Harry sighed. There were always so many questions, and so few answers. The good thing was, if you could call it that, was he may not have to wait very long to solve that particular mystery. Sooner or later, it would be his turn to go out on patrol.
Trying to block out the din of artillery and gunfire, he pulled his rifle close for the scant comfort it offered, and closed his eyes.
Chapter II:
Devils out of Angels
Dewi Mulberry had been on one of the last patrols that went missing, just two nights ago. Harry and Dewi had gone to school together back in the valleys. As children they’d both harboured aspirations of pursuing glorious careers and making their marks on humanity, Dewi as a doctor and Harry as an author. But when they left school, reality caught up with them and they ended up finding jobs at the same industrial laundry on Methuen street. When the War to End all Wars broke out three years later, they signed up with the Second Battalion of the Welsh regiment, gone through basic training, then off into battle together. All this had happened so quickly, in a blur.
Over the years they knew each other they had become closer than brothers, and this place, this life, wasn't the same without Dewi. Harry still clung to the hope that he may come back of his own accord, or be found somewhere injured but alive, but the chances of that happening diminished with every passing second.
Harry kept thinking about what he would say to Dewi's parents, if he himself ever made it home. How could he explain? There was only so much he could tell them, and that raised a different set of questions. Wouldn't it be better all around if he made up some story about Dewi dying a hero, maybe in a hail of enemy bullets whilst saving a fallen comrade? He could say it was quick and clean, and that his body had been recovered and given a proper burial out here in France.
Yes, maybe that would soften the blow. Ever-so-slightly. They were a proud Christian family. It was certainly better than telling them the truth.
Once or twice, shortly after a patrol went out, the sounds of sporadic gunfire and screams could be heard. This suggested an ambush of some kind. But those sounds weren't exactly unusual in a war situation, and there was no way of knowing for sure if the sounds were coming from the patrol. A couple of times the brass had sent out another patrol straight after the first to see what the hell was happening out there, but every time the second patrol had disappeared too. That gave rise to rumours that the commotion was just a ruse to entice more troops out into the open where they could be picked off one-by-one by some silent enemy waiting out there in the dark.
The Allies hadn't advanced their position much recently. If at all. It seemed both sides had reached an impasse. A stand-off. Their current position was so close to the German trenches that on a fine day when the mist and smoke cleared sufficiently you could see them, plain as day. Through field glasses you could even make out their pallid, weathered features and sombre facial expressions.
To Harry, the most shocking thing about seeing the face of the enemy was realizing that they they weren't devils or ghosts, they were men doing a job. Each of them simply going about his assigned role, just as the allied forces on the other side were going about theirs. The only thing different about them was the colour of the uniform. It was all-too easy to demonize the enemy. That was what war did. It made devils out of angels.
It may be a strange thing for a soldier to say, but in all the time he had been in service, Harry had never knowingly killed anyone. Of course, he had aimed and fired his Enfield at the enemy positions across no man's land countless times, but he had never actually seen a man drop as a result of his shot. And neither did he want to. Most of the time he was too preoccupied with not getting his own noggin blown off that he barely even aimed before pulling the trigger. Besides, if he ever made it out of here, he didn't want ghosts haunting his dreams.
Seeing the Huns in the flesh was enough to make Harry realize that they were all nothing more than pawns in a global game of chess that nobody could ever win. The generals sat in the safety of their field headquarters miles away from where the fighting was, smoking expensive cigars, drinking port and sticking pins in maps, sacrificing untold numbers of lives at the drop of a hat. It made Harry sick to his stomach. His initial patriotic fervour had faded long ago, and now he just wanted to go home.
Later that bleak, rainy afternoon, his immediate superior, Sergeant Lewis, went around the boys as usual, asking for volunteers for that night's patrol. Under normal circumstances, there would never be any shortage of volunteers. As dangerous as the job was, at least it provided some relief from the monotony of the trenches. A fleeting glimpse of drama and excitement, like a stolen kiss at the end of a dance.
But the men weren’t so keen to volunteer any more. Before things got bad, Sarge usually had to ask the question only once, then pick from the gaggle of willing men who stepped forward. But that method had ceased working the day before yesterday. After that, he made his way down the line of soldiers, asking each man in turn. The personal touch. Maybe he thought he would have a better chance of recruiting that way.
Harry felt bad for Sarge. He was a hard bastard, but a good man. It must be soul-destroying for him to have to practically beg the men under his command to do what they had been sent here to do, all the time knowing that they probably wouldn't be coming back. It put him in a difficult position, and everyone knew that sooner or later, the time would come when Sarge would have to lead by example and go out there himself.
You couldn't blame the boys for not volunteering. Who in their right minds would want to walk out there, into the unknown, if they didn't have to? There used to be no shortage of hot-heads eager to get a chance to meet the Hun face-to-face. But all the hot-heads were dead now. Or still out there somewhere.
By the time Sergeant Lewis had made his way to where Harry was huddled against the slimy wall of the trench, he looked dejected. He could barely make eye contact any more, and when he spoke in his sing-song Welsh lilt, the once well-groomed handlebar moustache he wore twitched nervously. Evidently, he still hadn't managed to recruit a single man for that night's mission.
“Son,” he said to Harry. “Will you do what you signed up for, and serve your country in the manner expected of you?”
Harry wanted to ask why the army was still so determined to send men out night after night straight into the salivating jaws of death. He wanted to ask what was out there waiting for them. He wanted to ask why the men had stopped coming back. He wanted to ask what would happen if no volunteers could be found. And he wanted to ask where the heck Dewi was.
But he did none of the above.
To question authority in such a manner might result in a court martial. And besides, he knew Sarge didn't have the answers. He was just cannon fodder, out here manning the front line with the rest of them. Harry knew all he needed to know. By that stage the nightly patrols had become more a symbolic gesture than a viable use of men and resources, and to stop sending them out would be tantamount to admitting defeat. It was routine, and any break from it would signify that they had been rattled.
So instead of unleashing a torrent of probing questions, Harry held Sergeant Lewis' probing, hopeful gaze and said, “Sir, I will gladly serve my country in the manner that is expected of me. It would be both an honour and a privilege.”
For a moment, he saw something flicker in the sergeant's stern eyes. Was it relief? Admiration? Or was it compassion?
It didn't matter. Harry had just sealed his own fate. But he didn't do it to serve the army's ambiguous purpose, oh no. He did it because he felt he owed it to his old mate, Dewi, and his family, to at least get out there have a look for him. Maybe Dewi really was lost, or lying wounded somewhere, unable to drag himself to his lines. If that was the case, Harry would find him and bring him back.
“God bless you, Son,” Sarge cooed. “We'll move out at midnight. I'll give you the tap.”
“Sure thing, Sir,” Harry replied. It sounded as if his voice was coming from a lo
ng way away, almost like someone else was talking for him.
The sergeant held Harry's gaze for another instant then, without another word, began moving on down the steadily dwindling line of men in search of more volunteers. Harry watched him go.
After the Sarge's rounds there was a brief, unexpected lull in shelling and gunfire. As if subconsciously anxious to make the most of the sudden silence, the conversation died with it. Nobody said much of anything, and those that did speak, whispered like naughty children up late reading comics when they should have been asleep. It was almost as if the men were already in mourning, which they were in a way. Out here, and maybe everywhere, everybody was in mourning.
Everybody missed somebody.
The next few hours were the longest of Harry's young life. Every hour was long in the trenches, there wasn't much to do apart from avoiding getting killed or maimed, but those few hundred minutes seemed to stretch on for an eternity. For a long time he simply sat there on his haunches, hugging his Enfield to his chest and playing out possible scenarios in his head. The raging pessimist in him decided that if he prepared himself for the worst, anything else would be a bonus.
At some point he must have dozed off, though sometimes it can be hard to tell in the trenches. You are always physically and mentally exhausted, so you spend most of the time in a constant state of limbo, neither asleep nor fully awake. Caught between two worlds. In that place, everything takes on a surreal, dream-like quality. Often, it’s hard to distinguish fantasy from reality, and daydreams often descend into nightmares.
In his mind's eye, Harry saw himself and Sergeant Lewis heading out into the night, and walking straight into an enemy trap. He saw massed ranks of German troops shrouded in darkness, their mottled great coats thick with mud and blood, grinning inanely as they waited with their weapons cocked. But these were not average Huns. These were the indestructible Super Soldiers, armed to the teeth and crazy-eyed with blood lust.
Having no choice but to engage, he and Sarge would take them all on. They would be fearless together, fighting back to back at times like their countrymen had against the Zulu warriors at Rorke’s Drift, and it would be the screams of the Hun that the boys back in the trenches would hear. It was a nice little fantasy he was cooking up. But Harry knew a handful of enemy soldiers wasn't the worst thing that could be out there. There were places even his subconscious didn't want to go, places it shrank away from.
After taking out all the German troops, the last few in grisly hand-to-hand combat as they had no time to reload their weapons, Harry and the Sarge would be faced with the Hun's latest invention. The Hell Hounds. Then it would become apparent poor Percy Martins was telling the truth after all. The Hell Hounds would be real. As real as anything else in this war. They would be as big as donkeys. But however big and mean they might be, Harry doubted any of them would be able to shake off a .303 bullet between the eyes. If the Hell Hounds were out there, Harry had a plan for them. He figured he knew where the previous patrols had gone wrong. They had panicked and tried to run away, doing just what the Hell Hounds wanted them to do. It is easy to chase a fleeing man and take him down from behind.
Well, sod that!
Harry had no intention of running away. Not tonight, not ever. He figured that if he kept his head, he would have ample opportunity to get two shots off, maybe even three or more. That should be enough to put down at least two two of those evil mutts. How many could there be?
As an additional safeguard, he made up his mind to fix his bayonet just before he left. He didn't know if any of his predecessors had thought of that. You only ever fixed your bayonet when you were expecting to storm an enemy stronghold, or fend off an attack yourself. You wouldn't expect to need it on a routine patrol. But these patrols had stopped being routine a long time ago.
Harry drew his bayonet from its sheath and stared at it. It was one of the pieces of kit, along with his rifle, that he had always been taught to look after well. That meant regular polishing and sharpening. Right now, the steel blade was so well maintained he could see his distorted reflection in it. And boy, did he look a mess. He must have lost two stones or more in weight since his deployment. His face was streaked with dirt and grime, unshaven cheeks sunken and patchy, and huge dark rings had formed around his eyes.
He rummaged in his kit bag until he found his tin of brown boot polish. Then, after a last lingering look at his face, he stuck his fingers in the tin and daubed some of the contents over the shiny blade of the bayonet. The last thing he wanted was for it to reflect a shaft of moonlight or a torch beam and give away their position to the enemy.
Shortly, unable to stand the waiting any longer, he decided to stretch his legs. He forced himself to his feet, wincing as his knees clicked into place, slung his Enfield over his shoulder, and began walking down the length of the trench. He stooped slightly, more out of habit than necessity, and shook out his cramping limbs as he went. The water covered his boots, but he didn’t notice. He was used to it, his feet had been waterlogged for weeks.
As he passed, a few of the men dropped their heads to him in acknowledgement. Others, bedraggled husks of men he had never even spoken to before, raised weak, grubby hands in a salute. Harry could have been deluded, but he thought he could read the same expression on each of their faces. It was sympathy, mixed with gratitude. Almost as if they were thanking him for something he hadn't even done yet, and getting them off the hook at the same time. Which, of course, he had.
For now.
There was an underlying sense of inevitability about it all. Without a word being uttered, each man knew that the reprieve was only temporary. Regardless of the outcome of tonight's patrol, there would be more.
When he got back to his position a few minutes later, Harry was told to stand down and get some rest before patrol. He was also informed that he had been relieved of his next watch duty, which had been scheduled for six the next morning. That was nice of the brass, but a small part of him couldn’t help thinking that they were already assuming he wouldn’t be here to take his watch, and had simply made contingency plans. Sinking to his haunches once more, he pulled his helmet down and, still cradling his Enfield in his arms, closed his eyes.
The barrage of artillery and bullets had been comparatively light that day. For the past few hours a sporadic, eerie stillness had settled over the battlefield, broken only by the occasional crack of a sniper's rifle or short blast of machine-gun fire. No army on God's green earth could hope to go hell for leather for too long. They would exhaust themselves and, more importantly, their supplies and ammunition. The more it ground on, the more this war was turning into a glorified game of tit for tat, with each side taking turns to be the aggressor as the other obediently laid low and held their tongues.
He must have dozed off again, because then he was dreaming. Or maybe it was a flashback?
This time, thankfully, it was a nice dream. Harry was a child again, strolling through the fairground on Porthcawl beach where his parents often took him on holidays. It was sunny, but a cool salty breeze blew in off the sea. The air was filled with children's squeals of delight and the seductive scent of candy floss filled the air. His old friend Dewi was with him, a huge smile plastered across his face and his bright blue eyes sparkling like chunks of coloured glass. They were both eating freshly-shelled roasted cockles out of paper bags, and laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world between them.
Back then life had been so simple. It stretched out before them like a vast expanse of virgin snow, waiting for them to make their impression on it.
It seemed like a different world.
It was a different world.
Harry often thought about his childhood, in these sporadic empty times between assaults. He would dredge up old memories and wallow in them, trying to detach himself from all the pain, despair and anger surrounding him. One thing that always stayed, however, was the stench. That was ever-present, even in the nicest of dreams
. Your mind simply converted it into some unpleasant and unwelcome distraction.
On this particular occasion, there was some underlying thickness to the sea air. Harry knew it was the rotten carcass of a fish washed up on the beach, and a large one at that. He assumed Dewi knew this too, the way you so often do in dreams. Things like fishy smells were a necessary annoyance when you went to the beach, part of the package, just something you had to put up with. There was no need to discuss it, instead you just shoved it to one side and tried to concentrate on other things.
No matter how far and wide he drifted in his mind, sooner or later, Harry would always be tugged back to reality like a puppy on a leash. The images would abruptly shatter like painted glass, the memories would fade, and the dream would morph into a horrific waking nightmare full of screaming men with parts of their bodies blown or shot off. A nightmare from which there was no escape, because this was reality.
His reality.
All he could do was cherish those few priceless moments of serenity before they melted away like snowflakes in the palm of your hand. The sea breeze, the fairground, the cockles, mum and dad, Dewi...
His eyes snapped open. What had awaken him?
Something.
He blinked a few times and rubbed his hands over his face. It was dark. How long had he been dozing? It must have been hours.
Nice little holiday...
He felt a strange mixture of guilt and self-satisfaction. Then he caught a sudden sharp whiff of something that cut through the confusion like a knife.
Gas!
Survival mode instantly kicking in, Harry flailed his arms and kicked his legs as he came rushing back to his senses to find Sergeant Lewis standing over him holding something under his nose.
“Come on, wake up, lad. It’s almost time to go. Drink this, it'll bring you 'round a bit. Put a bit of fire in ye belly. Can't 'ave you going out there half cocked.”
No Man's Land Page 2