for emergencies, we did. Should have known a bladdy Pom would get his greedy hands on it.”

  “Glad you made it, son,” Ned laughed, dragging on a scrawny cigarette. “First time I’ve set eyes on that bastard of a sergeant, or whatever he is; maybe things round here might be changing for the worst.”

  “Yeah, you might be right there; if the war’s not going well for them it might be time to think about getting out of here. They won’t think twice about shooting us,” Digger said, holding out his hand for the cigarette. “You greedy bastard,” he said, when the burned-down cigarette singed his lips.

  It was seven o’clock the following morning when the soldiers came for him once again. With a bayonet point prodding between his shoulder-blades he stumbled into the German trenches and was ordered to wait outside a dugout hacked into the side. Strings of electric light bulbs pinned to the clay walls lit up the gloomy dawn turning the darkness into a dull light. He noted the neatness of the German trenches, dug deep and shored up with sturdy logs. Strong wooden platforms had been built high to keep soldiers free from the filthy mud and scampering rats. For a moment his mind drifted and he wondered why the British never did the same.

  One of the German guards pushed him though a wooden door separating a roomy dugout from the trench. Fixed to the walls were four rows of wooden shelves holding dozens of books, almost like a small library. Three thick white flickering candles provided adequate light for a person to read. Behind a scarred, heavy mahogany desk, on which stood a gilt framed picture of a pretty woman sitting on a bicycle next to a drinking glass full of paper roses, sat a German officer smoking a pink cigarette pushed into an ebony cigarette holder. His fair hair, shaved close to his skull, and a monocle perched uncomfortably and unpractised in his right eye prompted Thomas to smile.

  “So, you are enjoying the war, no?” the officer asked, leaning back and stretching his legs onto the table.

  Thomas frowned and remained quiet, unsure of the best way to answer. During his time in the trenches he’d never met anyone who freely admitted to enjoying the war, although he knew there were those who thought at one time they might. Perhaps Germans were different from other people and found some abject form of pleasure in the misery of others.

  “Me, I hate the war, it has no point. Nevertheless, I must perform my duty to the Fatherland to the best of my ability. I wish only to return to my studies as a doctor,” the officer co
ntinued, beating a tuneless tattoo with his fingertips on the tabletop. “I studied for six months in London you know, St Guy’s Hospital, under Dr Crabtree; perhaps you know him? No, I’m sorry, of course you don’t, you are only a common soldier, how silly of me. Tell me, what were you doing outside Verdun alone when one of our patrols picked you up? Are you a spy? I think you are; perhaps I should have you shot.”

  Thomas stared at him feeling a new rage fire into his body. Was this it? Were these the pompous overbearing idiots that day after day slaughtered his friends?

  “Suit your fucking self, you German arsehole,” he grunted.

  The officer jerked his head up and narrowed his eyes at the unexpected response. “You want to be shot, why is that I wonder?”

  Thomas curled his top lip. He’d heard stories in the trenches of Germans who thought they ruled the world – men with large heads that housed tiny brains – and he had no intention of feeding this man’s ego. Barking dogs seldom bite, his father had once said.

  “Maybe you’d be better off thinking instead of wondering, or maybe you find thinking a little too hard,” Thomas snapped, feeling the agony of the previous day and an automatic determination instilled itself in his body. “You might have been to London, but I’ve no bloody wish to go to Germany. Seen enough of you buggers here, I have.”

  Once again the aggressive nature of the answer caught the German by surprise. He had hoped the Englishman might cower and plead for his life. In London they had accepted his arrogant manner as though they were afraid of him, and had allowed him to do and say as he pleased with no fear of reprisals. But he didn’t know the English as well as he might. Born the son of a Prussian general he considered himself ruling class and therefore privileged to ride roughshod over the less fortunate. In his own manner he had studied the British and come to the conclusion that the Welsh were the best songsters, the Scottish the best educated, the Irish the most unpredictable and the English the most tolerant. He took tolerance as a form of cowardice.

  “I wonder if you have the intelligence to know the meaning of the word ‘bugger’?” the German snapped, sparks flying from his eyes.

  “Oh aye, it means some brainless bastard that fucks animals. Why do you think we call Germans buggers?” Thomas snapped back.

  The officer paled, and with a face fit to skin a crocodile he leapt to his feet.

  “Guards!” he screamed. “Take the Englander back to the hut.”

  A rifle butt crashed into the base of his spine and he stiffened with a dull groan; the darkness sounded full of guttural noises, and with a tearing anguish he slumped to the ground. Like a dead carcass they dragged him down the trench by his shoulders and hurled into ankle-deep mud used as a latrine. A heavy boot pressed down on the back of his neck, forcing his face into the filthy rat-infested excreta. In desperation he struggled and fought for air to escape drowning. Thankfully the pressure eased, leaving him gasping and choking for breath. Nearby a group of Germans laughed at him and tapped their fingers to their heads.

  “Englander idiot,” they scoffed.

  Thomas bore the taunts along with the raucous laughter, and such was his anger from that moment he vowed he would never forget the humiliation heaped upon him that day. There could be no forgiveness for men such as these, no place in heaven next to God. Something in their pitiless faces evoked a primitive urge for revenge, and his mind festered into a hatred for the German race that would never diminish. He promised himself that, if he survived imprisonment, he would kill as many Germans as the war would allow him before he died.

  That night, in a fitful sleep, he was haunted by a great predatory monster with dripping fangs waiting to feast on his iron guilt. Archie’s face, as white as Arctic snow, stared down at him, and in his hand dangled a noose. His empty laugh coursed through Thomas’s body and, slipping the rope over his head, he pulled the noose tight.

  In the morning he felt as if sleep had passed him by. His tongue felt like a bullock’s, blocking the passageway to his lungs. Blackened bruises surrounded the cuts and lacerations covering his body and still his bones felt as though they were filled with ice. A few hours felt like fleeting minutes. He would have risen if only he possessed the strength, then, without warning the bullying German sergeant kicked open the hut door and smirked purposely waiting for the tiny amount of heat to be displaced by an icy draught. Two men helped Thomas to his feet and half carried him outside. Shivering, they lined up in silence under the drifting snow for the daily roll-call and answered to their names. With hollow eyes and blue trembling lips each man waited to return to the meagre heat of the hut.

  Thomas’s mind became a blank darkness, an eternity of nothing and he swayed with weakness, only the thought of another beating gave him the strength to remain upright. Then, through tired veined eyes he looked up and noticed a golden hue from a string of glowing light bulbs suspended above the trenches. He searched his memory for times he thought he might have long forgotten. The sight reminded him of the village baker’s shop at Christmas time, and his mind wandered into a past life away from the horror of the present.

  At Christmas Mr Bridle had always decorated the bakery window with gold tinsel and silver tin-foil, and multi-coloured lights shone and twinkled over the delights he produced like magic from the warm ovens at the rear of his shop. Just the sight of Father Christmas made of currant cake and covered in red icing had made the juices in his mouth run like sweetened water. A snowman with a happy smile on his face and chocolate buttons pushed onto his thick creamy coat stood surrounded by shiny green holly. Finally, the Christmas tree, with gaily-wrapped sweets tied to sagging branches, and a fairy complete with gossamer wings and a halo glowing above her head smiled down from the top.

  On Christmas Eve the children stood in their best Sunday clothes on the village green, singing carols under candlelit lanterns glowing gold in the crisp night air. Later they ate freshly roasted chestnuts and baked potatoes that burned their fingers and heated their throats in front of a roaring bonfire before going home, too excited to sleep. Boxing Day morning, children trying to suppress their excitement gathered from surrounding villages to form a quiet, orderly queue outside the bakery and wait for a free slice of the snowman, or perhaps even Father Christmas himself.

  At six-thirty in the evening the prisoners waited to be herded out like cattle for a meal of thick gruel and a thin slice of black bread. Later one man would tussle with the freezing conditions and accompany a guard to fetch logs for the fire from a nearby wood. If he survived, he would be allowed time in front of the fire to control a bout of shivering. With typical Germanic thoroughness, exactly on time, the door swung open and the men filed out as they had done so many times before. This time they stood pinioned to the spot, and their mouths sagged open. In the centre of the compound a small Christmas tree with four white candles burned a warm glow against the backdrop of fresh snow, and a tray full of hot black sausages and brown bread stood beside a steaming pot of coffee and two tins of Craven A cigarettes.

  “Merry Christmas, Tommy,” one of the guards laughed, slamming the gate shut.

  It was Christmas Day – even amidst the relentless carnage and slaughter in the freezing slime. For men dying and screaming in agony under the light of the dull yellow flares, the sacred day of Christianity could be remembered and celebrated. Thomas watched, unable to halt the sneer crossing his face, and wondered what gave these men the right to celebrate Christmas. How could they justify such hypocrisy? How dare they consider themselves Christians?

  Later, each with his own thoughts, the prisoners sat with tears streaking their dirty faces, remembering past Christmases spent in the company of those they loved. Melancholy eyes stared down at irreparable muddy boots to the sound of the enemy singing Silent Night; some hoped they might one day see another Christmas under different circumstances. The sneer on Thomas’s face refused to budge and, for some reason unknown even to himself, he thanked God he was still a boy and not yet a man.

  For th
e ensuing months Thomas, more than any other prisoner, suffered bitterly at the unforgiving cruel hands of the Germans. Day by day he grew even thinner and gaunt, and immersed into a world full of despair and misery. His breath became ragged, gasping, an explosive panting, like someone about to choke. Yet he clung to life like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. A festering hatred formulating in his heart helped keep him warm, with a certain belief that his day of reckoning would one day come. The Germans would rue the day they treated him worse than a rabid dog.

  Overnight trenches quickly filled knee high with swirling snow and the prisoners-of-war were put to work clearing away the drifts. Like ponderous windmills they shivered and threw their arms around their bodies in a futile attempt to keep warm in the worst winter ever recorded. A few of the older German soldiers, unhappy at the treatment, kindly handed out worn-out greatcoats to help keep away the cold. Later the younger soldiers, pale with fury, ordered them to remove the coats and confiscated them. The only privilege they were allowed was that of closing their eyes at night and sleeping in shivering fits, in the forlorn hope they might survive and be alive the following morning. Hopes soared when a British bombardment started up and continued day and night. Thomas sat in the hut rocking on his haunches, praying a stray shell might hit the compound and blow it to kingdom come.

  In the morning, shovels were thrust into their hands and they set to work repairing the damage caused by the allied bombing the previous night. Now the Germans treated them worse than before, and beatings became a daily occurrence for no apparent reason other than that they were the enemy. Thomas and two other men were issued with wooden buckets and ordered to remove the water from melted snow that rose steadily in the bottom of the trenches, and for long hours they toiled until every sinew and muscle screamed for pitiful release from the torment as they hurled bucket after bucket over the side of the trenches.