A Cellist Soldier

by Robert J. Fanshawe

  “Yes, it is Italian for master actually.”

  “Like I said, fancy name, still a great thing to be.”

  They began to reach some small craters in which they separated, negotiating banks and broken trench walls. Cello could get on his hands and knees, but Sergeant Wall could not and lay crying with pain, before struggling on again dragging himself using his hands and elbows. His cries, Cello noted were not as they had been when they were heard from the trenches. These were more frustrated by his inability to move forward. When they had heard them before they were more desperate. Cello was happy with this. His presence had bought another human spirit which had prolonged the Sergeant’s life, he felt.

  So Cello stayed close to his Sergeant, to try to help him over places which might cause pain. Moving on his own gave Cello a tiny bit of renewed strength. “We’re nearly there John I think, shall I carry you again?”

  Sergeant Wall was breathless but had a little colour back in him. “Maybe if you crawl I can ride on your back.”

  “Play horsey, horsey, like I did with my little brother.”

  “Yes something like that… Is your brother out here as well.”

  “No he…He died when he was young.”

  “Oh sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks, yes, I’m all my parents have got now…”

  “Hard for them.”

  They piggy-backed forward, almost laughing at some moments in a half-crazed way. Cello couldn’t tell how he got renewed energy. Perhaps their combined remnants of energy carried them. They mounted the edge of a small crater and were suddenly almost abreast of the man on the wheel. Then Cello saw something that made his heart give a small jump. “John, there’s some of his gear there on the ground, might have some food and water in it.”

  “Cello, you little beauty, go and get it then.” Sergeant Wall had collapsed off Cello’s back and was lying facing away from him. His words came out in a strange croak. He was very still.

  “Wait for me John.” The Sergeant could hardly do anything else. Cello’s hunger and desire got the better of him and he half limped, half crawled towards the wheel.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Death and a meeting

  Cello couldn’t wait. He struggled towards the scarecrow apparition hanging on the wheel. He daren’t look properly at him but did notice the wire thongs that seemed to be biting one arm almost in half as they lashed him to the spokes. The body was more whole than they thought, not blown apart by bullets. His head was bowed in surrender to death with a dried blood-coloured face. His equipment seemed to have been left carelessly on the ground tantalising him, as he certainly couldn’t reach it. There was a small pack and a belt with a water bottle and ammunition pouch. Cello’s first thought was of boobytraps. Many of the German units were experts at this. Cello eyed the equipment suspiciously. Under it was uninterrupted mud. There was no mound which might conceal a grenade with the pin already removed and ready to explode once the equipment was disturbed.

  Nevertheless he tried not to disturb it but gently started to open the small pack. He was hungry beyond reason. So he threw away any caution, like a coat discarded in winter. Had any boobytrap exploded it would only kill him, which under the circumstances would not be a loss to the world at that moment.

  His persistence was eventually rewarded with a packet of biscuits, not Huntley & Palmers, but the German version. They were very hard, but also very tasty to Cello. He couldn’t resist eating one.

  The water bottle was harder. He found it difficult to get out of its pouch without moving the belt. But he was desperate and eventually managed to extract it, though the belt did move.

  He drank some there and then and looked around. A noise came from the battle, where previously there had been darkness and the thunder of the bombardment. The noise was thinner now, a noise of men. There were few actual gunshots as the men did not seem to be moving against the Hun, who may have departed. Perhaps that was reflected in some voices of joy as the attack went forward. There would hardly be any casualties or any men cowering in terror ready to be shot, thought Cello. So he granted himself a moment of peaceful watching before taking up the journey back to his Sergeant.

  On approaching his companion, he noticed that the Sergeant had not moved, at all. Nothing about him had moved. He put this thought out of his mind as he shuffled over, grunting a little. “John, look we have water and more biscuits. This should be enough for us until we get rescued.”

  It was an admission that perhaps moving down to the battle area was beyond them. Cello didn’t notice that his voice, even after the water and biscuit, had become dry with a kind of rattle of complete exhaustion. He did notice that John did not respond in any slight or tiny way.

  “John, John, wake up, I’ve got more breakfast for us!” He shook the Sergeant’s shoulder, gently at first, then a bit harder. As he did so the Sergeant rolled onto his back and his lifeless face looked up at Cello. It was a calm and warm face of a man who bore no grudges. The black exhaustion had somehow gone, now that the pain had also left him.

  A terrible sad guilt hit Cello. He had held his brother after death. It was not unfamiliar to him. But this man needed him and he wasn’t there at the moment of death. Cello laid his head on John Thomas’s chest. Perhaps he had known it was his end, that was why he turned away. Talking had been a big effort for him. He had turned away for a moment of peace, something he hadn’t known for almost three years of war.

  “I’m not leaving you John,” said Cello. “You were left before, now I will stay with you.” He knew that would not be possible and that Sergeant Wall who was still warm now, would soon leave him and begin the process of decay. He began to look for the Sergeant’s details or anything including his ID. Then finding nothing he remembered that he had said that he had been told to leave everything behind in case they got captured. Cello felt strange at this.

  In those moments Cello knew nothing for certain, except that the man, John Thomas Wall, who knew only about being a soldier and had risen to a sergeant in five short years, was dead. There was a terrible thought within him that the Sergeant, who had given his life loyally to the cause of this war and suffered three years of it, had now lost his life because the people who he trusted to look after him, had actually killed him. They hadn’t shot him, but had broken him, actually broken his heart. Of course his blood loss had been extreme and the heart needs blood, but when there is little blood, adrenalin takes over to make us do desperate things and survive, fuelled by will. Sergeant Wall had had his will, as well as his ID discs taken away, perhaps by an injustice.

  The face had become innocent again. Now perhaps he finally was at rest. A man who had given all his adult life to a cause in which he had no say, no voice, but believed in, through a sort of duty, had lost the only thing he had left to give. Those he had fought for and with and who might have readily accused him, now had lost a true soldier, a true servant. They would never know his real value.

  Real value! Reality. What was it now? Cello’s eyes were full of mist and grit. He looked over Sergeant Wall’s body at the events of the assault or whatever it was. He was no longer interested. Or he couldn’t focus. It was a blurry world in front of him now. There were shouts and voices. There were explosions. But not like a mine or anything earth-shaking. It was weak and weedy, like an orchestra unsure of their instruments.

  Cello did not smoke. The Sergeant had not mentioned cigarettes, so perhaps he did not either. Men who were dying were often happy to go if they had a smoke in their mouths. It did dull the pain somewhat they said, especially the strong ones like Woodbines. “Give us a ’Bine mate?” was a familiar request. Cello wished now that perhaps he did smoke. There was no one to ask for a ’Bine from.

  He was alone again.

  Not for long.

  “Guten morgen freund.” A German voice wishing the man on the wheel a good morning.

  Cello could do nothing. He looked over his shoulder.

  They were yards away. Shufflin
g through the mud and earth, over the blind crest just adjacent to the man on the wheel; four soldiers, now stopped, with their rifles levelled at him. Slowly Cello raised his hands.

  “What doing Tommy?” The accent was thick but the English was good.

  “Looking after my friend.”

  “Your friend is dead I think.”

  “Still I must look after him.”

  “But why; you are his brother?” Only one spoke. The others were just grey menaces with their helmets, covered to cut out the shine, dirty tunics and leather belts, unlike the British webbing equipment. Cello noticed the difference now although he hadn’t noticed it when trying to get the water and biscuits out of the equipment of the man on the gate.

  “No… He was just my… friend.”

  “Well this was our friend.” He half-turned towards the man on the wheel.

  “So why is he like that?” Asked Cello.

  The Germans looked at each other then they sort of shrugged.

  Cello did not feel that should be pursued. It was as it was, the war was out of the hand of soldiers. “I don’t have a rifle,” he said. “All I want now is to look after this man.”

  “The man has his rifle.”

  “You can have it.”

  The Germans slightly lowered their Mauser rifles as Cello had not made a move to take up Sergeant Wall’s Lee–Enfield.

  “We should take you prisoner.”

  “Why not just take the rifle?”

  This almost convinced them. Trophies are prized by soldiers and give evidence of a victory. Any dead men should be deprived of their weapons.

  “How will you take care of him as he is dead?”

  “Dead men should not be left on the battlefield. They have to be collected.”

  “Is that your job?”

  “Yes… yes, it is.”

  “So you are a medic, where is your Red Cross armband?”

  “I don’t have it but look at the badge, different from his. This is my medic’s badge. There are some stories that your snipers target men with red cross arm-bands. So we don’t wear them when we go into No Man’s Land.” Cello sweated as he lied. The Artists’ Rifles badge was nothing like the medics badge.

  They shuffled a bit but it was clear that at least two of the men were becoming impatient.

  They paused, then the speaker said; “We will take the rifle.”

  Cello withdrew it carefully from alongside Sergeant Wall’s body, keeping his hand well away from the trigger guard. He turned it and took hold of the barrel. The Germans seemed to relax a little. They came closer and the English speaking one took it, looking all the while at Cello. He had a slightly lopsided grin on his face and Cello had the notion that his own helmet was on also in a lopsided way. He must have looked ridiculously exhausted and broken, without weapon and without a cause.

  “I know you are not a medic,” said the German. “What are you Tommy?”

  “I am a cellist…”

  The look on the man’s face became a sort of pitying laugh, then puzzlement. “What is this cellist?”

  “I play the cello.” Cello brought his arms slowly across his front and began to mime.

  The men burst in laughter. “Ah cello. Yes, music, very good.”

  Cello began to laugh as well. But it was croaking laugh. One of them took out a small package of tobacco and papers. He cradled his Mauser and rolled a cigarette. “Zigarette?”

  “No,” replied Cello but then he thought he should have accepted. But they shrugged with indifference. Two smoked and the rest just looked. Behind Cello voices could be heard. They looked beyond him, spectating the attack, unworried about it.

  “Well are you going to join your side then with your dead friend?”

  “I suppose… I have carried him before now I will carry him again.”

  “Yes carry him over there and let him join the attack.” They all laughed again. “Soon it will be over and it will be back to…”

  “Back to… stalemate…”added Cello.

  The German left his zigarette dangling in a turned down mouth, cradled his Mauser in the left elbow and moved his right hand this way then the other like an imaginary wave breaking lazily on a beach. They did not understand the word ‘stalemate’, but they did understand the war.

  “Das ist der krieg.”

  Cello nodded slowly. “Ja, das ist der krieg,” he said demonstrating a pathetic schoolboy knowledge of German. He felt drawn to the men in a way. Perhaps becoming a prisoner would be a way out of his situation.

  Probably not! But they didn’t seem to pose a threat, unlike his own side. Still there were those behind, to whom he would be turned over; the scowling Military Policemen and the bastard RSMs, or the German equivalent of them; those who had put the man on the wheel and killed his Sergeant.

  ‘Das ist der krieg’ was an excuse for everything; for leaving men rotting in No Man’s Land; for shooting casualties.

  What he could do was to look after one man, one dead man. These men wouldn’t take him, not Sergeant John Thomas Wall. They would leave him to rot like garbage which soon begins to smell and attract flies. He was a stranger yesterday, now a friend for life. He didn’t have a life any longer, but Cello would ensure that Sergeant Wall had a friend. You don’t leave friends rotting in No Man’s Land, or anywhere.

  “But I will try to find a medical aid post I suppose,” commented Cello in a voice cracking like sand driven onto rocks in the desert.

  “That won’t really help you, or him.” They didn’t seem in a hurry to leave and even sat down in a small circle completely oblivious to any danger from shellfire or being seen from the trenches at their backs now.

  “Are there any German medical aid posts nearby?” asked Cello suddenly, his eyes flaring with a sharp red point of life. They had been deep and black but suddenly the lids opened.

  “Ha ha Tommy you very strange. I think you want to change sides don’t you? Yes you will find one somewhere over there.” He indicated the direction in which the attack seemed to be heading, though it had more or less petered out now. Men did not pour into that plain of No Man’s Land any longer.

  The men still sat there. And now Cello looked at them as well. Decisions had been made and future plans pondered. Now the question remained who would act first and what action would they take?

  Cello knew he would have to act. He was their prisoner. He was theirs to let go, if they chose that.

  “Thank you… I had better go… with my friend.”

  The English speaker waved a hand, perhaps in surprise. But one of the others started to laugh and raised his Mauser, mockingly hopefully. Cello’s back began to burn as he turned it on them. He was not showing weakness which could be eliminated without a thought. If they shot him in the back, they would also be showing weakness.

  Dead men are heavier than live ones, who can have small wings and air in their lungs to lift themselves even with the gravest of injuries. Cello struggled to lift Sergeant Wall then the effort suddenly bore him forward a few staggering over-balancing steps. The Germans all started to laugh, a wheezy sort of hissing. “Good luck Tommy…Tommy the cello, heh heh; give your Sergeant a good burial, when you finally realise he is dead. Heh, heh.”

  Cello knew he would not get shot from behind, perhaps because he had become a figure of fun. So having regained his dizzy balance, he struggled onward, like a man or indeed a clown, resolute in his cause, self-belief giving him strength. He marched forward carrying his sergeant across his shoulders, with an overemphasised lifting of the knee.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Choosing sides

  He stopped and closed Sergeant Wall’s eyes and to rest a little. He didn’t have to go up or down hill. He contoured across a couple of hundred yards before he would need to descend. The ground changed as he went. There was more mud and wire; the real No Man’s Land of battles fought with no winner. His veins were bursting and his breath was frozen into a pumping heart.

  Cello sensed he was appr
oaching a scorched earth, smouldering with an incomplete conflagration. There were distant sounds of groaning and crying but nowhere was there evidence of medical aid, or the friendly troops who had so recently traversed this useless piece of land. As he stood and surveyed the area a screeching started and rounds started landing almost immediately. Soil flew up and the ground did start to shake. He had brought Sergeant Wall to the boundary of hell, where he shouldn’t have been.

  He turned and again without breathing the smoke and metal stench, started to climb the hill behind him towards the unknown. His burden was not heavy, or he himself was dying. But physically somehow he went into another plain. He knew what he was doing. He didn’t go back towards the German on the wheel. He went straight up towards the crest of the hill and possible safety, perceived safety.

  A collapse came soon, but it wasn’t total. He drew heavily on the water in his bottle, not bothering to save anything. This had to be the last lap. At the crest, the end would be in sight.

  But some crests are almost impossible to reach; so many of them are false. So many journeys are never ending. But Cello staggered on, higher and higher, further and further away from the shelling.

  He began to reach empty trenches almost unprotected by wire. Just a few strands and coils did not impede his journey. He managed to pick his way through it, suspecting a Mauser or machinegun would take him and his burden out of existence at any moment. But he had become a fool and so foolishly he blundered on.

  He stopped at one trench to search for food and water. He did not fear boobytraps as with the man on the wheel. He had met the enemy and somehow trusted them. They had sent him here. There was nothing in the trench, not even a smell of excreta. He left Sergeant Wall on the top as he couldn’t climb down with him. Perhaps in a bunker, in his own vault, Sergeant Wall should be laid to rest and the door blocked with a boulder, if there had been such an item.

  Cello explored the network, desperate, at least for water. He found none. He did find some wrapping and empty tins in one corner, piled as if after a tidy-up. The Hun was disciplined. They all knew that. He rummaged deeper among the rubbish. Something caught him in the chest, a photograph, not torn, though crumpled carelessly, as if from a pocket. It was a girl, laughing. Looking at the camera with head thrown back. She half sat on grass. It must have been summer as her arms were naked. Why had the owner of the picture thrown it away? He looked further, no letter. He could not have read it anyway.