Coming Home

by Roy E. Stolworthy

  The metallic clunk-click of five hundred rifle bolts pushing a cartridge into the breech stopped him in his tracks and his eyes widened as the muzzles pointed at him, each finger itching to pull the trigger.

  “If you want to stay alive to bugger your stable boy again, I’d put that revolver back up your arse where it might do some good,” Barnes said growing angry, and turning to one side he sent a stream of phlegm splattering next to the officer’s boots.

  The captain turned away with an expression bordering on naked fury.

  “Release the prisoner and take him into custody, this isn’t over yet,” he croaked, and walked stiffly away.

  “Strewth, Digger, you were over the top this time, mate. You’ll be staring down a barrel yourself soon, too bladdy right,” Ned said.

  “Yeah, well I don’t think so. I ain’t got nothing against the captain, probably didn’t want the job in the first place, but the bastards still do it don’t they, every bladdy time. That’s not discipline, Ned, that’s bladdy blind stupidity.”

  By order of the Provost Marshall Thomas was held in custody until the situation was resolved. Aware of the danger concerning the Anzacs’ attitude in the past, the Provost Marshal had been given strict orders not to antagonise them. Nevertheless, he wasn’t happy at the present outcome. It was bad for discipline for a warrant officer to treat a commissioned officer in such an offhand manner in front of the troops.

  “You ever speak to a British officer in that manner again, you fucking stupid colonial sheep shagger, and I’ll be only too pleased to put a bullet in your fat ignorant mouth, do you understand?” he growled at Barnes that evening.

  Barnes cocked his head to one side, shrugged his shoulders and looked at Ned Molloy. “What’s bladdy eating him?” he said.

  The next day a communication came for Second Lieutenant Bellamy. Corporal Archibald Elkin’s death sentence had been rescinded by a general staff officer by the name of Montgomery. He was free to return to his battalion with a loss of rank, ten days’ leave and one week’s pay.

  However, not all of the news was good. The snipers were to be disbanded and the section leaders transferred from the battalion. The news on both accounts sent Thomas into a state of depression and he grew morose and withdrawn. Not even the irrepressible Stan Banks could raise a spark of life from him.

  Many men were perplexed by his attitude and couldn’t understand his reluctance to join in the constant banter. A last-minute pardon from the firing squad was unheard of, yet he walked around like a man with a mouthful of wasps. Rumour had it that he’d received a Dear John from Ruby, though none dared to ask him.

  “Never been known before,” Second Lieutenant Bellamy said. “Never heard of a condemned man being released from the pole of death with the rifle sights already lined up on his heart. If anyone should be full of the joys of life it should be Private Elkin. He still lives when many don’t. Dear me, dear me.”

  Thomas had no desire to ignore their banter or appear rude and offhand. He knew they cared for him like they cared for each other. He was the fresh-faced kid whom death avoided like death itself. “Soon be going home to Ruby” still rang down the trenches when itchy nerves frayed at the edges, when men gripped their hands to stop the trembling and their whole bodies shook. Now events began to overtake his young mind and despair crept in like an incurable disease, stifling, smothering and blindfolding his reason. He raised the brown jug, held it to his lips and gulped on the fiery contents. The neat rum hit the pit of his stomach, exploded and stole his breath away. He raised the jug again and swallowed, then suddenly felt the jar ripped from his hands.

  “You thieving idiot!” Moses roared at him. “This rum belongs to the men who stand in the trenches shaking with fear, not some halfpenny snivelling fraud like you.”

  “Leave me alone, you’re not God, and give me back my rum,” Thomas slurred, reaching out for the jug with an unsteady hand.

  “I think not. You’re not old enough to drink and you’re not man enough to hold it when you do.”

  “Archie drank you know,” he continued to slur. “Liked his drink, old Archie did, dear old Archie. He ended up in a pork sausage you know, half the village must have had a taste of him. Wwouldn’t be surprised if they are all dead by now.”

  Moses stared at him and shook his head in despair, his mood suddenly interrupted by Atlas falling through the door.

  “You don’t want too much of that, Archie lad. Too much rum, not good for your bum, you’ll have the shits, you mark my words. I’ve just heard we’re moving to a place called Langemarck in the morning.”

  “Fuck off and mind your own bloody business,” Thomas sneered, climbing unsteadily to his feet.

  Atlas’s face hardened – nobody had the right to speak to him in that manner. “You’ve been a miserable little bastard for the past few days, perhaps you’re getting a little too big for your breeches, lad. You need taking down a peg or two,” Atlas said. And reaching out he threw him over his shoulder, carried him outside and jerked him up and down until he vomited the rum from his stomach. Then deposited him in a shallow ditch of slurry and left him.

  “A bit harsh, old chap, but probably necessary,” Moses smiled.

  “Never reason with a drunk.”

  Thomas rolled over and lay on his back, giggling in a drunken stupor and trying to remember what had happened to the warm room he had been sitting in. “Where are you, Archie?” he sang quietly. “I know you are there.”

  In the morning Thomas, Stan Banks, Moses and Leslie Hill gathered to say their goodbyes to the few remaining snipers. Moses suggested Thomas say a few words to mark the occasion of their parting. Thomas stood morose and disjointed from the previous night’s encounter with the rum and reluctantly agreed. It seemed the appropriate thing to do.

  “Well, men, I can’t say all good things come to an end, that wouldn’t make any sense, us being here. And I can’t say it’s been a pleasure knowing you because pleasure seems a bit sparse around here too,” Thomas began, feeling the words come easily. “Many have come and gone, and those of you that filled their boots were more than good enough. When this war is over I would like to think we were responsible for saving a few lives, but if we saved only one it would be a job well done. Thank you all, and God bless.”

  The silence was shattering. Thomas looked at Moses with a worried frown and Moses smiled and nodded. Thomas knew he’d said the right words.

  “What about Ruby? Give our love to her. Kept us going through the hard times she has, three cheers for Ruby!” someone called.

  They all hip-hip-hoorayed Ruby. Atlas became emotional and when someone offered him a pair of stained underpants to dry his eyes on he failed to see the funny side. He took a swing at his antagonist, missed and toppled into a trench, knocking over four men cooking a sizzling pan of beef sausages and bacon. Within seconds a horde of squealing rats had devoured the lot.

  “Here, I think this belongs to you,” Moses said.

  Thomas stared at the pocket watch for a few seconds and twisted his face into a wry smile.

  “No, I don’t want it, it’s yours to keep. It never brought me any luck, and anyway it only reminds me of times of sadness.”

  Chapter Twenty

  At five-to-four in the morning it was cold at Langemarck and the men’s heads dropped at the sound of rain pattering down into the trenches. Dark low clouds and a gentle wet wind blew across the besmirched landscape of No Man’s Land. Few men had been able to sleep with the dread of the impending attack playing on their tired minds. Some crouched hollow-eyed, others abandoned all hope and the ever present smell of death lingered and shuddered in heaving lungs. Within a few seconds of the shrill blast from the officer’s whistle they could be dead or wounded, and those unfit for a stretcher would be shovelled into sandbags. If they managed to get as far as the enemy trenches, would the barrage of field guns destroy the rolls of barbed wire, or would they become snagged and struggle for their lives, becoming easy prey for the Ger
man machine-gunners?

  There was a glassy quiet and a sudden lapse in the gentle breeze. Thomas, Banks, Hill and Moses now attached to the 12th Battalion, The Rifle Brigade Prince Consort Own, waited with their nerves stretched to breaking point. Soon the creeping barrage would begin its deadly tattoo on the landscape, already naked of any form of life. No longer afforded the luxury of choosing their own ground they held their nerve and waited to go over the top. Eight British divisions waited in the cold lifeless hour before dawn to attack the German concrete pillboxes. Some men glanced across to Captain Sands and prayed for him to sound the whistle before their nerves evaporated from their bodies. Captain Sands, like most tall men, suffered rounded shoulders and with his steel-framed spectacles perched on a shapeless nose he possessed a face not made for remembering. A confectionary salesman from Reading, he tried to be a good officer who tried his best to care for his men, and for this reason they held him in high esteem. With a crash the barrage began at a quarter to four men jerked upright and snatched at their breath.

  “Hold, boys, hold,” Captain Sands called above the sound of the barrage. Seconds later, he raised the whistle to his thin lips and blew. He was first up the trench ladder, and as cool as a cucumber he waited on the parapet, pulling men weighted down with equipment onto the battlefield. When it was Thomas’s turn to go over the top, Captain Sands smiled at him.

  “Hello there, Private, you’re one of our new boys, aren’t you? Good luck, lad, off you go,” he said.

  The attack was a rout – fifteen-thousand British soldiers dead or injured and not one yard gained. It took four days of hard fighting to gain a foothold and bite and hold became the order of the day. When the relief troops finally made a welcome appearance those living raised a mute cheer and shuffled away. Captain Sands sent a runner for Thomas.

  “I am aware of who you are and your history. Nevertheless it seems a mighty shame not to utilise your skills,” he said in a kindly voice. “I need you and your companions to scout the countryside and bring in as much information as you can find about the Germans’ movements, gun emplacements, stores, and anything that might help us out of this unholy debacle.”

  Stan Banks felt the tension empty from his body and released a sigh of relief. One more day in the trenches and he was finished. His mind now a bubbling cauldron of fear, lately he’d tried to reason the meaning of war and why should it be necessary to die the way they did. What were they fighting for? Who the hell wants a trench full of dead bodies? What does anyone do with a bomb crater full of brackish water? What possible use is a hill entangled in barbed wire or a field full of rotting turnips and corpses in the middle of nowhere?

  The next day, after a meal of fried eggs and sausages and under the cover of a fading twilight, he cautiously led the way along a deep row of thorn bushes towards a derelict farmhouse with gaping holes in the roof. Nothing moved and only the falling rain could be sure of its destination.

  “Don’t feel right,” he whispered nervously. “Somebody would have been billeted in there by now.”

  “I’ll go in first, wait here until I signal,” Moses volunteered.

  Moses made his way round the back. A split door hung partially closed and using the weight of his shoulder he slowly pushed it open. Inside a large empty kitchen, the remains of a broken table lay scattered about the floor and a sink full of pots and plates lay unwashed. He crept silently along a narrow corridor stopping only to listen to a faint squeaking noise coming from a room to his left. With his bayonet gripped tightly in one hand he gently twisted the door handle and pushed the door ajar, and waited. The stench of urine and excrement hit his nostrils and soured his stomach and he turned his head away, fighting the nausea rising in his throat. An ear-splitting scream, followed by another and then another chilled his blood and he backed away, slamming the door shut.

  Overcome by jangling nerves he baulked at the yellow glow of a hurricane lamp piercing the darkness. A soft footfall on the uneven flagstones stopped him in his tracks and a dark shadow flitted into a room opposite the kitchen he’d left only moments ago. The eerie glow spread from the room into the corridor, revealing the peeling wallpaper hanging from the mildewed walls. His boots echoed on the uncarpeted floor as he slowly made his way towards the light, and he cursed beneath his breath. He wanted to roar out a challenge to bolster his failing courage. He tried unsuccessfully to relax and a surging fear soaked his brain. He stopped and jerked his head round the door frame and snatched a glance into the semi-darkness. His lips parted and he made no sound. For a moment his lifetime refusal to believe in ghosts hung by the slenderest of threads and he stared at the dark shrouded apparition before him. Hardly daring to think he stumbled backwards raising his hands for protection, and in his haste he felt the bayonet slip from his hand and clatter onto the floor.

  The dark apparition swayed towards him and his Adam’s apple lodged in his throat. With his eyes glazed in terror he pressed himself back against the wall and tried to make himself invisible, to disappear in a puff of smoke like a magician in a music hall. Too late, the shape loomed close enough to touch him and he was helpless. God would not help him now, not after he had denounced him on the battlefield. His eyes widened by the second as he stared into the pale face and dark-brown eyes hovering before him. With a sigh, his shoulders slumped and the breath drained from his body.

  “Bloody hell, miss,” he said breathlessly, stooping from the waist and trying to get the colour back into his face.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” the nun said, shaking the dust from her habit and lowering the revolver. “You are British, thank God.”

  Moses stepped into the room. “I can assure you he has nothing to do with me being here,” he grunted. “What are you doing here, why aren’t you in your church?”

  “The Germans came weeks ago and they moved us out to fend the best we could, so we came here. Yesterday they came and took all our food and smashed everything before they left. We have elderly people in our care suffering mentally from the continual shelling and bombing.”

  “I’m certain the Germans won’t be back tonight and we need somewhere to sleep.”

  “We?” she said edgily.

  “Don’t worry, we are out on patrol, there are four of us, you are quite safe.”

  Her expression relaxed and softened. From a thick cord hanging around her neck dangled a wooden crucifix. She raised it to her mouth and pressed it against her lips. Although her face looked young and only faintly lined around her eyes, her hands were wrinkled and her fingernails coarse and bitten with worry. Kneeling, she clasped her hands together and mumbled an incoherent prayer. Moses noisily cleared his throat and looked the other way.

  “At the right side of the building there is a lean-to full of straw. You are welcome to share our food in the morning,” she said softly.

  The sun stood high the next morning, the sky as blue and fresh as cornflowers in a summer meadow. The rain had ceased at last. Moses watched three nuns appear from the dilapidated farmhouse like a trio of imperfect souls unable to separate religion from science. They came accompanied by a crowd of elderly men and women, stumbling and staggering in their wake, their clothes stained and ragged and looking not unlike adult street urchins. Eyes wide with vacant stares and shivering and trembling with fright, they looked pathetically thin, moaning and calling like mindless children. Stan said he’d once seen people like them when he’d delivered coal to an asylum for the insane.

  “They are the local elderly people. Some are ill, most were infirmed. Yet the Germans ordered them from their homes and left them to starve,” the nun explained.

  Over a brew, Thomas sat and thought of Françoise and David – was nothing that lived exempt from the manmade holocaust? His mind flashed to Dilly and the innocent baby waiting to be born into the same violent world, and the thought saddened him. By midday they had patched the worst of the holed roof and performed odd tasks to make the group more comfortable. Before they left, they handed the nuns five p
recious tins of bully beef, a jar of preserved pears, half a jar of raspberry jam and two tobacco tins filled with sugar and tea. They knew it wasn’t nearly enough, but they had no more.

  “God be with you,” the nun said to him.

  “I have no need of your God, ma’am, or any other,” Moses answered softly.

  “Then I shall pray for you, my son.”

  With the welcome change in the weather the men in and behind the trenches stripped naked and attempted the impossible task of ridding themselves of the ever-present lice. Huge empty fuel drums were filled with water and brought to the boil. Thomas and Stan tossed their shirts and trousers into the bubbling mass of uniforms and took pot luck in receiving something back that fitted. Very rarely was anyone fortunate enough to get their own clothes back. It didn’t really matter, so long as men could sit quietly without scratching and raking frenziedly at their skin every few minutes. Due to modesty and embarrassment, they deigned to wash their own underwear. Trousers became of paramount importance and priority was given to drying them as quickly as possible. All the men in the trenches possessed an irrational fear of suddenly being caught under fire with their pants down.

  For months they attacked and counter-attacked the German lines until the Germans broke and fell back. Finally the men were pulled back to a rest camp and allowed to recover their shattered nerves.

  Moses sat down next Thomas, doused in his own thoughts. “How are you?” Moses asked. “I’m fine, why?” Thomas answered.

  “No reason, old chap, just asking. Passes the time of day.”

  Thomas frowned and turned to face him. The one thing that struck him the most about Moses was that he never seemed to change. His appearance and un-forced aloofness remained constant, and if he was ever tired he never showed it.

  “Are you tired, Moses?” he asked, already aware of what the answer might be.

  “Knackered, old man, I’m absolutely knackered,” he said in a mimicking voice.