by Paul Reid
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Paul Reid
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477849927
ISBN-10: 1477849920
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013919515
This book is for my wife, Rhona, with much love.
CONTENTS
20 MARCH 1918
HISTORICAL NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
20 MARCH 1918
BRITISH ADVANCED ZONE,
THE SOMME, FRANCE
A sky, old and tired, hung low upon the ghostland. Almost dusk. The quietness had thickened around them, like the miasma of a swamp. If they didn’t return to their lines before nightfall, they would get lost, and if they got lost . . .
Lieutenant Adam Bowen grunted. “Your feet, Private.”
“Sir?”
“You’re standing in . . . you know.”
“I’m what—oh, shit!” The young private recoiled from the mouldering remains beneath him. These trenches had been abandoned under the German bombardment weeks previously, and it hadn’t been possible to remove the dead. The smell lingered on the greasy duckboards, around the collapsed dugout shelters, a reminder in the unnatural evening peace that these fields had become a cemetery.
“I’m beginning to suspect that we’ve taken a wrong turn, Private.” Adam lifted his helmet to massage the remnants of his shorn hair. There were German soldiers close, perilously close, to where they walked now. By nightfall, negotiating the labyrinth of trenches back out could be impossible. “Where’s that plane gone down? We’re going to run out of time.”
Private Timmy Hannigan looked unhappily at the black earthen walls enclosing them. “He definitely flew out this side, Lieutenant, and over the farmhouse. I saw the flames. Hard to check our position without taking a look over the top.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that, Private. It’s still shooting light.” German snipers were using the woodland beyond to harry the British trenches. That week alone the Royal Dublin Fusiliers had lost three scouts to them. “The farmhouse should be dead ahead, if my bearings are accurate. Which no doubt they’re not.” Adam swore in frustration.
A few hours previously, a Sopwith Camel fighter plane had returned from ground attacks on the advancing German divisions, its fuselage ablaze. Falling shy of the British line, it was last seen coming in low over the woods and disappearing into an area close to the German trenches. Pilots had a shockingly short life-span in the war, but this particular aircraft had been recognised by British infantry on the ground as that of Major Harris Johns, a legend of the Royal Flying Corps, having the previous year shot down forty-one German planes and balloons in the space of nine months.
If Johns had survived the crash landing, his successful recovery would be a huge morale boost for the British, but if the Germans found him first, it would be a soul crusher. The officers back at command didn’t want heads to dip, not now on the cusp of a major engagement. Thus Adam had been despatched with Private Hannigan and Sergeant Connor into no-man’s-land to find a wrecked aircraft and, most likely, another dead, charred hero.
“Where’s that bloody platoon sergeant?” Adam glanced back. “Connor, where are you gone? Hannigan, where’s Connor?”
Timmy looked around and gulped. “I don’t know, sir. He was behind us a minute ago.”
Both men hesitated. It had darkened considerably. Adam faced the decision to continue the operation in poor light or abandon Major Harris Johns to the Germans. Neither option sat well.
“Christ, where’s Connor? Come on, Hannigan, find him.”
Timmy Hannigan was nineteen, a Tipperary lad, short and wiry. His funny ways and innocent nature had long ago made Adam take to him, but right now he looked sick with nerves. Adjusting the rifle on his shoulder, he crept back along the sunken duckboards, peering into the trenches left and right. “Sarge? Sarge!”
No one replied. A cavernous silence filled the area.
He turned back to Adam. “I-I don’t know what happened, sir.”
There was a squelch of mud and a figure lurched out of the gloom.
“Jesus!” cried Timmy.
Platoon Sergeant Ned Connor staggered towards them and tried to pull his khakis back in place. “Apologies. Had to go. My stomach’s squeezing like a bellows.”
“Christ’s sake, Sergeant,” Adam growled. “We need to stick together out here. Understood?”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. Won’t happen again.”
Staring ahead up the forbidding passage of the next trench as it filled with an ever-rising pool of shadow, Adam unslung his Lee-Enfield rifle and touched the half-metre-long bayonet. The Hun was nearby. He could smell him. If it came to a hands-on scrap in this filthy hole, it would be messy.
“Fix bayonets,” he ordered. “And be on guard. We’re going on.”
Slowly, picking careful steps, they advanced farther into the mud-walled corridor. Along the way bones protruded from the earth, at one point a large discoloured rib cage, bits of rag still affixed to it. Timmy clasped his mouth and gagged.
“We have to go back, sir. I want to go back.”
“Stay quiet,” Adam hissed. “The bastards will be close. I can see the roof of the farmhouse.”
“Roof” was a relative description. The shell of the farmhouse remained, but the roof had been bombed to wreckage, its timber beams like another splintered rib cage. The French family who lived there once upon a time had long fled, and a goat’s carcass marked the way as they advanced up the low hill. Here the trenches ended.
Open ground.
“Wait,” Adam warned. “I’ll go first. Any sign of that Sopwith?”
Timmy shook his head.
“All right. Stay put. See that barrel by the back wall?” Adam tightened the helmet strap under his chin. “I’ll make for that. Once I signal, you follow. Shoot the shit out of anything that moves, except for me.” He winked and then sprinted for the house, ducking his head.
When he reached the wall he was panting. Next to the barrel was a rat-ravaged sack of flour, and he edged past to the nearest window, listening for several seconds. Then he flicked his hand and Timmy followed Sergeant Connor up the slope.
“I can’t see inside,” Adam whispered to them. “I’m going to carry on. Take the far side, both of you. Meet me at the front.”
They obeyed and parted company. Adam risked a peek through the window. The interior was empty but for old furniture and mildewed walls. He moved on, around the east side, to a yard and a patch of weed-ridden tillage. A broken cart was parked by the side door, and yet another tethered corpse, this time a dog. He paused, listened, and snuck a few more steps towards the door. It was open. He used his elbow to nudge it in and immediately breathed a scent of foul must and decay. Poising the rifle and bayonet, he stepped inside.
Rats and beetles scuttled away at his approach. A kitchen area adjoined an open floor with chairs and a table, and a ladder led to a sleeping loft, above it the bare sky. He swore in relief and lowered the rifle.
“Sergeant!” he barked.
Clumsy footsteps came to the door. “Sir, we found nothing,�
�� Connor announced.
“There’s nobody here,” Adam said. “But we’re sitting ducks. Let’s not stand on ceremony. Private Hannigan, where’s the bloody plane?”
“I can’t see it, sir,” Timmy said, waiting outside with his rifle clutched. “There’s no sign. Wait—”
Adam and Connor hesitated.
“Smoke! I can see smoke, sir. Beyond those trees. See?”
Adam edged Connor aside and marched out. He strained his eyes. Below the next hillock, obscured by a copse of pine, faint tendrils of smoke rose into the gloaming.
“It’s him,” Adam grunted. “It has to be Johns. Come on, let’s get him and go home before the Boche arrives.”
They ran as a bunch, heads low. Much of the forest had already been levelled by shelling, but a small coppice remained. As they neared, Adam could now clearly see black smoke curling out of a hunk of wood and metal, lying on its side in the burnt groove of an embankment.
“Watch the trees, Sergeant,” he ordered and touched Timmy’s shoulder. “You’ll have to help me, Private.”
Dreading what he would find amid the scorched wreckage, Adam was nonetheless taken aback. The airman was bent over the cockpit, his goggles melted into his face. But he moved. His head stirred at their footsteps, and he croaked, “Water . . . water . . . ”
“Easy, Major, you’re in safe hands now.” Adam peered inside and swore at the shattered legs, twisted impossibly between crushed panels. “Good man, you’re alive. We’re here to take you home. Private—Private! Help me.”
Timmy looked to be at the point of fainting. But he recovered at Adam’s gruff voice and set to work with his knife, cutting free the pilot’s straps.
“That’s it, Private. You all right, Major? We’ll have you out of this in a jiffy.”
Suddenly, the crack of a Mauser rifle jarred their ears. In that same instant, Adam saw Major Harris Johns’s head burst over the side of his beloved Sopwith. He froze.
“Where did that—Sergeant, I told you to watch the trees. Get down, get behind the plane!”
“I didn’t see him,” Sergeant Connors howled as he ran. “I didn’t—”
A second shot ripped through the air. Connors was flung aside, his temple disintegrating.
Timmy screamed.
“Get down!” Adam pushed the private under the fuselage. “Where the hell is that bastard?”
They rolled under the Sopwith, legs entwined like lovers, and Adam ripped the bayonet off his rifle to take a shot. “I can’t see him. I can’t see the bugger.”
Rough boots sounded by the clearing. Timmy whimpered. “We should have turned back, we should have turned back . . . ”
“Quiet,” Adam rasped. “Keep your head down. Who’s out there? Damn it, I can’t see. Let me just get a sight—”
“Halten,” a loud voice commanded. The footsteps slowed. “Sie sind umgeben!”
Adam could now count at least six pairs of feet out there on the grass, possibly more. He put down his rifle.
“Sir?” Timmy gaped at him.
“Not to worry, Private.” He forced a smile. “They’re probably just looking for directions. Stay here.” He rolled himself out from under the aircraft and rose slowly, lifting his arms. “Hello, boys. Me and the lad were out picking wild mushrooms. Can we help you?”
A thin, white-bearded officer with pale grey eyes strode towards him, gesturing for his soldiers to lower their weapons. “Ah, greetings. Mein Name ist Kommandant Guntmar Schmitz.”
Adam stared at him, and the German commander smiled thinly.
“Verstehen sie? No, you don’t. What is it about you English that you presume the whole world must speak your language?”
“I’m not English,” Adam told him. “I’m Irish.”
“Irish, English, Canadian, Australian.” Schmitz shrugged. “I’ve killed all of you this month.” He glanced behind him. “Bringen sie innen!”
Adam found himself bundled into the hands of two German soldiers and relieved of his guns. Private Hannigan was dragged squealing from under the wrecked fuselage, and together they were marched inside the farmhouse.
“Smile.”
Commander Guntmar Schmitz patted the top of the Carl Zeiss camera fixed on a brass tripod.
“Smile for the camera.”
Adam and Timmy had been thrust onto two chairs, wrists bound behind their backs. Timmy was weeping. Adam stared coldly ahead.
“Smile for the camera,” Schmitz repeated, brisker this time. “On second thought, no.” He regarded Timmy’s tear-stained face for a moment and nodded in approval. “Perhaps that is more appropriate, so that when the war is won and we carry our flags back to Germany, the stolzes Volk can see for themselves the defeated countenance of the British villains. Private Klein, bitte.”
One of the German soldiers stooped to the tripod, peered through the viewfinder, and tripped the shutter. Schmitz clapped his hands. “Excellent. My uncle is a military museum curator in München. He will appreciate this photograph. Thank you, Private, you may wait outside.”
When the photographer left, one other soldier remained with Schmitz in the gaunt kitchen, and he continued in English as he paced across the ant-holed linoleum. “We saw you come out to find the pilot. Why? You British have lost many pilots this month. Who was he?”
Adam studiously avoided his eyes and didn’t answer.
“Why was he special to you? A pilot of note?” Schmitz smiled. “Our great hero, Manfred von Richthofen, was in service earlier. You British will know him better as the Red Baron. It is my thinking that your British hero met our German hero in the skies today, and tomorrow I will dispatch a photograph of the English corpse to bolster the hearts of our men. I imagine on your side the effect will be opposite, no? So who was he?”
Still Adam remained silent. Timmy blinked away his tears. “Lieutenant—”
“Quiet, Private,” Adam snapped.
“Ah.” Schmitz smiled at Timmy. “I see that you will be persuaded to talk, will you not?” His eyes glinted. “But never mind, the pilot’s name is not of importance. His identity will soon be learned. No, I want different information. And you will answer me, if you have sense. I can be a merciful man. I can make your deaths painless. Otherwise . . . ” He glanced back.
The remaining soldier had begun a fire inside the rusted stove. Into the blossoming flames he thrust a bayonet and let it lie.
Timmy shut his eyes.
“Like I say, I can be merciful,” Schmitz advised them. “But the decision is yours.”
He reversed one of the chairs and sat with his arms resting on the back. “Not that you should care, as you will both be dead, but in a few days we will drive a major assault against your lines, sweeping your remaining forces from the whole of the Somme. The British will be wiped out long before your American friends can arrive to help, and the kaiser’s victory in Europe will be total.”
Adam scoffed and spat on the floor. “The kaiser can stick it up his—”
“Hush, hush.” Schmitz raised a hand. “Do not waste your last breaths on this earth with your English profanities, Lieutenant. You are a lieutenant? I see from your uniform. Alas, I outrank you.” He grunted an order to the soldier, who in turn checked the bayonet in the stove. It had gone from black to sullen red.
“Sir,” Timmy pleaded, “don’t hurt us. I just want to go home. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“Private,” Adam whispered to him, “don’t give the bastard the satisfaction. We’ll get out of this.”
“But how, Lieutenant?”
“Stop that,” Schmitz growled. “Stop whispering. You will address yourselves only to me. Now, for the safety of my company I must know the layout of your lines before I commit my men to attack. And my superiors will reward my efforts fittingly, I believe. So you will comply, you will give me the precise locations of your trenches, guns, and stores. Do this, and I shall have no need to employ Private Müller here in his . . . crude methods.”
“You’ll
get no information from us,” Adam retorted. “If you’ve any sense, you’ll run. And run now. The German army is finished. Very soon one million American soldiers will land in France, and every damn jackass Jerry they find they’ll roast like a spitted hog on the fourth of July.”
Schmitz blinked. “Spitted hog? I understand little of what you just said, Lieutenant, for your accent is strange. But it seems to me that you mean to be disagreeable. That is not wise. Let me demonstrate why.”
Müller opened the stove again, and using a strip of airman’s leather, he slid the bayonet from the fire. It was bright red now, a lance of incandescent brilliance, and he flourished it with a reptilian smile as he advanced towards them.
Adam swallowed the hot bile of fear in his throat.
“Lieutenant,” Schmitz intoned gravely, “I must warn you, this course of action will be most unpleasant. I beg you to reconsider. Private Müller is skilled in the art that he performs, and it is,” he shook his head in distaste, “rather horrible, I fear. Please. Will you speak and tell me what I need to know?”
“Lieutenant!” Timmy wailed. “Tell him!”
Müller wielded the bayonet in his gloved hand, watching them with toneless, uncaring eyes.
“Damn it. All right.” Adam grimaced. “Here’s the deal, Schmitz, and it’s the only deal on offer. Let the boy go. Release him back to the British trenches, and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Not good enough, Lieutenant. I make the conditions.”
“You must have a hearing problem, Schmitz. I said it’s the only deal on offer. Now let him go. And then we talk.”
Schmitz pursed his lips a moment, then he turned in his chair and gave a gruff order in German to Müller.
Müller clicked his heels and laid down the bayonet. With deft hands he hauled Timmy’s chair aside and then tipped it forward so that Timmy’s face landed against the table. He began to untie Timmy’s wrists and tossed the binding aside.
“That’s it, Schmitz,” Adam nodded. “At least you’re a man of reason.”