A Song for No Man's Land

by Andy Remic

  “Sharpwood,” said the boy out loud, naming that part of the woodland, letting the trees know of his presence, his intrusion, his acceptance of their rules. He could feel eyes on him. And a word came to him.

  Skogsgrå.

  And he knew it was she who watched.

  The ground was thickly carpeted with leaves and twigs, and past Sharpwood the hillside was obscured by massive conifers and the odd towering beech, dark branches spread to the sky.

  The boy looked on. The Sharpwood appeared dangerous, especially in darkness, and he trembled, unsure.

  Come. Come to me.

  The words drifted to him, like the hissing of leaves, the patter of rain, the sounds of nature forming words he could understand.

  Cross Sharpwood. You can do it.

  Beyond lies the truth.

  Beyond lies a gift.

  Beyond lie all your future dreams . . .

  Feeling almost hypnotised, the boy moved to the edge of the deadly pit filled with natural sharpened stakes. He stood there in the rain, face pale, and coughed a few times, wiped his lips, and stepped out onto the first treacherous branch, his arms spread wide to balance himself, and the branch creaked, and from somewhere deep in the trench there came a crack. The boy shuddered.

  Behind him, in the rain, like ghosts detaching from smoke, there emerged a figure, naked, skin grey and corrugated like the bark of a tree.

  The Skogsgrå.

  By her side emerged a second figure, with grey skin and hair like black fungus.

  The Huldra.

  Their fingers curled together, like trees roots entwining, and they watched the boy struggling to cross the trap.

  Battle of the Transloy Ridges.

  3rd. October 1916.

  BAINBRIDGE SAT ON his bunk, Lee-Enfield on his lap, cleaning and oiling parts. His boots were well-shined, uniform recently patched where a Hun knife had sliced close to his ribs, but now it was pressed and clean.

  Jones ducked through the heavy curtain, smiled a greeting at Bainbridge and removed a canvas satchel from his shoulder which he hung against the wooden boards. Taking a tin cup, he filled it with water, sipped a little, and said, “You having fun?”

  “You look like you’ve bloody drowned, like,” said Bainbridge, as Jones put the tin cup down, removed his helmet, and threw it onto his bunk. Water ran in rivulets down the metal dome and soaked into his blankets.

  “I feel as if I’ve drowned!” muttered Jones, moving to a small mirror the men used for shaving, to survey his damp features. “Have you got a towel there?”

  Bainbridge threw Jones a coarse towel, and the Tommy rubbed his face and hair, and then slung the towel over one shoulder.

  “If this rain keeps up, they might postpone the off,” said Jones, combing his hair in front of the small mirror and rubbing his eyes. He yawned. “I’m buggered worse than any body snatcher in the field. I could do with more sleep!”

  Bainbridge said nothing and continued to oil his rifle. When he’d finished, he stretched back on his bunk, watching the flickering candle which had been stuck to an upside-down tin of Ovaltine by its own wax. “We haven’t got time for sleep now,” he said finally, voice soft, eyes transfixed. “It’s our turn. The guns have been roaring for two days, but now it’s our turn.”

  Jones said nothing. Both men were melancholy, awaiting the dawn light and the push. The French offensive was drawing out, the heavy rain making battle difficult, if not impossible. Countless men and horses had drowned in the mud, thousands of lives been lost to the chattering mockery of guns and mortar bombs. All sense of optimism at Marshal Joffre’s promises of a speedy offensive from Maricourt to Gommecourt had faded. The initial benefit of the tanks under Haig had been heavily criticised, and the war effort was losing momentum, losing morale, losing ——ing men. Joffre’s apparent indifference to heavy French losses on the Somme, combined with the tactical errors of Rawlinson, did nothing to boost the flagging morale of soldiers on the allied front lines. And somehow, Bainbridge and Jones found themselves ready to go over the bags once more.

  “The mud is endless,” said Jones, checking his gas mask. He waved the mask at Bainbridge. “Have you checked yours? The Hun have been using phosgene again . . . I saw Jock in the mess hall and he told me how Smiler went over on the first. The gas got him. Choked to death on his own ——ing vomit.”

  Bainbridge nodded but said nothing. His forehead was creased, as if in deep thought, and finally he pushed aside his rifle, swung his legs from his bunk, and pulled on his boots. “Come on. The sarge will be calling us out soon.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I need a smoko.”

  Bainbridge laced up his boots, put on his helmet, checked his canteen, pulled on his waterproofs, and headed out into the darkness.

  Jones rubbed his jaw, feeling weariness settle across his shoulders like snow. Will this ever be over? Will it ever end? Is tonight the night I’m brought back by the body snatchers? Shit.

  He sighed, picked up his helmet, and extinguished the candle.

  For a second—a split second—the darkness kicked him back to his childhood. Running, shoes slipping, through the woods. Chased. Chased by evil . . . but then it was gone, and he was pushing aside the mouldy curtain and grunting as he heaved himself into the trench.

  Bainbridge was there, dripping under the downpour, sharing a story with another Tommy. It appeared four men had been beaten quite badly by the company sergeant major because one of the men caught measles, and in an attempt to earn themselves a ride back to England, his mates had shared his bunk for several nights in the hope of contracting the disease. The CSM caught them and gave them his own discipline.

  Now the CSM was up in front of Brigadier Isaacs, a Welsh officer who was not renowned for his leniency, compassion, nor sense of humour. Bainbridge was laughing out loud as this story was relayed, and Jones looked on through the rain, seeing a large man, a large friend, standing bulky and glowing as the dawn approached, damp wood, sandbags, and barbed wire behind, his bayonet a flash of silver, face now smudged with dirt despite his cleanliness only moments earlier.

  “May God go with us,” said Jones, looking up into eerie, rain-filled heavens. He straightened his helmet, wiggled toes in damp boots, and mentally prepared himself for battle.

  Over the bags and into No Man’s Land. The fighting was fierce, the covering machine gun fire roaring from thirty Lewises and Vickers set at strategically placed positions; but still the advancing battalions were cut down, bullets hissing through the rain and punching through waterproofs, kicking men onto their backs, exploding their blood across the soil of France.

  Jones and Bainbridge ducked heads as a mortar shell exploded nearby, and shrapnel whirred overhead. Bainbridge staggered up, his temper fired, his anger overcoming him.

  “Down!” screamed Jones, but Bainbridge charged forward, discharging his rifle into the gloom as hisses kicked up bullet splashes at his feet and Jones was charging after his friend as more crumps howled through the sky, and men were screaming in the mud and the ground rocked with the force of pounding explosions.

  Bainbridge went down with a bullet in the leg, and groaning, he rolled onto his back, stared at the sky, and opened his mouth as a sudden thirst overcame him.

  Jones slumped down next to the large Tommy, mud splashing his face and making him blink at the gritty, slimy texture. It tasted foul on his lips, and he pulled out his canteen but could find nowhere clean or dry to wipe the top, and so had to drink mud with his water. So that’s what they call Anzac Soup, he thought, and nearly retched.

  Bainbridge was moaning, a low, pain-filled sound. Jones forced a little water down Bainbridge’s throat and hissed, “I’m going to have a look at the wound . . . now, don’t cry out.”

  “Yeah, right, well, I ain’t no ——ing girl.”

  Gunfire rattled in the distance. A crump howled overhead.

  Jones crawled his way down until he was level with Bainbridge’s leg, and delicately, he too
k hold of a flap of cotton and eased it from the mangled flesh. The wound was deep and blood oozed from split skin. The flesh surrounding the bullet hole was scorched, black, and bloodstained cloth nestled inside the wound. Jones cursed and resisted the temptation to poke inside. He could see the bullet needed to come out—but not here!

  He crawled back so he could speak. He smiled. “It isn’t bad. Bainbridge . . . Bainbridge!”

  “Uh . . . what?”

  “It isn’t bad. Look . . . remember that time you carried me back? Remember? And I had to give you all my Woodbines? You bastard. Well, it’s my turn now, only I can’t carry you . . . there’s too much gunfire and you’re a fat ——er. I’m going to crawl, and drag you behind me. Are you listening to me?”

  “I’m . . . tired.”

  “No, Bainbridge!” He slapped the Tommy’s face. “You can’t go to sleep; we’ve got to get you back to the trench or to the stretcher bearers . . . Now, you’ve got to help me, okay?”

  Bainbridge nodded, coughed, and gritted his teeth in pain. “It hurts like hell.”

  “I know. But work with me. Come on, you tough bastard.”

  Jones took a firm hold on his friend’s collar and started to struggle through the mud as bullets whined around him. Corpses were the hardest to overcome, and Jones soon learned to crawl around them as his muscles screamed and Bainbridge became heavier by the second.

  More crumps hissed through the rain, and Jones forced Bainbridge’s face into the mud as the ground shook and hot metal scythed the field.

  “That was close,” murmured Bainbridge.

  “Are you okay there, chaps?”

  Jones looked up, spied a lance corporal whose face shone white in the gloom; he was a young man, younger than Jones, and had cut himself on the chin shaving. He crouched beside the Tommies.

  “He’s been hit,” said Jones.

  “We’re taking the ridge; we need all the men who can fight and we need them now,” said the lance corporal. “There are body snatchers nearby; they’ll find your friend . . .”

  “He’ll die out here,” hissed Jones, but further words were cut off as a crump appeared from the sky, wailing as if in pain . . . The lance corporal hit the ground as shrapnel exploded in a burst of flames, and Jones screamed as the explosion burned his skin, punching him sideways, and the mud was cool beneath him. He tried to squirm into it, to cover himself, to hide himself from the enemy like a kid under a blanket. But it was incredibly difficult to move, incredibly difficult to do anything . . .

  He opened his eyes, which seemed to have been glued.

  The lance corporal was sitting before him, tongue hanging out like a panting dog. Jones started to speak, until he realised the man was dead. He searched the soldier’s body with his eyes, and he could see the massive wound, across his abdomen, where his bowels had spilled out and steamed in the rain.

  “No,” he whispered, and then realised he, also, had been hit. Jones had taken shrapnel from the bomb. He wanted desperately to check himself for wounds, check for gaping holes spilling blood to the dirt-strewn earth . . . but he could not. He had to get Bainbridge back. ——. Had to get himself back . . .

  He paused. Analysed himself. Could feel pain in his left side and across the left side of his face.

  A bullet whined past his ear, close to his cheek, making him jump. With the jump, he felt blood pulse down his flesh beneath his shirt. “Shit. Don’t let us die,” he whispered. “Please don’t let us die out here!”

  He grabbed Bainbridge, started tugging at him, dragging him along. But the bastard was heavier than a dead donkey!

  “Charlie! Charlie!”

  He glanced back. Bainbridge was unconscious.

  “——.”

  Jones tried to pull Bainbridge again, but he could not. His strength fled him, and he slumped back, so his face was next to his friend’s.

  He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think!

  More bullets whined and spat. There were screams nearby, somebody dying in the mud.

  Jones heard boots, mud slopping, and the click of a cocking rifle. Help! Help had arrived! The stretcher bearers were here, ready to cart Bainbridge and himself back to the trench!

  Jones twisted his head round. To see a Hun, crouched on one knee, staring at him . . . only it wasn’t a Hun—it was a creature, a monster, huge and bulky, wearing a German uniform. The face was grey, ridged, bark run through with corrugations of black. There was a long muzzle with yellow fangs, from which smoke oozed. Dark eyes glittered with an alien intelligence. And yet, and yet he—it—wore the uniform of a German soldier, large, bulky, and a helmet sat on the beast’s head—and the steel merged with bubbling, hot-wax flesh . . .

  With fingers like bark, the creature lifted the rifle and sighted at Jones.

  “What are you?” he growled, “What the —— are you?”

  The rifle wavered, and lowered a little. Those glittering eyes bore into Jones and he wanted to puke.

  “You do not remember, little man?” The voice was incredibly coarse and completely non-human. No human larynx could create such guttural sounds.

  “Remember? What the hell does that mean?”

  The creature shrugged, with bony, ridged shoulders. The face contorted, into what might have been humour or might have been pain. “We have been watching you, Robert Jones. You and your . . . ilk.” The muzzle moved like a human mouth, twisting and gnashing. Drool spooled from the twisted fangs. “We are walriders.” It grinned. “Welcome to our world.”

  “I . . . don’t understand!”

  “We want your eyes and your soul. Prepare to die.”

  The rifle lifted once more, and Jones saw the twig-finger tighten on the trigger.

  “No!” he screamed as his eyes clicked shut.

  He was in the woods. Around him, trees were black and lifeless, as if a massive fire had raged through, decimating the trunks, scorching all life from the woods. Jones sat up and looked about. His brow creased in confusion. And then he saw the lance corporal, with his protruding tongue and abdomen ripped open by shrapnel. Bowels were writhing with maggots. The tongue and eyes were covered in ants.

  The body was ten days old and rotting. The stink of it offended Jones’s nostrils, and suddenly he felt laughter well up his throat, disgorged from his spinning brain, because, well, shit. Because he must be dead.

  He climbed to his feet and screamed into the trees, “Come on, then! What the —— happens next?”

  But only silence flowed back, like freezing air over a glacier.

  Jones fell to his knees. And he remembered.

  Remembered the Skogsgrå. Remembered the Huldra.

  Remembered the trees burning. The world burning!

  And he lowered his head and wept.

  When Jones awoke, it was to confusion. His eyes were nailed shut, but he could hear and smell things that did not fit. A jigsaw puzzle with himself in the middle. Around him were people—unknown people—and he had placed the wrong pieces in the wrong holes, and it just did not mesh.

  He coughed, winced as a dull throb ached in his back and his side, and he tried to reach behind himself, could feel something bulky behind, but the pain when he moved his arms was too intense, and so he just lay there, panting.

  A scream echoed, followed by shouts. Jones could smell blood, and rain, and mud, and that offensive medical smell which always accompanies hospitals: metallic, acidic, but welcome as a sign of life and civilisation.

  He tried to open his eyes. He coughed again. Felt a warm hand on his brow, felt something glass slipped into his mouth.

  “Where . . .” he tried.

  “Shh. Rest. You’re safe now.” The man’s voice was soothing and Jones lost himself once more in the drifting darkness, amidst the trees and the fire and the burning world, and didn’t remember anything until a shout of pain awoke him much, much later.

  This time, Jones was more aware of his surroundings. He could hear groaning to his left. That medical stink still filled his nost
rils and a voice said, “He’s awake.”

  Jones opened his eyes.

  It was night, Jones assumed, because the curtains had been drawn and bare bulbs lit the field hospital. A nurse approached, her face weary, her eyes dark-ringed and heavy. She forced a smile and took Jones’s blood pressure and pulse. He watched her all the time, sympathising with this poor creature who had to attend the mangled remains of men brought in off the battlefield. She didn’t deserve the horrors she was forced to endure.

  He was tired, but an incredible thirst overtook. “Water?” he croaked.

  “Just a little,” said the nurse, smiling with lead-lined eyes. “The doctor will operate soon and you’ve to keep off fluids.”

  She allowed Jones a sip.

  “Bainbridge?” he asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “A . . . a soldier. My friend. Bainbridge.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the nurse. “There have been many wounded during the last few days. Some are here; some have been shipped to hospitals further behind the front. I don’t know of any man called Bainbridge.”

  Jones nodded and felt himself slipping into sleep. He remembered being moved on a trolley towards a fiery red pain in his dreams. But that was all, and he slept for a very long time in the tombworld.

  Diary of Robert Jones.

  3rd. Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

  20th. October 1916.

  It was good of the sergeant to bring over my diary, but the sad thing is there are many blank pages which I just cannot fill. The memories are not there. My mind is blank. Except for those who . . . hunt.

  Getting shrapnel in the back and ribs does that to a man. Apparently, it was touch and go for a while as I hovered near the brink of death.

  I do remember one thing, though.

  The German soldier, the walrider, with the grey face and muzzle and limbs carved like branches. I remember him lifting his rifle. And yet . . . yet I am still here. What happened? Why did it not shoot?