The Lambs

by Peter James Cottrell

  ‘Best be getting them back, sir. Before they work out there’s just the two of us,’ prompted Flynn. Dalton nodded. ‘C’mon, Jerry, let’s go,’ Flynn said to the German officer, gesturing with his bayonet just to make sure he understood.

  ‘Soldaten, hande hoch! Raus! Raus! Schnell! Mitt me kommen! Raus!’ Dalton ordered in poor, schoolboy German. For a moment they hesitated, then, much to Flynn’s relief, they obeyed, allowing themselves to be herded like sheep back towards the British lines. He couldn’t help noticing that most of them looked happy to be prisoners, relieved to be out of the fight, and for the first time it dawned on him that the last few months must have been as much of a nightmare for the Germans as it was for them. Soon they could see familiar soup-plate helmets poking over the tops of the trenches. Someone fired. ‘Cease firing, you bloody idiots!’ shouted Dalton, waving his arms. Thankfully, the shooting stopped even if the shelling didn’t.

  ‘We bagged twenty-one of the little buggers by my reckoning, sir,’ Flynn informed Dalton when they’d finished handing the prisoners over to the lance corporal, who seemed quite happy to escort them to the rear. He was conscious that his hands were shaking so he balled his fists, hoping that no one would notice. Then he saw that Dalton was shaking too, making a mess of feeding fresh rounds into his revolver. Their eyes met, both grinning like mischievous schoolboys who’d just got away with doing something unfeasibly stupid, and they started to laugh. Dalton grimaced, clutching his side. He was bleeding.

  ‘Stretcher-bearers! Mr Dalton’s been hit! Stretcher-bearers!’ shouted Flynn, feeling suddenly very old and tired again.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing,’ insisted Dalton, putting on a brave front as he fended off a medic who was trying to manhandle him onto a stretcher. ‘What’s your name, Sergeant?’ he asked.

  ‘Sergeant Flynn, sir. Kevin Flynn.’

  ‘Well, Sergeant Flynn, it looks like you’re in charge now,’ he said before letting the medics carry him away, leaving Flynn to slump on the fire step under the dead weight of renewed responsibility. He lit a cheap, ration-pack gasper, wondering for a moment what had become of Devlin; better still Clee. ‘Bugger!’ he spat, hoofing an old tin can across the trench. ‘Why can’t you find a bloody sergeant major when you need one?’ A shadow passed over him, disturbing his thoughts.

  ‘What now, Sarge?’ asked Keegan. Flynn flicked away the half-smoked dog-end and picked up his rifle, looking around.

  ‘What do you think? We press on, of course. The rest of the battalion have got to be somewhere around here, so let’s go find them.’ Then he walked off, praying the others would follow. He didn’t look back but somehow he knew they would.

  CHAPTER 27

  Saturday 9 September 1916, Ginchy, the Somme

  ‘Sarge! Sarge! Are you all right?’ shouted Keegan, his voice distant and dreamlike somewhere in the back of Flynn’s mind, dragging him back from the abyss. The sound of machine-gun fire wrenched him back to consciousness. He couldn’t really remember what had happened but Ginchy was behind them. His neck was sore, his nose and mouth full of blood. He was sure one of his teeth was loose. He opened his eyes. There were bodies everywhere. Then it came back. He’d found the company. They’d been advancing, renewing the attack. Then all hell had broken loose. Something moved, catching his attention. It was Keegan waving from a shell hole nearby. He looked terrified. Who could blame him? A stream of fluorescent green tracer buzzed overhead, cleaving the thinning daylight. It would be dark soon.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, will you shut up? Do you want to get me shot?’ snapped Flynn as more tracer zipped overhead. He pushed his face into the wet, chalky soil, eking out every scrap of cover from the shredded, limbless torso that lay in front of him. ‘On the count of three give me some covering fire,’ ordered Flynn. ‘One! Two! Thr—’

  ‘Sarge, I’m out of fecking ammo!’ Keegan called out apologetically as another burst of tracer ambled lazily by.

  Flynn froze in disbelief.

  ‘Is there anyone else in there with you?’ he asked, feeling rather awkward trying to sustain a conversation in the circumstances. Keegan nodded. ‘Well?’ The boy looked puzzled. ‘Do they have any bloody ammo?’ Flynn snapped angrily. Keegan’s head disappeared as if dodging Flynn’s words just as several more rounds churned up the ground, groping to find him, then he reappeared.

  ‘Quick, Sarge, move!’ Keegan shouted, waving his arms just as someone started firing, keeping the Germans’ heads down.

  Flynn didn’t need asking twice. He leapt to his feet, keeping low as possible as he belted for cover. Bullets tore up the ground around his feet, urging him on until he finally tumbled headlong into a thigh-deep pool of effluent next to Keegan, disturbing a headless corpse that bobbed languidly on its surface. The icy liquid seeped through his trousers as he lay panting for breath. Nearby, a lanky corporal lay face down in the mud, a filthy Red Cross haversack and a number of water bottles hanging from his slack, blood-soaked shoulders. ‘He’s copped it,’ Keegan told him just as a fresh salvo of tracer clawed at the crater’s rim.

  ‘Blast! I’ve lost my bundook!’ cursed Flynn, realizing that he’d left his rifle out in no-man’s-land. He felt strangely naked without it; as vulnerable as Keegan looked. Then he noticed the rifleman who’d covered his escape slide down the side of the deep crater and slosh over to join them. It was Fallon.

  ‘So, what are you going to do now?’ Fallon sneered, making no attempt to hide the malice in his voice. ‘I could have been a sergeant by now if it wasn’t for you and your friends. Instead, I’m stuck here,’ he added. There was a look in his eye, the same look Flynn had seen in it on the tube station all those months ago. Flynn chose to ignore him.

  ‘Are they full?’ asked Flynn, looking at the water bottles around the medic’s neck. He was thirsty and his face hurt. Freeing one of the canteens, he lobbed it over to Keegan, who fielded it expertly. The boy drained it with one noisy gulp.

  ‘Greedy little bastard!’ snapped Fallon.

  ‘Leave him alone. There’s plenty more,’ Flynn snapped, throwing a second canteen at Fallon, who caught it awkwardly, letting his rifle squelch into the muck. Without so much as a thank-you, he pulled the cork with his nicotine-stained teeth, keeping his cold, serpentine eyes on Flynn. He took a drink, gulping noisily before theatrically smacking his lips.

  ‘Thirsty work, killing,’ he finally announced but Flynn carried on ignoring him, reaching instead for a third water bottle. The medic stirred, groaning. Flynn rolled him over. It was Rory. One of his eyes was bruised, blackened and closed, his bloody cheek ripped open, exposing the chipped bone beneath. He’d been shot through the thighs too but the dark blood oozed: it wasn’t an arterial bleed. Rory opened his eyes, forcing a weak smile.

  ‘It’s all right, Rory, we’ll get you out of here,’ said Flynn. ‘Here, give us a hand,’ he said as he rummaged through the haversack for some bandages.

  ‘Why bother? He’s finished anyway,’ replied Fallon coldly as he started to reload his filthy rifle, pushing the bullets slowly, deliberately into the breech, keeping his eyes on Flynn.

  ‘We’re going to have to take out that machine gun if we’re going to get him to a dressing station,’ said Flynn, folding back the ragged flap of skin over Rory’s broken cheek and dressing his wounds. By the time he’d finished, Rory’s head reminded Flynn of a picture of an Egyptian mummy in one of his old history books.

  ‘You’re fecking joking, right? Take out the machine gun? Is that the best you can come up with?’ Fallon barked incredulously as he snapped the bolt of his .303 closed. Keegan looked worried. He’d never heard anyone speak to a senior NCO like this before.

  ‘Will you wind your bloody neck in, Fallon?’ snapped Flynn before turning his back on him and crawling up the side of the crater to try and locate the machine-gun nest. Keegan joined him but Fallon stayed where he was, cradling his rifle. ‘So, what have you got?’ asked Flynn.

  ‘This,’ replied Keegan, lifting the b
ayoneted end of his rifle up to show Flynn.

  ‘That’s more than me. Hang on a minute,’ said Flynn, remembering the grenade in his tunic pocket, the one Keegan had given him earlier. He pulled it out, holding it beneath his chest as he searched for the machine gun. Fallon couldn’t hear what they were saying. He didn’t care. They were barking mad if they thought he was going to get himself killed attacking a machine gun. ‘Fallon, get your arse up here,’ said Flynn, looking back at Fallon. He froze. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’ Fallon was aiming at them. Keegan turned his head. Fallon shot him, the bullet taking him between the shoulder blades, throwing him flat. Fallon fired again, the second round shattering Keegan’s skull. ‘What the fu—’

  ‘And there I was, thinking this was going to be a shite day; but here we are, alone at last,’ Fallon sneered as he re-cocked his weapon. ‘Not so clever now, are you, Sergeant la-di-da fecking Flynn, without all your little mates around you, eh? I’m going to enjoy killing you. Now turn round and show me your hands. I want to see the light go out in your eyes when I shoot you.’ Flynn rolled over, yanking the pin from the grenade.

  ‘Shoot me and you’re dead too.’ He held up the grenade. Fallon hesitated, unsure what to do.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ he snapped as Flynn stepped closer, ignoring him.

  ‘Not such the big man now, eh? Go on, shoot me!’ demanded Flynn, past caring whether he lived or died.

  ‘I said stay where you are!’ replied Fallon. ‘If you let that thing off you’ll kill all of us all right, even this fella,’ he added, flicking his head in Rory’s direction. Flynn hesitated. Fallon smiled. ‘Throw the grenade away.’

  ‘You’ll leave him to die anyway. At least this way it’ll be quick,’ Flynn replied calmly, stepping forward once more. He could see fear in Fallon’s eyes.

  Fallon took a step backwards, then another and another, hoping that if he could just put some distance between him and the bomb he might survive the blast. It was a long shot. He raised his rifle, aiming at Flynn’s face, and flicked off the safety. The German machine gunner couldn’t believe his luck. There was a shape, a head poking up from where the Tommies had fired at him. A squirt of lurid green tracer flayed the gloom, plunging onto the lip of the shell hole, mangling Fallon’s flesh and bone – tearing the life from him as he tumbled back down.

  Flynn threw himself flat, then lay staring, not quite able to grasp what had happened. He felt the grenade slip in his hand, greasy with filth. He threw it away to detonate harmlessly outside the crater, then he waded over to where Fallon lay and poked him with his boot, making sure he was dead. Then he picked up his rifle. It would come in useful. He took Keegan’s pay book and one of his identity disks; he didn’t bother with Fallon. There was no point searching the headless corpse.

  ‘Stick with me, kid, and you’ll be fine,’ he told Rory as he cradled him gently in his arms like a baby. He would wait until dark before trying to get back; it would be safer that way.

  Shells continued to fall all night and by the time Flynn had managed to carry Rory back to Ginchy, what was left of the battalion had gone, relieved in place by the Welsh Guards.

  CHAPTER 28

  Tuesday 12 September 1916, Corbie, the Somme

  It was a subdued gathering beneath a sombre sky; the entire battalion, or at least what was left of it, waiting patiently for Father Doyle to begin the drumhead service, his vestments contrasting starkly with the gathered khaki. They’d piled the drums to make an altar and whilst it wasn’t Sunday that didn’t matter. They’d been in the line on Sunday and a week was too long to wait for what needed to be said. Even those Protestants amongst them were there, showing solidarity with their Catholic kin. It was the first church service that Flynn had attended through choice in years. It seemed right, somehow.

  ‘Dulce et decorum est,’ said the priest, his gentle voice frail from behind the drums. He looked worn down, a husk of the man he’d been, reliving his Calvary. They all were, a sea of pale faces trying to make sense of the last few days. Even the RSM seemed lost for words as the battalion came to terms – indeed if it ever would come to terms – with the carnage of the last few days. ‘“It is a sweet and fitting thing to die for your country,” said the Roman poet Horace, but I feel his words do little justice to our recent loss of so many friends,’ continued the priest. He had known them all, made it his business to know them, and whilst he knew all men were born to die, such loss still grieved him. How could it not? ‘Ireland has paid a heavy price. We have all paid a heavy price …’

  Murmurs of agreement rippled through the hollow-eyed ranks of the congregation and Flynn felt his clasped hands begin to tremble ‘… there are few die well that die in battle …’ as memories of the butcher’s bill flooded back. Devlin was missing – so was Spud, for that matter – but at least Docherty and Fitzpatrick had made it. He felt bad about Spud. Roll call had been a sorry affair of awkward silences, uneasy shuffling amongst thinned ranks, and even the double rum ration supplied by Mahon did little to numb the pain or deaden the shock. It had helped Flynn sleep though. Rum always helped him sleep.

  ‘… but it is up to us to make sure that theirs was no mean and wasted sacrifice. It is up to us … it is up to us …’ The priest’s voice faltered, then he seemed to regain himself. ‘It is up to us to make sure that the people back home remember those who gave their lives for Ireland’s future …’ Flynn began to sweat, his back clammy beneath his shirt. ‘I’m minded of what St John said, that greater love hath no man that lays down his life for his friends …’ They said the attack was a victory. It didn’t feel like it to Flynn. Then, as the Jesuit began naming the dead, it started to rain.

  ‘Captain William Murphy …’ He’d liked the captain; they all had. ‘… Lieutenant Thomas Kettle …’ Little more than a name. ‘… Second Lieutenants William Boyd, Ernest O’Kearney-White and Thomas Tyner …’ It was a litany of sorrow; he’d never seen the RSM so shaken. ‘… CSM William Clee …’ He could picture him still, spur jangling in City Hall, an Englishman amongst the Irish. ‘… Sergeants Patrick Elmur, Charles Mills, Edward Wall and Jack Wilson …’ He’d drunk with them all in the sergeants’ mess. ‘… Corporals Thomas Connell, Stephen Dooner, Joseph Fitzpatrick, John Maloney, Patrick Murphy, John Neary, Michael O’Driscoll, Ralf Read …’

  Flynn’s mind drifted and for some reason the words of the poem ‘The Charge Of The Light Brigade’ came to mind, making him smile. ‘Was there a man dismayed?’ He’d been scared witless. ‘Not tho’ the soldiers knew someone had blundered …’ He still felt guilty about Carolan; he shouldn’t have left him. ‘Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die … cannon to the right of them … cannon to the left of them … cannon in front of them … volleyed and thundered …’ Too right, they had. ‘Back from the mouth of Hell … left of six hundred …’ It seemed appropriate somehow.

  ‘What?’ Fitzpatrick asked. Flynn hadn’t realized he was speaking out loud.

  ‘… Lance Corporals James Byrne, Joseph Corrigan, Michael Donnelly and James O’Neill; Privates James Boylan, Edward Brown, James Burke, Michael Byrne …’ He’d heard Carolan was in hospital, that was something. ‘… Joseph Carter, John Connell, Dennis Curran, Michael Curran, John Delaney, Patrick Dempsey …’ Any relation? he wondered. ‘… John Devlin …’ He’d not bothered reporting Fallon’s death. ‘… Christopher Fanning, Myles Flood, James Forristal, Michael Gallagher, Henry Garland, Albert Goude, Alexander Gribben, Frederick Hegarty, Patrick Higgins, Thomas Jordan, Peter Kane, Patrick Keegan, Peter Keegan …’

  ‘When can their glory fade?’ Flynn mouthed bitterly but it was already fading as he struggled to put faces to the names.

  ‘… James Kelly, Gregory Kinahan, Peter Lawless, Charles Linton, Thomas Morgan, Joseph Murphy, Thomas McCormick, Richard McDermott, Hugh McPhail, James Nulty, Martin O’Brien, Patrick Parr, Patrick Quigley, Edward Quinn, James Quinn, Michael Rafferty, James Rathband, John Rawson, Patrick Redmond, John Shannon and Pet
er Tully …’ Then it was finished, the battalion’s litany of woe. Flynn didn’t really remember the rest of the service, just a string of genuflection and trawled-up Latin scraps from his childhood until the RSM dismissed them.

  ‘We are Fred Karno’s army; we’re the ragtime infantry …’ someone started to sing as they began to disperse. One by one other voices joined in. ‘We cannot fight, we cannot shoot, what bloody use are we?’ They were all singing now. ‘And when we get to Berlin we’ll hear the Kaiser say, Hoch, hoch! Mein Gott, what a bloody rotten lot are the ragtime infantry!’ Then they cheered, and cheered and cheered. It was better than crying.

  ‘Old Hackett says you’re up for a medal,’ said Fitzpatrick as they ambled back to the tents. Flynn grunted. He wasn’t listening, his mind elsewhere. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we nip over to the hospital and see what Joe is up to?’ he added before steering Flynn towards the camp gate. It wasn’t far and no one spared them a second glance as they strolled down the sunken lane that led to the casualty clearing station. No one cared who they were, no one cared what they were doing, and as long as they were back before lights out no one would ask any questions. Anyway, Mahon would cover for them. After a while they knew they were close, the overflowing cemetery a sure-fire sign that the hospital was nearby.