The Winter Soldiers

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  ‘I’ve seen it.’

  ‘You’ve seen them laugh and joke after a pit disaster? Never. I know there are some heartless men out there, concerned only about profit, but they all put a face on, of concern, be it false or otherwise. If they sealed off a mine shaft with live men still down there, it had to be for good reason.’

  ‘Oh, they talk about the fear of explosion, about losing a greater number of men in the effort to save a few, but when it comes right down to it, they don’t really care. We’re animals to them. Pit ponies, canaries, men. That’s the order. If a man breaks his leg, a support timber falls on it and cracks it in two, say, he’s left on his own to mend. By the time he can walk again his family’s starving and he’s been thrown out of his hovel for not paying his damn rent. His ten-year-old son is in jail for trying to feed the family by poaching hares, his daughter’s taken to the streets and his new baby’s died of damp of the lungs. I’ve seen it all, sergeant. It’s no good you makin’ excuses for your kind. You get your legs shot off in this war and you go home to mamma and a basket chair. Get wheeled around by some lackey. Silk cushions. Tea on the lawn. Miss What’s-her-name and her cupid’s-bow lips calling to offer sympathy. Me? I end up beggin’ on some street corner, sleeping in an alley at night, swingin’ my stumps through some crutches made of tree branches that the Quakers have given me . . .’

  At that moment one of the deserters taking air in the yard, young Gunner Randle it was, suddenly jerked backwards and fell to his knees with a shocked expression on his face. His action was immediately followed by the sound of a distant shot. The boy stared down at himself then began frantically to tear off his clothes. Crossman had seen this often enough before, on the battlefield. Wounded men were desperate to know whether they had been gut shot. A wound in the belly meant a slow but certain agonizing death. Such a victim might as well shoot himself through the brains, or get a friend to do it, because it would be less lingering and painful. Randle now had his shirt off and found the bullet had gone in just below the ribcage. There was a hole there, seeping blood. He let out a wail of fear.

  Reece crossed the ground between them quickly, scooped up the youth as if he were an infant child, and carried him swiftly to the house, at the same time roaring, ‘Get out of the open. Find cover. That was gunfire, damn it! The boy’s been hit.’ Bemused deserters began running this way and that, seeking a hiding place. No more shots followed the first, however. The assassin was not stupid. There was no positive knowledge of where the shot had come from. Further shots, with everyone primed and watching the hills around, might have helped to locate the sharpshooter. After a while men began to drift back to the farmhouse, Crossman among them, to see what was happening there.

  Peterson was dejected. ‘I didn’t manage to kill him properly,’ she said. ‘He was alive when they carried him into the house. I saw one of his arms move. I think I hit him in the lower chest.’ She and Pirce-Smith were making their way back to the peloton. For his part Pirce-Smith was astonished that Peterson had hit the target at all. She had been at least a thousand yards away.

  ‘I don’t think you have anything to chide yourself for, corporal. It was a magnificent shot.’

  ‘But he wasn’t dead.’

  ‘As good as.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll die all right.’ Her tone was bitter. ‘He’ll take hours to do it though. Maybe even a day or two. Do you have a horse, lieutenant?’

  Pirce-Smith gave her an uncomfortable look. ‘Yes, I have a horse.’

  ‘If it broke its leg and you had to shoot it, you’d make sure you killed the beast with one shot, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘That’s the way I feel about my work. If I’ve got to do it, and I do because I’m a soldier, then I want it to be quick and clean. Pain is the worst thing in the world. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to suffer pain.’

  ‘Oh, I would,’ came the cheerful reply. ‘I can think of any number of people I’d like to suffer pain. My old schoolmaster, for one. He whipped me raw for the most minor offences. I suffered a great deal under his hand. I should like to see him curled up in agony . . .’ The officer broke off there, remembering who he was talking to. One didn’t usually converse with a corporal, not on informal terms, giving away one’s feelings and emotions like this. Pirce-Smith occasionally slipped in such a way as would have earned him a few sneers from his fellow officers if they had witnessed this scene. It was, he agreed with himself, rather a contemptible show of familiarity.

  ‘You’d like your old schoolmaster to be gut shot, would you, sir?’ growled Peterson. ‘To die screaming, with a thirst that can’t be quenched? Is that the idea?’

  Pirce-Smith stopped in his tracks. ‘I think you forget yourself, lance-corporal,’ he admonished, stiffly.

  Peterson should have replied that it was he who had forgotten, that they were an informal group and the normal barriers did not apply. Sergeant Crossman had reminded Pirce-Smith of this fact several times while they had been out, but it never penetrated the mind of the clergyman’s son. He was so taken with his elevated position in the army, he wanted special duties and to retain all the respect and deference that was due to his rank. Well it wouldn’t do, but Peterson was not the one to tell him so. Wynter might have done. Crossman would certainly have done so. But neither of those two common soldiers, as different from each other as they could possibly be, was here to correct this pompous ass.

  They arrived back at the camp without having spoken another word to one another. Gwilliams asked straight away, ‘What happened?’

  ‘I shot one of them,’ replied Peterson, ‘that’s what happened. Didn’t get him clean though. The sergeant’s there. We saw him.’

  ‘What did I say?’ Wynter offered. ‘I said he’d be all right, didn’t I? He’s got more lives than a cat. You shouldn’t have moved so quick, sir. Didn’t he tell you to wait a few days? He’s bin gone less than two, and you go and panic.’

  Pirce-Smith went into a fury. ‘I’ve already spoken with Lance-Corporal Peterson about this familiarity. You will not question my orders, do you understand? I’m in charge here. I hold the queen’s commission. If I have any more insolence I’ll have that man flogged when we return to Balaclava.’

  ‘Oh, right – sir,’ said Wynter in a sarcastic tone.

  ‘I mean it!’

  ‘Course you do,’ Gwilliams said. ‘I can see in your eyes you mean it. But will it happen? We don’t think so. Not for no crime like “familiarity”. You’re a goddamn fool, Mr Smith.’

  ‘Under martial law I can have civilians flogged too.’

  ‘You no flog me,’ said Ali, coming over to the group now. ‘I break you fuckin’ back you try flog me. Listen, sergeant tell you no do nothing for five days. Already you do something and only two days. You got camel shit in here,’ Ali tapped the side of his head. ‘This no regular army. This sabotage. Rules no good here. Only good thing is stick to plans.’

  ‘This sounds like a mutiny to me,’ said Pirce-Smith, backing away from the Bashi-Bazouk.

  Yorwarth, who had been cleaning his weapon, spoke up for the first time since the two had returned. ‘Mutiny? That’s an ugly word, that is. Men can hang for mutiny. If you’re going to use that word when we get back to the lines, sir, tell us now, while we’ve got the chance to do something about it.’

  Pirce-Smith frowned. ‘What do you mean, do something about it?’

  Yorwarth stared at the officer down the oiled barrel of his gun. ‘I think you know what I mean, sir.’

  Actually, Randle didn’t take long to die, considering the type of wound. He was with his maker in four hours. Crossman had watched the poor boy go through all kinds of Hell and torment up to that blessed release. At the last he called for his mother, repeatedly, as dying youths often do, hoping she could stop the pain for him as she had done when he was little – not so many years ago, less than a decade. Had she been there her heart might have died with him. The poor boy was long past the stage where she could
rub yarrow leaves on his knee-scrapes and kiss his forehead to make it all better. Pale as a tallow candle he slipped away, the terror locked behind his eyes. Reece had sat beside the wounded youth the whole while. He cursed God for a few moments then turned to Crossman.

  ‘Who was that out there?’

  Crossman said, ‘Why ask me? It could have been anyone. Most likely a disaffected Tartar. Maybe that woman’s husband?’ He pointed to the cook who sat in the corner staring bleakly in front of her.

  ‘That woman’s husband is swinging from a beam in the barn.’

  ‘I merely make an example. You think it’s one of my men? That doesn’t make sense. We’re out here to join forces. Why would we go shooting each other?’

  ‘I’ve only got your word for that. But we’ll find out what you’re about tonight, on the raid. Bury the boy,’ said Reece to two of his men.

  ‘Is it safe to go outside?’ asked one of them.

  ‘It’s dark, for Christ’s sake. Do it at the back, then. On the far side from the hills. You want his corpse here all night?’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said Crossman. ‘Do you have a dark lantern?’

  Reece said, ‘Do it in the light from the window. Tomorrow we’re going to ride out and look around those hills.’

  Crossman’s heart gave a skip. ‘Ride?’

  Reece stared at him. ‘Why, yes, sergeant – ride. There are half a dozen horses tethered in the vale beyond, with two of my men watching them.’ He nodded and gave a kind of smile. ‘What, you thought we went on foot all the time? That would be rather foolish, wouldn’t it, eh? To have no cavalry? You surely noticed there are troopers amongst us? Guthrie, for example, 17th Lancers. He came with two mounts. And Kershaw, he picked up a horse at a corral north of Mackenzies Farm. We’re getting more mounts all the time. Soon we’ll have a cavalry between us. We’ll be our own Cossacks.’

  Crossman was disturbed. Reece had horses. His men had none. That put them at a further disadvantage. Now there was a disparity in speed and striking power, as well as numbers. Nothing he could about it now though. He had to bide his time and keep his plans flexible. He stared down at the body of Randle, a pale pathetic length on the ground. The two conscripted sextons were already busy with adze and spade, chipping away at the hard-frosted earth, as resistant as iron under their hacking. Damn Pirce-Smith. Hadn’t Crossman told the officer to wait? They just couldn’t do it, these infantry lieutenants. They had to be seeking the path to glory. To stand around and do nothing was anathema to vicars’ sons who wanted to be climbing the promotion ladder. Now that officer had endangered the life of his sergeant, the corporals and privates of the peloton, and himself. It had turned very messy all of a sudden.

  ‘You on a Sunday stroll or what?’

  Crossman broke his reverie and begged the soldier’s pardon before taking up a shovel and helping them carve out the grave.

  Reece held a short service, during which he quoted Corinthians 13 and the Song of Solomon by heart. He was pure chapel, through and through. The valleys would be proud of him, were he not a murderer and deserter from the army. ‘I was a Godfearing man,’ he told Crossman, ‘though you might not think it. You can’t go down amongst ancient forests, walk back through those old darknesses, and not feel the moist fingers of God’s hand on the back of your neck.’ By ancient forests and old darknesses, he meant the coal mines of course. Reece went on to say how he had been forever finding fossils of fern leaves on pieces of slag, and how they had brought to him the wonder that he was holding in his fist evidence of primal woodlands now vanished from his land. Reece had many of the Welsh traits about him: he was a poet, he had the deep-timbred voice to go with the art, he was melancholy as a matter of pride as well as fact, and chapel religion was etched into his soul. On being told, he acknowledged the poet in himself with some evident pleasure, adding, ‘As to melancholy, why man, there are no happy poems at the Eisteddfod.’

  Come the next evening it was time for the raid. Crossman was given a horse and he and five others, including Kershaw, went out into the gloaming. The raid was to be completed during twilight, since they did not want to ride in complete darkness, which would be sheer folly. Some distance from the farm they were to attack, they dismounted and proceeded on foot, to prevent warning the occupants with the drumming of hooves. The farmer was alert though and watching for them. This man was a Greek and had the patience of Mediterranean peoples. His family – sons, brothers, uncles, whoever – opened fire on the raiders before they could close with the stock in the stables.

  Crossman heard the rounds pinging from the loose stones around him. Most farmers’ weapons were old and ineffective at any range, but there was no guarding against the lucky shot, be it only one in two or three hundred that found the target. Crossman fired back, high, so as to be sure of missing. Then he joined Kershaw in a wild attempt at battering down the stable door with a heavy rock. The pair of them managed to smash through a wooden bar and enter the stables without being hit. There were only two mares inside, one a heavy plough horse. Kershaw led them out, back through the fire from both sides, after giving Crossman a flaming brand. He pointed towards the farmhouse with the words, ‘Burn it!’

  Crossman chose to misunderstand the order and at risk of his life mounted his horse and rode through the flying lead to throw the lighted brand on a hay barn which stood close to the house. Then he spurred his mount and joined the others in the retreat. They had been perfectly happy to leave him behind, but cheered when he caught up. Kershaw looked back and swore under his breath.

  ‘I said the house.’

  Crossman feigned astonishment, followed by a staunch denial. ‘You did not. You pointed to the barn. I thought we were giving them a warning not to resist next time.’ He sounded genuinely annoyed at being questioned, even to himself.

  ‘Bah!’ cried the trooper. Then, still looking back, he grinned. ‘The wind’s blowing their way. The house’ll go up too, if we’re lucky. Is anybody hit? No casualties?’

  No one was wounded. Crossman reflected that it would have been a very unlucky act of God had they been. Twilight is the worst time for shooting people, especially if they’re moving swiftly. The shadows play tricks with the eyes. Half-light makes men jumpy too, so they jerk the trigger, rather than squeeze it. It’s an eerie business, he thought, defending your home as the sun goes down and the grey shades that are the prelude to night get deeper and deeper in hue. A kind of surreal phantasmal scene superimposes itself on the hard real setting over which the action takes place. The shooter fires blindly at what he thinks is moving, but is often wrong about the composition of his target, especially if there are birds out there to further confuse his dazed state of mind. All this, added to worn and inaccurate weapons, and the fear that accompanies such a situation. To actually hit a target in such circumstances would be remarkable.

  They took the two horses back and Kershaw went in to see Reece. When he came out, he nodded at Crossman. ‘You next.’

  Reece was wearing a sheepskin coat. His fire had died very low in the grate and he did not seem inclined to get up and put another log or two on it. In front of him, at his table, was a battered old chess set, with one or two pieces missing. There was a woodchip in place of a knight and a salt cellar where the white queen should have been.

  ‘Do you play chess?’ Reece asked, without looking up.

  Crossman shook his head. ‘Never bothered to learn.’

  Now Reece raised his head. There was a frown on his face. ‘You surprise me, sergeant. I thought all gentlemen knew how to play chess.’

  ‘What, instinctively? No. It never interested me to learn. My brother plays, and my mother, but my father and I were always too impatient to learn such a painstaking game. It’s not in my nature to sit pondering something for minutes on end. I don’t even like practising at something. I like to do it. My brother once tried to show me different strokes with a cricket bat. It all went in one side of my head and out of the other. All I wanted to do was pla
y. I couldn’t wait to get the bat in my hand, hit the ball and score some runs.’

  ‘You prefer quick action, do you, boyo? Myself, I think chess is one of the most fascinating pastimes in the world. The royal game! I could play it all day long. You’ll never be good at anything unless you practise. Didn’t your da ever tell you that?’

  ‘Frequently. Actually, I find I’m middling-good at most sports and games, and that’s enough for me. Who wants to set standards for oneself that will eventually be impossible, once infirmity or injury sets in? The scores I achieve I will always be able to reach. I’m not for the high slopes. Now you, you’d probably have made a good general, whereas I have always preferred someone above me, to take the final responsibility.’

  Reece continued to stare at him. ‘Yes, I’m surprised. Surprised and – disappointed.’

  ‘I’m sorry for that, but you shouldn’t generalize when it comes to people. There are good aristocrats, and bad. There are some who like chess and those who loathe it. Everyone is different.’

  Reece leaned back in the chair. He cupped his big hands behind his larger head. ‘Kershaw told me you set fire to the barn when he ordered you to torch the farmhouse.’

  ‘Kershaw is not accustomed to giving orders. Either he was not plain or I misunderstood.’

  ‘Or perhaps chose to misunderstand?’

  ‘What difference did it make?’

  Reece let the chair come forward again and brought his hands down hard on the tabletop with a loud cracking slap.

  ‘The difference it made is that I still don’t know whether I can trust you. Well, that’ll be discovered one way or another with my next raid. We’ve found a group in the hills, six or seven men. We’re going to wipe them out tomorrow at dawn. You’ll be in the vanguard, sergeant.’

  Crossman swallowed hard. ‘Six or seven men? How do you know it isn’t part of my group?’

  ‘Because this one has an officer with it. It’s obviously some unit sent out to spy on us. You don’t have any officer deserters with your lot, do you? I never heard of an officer deserting. They don’t need to, do they, eh? They just pack up and go home when they damn well please, and never a goodbye or a thankee to the troops left behind. They buy their commissions, and sell ’em like they do their horses.’