“See anything, Sarge?” Harry whispered hoarsely.
The NCO shook his head slowly. “Nothing to see. Light’s too poor.”
But Harry could tell by the expression on his face that something was troubling the sergeant. The problem was that Sarge was a nuts-n-bolts kind of man. Before the war, he had been a copper in Cardiff. He wasn't the type to speculate, and was unlikely to share an opinion on anything that couldn't be seen or touched.
Just then, they heard the howl for the first time. It began as little more than a whimper, but grew steadily in pitch and volume as it reverberated through the air. It barely sounded of this world. And maybe it wasn't.
It was impossible to tell from which direction the terrifying howl had come, it seemed to come from all around them at the same time.
Fear did not begin to describe what Harry felt as the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled and stood to attention, and the blood began pumping through his veins. Fear was useful. In a threatening situation, fear was your friend. It kept you on your toes and stopped you doing anything stupid. If a man wasn't scared in the trenches, then he was a fool. Harry was used to being scared.
But this was something else entirely.
This was more primal than simple fear, an almost debilitating terror that permeated his being so deeply that he could feel it in his bones. He saw Sarge's eyes widen, and knew he was not alone in his mortified state.
“What was that, Sarge?” Harry whispered, as if Sarge had all the answers.
“Sounded like a dog to me,” came the flat reply. “Must have been with the patrol we spotted earlier.”
That would explain the whistle Harry had heard from inside the crater. The German patrol had dogs. Marvellous.
For a while, they listened and watched. The only blessing seemed to be that whatever it was sounded a long way off. But some dogs can run pretty fast, can't they? And how long would it take a well-trained mutt to sniff them out?
An indeterminable amount of time later, it could have been hours but was more likely to have been minutes, Sarge finally rose from his crouching position and started moving again. To Harry's dismay, he started making his way in the direction from which the German patrol had come, what seemed to be the opposite direction from the comparative safety of their trench. Wasn't their patrol over now? What more did they have to do? Find some German stormtroopers and rub noses with them?
Whatever the case, Harry was pretty certain Sarge had some kind of plan. He trusted his NCO, and would follow him into the jaws of hell if that was what the mission required. Nerves still jangling, Harry fell into step and tried to inject his senses into the world around him.
Overhead, the moon peeked through the cloud cover. Unavoidably, as much as he tried to keep his mind focused on the task at hand, Harry couldn't stop his thoughts drifting back to Dewi. An image of his friend's mutilated body was stuck firmly in the centre of his mind like a boulder in the middle of a fast-moving stream, forcing thoughts of his own survival, and everything else, around it. He had a notion that bad experiences did that, and the more traumatic experiences a man suffered, the more boulders were piled in the stream. Soon, there would be a dam, a complete blockage. And that was when, consumed by tragedy, men lost their grip on reality.
What a thing to be thinking about.
But in every scenario Harry had ever imagined, every conceivable alternative universe, never in his darkest dreams did he expect to be standing over Dewi's lifeless, broken corpse wondering how his head came to have been separated from his body. This was the stuff of nightmares. It felt like a turning point. A defining moment. He knew that from then on, his life would be divided into two distinct states of being, the before and the after. Harry patted the pouch in his webbing now containing his friend's dog tags to make sure they were still there. They were.
What the hell was he supposed to tell Dewi's parents?
Then another thought struck him. Was it mere coincidence that saw to it that he of all people found Dewi's body? Or did some higher power bring him here, either to compound his grief or to nullify his guilt?
The battlefield, where senses and emotions are heightened, forces a man to look at things through new eyes, making him more susceptible to suggestion and altogether more spiritual. You take guidance, strength and inspiration from whatever source offers it. Harry had seen bold new arrivals swear they didn't need or even believe in God. Yet days later, those same men would be walking around clutching tattered bibles and praying constantly, eyes haunted by what they had seen.
There was something else.
Maybe he wasn't the first to find the body. Perhaps every other patrol had also stumbled upon it, and then...
And then what?
The sound of Sergeant Lewis' voice snapped him out of his fugue, “Come on Private, stay alert. We have a job to do...”
Even when whispering, Sarge spoke with a practised air of authority that expected, demanded, to be obeyed. Everything else was secondary. Harry was suddenly reminded of the fact that he was a soldier first, and a man second. He knew he had to rise above the tragedy and horror and do his duty, or Dewi's death would be in vain.
War had given Harry a new perspective on life. For the first time, he became aware of a much bigger and more complex picture than he had ever been able to comprehend. Before, selfishly, he had been the centre of his own universe. Everything revolved around him. Now, he’d come to realize that he was but an atom drifting aimlessly through the cosmos, unidentifiable against billions of others, yet each under the misguided notion that they were the most important thing in existence. What war did above all else was put you in your place, make you realize your true position in the grand scheme of things.
When he had signed up to fight, of course he’d wanted the adulation and pride that went with serving your country. He enjoyed the pats on the back and the big send-off. But those days seemed so far away. Now he wasn't just fighting to stay alive for his own selfish purposes. He was fighting for all the people at home; everyone he had ever known, as well as their children and their children's children. That’s a lot of responsibility to have on one's shoulders. True, sometimes it was a burden. But other times, times such as this, he drew strength and courage from it.
That was when they heard that awful howl again. Closer, this time.
Sarge stopped dead in his tracks and brought his weapon up to a firing position. Harry didn't know for the life of him what he was aiming at, he could see nothing except rolling clouds of smoke and morphing ground mist. He suspected the firing stance was more a precautionary measure. Sometimes, the world just looked a better, safer place through gun sights.
The howl was more like a scream of anguish now, shattering the deathly stillness of the ravaged battlefield. If that was a dog, it didn't sound hungry or in pain, it sounded angry. Demented, even.
It was still impossible to tell from which direction the noise was coming from. It appeared that no man's land had an uncanny way of amplifying and distorting the chilling sound. Common sense told Harry to stay close to the ground and join Sarge in a sweep of the immediate vicinity before moving on.
He ran his eyes over the scarred terrain. Now there was a break in the cloud allowing more moonlight to creep through, but there was still nothing to see. The landscape was barren, nothing stirred. The only sounds were his own shallow breathing, as even the distant cacophony of guns had fallen silent.
The time crawled by. After waiting a few more minutes, Sarge slowly got to his knees and Harry followed suit. “What's the plan, Sarge?”
“It's pretty unusual to see a Hun patrol so close to our lines,” the NCO replied. “And they have dogs. That makes me think they are either guarding or looking for something.”
“What could they be looking for?”
“Who knows?” Sarge shrugged his broad shoulders. “But we're going to do our damnedest to find out. This could be the break we need. Let’s try and get a quick look at where
they were coming from.”
Harry's heart sank, but he disguised it with an affirmative nod and an enthusiastic, “Right, Sarge.”
Together the two men pushed on through the mud, leaving the grisly discovery in the crater far behind them. Harry tried to make a mental note of its location, but deep down he knew it would be useless trying to find it again. One blast crater looked very much like any other blast crater. The only difference was that only one of them housed the body of his best friend.
Don't think about that now, he scolded himself. There’s work to be done.
What exactly was their mission, anyway? Stumbling around no man's land in the dark until one unfortunate fate or another befell them?
Maybe it was a trap.
The German patrol which conveniently didn't spot them, the manic howling, all designed to lure Allied troops out in two's and three's and lead them... where?
That was the question.
Harry's stomach filled with dread and he pulled his Enfield a little tighter to his body. High-pressure situations make men think strange things. They twist reality, play with your mind. He had to stay focused.
Even so, he couldn't shake the feeling that they were heading straight into trouble. It was like a sixth sense. Each step became an ordeal as every muscle and sinew in his body strained against it, willing him to turn around and go the other way. Was this the same sensation that young Percy Martins had to endure during his short spell as a soldier? And what about Dewi? What had been the last thing he felt?
Suddenly, something strange happened. There was a whine and a thump, and a small area of marsh exploded at his feet. Then another, and another.
What the hell was that?
Only then did he hear the shots ring out, shattering the eerie stillness. Somebody was shooting at them!
It took a while for Harry's mind to process the new information. Judging by the time discrepancy between the bullets hitting the ground and him hearing the report from the weapon, they were being targeted from at least a hundred yards away. Probably more. Far enough away that if the bullets had struck him or Sarge, they would have been dead before they knew what had hit them.
Harry and Sarge both dropped to the floor and rolled, looking around feverishly as they tried to check every direction at once.
“Is it a sniper?”
“No,” replied Sarge in his trademark unflustered manner. “Snipers don't carry machine guns, you know that. Plus, snipers don't miss. Not even German ones.”
“But how can they see us in the dark?” Harry whispered. Even as the words passed his lips he realized it wasn't so dark any more. The moonlight streamed down and reflected off the smoke and ground mist with an effervescent, otherworldly glow, casting shadows where previously there had been none, twisting and writhing like living things.
“It might have been an accidental discharge, or maybe one of the Huns on their line thought he saw something move out here. Crikey, it might even be one of our own boys taking some pot shots. They wouldn't be able to identify us from this distance. Do you know which direction the shots came from?”
“Behind and to the right, Harry answered.”
Sarge looked disappointed. “In that case, that German patrol from earlier might have spied us. Good news is they can't be too sure of our position because they only fired the one burst. If they had us in their sights, they wouldn't have stopped firing. But we still need to find cover. They'll be coming for us.”
The only cover available were a few broken tree stumps protruding stubbornly out of the battle-ravaged landscape. They wouldn't provide much protection from a mortar shell or even a bullet, but they would serve to obscure the view of anyone aiming at them.
Harry and Sarge started crawling on their bellies through the mud, slime and chunks of debris. As he wriggled, Harry glanced behind him a few times. Once, he thought he saw something move. But quick as a flash, it was gone, leaving him to question whether his eyes were playing tricks on him. No time to worry about it now.
Soon, they reached the clump of broken trees and rolled onto their sides in the sparse sanctuary, panting with the effort.
After a few moments Harry risked a peek through a splintered gap in the tree stump. At first he couldn't make out anything. Then he saw the two shadowy figures, walking parallel with a distance of four or five yards between them. They were heading directly for Harry and Sarge.
So it hadn't been his imagination, after all. The were being stalked. And unless the approaching Huns made a U-turn, and quickly, then they were going to stumble right upon their position and the plan of not engaging the enemy would go out of the window.
The sergeant whispered a curse, and ducked back behind the tree stump. “They definitely look a lot like stormtroopers. If they have the slightest inkling that something's alive out here, and they probably do seeing as they already took some shots at us, they'll head straight for us. This is the only place to hide.”
Looking around, Harry saw he was right. “What do we do, Sarge?”
“Kill them before they kill us. Problem is, my Vickers gun, as lovely as she is, won't be much use from this range. I could spray two belts over there and not hit a bloody thing, and by then they would have scattered. We'd have no chance then.”
“Right.”
“Did you see any dog?”
“No, Sarge.”
“Then there’s another patrol member with a mutt around here somewhere. They must have split up.”
The animal was bad news. A trained attack dog would be as much trouble as an extra stormtrooper. And even harder to kill. They were effectively outnumbered two-to-one.
“Tell me, Private. How good are you with that rifle?”
“Pretty good, I would say, sir.”
“Glad to hear it. Think you can drop one of those Huns from this distance? You take the furthest away. If I get the right angle I'd give myself a fighting chance of getting the other one. With a bit of luck, the other section of the patrol will show themselves and we’ll be able to take them out, too.”
Harry's heart was thumping so hard and fast he was having trouble keeping his voice steady, never mind his trigger finger. But now was not the time to doubt himself. Instead, he nodded firmly. “Good plan, Sarge.”
“You'll only have one shot,” his NCO reminded him. “Maybe two. After that, they'll be on us. So make at least one of them count. As soon as your man hits the deck, I'll open up on the other one. If I miss, you mop up the pieces. We'll have to get this over with quickly then get the hell out of here. Don't even think about breaking cover until you get my signal, got it?”
“Got it, Sarge,” Harry confirmed as he rested the barrel of the Enfield on a conveniently protruding branch and manoeuvred himself into a firing position, already trying to focus his mind before he even looked down the sights. One shot. He couldn’t count on getting a second chance.
Do it for Dewi! said a dark, vengeful voice inside his head. Do it for your friend who they mutilated and left for dead.
The two figures seemed so small on the other end of the rifle sight as they bobbed into view, and the bayonet was distracting. He aimed for middle of the target, the torso. There was no wind to contend with, not that the wind would be much of a factor at this range. He held his breath, steadied himself, and slowly squeezed the trigger.
CRACK!
The Enfield recoiled into Harry’s shoulder, and as the bullet hurtled through the still night, he had time to wonder, very briefly, whether the German patrol had heard the rifle's report yet.
Then one of the figures thrown backward, arms flailing wildly, and disappeared from view. A small bubble of elation exploded inside Harry.
Got him!
Whether dead or wounded, one of the enemy was definitely down. As the German fell, two things happened simultaneously. As promised, Sarge opened up on the second stormtrooper with the machine-gun, a torrent of bullets cutting through the night, and the remaining memb
er of the German patrol returned fire with some kind of automatic weapon, having immediately zeroed in on the muzzle flash from Harry's initial rifle shot.
There followed a brief, yet ferocious exchange. Harry was able to let off another couple of shots, but now he was firing blind, barely poking his head over the tree stump long enough to aim before being forced to duck back under cover as German bullets reigned in on their position. There were so many incoming bullets that it seemed as if they were being fired on from two sources. But Harry had taken one out, hadn't he?
Maybe not. Perhaps the first stormtrooper had survived, or the other faction of the patrol had already turned up. The only other option, that there were enemy soldiers in the area than they thought, was even more worrying.
Chunks of bark flew off the decaying trees around him, and Harry threw his arm up to protect his face as the acrid smell of smoke from Sarge's machine-gun invaded his senses.
At some point the return fire subsided, which hopefully meant one of the stormtroopers either had a problem with his weapon or had been dropped. Harry hoped it was the latter.
He became vaguely aware that the spluttering roar of the sergeant's Vickers gun had also ceased. At first he hoped, then he prayed, that Sarge was simply re-loading. But a mere glance told him that wasn't the case. The sergeant was lying flat on his back, lips twisted into a pained grimace and a dazed look on his face. He'd been hit. At a glance it was hard to tell where or how badly, and right now there was no time to look, but Harry knew it would take more than a flesh wound to keep Sergeant Lewis down.
Without the deafening chatter of the Vickers a deep, forlorn silence settled on the scene. In contrast to the suddenly peaceful surroundings, Harry's mind was racing. Nobody was shooting any more. Did that mean the skirmish was over? Was the patrol improving their position or were they simply re-loading?
No Man's Land Page 4