“Yes… sir, half the section,” the Corporal reported, as was his job, but his voice was desperate.
“Any of those wounded?”
“Don’t know, yet.”
“Get them back if they are.”
He was gone, running with fear?
They daren’t move, certainly not towards the bunker.
The night had only just begun.
“Stay alert, you people.” The Corporal’s voice was cracking. Eyes were the size of saucers. How could they not be alert? The gun had stopped. Was the little, formally silent recruit, still alive. Was he there? The Corporal now stumbled the few yards towards what had been the Lewis gun position. But he had to pass the bunker. “Some fucker’s still alive in there.” He cried out as he did so.
Ben and Jack held their position, searching ahead of them with eyes useless in the dark.
Flares were a double-edged weapon as everybody knew. They gave light but made silhouettes. The Old Man always favoured stealth and stillness, as movement even in the dark gave away positions. True, moving attackers could be caught like rats scuttling in the light of a flare, but defenders, even still ones, could be pinpointed by clever observation from positions at quite a distance and artillery retribution could then be brought.
It was always better to watch in the light of someone else’s flare.
No more came.
“What a fuck-up.” The Corporal, used Jack’s normal expletive. “You alright, little Peter, where’s the other two?” He was of course talking of the gunner and his number two.
The recruit was shaking uncontrollably. Unlike the gun that had sounded controlled. He couldn’t fire it anymore in that state. “It was the grenade. They lobbed it over and it caught Alf and he just carried it down there, couldn’t get rid of it. I think it caught on his kit.” He indicated the bottom of the trench. Another lump could be seen, with the stillness of death. All Alfred could do was double over, while the grenade’s explosion hollowed out most of the soft tissue of his entire body. But they were still to discover that.
“What happened to John?” The Corporal’s voice wavered from high to low, like some maniac terrified of the answer.
“He’s in the bunker. They tried to take the Lewis but I shot that one then another came and knifed Alf in the neck after the grenade had gone off, but then he collapsed. I think you shot him, Corp. I had to keep hold of the Lewis.”
Of course he did.
“Can you hold the position and use the Lewis?”
“Of course, Corp,” replied the recruit. His voice was steadier then. They steadied each other.
“I need to see what’s occurring in the bunker right now.”
No one offered help, there was no one to help. Eyes, such as they were, had to search out the results.
A match was lit by the Corporal mainly to find the hurricane lamp, unused so far inside the bunker. He had a fleeting glimpse of a scene of bodies, as if they were tailor’s dummies thrown in random by some madman. One man moaned in the corner. “Is that you Ernie?”
“I can’t move anything,” came the reply.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No idea, can’t feel anything.”
Another match and after stepping over a man in the doorway, the hurricane lamp was found. “And John and Bert…?”
“Over there.”
In the corner lay Bert with one Hun, alongside each other, like some lovers. Their soft tissue had taken most of the grenade. As had Alfred at the gun pit.
“I’ll get you a stretcher Ern.” The Corporal almost ran.
The platoon sergeant eventually brought a stretcher party with the Corporal.
They got Ernest out. He seemed to be paralysed, probably with a piece of grenade shrapnel in his spine. He would never walk again. They lifted him over the still grey lumps in the trench with difficulty. John the third member of the Lewis team was just a motionless lump, who had tried to block the bunker doorway and been shot, though it was not clear by whom.
The four men left in the section remained awake for the rest of the night although Ben fell asleep and slid down a couple of times onto the men he had killed.
The comfortable home created by the pioneers had become a pit of terror. The thought that the attackers had been watching its creation, gleefully waiting their moment, had not yet found words.
Sleep, wakefulness, rest and work took on new dimensions that night, bound together in an empty space between life and death.
CHAPTER FOUR
The April Fools
They heaved bodies over the parapet without looking at them. Death brings a numbness, in which everything seems worthless, including the casualties.
“This Arras is a total fool,” said the Corporal, breaking a long silence.
“Yea an April Fool,” commented Jack who always knew how to cap a comment. “Arras me ’arris… If Arras was an arsehole we are several miles up it, covered in utter shit.”
“Oh yea, April the first, ain’t it?” Ben looked at the trenching tool. “If my own brother had come over I’d have done for him as well.” He picked up the tool and looked for the blood stains on it.”
“Then called him an April Fool… You said you hadn’t got a brother… or sister,” responded Jack listlessly.
“So I ain’t. Well if I had one I’d have done for him, as an April Fool.”
“If he had a Hun uniform on,” injected his corporal.
“Did we stop to identify the uniforms?” asked Jack. “Did we ask; are you really Hun, or just pretending? We need fucking rum, don’t we Ben?”
“Course we do.”
There was no rum. But they had heard from the Sergeant who paid an early morning visit along with the Platoon and Company Commander, that there would be men to replace the casualties. They had not arrived and were probably on the way up from the logistic area. There would be no relief. They were the reserve battalion again.
They watched British soldiers picking amongst the debris to their front right. They watched an entire patrol of eight men cut down by machinegun fire from the Hun ridge pointed out by the pioneer sergeant, seemingly an age ago. The patrol tried to run but got caught in the wire and one after the other were killed. Blood leapt from their bodies at every hit.
“God, I bet the fucker behind the gun is enjoying that.” It was only Jack who could comment on this slaughter of his own comrades like that. Deep down they all had bloodlust. It had been on display last night; a survival mechanism. But talking with it in such bravado, especially of their own men, was not natural to all.
It was after seeing the patrol shot that they first heard the cries of a casualty; somewhere out there. No one spoke of it at first.
The new men arrived with the Sergeant who also brought some rations and water. There were only three to replace the four who had become casualties. This was often the case. Replacements did not make up the numbers.
“You people get up on the parapet. We gonna eat and sleep. Who’s a gunner among you?” None of them volunteered. The Corporal looked closely at them “Where you from?” He didn’t see a badge he recognised and there was something about the body language of the group that made him take closer stock.
“Artists’ Rifles,” said one of them, who appeared bigger of stature than the rest.
Jack exploded. “Artists’ fucking Rifles, what will they send next. And what sort of artists are you?”
“Musicians.”
“Give ’em a chance jack, they must have been trained otherwise they wouldn’t be here,” pleaded the Corporal.
“So if you been training, you should all be able to man the Lewis and as the Corporal said who is going to do it?”
“Well I could I suppose,” said the spokesman uncertainly.
“Well get up there and do it. The rest of you get up on the fire step. Don’t get yourself spotted from that ridge to the East though, that’s where the Hun is, so keep yourself down. We gonna get into these rations.”
Peter t
he young recruit who had been firing the Lewis during the battle and may have saved the lives of the other three, gave up his post willingly. He was calm by this time and had loaded some Lewis ammunition into drum magazines. He avoided the place where Alfred had died as if it was consecrated ground. He passed up several of the heavy circular magazines to the new gunner. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Henry.”
“There you are then Henry, looks like there’ll be just the two of us now on the gun. Alfred our number one and John his mate were killed last night. Alfred’s over there and we threw John out there as well.” He pointed. “I’ll be here if you need me.” He took up a place in the bottom of the trench having secured several tins of food from the little stock that the Corporal left outside the bunker.
He was small in stature and the others had regarded him as a boy. But now he had become a man.
Jack and Ben got into the rum before taking food, downing a bottle between them.
“That’s for the boys,” said Jack as he lifted the small bottle in salutation, “the boys killed.”
“And that’s for Ernest,” rejoined Ben, doing the same. “They were good people.”
“The best, considering what we got now,” replied his friend dismissively.
They sat outside the bunker with their backs to the trench wall. Then almost immediately fell asleep where they sat.
The sun had come out, a sort of tentative early spring sun but they were warmed by it.
The Corporal had found his pipe, from somewhere and began to stoke it up again. Then he put it aside to eat, straight from some tins of beef and processed cheese, followed by a whole packet of biscuits.
He ventured into the bunker and began to smoke. The pungency of the tobacco gradually tried to replace the intense smell of cordite that had caused death. He fell asleep before his pipe was finished, slumped exhausted against the back wall. There was light from outside which came through the low doorway. It was a cave-like construction with walls that had become greasy mud, wood supports, some splintered by grenade fragments. The roof was a little curved, supported again by beams, meanly constructed yet effective until the explosion came inside. Then it became an oven. Some bunkers had iron sheets supporting them. That wouldn’t have helped either. The grenade might have brought the roof in.
The privates from the Artists’ Rifles stood on the fire-step. They heard the crying. They saw the bodies over the trench parapet. They knew that the English ones would need to be recovered. That would be done at night. The German ones would be left.
“Someone out there is injured,” said Marcus. He was a fair-haired, and tall recruit whose artistic calling was playing the cello. “Should we wake the Corporal and tell him about it?”
“Don’t yet, he probably knows about him, ” replied the other rifleman with him.
Still the sound preyed on their ears. It started to take on a voice, an English voice they thought, recognising certain words. Then they heard one distinct word; ‘Please.’ The word came on a gust of breeze which came in an afternoon lull.
“He’s asking for help. He must be conscious.”
There were three of them facing directly towards the ridge and Henry was to the right by several yards past the bunker, from which snoring now emanated; manning the Lewis. He didn’t respond to the conversation as he was out of earshot or ignored it.
“Of course he’s conscious if he’s crying.”
“Well he may not have been before but now he said something.”
They argued mildly amongst themselves, then fell into a brooding silence when no more sound came.
“We could have some food as well,” suggested Marcus.
But they seemed reluctant to leave their posts.
They were looking through slots in the trench wall, not over the top. They were like small battlements with a kind of lid over them. But to the right some of these had been destroyed in the battle of the previous night, leaving gaps. It was difficult to fire rifles through the slots with a proper grip as when lying on a range. You could grip the butt and rest the barrel on the mud wall, but your traverse was limited.
With the Lewis gun, the pioneers had constructed a better position enabling the gunner to lie down and get a good line of sight. It was built up by sand-bags and beaten earth.
The section had two periscopes for use by a sentry or observer to get a better view. But still the overall design of the trench created a bit of a siege mentality. Men could hear but their view was limited.
Frustrated momentarily by this, one of the Artist Riflemen chose to get a better look over the part of the trench where the spyholes were broken. He had decided to get some food as they had previously discussed and was wandering a little along the fire-step towards the bunker and taking a good look while he went.
Perhaps the quiet of the afternoon had lulled them while the sleep of the others deepened with snoring. At least it sounded so, though who knew of the dreams they were experiencing.
Suddenly the Artist Rifleman dropped to the bottom of the trench with a single cry. Then he started screaming. Meanwhile a low thump might have been detected. Blood spurted from his neck. He clutched at it with his head at a strange angle.
“Sniper,” shouted Marcus, the cello player, who was nearest and he dropped to the wounded man’s aid. He got covered in blood quickly as he tried to cradle the head. But then reached into the man’s uniform and fumblingly extracted his field dressing from a top pocket. With shaking hands he tore it open and started wrapping it around the man’s neck.
Jack had awoken and sat listlessly watching. His tunic was open at the neck, helmet pushed back. He sprawled somewhat, the rifle and web equipment at the side on the trench floor. “Now you got a problem there, coz you need to stop that blood but the tighter you put on the dressing, the more likely you are to strangle the poor fucker.” He burped loudly and then showed dirty teeth in a dark stubble face.
Ben leapt up. Something touched him and made him act. “We need medics.” They hadn’t had any the night before, but now they could save somebody. He scrambled over the injured man and ran into the communications trench shouting; “CASUALTY, we got a casualty, need medic.”
After a few minutes he ran back, stooping and sliding. Then he crouched at the man’s feet. He had stopped screaming but not stopped bleeding. “Medic on the way,” he breathed.
They had been isolated in their battle and now seemed isolated in their need for help; completely alone. But behind them was the platoon sergeant and the platoon commander and further back in what had seemed a good trench system the Company Headquarters and further back the rest of the Battalion. These had been friends before and the Battalion had been one. But now…
A man with a Red Cross armband did arrive. They did not know him. Perhaps he was new to the Battalion. He looked at the blood-soaked dressing, completely bloodsoaked and the man cradling the head who was also a mess. He looked at the casualty whose head was at a strange angle. He did not say that the one holding his head might have killed him, that the bullet might have severed the spinal cord through the movement of the neck. He did say simply; “He’s dead…”
The Corporal emerged, suddenly awake from the bunker and looked down silently. “Sniper got ’im,” explained Ben.
The gunner Peter who had given his Lewis to Henry was awake. He shook with emotional pain at the sight of the dead man. He had another battle to fight within himself.
These battles were only just beginning.
“Well it seems this is a fucking unlucky trench, don’t it?” said Jack. “But a man’s got to eat and right now, I’m hungry. Coming Ben?”
“Let’s get him back first,” replied Ben.
“Suit yourself.” Jack shrugged and disappeared into the bunker.
There was no question among the others. Bodies of friendly dead were entrenched and preserved in lime at battalion or further back. A padre conducted a service in the presence of some officers and others perhaps. Names would be
noted and the burial site marked, as well as an accurate grid reference recorded. There was no reason to think that if the area was subsequently lost, the site would not be respected by the enemy.
The grave could be destroyed by artillery fire or other action but its positional notification would at least be known. No one knew what else to do to respect those who had died; though respect for the dead and for the living was not high on every soldier’s daily routine.
Ben, the medic and the cello player, heaved the dead rifleman back down the trenches in an undignified manner. They returned to a grim silence and headed to the bunker where Ben looked for food for both of them. They hardly looked at each other. The Corporal and Jack with Henry back behind the Lewis, held the section trench. But the men were now down to six.
After a while they dropped to the normal single sentry and it was Peter again behind the Lewis. In an awkward way the others squeezed into the bunker together.
“Artists’ fucking Rifles,” ejected Jack after a swig of rum. He hardly concealed his drinking now. “Musicians, did you say?”
“Yes,” said Henry. “I play the trombone and he… that was… did the violin and Marcus there is a cellist, very good one too.”
“Trom-fucking-bones, violins, a cello. Well I suppose you could frighten the Hun. If we could get you some instruments we could have a concert eh?” The Corporal was back on his pipe. “Then they would know we was definitely mad.”
“So how’s that going to frighten them?” asked Ben.
The Corporal looked into his pipe. “Just talking Ben.”
They fell to their own tasks avoiding eyes, no longer in the ‘pals pairs’ of before.
Henry made a comment into the fuggy atmosphere of smoke, rum, boots and the soldier’s creature comforts. “There is a man out there in no-man’s land, lying injured. We heard him this morning, did you know Corp?”
“How many men d’yer think there are out there, who are not yet dead?”
“This one is English, he’s crying and pleading for help,” said Marcus the cellist. “I was telling Ben about it when we went back with…”
A Cellist Soldier Page 4