Clarence looked to his right and saw his mate Tom engaged with an enemy soldier. The German held Baker’s own rifle sideways against his chest. He overpowered the Australian in an instant and forced him to the ground. The German drove his knee into Private Baker’s gut and it knocked his wind out, along with his remaining strength. Seeing ‘Fritz’ reach for a knife, Clarence lunged forward with his rifle in the confined space and drove the tip of the bayonet into the German’s throat. The air from the man’s lungs escaped with the blood from his artery and gurgled. Clarence removed the blade quickly and watched the soldier collapse, lifeless. Private Baker recovered quickly and thrust outwards with his arms to move the limp body off him. Without thought, Baker rolled to his knees, steadied, and fired a shot at a range of eight feet straight into the abdomen of a German, whose arm was raised high, ready to thrust a dagger into Clarence’s back. Baker worked the bolt action and directed his aim to two-o’clock, above the trench. He squeezed off another round to drop a German officer with a Luger pistol pointed towards the pair of Diggers.
‘Thanks, Miller,’ said Baker. He stood and looked up and down the trench. The scene somewhat calmer than it was only minutes before.
Clarence nodded, and then glanced towards the German he had speared through the throat. The man lay motionless on the trench floor. Maybe a father—definitely a son, but now, because of Private Clarence Miller, a lover of poetry—a corpse. Clarence relived the look of the man, eyes bulged and features contorted, allowed cruelly to contemplate the shock of being killed before death finally arrived. The image was seared into Clarence’s conscience, never to leave.
Baker noticed Smith and Cook to their left. He slapped Clarrie in the chest and signalled him to follow.
‘Come with me, Miller, and secure this section of the line.’
Clarence followed Tom but chose not to speak. I have just killed a man, Clarence said to himself, and Tom killed also, twice, in a matter of seconds. Both times he saved my life. All in battle, I know, and in defence of each other, but killing none the less. So what am I now? he asked, as his eyes darted left and right, up and down, alert and prepared for the enemy. Now that I have taken something only God can give.
Tom and Clarence linked up with what remained of the sections that made up their platoon. They secured a stretch of front-line, as soldiers from C and D Companies in the second wave leap-frogged them to continue the assault and secure the German support trench.
SIXTEEN
A curtain of darkness, almost drawn, allowed dim light to reveal darkened, beastly shapes dart in and out of view. The stress took the men of 53rd Battalion to the point of madness. Clarence held his rifle close to his prone body, and listened, as much as he looked, for any movement in the fading light. The position he held along with Conner, Baker, Smith, and Atkins, was tenuous at best.
After they secured the line that was once the German front, the men from A Company had moved forward to help defend the capture of what was thought to be the enemy support line. Word had passed from soldier to soldier that Lieutenant Colonel Norris, in an act of great valour, and with a small party of men, had been cut down by heavy machine-gun fire while he tried to advance. The death of Norris added to the high number of officers either dead or wounded within the 53rd Battalion. Command now passed to Captain Charles Arblaster from D Company.
With officer numbers depleted before they left their own lines, the troops rallied, and had initial success, but were hamstrung by a lack of instruction and quality reconnaissance. Soldiers broke into the German support lines and found nothing that resembled the information they had been given. They wasted valuable time in a series of old ditches. The supposed support trench was a water-filled drain, which may or may not have once served as a defensive position.
The 53rd put up a strong fight, but were now scattered across a series of small detached positions forward of the old German front line. They were in danger of being isolated further as the Germans gathered themselves for the expected counter-attack. Communication among the battalion was poor, owing to gaps in between positions, and contact with the 54th, on the left, was under extreme pressure. The position of 1 Platoon within the 53rd was critical, as they were on the extreme right and closest to the hard-hit 60th Battalion. 1 Platoon was forced to wheel right in order to protect the battalion flank.
‘Atkins, Miller,’ hissed Corporal Conner from inside their hastily built defences, a shallow ditch crested with the few sandbags they possessed—all they could manage under never-ending fire.
Lance Corporal Atkins and Private Miller crawled on their stomachs to lie alongside Corporal Conner. The artillery barrage that continued around them and towards the rear, where the 14th Field Company attempted to construct a communication sap with explosives, created a cloud filled with dust and smoke. It made visibility all the more difficult.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘See if you can get to our right flank and make contact with 1 Platoon. We have to get this line sorted or we will be cut off.’
Atkins nodded. He realised the urgency of the matter. Clarence looked towards Atkins for reassurance. The phrase ‘cut off’ struck him like the report of a Mauser rifle.
Atkins tapped Clarence on the shoulder and then made hand gestures to relay his instructions before he crawled out of their makeshift trench. The two soldiers had gone no further than ten yards when a German flare fizzed into the air, Atkins and Miller became statues, frozen to the spot. A fearful twitch came over Clarrie, as he fought the urge to run for the nearest crater; a reaction that would bring a concentration of machine-gun fire and certain death. With their eyes closed to retain optimal night vision, the men waited while the flare, with its deathly crimson glow, fell to earth.
Clarence opened his eyes and followed the lead of Arthur Atkins; his experience from the Gallipoli Peninsula was invaluable to the combat novice. After a few paces, Atkins saw an odd shape in the distance, and crouched low. Clarence mimicked him. After a minute, which seemed like an hour to Clarence, the lance corporal decided to throw caution to the wind.
‘Wallaby,’ said Atkins, in a hushed voice. The division as a whole had decided on Australian native fauna or flora as calls when they approached positions. The return call had to be different to the call made to give the all-clear.
‘Emu.’
Atkins and Miller made a quick but controlled dash to the position ahead; a machine gun fired at random with no visible target. It caused Clarence to stumble and fall on the edge of the ditch that made up part of the 53rd’s right flank. Two sets of strong hands reefed Clarence’s body into the safety of the small trench, as a machine gun, this time with intent, sprayed the ground thirty yards either side of them.
‘Easy, mate,’ whispered the soldier, ‘you’ll get us all shot.’
‘Archie,’ said Clarence quietly, while he lay helpless on his back.
Archie Miller didn’t respond; minimising talk was crucial in their position. Exhilarated, with the need to be contained, he pulled Clarence towards him and embraced his brother firmly, before he turned his attention to Lance Corporal Atkins.
‘Things aren’t much chop, Arthur,’ said Archie.
Arthur gasped for breath and then spoke. ‘The line’s all over the place, Archie, gaps everywhere. We are on your left, but we’ve lost contact with our left flank.’
‘Shit,’ hissed Archie. ‘I don’t know where the 60th are, but we’ve had fire from our right flank, and there are three saps that run from the German positions straight for us. They shield Fritz from our fire. Got any Mills Bombs?’
‘Here comes Fritz,’ said Bluey Smith, before Atkins had a chance to answer.
Archie spun around and positioned his Lee-Enfield to fire as he turned. He reeled off three shots in quick succession from on top of the sand-bags. The brave act exposed him to enemy fire while he masterfully worked the bolt of the rifle. His salvo delivered, Archie ducked behind cover while George Smith and Arthur Atkins lobbed a Mills Bomb each into th
e darkness. They waited behind the bags while the hand-grenades did their work. Two explosions, one after the other, and then muffled screams told Archie and two other privates to react. They quickly leapt into the cloud of dust and bayoneted two Germans. A third enemy soldier, who had positioned himself to the right of his comrades, fired at the Australians and killed the private who stood next to Archie; the German collapsed a split second later from a bullet wound to the chest, fired by Arthur.
Clarence squinted as his eyes attempted to penetrate the darkness. He fired at a German helmet silhouetted by the glow of a distant flare; the faint thud of a body as it hit the earth could be heard. The target Clarence had in his sights had not reached the safety of the communication sap.
‘Good shot, Clarrie,’ whispered Archie. ‘Keep watch on the area directly in front, and to three o’clock on your right.’
Archie rolled away from his brother towards the private who had made the bayonet charge with him. Whether through flinty toughness or the pain killing abilities of adrenalin, the young private had not let on that he had been wounded in the thigh. Corporal Miller noticed his trousers, wet and darkened with blood.
‘You alright, Private Louth?’
‘Good as gold, Corporal,’ lied Louth.
‘Private Cooper, see to Louth’s leg,’ whispered Archie.
In Archie’s peripheral line of sight, a ghostly figure danced and then disappeared. He jerked his head towards the apparition and his heart skipped a beat. His instincts told him what it was; his sense of hope prayed it wasn’t. He crawled to the rear of their position, closed his eyes and pulled the helmet he wore over his face to make his surrounds as dark as possible. Archie waited a few seconds, lifted the helmet and then opened his eyes to allow whatever light there was in the atmosphere to flood into his pupils. There it was again.
‘Christ, they’re behind us,’ he barked, while he fired two rounds.
Smith and Atkins sprang to Archie’s aid and fired rapidly; Cooper, having dressed Louth’s leg, joined the fray. He tossed his last Mills bomb in the direction of his mate’s fire. In the distance, rifles and machine gun fire opened up from the Australians in the old German front-line—a knee-jerk reaction to the shots fired from Corporal Miller. The sound of the Vickers machine gun was welcomed by Archie and his men. It had tied down and possibly killed the Germans that lurked, but it would do little to help their overall situation. With enemy troops in behind their position, it could only mean that the 15th Brigade had failed in their objective, and the flanking force that curved away to their right had been overrun or was like them—isolated.
‘Bluey, we can’t stay here much longer,’ said Archie.
To their right a series of flashes could be seen. A short and sharp bomb battle ensued with small arms fire towards the old German line. It confirmed Archie’s worst fears.
‘Louth and Clarrie, keep your eyes on those comm-saps,’ said Archie, in a low voice.
Archie Miller looked into the darkness and ran through his options silently. In the distance, hundreds of yards past their right flank, a sickening discharge of machine guns filled the night sky with an apocalyptic howl. A chorus of tortured voices met the evil clatter, but did not outlast it. Archie cursed this madness and decided the only course of action was to deliver his men from certain death.
He moved to the front of the trench to be near Louth and Clarence, but with his back against the sandbags so he could watch the rear.
‘Men, our situation is critical. Fritz has moved in between us and the old front. We have no contact with the rest of our line, if it still exists, and we’ve run dangerously low on ammunition.’ Archie paused for a second and gauged the mood of the men. ‘We have no alternative but to make a dash past these Germans and break out to the position our brigade holds in the old German front line.’
‘Corporal,’ said Private Cooper, ‘what about Louth?’
‘We’ll carry him.’
‘I’ll only hold you up,’ whispered Private Cyril Louth. ‘Leave me some ammo, and I’ll keep the bastard Hun busy.’
Archie looked at the lad, a face plastered with grim defiance, a young man with a whole life to live, unwilling to put his mates at risk. Instead, he would choose to pay the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ replied Archie, ‘we’ll get you out.’
‘I’ll stay with him, Corporal,’ said Private Cooper. ‘Sort those Fritz out behind us and send stretcher bearers for Louth.’
Corporal Miller knew there would be no stretcher-bearers for Louth, or anyone else in this most dire of predicaments; Private Cooper’s bravery was remarkable and tragic, like that of so many soldiers strewn across France and Belgium. Archie also knew that the men faced an arduous task in their attempt to break through the Germans. Impossible if they were being shot at from behind.
Archie closed his eyes to see a vision of his mother and father in front of their Beattie Street home. He opened them to see the fear-stricken faces of his fellow infantrymen and knew the decision he would take gave them their best chance of survival.
‘You’re going with the other men, Cooper.’
‘Louth needs...’
‘I will stay,’ said Archie calmly, placating Private Cooper. An image of his mate, Bert Glanville, entered his mind. Archie never saw him after he died on Lemnos and it hit home as he talked to his men.
‘Arch,’ pleaded Clarence.
Archie ignored his brother’s plea, fully aware of his fate. ‘Lance Corporal Smith, you are in charge, organise your men.’
George Bluey Smith stared at his mate. He wanted to argue, but he knew it would be both pointless and dangerously counter-productive. His sole responsibility now was the safe transfer of souls across the dark cratered stretch. Bluey searched for words that could encompass what they had been through, both as soldiers and men. He swallowed hard and realised there weren’t any. George Smith gripped Archie’s hand firmly to wish him luck, for as men there could be no thought of farewells. He then turned and briefed the small party of men under his command. Clarence made an attempt to move towards his brother, but Archie bluntly rebuked him, with a jerk of his head towards Smith.
***
Clarence stood three feet to the left side and slightly behind George Smith. Another Digger, Private Barry was to his left, with Atkins and Cooper on Smith’s right. They crept blindly through the night in an arrowhead formation. The air was heavy and lacquered the senses with the pungent odour of smoke mingled with the ripe scent of death. All around them, the mutilation of body, mind and spirit was sown into the earth, to be harvested when the guns had fallen silent.
Lance Corporal Smith halted and held his palm up; he was barely visible to his comrades. He made sweeping gestures and ordered Private Barry, on Clarence’s left, and Cooper, on Atkins’s right, to make a flanking movement on the German position. A shell crater full of Germans lay twenty to twenty-five yards in front. Smith thrust an open palm to instruct Clarence and Atkins to make the frontal assault.
Three of the German soldiers who occupied the shell-crater were busy setting up a machine gun. Once operational, it would traverse the ground with enfilading fire, and make the approach that the band of five Australians now attempted impossible. In order to protect themselves and their precious weapon, three of the remaining four Germans busied themselves filling sand-bags to make a parapet of sorts. The last soldier, a lookout, scanned the darkness that protected the Australians.
Clarence and Arthur surprised their German foes. They drove the cold steel that protruded from their rifles deep into the machine gunners’ stomachs and withdrew them amidst horrid screams. Arthur then transformed his weapon into a club and swung it in an arc. The stock of the Lee-Enfield smashed into the temple of the third man in the detachment and cracked his skull, as he desperately gripped the handle-block of a weapon, unable to fire.
Lance Corporal Smith emerged from the darkness to shoot a soldier at point blank range. The German, his fa
ce locked in an expression of horror, clutched at his chest as he fell. Private Barry and Private Cooper roared like men possessed and entered the crater from the flanks. They bayoneted and shot almost simultaneously two men that held sandbags. A solidly built Fritz, left unharmed by the exchange, reacted quickly and cut into Private Barry’s neck with a spade. Still connected to his enemy via timber and steel, Richard Barry fell to the damp earth and twitched spasmodically. Pulses of blood at first spurted, and then oozed from his dying body. Private Barry’s killer, his eyes still engaged with his victim, received a bullet to the brain by a blood-splattered Private Miller; the German’s efforts to defend his countrymen heroic but in vain. The final member of the Bavarian unit held his hands high in surrender. His eyes darted from one Australian soldier to the other as he considered his fate. Arthur Atkins, conscious of their position, stepped forward to mute the prisoner. He applied a gag and bound his hands as a precaution against any further heroics, while Private William Cooper held the incapacitated German in his menacing gaze.
***
Intermittent fire, random and hasty, landed around the captured crater that sheltered the Australian men. The bullets faded away amongst muffled and indistinguishable chatter. The darkness and emptiness of night made it difficult to fix their locations and get a bearing that would be vital in determining their next move.
‘I guess it’s about eighty to a hundred yards to the old German line,’ whispered Smith.
‘No telling how many Hun are out there,’ replied Atkins.
‘We’ll have more chance by splitting up,’ Smith said, unconvinced, but required as a leader to make a decision. Indecision was the beginning of calamity.
‘I agree. What do we do with old Kaiser and the machine gun?’
Beneath the Willow Page 18