The familiar order snapped the panic away from the private. He snapped to attention. “Smith, sir. Private, 3827.”
“That’s better, Smith.” Ramsay let go and Smith stepped back slightly. He was breathing deeply as he tried to keep control. Ramsay raised his voice, “The rest of you, keep watch in front! Sergeant Flockhart, check the next traverse, but be careful. McKim, have a decko in the rear, see if you can see Fritz.”
With the situation temporarily calmed, Ramsay concentrated on Smith. “Tell me what happened, Smith, where is the rest of your unit?”
Smith shook his head. He looked back over his shoulder as if he expected an immediate onrush of Germans. “They’re gone, sir. There’s nobody left. We got shelled to hell and then they sent over storm troopers. They came out of the mist and used flame-throwers and bombs. They came between what was left of the strong points. We tried to hold them, but there was hardly any of us left, sir. They had hit the machine gun posts and the keep. We only had our rifles.”
Ramsay nodded. “You were overrun?”
Smith shook his head. He ducked as a machine gun opened up from the German lines. Bullets spattered along the sandbag ridge, raising a thin film of sand that pattered back into the trench,
“Were you overrun?” Ramsay repeated the question.
Smith shook his head. He breathed in short, shallow gulps and his hands constantly closed and opened. “Not then, sir. They ignored us and ran right past. They jumped over the top of the trench and pushed onward without even looking down. There were not enough of us left to stop them, sir. Then more came, line after line of them. They just kept coming out of the mist. We killed and killed them…
“I understand,” Ramsay said. “Well, Smith, we have held them here so far, so find yourself a rifle and join the line.”
Smith nodded, just as the German machine gun rattled from the front again. The bullets lashed the battered sandbag barrier or skipped through the gaps to thud horribly against the reverse wall. A spray of sand rose along the length of the trench, shimmered for a second and fell in a soft sheen. The air smelled of lyddite and brimstone, with the ugly stench of phosgene and death.
The thud of feet landing on the duckboards made Ramsay turn around.
“Sir!” Niven threw a quick salute. “I could not get to Major Campbell, sir. The Germans are behind us. They’re everywhere, sir!” He glanced at Smith. “The Durhams are gone to glory, sir.”
Jesus! My bad luck again. Wounded on the first day of the Somme, wounded on the second day at Passchendaele and now, on my first full day back in the line, the Huns get behind our position.
Ramsay swore loudly and looked skyward as a flight of aircraft passed overhead. The black crosses on the underside of their wings were clearly visible. They banked abruptly and swooped down on the lines to the rear. Ramsay saw the bright muzzle flashes from their machine guns as they concentrated on some position to the rear.
“Sergeant Flockhart,” Ramsay shouted, “put up an SOS rocket. The Germans are behind us.”
“I don’t think I can, sir,” Flockhart said calmly. “I don’t think we have a Very pistol left.” He indicated a blasted section of the trench with a languid wave of his hand. “It was kept in the stores bay, sir, but that’s gone west.”
Ramsay nodded. “No SOS rockets, then.” He glanced around. His men were edging closer, trying to listen to the conversation. “Keep watch, boys, Fritz will be back. Watch the rear of the trench too. Is McKim back yet?”
“Not yet, sir,” Flockhart said.
There was the unmistakable guttural cry of a German fire command, followed by the whizz-bang of an explosion and the bark of taunts from the German side of the lines. “Die, Tommy bastard!”
There were more explosions behind them, the size of the bursts and thick green smoke indicating that the shells were 5.9 inch.
“Fritz is making sure of us, is he not?” Niven ducked and held onto his helmet as dirt showered down. “This is his big push.” He looked upward at the tortured sky and added, “Bastards,” to nobody in particular.
“Well, Niven.” Ramsay flinched as a shell exploded overhead. “We’ll make it as hard as we can for him.”
“Yes, sir,” Niven agreed. “Just like the Somme, sir.”
Is that insubordination? Is this private hinting that I did not do my best at the Somme? What has Niven heard?
Ramsay looked hard at Niven, but the private was looking levelly ahead, his expression unreadable.
“How long have you been at the Front, Niven?”
Catch him by surprise; if Niven is trying to be insubordinate, then undermine his confidence.
“Three months, sir.” His face remained impassive but his eyes slithered sideways, just slightly, enough for Ramsay to sense his unease at being questioned by an officer.
“What were you before you were called up?” Remind him that he is only a part-time soldier.
“I drove a tram sir, in Edinburgh.” The eyes flickered again.
“Good man. Let’s all get through this and you’ll be driving one again.” Ramsay forced a smile that he hoped looked natural. “Maybe you’ll be driving me along Princes Street one day soon, eh?”
“I hope so, sir.” Niven’s mouth clamped shut again and he faced his front, as regulations demanded.
“Well done. Carry on.” Ramsay started at the sound behind him and his fingers stretched to the flap of his holster.
“Bloody Fritz is bloody everywhere!” McKim slithered over the rear wall of the trench and landed with a thump on the greasy duckboards, slipped but recovered by putting a hand on Ramsay’s shoulder. “Oh, sorry, sir!”
Ramsay opened his mouth, ready to snarl at the corporal for this affront to his rank, but closed it again. “Was there any sign of Major Campbell, McKim?”
McKim shook his head. “I couldn’t get that far, sir. There are Jerries all over the shop. There was no way through.”
We are trapped, surrounded by the Hun. I have failed again. I must not let the men down a third time.
“We will just fortify this position then and wait for our lads to counter attack,” Ramsay said.
McKim raised his eyebrows. “I dinnae think they will be here soon, sir,” he said. “Fritz is in force behind us and advancing fast.”
Ramsay forced a yawn. It was a reaction that gave him a few seconds in which to think. “We will stay put, McKim, and hold out. Fritz may have broken through the regiments on either side, but he’s not breaking us.” He glanced along the trench, littered with burst sandbags and dead men. “Get this place cleaned up and gather all the ammunition we can. We are not leaving.” He nodded to the furthest end of the trench. “Find a couple of knife rests if you can, McKim, and draw them across the edges of our sector. Jerry will have to fight to get us out of here…”
“Watch, sir!” Flockhart pushed Ramsay unceremoniously aside and into the shelter of a sandbagged bay. He pointed upward to the dark shape that swung end over end above them.
The men watched, some cursing, one praying. Niven aimed his rifle and fired upward, as if to try and explode the thing prematurely, but it continued on its evil passage across the sky.
“An oilcan.” McKim watched its progress. “Christ, but I hate these things.”
“We all do,” Ramsay said. He pressed hard against the mud and sandbags of the trench wall. This is a terrible way to die, trying to burrow into damp earth in the middle of France. The smell of the earth is so familiar, yet so alien. It’s earth, but not my earth.
They watched it turn end over end until it was positioned a dozen, fifteen, twenty yards behind the line, directly over the communications trench. It exploded in a nightmare of red hot nails and shards of sharp metal that showered down in a wide diameter, some landing in the trench where Ramsay pressed hard into the French mud. Men crouched down, grabbing hold of their helmets or trying to burrow into the side of the trench. One man screamed as a long sliver of metal thrust into his back, another fell silent as his head wa
s sheared in two.
“Stretcher bearers!” Flockhart yelled as the wounded man writhed on the ground and a stocky private tried to remove the hot metal from his friend.
“Lie easy, Willie! We’ll soon have you in Blighty!” The stocky man looked up, his eyes wide with concern. “Stretcher bearers! For the love of God, stretcher bearers!”
“Here they come again!” The yell came from the firing bay. “There’s bloody thousands of them!”
Ramsay glanced up. The Germans were seething across No Man’s Land, stepping over their own crumpled dead as they advanced like a field-grey horde.
“Stretcher bearers!” The stocky private shouted again. He knelt beside his comrade. “It’s all right, Willie, I’ll stay with you.”
“Leave that man!” Ramsay ordered, “We need everybody at the firing step!” He pulled his revolver from its holster, checked the cylinder and waited for the enemy to get closer.
The Germans were as tenacious as ever, sweeping forward towards the line, bunching at the killing zone of the gaps, falling in droves as the Royal Scots fired into the mass, and then pushing through after. The first wave was shot flat, with scores of new bodies joining the previous casualties on the ground, but the press continued and the firing slackened off.
The Germans roared in triumph as they approached the battered trench line of the Royals. They were tall men: Prussians or Bavarians, apparently uncaring of the casualties that they stepped over and obviously determined to cleanse this small group of British soldiers off the map.
“Ammunition!” a private yelled. “For God’s sake, has anybody got any bullets left?”
Gradually, one by one, the men stopped firing as the ammunition ran out. The Germans took heart and rushed on, cheering in short angry barks.
Smith screamed, dropped his rifle and turned round, scrambling for the communication trench to the rear. He would never have heard the report of the rifle, and would not have been aware of the passage of the bullet that killed him. It entered the back of his head and burst out between his eyes in an explosion of brains and bone and blood. He died instantly.
“Bayonets and bombs lads!” Flockhart roared above the hellish din of battle. “Don’t let Fritz into Craigmillar!”
The first bomb came from the German side, a stick grenade that bounced from the duckboards and lay, ominous until McKim kicked it down Ramsay’s empty dugout. The explosion was muted, but a cloud of dust and smoke gushed from the entrance. Flockhart raised himself on to the trench wall and threw a grenade toward the advancing Germans.
“Come on, lads! Send the bastards back!”
Ramsay lifted the rifle of the newly-killed Smith and leaped on to the parapet. The Germans advanced in a solid wave of field-grey until Flockhart’s grenade exploded. Three men fell, another screamed and clutched at his stomach and then Flockhart was amongst them with his bayonet and rifle butt and boots. Ramsay joined him, yelling to hide his fear. He saw McKim in front, smashing his helmeted head against the face of a German, he saw a German thrust a bayonet into the belly of a British soldier, he saw a Royal Scot duck under a German’s swing and stab him in the groin.
The world was a nightmare of grunting, terrified, angry men, desperately trying to kill each other and hoping to survive the next few moments of life. Ramsay ducked the savage thrust of a Prussian bayonet, levelled his revolver and fired. He was so close to the German that there was no need to aim, the soft lead bullet thumped into the man’s chest and threw him a yard into the air. Another German took his place, and another; tall men, shaven-headed and brave, but Ramsay shot them too, remorselessly. He saw McKim leap into the air to smash the rim of his steel helmet across the nose of a yelling German. He saw Aitken duck and thrust his bayonet into the groin of a huge enemy soldier, he saw Niven falling as a German smashed a rifle butt into his stomach.
Another German rush surged through the gap in the wire. Ten, twenty, thirty men advancing with lowered bayonets and yelling voices. Ramsay pointed his revolver and squeezed the trigger, again and again until the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.
“Out of ammunition!” he yelled and reached into his pouch for more. His fingers scrabbled uselessly against the hard leather. “Jesus! Bloody Jesus!”
The Germans came on. A Royal Scot leaped on the closest, his hands closing around the German’s throat, but a second German thrust sideways with his bayonet. A tall German Hauptmann finished off the British soldier with two rounds from his pistol and they marched on, pressing the crumpled body of the Royal into the mud with their steel-shod boots. When the officer looked directly at Ramsay, his eyes were chill, blue and calm as a spring morning.
“There are just too many of them,” Aitken gasped. He was bleeding from a wound in his neck and his tunic was ripped in three places. “We can’t stop the bastards.”
Ramsay swore, shoved his empty revolver into its holster and lifted a discarded rifle. He checked the magazine, saw it was empty and held it as a club. “Royal Sco-o-o-o-ots! Come on, you Fritzy bastards. We’re the Royals!” He stared back at the German officer and gestured for him to advance. The German nodded back, obviously recognising a fellow officer and Ramsay squared up, ready to meet him face to face.
The deep-throated snarl took Ramsay by surprise as an aircraft came low overhead, its machine guns rattling. Men fell in ones and twos and dozens, some Royal Scots, but mostly Germans, and the attack wavered again. The field-grey tide halted like waves on a muddy shore, and men at the back pulled back from the killing zone in front of the battered trench.
The plane banked, waggled its wings and soared upwards. Green ribbons streamed from its struts as a stray slant of sunshine struggled through the rapidly thinning mist. For a fraction of a second Ramsay saw the head and shoulders of the pilot, there was a gleam from his goggles as he glanced back over his shoulder at the men struggling in the trenches. Then he was gone, vanished into the sanctuary of the mist, leaving only devastation and death and the stink of fuel as a reminder of his fleeting visit.
British and German stared at each other for a second across the writhing carpet of bloodstained khaki and field-grey. The Germans had reeled back, but the officer stood erect amongst the shambles of his men. Even as Ramsay watched, he holstered his pistol, removed a monocle from the breast pocket of his uniform and slowly placed it into his left eye. A scar across his left cheek moved as he opened his mouth and began to shout orders, but McKim had recovered just as quickly.
“Bomb them back, boys!” McKim shouted. “Bomb the bastards to hell and gone!” He poised and threw a Mills bomb that exploded with an orange flash and an arc of deadly fragments. “Death and hell to you, German bastards!” McKim hefted his rifle to the high port and would have followed up the German retreat if Ramsay had not pulled him back.
“Let them go.” He looked into McKim’s eyes. They were wild. “Let them go, Corporal!”
Sanity slowly returned to McKim. “Aye, sir.” He glowered across the few yards to where the German officer was slowly backing towards the gap in the barbed wire, keeping his eyes fixed on the British position.
“That one is not giving up,” McKim said. “I’ve seen the type before. Prussian of the Guard, him. Definitely not bon.”
“Ignore him, McKim,” Ramsay said, but he watched until the German officer vanished into the smoke before he spoke again. “Back to the trench, boys,” he yelled, “back to the trench! Take back any weapons we can use – rifles, ammunition, anything at all, British or Fritzes!”
There were five Royal Scots prone on the ground as Ramsay ordered the remainder back to the shattered trench. They slid over the lip and into the comparative security between the ripped and dishevelled sandbags. Ramsay waited until the last of the men were safe and then followed. He felt an amazing sense of relief when his boots thumped onto the wet duckboards. The men looked at him, waiting for orders. Some were gasping for breath, most were wounded in some manner; all were tired. One man coughed as he nursed the bayonet slash that had ri
pped his tunic across the chest, blood easing between his grimy fingers.
“We’re holding out, sir,” Niven said.
“We showed the bloody bastards,” said somebody else.
“Bon show.” Flockhart had been second last to enter the trench and already he had lifted a periscope from the ground and was peering into No Man’s Land. “How long do you reckon it will take for reinforcements to reach us, sir?” He looked at Ramsay, his eyes steady.
“We’ll hold until they get here,” Cruickshank said. He looked around. “Once we get the Lewis gun set up again, Fritz can whistle for his supper, eh?”
Ramsay shook his head. He raised his voice against the unremitting background noise of artillery and rattling machine guns, but a sudden lull caused his words to boom out around the trench. “Fritz has broken through the line, lads,” Ramsay said, “he’s behind us and in front of us and on at least one side.” He watched their reaction. They looked stunned, but accepting.
“So what do we do now, sir?” McKim asked. He had swapped his rifle for a German Mauser and was pressing rounds of ammunition into the magazine.
Flockhart said nothing. He was counting and checking the men. “We’ve lost twelve men, sir, and three more are badly wounded.” He ducked as a salvo of British artillery shells ripped overhead to explode amidst the tangled barbed wire in No Man’s Land. “If we don’t get them medical aid soon, they won’t survive.”
Ramsay nodded. They are my men. I am responsible for them. “Do your best for them, Sergeant.”
“Will our boys get through to us in time, sir?” Flockhart asked bluntly.
Ramsay looked at the three men who lay on the ground. One was unconscious with half his insides blown away. Another was blinded, his face partly gouged away by the burst of a bomb. The third stared at him through huge, pleading eyes. He had no arms.
Ramsay knelt at his side. “You’ll be all right, lads. Just hang on there.”
He stood again, feeling like a traitor; he could do nothing for these men. The soldiers looked to their officers for everything, but he was as fragile as they were and with as little power over things that matter.
Last Train to Waverley Page 6